Happy birthday to Melanie!

My wife is awesome. Have I told you this? It's true-she's awesome. How awesome is she? Let me count the ways:

1. She is a great mother. She always gets up in the middle of the night to comfort Hendrik, allowing me to get my VERY necessary beauty sleep.
2. She is an exceptional cook. Part of her being a great cook is her ability to take the "hard truth" about some of the things I don't like, which means she doesn't make that same meal in the future, which would mean I would pretend to like it again. I love her homemade pizza the most. She also tries new recipes regularly, which is great.
3. She is a diligent employee. Melanie's work situation isn't as good as it once was, with a lot of political battles with the higher-ups leading to discontent and other various dramatic situations. However, she plugs away, always making sure her work gets done, even if it means going to bed at 3:45 AM to get up the next morning at 5:30. Not really sure how she does it, actually. She will get promoted to BFO this year, pending the higher-ups getting their act together and finally putting the paperwork through. (Note: BFO stands for "Budget Fiscal Officer", not "Best Friend of the Organization", which is what it should be) If I ever become unemployable, which gets more and more likely with each day, she could easily carry the financial burden of our family, especially with my expensive habits like Laffy Taffy. As it stands right now, she makes more than double!
4. She is super attractive. People walk up to her all the time and ask, "Are you a supermodel? And why are you with this schmuck (pointing to me)?" To which she answers, "Yes, and he's my slave."
5. She is a great listener. I think. I just assume she's listening to my long, drawn-out soliloquies.
6. She makes up for my lack of _______. When we meet a nice couple, I usually say things that make the couple hate us, but then she cleans up the mess with her dynamic personality and we're all BFFs after that.
7. She's selfless. Mel never worries about her own comfort, just that everybody else is happy. She organized this fundraiser for MS and was able to raise over 5K this year, after around 3K last year.
8. She's very intelligent. She's only made one wrong decision, although it was a big one.
9. She's faithful. Most Sunday mornings involve a certain amount of kicking and screaming, but never from her.
10. She's athletic. Once, she beat me in a game of H-O-R-S-E, as well as in bowling. She can also kick my trash in any foot race longer than 10 ft.
11. She allows me to watch all sorts of sports. As long as her Nook is fully charged, she can sit through 10 hours of football next to me.
12. She is awesome at folding laundry. As much as I've tried to replicate her garment-folding methods, they still end up bulky and tilty. She folds them as if they were going on the shelf in the Gap.
13. She is the least judgmental person I have ever met. When I told her I murdered 23 people when I was in college, she just said, "We can work on that!"
14. She's always game for whatever. I drag her on all my little expeditions and she takes it like a champ, even if it involves camping in the mud.
15. She's a great writer. Just 3 years ago, she wrote a blog post!
16. She hates scary movies and all of that kind of trash. I also hate that trash, so we just stay away.
17. She doesn't spend hardly any money on clothes. We'll go shopping for her, and we'll end up spending more money on me than her. Most people reading this would assume it's because I'm such a cheapskate, but I swear it's not the case. She's very picky about what she buys, and never buys stuff that just sits in the closet.
18. She's hilarious. Her humor is very subtle but clever. Unless she's making fun of me, then it's pretty obvious and low-brow.
19. She doesn't follow the crowd. She likes what she likes, but not because someone told her to like it. She even likes the movie "No Reservations", which NOBODY likes.
20. She's sensitive, but not weepy. She's very stingy about her tears, she won't give them to just anybody.
21. She's selfless. She's not happy unless everybody else is happy. The past 2 years, she's put together a fundraiser for Multiple Sclerosis (MS), as her good work friend Theresa has it. She spends months getting companies to donate items for her auction, including some Red Sox items that are signed by the players. This year, she even got David Ortiz to sign a game-worn jersey for the auction. Last year I believe she raised somewhere around $3,500 and this year it was something north of $5,000. I'm very proud of her generosity.

I wrote 21 items because it's her 21st birthday. So everybody wish Mel a happy 20th and let's hope the next 21 years are as productive as the first!