Some husbands lavish sparkly tokens of love and appreciation upon their wives. They take them on exotic, romantic trips. They spoil them with housekeepers and handymen.

Bryan buys me no jewels (I bought my own wedding ring months after our wedding), takes me to Philmont Scout Ranch on vacation, and he wed the only housekeeper and handy(w0)man we’ll ever have. And for this I am *mostly grateful.

As I write this, I am reminded of a talk Elder Richard G. Scott gave in General Conference a few years ago. He spoke of two occasions when he wanted to buy his wife something a little extravagant–a dress when they were newly married and a fur coat a little later on. On each occasion, his wife taught him a lesson that enriched their marriage and benefited their family: First was the principle of “we cannot afford it,” and second was “we don’t need it.”

I truly appreciate that I don’t have to worry about BT blowing money on frivolities. If he ever suggested that he wanted to buy me a fur coat, I’d freak out and suspect that he has a brain tumor. One specific thing I love is that on our thrifty, not-so-exotic, and even less-so-romantic adventures, he scours the landscape for heart-shaped rocks. It’s a fun tradition, and I hope that my kids will associate our collection of heart rocks with joyful provident living and creative expressions of affection. Being cheap doesn’t have to be boring or loveless.

*Now, for the rest of the story: Sometimes I’ll read a cheery blog about someone’s perfect life, and I’ll come away feeling like crap because I know that I will never be the kind of wife/mother/person that will have things pulled together enough to enjoy perfect bliss. And because I don’t want this blog to be that blog for anyone, I freely admit that dear BT’s uber frugality sometimes feels like he’s subliminally saying “You are worthless” or “If you were a better wife, I might actually want to take you on a romantic, exotic vacation.” True fact. I really do think these things, and sometimes I really do believe these things.  But when I hit rock bottom, I can usually work through the destructive voices in my head in a rational manner. And when that doesn’t work, I go buy myself a nice skein of yarn and say, “Hey, BT. Yeah, you, the cheapskate over there in the free, circa 1985 t-shirt and $8 Walmart jeans. Look what you bought me today.” And then I blow him a big kiss, I feel much better, he has no idea where the heck all that came from, and we go about our mostly blissful lives.

I am blessed. (And I have a lot of yarn).