10 Short Years.....

Today is my...well our...10th Wedding Anniversary.  The picture on the left is not from our wedding, but from the next time we went back to Iowa to visit my family.  My mother thought we needed a wedding cake since we had eloped to Las Vegas for our Justice-of-the-Peace wedding and honeymoon.

Ah.....I had such high hopes back then....high hopes for our 10th Anniversary that is.  I really wanted to be able to take Carolyn on a European vacation and take her to see some of the places I had been while stationed in Germany.  Someday I'll make good on that dream, just not today.

Not having a job hasn't been completely terrible, except for days like today where I have to get slapped in the face with reminders that I have next to no money.  I've got some things lined up to take care of things starting next month, but we didn't get married in September, we got married in August.

About the only thing I have going for me is that the traditional 10th wedding anniversary present is Aluminum or Tin.  Seriously?  I realize back in the day aluminum was über-pricey, but unless I'm getting the Mrs. a soda I cannot think of anything made out of aluminum or tin I'd even consider purchasing.  I guess I could always get a tin cup and go begging on the corner.....

Instead of aluminum or tin I went with paper and plastic.  My wife has been our HackMaster GM for some time now and I thought I'd create a set of monster cards for her.  A couple months ago at the Origins Game Fair she bought this beautiful wooden card holder just for monster cards.  She figured that over time she would fill it with cards she needed for the game.  I thought that by giving her a head-start on the cards she could spend less time filling out monster cards by hand and using her GM prep time for other things.

I had already made a form-fillable monster card sheet based off of Jolly Blackburn's original design.  My cards are a little smaller so as to be printable at a standard card size (if being professionally printed).  This also allows the use of devices (like her wooded card box) made for these sized cards.  Yesterday I printed up a couple hundred cards and cut them out by hand.  When I was done I stuffed them into card sleeves which give them some protection while being used and also allows her to mark on them with a wet erase marker.

The cards pictured here are about half of what I made.  Unfortunately I ran out of card sleeves.  I still plan on making a lot more for her....I'd like to fill up that box.

Now that I think of it I can get her a small portable card box for games on the go....those are made of aluminum I think.....

If you want to help a blogger out, please head over to twitter and drop @PrincessNoin a happy Anniversary.