Day 260: Message in a Bottle

On Thursday, I took you to the beach, where we found a bottle with a message in it. 😉 Here’s the message:

Sorry it’s blurry. It says, “I would swim across the ocean for you (in a world where that’s physically possible–in this world, I would swim until I got tired).”

We almost didn’t go to the beach that day. Before I left for work, I asked you and the girls if you wanted to go when I got home. You all said yes. So during the day I took a break from work and went to the beach and buried a bottle with a message in it near the pier at Goleta Beach. When I got home, everyone was tired and cranky and needing some time apart. I asked you if it was still okay for us to go to the beach and you said that you didn’t think so. So I did what any respectable husband would do: I pleaded with you to let us go. You caved.

When we got to the beach, everyone forgot about their crankiness and had a great time playing in the sand and the waves. I tried to steer us towards the pier, but no one seemed interested. Finally, I got us near the bottle. I unburied it when no one was looking and hoped that someone would find it. Our middle girl did. She picked it up and showed it to you.

“Yuck! Put that down!” you said. “Let me see that,” I said. Our middle daughter gave it to me. “Chauncey, don’t touch that! It’s so gross that you guys are picking up some random beer bottle!” you replied. (It was actually a root beer bottle that I bought at the store. I initially wanted to use some cool antique bottle but I couldn’t find a cheap one. And I didn’t want to pay lots of money for one when both of our grandmas have tons of them just lying around at their houses.) “Look, there’s something in it!” our oldest daughter said. At that point, you took the bottle and examined it. “Gross, it’s a random beer bottle with a cigarette inside,” you said as you threw it on the ground. “No one touch it!”

Then I walked over, picked up the bottle, took off the lid, and dumped the note out in my hand. When you saw that there was a note inside, you rolled your eyes at me. “You did this?! How did you do that? That was very sweet, but you shouldn’t put notes in random beer bottles.” I then explained to you that it wasn’t some random bottle.

Once you were in the know, you were okay with the whole thing and were even very impressed with it.

Here are some pictures of our evening at the beach:

This was candid and cute, so I put it in.

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Day 259: Scavenger Hunt

Wednesday I created a small scavenger hunt for you in our house. I made three clue cards:

(1) Here we eat/ Here we drink/ Here I sometimes work and think.

(2) Roses are red/ Violets are blue/ “As cold as ice”/ Is your next clue.

(3) To find your next clue you won’t fail/ If you look inside the mail.

I gave you the first, taped the second underneath the table, put the third in the freezer, and hid a bag of fun size candy bars in our mailbox. I guess the third really wasn’t a clue since I told you exactly where to look. Also, I said you would find a clue in the mail, but I put your prize, not a clue, there. Whoops. I only notice things like that when I’m writing these posts and then it’s too late.

Our oldest daughter had so much fun going on the scavenger hunt with you. She thought it was for her. When you guys checked the freezer for the third clue, she said, “It really is as cold as ice in here!”

You really enjoyed this act of love as well. You keep saying how good I’m getting at doing things like this.

Since our eighth anniversary is on Tuesday, this act was the start of our anniversary celebration.

Day 258: Household Project #6

Again, I posted an item to craigslist that you’ve been bugging me to sell. I hope to be done with that entire list of household projects soon.

Day 257: Continuing My Education

I’m on a sort of John Piper kick. For this act of love, I read his chapter on marriage from Desiring God. He made the point that love seeks its own joy in the joy of others. From what I could tell, his claim is that one person loves another person just in case she (consistently) attempts to receive joy in bringing joy to the other. As for me, if I love you, I should be seeking my joy in bringing you joy. A source of my pleasure should be your pleasure. That’s exactly what’s happened through the course of 365 Acts of Love.

Before I started 365, I was very concerned with my own happiness, regardless of your happiness. But as 365 progressed, I grew to find joy in bringing you joy. In fact, though my ultimate source of joy is God (or at least, that’s what I’m striving for), part of my joy depends on your joy. When you rejoice, I rejoice. When you weep, I weep. When you’re happy, I’m happy. (Rom. 12:15.) Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that my happiness depends on your happiness in that your unhappiness prevents me from satisfying some selfish desire of mine (though that’s sometimes the case). The kind of dependency I’m talking about is this: since I care for you and want you to be happy, I’m made unhappy simply by knowing that you’re unhappy.

May we seek our own joy in the joy of each other.

Day 256: Prayer

I prayed for our marriage again. I’ve actually found it really difficult to come up with content for my prayers. I think I need to find a book on praying for your marriage from the Scriptures . . .