This is Dedicated to the One I love

You know, it's like this. I try to keep a lot of my ooey-gooey stuff out of my blog. I am often quite unsuccessful and I take some heat for that. I try to keep it real, I try to keep it about me. Not a big stretch, as anyone who has ever met me can attest.

But, just for tonight let's talk about Scott. Really. Sometimes, because we've been together for a while and known each other for a lot longer than that even (we actually met about 4 years ago), I tend to take him for granted. A lot. I can be overly critical and forget how I come across.

A quality I am not overly fond of in myself.

So, let me say this. I love this man.

I love him because he is kind and gentle with me to a point that no one would ever guess. Nor will they even believe when reading this.

I love him because he delights in teasing me and even because he takes it a step too far sometimes. (Blog topic -- do not tease your fiance into doubting if your diamonds are diamonds.)

I love him because when he gets really excited about something his whole body gets into it. He lights up like a Christmas tree and talks really fast and there's this voice that he has that goes along with that and it's SO cute you just want to bottle it up so you can listen to it again when you're feeling kind of blue.

I love that he really puts a lot of thought into gifts that he buys me and gets so excited about giving them to me that half the time he can't even wait til the actual occasion to give them to me. And when I like the gift he's so happy it's like I'm giving him a gift just by appreciating it.

I love that he really makes an effort to get to know many of my friends. If he doesn't like someone that I like, he still makes an effort to get to know them better and try to keep the path smoothe for our continuing relationship.

I love that he's intelligent and has opinions on things. Opinions that he didn't just pull out of his ass. And when he learns that his opinions were wrong about things, he's not afraid to admit that either.

I love that he makes a strong effort to impress my family, but doesn't sacrifice his personality to do so. He's not phony. Ever.

I love that he listens to me when I'm going through my forty mood swings per month and only very rarely uses the hormone word. Mostly he just listens to me. Yes, he does try to solve my problems instead of listening to them sometimes -- but sometimes the solutions help me realize that my problems do have solutions.

I love that he thinks important things over before just coming out with an answer. It makes me crazy because it's so radically different than my own style, but I recognize how important having that balance is.

I love that even though he thinks I'm silly for picking a date to be our anniversary, he still went all out for the occasion and really made me feel special. Bringing me flowers and taking me to a nice place for dinner.

I love that he likes to gossip as much as I do. I love that he likes stupid reality tv and celebrity scandal stuff as much as I do. We have some of the same guilty pleasures and that's what makes things fun.

I love that he appreciates me for who I am, how I am, all the time. He never lets a day go by that he doesn't tell me that he loves me or reminds me in some way how important I am to him. He doesn't run every single detail by me, but he often asks me for my opinion on things in his life and really makes me feel like we are a team.

I love that he wants us to be a team.

I love that he's funny. And that it's a goofy kind of funny. I love that he makes ME feel funny, although for totally different reasons than most people think that I'm funny.

I love that he's about the same level of not so great housekeeping that I am. We're both kind of messy at about the same pace. And we both go into huge fits of denial when people come over about being too busy to pick things up, etc. He's MUCH better about doing a whirlwind of cleaning when people come over.

I love that he likes my butt. It's weird, but it's true.

I love that it's been 8 months since he ate my great aunt's crabcakes and he still talks about it like it was yesterday and he still compares everyone's crabcakes to hers.

I love him because he's snuggly and fun and brilliant and good looking and witty and charming and sassy and loud and quiet and adventurous.

And I love that in this crazy world we managed to find each other TWICE and that we're going to get married and spend the rest of our lives together.

I'm excited!