I had an interesting week last week.  My husband and I celebrated our 29th Wedding Anniversary on September 1st!  Guess what we got to do?  We got to work.  We had a couple people call us and one was even from Margaret Rome, one of our newer friends from Active Rain.  Thank you Margaret!  She called us all the way from Baltimore, MD.  What a wonderful surprise and treat to hear from someone besides my Mom remembering us.  I am truly coming up for air and unable to be on Active Rain very much these days...

My husband, Dan, is getting his doctoral degree and it is one deadline after another.  I had to prepare for a National Teleconference on "Color for Quilters!" (I'll share about that experience on another post.)  Life sure takes lots of twists and turns doesn't it?  I am grateful for having the strength to get up and keep going, whether life is good or challenging.  I am grateful we did not spend it in the emergency room, like we did for our 25th Wedding Anniversary.  We discovered my husband had to have another surgery for kidney stones.  It was the third time in our married life he experienced that painful process.  He has had several near death experiences in his life. (He even wrote about them in his recently published book, called "Disappointments Transformed into Destiny.")   So, I should be grateful.  If it sounds like I am complaining, please forgive me.  I am really trying not to.  You sometimes have to look at those things and wonder, if life could be more challenging, right?  Nevertheless, I am very grateful that he is alive!

Now, this doctoral project is noeasy picnic!  His friends call him from across the country and tell him that it is one of the hardest challenges they have ever experienced.  This was a recent comment coming from a Lt. Colonel, an Army Chaplain that has always been a high honors graduate.  Now, both my husband and I have worked very hard for every grade we have received.  Things have never been easy for us.  However, I realize that is how rocks get polished in those tumblers and come out so pretty and shiny, right?  Do you ever feel like you are thrust in a rock tumbler and no matter who you rub, you keep getting hit somehow?  Or maybe it is another rough edge that needs some smoothing out.  Hmmm...

We had a victory in our home; my husband received another email from his professor and mentor.  He is doing his doctoral project correctly and now he is off to another chapter.  Interesting thing, that my husband is growing and learning more than ever and guess what?  He is now getting excited on these breakthroughs.  He is doing an amazing job on this project.   He now has an invitation with one of the Deans at a local university.  He wants to meet my husband and see if he could be of any help to him.  Funny thing is my husband wrote to several people asking for help.  One answered and finally this Dean wrote to him.  You just never know when and where the breakthroughs will come. 

I have decided I admire my husband more and more every day.  I did some edits for him and had to pull out a dictionary to understand some of the terms.  Nevertheless, I was amazed at what he is discovering and learning through this process.  He wants to help Emerging Adults (18 to 30 years old).  He wants to make a difference in our community.  The tenacity he has and not giving up, although sometimes it was unbearable for him.  He now is getting excited.  So, I guess I am sharing this, because there is no Anniversary Gift you can receive than to know the one you fell in love a while ago is getting those breakthroughs and is starting to actually enjoy this process.  His professor is even getting excited that he is on to perhaps one of the greatest projects done in their community.   I don't think you can put a price tag on that.  Do you?  So the point of all of this...Don't give up.  Life does not always turn out the way you think, but it sure is an adventure, don't you think? 

~Have a Colorful Day!