I’m blessed to have a husband who is thoughtful, kind-hearted, generous and observant in ways that belie the gruff masculine Southern man he is on the outside. The list is so much longer than this, but here are a few of the things I love about him.

1. He puts a fluffy towel on the edge of the tub for me.
2. His eyes change color between blue and gray and green depending on his mood.
3. He’s got the world’s most charming dirty grin.
4. He remembers — anniversaries, milestones in our marriage, even things I’ve said.
5. We go to the bookstore on Valentine’s Day. (Does he know me, or what?!)
6. If he sees that I’m out of something, he replaces it.
7. If he sees that I need something done for me, he does it. He’s washed pantyhose, and you have no idea how much my heart melted when I saw that.
8. He sometimes will sleep with a pillow over his forehead because he likes a cool dark bedroom and I like a slightly less cool, dimly lit bedroom.
9. He adjusts the fan so it blows on his side of the bed but not mine.
10. He would rather that I do my night owl typing on my laptop in bed beside him, even if I’m a rustling, key-tapping nuisance, than for me to sit downstairs away from him.
11. He changed his work schedule so that his three days off are during the week, to make himself available for our kids after school while I’m still at work. (My mom’s with them the other two weekday afternoons.)
12. We have lunch together all three weekdays, too.
13. He stops by my office to see me at my office on his way home from work.
14. He totally gets my jokes.
15. He makes two Valentine’s dates each year — a family one with our two daughters and my Mom, and a dinner date with me.
16. He tolerates our two cats, out of love for me. This includes the 12-pound tomcat who likes to climb up his back, purring and flexing his claws, and perch like a parrot on his shoulder while he’s putting on his shoes before work each morning.
17. He drives my mother to her doctor’s appointments.
18. Ever since I put down my spatula at the last of my mother’s cooking criticisms, he has been the cook in the family. Grocery shopper, too.
19. He makes the most awesome French toast breakfast on Valentine’s Day.
20. Even though he likes spaghetti with meatballs best, he usually buys the sauce with ground meat already in it because that’s what I like better.
21. He remembers what I was wearing the first day we met.
22. He notices small things about me, like the fact I will usually drink three glasses of tea during a meal, that I don’t like it when someone tucks in a tag that’s sticking up in the back of my shirt, or if I’m wearing the perfume he got for me.
23. The folks at Kay Jewelers know him by name.
24. He kisses me goodbye every morning.
25. He doesn’t forget to ask me if I need anything, if he goes to the store.
26. He take the girls to Wal-Mart or Target for an hour or two if I’m sick or busy working from home.
27. He is totally sentimental. He keeps a tattered Christmas ornament his little brother gave him many years ago.
28. He calls his family members on their birthdays.
29. On our anniversary, I wake up with flowers beside me on the bed.
30. When we lived in Oxford, Miss., and I worked at Ole Miss, I often parked behind a man who had a Promise Keepers* bumper sticker on his truck’s bumper. He was a good man too, but I smiled whenever I noticed it … because I would always think, “My husband doesn’t need a bumper sticker. His actions show me every day what a good man he is.”

Are you sighing like I am?

* Nothing against Promise Keepers. I’m just grateful my husband is who he is, all on his own.

Technorati Tags: why I love my husband, romance