What to get for someone who doesn't want another thingy

The Footless Man is a romantic.  He likes to give me jewelry.  I wear the same pieces of jewelry constantly.  My neck and ring fingers are in use.  He likes to give me snarky T shirts.  I have too many of them and wear them only on weekends in the summer.  He asked me what I would like to mark our twentieth anniversary because he was stuck.  I thought it over and I told him.  I want a pedicure.  So he gave me a pedicure.  The extra special kind with all the bells and whistles.  My feet have been scrubbed and salted and filed and creamed and massaged. The toenails were filed and primped and painted purple.  They look adorable and I feel pampered and loved.  I can wear it for a month or two, and get another one when this one wears out.  I feel wickedly decadent.  I like it.

The last of the pictures of the wedding

I finally found the pictures that I unearthed and then lost.

 

 

What hits me in these pictures is how utterly happy we are, and  how young and handsome the footless man looks.  We were besotted with each other and it showed. 

It was twenty years ago come Thursday

 Here we are when Footless Man had both feet and his eyesight.  Here I am, before school, training, and all the challenges of everything in between.
and look at us.  We are so radiant, so happy.  It took so much to get even there. If you look at the things against us it looked like it would never work.  All the obstacles all the hoops.  It seemed like it took forever to happen and it looked so impossible for so long.  And there we were.  
I think about all the challenges we faced, what we accomplished both together and alone.  For one thing we both expected that I would be widowed within five years.  Given that, the other losses seemed, well not minor, but more cope able.  Some how a prosthesis is a better choice than a coffin. 
Kids are raised,  School is mostly done,  We passed the expected five year limit four times. We have moved into middle and old age.
What an amazing journey.
There are very few photos of that day.  I went and dug around to find them.  I came up with this.

bouquet

hair wreath

And this proves beyond a doubt that mom is a sentimental pack rat.
So here we are twenty years later.  It has been one wild ride.  Next stop, 25.  Five years out.  Always five years out.  I can think about five years, it's manageable.
I will put up more photos later because they promptly went into the fifth dimension shortly after they showed up. 

Some things to think about

I re read my copy of Parenting With Love and Logic.  The one that helped me raise my kids without killing them.
I have been applying the love and logic methods of interaction to the Footless Man.  Suddenly we are getting on much better .  Footless Man sat down in the computer room and I was able to show him

The barking cat,

Maru
 and several other delightful pieces that he has been missing.
today The Footless Man removed the cherry paneling from the front of the refrigerator revealing it in its almond glory.  I have word that it is leaving next week.  Footless Man wants to figure out how to put the panels on the new refrigerator.  I sympathized. Sometimes reality is a hard place to live.

That was some grasshopper

Last week I was wondering what might be the result of the grasshopper sacrifice at the grand poo-bahs.
This week I am assessing the results.
Tuesday I got a call from the crew chief telling me that he had two crews loose and could he send them over to begin work at the house.  I OKed it and asked that they call The Footless Man and give him a head's up.  (I also clued them that the door bell is a decoy set up for sales men and Jehovah's witnesses, and that the standard is knock and yell.)
The Footless Man had the time of his life over the next two days supervising three crews.  Over the two days they sealed the main floor attic, removed and replaced our furnace with a new high efficiency one, blew the attic full of insulation, gave us a new thermostat, smoke detectors in every room, a CO detector in the upper hall, blanketed the hot water heater and put insulation around the cement edges of the crawl space.
Pictures will arrive when I get new batteries for the camera.
The new refrigerator is ordered.  The house feels different.  It is quieter, cooler in the heat, more solid.
I realized that over the years I have gained an intimate understanding of the houses innards.  I have been in all the attics. I know where the wires run.  I installed a lot of the plumbing and electric upgrades as well as the cabinets, the dishwasher, and the thermostat. 
I know the difference between a doorbell wire and a thermostat wire, how to light a hot water tank and the mechanics of a toilet.  I can tighten the cables to the TV satellite dish, and change out the outdoor faucet petcocks if I must.
This is a summer that is the beginning/ending of an era.  Michael the cat is gone, Edith has been given to a new owner.  James is moving out.  My responsibilities have begun to disburse.
Come this fall, things will be more stable.  we seem to be getting ready for something.  I wonder what.