real

My husband hasn’t always had a history or giving great gifts. Once I got some bouncy balls and a half eaten bag of candy for Valentines. Another time I got a floppy corduroy Blossom style hat (long after blossom was off the hair) and a large blue unrecognizable stuffed animal or Christmas.
But over the years he has improved in leaps and bounds.
There have been Emerald earrings and concert tickets and the perfect pair of Toms (that I actually ordered myself).
But this year for my birthday he did even better.

When we got back from vacation there was a small brown box sitting inside the door.
I knew what it was because he had already told me. (And my birthday had come and gone almost 2 weeks before).
He had printed out many of my blogs in book form.
I had intended to print or at least save most of them a long time ago and had just never gotten around to doing it. I didn’t know what program to use, how expensive it would be or want to take the time editing.
So I was glad that he had done the leg work for me.
He spent hours trying to edit and correct spelling and put things into some kind of readable order.

So I opened up the box, knowing exactly what was inside, and was still a little silenced when I opened it up.
It was a real book.
With a hard cover and pages and my words inside.
Not some flimsy little copy job from kinkos that I had imagined.
And there were multiple copies.

And I know this isn’t the same as having a publisher pick up your book or seeing it on the shelves at your local Barnes and Noble.

But to me. It was my dream in real life. With pages and bindings and a cute cover design.
Maybe even pushing me to the next step.