Perseverance

My husband has taught me a lesson in perseverance. He’s been working on his PhD for seven years now. That’s well over half our marriage; it’s even more than half the time I’ve known him. I’ve asked him why he kept going when his advisor was so difficult. He had earned his Master’s degree, why not take it and move on. I wondered when we moved to Alabama and he kept working nights and even driving the seven hours back to Cincinnati some weekends, why he didn’t give it up. In the middle of our messy move, he went to stay in Ohio so he could drive two hours each way to Cincinnati every week day for a month to squeeze in some more research. Then we moved to Kansas, eleven hours from Cincinnati, and he still didn’t throw in the towel. He spends hours pouring over his research notebooks and plotting data on the computer. Today he got the first part of the pay off—his advisor emailed him. Publish the dissertation. He has to finish writing it up, defend, and he’s done. All the work will have ended in his PhD—he’s going to have his dream come true.

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In celebration of this we went to Steak ‘N Shake. What can I say, we’re poor and we had coupons. ; ) We head up the Interstate (the fast route) and promptly stopped. We were at a near stand still for 45 minutes. Evidently in an effort to improve the interstate they decided to close two of the three lanes on a busy stretch of road. Poor Gabby was starting to get a little fussy. Then I hear Kate say, “Boo!”

Giggle. Fuss.

“Boo!”

Giggle. Fuss.

“Boo! She likes when I do ‘dat.”

Kate took care of the baby and kept her entertained until we got there. Justin's perfect day was preserved, or should I say it persevered?