This Saturday is mine and Steve’s three-month wedding anniversary. When we commented over Thanksgiving that we could go out to dinner in Portland to celebrate the date since we’d be traveling, one of the boys guffawed, teasing us for tracking months, saying three wasn’t much of an accomplishment since most anyone could make a marriage last that long. (Well, except Britney Spears.) But recent events have reminded me that none of us is guaranteed days much less years, so we might as well honor the middling milestones. I’m glad I married a man who shares that same spirit, even if we sometimes struggle to make it happen.

As our first-month anniversary approached, I thought it would be sweet for us to acknowledge our wedding date each month, but I knew if we were going to, we’d need to make a deliberate plan. Both Steve and I are prone to letting the distractions of the day-to-day get the best of our good intentions. Planning something even small and silly would be good for us, help us stay in balance and keep romance present.

I didn’t share the idea with Steve immediately; I figured I’d introduce the plan by way of enacting it the first month. So I looked up traditional annual anniversary gifts. It would be fun, I thought, to celebrate monthly anniversaries by adapting that list, using the same categories but keeping the gifts light-hearted and inexpensive. Year one is paper. For month one, I bought Steve a magazine featuring hikes and getaways in the Blue Ridge mountains, then gave it to him with a card that suggested we could dream about going those places together. He loved the idea but confessed: he’d forgotten the date, himself.

For the second month, I typed a date reminder into his phone one day when he thought I was just checking the time. I should have put one in my own phone too, apparently. He was puzzled when his reminder popped up, trying to recall when he’d entered it. Me? I just flat forgot.

Perhaps the third time’s a charm. We’re trying again, this time having given the event a name: the lunarversary. A month is measured by a lunar cycle, after all, and when months are all you have, that’s what you count. We note babies’ ages by months until they reach a year, so why not newlyweds? Fortunately we have a couple of days to focus on having fun with each other this lunarversary. Year/month three is “leather,” and we’re headed to the famous Portland Saturday craft market. Inspiration, and celebration, await!

In our daily lives, we’re still trying to settle on things like a mutual meal planning routine. It will take time to find our rhythms as a married couple, but that’s part of the pleasure of being together. It matters, this acknowledging the little milestones, celebrating the everyday joys.

It isn’t about accomplishment. It’s about recognizing the gift.

My “Pick of the Season,” the year, a lifetime! With my honey at Powell’s.