Speaking of Love...and Baked Goods

Jim's status as best husband imaginable has nothing to do with his ability to give me great gifts. In fact, he'll be the first to admit this is not his forte. I'll be the second to admit that. Ah, but yes, gift giving- not elaborate gifts, but gifts of meaningful things, time, anything extra-special is my language of love. His language speaks more of taking great joy in selflessly doing things for someone else. The joy is increased if they never know you did it- the less credit the better- he just wants to serve. In a very real way he is an excellent gift-giver- the gifts he gives of himself and for my benefit. He never gives me reason to doubt his strong devotion to me, his love for me, his joy in living his days with me. He always wants to come home as soon as he can when he's done with work for the day- oh, he loves his job, but can't wait to get home to us. He is one of the most hands-on, strong and loving fathers I've ever met. He is an incredible protector, provider, and best friend. Our life together truly is a partnership. He is about as far from the dad who comes home and tunes out in front of the TV as I can imagine. He's an excellent listener and cares very much about living with integrity in everything he does. He's dependable and I can trust him, really trust him. He loves the Lord first and above anyone else and leads us so well. He never, ever, lies. He's extremely smart and is also a great cook. I have been given a very, very good man.

They say when you go to another country the best way to learn the language is to fully immerse yourself in it. In these last six years Jim and I have been fully immersed in one another's love-speak and I can say confidently that neither one of us is anywhere near fluency- but we are learning. It's a good and rich journey- difficult, fun, and priceless.

I intensely love this man, but gift giving can be really hard for him, just like thinking about someone besides myself is painstakingly difficult for me. I've gotten some "great" gifts in the past- all of which we look back on and smile about... even if I wasn't smiling at the time. Jim knocked it out of the park this year, though. This is my new food processor- isn't she beautiful? I've wanted one for a while- we bake a LOT at our house, and it makes about 1000 other things a breeze to make, too. It would've taken me a very long time to get one for myself, though, since they are really expensive. I was thrilled to finally have one of my own. Of course as soon as it was out of the box, I had to start packing for our Christmas trip. All I really wanted to do was make scones. It was really, really hard not to make scones. Really hard. But, when we got back, we celebrated our first family breakfast of 2008 with warm Blueberry Scones.




These are really, really, good. (Not because I made them, but because the recipe is excellent.) My food processor works really, really well- it has a super smooth, quiet motor ( I even used it with a sleeping baby in the room), but it's heavy duty for big batches of dough and has a sweet mini-chopper attachment that makes chopping anything for dinner easier- and the chop is really even, it never turns veggies to mush. It is so nice, so much fun. THANK YOU for my awesome gift, Jim. As I've told you too many times to count, you far exceed any expectations I had for the man I would marry- and I had high expectations. Thanks, too, for sticking close beside me, even though I've had such a hard time mastering your "language". If you find a dictionary for me with a good language-to-language translation, I'd love to have it. In fact, it would make an excellent birthday gift...if flowers were included.