Today I’m very grateful for all the little things my beloved does, every day. Things ranging from getting up to take the dogs out when they howl at 2 a.m. (maybe that’s a big thing…), to running to the store for the THIRD time the day before Thanksgiving, to checking online to find the best deal when it’s time to renew my cell phone.

And there are — of course! — all kinds of more important things, as well. The way he makes no distinctions between ‘his’ family and ‘my’ family. It’s all our family — my sisters, his, in-laws, out-laws, the whole crazy mob.

The way he listens when I try to puzzle through a challenge, letting me process. The way he really looks when I ask him what he thinks of a new sweater.

Obviously my happy relationship w/ my beloved is NOT a ‘small’ gratitude. But it’s certainly an everyday gratitude: not one day goes by — rarely even a couple of hours — that I don’t stop to consider how much fuller, richer, more FUN my life is because of a blind date at college.

So today? I’m grateful for the small things a very BIG part of my life makes possible. Here’s to happily ever after. May it greet you every day.