A couple months after my husband and I began dating 13 years ago, he built two Adirondack chairs, one for each of us, to sit on the porch together. Like me, he likes making things with his hands. He's a man of few words, but this romantic gesture was loud and clear: he would provide a place for me and we'd always be together. In these low slung chairs you can't help but relax, and talk about happy times past and dreams for the future. We still have these chairs, they have been repainted three times. I'm glad he's a handy guy and knows how to fix things, so we can keep these chairs through whatever repairs they'll need and our memories of sitting in them forever.They've been dragged all over our yard, to find the shade or get a better view of the kids, but we always keep them together. Most often they are parked in front of the Koi pond he dug and landscaped himself 6 years ago, shortly after the birth of our first child. He had just gotten laid off, and decided it was the perfect time to spend a lot of money building a pond, which he had always wanted-now he finally had the TIME to do it! (He's an eternal optimist.) With me not working and a newborn, I had to hold my breath and tongue about the wisdom of adding a pond then, but of course he found another job (better one) soon after, and that pond is still one of our favorite things about our home all these years later, it has given us thousands of hours of enjoyment. It was a great investment.
Every 3 years or so, the chairs need a new coat of paint or a bit of wood filler to heal the occasional crack. To me, they are kind of symbolic of changes that seem to happen in life every few years for our family, the good and the bad, the blessings and surprises; we weather through them.
These are just a few reasons why the best part of me is my husband.
