Kathy at Mudlark Tales did a post celebrating the details of her love for her husband, and I liked the idea so much I wanted to follow suit.

(If you find this kind of celebration cloying, obnoxious or anything else negative, please look at this recent post.)

Otherwise, I hope this list gives you warm-fuzzies, and inspires you to think of all the little things that add to your delight in the package-deal that is your husband.

What this exercise does is force one to notice details, and once that began, I remembered more and more. I expect to record more as I think of them, but they will probably go in my home journal, rather than here.

This list was such fun to make I could have kept going, but I decided to stop at 50.

1. I love that he has a job he enjoys and is happy to go to.
2. I love that he sets the alarm on his watch so he remembers to come home on time.
3. I love how he provides for me to be home with the children.
4. I love how he comes home and works along side me without complaint.
5. I love the example he is to our children of working whole-heartedly at something. At everything.
6. I love when he surprises me by saying just what I was thinking– before I do (especially to somebody I shouldn’t have said it to, but he could).
7. I love how he can follow my convoluted way of thinking without getting lost.
8. I love how he listens to me to let me process; how he invites it (“Tell me about your day”).
9. I love how he is actually engaged while he does this, and gives me the feedback I need to refine faulty ideas.
10. I love to hear him laugh when he’s reading a book I gave him that I have enjoyed.
11. I love to hear him read aloud something that struck him, and seeing how his mind works.
12. I love how he can fix anything.
13. I love how gently he ignores the world’s opinion– the way he is absolutely un-vested in any stranger’s opinion of him.
14. I love how he asks me for more details.
15. I love how he sings with his whole heart, even though he doesn’t have a trained voice.
16. I love how he began the tradition of creating silly songs at bedtime, making up nonsense while I was still stuck on how I sounded instead of focusing on my children’s delight.
17. I love how he tells me exactly what he’s thinking.
18. I love knowing he loves me enough I never have to be afraid of what he’s thinking.
19. I love that he notices whatever I’ve gotten done on the house, even if it’s not all clean when he gets home.
20. I love how he enjoys everything I cook.
21. I love how he doesn’t complain about my picky eating and knows he got a special treat when I make him something I’m not fond of (e.g. lasagna).
22. I love that he shares my passion for ice cream.
23. I love that he never talks about weight or exercise while we’re enjoying it.
24. I’m so thankful he is a left-overs eater.
25. That he values my opinion.
26. That he trusts my judgment (sometimes more than I do).
27. That he believes my instincts.
28. That he is concerned with self-improvement.
29. I love how there has never been a joke in my house about how I look in the morning.
30. I love how he plays with our kids.
31. I love the look on his face when he walks in to show me he got the baby to sleep.
32. I love the look on his face when he watches me in the mirror.
33. I love how he matches his rhythm and stride to mine whenever we walk together.
34. I love that he drives most of the time, because I hate to drive.
35. I love that he doesn’t complain when I drive.
36. I love having him as my own personal furnace to pre-warm the bed each night .
37. I love that he lets me put my cold feet on him.
38. I love how he notices when I take extra effort with my clothes, hair or make-up, and compliments me.
39. I love how he’ll cut the last slice from the loaf of homemade bread and take the heel to leave the slice for me. (If I’m in the room he’ll look over at me and say “I love you” when he does it.)
40. I am thankful he doesn’t complain about how much money I spend on books.
41. I appreciate so. much. that he will eat one-handed (i.e., with the baby) so I don’t have to.
42. He read my novel. In it’s original, unedited, post-NaNo form. Sure, this was something of a trust-exercise on my part, but it was also a tribute to his worthiness of that trust.
43. He liked my novel, but also had incredibly useful and constructive things to say. (My current version is massively influenced and improved by two of his three general suggestions.)
44. He was upset that it wasn’t all written yet. This is just the coolest thing to a writer: that a reader would want more.
45. I love how patiently he endured my brainstorming about the pattern I am designing, letting me talk until the time I could actually start drawing and cutting and sewing.
46. I love how like-minded we are. How there are so few things to argue about because we agree on all the big things already.
47. I love the sense of security and confidence I feel just having him around.
48. I love how it’s sometimes hard to make birthdays or special days extra special because we’re already doing nice things on normal days.
49. I like it that he still tries.
50. I love that he likes to be with me, and misses me when he’s gone.

There is a quote from Jane Eyre that summarizes very well my feelings about my relationship with Jay.

To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company… to talk to each other is but a more animated and audible thinking.

All my confidence is bestowed on him, all his confidence is devoted to me; we are precisely suited in character– perfect concord is the result.