Driving out here to Colorado so Jack could attend the Prison Visiting Service Conference, he and I had a lot of fun talking with people in Illinois and Kansas bookstores on the way.

We met up with some dear old friends like Stacie and Bruce (BSR Used Books) and LuAnn (Afterwords) and Hilda (Book Medley) plus met new ones (Anita at Al’s Old Books) and people who came to the events and chatted afterward at the hosting shops. At both talks the conversations turned to dreams, unfulfilled and sometimes unrecognized. We talked about what people want from life, and how they get it, and what they trade for it.

After the second talk,  Jack and I were careening across Kansas at its very interesting speed limit of 75 mph (you kind of have to drive that fast to stay awake on those long, long flat roads) and I asked him, “Do you have any dreams you haven’t fulfilled yet?”

He considered the question, then said, “I would really like to match all my black socks correctly before I die.”

And this just proves what I’ve known for so long: my husband is a good, honest, sweetheart of a man. When Jack works, he works hard; when he plays, he plays well (mostly in D, but also G, C and F) and when he sits, he falls asleep. Like Dumbledore of Harry Potter fame, when my husband looks into the Mirror of Desire, he sees socks: matching black socks.

He turned the tables. “How about you?”

I didn’t have to think about it. “Just once, I would like to use a tube of chap stick all the way to the bottom. I don’t know anyone who’s done that.”

Sure, we all have big dreams, grand schemes, great hopes and aspirations. But we also have the little heartbeat stuff that keeps us getting out of bed every day. And makes the little moments sweet and fun while we’re working on the big stuff.