Wonderfully Made...: Day 4...

I'm posting early this morning because this no complain' bit is getting me a new kitchen floor!!!

Wow... who knew?!

We're going out today (me, Jon and Josh... the 3 muskateers for the rest of forever, lol) to look, price, figure things out. We have needed one for a good number of years but now it finally looks like a reality. I'm sorta picky in that I have ceremic tile taste on a cheap (and I mean cheap) vinyl budget. We'll see if they have improved the vinyl any since last time we looked... I really want it to look like real slate. Ya think?

So today, according to the 30-day husband encouragement challenge website (that's a mouthful!), I am to let him know how much I appreciate and value his work, his job, his career outside of our family.

And I do.

When we were first married and had just finished building our first home, Jon received a job offer at the place he works now. I was stunned, scared, seriously feeling sorry for myself that we had to move so far away from my childhood home. We put that brand new house up for sale the very month after we made our first payment. We had Caleb. And Jared was on the way. Yeah, stressful.

But it was just what the doctor ordered (the doctor being God, of course). His current employer has allowed me to be a stay at home mom for all these years. We haven't lived extravagantly or ever taken a vacation that doesn't involve an outhouse, but we're good. So good.

He has worked his way up a little and now has people under him. I KNOW I could never manage people. They seem to like him okay tho... and he REALLY likes them. He loves getting to know people... really getting to know them. He prays for them. I admire that.

He doesn't really bring his work home for a couple of reasons... the first is because he'd have to kill me if he told me anything that happens at work (government) and the 2nd is because he talks in code, in numbers, in a totally weird language that I obviously don't understand. When he leaves work he leaves work there. I admire that.

Over the years, I have tended toward handing the reins over to him as soon as he walks in the door. When the kids were small, I was tired... physically drained. Thankfully now (after many silly arguments), I recognize how 15 minutes of down time does a body good.

If he can be quiet, perhaps alone or perhaps with 2 or 3 or 4 kids literally wrestling him to his back on the bed (yeah, he considers that down time), then the evening goes much more smoothly. I try to smile and ask him how his day was (failing often at this very thing). He calls his home his 'sanctuary' and that, folks, is serious business. I work hard to make sure it stays that way (again, often failing but recognizing the importance of it).

And today... his day off... he's outside chopping wood. He cut it last night after work and now he's chopping it. Both boys currently have shoulder injuries so the wood bit has fallen on HIS shoulders for much of this winter. Without complaint. I haven't heard him complain... not even once... about the responsibilities of keeping us warm.

That's my guy. Hardworking.