18 Years

Today is my 18th wedding anniversary!

This is my favorite picture from our wedding. It's the "cake" picture.
Instead of shoving it in my face, he put frosting on my nose and then kissed me. 

It's hard to believe it's been 18 years. I got married when I was 20, and 18 years seemed a lifetime away! Well, I suppose it is, really. Had we gotten started on our family right away, I could have a senior in High School at this point! That's only slightly more terrifying than the fact that I have a 15-year-old who is currently learning how to drive, and that my youngest will be 13 in a couple months. The time really does start to slip away from you, doesn't it?

I'm married to a rocket scientist (yes, really), and when we went to see the pastor a few days before the wedding, she refused to marry us. They had given us a computer test that supposedly evaluated our personalities, how we approached problems, and how we viewed the world. It came back that we were entirely non-compatible. Well, of course it did! He's a rocket scientist and I'm an artist! COME ON! 

Like naughty children, we both had to drag our parents into the pastor's office and have them endorse our "case" in order for her to marry us. In the end, she said because it was two days before the wedding, it would be irresponsible of her business-wise to cancel at this point. However, if she had been able to meet with us months earlier as she would have preferred (we lived in Chicago, and this was Boulder, CO) she would have ended this long before. So, she said she'd perform the service, but she was lodging an official statement that she was certain our marriage wouldn't last two years and was totally against us getting married.

Nice way to start a marriage, right? To be honest, if I had it to do all over again I would go to an island and elope. What a mess. A mess with the pastor, a mess with the in-laws, a mess with the florist, a mess with extended family. Yup, a beach would have been the way to go! At least we had each other!

Regardless, we knew we were doing the right thing. We married, and I'd do it all over again. I love him more now than I did when we said "I do."

It's a cold, rainy Monday today. I plan on working on finishing the mini paintings I have going. They're selling out, for the most part, but I am also trying to up my stock for a harvest festival I have a booth at in two weeks. I'm glad they're so popular!

I decided to fill in the backgrounds and moons on the minis last night. I realized that even when I try, I never make two moons the same way. It's as if they just can't be duplicated, and each one wants to be unique:

Like moon-fingerprints, I guess! I really like that they're all different though. It'd really be a shame if they all looked the same!

I'm keen to see how my mini-haunted houses turn out, in particular today. I also sketched out a toad in a witch's hat, but he's a bit daunting for some reason. He's tiny, but detailed, so I've sort of been avoiding him. I'll get to him, though!