Happy Birthday Sweet-E!

As promised here is a special birthday blog for Eric, my Sweet-E. Happy Birthday Eric! Better late than never, but I actually celebrated with him that day/weekend so I think I am good.

I love Eric! I love him for lots of reasons but a short list is because he loves God, he loves me and he loves the Cardinals... in that order. I am so blessed to be dating a man who has such a strong faith in God, because it just strengthens my faith that much more. One of my favorite things is that every night before we go to bed and say good night, when we are talking on the phone, Eric and I each pray. It is wonderful to share these things with my partner.

There were several specific instances early in our relationship when I knew Eric was special. The first was in an email, his 9-point answer to what he learned from his divorce pretty much knocked me off my feet. Before we actually met... we talked on the phone for 5 or 6 hours or something ridiculous like that. You kind of have something special when you can talk that long. The next is the night of our first date/face to face meeting. We were meeting at Granite City restaurant in East Peoria. I had gotten off at the right exit, but didn't see the restaurant right away. I decided to pull into the Wal-Mart parking lot and call Eric so he could give me directions. When he picked up the phone and asked where I was, before I could answer he said "Never mind, you are at Wal-Mart", and he was just a few cars behind me and saw my car. I can't describe it, but right then I had an idea that this guy just might be my Prince Charming.

I love Eric because he "gets me" like nobody else I know, and he seems to truly love and appreciate even the wackiest of my quirks. He lets me pick up and straighten because he knows that is what I do, but always seems to have just the right way of getting me to sit still and relax without ever really saying "Sit still and relax". A long distance relationship can be kind of crazy at times, I get overwhelmed and sometimes cry for no reason. This doesn't freak Eric out at all, he just helps me cry, encourages me to just "get it all out". No one has ever done that for me before... it takes a lot of patience and it takes a lot of love... Eric has plenty of both.

I love Eric's little quirks too. He is so literal, and is quick to point out to me that it would be much safer if I just "stepped into the shower" instead of "jumped into the shower". Arrgghh... it drives me crazy, but darn it, I love it too. The best was this past weekend when I was quick to catch him saying he was going to "jump into the shower". I love that he wears his floppy hat to the Cardinals games, and added another pin to the hat for our last game because it had always been a winning hat before, but had lost its mojo at our games in April... the extra pin did the trick. The floppy hat is cute... I like that it isn't conventional.

I love that Eric and I enjoy a lot of the same things, in particular watching baseball and drinking good beer. One of the reasons the River Bandit games have become so special to us is because we can do both there... they serve one of our favorite beers, the Uncommon Stout from Bent River. He also introduced me to one of my new favorites, Whitey's ice cream, a QC favorite. I am hooked, no trip to the QC is complete for me without my Whitey's fix. Eric also just does really sweet things for me, beside the "Eric's Girlfriend" tiara and sash, he rode the Carousel at the children's museum with me last weekend... probably not really his thing, but he knew I wanted to ride it with him... I like that. He also always makes the coffee when we visit each other... it is usually much better than mine.

Eric just knows how to love me, and he knows how to take care of me, and he is very good at letting me know how special I am to him, and how well I take care of him. He also knows how to make me laugh... sometimes it is a look, sometimes he will say something, or sometimes he will just start tickling. I try to tickle back, but he really isn't that ticklish, but I think he ends up laughing anyway because I keep trying to tickle him anyway... I am stubborn that way.

So I guess I will stop now... I could go on forever, but y'all probably think I am being sickeningly sweet already. Maybe I am, but I really don't care... I am so in love with my Sweet-E I just can't stop myself.

Happy Birthday, Eric! I hope to celebrate many more with you!