Financial Journey
(featured column)

A Walk Down Memory Lane

by Karen Kuebler 

When I was thinking about what I wanted to write for this article, I decided to recall some of our fun memories and dates to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries and bring back happy times. Many of my favorite memories were cost effective, and I know I’ll probably forget several while I’m writing this article.  More...

This has been a challenging time for me emotionally. My birthday was in March and Bob’s and my anniversary is next week, April 1st. When we planned to get married on that day, he said "Well, look at it this way. I’ll never forget our anniversary!" He always saw the humor in situations.

·       The week before we were married, Bob had a bouquet of red roses (our favorite) sent to my Mom and wrote a note "Thank you for the gift of your daughter."  You can imagine how much that meant to my Mom and needless to say, she was in love with her new son-in-law.

·       Our wedding was simple and we were married in my parent’s home. Besides marrying the love of my life, I have a special memory that occurred when we left for our honeymoon. We drove along the coast of California and started in Monterey/Carmel and finished in San Diego. My Mom packed some of the leftovers from the buffet. When we were sitting on the rocks by the beach we had little chipmunks all around, and the memory that brings a smile to my face is the little chipmunks holding green onions, radishes, celery, carrots, etc. and nibbling away. I have a picture of one eating a green onion and it is the cutest picture! We probably shouldn’t have been feeding them to begin with, so let’s forget that error in judgment.

·       A couple of years after we were married, Bob planned a surprise day for my birthday. He blindfolded me and drove me to all of our favorite spots that we had gone to when we were dating. He set up our camera and took pictures of us. That was one of my most memorable birthdays. We spent the whole day retracing places we had been hiking, having picnics, etc. We used to love walking around Stanford University and we found a little park out of the way there. One of our first dates we picked up some KFC and ate at a picnic table. I was sitting across from Bob and took a bite of corn on the cob and it squirted across at him in his eye. It was so cute the way he winked at me. We had to go to KFC and relive that picnic! That was such a fun birthday.

·       One of our anniversary celebrations was necessarily cost effective. I fixed a nice dinner at home and we limited our gifts to $5 or $10 each. The special memory of that day was the presentation of the gift from Bob. He made a treasure hunt out of it and hid notes all over the house. I probably spent over an hour having so much fun finding the gift. He had such a cute sense of humor, so I had more fun with the notes he wrote and the way he set up the treasure hunt. I honestly can’t remember what the gift was because the gift was in the experience of finding it.

·       That same year I made a creative gift that didn’t cost very much, but Bob loved it so much that it is still hanging in the garage. Bob loved candy bars. I took a cardboard box and opened it flat and wrote the following, which included candy bars attached. I’ll mark the candy bars with apostrophes:

To My Sweetheart

My life was absolutely "Zero" until I met you.

I felt like I hit "Payday" the day you walked into my life!

Your pick-up line was absolutely "Nutrageous"

But I felt like a little girl all "Butterfinger’s"

And ga-ga "Goo Goo" over you!

Together our lives became a beautiful "Symphony"

Like 2 "Doves" together forever.

I love you!

He actually did get 2 Dove bars side by side. So Bob carefully removed the candy (of course he ate it!) and then retaped the wrappers back on the poster.

·       In the town where we currently live, there is a beautiful mountain with a great hiking trail. March and April are great months for hiking this trail because the snow is usually gone but it isn’t hot yet. One anniversary years ago we decided to hike before we went out to dinner. That way we felt justified eating the calories! Since I was a little girl, I’ve always loved and collected rocks. I kept picking up pretty rocks as we walked up the mountain. I probably put some in my pockets, but I remember Bob’s pockets were really loaded down. He commented "Why didn’t you pick the rocks up on the way down instead of the way up?" It might not seem funny to others, but it had me cracking up. Besides the rocks would have been different because the trail goes around in a loop. After Bob passed away, I was going through some things in the garage and found a bag of the most beautiful rocks that I had collected. I don’t know if they were all from that particular hike, but I was so grateful Bob saved them. I found a pretty bowl and made a table fountain with little bamboo shoots to set it off. The rocks are beautiful and what wonderful memories it brings back when I turn the fountain on, or just look at the pretty and contrasting rocks.

Over 31 years we shared so many wonderful times. I could fill a book of our memories. I thought it would be fun to share a few and remember some good times. It does help me to recall all of the fun times as our anniversary approaches. I hope you have enjoyed reading some of our special moments together, and don’t forget to spend each day making wonderful memories of your own.

*  *  *

Copyright © 2010 by Karen Kuebler. All rights reserved.