Today, my wife and I are celebrating 20 years of marriage and are not doing anything special about it! Our children, we love them, make trips / going away difficult, and ditching them for a night, problematic. We will probably just leave them off to do their own things this evening (ie. video games) and at least have a quiet dinner or something together and then plan a night out once the school year is over. It's important to focus of course on "us", but still, even with kids aged 14 and 11, a lot of time and effort is directed their way first. Definitely a different time than before kids, but we were smart to enjoy a few years of just the two of us, and we were on the younger side (married when I was 24, she was 22, both just really finished our schooling, me getting through the CPA exams, her teacher's college). Regardless, there are trying times, and times it's been tough being on the same page with the kids, but we get through and work things out, sometimes a bit louder than others - lol, but we end up stronger for it.
I love my children, but definitely seeing the end of the tunnel and not totally upset about it. They may always be our children, but that self-sufficiency is definitely looking like something I am not sad to have happen for them, and see them succeed on their own...even if they aren't looking forward to the "own their own" part the same way.
Now, let's tie back to the hobby...my wife doesn't participate in the hobby, but is fine with me doing whatever I like with it. She knows I won't spend big dollars on it, and that' sit's fun to me, so she's good about it. Another benefit to the kids (eventually) growing up, is I will have more of the basement to decorate with my collection!
How I do that is, in part, trades at TCDB, including this one with refmichel.
I picked up some Toronto cards, a few inserts of the Bruins persuasion (they fit my collection so staying with me, though others in the trade will make their way to local collector/friend Jeff.
These help on the insert sets for the 2025-26 Timmies set, so big thumbs up there. Very cool and keeps me closing in on some of the insert sets....hope I can keep it up before I get too far removed from the set and start focusing on next year!