9: Todd Ramirez – The Amazing Husband

It is funny to imagine how other people see someone close to you in your life. I think people who meet Todd either think he is extra sweet, really quiet, or kind of grumpyâ€¦

They are right. He can be any of those things. But I wish everyone had the privilege of seeing all the things I get to see about him every day. What I love most are the ways in which he is the opposite of me. It inspires me to want to be a better person.

First of all, he is extremely observant. He notices everything. Sounds like a boring one to start with but tuning in on every detail allows him to be incredibly thoughtful. It blows my mind sometimes. Iâ€™ll go upstairs to take a shower and when I come down my car has been washed or the laundry finished. Not to surprise or impress me. He just he saw what needed to be done and did it. Making me happy is just an added bonus. I recently stood in our driveway right in front of my car talking with the neighbor for a half an hour about how badly it needed to be washed before I looked back and noticed Todd had already done it.

Aside from getting things done he lives by the principle that â€œif a thing is worth doing it is worth doing wellâ€. Last week I asked him to put a couple 4x6s under my pull up bar stand to raise it a few inches. He could not stand to do less than an excellant job: ToddsStand He carpeted the 4x6s to protect the floor, fastened it with brackets to keep it from sliding, and put white cloth under each bracket to keep from scratching the paint on the original base. This comes so naturally to Todd that he doesnâ€™t realize how amazing it is to people like me who would have just set boards under it.

He thinks like that all the time. Last year a contractor that did our plumbing and Todd didnâ€™t like the way it was organized. Youâ€™ll notice in the mess on the left that the hot and cold water all run through blue pipes and can only be shut off all at once.

	BEFORE	AFTER

Todd had never done any plumbing before. He just saw a picture like that on the internet and wanted it that way so he did it. With all of his talent for building things you would think it was his job. But no. He is technical support for a software company specializing in RSS feed aggregation. This is the perfect job for someone who loves to keep up with the latest gadgets and technologies. He works with his companyâ€™s software by subscribing to sites like engadget.com and watching their feeds.

I benefit hugely from Toddâ€™s love of the technology. For example, I can now manage what music from our data store plays in what area of our house from my iPhone. He also found me an app that can scan the bar codes of a food and automatically log it in my nutrition tracker. Yeah, just with my phone. How does it DO that?

Just about every day at work, usually when I am frustrated about something, Todd will chat me with a picture of some adorable fennec fox or red panda or whatever he finds to make me smile. People must think he is a major cat lover (we have three).

But in reality he loves all animals, dogs, cats, fish, and wild animals in particular. And they love him too. I think if he went out in the forest by himself animals would just gather around him like they do in cartoons. He has an uncanny ability to spot wild animals in the mountains. He can be driving on I-70 at 75 mph at night and spot an owl in a tree on the mountain side when heâ€™s not even really looking. It is unbelievable.

Sometimes heâ€™ll call me and tell me to look out the window at a particularly nice sunrise. He isnâ€™t trying to be a romantic, he just likes scenery. He isnâ€™t thinking â€œI will romance her with a sunriseâ€ he is just thinking â€œI wish Karen could see thisâ€. Either that or â€œI wish I had my cameraâ€. He is getting really good with the photography.