no preservatives!

My Hubby is really sweet and thoughtful. For Valentine's Day he got me the usual bouquet of beautiful long-stemmed red roses delivered to my work and a funny card. I ended up staying home sick and went to work towards the end of the day to get my flowers. When he came home after work, he surprised me with Annie's Organic Ketchup! I was really touched and let me tell you why.

I absolutely love ketchup and eat it almost daily with breakfast. I don't eat a lot of it but I eat it often. For Lent I've given up preservatives...just trying to get all the junk food out and try to be purposeful about what I eat. For Ash Wednesday we had cornmeal-breaded cod for dinner. Now Hubby had introduced me to spicy ketchup - which is ketchup with sriracha in it and it's great with breaded fish. That night I couldn't have any. Hubby later told me he couldn't imagine how I would live a month without ketchup! So the next day he did some research about preservative-free ketchup and found me Annie's! I was so blessed by his gesture.

I did find a great beer for him that he hasn't had yet. Being the craft brew connoisseur that he is, it is becoming harder and harder to surprise him with one. Also got him some fancy dark chocolate with hickory smoked bacon:-) A great Valentine's Day for both of us.

choosing to be thankful

Hubby and I went to a great burger joint in town last month and shared some fries. I love the small, thin, crunchy ones. I never liked steak fries - I've always loved shoe string ones. We started calling them crunchies.

Once Hubby found out I love crunchies, he'd dig around for them and give them to me. Sometimes there'll be plenty and he'd put them in a pile. I would always be thankful and thought that was so sweet of him. And then it came out that he loves them too! I was truly moved and said, "And you've been giving them to me all this time???!!!" It was a no brainer for him and he continued to find me my crunchies.

I know these are just fries but I am trying to cultivate an attitude of thankfulness, regardless of how small or trivial it may be. I read about a blogger who wrote about how things really are. I don't necessarily have a problem with that but it gets tiring when the focus is always on how bad or hard things are. Those already draw focus on them - I don't need to do that. So while my posts seem to be trivial or always positive, that is purposeful. Although my life isn't perfect, I will choose to be thankful.

And today I am thankful for my Hubby who gladly sacrifices his "treasure trove of crunchies" for me:-)