I can hear Adam's voice, filled with wonder and love as he stares at Eve - This is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh - and I can hear my husband's voice in my ear as he holds me tight, dread of separation gripping him - Should it be this hard?

Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh
Yes my love, yes it should be this hard.

Anyone who has read this blog at all knows that I love my husband dearly, so please don't think I am unfair when I say he is opinionated and pushy and stubborn, and this drives me insane. He finds it very difficult to accept any opinion I have that is different from his own - nigh impossible really. We have so many arguments over this - he wants us to think exactly the same about everything, sweet I guess, but I feel to be impossible and unhealthy. Sometimes I feel bullied into ideas that are not even my own - or that I don't know if they are my own yet because I haven't had the time to think about them (I need an extraordinary amount of processing time while Jonathan's processing is lightning fast). But more and more, as I know him and love him I am seeing the indecisive, unsure nature that is lurking beneath his infuriating assurity. My husband can do anything, convince anyone of anything....as long as he knows I am backing him up. If he feels I am not with him 100% on something - he will drive me crazy trying to convince me to hop on board, and I get angry and hurt because I feel that he can't allow me to "just be me". But then later, I find out that he has either dropped that activity or opinion or whatever it was. I always contributed it to his temperament - tons of ideas that come and go, but few that go into action. This is not necessarily true - if I look back, its the things that I encouraged him to do or pursue that he is now doing and pursuing. Scary - That kind of power over another. I never really thought much about the saying, "behind every great man is a woman". There may be a whole lotta truth there, and I don't think you can turn it around the other way.

The relieving thing about realizing this truth is that he doesn't think my opinions are stupid at all, which I have often accused him of - he actually holds them in higher regard than I do - they shape the way he thinks and acts. He has no idea how to express this at the time so it comes out as pushy arrogance, but at least I realize it now and instead of being offended I can be flattered - yeah, we'll see how that actually goes into practice, but I will try.

Jonathan: You know, people in the seminary are jealous of my paper bag lunches. I see them looking at them, wishing their wives did the same.

the next day

Jonathan: I think I'm starting a trend at the seminary. Another guy had a paper bag lunch today....its a good thing you put my name on it huh?

yesterday (in no connection with the paper bags)

Jonathan: You are the best wife in the world! (with a big hug) I thought about it, and it's scientifically true.

Jodi: How do you know?

Jonathan: I can feel it, like this (he hugs me tighter as if in proof).

Jodi: Have you tested your theory on others?

Jonathan: No, it's like with the counterfeit experts...you can only know the real by becoming an expert in the real - you should never study the fake ones.

well said, my love, well said.

Jonathan (at the grocery store): ooooh, can we pleeeeaaaase get some brown paper bags for my lunches? I've always wanted to carry my lunch in a real brown paper bag, just like the American kids on t.v.

me: really? (not surpressing some giggles) you know, it wasn't really cool to have a brown paper bag for lunch when I was a kid. You had to have cool lunch boxes.

Jonathan: we had lunch boxes - I just always wanted a real brown paper bag lunch. can we, please?!!?

Jodi: yeah, sure.

Jonathan: and can you write my name on it? ... in big letters?...with a black marker?

Jodi: absolutely

(the next morning, after I have completed said lunch and placed it in the brown paper bag, with his name in appropriately big letters on it and placed it on the counter - we are about to leave)

Jonathan: (in a giddy voice - like he's reading a script) oooh, I better not forget my lunch. oh, which one could it be? oh here it is, with my name on it. my very own lunch with my name on it. etc. etc. etc.

I gotta say, that $1.50 was just about the best deal I've ever gotten...I would have paid significantly more for the same reaction.

There were to be no ceremonious performances, verything was to be as natural and homelike as possible, so when Aunt March arrived, she was scandalized to see the bride come running to welcome and lead her in, to find the bridegroom fastening up a garland that had fallen down . . .

Well, remember when I said that unless something happened I would be a happy Christmas gift-giver this year? Something happened. We were about 5 minutes from home Saturday night when our Jeep began a gradual shut-down. First, the speedometer stopped working, then the radio shut off, and then the lights began getting dimmer and dimmer and dimmer, until there were no lights. I told Jonathan, "I bet God is just gonna get us home before this vehicle stops working." I was absolutely right. As soon as we turned into our driveway - she completely stopped. The altenator. One Hundred and Twenty Nine Dollars. It seems more dramatic when I write the numbers out. So, I asked myself, is God trying to tell me something about Christmas gifts? No, He's not. He's just blessing me.

1. I will get my Christmas bonus on Tuesday, just enough to cover the altenator. Just enough. Which means, we can actually drive home for Christmas, and we don't have to go into any more debt to get it repaired.

2. It went out now, before I spent the money on Christmas gifts, and not while we were hurtling down an interstate somewhere in the wee hours of the morning. It went out just as we got home.

3. My dear husband, with a ton of homework for finals week hanging over his head, repaired our jeep. He worked on it for hours and hours. He looked at his manual, and he did it. I am so proud of my little city boy. He's learned so much about mechanics through this jeep. I am so impressed with him for even trying, much more so for actually doing it! I would have taken one look at those impossible diagrams and that greasy engine and said, forget it! But he stuck with it and what was broken is now in complete working order.

So, I am grateful. Very, very grateful. Merry Christmas.