The Proposal, The Engagement, and the ever after

Part 2: The Proposal

When I was thinking about this on the way in to work this morning I kept coming back to the fact that it took me 43 years to get engaged!  FOURTY THREE YEARS!  I mean, I was the OLD MAID!  I have friends in their late 20's and early 30's and they are worried about thier social lives or maybe they aren't even worried anymore they just think they are forever single and accept it.   I kept thinking, why was I single for so long and then it hit me.  I quit trying.   I quit trying for 10 long years.  I didn't date anyone for 10 years.  Not one single person between Robb and the Guy before Joe.   Oh, there were a couple of guys I went out with but I knew when I was going out with them they meant nothing just like there was a guy or two between the Guy before Joe and Joe that I saw who I knew meant nothing.   The funny thing is, the guy I saw right before Joe meant absolutely nothing to me, he was just a means to forget the Guy who broke my heart but Joe always brings that one up when we argue.  Isn't that typical?   

Anyway,  my suggestion to all you ladies is two fold, take some time for yourselves because God's time is God's time and like I said in my last post, after GB had broken my heart, (No his initials are not GB by the way.  It really just stands for Guy Before) I had quit looking.   Not that men didn't try.  One poor guy at the pet store gave it the college try and even his dog tried but I was just not going there.  Why was Joe different?  Maybe it was because we had a mutual friend.  Maybe it was because as he says, he is just so charming (I doubt it), or maybe it is just because he is the right guy.   For the record, I use to believe in soul mates.  I don't anymore.  Do I believe Joe and and I are soul mates?  No.  We are very different people but we work very well together most of the time and we laugh a lot.  He drives me absolutely insane about 20% of the time and he could make a mad cow insane when he starts a lecture but, he means well and I tell his daughter this whenever she throws her hands up and says "He has told me 12 times how to do ____"  

Okay, about the proposal.   We had been dating about 6 months when Valentines Day 2014 came along and all of a sudden his ex started asking him if I was getting a ring.   I was kind of like...wait a minute, you better not be telling her I am getting a ring before you ask me the question buddy.   I bring that up just to explain what was going on in our lives at the time.   We were living in Lewisville and trying to get my house of 15 years ready to put on the market.   His daughter was about 35 miles away and we wanted to be closer to her.  We saw her every other weekend at that time.  (We have her ever other week now.)   

The Texas Rangers home opener was March 31st 2014 which just so happened to be Joe's birthday.   I had tickets for the game courtesy of my season ticket plan so we met up with some friends for the pre-game tailgate, a first for Joe and we had a great time.  My friend Trish even wrote on the back of his camo Shirt in lipstick "It's my birthday buy me a beer!"   We had amazing seats last season, right behind 3rd base.   We headed to our seats and Rangers Captain was over near our seats about half the game.  Joe kept telling me that he was there to wish him a happy birthday.   There were Phillies fans sitting right behind me and the guy said something to me at one point and Joe told him to apologize to me.  The guy said he was sorry.  It was kind of sweet.   They guys ended up having some sort of male mutual respect for one another after that.  Men are wierd.  Anyway, about the 5th inning Joe leans over and whispers in my ear "I love you, will you marry me."   I looked at him and said "Are you serious?"  and he nodded and I said yes.  That was it.   I always wanted to be proposed to at Rangers Ballpark.  It is absolutely my favorite place on earth but I never wanted that public proposal where you were on the big screen so this was perfect.  Nobody knew but us. It was sweet and special and he picked the perfect day, Opening Day and his birthday and it made me so happy! Plus,  because it was his birthday, he will never forget the day he got stuck with me forever,  either.  :)  

I snapped this photo right after we got engaged!

The Rangers did introduce Bacon on a Stick last season and we did share it, btw.  I put that on there when I first posted the picture because we wanted to wait and tell his daughter in person so I didn't want anyone blowing it.  I added the "HAHA got engaged" later.  

Below was the 2nd game we went to, I think it was a bobble head night....I added this picture just as a bonus so you could see he was actually happy when we got engaged! Sometimes it is hard to tell with him.  He doesn't smile big.

We went to several games last season...Doesn't he look thrilled?

The engagement was a "woosh".  We were moving, selling a house and buying a house.  To say I never stressed about the wedding at all would be about right.  I didn't stress about the wedding at all because I had too many other things to worry about.  I just had faith it would work out.  We fought about just about everything leading up to the wedding but it was about the houses we were looking at not about the wedding.  We were already planning the rest of our life not worrying about the ceremony.  We had my neighbor from Lewisville marry us.  He is a great guy, a former Master Chef contestant, Ben Starr, the pumpkin guy, and we had his best friend and my amazing, wonderful, fabulous friend Trish, and we had his daughter and my family and a group of very special friends and that is really all I cared about.  Oh, and we had hunting for him and baseball for me.   You can check out my wedding photos under my wedding page.   My friend Liz made the cake and cupcakes and I found the perfect toppers and everything was fun and easy at the wedding and after fighting for like 3 weeks months straight leading up to the wedding, it was so nice to have fun and just remember we loved one another again.  

The ever after got real about 2 days after the wedding when we moved into the house and began unpacking and me being forever the "cart before the horse" kind of gal and him being always the "horse before the cart" kind of guy started arguing about how to do things.   We are working it out but let me just say this, marriage at 40 is not like marriage at 20 or even 30.  I know who I am and he knows who he is and we are both incredibly stubborn and worse we have both had more than 20 years of doing everything our own ways and now we are trying to each do everything our way because our way is right but neither one of us do anything the same.  I mean, do you know that we have had serious dicussions about spaghetti sauce? As in, I put a little bit of sugar or stevia in mine to cut the acidity of the tomatoes and he refuses to eat anything with meat and sugar so therefore, we do not have my sauce or if we do, I make my portion in a seperate container with the stevia in it and do not even get me started on chili which I also perfer to have a sweet/spicy combo and I have actually won 3rd place in a chili cookoff with my recipe but which he will not eat.   He on the other hand puts chopped up smoked sausage in his spaghetti and I won't eat it.    Basically, we have Spaghetti wars.   

So what happens is, when he and his daughter eat spaghetti, I make my own and when he wants me to cook, I stick to stuff of mine he likes and I love his hamburgers and his chicken and we have learned to work it out that way.   We have very different tastes.   He doesn't like sugary sweet stuff and I am a sugar-a-holic.   He loves salt and I could live without it.  

Then there is the thermostat.   The man works outside in the heat of Texas and he keeps the AC on 69.  When he moved into my house, I had it set at 78.  He died.  I froze when he moved it down to 69. All winter our house has been at 64 and I am forever under blankets.   He likes it cold and while I am from Indiana, I have gotten use to Texas heat. I just sit under blankets a lot now.   

The final change in my life probably came with the fact that Joe doesn't know how to rest.  I haven't had a calm peaceful weekend that hasn't involved him going out of town hunting and me staying home since I met him.  I have to steal time to read.  I am not use to checking in with people and telling them my schedule.  I am still getting use to pairs grocery shopping which really should be an olympic event.  Please don't get me started on the learning to shoot (which is fun, by the way.  I can kill a beer can with the best of them!) or the cleaning a fish.   I still get a little squimish about cleaning a fish but I am getting over it.  Then there are the bugs and blood and guts and dirt-kind of he leads.  Life is never dull with my husband around.  It is also never quiet.   I would not trade him for anything in the world.  Not all the peace and quiet,  not all the lost friends and not all the money and definately not any ex.   He isn't my soulmate.  He is better.