Today is August 1st and it’s a perfect day. The sun is shining, it’s 77 degrees outside. I’m pretty sure that every year on August 1st the weather is glorious. I know for certain that it was twenty-five years ago, which is why I chose that day to marry the love of my life.
It was 1987 and we were busy. LOML and I were building a house with the help of a few family members and friends. I was an art major at URI and had the summer off. LOML worked second shift at Electric Boat. We were on a very tight budget. When we decided to marry, a fellow art student offered her back yard with its apple trees and pastoral setting. Another art student friend offered the use of her husband, an Episcopal priest, to perform the ceremony. My siblings arrived from various parts of the country and helped prepare food for the reception. My brother Tom, who had worked in the restaurant at a New Hampshire resort, awed us with his skill at carving veggies into decorative shapes. Our biggest splurge that day was the string quartet I hired to sit under the apple trees and serenade us. It was bliss.
We have marked the day in many ways since 1987. On our first anniversary I was pregnant with our son. For our twentieth we spent the night in the same room of the same Providence hotel where we spent our wedding night. Last year we did a segway tour of Newport. This year we’re going to wing it. Just get in the car and head towards Providence and do wherever we fancy. The only real plan is to end the evening with dinner at our favorite Newport restaurant – Yesterday’s. We’re not big on gift-giving for our anniversary. We already have what we’re happy with and would rather save the money for our yearly Fforde Ffiesta/England trip.
Yesterday I was exhausted and crabby. This morning I awoke well-rested and feeling grateful. Twenty-five years is a long time to spend with the same person. One who snores like a fog horn and chews his food so loudly I wonder how it is his jaw doesn’t snap. The same person I instinctively felt, the moment I saw him, was a kind and gentle man who would always accept me as I am. After breakfast I boiled water for tea and when I dipped the tea bag into my cup, I read the back of the tea tag. And there it was — like Robert Frost and his poem about roads diverging in a yellow wood, and making a choice of which to follow, my tag said:
Together we can do what we can never do alone.
And that, indeed, has made all the difference.
LOML and I saying, By Gosh, YES! we certainly do!!
LOML, moi, my Maid of Honor, & my brother, who was the Best Man.
A Wilderness of Words 
Awww, congratulations! You two are so cute together! May you have many more happy, snore-filled years.
Oh, and btw, my boyfriend used to snore as well, until we got his tonsils out a year or two ago. They were roughly the size of North Dakota. Nothing but quiet nights now! š
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I read your reply to LOML. I asked if he’d consider have his tonsils looked at. He’s thinking about it . . . š
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Your happiness is spilling out of the computer all over me as I read your words. Thank you for sharing it with us – God bless – and carry on!
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I’m happy to spill some happiness your way. Goodness knows we can all use all the happiness we can get.
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Lovely and loving. Happy Anniversary, Mary and Bob.
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You’re so kind, my dear Ray. Loved the roses, by the way. Thank you!
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Mary-I adore your blog! What a historical adventure I found myself in. I love the old pictures of you, your grandfather and you & Bob. Happy Anniversary to you both! You ought to think about writing historical fiction…hmmm. (I just set up a new blog on wordpress:very new-not ready. Like it still needs furniture & stuff);)
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Oh, thank you, Kate! I’m glad you found me. Actually, I’ve always enjoyed reading historical fiction. Can’t wait to read your new blog. Let me know when it’s ready to go and I can follow you!!
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I know that priest!
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I thought you might! He did a pretty good job, didn’t he?! š
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Happy, Happy Silver Anniversary, Mary & Bob!!! Beautiful post and beautiful pictures! I keep forgetting you guys are a year and a couple of weeks ahead of us.
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Thanks, Jan. We looked cute when we were young! Hope you and Peter have as nice a time on your anniversary as we did!!
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Happy anniversary! I hope you had a great day. I am so glad someone else shares the opinion that they don’t need gifts as they have enough to make them happy. My boyfriend & I are exactly the same, but for some reason people think we are being mean!
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Thanks! And I say, screw those other people and what they think! But, actually LOML surprised me with a new silvery-sparkly-topped pen! Besides being a notebook hound I am also mad about pens. š
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Aw, me too! You can never have enough pens or note pads! š
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Mary, I love your blog. Happy Silver Anniversary to you and Bob! Tom and I are that way about gifts, too. To us a day out of our routines, just ambling and relaxing and being together is the best kind of celebration. I hope you had a great day together!
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Thanks, Bette Anne. We did have a lovely, relaxed day. And thanks reading my blog. I’m so thrilled every time I get a new follower!
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Happy Anniversary, Mary! I love your story and your pics! Just wonderful!! May you have many, many more fun-filled anniversaries!
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Thanks, Laurie. One of these days we have to do a double date! How about a move soon??
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congratulations! 25 is awesome… my parents divorced after 14 and I was glad to have made it past that milestone… this year we celebrate 21 and though we’ve both grown and changed, most of what brought us together remains.. I thought of my wife and the comments she’s made (about me, and to me) when you wrote about snoring and eating – laughed out loud! Thanks for sharing, I hope you had a wonderful anniversary!
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Thanks for the good wishes. We did have a lovely day. I think growth and change are good things providing that the core part of who you are as a couple remains. LOML and I often comment on how that is the central thing that has kept us together all this time. It’s a good feeling. I wish you and your wife much happiness through many more years together.
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Just Follow you. I will readyour blog later. š
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Thank you, Hilal. I’ll be here waiting. š
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