Here's to my spousal unit!

This weekend I had a doll show, (it went well in some aspects, and less-than-stellar in others) and while I was gone, Phil had people in to see the house.

When we have a showing, we get kind of militant with the white glove thing, because why list a house if you're not going to show it at its personal best?  But I was gone, and while Phil is very dedicated--sweeping and straightening and all--he is not quite as, well, perhaps manic would fit--as I am.  I turn the towels around so the tags don't show.  Shine the faucets.  That kind of thing.  My inner control freak worried the whole time I was up north, with all that crucial stuff possibly undone!

But Phil went above and beyond.  Not only did he scoop the cat's poo-palace, he HGTV'd the bed.  Seriously.  With the throw thrown and everything.  I think I will marry him all over again.

We have bought and sold a respectable number of houses, he and I...and now that we're launching as partners into housing for others, we'll buy and sell a considerable number more.  I've missed our common career thread, the shop-talk after a day of same-but-different jobs on the Air Force Training podium.  With realty, we already know our strengths and weaknesses, how to work together, and we LOVE shopping for houses.  What's not to love?  Okay, yeah, there's paperwork...but I confess some of it is kinda cool, in a sort of obsessive hide-the-tags way.

This weekend  I got to take pictures of Phil all dressed up in a suit for business cards, and I wanted to share my favorite.  It was fun messing with the backdrop, making him turn this way and that while I fiddled with lighting. 
The cat goosed him a few times from behind the backdrop, so I got some involuntary smiles--all that Air Force training is hard to overcome.  

He's got more lines and gray than he had when we met twenty years ago, 

and every bit of it is dear to me.