Now, my husband and I celebrate two anniversaries. The first is the anniversary of when we started dating, and the second is our wedding anniversary. Today was the former.

I have to say there is nothing like waking up and coming downstairs to find a dozen wonderful smelling red roses on your desk. However, there was something else even more special there as well.

There was an incredibly cute teddy bear sitting near the roses. It was wearing light purple pajamas, carrying a pale orange stuffed cat(I love the stuffed animal carrying a stuffed animal motif) under one arm and had a darker purple blanket slung over the other shoulder. It also wore a white headband with a bow. Next to the bear was my card, and on the card it said Clarion Bear --->.

I should explain that I collect what I call holiday teddy bears. I have a Christmas bear, and Easter bear (though I don't celebrate Easter, I still wanted the bear), a birthday bear, an anniversary bear (that one is four feet high and I found on our last wedding anniversary sitting at my desk, paws on keyboard, with a dozen purple roses in its lap) and, my favorite, a Halloween bear. Therefore, the fact that my husband thought to get me a Clarion bear was incredibly sweet. It's even sweeter since he obviously put a lot of thought into which bear to get.

This one is especially appropriate for two reasons. One, I've been packing away stuffed animals to bring for comfort. The Clarion Bear will be coming along, of course, as will Sam, the Halloween Bear. Two, I usually wear nightshirts, and my night shirts are all either light colored or rather frayed, and so not something I'd want to prance around a coed dorm in. So I have been ordering some pajama sets to take to Clarion with me. One pair is actually fairly similar to those the bear is wearing. It's all very cute and sweet.

That's really been the bulk of the excitement. I know I've been lax in writing, but very little of note has occurred. There has been schoolwork, racquetball, Dungeons and Dragons, the usual.

One thing that is out of the ordinary is that my mom will be in Syracuse tonight and tomorrow, which is only an hour and a half drive, so I may go see her. She's down here (yes, down. Plattsburgh, where she lives, is six hours NORTH of here--sixty miles from Montreal) for a wake unfortunately.

This death in the family, however, was something of a blessing. My Aunt Fran had been battling breast cancer for sixteen years, and for the last while had been in a great deal of pain, and her quality of life was extremely low. At least now she isn't suffering. Still, she was a great lady, and she will be missed.

Okay, moving away from the morose and back into the happy, this-is-my-anniversary mode. Actually, moving into the crap-I-have-to-be-in-class-soon mode. I hope I got everything I needed done.

Bye for now, all!