Marry Up.

amazing photo by Shelley Paulson of Sommerset Studio

I've said it before, but it bears repeating: It should be your goal in life to marry up. I'm not referring to social class, just someone smarter, more talented, etc than yourself. Granted, it's not practical for everyone to marry up, but half of us can and do. Generally, it's men. Go figure.

Yesterday was a prime example of how far up I married. We had a house full of guests coming to grill out - the Craigs & their 3 kids, Jason "My wife is in Texas this week" Wenth and Good News Tim. Danielle & my mom were here too, but no one with a bed in our house counts as a guest.

I had to be somewhere at 5pm but pledged to be back as soon as I could to help with the festivities. I expected my little appointment to last fifteen minutes. It took ninety. A couple of times Kelsey would call for an update - just checking how long I'd be. Here are real life snippets of what she said during those updates:

5:30 pm "Do you know when you'll be back?"

5:50 pm "The boys just lowered the hamster down the laundry chute."

6:15 pm "I had Robert start the grill."

In the background, I heard the chaos rise to a roar level, yet she never got frustrated with me. When I finally did pull up to my house at 6:40, kids were running everywhere, Robert was wrangling the grill, the ladies were in the kitchen, Chuck was sawing doorknob holes (I didn't list him earlier because he was eating elsewhere...) and Kelsey was juggling it all like she was directing a 3 ring circus...and having fun!

I am one lucky dude. Unlike the hamster.