Sunday, April 10, 2011

Today's fortune: April 10, 2011, by Jamie Kelsey!

Today's fortune: You will bring sunshine into someone's life.

When I asked my husband what his fortune was this morning, he got a weird look on his face.
First of all, let me say that I consider Matt to be slightly introverted, so seeing him go outside of his comfort zone to share this experience with those around him makes me very happy - like when he lets his coworkers make all of his decisions for a day.
When I pressed him about today’s fortune, he said he wasn’t quite sure how to find out if he brought sunshine to anyone’s life. “You bring sunshine to my life every day!” I said. His demeanor changed again, and he looked up at me shyly and asked, “Would you write today’s post?”
My heart melted. And that was the first little bit of sunshine he would bring me today.
But it did not end there. I believe Matt has written about our Sunday morning ritual of reading the newspaper in bed. Usually, Matt goes out to get the paper and I scrounge up something for us to nibble on while we read. But Matt had awoken early this morning, slipped out of the bedroom and came back with the paper AND some bagels and cream cheese. All I had to do was shake the sleep out of my head and sit up!
Then, as if he timed the whole thing, once we had our paper laid out in front of us and our bagels were ready to schmear, he turned on “CBS Sunday Morning” just in time to hear that unmistakable trumpet opening. And I got another touch of sunshine…
Get it?
Today, “Sunday Morning” was all about animals. Matt hasn’t talked a lot about my obsession with animals on this blog, but I am – obsessed. This obsession even led me to give up eating meat nearly two years ago.
I believe this obsession nearly drove Matt crazy in the early years of our marriage. We lived in northwest Missouri one particularly cold winter. Our apartment building seemed to attract a large number of feral or otherwise stray cats. I fed them on the occasions when I found myself with a spare can of tuna. (Matt still doesn’t realize it, because he would have freaked out if I’d bought actual cat food, but we bought a lot of tuna that year) Well, I would’ve liked to kick Matt out that winter (because he was allegedly “allergic” to cats) and brought those poor babies in out of the cold. But none of them allowed me to get close. I took all the spare blankets and any crummy towels we owned and lined cardboard boxes with them. Sure enough, after a few days, we had ourselves a little kitty boarding house on our back patio.
I say all this to make one last point. Matt brings sunshine to my life every day because he loves me, and I know he would do anything for me.
Case in point: when we moved back to Kansas City, we were working complete opposite schedules and I became very lonely. One Saturday in October, two weeks before my hmphsfyth  birthday, my wonderful companion Matt introduced me to another wonderful companion - our first of three cats, JoJo. And luckily Matt had mostly grown out of his allergy (just as I’d suspected), and he has since become a cat person.
Sometimes, with my work and school schedule, Matt and I don’t get to see a whole lot of each other (should I buy him a cat now?). But through hectic times, losses, bad moods or whatever the world throws at us on a given day, Matt always finds a way to bring sunshine to my life. Even on days when he’s being the biggest BUTT, I look at my three wonderful cats, and I know he loves me.
- Jamie Kelsey

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