My husband is wonderful. Truly. I could write forever about that, but that's not why we're here. We're here to talk about one of the few things that he doesn't excel at and what we did about it.
For many years, he was late getting home on my birthday and on anniversaries. He had forgotten to pick up a card. Again. I made handmade cards at the time, and he knew how much I loved writing and reading messages inside cards. He didn't want to arrive home without a card, so he would make a "quick stop" at the store on his way home. That quick stop inevitably made him an extra 30+ minutes later getting home. With a tiny baby at home, that felt like an eternity!
One evening, it dawned on me. What I wanted wasn't a pricey card with a lovely, pre-written message in it that would inevitably get shoveled from pile to pile. I couldn't bear to throw away those sweet little attempts at writing "MOM" on the card or my husband's quick message at the end, but the stacks were adding up! Those sweet signatures and handwritten notes were what I really wanted.
I had to decide "what mattered" to me. (The Lazy Genius taught me in her book, The Lazy Genius Way to "Always start with what matters." Check out her books and podcast. Seriously life-changing stuff!)
What mattered?
- Having a message from people I loved that made me feel loved.
- Being able to find these messages and read them anytime I wanted to walk down memory lane.
- Cutting down on clutter in my house.
What didn't matter?
- Having a separate card for each gift giving occasion.
- Having an unknown author's message in my hands.
- Spending a little extra money for something that would solve our issue
Enter..."Mom's Book." I requested that the next Mother's Day, I didn't want a card. All I wanted for my gift was a blank journal that each of my boys would "sign" and my husband would write a quick note in.
A new tradition was born. My most treasured worldly possession was received.
My first message was May 2014. My baby was 9 months old. Watching my kids go from traced hands to connecting the dots for "M-O-M" to now writing sweet messages within these pages is simply the best. I now have an answer to "If your house was on fire, all people were safe, and you were able to save only ONE thing, what would you save?" This. I would save this book.
And I want YOU to have something this precious, too.