I realize now...

that we picked a bad time to get married, oh those seven loooooonnnnng years ago. (Just kidding, T)

We just had our seventh wedding anniversary on August 28th. This year I spent that morning training in Beaverton, Oregon, and the afternoon driving to Seattle to train the next day. While driving, I called Theresa to see what the kids put her through the night before, and to see how her day had progressed thus far. Probably one-ish or so when I made the call.

I checked into the hotel around 2:30 or so, and they had a business center, so as soon as I dropped my stuff off in my room, I went down to check my email and check out NDISB to make sure that the wheels had not fallen off.

I kicked out a couple ne'er-do-wells that had registered in the NDISB forum to get our members to go to their weight loss promoting websites or other nefarious online activities. Then I went through and read all of the forum entries, which I do daily (probably to the scorn and dismay of the majority of our members. Remember... I'm the only guy...)

As I went through the entries that day, I saw that Theresa had made reference to it being our anniversary. I immediately picked up the phone and called her back. The first thing out of my mouth after Theresa answered was "You probably thought I forgot about our anniversary, didn't you?"

I did admit to reading her forum entry, though, which prompted the call. But it also prompted my search that afternoon for just the right anniversary gift. (No, I hadn't gotten anything yet.) I had a pretty good idea in mind of what I wanted, but I hadn't narrowed it down yet.

Theresa just got a new laptop to replace her circa 1903 Sony Vaio. The Sony is so slow that it's basically just good for checking email now... as long as there are no images in them. But as she set up her new dual-core, 2Gb of ram mega laptop, she expressed a desire for a second monitor which would make her design and creative work so much easier.

Typically, I go for the traditional anniversary gift idea thing. But I reasoned that this year, with her new business, and her new computer, and as hard as she works at her new business, that she really needed a second monitor. So now she has a 17" flat panel Sony (see it here) that she can expand her desktop onto. She actually got that on the 30th, as I didn't get home until late in the evening on the 29th. Now she can design all of the wool and copper that she wants to!

But back to the topic at hand. Why was this such a bad time to get married? 'Cause Theresa's birthday is September 5th. So, I get just over a week between finding just the right anniversary gift (which she loves, by the way), to finding the just right birthday gift. And because of the nature of my work, I'm generally away on Theresa's birthday. This year will be no exception. This Sunday (Sep. 3), I'll be catching a plane to fly back to Seattle so that I can drive to Salt Lake City and be there to train on Wednesday. I'm pretty sure when I call on Tuesday though, that I'll remember to say "Happy Birthday"! (She's had the same one for wayyyyyyy longer than we've been married...)