The Story and the Ring

So the reason I haven't posted any pictures of the ring or told The Engagement Story yet is that my life is horrendously busy and I haven't had time. But I was granted time off today to go to a wedding of Eric's coworker (wedding #5 of 6 for 2007), and we don't have to leave until after lunch, so I got to sleep in as late as I wanted this morning -- which meant I was wide awake at 8:30 with time to blog. Yuck. But, it's still a significant difference from 4:30...

I had been working on a little graphic presentation of sorts that illustrated The Engagement Story as well as the ring, but something about it just isn't right. It's one thing for me to tell you the story, but illustrations make it maybe just a little too intrusive. So here's the story in word form:

On Saturday, August 11, I had finished my last night of overnight Labor and Delivery shifts, so I slept all day. When I woke up at 5 pm, we went out to dinner as we normally do, opting to try a new restaurant, the Come Back Inn (and yes, we will!). Eric suggested we go to the 9:30 set at the Jazz Factory, but since it was only 6 pm, we had some time to kill, so I suggested ice cream first. Then Eric suggested getting a glass of wine at home. So far, nothing out of the ordinary. Yes, the apartment had been cleaned extensively when I got home Saturday morning, but I thought maybe Eric had just finally realized that our apartment was a disaster area (haha, wishful thinking). Yes, Eric was opening my car door for me, but he often does this -- although that night, he was opening the door EVERY single time I got in.

So we get home, open a bottle of wine, and sit down on the couch. Eric brings up a writing exercise we once undertook in college: We would each write one sentence of a story, then switch, and see where our sentences took us. He asked if I might want to try that again, and I agreed to it. So Eric started off with a nice introduction about two fictional people named Holly and Eric who lived in Louisville. And then I took the pen. We shouldn't forget that I had just finished two weeks of delivering babies, one of which was all over-night shifts, so my brain was completely addled. I derailed that story quicker than you could imagine with a sentence about kittens who drink beer. Eric, always perserverant, brought the tale back on track, and I continued to derail it, until all of a sudden I realized that it was sort of odd that Eric's sentences were so much more on the serious/romantic side than the crazy/silly side. Then I started to get some palpitations. The apartment is clean... He kept opening doors for me... But of course, I had to pee. Dammit. In the bathroom, I kept having palpitations. No, I'm just being silly. There's no way he's going to propose. I was pretty nervous as I walked back into the living room, not sure if I was going to be entering a different scene -- like a dark room with candles or something (no, I wasn't in the bathroom that long) -- but everything looked normal. Whew. Then Eric handed me the journal we were writing in, with his next sentence. "Eric finally thought of his next sentence, and it went like this: And then, without further ado, it happened." I looked up. And then WHAT happened? I was sufficiently nervous and the grammar was sufficiently unusual that I was confused. And I still didn't want to believe it. So I turned to Eric and said, "And then WHAT happened?" And Eric said some sweet things, pulled a ring box out of his pocket, and got down on one knee.

After some tears and me saying "Yes!" we opened a bottle of champagne, grabbed our cell phones, and started calling people with the good news. Then we opened another bottle of champagne for more phone calls. And then, around 11 pm, we invited all our friends out to Proof on Main for celebratory drinks, where I had another three cocktails, the aforementioned Capri Martini.

So that's the story. It's a good one, I must say :)

And here's the ring. This is the best picture I can get -- my crappy camera can't handle the sparkle very well, so I can't really get the stone in focus.

It's pretty sweet :)

We're planning for a May 2009 wedding. Details to come!