"Ode to ma husband on Valentine's Day"

I love my husband.  Seriously.  He is such a wonderful wonderful husband to me.  Obviously this is an obvious statement, but he is quite simply the best part of my life.  He is such a hard worker and so willing to take my constant mind changing and critiquing without complaining like he probably should.  And so silent and not too judging/exasperated when I rattle off a new idea for the house almost everyday or mid-project decide we should go with a different floor tile.  I believe that he honestly knew exactly what he was getting himself into when he married me and then bought a house with me.  Which only makes me love him more. :)

It was my idea to house hunt from the beginning.  Matt was perfectly happy and content in our apartment in Madison, but could I be?  Of course not.  I thrive on change (hence my constant rearranging of furniture in all the places I have ever lived) and projects I can devote hours to researching.  And house hunting/buying fulfilled both of these personality annoyances traits.  Hi, my name is Steph and I am a house hunting addict.  Seriously, I still look at houses for sale almost weekly in our price range.  Even though we are not looking for a house.  And Matt will almost always look at every house link I send him (even when each one has a subject line of "looooooook!!!!!!") and will listen to me drone on and on and on and on about all the things we could do to the house....you know, the house we 100% are not going to even look at, much less purchase.

Anyway, house hunting was my undertaking, which I took forcefully and giddily.  Matt sat back and let me obsess over neighborhood stats, square footage, and potential projects.  I saw 20+ houses on my own without him (which I think was probably on purpose, now that I think about it) and Matt came out the for our last day of tours (little to our knowledge) and we found our house!  He totally saw all the little problems, that my frantic excited eyes did not (steeeep driveway, steep backyard, backyard needs work, updating kitchen and baths, etc...) and gave in and gave me what I wanted....our house.  :)

He is also great for these awesome amazing facts as well (it is Valentine's Day after all...prepare to drown in his wonderfulness:

• Cutting the grass....Matt will work a 100 hour week in the blistering sun, on 1 hour of sleep a night for 6 days straight....and come home and cut the grass on Friday night.  And use the weedwacker to trim by the driveway and around trees.
• Bringing in the garbage cans.  I realize this sounds stupid, but you have no idea how relieved I am every Friday night when I come home form work and don't see any cans at the end of our driveway.
• Eat whatever I cook for dinner.  He may give me a weird look, or drown the food in ketchup, but he will eat whatever I make, with little to no complaints.  Even when we have taco salad 3 times in a week....3 weeks in a row.
• Remodeling our bathroom with no experience.  You should see the effing shower tile!  Hello Mr. Professional Carpenter.  Who are you and where did you hide my husband?  Seriously, he should go into business doing this full time.
• His job.  Matt works on the road (which he will always remind me if I get too demanding or try to get him out of the house on weekends in the summer) and from February through Late November he works anywhere from 60-100+ hours a week.  Almost every week for almost the entire year.  And he still will do all the above with minimal (if any) complaining. 
• He insists we go on a big vacation every January...and up to Door County every summer.

Ok, that's enough puke-tastic Matt bragging....are you even still reading?

~S~