You're It!

I am playing tag- not freeze tag, not cartoon tag, nor any other form of tag that involves running. I'm grateful for that today- I'm way too wiped out for , ya know, exercise. :) Actually, I did exercise this morning, and lately exercising totally backfires on me and I'm dead for the rest of the day. Dang exercise!

My great and wonderful and inspiring and incredible friend, Diahan, has chosen me, ME, to play photo tag. The directions are as follows: ahem . . .
Go to your fourth folder
Choose the fourth picture
Post about the picture

I am very dismayed to report that this is the picture:
Diahan's fourth folder, fourth picture picture was the beautiful, first and only picture of her pregnant with her first child. Mine? A rock.

I feel like Charlie Brown, "I got a rock." I guess it is appropriate, seeing as how it's almost Halloween n' all, but . . . a rock??

But the more I think about this rock, though, I love it. Gary took this picture of the rock for some scientific reason. He is not here to tell me exactly what that reason was, but I'm guessing it has something to do with the colors or the little holes that might tell its whole erosion story. It just shows how amazing he is; that he can see "stories" in rocks and think they are so cool. He probably showed this picture to his class and went on and on explaining the wonder that is this rock. Oh sure, I am fascinated by the occasional rock, but he knows why.

Also, he took this picture while he was working in Enterprise, Utah for a couple weeks last summer. It reminds me of how hard he works so that I can be home with our boys- sometimes working 2 or 3 extra jobs to "support his teaching habit," he says. He's actually working now, and though I had, and am still having, a ridiculously hard time getting little boys to sleep, (I'm sitting outside their room, ready to provide the necessary warnings and execution of those warnings if they get out of bed one more time) I just remember that Gary has had a long day too, and if he were home, he'd be the one sitting outside the door and letting me have a break- which break consists of doing the dishes or folding the laundry- but it is still a break.

So, back to Enterprise. Gary actually got to take Andrew and Ryan with him on this job, and they got to fish and dig and explore between concrete tests. The boys still talk about it. If we're ever driving through some ugly desert town in the middle of nowhere, they say, "Hey! We're in Enterprise!"

So, there's the long story of a rock. I love it because I love Gary and I love Gary because nine years ago, when we met, he saw, like he saw in that rock, something great in me that I didn't see. He sees the good in everything- rocks, bugs, dirt, and an insecure girl who needed someone to show her that she deserved more than she let herself believe.

So, my next assignment in "Photo Tag" is to pick four people to do the same. If I don't choose you, I'm sorry. Just pretend I did and do the assignment. :) Here we go, based on commenter frequentness: (in other words- I love comments :)

Heather M.
Jennifer C.
Lindsey V.
Mandy B.

Thanks, Diahan. That was great! (At least for me :)