This summer has been a blur of love. Of course there were some not so idyllic moments, but we had the pleasure of witnessing three of our friends and family–yes THREE sets of dear people to us get married.

Among all of the traveling and celebrating, I realize how lucky I am to have someone that is not only a great plus one and dancer if I do say so myself, but also a teammate and partner. In the summer this teacher lady gets to play house spouse a little bit at least.

My love language in the summer can be so different because I have the opportunity for it to be different. One of my favorite things this summer has been to make lunch for my partner. He is not in the education world so he doesn’t live by the academic year. In the summer, I get to be the one to do the household things that I don’t normally do.

In our house, Shawn’s the chef. I don’t mind being the sous chef once in a while, but if we’re being honest, I’m usually too tired to even help once he gets home from work and I’m home from school. During the school year making his lunch, or breakfast, or really most things to do with food have nothing to do with me.

In the summer I get to be the one getting us set up for the day. I get to be the one that makes us food– breakfast and coffee if I’m awake. That’s maybe 50% of the time, but I do always get up to make a lunch before I send him out the door with a kiss. I also make sure that I’m set up to have dinner and I’ve successfully made about 15 meals for dinner. That may be a record for me.

My absolute favorite thing about being able to do these acts of service that I don’t usually get to do has been attracting the “car fairies.”

I got in the habit of waking up and making sure that I cleaned out my partner’s car everyday while he was in the shower. I LOVE a clean car in the morning so I was happy to surprise him with such.

This meant getting the coffee cup and the lunch box and whatever else like that cleaned up from the day before. Sometimes I would even wipe the chair if there were crumbs or anything. I would get all the recycling and get that out. And then I would just kind of straighten up anything else.

We never really talked about it but one day he said “Oh no I must have upset the car fairies.” That day I had woken up late, so his old coffee cup was there and his water bottles to recycle. The snack wrappers were there… he said that he better remember to leave out a thimble of coffee the next night so they would come back.

I can’t tell you how much that made me laugh. And so we called them the car fairies. And by them, of course, I mean the act of service of making his car neat and clean.

Now this is something he has never asked of me or really even done for himself. Once I started though, I realized and maybe he realized how nice it is to start fresh every day.

Hopefully now going into my new school year, my honey will have realized he liked this so much that he can start to do this for himself– or hopefully he will remember to leave out that thimble of coffee for the car fairies so it can happen in the wee hours in the morning before teacher ladies need to be at school.

I so love this love we have and this partnership. What’s amazing about finding the right person is that you change so many times not just as people but in the roles you play for each other for your daily lives. It all comes together in a different way every year and maybe even everyday.

I find that in this partnership we communicate better and better. We figure out solutions quicker and quicker. And that’s all you can do. No partnership will ever be perfect but it feels damn close to it when you communicate and get past all the little things quickly.

And remember no matter how long you’re together, you have to remember to find the car fairies. Whether it is planning the date night, or getting the laundry on you, or whatever it is for you, if acts of service happen to be your love language, just remember to keep doing them.

I”ve watched a lot of long partnerships break down and it’s because someone forgets to leave the thimble of coffee out for the car fairies and they just never come back.