My 30 year old wife

As many of you who know Robin can attest, she never answers her phone. When we were dating, she would always answer on the first ring, but now that we have been married 8 months, I have joined the ranks of the frustrated folks who try in vain to get a hold of her via cell phone. I thought that maybe since she is in Montana for the week and I am staying here in AR, I would finally have more success in reaching her. No such luck.

Robin turned 30 last month. Her birthday sucked, even though she won't admit it (actually, she probably has admitted it to everyone but me). I thought that since I can't talk to her on the phone, and she rarely reads her email these days, I would go to the one place that I know I can reach her....the blogosphere, to belatedly provide a list of 30 great things that I love and/or find adoring about my 30 year old wife. (in random order, as they come to my mind)

1. Her incessant need for compliments. I have a love/hate relationship with this quirk. I love it because she melts when I give her a compliment, even if it is the same one I have said 100 times before. However, she is very stingy with the compliments, she doesn't want me to compliment anyone else. If I say some random little girl has pretty eyes, she will ask "what about my eyes, you don't like them?", or if I say that an old man moves fast for his age, she will respond with "I'm fast too, don't you think?". I have to be careful with compliments now.

2. Her love of candy. I love this because I also have a candy addiction, so we always have a good stash. Our kids might not have a college fund, but at least they wont ever lack for something to satisfy their sweet tooth.

3. Her ability to get people to confide in her. No one has secrets from Robin, she can get anyone to spill their guts out to her. I'm not sure if this is due to her professional training, or she chose her profession because of this ability, but she has definitely got it.

4. Her ability to make friends. I always tell her that everyone she meets thinks that they are now her best friend, even if she doesn't even remember their name 10 minutes later.

5. Her amazing salads. This girl can make a mean salad (except cole slaw salad, that one was kinda gross). Must be all those hours with the barefoot Contessa.

6. Her penchant for singing any song I start to sing. I always try to act like I want to sing it alone, but it makes me laugh. Sometimes I will start to sing a song intentionally, just to make her start singing along. It works every time without fail.

7. Her love of all things entertainment. She loves her people.com, movie trailers website, TMZ. Ask her who the Secretary of State is, and she could care less, but ask her what Jennifer Garners daughter's name is and she will give you her middle name and the name of their dog.

8. Her love of travel. She loves to travel and discover new things. She was just as happy discovering Oklahoma City as she was on our honeymoon to Spain. Wish I would have known this 8 months ago. Could have saved some major cash.

9. Her love of sleep. I have never met a family that likes sleep more than the Bendheims. Robin can easily sleep 12 hours a night and still be tired. Her sister sometimes goes to bed at 7pm. That is a full hour before any of the nightly TV shows have even started! I love that Robin loves sleep because I do too, so I never feel lazy for sleeping in. I would hate it if I was in bed and she was up and showering or doing laundry or whatever. But that has yet to happen. She does all that, but much later in the day, after I have roused her from her slumber.

10. Her love of TV. Again, I love it for selfish reasons, since I also love watching TV. Life would suck if my wife was one of those who thought watching TV was such a waste of time, because it might be, but I love wasting time that way, and thankfully so does my cute wife. (compliment).

So, this is taking much longer than I anticipated. I think I'll do it in 3 segments. It is almost 3am now and I am missing that sleep that I talked about in #9.