He Buys Me Houses

My husband's love-language is gifts.  Over the years, I have come to learn this language and bask in the warmth he's created.  From sneaking a piano into the house in the middle of Christmas Eve night to the vintage book of poetry entitled "The Book of Friendship Verse" he bought me on my first birthday that we knew each other (and weren't yet REALLY dating)...his gifts have been a reminder of his constant love and knowledge of me. 

It's a hard language for me to speak at times, with embarrassing mis-speaks like the infamous shoe-shine-kit debaucle of 1997.  And if it were a competition, I would lose like I do at the foolish moments I attempted to play him at the Amish card game, Dutch Blitz....that is, regularly and without comparison. 

Five years after we left her....

In our 17 years of knowing each other, we've had to make some big purchases together. And he has managed to turn those into gifts too.  Our first house was instantly obviously destined for us, but it seemed totally impossible at first.  But he made it happen.  I had a love for that house that was probably unhealthy.  It was hard, after stripping wallpaper or glue and painting nearly every surface in it, to tell where it left off and I began.  I mourned it's loss for a long, long time.  I am pleased to say that it looks like we have a buyer...a nice young couple just starting out in life.  That soothes my heartache.

Then, when we moved to Arkansas, he bought me a couple of houses....

This one, on our second Christmas here, when we had finally learned to manage our money and we had just 35 dollars to spend on each other for Christmas.  I suggested we do just stocking gifts and he agreed.  His stocking was full of the practical and traditional things I fill his stocking with every year. Mine was full of odd empty boxes and weird lumps, which I would open and give him weird looks for and he would just shrug.  At the end of present-opening, he handed me a flat package which contained an antique framed black and white photograph of a house that I had admired months ago in an obscure shop.  It fit with a growing collection I had started of old houses, which includes one of the farm where my grandmother grew up.

And then, there was the little matter of our current house, which I can hardly believe we have been in for just one year now.  And true to form, I am just now getting it organized.

So, all of that to say...for my birthday, my sweet man trolled my Etsy favorites to find me another house for my collection.  I was delighted with this work by Randall Roberts
which has long been in my badge of favorites right here on the blog.  I could look at it for hours and can hardly wait to find just the perfect spot for it. 

I think he should teach a workshop for husbands to learn the secrets of great gift buying during this holiday season.  Don't you?