4 years ago, I wrote a post, 40 things i love about you, and this year we celebrated Valentine’s Day with our very good friends who drove in last night and stayed over with their two kids.

In honour of Valentine’s Day, we played a funny game with our friends once the kids were in bed.  We were into the drinks, and the banter was a-flowing.

We took turns for about an hour, naming off pet peeves we have about our spouses.  Topics ranged from the toilet paper being put on the roll the right way, to beer bottles not getting put in the garage, and I do believe I lovingly called my husband Procrastination Station.  As we sat in the living room with our friends, the air filled with laughter and love, we giggled over just how many things we have in common with them.

Like when one person hasn’t taken care of a chore (a spill, pulling in the trash cans, and the all-too-common, Bathroom Garbage Can Jenga, the game of seeing who will cave first to the madness.  Just how high can you pile tissue and Q-tips into that trash bin before it topples over?

The conversation took a 180 and we started naming off things we loved about our spouses.  It was a goofy conversation, mushy things with interjections like, “you have a great tits!” and there were a few ‘awwww’s’ when something particularly lovely was said.

It was sweet because we all couldn’t get our turns fast enough.

I often think about how lucky we are to have found each other.  To know this love that is forever.

And I thought of about 40 more things I love about Daren while going about my day today.

This past weekend, I flew into the skies of Americus to attend Avitaween, put on by Adam.  I had a wonderful time and got to see many of my favorite internet creatures, live and in the flesh, some of them in their own habitat.  Hilly was kind enough to open her home to me and we had a blast driving around shitty Florida.  While I love my friends, I can say with 100% certainty that I will always love Texas and California better than any other state and shitty Florida makes me weep for mankind.  This post is not about that (which is really just an inside joke so relax Floridians!), not the party, nor the people.  That will come later.

This post is about something that took me by surprise while I was there.

Thursday morning, after many arrangements had been made, Daren and I drove in the dark a half hour to the airport.  The scent of toothpaste and coffee swirling through the car, we sat close and still as the night air enveloped us.  His decision to take me to the airport himself was a little odd.  He normally lets me handle all the logistics and often times I’m left with a maxed out credit card due to the good ol’ fashioned ass raping of airport parking charges.

We spoke quietly here and there, but mostly it was a silent ride.  I sneaked glances at my husband in the dark as the occasional oncoming car lit up the silhouette of his face.  I reached my hand across the seat and set it on his lap.  Instinctively, he placed his hand over mine and I turned mine over to curl my fingers through his.  We’d done this a million times, on nearly every car ride we’d ever taken.

As I felt his warm hand squeeze mine, I became a little sad.  Sure I was excited to go on this vacation, but I really wished he could come with me.

We arrived at the airport and spent not enough time saying goodbye.  He would be late for work had I kept him any longer.  Normally I’m so excited to go where I’m going and caught up in the actual plans that those goodbyes leave him pining pretty hard for me, but this time I didn’t want to leave him.  I didn’t want to walk away from his warmth, his lips, those arms around me.

It hurt.  I ached.

Regardless of my silly girlhood crush on my husband, I had to say goodbye to him, and did.

Fast forward to the day of Adam’s party and I was a bit of a wreck.  That morning had started off all wrong when I woke up with a little bit of a headache.  By the time we got to breakfast, I was really suffering despite having taken 2 different kinds of medication.  After breakfast I took more pills and we headed to the craft store for supplies for our costumes.  (This is the part where I have to simply say Dave is a creative genius and explain in an actual party recap post later later.)

At some point during the craft store visit, I had to disappear to the ladies room.  The smiley pancake I had at IHOP felt like it was going to need an exorcism and I was so shaky I could barely function.  When I got back to the gang, they were asking me stuff and I was all dopey and could not focus.

I very nearly lost my shit in Jo-Anns.

There came a point where I had to make myself focus, God knows I’ve had enough of these stupid killer migraines that I know how to fake being normal.  I hit the cake decorating section to find a book for Dylan and my vision was so fucky it freaked me out.  It didn’t help that the lights were those super we-don’t-care-about-your-headache lights.  A number of times I thought I’d go down, but I mustered through.  I was even semi-bitchy to the cashier but she gave me 40% off despite that so yay.

Eventually we made it back to Hilly’s and I just laid on the couch in my jammies as Dave and Lisa worked on everyone’s costumes, bless their little hearts.  At one point Dave brought me a cool cloth (though he did tweet that he farted on it first, the bugger) and I think I passed out several times. p.s. Dave’s farts smell like rainbows and oxycontin.  So you know.

I really didn’t think I’d make it to Adam’s party.*

As I lay there, head pounding, all I wanted was Daren.  When I have a particularly bad migraine, he places his hand over my forehead and it truly feels better.  He rubs my back, snuggles, and I finally relax and fall asleep in his arms.  Lately I can’t get enough time with him because of his work and in those hours all I wanted was him.  So badly.

I can’t really describe that physical feeling other than it being an ache.  That ache lives in my arms, my back, my legs.  I needed his arms wrapped around me so badly, I hurt.  I needed that hand on my forehead.  We’ve been married 11+ years and even though it seems like forever, the whole time we’ve been married it’s felt new. Fresh. Easy.  We fit.  If I told you any more about this marriage, you probably wouldn’t believe me.  And that’s okay because I kinda like having this secret awesomeness that’s just him and I, yanno?

This whole achey thing is only weird because usually when I go away (or he does), I’m fine.  Sure I miss him but the physical aches?  Nah.  Though we’ve never been apart more than a week.

When he picked me up at the airport Sunday night, I could barely contain myself.  I had a stupid grin on my face as I walked out of the tiny airport and to my car where he was standing.  He opened the back hatch of my wagon and our boys, fresh from car slumber, turned around to see me kiss their father.

My heart really does soar at the thought of Daren.  My stomach flops when I know he is minutes from home.  I feel tingly when I know he is seconds from my lips.  The man fills my soul with everything he’s got.  I know, we’re so in love it’s totally gross.

There are certain things about my husband that I absolutely adore.  Really, he is near perfection in my eyes except for oh, about once a month.

Right around the time my amusement park shuts down for regularly scheduled maintenance, Sugarhubs gets his panties twisted in a huge knot and cannot get out of his Pissy McPisserpants mood.  As a result, the kids and I are on edge and it’s just a bad vibe all around.

It is particularly bad if he hasn’t played hockey in over seven days and hasn’t had the release of endorphins that threaten to choke his Nice Qualities.

It makes for a great weekend when we’re both at the brink of exploding obscenities at each other and neither one of us actually does it.  Instead I have Twitter to bitch at and he has the kids and I to nag.

And nag he does.  Even though I pulled Dylan out of school for the local opening of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and planned a great Friday afternoon for the 4 of us to spend some time together, he bitched about the price of the theatre tickets.  Even though my kids are planning to head up a food drive at school and I’m super proud of them, he crabbed about the laundry piling up and did I take anything out for dinner?

It went on like this all GD weekend.

By Sunday night, I was more than ecstatic when Sugarhubs went to his Dad’s to watch the Dallas Cowboys game, while I twittered with Erin & Matty about whether my husband shipped his panties to her husband.  (pssst, he may have.)

Then the fucking Cowboys lost.

I was going to rush to bed and fake sleep to avoid whatever mood he walked in with.  He really is normally very good-natured but the weekend hadn’t gone well and I didn’t want to miss saying goodnight, knowing he was heading out of town Monday morning.

But I didn’t.

We ended up snuggling, all the bullshit from the weekend forgotten.

Until the fucker dutch oven’d me.

Now it’s on.

Today is his birthday.

He is coming home, surprising Dylan by being here for Dylan’s #643rd hockey tryout.

I’d love to play a trick on him, but cleaning the whole house is far too much work (boy would he be surprised!).  Any ideas?

*Bonus points if you know where that title came from.  I couldn’t find the related video, but if you can, double points points for posting it in the comments!