Love Stories

Sometimes I feel like I take care of my blog the way I do my chia pet—only occasionally giving it what it needs.  But it’s time to turn over a new leaf, time to post like never before!  Not only is Valentine’s Day just around the corner, so is the release of my new book, a romantic comedy for the LDS market called, Letters To My Future Husband (available at Deseret Book, Seagull Book, Amazon and Cedarfort.com.) 

Maybe I should have written a thriller replete with double agents and military acronyms (there’s always next time) but I wanted to take on a project that would be fun.  So I set aside my manuscript, Yarn Balls, A Brief History, and got to work telling the story of Sophia Stark, an advertising executive who thinks she’s met her future husband.  Griffin, her boyfriend, is everything she’s been looking for as long as she doesn’t look too closely.  Once she does that, her certainty about him starts to waver.

Sophia’s road to finding true love is not without potholes.  For some, love runs a smooth course.  They meet their future spouse in the lunch line in grade school and never question they’re destined to be together.  That’s not the way it worked for me.  In the lunch line all I got was shoved against a booger-covered vent called the cootie corner.  Romance did not blossom there. 

It was during my freshman year at BYU that I met my future husband (Talk about original.)  We were introduced by a mutual friend on the steps of the Cannon Center, and my first impression of Rich was that he had a nice smile.  His first impression of me was, Hmm, she’s wearing a boy scout jacket (I was trying to find myself at the thrift store.)  That moment led to others, taking pictures together in a photo booth at the mall when we hardly knew each other, going on walks together, and writing letters, lots and lots of letters while one or the other of us was on a mission. 

Was Rich everything I was looking for in a husband?  No.  I was looking for an Abercrombie model with an Australian accent and a vault filled with gold krugerrands.  Rich was a sousaphone player from L.A. with an old Volvo.  But the closer I looked, the more I realized, Hey, this guy might be the one for me.  Twenty-five years and seven kids later, the jury is still out, but I’m pretty sure I made the right decision. 

Okay, so I know I made the right decision, and not just because of the time we’ve spent together and the number of our progeny.  I know it because even in stressful situations he treats me with kindness, he’s a great dad, and he thinks I’m gorgeous without makeup without Botox without even brushing my hair.  True, his eyeglass prescription probably needs adjusting, but still, throughout our marriage he has called me beautiful, and as we advance toward being card carrying members of the AARP, I don’t see that (or his glasses) changing.  Nice guys do not finish last, they finish the dishes when you’re tired, finish putting the kids to bed when you need a break, finish an argument with I love you.  They finish by you, with you, and for you.