Dress My Family Up in Corduroy

In honor of today being my husband's first day at a new job, I am going to share a memory of a time he made me laugh so hard I nearly peed my pants.

To tell the story properly, I must first share that when I was 26 my father passed away unexpectedly on Valentines Day- just a few short days before Hans had planned to ask him for permission to marry me. Hans loved my father nearly as much as I did. At his wake we knelt together to say our final goodbyes and Hans held his hand and asked him then for permission to marry me.

I kept many random things from my father's apartment - some of his crazier sheets from the 70s, his giant magnifying glass, his barracuda jacket and some various articles of clothing including a "sport coats" as my mother would call them - one of them corduroy.

Hans kept my father's computer tower - as an IT professional, he could imagine no item in the world bringing him closer to my father than his hard drive.

Anyway, months later I was given 2 tickets to see Wicked, one of my very favorite musicals. I was very excited to take Hans with me because he doesn't necessarily share my love of musical theater, but knew he would really enjoy this one. I took a shower and was getting myself ready when Hans called to me from the other room-
"Don't come in here until I tell you to."

Usually when he says something like this it is because he is doing something like putting a pair of my underwear on the dog, or clipping barrettes in the cat's hair so I just continued brushing my teeth.

"Ok- I am ready!" he hollered.

I walked into my bedroom and saw Hans beaming with pride wearing a corduroy tuxedo- a pair of his own tan corduroy pants and my dad's burnt orange corduroy sport coat. It was adorable and heart warming- but a complete train wreck.

"Look I am wearing your Dad's jacket. I want to be fancy when we go to the play."

Of course I lovingly and cautiously thanked him for the gesture and got him to put on something less ridiculous. I was reminded of this story today when he was running around trying to find his black belt because he was planning on wearing his black shoes (a technicality that would have been lost on him when we first met and he wore tapered ankle jeans) and i thought, my how far we have come!

XOXO Hans- Have a great first day!