Today is my husband's birthday! YAY! He's twenty-six years old today!

Eric is a very difficult man to shop for. You can't buy him clothing because he's a big guy, and he's pretty hard to fit. He loves to read, but at the moment is only into obscure computer programming books or Lovecraft collections (of which he owns most, if not all). He's into computers, but you can't buy him software that most people would like; he prefers open source stuff, anyway. Music would be good, but his musical tastes are almost as difficult to suit as my own.

I ended up getting him a used Sega Genesis. It is just the kind of thing he loves: old and electronic. I should mention that he is a collector of antique computers. Commodores, Trash 80's, old Apples...you name it, he drools over it. According to him, there's no such thing as obsolescence, only uncreative thinkers. An old game console seemed like a good idea.

And it would have been, if it hadn't been broken. Oh, well. He's getting it exchanged for a good one tonight.

Tonight is choir practice for our church. Eric and I joined largely to give us an unavoidable reason not to skip church on Sunday mornings, which we'd been doing far too often since we moved away from our beloved church in West Virginia. I enjoy singing in this choir, but it can be infuriating, too; this group takes the word "amateur" to new heights. I try so hard not to be critical; I know that they're all doing it for the glory of God and not for music critics. Still, when everyone around me has a different idea of what each note should be, it can be challenging. Eric shakes it off much more easily than I do. Maybe that's because there are fewer male voices with which to battle. Ugh! God, give me patience... It's the virtue for which I struggle most frequently.