Ode to my wife...

She does all my laundry.

All of it.

I often have to wrestle my gym bag out of her hands for her own safety. I know I'm not the worst husband in the world, but laundry is just one thing I cannot keep cycling in my head as something that needs attention. I aim to grow in this, but that's about what it amounts to. Ruth keeps cycling in her head the things that get kicked of my head by comic books plots and reptile dreams.


Without Ruth, I wouldn't smell fresh all the time.







She likes vacations.


Little vacations and big ones. When Ruth is at the end of her rope we'll often end up in a bed and breakfast on one of the islands. Her job offers more stress then mine and I try to be sensitive to that. But at the end of the day, she just likes to sleep in a comfortable bed with a great view and then get up and find the best latte in the village. It's a reminder of heaven for her I think. And I'm happy to help remind her. We've had a lot of really great adventures together, and there are only more to come.

Without Ruth, I'd be a boring workaholic.








She likes to talk.



Ruth and I are pretty busy. We work long days during the week that require us to go to bed early. But no matter how tired she is, no matter late it is, we'll talk for hours after the lights have gone out. She clearly has more things to negotiate in her mind through conversation. I understand that and I try to be helpful. She doesn't just want to talk either. She wants advice, she wants opinion, and sometimes as I'm just drifting away on the edge of sleep, her words will wake me, "Tell me a story!" Sometimes she's just not ready for sleep yet.



Without Ruth, I would get a full night's sleep every night.








She won't leave me alone.


For those of you who have read the book of The Five Love Languages, Ruth and I have a joke in our relationship regarding that book. The gist of the book is that everyone has a different language in which they prefer to receive and give love. There's quality time, quantity time, gifts, acts of service, and... I can't remember the last one. The joke is that Ruth refuses to choose between quality and quantity time. She needs both. And because of this, no matter what I do, she's right there beside me. And no matter what she does, she wants me next to her. We do late night runs to the grocery store for milk...together. We ride along for each others weekend errands.

I thought I had her this fall when I told her I was going to the reptile expo in pyuwallup. Nope. She wanted to come. Please don't mistake this for complaining.


Without Ruth, I would be alone, and lonely.










She cooks for me.


All the time. Amazing food! Better then anything I've had a restaurant. (Except that Canadian Pacific Hotel we went to in Whistler on our honeymoon. We both remember every bite of that meal.)


Without Ruth I'd make a lot of sandwiches.









Motivation.

The number one thing she brings to my life is motivation to be the kind of man that God needs me to be.

Happy Birthday Babe!

Catch up

Okay.

I haven't posted since October, that's pretty sad. I had many things to blog about and no time to blog. I have a real knack for turning my free time hobbies like drawing and photography into jobs that generate income. The result is that opportunities to make money while having fun, take priority over merely having fun. More on that later I suppose.

Christmas has come and gone. The fall has come and gone, and I don't even no where to begin.

I know, I'll start with a picture like this...



Photos like this always require some explanation. Our good friends, the Pattersons, threw an ugly sweater party this season. The idea is to wear the worst Christmas sweater you own, eat good food, and drink good drinks. Ruth and I don't even own those sweaters, we borrowed them from the Pattersons.

Funny story: I was at Value Village looking for a pair of ugly sweaters in the mens sweater section. I came across a guy about my age dresses similarly to me, flipping through sweaters in much the same manner as I. When I later ran into him in the ladies sweater department I asked if he too was going to an ugly sweater party. He was. Must be the 'in' thing this year.



In other news, Ruth's parents were by for a visit this fall. In case you don't know what it looks like when the Nelson's all congregate in one one room, I took a picture...



I'm left to watching tv, going online in the office, taking pictures, or asking one of three to shop for a laptop for me. The purpose of the visit wasn't only to ride digital waves together but also renovate the remaining part of the basement. We are the luckiest married people on the planet to have them come do that for us. I'll take more pictures as things progress, but a lot was accomplished. Follow up visit is forthcoming this month I believe.



Besides that, all I have are pictures from are trip home last week. It was a full on white Christmas. I'm not sure it stopped snowing the whole time we were home. It was crazy.



It's refreshing going home sometimes. I don't know anyone else that's get to step outside of the crazy consumerist, material driven environment that this country provides. How pleasant it is listening to CTV news, where they never bait me to watch the 11pm news by telling me that something I'm doing at this very moment could be killing me "tonight at 11 !". There's no coverage of what Britney did for Christmas or what, or how Hillary just dropped 2 points in the popularity contest we call an election.





Peaceful. That's how the Canadian news feels. I know it's so cliche it makes me sick. But that's how it is, they cover international events, they talk about the dollar, they talk about the states a bit, they spend a lot more time on the weather. And none of the anchors seemed to be getting paid by the frequency of their head-cocking, fear-mongering, eyebrow raising. I swear. Everything south of the border is fox news compared to CTV.



And why am I interspersing this rant with random photos of the snow in Salmon Arm? I have no idea. I think it calms me down a little. It really was pretty there.

Here's a few more to calm you all down. I went up to the cemetery to shoot some photos. It got pretty dark though.






Oh look, the symbol of freedom!

Alright, on to the actual day of Christmas. There was a strange abundance of scratch tickets this year. I don't know why? They even made their way into my family.





Nobody won. Well...nobody won big. And then there were the very practical gifts like scarfs and such.





Right. And headslick. Can't complain.

Much of the holidays were a blur, running back and forth between our families. But helps that they're only 2 minutes apart, and it's kinda fun sometimes. It's liking hitting multiple parties all week, and then hitting them all again for leftovers.




I was also helping undertake a project to photograph Lepp families. They were supposed to be put into a booklet for Grandpa at the home to help jog his memory.




Joanne was missing that night so I'm going to photoshop her in later. Dad already took a picture of her standing to right behind the couch. This was a nice picture of Mom and Dad.




Well, that's that I suppose. I can't blog anymore today. I got other stuff to do. This is one of the ventures I've started this month - http://www.roydenspetportraits.com/ That's pretty much what kept me from blogging this fall. This country and it's stupid news and incredible opportunities. I know, I know, Ruth and I are here for a reason.

I'm also cranking trying to get book 2 of my series wrapped up for the publisher. It's been a long year. 2 more books to go!

That's all I got for now. I'll try to update more regularly in 2008. That's my resolution. Blessings to everyone who reads this. Happy New Year!

Excuse me sir...

Um..Marc? Yes you have something on your shirt. Yes, I assumed you know I'm wondering how much it is? Fifteen bucks for that! What a deal! I'll take it!

Those and other ridiculous things could be overheard at this years Northwest Reptile and Exotics Expo. I was in my glory. Ruth is a wonderful wife for coming with me.



I'm afraid I probably fit right in with this crowd. Bald guy in a leather jacket, to whom the pet shop employees often greet with the question, "you look like a guy who needs pinky mice."

No sir, but could please point me towards your flightless fruit flys and several thousand crickets?

With price tags like this, who can afford these gorgeous animals anyways?



But then you see one of these and it's like the price doesn't matter.



Babe, can I keep it? please? I won't let it escape or bite you, I promise. I'll also try not to let it grow to it's full size of eight feet.

I've never been much of a snake enthusiast, but Ruth admitted she was praising God while looking at some of these beautiful creatures.



There were several buckets of 'beardies' (bearded lizards).



I'd like that one please. No, not that one, that one. Yeah the one with the stripes..no, no, no, the other one with the stripes.


Check this out. Just when I thought I could use the argument against Ruth that this is one of the cheaper hobbies I could get into...click on this picture...



See the price tag on the left? A thousand bucks for that hairy little, eight-legged mom spooker. Seems like for a few hundred extra you could go on vacation to the place where that spider lives and smuggle it home in a suitcase. It might be illegal but I'm just saying...

The main reason, of course, that I went to this Expo and the reptile that brought me into the hobby, the chameleons...





We went to Pams Chams booth to see the many different panther chameleons that I find so beautiful. Check out this gorgeous guy...




Both those picture are of the same animal. Notice how he "fires up" when I stick the camera in his face. What an amazing creature. Only further evidence to me that this world was designed by an engineer/artist. This couldn't have possibly been an accident.

Many thanks to my lovely wife for enduring this strange boyhood hobby, and for coming along to the Expo even though she was feeling pretty sick this weekend. And thanks to her also for sharing the house with 'Otto' and all the little "things" he likes to eat. More on that in some other blog post. ;)





See you all next year!