I would first like to take a moment to thank all of my friends in the 360 world for their support and encouragement.  I didn’t realize how much of a good thing I have with my husband until I started reading your comments.  I mean, I knew it was good, but I didn’t realize how good.  So I thank you all for your comments, thoughts, well wishes, and all of that.

Now, on to the blogging for today:

I am a very outspoken person, usually.  That means under most circumstances, and especially if you are in my close circle of friends, I will tell you exactly what is on my mind.  Add to that the tendency that I have HAD to be a bit hot tempered and…. you better watch out!

My husband and I first met in an architectural drafting class.  I didn’t pay him a lot of mind because I thought he as a bit of a nerd.  He didn’t talk to very many people, mostly stayed to himself, and he did things that I just deemed strange.  I wasn’t his particular flavor either, at the time, because I was a bit of a wild child and between my vulgar language and flirtatious behavior, I was a bit much for him, to say the least.  On one particular day, there was a rather heated exchange between the teacher and I.  I was about 5 minutes from giving her a 3 day vacation of the recuperation variety and Clif, (my now D.H.) came over to me quietly and said, “just calm down.  It will be ok, you don’t have to be that mad.”  He talked and walked be to my desk, gave me a few gospel CDs to listen to and he went back to his workstation.  I sat, glaring at the teacher for a while, because putting the smack down on her…was the foremost thing in my mind.  But as I let the music minister to my soul, I was calmed and my focus turned to the design work that I had at hand. 

At the end of the day, I returned the CDs to Clif, with a simple gratitude and went along my way.  It was about 6 years later that I remembered this encounter.  I was talking to my cousin telling her I thought that he might be The ONE, (although at the time, we’d had no real interaction other than hi and bye, and I had only just come back in weekly fellowship with him, because I joined the church that he attended).  I talked to my cousin about him and what I thought, and she asked me if we had ever talked about dating or anything.  I told her that we had not but I just couldn’t explain the strange draw that I had to him.  In the midst of our conversation, I relayed the story about the teacher and the CDs and what she said at the end was by far the most eye-opening thing anyone has ever said, to me.  “He got YOU to shut up?”  She asked sounding puzzled.  I laughed and replied, “yea, he did.”

Anyone who really, really, really knows me will know that getting me to be quiet, especially when I am THERE (you know, at that point that is two steps past too far) is an unheard of risk of fate.  I say that because to date D.H. is the person who has ever done it.  Even my mother just lets me rant and get it out of my system, because I can really go OFF.  I thought about what my cousin said and I realized that there really was something special about this non-descript man that I had overlooked for the entire 7 years that I had known him.  It was a year later before he would ask me out on a date, and things from there would go hard and fast.  I still reflect sometimes on that day in drafting class; he wasn’t trying to control me in the midst of my rage, he just wanted what was best for me, and he calmly and gently brought me to a quiet place.  He soothed my soul in a way that no one ever has been able to do.