Hi Internet! I’m not going to make any excuses about how I have been so busy blah blah blah, because they don’t exist. I just didn’t feel like writing! Work was work and life was life and none of it felt particularly blog-worthy (although there were a few blog-worthy moments that I will endeavor to capture now that I am reappearing) so I decided not to worry about it.

But guys, something totally blog-worthy happened this past weekend! Jon and I got engaged! YAY!

This wasn’t particularly a surprise–we’d picked out the ring together in February and Jon was keeping me mostly-updated on the ring’s progress in terms of its being made and returned to him. Due to timeline issues (his not getting the ring back as quickly as he would have liked, my working last weekend for the Durham Art Walk, and both of our parents going out of the country this past Saturday) I was 99% certain it would happen sometime on Saturday. Lo and behold, I was correct!

I don’t have any pictures of the actual proposal because that’s sort of weird (I once witnessed a proposal at Duke Gardens–not like, on purpose, I was just there when it happened–and there was a photographer that the groom had clearly hired to snap pictures of the scene, said photographer was skulking around in the bushes like a stalker and it was extremely off-putting). In lieu of photos I’ll try to set the scene:

Jon commanded that I be up and ready to enter the world (hair, makeup, Spanx), at 9:00am on Saturday morning. Usually I am at the gym then so I said “okie dokie” and rearranged my schedule. I came downstairs to find Jon cooking up a breakfast storm. He’d set up our little patio with a table cloth so we could eat outside (weird mid-April cold snap be damned). Mid-way through my eating he was all “I’m going to get a napkin!” Because I am an over-analyzer I initially thought “Oh he’s totally going to go get the ring” and then I thought “No that would be too obvious he’s just going to get a napkin.” But, nope, he got the ring guys (In case you can’t tell I don’t really like surprises and I am also incredibly hard to surprise–he claims he proposed at breakfast to throw me off but, nope, I don’t miss anything). Actually, he got a little Russian Nesting Doll that he had custom-ordered and then hand-painted with amazing and awesome detail:

 

 

 

 

LOOK HOW TALENTED MY SPOUSAL CANDIDATE* IS!!! He paints Warhammer 40K and other small figures for fun and he’s in dental hygiene school so I shouldn’t be surprised by how good his detail work is but I still am because he’s the best. These pictures are of the individual pieces of the Nesting Doll–obviously they were assembled when he brought it out. The top layer is lots of little pictures of us throughout our relationship, including photos of our families, cut out and then sealed onto an incredibly elaborate background. The middle layer is a black cat, because we have two black cats with whom we are obsessed duh. The bottom layer has Personal Sentimental Message of Significance that I will not share with you and it also had the ring on it (as demonstrated above). How awesome is that guys? Jon is so awesome. Here is another photo:

So uh, I think I took too long analyzing each layer because Jon was all: “Keep opening it more layers!” and then next thing I knew he was on his knee in front of me doing that whole ask the question thing and I think I said “yes” and then “duh” and then I was like “Are you supposed to put this on me? I’ve never done this before.” And then he put the ring on my finger and we were engaged and now my left hand looks like this (what, you thought you weren’t getting any ring shots, even blurry ones taken with my phone? I totally thought I wouldn’t be That Person but you only get engaged once**) :

And a profile shot because it shows off the stone really nicely.

So since we got engaged super early in the morning we were able to call our parents before they went on their trips (not a bad way to kick off their vacations), and then we called a lot of other people, and then we put it on Facebook and got a bazillion messages (oh, social media). That was fun.

What else did we do on our Engagement Saturday? Well when we finally got out of the house around 12:30 we went to Geer Street Garden, in Durham. Though it has been open nearly two years I have never been, but I had a pretty delicious grilled pimento cheese sandwich. Then, because that wasn’t enough dairy for me, we went to The Parlour’s new brick-and-mortar store on Market Street (HOORAY SO GLAD THEY HAVE A STORE) where I deviated from my normal Salted Butter Caramel and tried their Ginger and Dulce de Leche ice cream which was so unbelievably amazing I can hardly stand it. There was some sort of bourbon and crawfish festival happening in the plaza outside of The Parlour but we did not go because lines, lines, lines, although we did hear some off-brand faux-Second Line Band New Orleans-y music. Saturday was beautiful, sunny and in the 60s, and so naturally we decided to spend the rest of it indoors at the Carolina Theatre’s Evolution of the Groovy Movie film festival. We saw Little Shop of Horrors (with the original director’s ending where everyone dies at the end and can we also please have a moment of silence for the brilliant Howard Ashman) and we also saw Weird Science (which I had never seen before–I know). When the movies were over we wandered over to Fullsteam for a bit to have drinks with some friends who were over there. And then we went home, ordered Thai take-out, and watched The Borgias and the first episode of the new SyFy show Defiance (fun and silly). So, you know, basically it was an awesome day.

And now I am engaged and that’s my little engagement story! They don’t tell you this in Life School guys, but the proposal moment goes by really fast–although that just could be because my brain got fuzzy when I saw the Russian Nesting Doll because despite expecting the proposal I had feelings (those are all the sentiments to which I am admitting). I’m going to try to have this not be a wedding blog for the next year or so but no promises, you know? I’m a planner (and I do a lot of event planning for a living) and I love talking about plans and getting married is exciting!

Anyways, at least the next few posts won’t be wedding-related. I have some fun Game of Thrones photos to share, and maybe I’ll start posting about my Triangle adventures again, who knows? Just wanted to share this little life event with y’all on the Great Wide Internet!

*Jon and I don’t really like the term “fiance.” I once saw someone jokingly spell the word “feyonce” on a wedding blog site and that made me laugh, so sometimes I use that term in writing. However, I read this Offbeat Bride post about other terms to use in lieu of “fiance” so I’m testing a few of them out. Although I totally failed today, y’all, someone with whom I am vaguely acquainted asked me how my boyfriend was and I chirped “fiance!” and then held up my left hand and then I felt ALL THE SHAME because I was *that person* and so I hid my hands beneath the table for the rest of our (blessedly brief) conversation.

**Hopefully!