I love my husband. and I love shouting it from the mountaintops. He’s dashing (especially in a bow tie) and funny and patient and he can calm me down in a way no one else can. A sweet father, an encouraging man who doesn’t let me give up, and I could go on and on and on…and on. He’s wonderful and I’m enormously proud of him.

It’s fun to brag about Andrew. God blessed me with a bold-n-shiny gem of a man to love, who loves me back. It’s thrilling; but more important than telling the world how crazy I am about him, I have to tell him.

Follow me for a second:

I make Andrew’s lunch for work every morning. Ham and cheese, two clementines, an apple, and a napkin. When we were first married and both working, we wrote each other notes on our napkins to read on our lunch breaks. It was a fun surprise and I always looked forward to it because Andrew’s notes were hysterical; and mine never were. SNOOZE – how many ways are there to write “I love you” on a napkin? I’d write Bible verses and “You mean so much to me,” or something like that, but I knew that he didn’t get the same kick out of my notes for him. Even now, years later, I get stuck. The self-imposed pressure is too much and my mind goes BLANK.

SO! I wrote something fresh and exciting recently: “99 Things I Appreciate About You…Day 1…” For each day that I make his lunch, he’ll learn something I appreciate about him. BAM – three birds, one stone: I remedy my Love Note Writer’s Block and he actually looks forward to his napkin AND he gets a confidence boost in the middle of the day! Not a bad deal.

A friend of mine laughed asking, “Won’t you run out of material??” An excellent question. Not at all! If I were to compliment only the surface of him, sure, I might run out of ideas after complimenting his eyes or height a dozen times; but taking a minute each morning to consider little things from the previous day makes my notes original and heartfelt. So the deal gets better and better. PLUS, and this might seem obvious, writing what I appreciate about Andrew makes me appreciate Andrew! The whole idea invites me to take a look at who he is and why I married him.

So, just to give an example: After a crazy day of traveling home from a weekend away, trying to get settled in the house again, and working with the kids who had barely napped, Andrew took our 2.5 year old to an evening basketball game. When they came home, my little man was bursting with excitement over all the fun things he and Daddy did at the game, what they saw, how the players would “froh da ball into da biiiiig circle!” and so on. The next day’s napkin told of how I love that Andrew is a FUN dad to our kids and so giving of himself for them. Last night we sat talking for hours about music, high school, anticipating a third baby so soon, and our how we each spent our days – we were cracking up and having a blast! My note this morning will speak to that effect – how much I love just talking with him.

So here’s your homework – try it out! If you don’t make your spouse’s lunch, then leave a sticky note somewhere for him/her, OR send your list one day at a time via email. What a fun message to get in your inbox! No matter how long you’ve been married, if it’s fun and spontaneous, or even slightly monotonous, it’s so important to let your spouse know that you appreciate and love them; doing so actually furthers the sentiment for you and, in turn, makes your spouse feel fantastic. There’s nothing like a little love note to light a big spark!