This is a letter written in 1907 from Eric's great grandmother to his great grandfather. They were married less than two years and didn't have any children at the time. They continued to be happily married for 50 years...

My Dear Darling Husband,

To you, who has been my protector and knight for the past nineteen months, I now indite these lines.

You do not know with what feelings of love and hope, I look forward to your home coming.

There is no one on earth I care half as much for, and there is nothing that I can enjoy unless you too are there.

People say that the humdrum of life wears the glitter off romance but all true good metal needs friction at times to give it an added lustre. And so darling if, at times, there is some friction it only serves to show me how bright and clean your heart is.

To me, you are still my lover who takes delight in flaming for me. You still remember to do those little acts of courtesy which show such kindness of heart.

You are my idea of what a hero should be. Not on in a book or on a stage, but in every day life.

I can see with what comfort we will grow old together. We will maintain to the end our friendship as well as undying love.



... I love it!

Things have been so crazy over the holiday season, I haven't had time to really write anything significant. I go through changes as to how I'd this blog to be, and today I just want to write.

I spent a wonderful holiday season with my family, and the latter half with Eric and his family. On Jan. 2, there was a huge send off ceremoney for Eric and 3399 other soliders that are anticipated to deploy to iraq come March. For the next 60 days, they will spend their time training down in Georgia. I will most likely get to visit Eric then, before they go overseas.

I thought by now I'd be completely miserable, but I'm doing ten times better than expected. Since he's been gone, communication with Eric has been really good, and I imagine that's what makes being apart so bearable. He won't admit it, but I think its slowly hitting him too how real this is, and we've been very patient with each other and very open to talking about how we feel about the whole thing.

I'm not going to sit around and pretend like 2008 is going to be flowers and butterflies for me. I am just glad that I have a great support system around me to hold my hand through this entire experience.

I love a deploying soldier, and this is my life.

after living away from california for a year and talking about starting to blog again, i'm finally doing it.

i don't really know what it is about tonight that made me decide to blog again. i think it might have to do with feeling like i needed to talk to someone, but fearing that i would burden people by forcing them to talk to me. i think this is the best way to do it right now because i get to release my thoughts and feelings and anyone who ends up reading this is reading it voluntarily. i can't say that this blog will be a lot of fun, because for anyone who's kept in touch w/ me as of recently, there are stressful times to come... but out of everything, im learning a lot about myself, learning how to be strong, and learning a lot about love.

so here it is! we'll see how good i am at keeping it up!