Happy Leap year! And Happy Birthday to my sweet Uncle Claude, a leap year baby, who turns 96(!!) today! He's pictured here at Lake May with his Great-grandaughter Indigo. He's turning 96 but since he's a leap Year baby, he's really only 24!



In honor of Leap Year I turn over a card, The Lovers. That's a sweet card to get today- all about partnerships, seeing eye-to-eye, a fulfilling love. And amazingly enough, that sounds about right. It wasn't always so- I think a card turned over on the last Leap Year would not have give me such a blessing.



I've been with Dan for 30 years, 27 married. We grew up together, faced some tough times, and it wasn't always easy. ummm, that's an understatement. There were some nights I went to bed planning the perfect murder. I'm sure he did, too. There's that old joke, "I've been married 27 years- 2 of them happily..."



But even when all that hating was going on, underneath it all, there was love. It was just getting layers on angry sediment on top of it. And now, in the last year, we have finally had a love resurrection. When I was angry with Dan I always took my problems to other people. After awhile, my friends became more important to me, and I shared less and less of myself with Dan. And he's not a big chatty guy. He got surly and withdrew, I think he was resentful of my diverted attention, but he's not the kind of guy to say it. He just closed off to me.



We started working our way back to each other, I readjusted the way I responded to him. And he started opening up to me. My time-consuming friendships wound up going by the wayside, and I saw how much they had CONSUMED my life. All of a sudden Dan and I were telling each other about our day again, that ease with each other brought us to a firmer union, and we remembered all that love buried in the sediment of our marriage. We were really LIKING each other again- you can love someone but not really LIKE him, we're having fun again. We're really happy again.



So, my point here is: 4 years ago I would have gotten a much gloomier card to represent my marriage- I'm sure it would have pointed out the pain and the problems, but