Fly Flag, Fly

I may have mentioned one gazillion times how difficult it is to buy gifts for my husband. The guy has everything ... and anything he'd like to have is bought at his convenience. I'm not knocking it or anything; the guy works incredibly hard and deserves to have a few nice things. However, buying gifts for him is nearly impossible because there's rarely anything on his wish list. Case in point: the Friday before Father's Day, a chain saw showed up on our door step. Wouldn't a chain saw be the perfect Father's Day gift? I never knew he needed one (or had no idea which one he even wanted without him picking it out) so he didn't get one for his big day. Missed opportunity.

Instead, I pondered gift ideas for WEEKS. What on Earth does my husband need or want? We have different taste in men's clothing, so I stopped buying those for him years ago. Booze? Overdone. I've given that gift many times before (although he always likes it). He doesn't wear dress clothes to work so the typical Father's Day tie wasn't an option. Gift cards? Eh. Not very personal.

We have (scratch that, had ... I'll get to that) a flag pole at the cabin for the last few years without a flag on it. We flew an American flag for a while, but it was a bit of a pain to put up and take down every weekend. You know, all the "protect the flag" rules. My dad suggested buying a personalized flag for Andi and I thought it was the perfect idea. A few years ago, Andi had a family crest created and mounted on a memory case for my wedding gift so I tracked down the crest and used it on the flag. This sounds like a simple task, but was no easy feat as I emailed Andi's business partner for help (because I couldn't ask Andi for the logo or he might figure out what I was up to) and finally worked with an old printer contact from my work days to source a custom flag company. In the end, Andi's unique flag arrived just before Father's Day and he loved it. I think he was truly surprised by the gift (unless he peeked at the credit card statement beforehand) and it looked great soaring on our lakeshore at the cabin.

Opening Father's Day gifts

Strangely, I even learned quite a bit about flags through the process of ordering one which is completely random and probably useless knowledge to have in my back pocket.

Our flag flew proudly for the next few weeks at the cabin. Cut to last week when Andi received a text message from our cabin landlord letting him know he removed our flag pole and moved it a few doors down to their new cabin's lawn. This is completely in his right as the landlord as he bought the flag pole after all, but I was so bummed to hear the news. Our beautiful flag! We only flew you for two weeks and now you're folded nicely on a shelf in a cupboard! What a bummer.

Honestly, I could've cared less about the flag pole except for the fact that I just bought a kind of expensive flag two weeks ago and now I feel obligated to fly it. Obviously, Andi and I are going to need to buy another flag pole just so we can soar our dang flag. The good thing is, now we can get the flag pole we want -- maybe one which stands off the dock, back in the same spot in the yard as it was before, or mounted on the house somewhere. Now I'm back in the flag research business to secure a new placement for our dear, beloved flag. I'll be an expert before this gift is all said and done!