what a woman wants.

You'll never guess what Mr. Gardner got me for Mother's Day.

I'll give you a hint...it's shiny and expensive, and I've wanted one for a very long time.

A diamond?

Not that expensive.

Give up?

Here it is.

Ohhhh so shiny...

What's that? It's not Mother's Day yet? Oh, right. I guess this would be a good time to explain how Mr. Gardner and I give gifts to one another.

When the day of gifting (i.e. Birthday, Christmas, Mother's/Father's day) is drawing near the gifter asks the giftee what they want. Frequently this occurs when the giftee is stopped dead in his or her tracks by an object they desire on a shopping outing. The item is then usually bought on the spot and all possible guesswork and returns are avoided. I know, I know, we are so romantic...

In this case, we were at Costco, and I, the giftee, was stopped by the display of beautiful Kitchenaid mixers (I always pause by them and touch the boxes and look at Mr. Gardner and wistfully say, "I should get one of these sometime" to which he agrees and then we continue on our way to buy our diapers and 4 gallons of milk). But on this day I was also stopped by the fact that our Costco coupon book had a coupon for $40 off a Kitchenaid mixer (this was up from $30 off at Christmas). Plus it came with 4 little prep bowls and a kitchen timer (which my husband and friends insist I need to stop burning things). Oh, and did I mention they also had a special mail-in offer for a FREE slicer/shredding attachment if said mixer was purchased before the end of May?

It was tempting, to say the least.

Now you must understand that I am notoriously cheap. It is hard for me to spend money, unless I am buying useless clearance items. I'm working on this. My husband helps me. He loves to spend money and he's good at it. He doesn't buy cheap crap just because it's cheap. When he buys things he buys them because he likes them and he buys high-quality.

That's how he got me : )

Anywhoooo....

This time, instead of walking away with me he said, "I think you should get it."

And so I did.

I vacillated on the color, I liked the silver, but also liked the classic white. Mr. Gardner helped with that as well. He said I could get anything I wanted as long as it was the silver one.

I love that man.

I couldn't help but think of the movie Father of the Bride when the bride almost calls off the wedding because her poor husband-to-be buys her a blender, not knowing that he has unwittingly condemned her to a life of repressive domesticity, and stripped her of all feminist dignity.

Not me, baby. Bring on the kitchen appliances!