"TEA-ditions"

Let your wife be a fountain of blessing for you. Rejoice in the wife of your youth. (Proverbs 5:18, NLT)

Today is our wedding anniversary.....so hubby will have to think hard to visualize any "youth" in said wife. But God, our keeper, has kept us together for 45 years.

Anniversary traditions are always a part of our celebration---

Five years ago I searched far and wide for 40 ruby items....this year it's sapphire BUT 45 sapphire items were way out of this retiree's budget. So...I settled on the things he enjoys most---golf and a glass of wine. Lots of wines come in brilliant sapphire bottles. The problem was which one. Not being a connoisseur of wines, I had to have help. I think the clerk was dumbfounded that I cared more about the richness of the color of the bottle than the richness ("bouquet" in he wine term of a oenophile) of the wine within. Gift 2 is a round of golf at Sapphire Mountain Golf Club for an upcoming trip to western North Carolina when the trees will be brilliant against a rich blue sky.

Naturally, I love all the scriptures reminding husbands to love their wives. (Ephesians 5:22) but many describe what that love will entail.....
"....be exhilarated always with her love...."(Proverbs 5:19c) or as Ecclesiastes 9:9 states, "Live joyfully with the wife whom you love." According to hubby, when I"m happy, it's easier to  to live joyfully with me. So....I've scheduled dinner for us  at the Swag on our extended anniversary trip.
Hopefully, this year's anniversary gifts will provide the perfect cuppa TEA-dition for our celebration.**

**YEA! Hubby's gift follows the TEA-dition as well---Sapphire rules for me, aka Mrs. Rand McNally. An atlas, my favorite gift, had a deep "sapphire" blue cover---I now have Crater Lake blue stars in my eyes! What a thoughtful guy!

ANNIVERSARY ANGST

8/9/10 Anniversaries are special but along with them comes a certain amount of angst. #1 is remembering! Then there’s ……..The gift, traditional or modern. The location, trip or just restaurant. The pressure--- for a memorable activity. The finances.
Wedding anniversaries also have a way of changing as the years go by. The first one is often another mini honeymoon of sorts----not ours. We had a new baby and no money for travel but we still gave gifts of “paper” because I like that tradition and we ate the top of the wedding cake that had been in the freezer for a year. (That SeeQuees birth control pill was taken off the market.)
Children and budgetary parameters kept us creative for many years.

10th we splurged at Folks Folly so the gift was 1 tin cup (actual gift b/c budget still very limited) Cup later ended up rusting in the sand pile. So much for romantic notions.
Our 13th was lunch at Doeblers Dock. We went on a Saturday for the “special,” 10¢ shrimp and oysters. Anniversary was actually on a Monday that year. Restaurant was overlooking (sort of) the Mississippi River and we had all 3 kids in tow----also not exactly romantic but they loved it, especially the walking tour we created.

Our 15th in Hot Springs AR at the renown Hamilton House, a treat from friends Boyd and Deborah (kids too just not at dinner)
From the mid-80s to the early 90s, Larry’s position as coach of the US Racquetball team gave us opportunities to celebrate anniversaries in exotic places: Le Meir in Hamburg, Germany and an outdoor restaurant in Caracas, Venezuela.

(I remember an iguana running under my feet---now that’s memorable.)

We shared our silver anniversary (25th) with dear friends Sam and JoLynn---inn hopping in our favorite mountainous state, North Carolina. She and I had our tea times while the guys had their tee times. The biggest splurge was a night at Greystone Inn in Lake Toxaway, NC. I rationalized that “grey” sounded “silverish”---so I booked it.
Our 30th found us as empty nesters with a little spare change so the gifts were memorable---tickets to symphony in the garden (though Josh & Molly came too) and a fall weekend "alone" (so no pics) at the Hemlock Inn in North Carolina--- with a great side trip to Franklin to spend a night with Marge and Larry. We still laugh about our “tie” joke. (Makes me blush just to type it!)
Last summer we celebrated our 40th with the help of many of my blog readers who submitted (40) red gift ideas for our ruby celebration. What fun that was!
Now we are in a new season and our anniversary reflects that---but we still celebrate---because we are growing old together.
This year we will be together---at the Baptist Hospital for Women w/ Mommar as she undergoes surgery for uterine cancer. Though there will be angst, it won’t be from worrying about a location or a memorable gift. This anniversary will actually be a fulfilling of those 1969 vows “in sickness (we include family here as well) and in health, for better or for worse” which we made unto the Lord on this day 41 years ago.