These two shall become one....

We had a couple of real downpours this morning, so while the water was really gushing out of the gutter, I took this picture:

What kind of contraption is that, you ask? Wellllll.....it is a piece of leftover metal roofing that Ed bent, then nailed to the porch post to catch the rain coming off of the roof so it wouldn't just hit the ground and spatter mud all over the porch.
When he first rigged this up, it really bugged me, and Daniel teased him about it, but it is just Ed. And that is okay. Well, at least NOW it is okay.
You see, during the first few years of our marriage, I was a perfectionist and Ed? Well, not so much. Grrrrrrrrrr. I cannot even begin to tell you the frustration I felt. Ed would finish projects, be it adding a garage to the first house we bought, or putting on new roof shingles, landscaping the yard in the back where a parking place used to be. I could go on. What you don't see in his projects and so on is that they are not finished perfectly. Ed has a tendency to just kind of rig somethimg up if he doesn't have what he actually needs.
So let me fast-forward to the present. Many years have passed. We've made some adjustments. We've gotten older. Our priorities have changed. We've learned so much. (Especially me. *grin*)

Last week, Ed said he was going to buy a piece of down-spouting and get rid of that piece of roofing sticking out there from the porch and I was aghast!!!!!

Me: "Nooooooo, you can't do that!"

He was shocked! "I thought you didn't like that piece of roofing sticking out there?"

Me: "Well, I didn't.....at first....but, honey, it is so YOU!!!" LOL

You see, I've given up my perfectionist ways. And Ed? He, too, has changed and, like me, learned to be a better spouse, with the help of the Lord. But some things will never change! *smile* The proof?
What IS this, you ask?
Welllll, Ed put a new porch AND roof over the porch. He also made a gate to keep Rocky, our lab, off of the porch. *smile* BUT he needed a latch to keep the gate closed.
Sooooo, he looked around in the garage and on his workbench and found a hook and piece of chain from an old hammock that we used to have. He hammered a nail into the porch post, hooked a chain link on it and slipped the hook over one of the gate slats. Voila'! And there you have it! Our gate latch! It falls off sometimes, especially if you don't have it taut enough which depends on which chain link you hook over the nail. BUT it works!!

Now, we could certainly go and buy a gate latch but it wouldn't be the same! Crazy, hm? *smile*
BUT, what used to bug me to no end, has now become a kind of endearing thing to me in our relationship.You see, the Bible says that when a man and woman marry that these "two shall become one". "Shall" means that it is possible. That possibility depends up on the participants involved. It doesn't just happen. And certainly, not overnight. It helps tremendously if both parties are willing participants, too. (I wasn't.....at first.....okay...okay.....for a few years. Oh, alright....maybe for several...*feeble grin*)
But, thank the Lord, we finally got it right. Yes, both of us, because we both had to be willing to change and come together on alot of little issues. They may have seemed little but ohhhhh the difficulty they could cause.
Twenty-three years down the road, we both can say that what we have now has been worth every difficulty. Okay, "difficulty" might be too nice of a word for some of the fights, arguments, and sleepless nights that we've had!
How I wish I had been a willing participant in making our marriage "a marriage made in heaven" so much sooner than I did. But, I also call Ed my Rennaissance Man. He has also changed unbelieveably through the years! Wow. Do I have a great husband or what? *smile*
One thing that may have hindered us a little was that we didn't get married until I was 34 and he was 43. We were older and so set in our ways. I don't know. That may have been part of it.
But, now, here we are, enjoying the best years of our lives with eachother, blessed with our little grandson. God has been so good to us. Oh, and He's been patient, to the "nth" degree!!! Thank you, Jesus, for this husband who makes my life so much more interesting and adventurous!!
(One last thing? How many times can a guy watch all of the Rocky movies? And Days of Thunder? or Top Gun? I'm just asking.....)