18 years ago on this very day, before I had to work an 8 hour shift at our towns historic hotel, Greggy picked me up for our appointment with the Jonesboro City Hall. We said our “I do’s” in front of the Justice of the Peace. and like clockwork, after dinner, he drove me back to work.

Since then we have been navigating life’s up and downs like marionette puppets in someones play about a satirical American Family. Or Like little ants in someone’s hobby ant farm (cue the Porno For Pyros song ‘Pets’).

We’ve moved 7 times in 5 different states, not counting the year and a half we were on the motor home or the murderhome as Phoebe likes to refer to it. No one was “murdered” but that’s not the point. To be honest, I’m not sure what the point of calling it the “murderhome” is, but because it came from this child’s mouth,

I can overlook silly little details. Time has taught me not to dwell on the inner workings of the little minds that surround us. Accept and enjoy it. I try to document as much of it as I can because they truly do grow up so fast. The cute things they used to mispronounce or their toddler rational is fleeting.

As the day flies by, I’m bargaining with Father Time to slow down…just for today. I know there are times we used to enjoy getting dressed up and painting the town to celebrate our life together. But tonight, I just want to grab some Subway and find a great little movie…and get our snuggles on and slow down the day.

I must say, Father Time is not compliant with my wishes to slow down the day. It’s quickly approaching 7:00 p.m. and my eyelids are already struggling to stay open. But when I think about it, we’ve had a lot to celebrate lately; two nights ago, we celebrated the fact that our recent hospital bill wasn’t as high as we thought it was going to be. WOOT WOOT! Last night we celebrated the last night of being married for 17 years and tonight we are celebrating the first official night of 18 years together! Who knows, maybe tomorrow we will celebrate 6, 571 days of being together or spending 158,000 hours together. Don’t math-check those figures…I’m a little rusty on the old calculator.

In this day and age, we really do our best to try and take advantage of every good moment! I guess it’s our version of not taking things for granted.