Tenacity

This post is an ode to my husband.

Here he is on our honeymoon, almost 11 years (!) ago.

When I met him, I noticed immediately how totally cute he is; he was also funny and friendly. I remember telling my buddy Jen, who said something like "that guy Ben's pretty cute huh?" to keep her labbas off at the party where he and I met.

This party was an outdoor, stay-for-the-weekend graduation thing. We all brought tents to sleep in; Ben's had spent the last 30-plus years in his Mom's garage, where it became separated from its directions. So while the rest of us sat around drinking beer and jello shots, he spent hours trying to put up his tent - which, eventually, he did. All the while he worked on the tent he talked, laughed and drank with the rest of us; I remember thinking how much stick-to-it-iveness he had. It was one of the first things I loved about my man.

Fortunately, Ben's still got this tenacity of his in spades. He keeps going with things long after any sane person would have given up - and it's for this reason that we have our new bathtub surround today.

What my love is doing up there in this picture is, he's chiseling. Because our walls weren't plumb - our house is 50 years old, this should have been no surprise - he planed, and chiseled, and tried out the surround, and planed, and chiseled, and tried out the surround, without end for more than 4 hours on Sunday, and then again for good measure, a few more hours on Monday.

I can honestly say that, had Ben been less tenacious, we would be arranging for a contractor to come and finish our bathroom.

I am a lucky woman.