Barrybran - [Insert Original Thread Title Here]

[Barrybran]

I lost my update

Monday was my anniversary and the day went very well for where my wife and I are at. I bought flowers and a card, thanking her for sharing hers and the kids' lives with me. No mention of love or future, just an acknowledgment of her involvement in my life. She gave me a card with a tropical scene on the front (we honeymooned in Fiji), a simple cryptic message about 2nd anniversary gifts and telling me tacos were for dinner (our favourite meal), a box of chocolates and slipped inside the card a thimble (made in China - China being a 'traditional' gift) and roll of cotton (being a 'modern' gift) in our wedding colour. I expected her to not mark the occasion so I appreciated the fact that she did and to do so with some thought and references to our wedding and marriage was very thoughtful of her, especially in a difficult time.

I worked early that day so I was out of the house for much of the day. We didn't really acknowledge the day in person aside from a couple of thin references over dinner with the kids. All in all, I felt it was a good day. I hope we can celebrate properly next year but for now I'll take it.

Aside from that, a big milestone occurred yesterday with my wife asking for a hug. I had asked for one last week after a trying fortnight and acknowledged that she perhaps wasn't ready, which she confirmed. Yesterday, she asked me out of the blue and hugged me. That hasn't happened in months.

On the work front, I've been looking after my store for the past three weeks as my boss has recovered from surgery. I'm very happy with how things went and my staff have supported me very well. There was a stressful period when everyone in the shop had a cold or was unavailable but I survived. My uni work is going well. I'm still behind but I have submitted the first of my second-round assignments and will start working on the other one today. My first round assignments were graded and I did very well in both, far better than I was expecting to. I'm still behind content-wise but with the major assessments out of the way it'll be head down towards the exams at the beginning of October.

Soccer winds up on Saturday which is sad. I've enjoyed playing and I'll miss it. I am happy to have my Saturdays back leading into school holidays and my exams though. A local summer competition will start late September/early October so I'm looking forward to that.

I also told my wife I'd like to go away as a family over school holidays which she appeared to support. We are waiting on her redundancy payout from work but I'd like to go anyway after the recent stresses of work and uni. I just want to get out of town and do something fun with the kids that doesn't involve cleaning, picking up after them or getting called into work :p