We’ve come a long way, baby.

If I had been thinking, I’d have posted this on our engagement-versary.

There’s a thread on a forum I read about proposals. It’s super sweet and I’m a little tipsy, so EMOTIONS.

Anyway, I posted Darren’s proposal. It occurred to me that I maybe never really blogged about it, so I’m reposting here:

It was a very cold day at the end of September 2009. We were in our living room, watching a rerun of The Office (you should really read the synopsis). I was in a hoodie and sweatpants, he was in boxer briefs and a t-shirt. We were living in a 450 sq ft apartment with our cats. Our couches were set up in a L formation and we were each sitting on our own, holding hands.

Suddenly, he rolled off his couch and onto one knee. He said some very nice things that I don’t remember, and asked me to marry him. He didn’t have the ring yet; it was on its way. For the record, we had been discussing marriage for quite some time. I actually ordered the ring myself- it was custom made, based on a slightly different design the maker already had.

So he said all this stuff and I had to ask him a few times if he was serious. We’d both “proposed” to each other a few times, so I had to be sure that this was the real one. Obviously, no matter how unplanned it was on his part, he meant it.

It was not a fancy proposal, but I married him anyway. Who needs fancy?

Sappy post alert

It occurs to me, in my current slightly inebriated state (when was the last time I drunk-blogged?) that I neglected posts regarding both my anniversary and my husband’s birthday. Shame.

So! First! On August seventh Darren and I celebrated our first anniversary. It was a low-key day; we celebrated by sort of recreating our first date: a movie, and burgers at Johnny Rocket’s. Plus we got delicious cheeses from a store at the Mall of America. No big deal.

Then the twentieth was Darren’s twenty-sixth birthday. I made him the meals he requested (BLTs for lunch and meatloaf for dinner, plus DQ ice cream cake) and then we got drunk at the Half Time Rec. Pure glory.

I’m sorry to say that there’s nothing more to either of these stories. Pretty much, I’m just a lucky lady to have married such an excellent dude. He keeps me grounded and mostly sane, and we have tons of fun together. He loves food about as much as I do, and he doesn’t mind my tendency toward hermitude. Honestly, I look back on the other guys I dated and that’s sort of the biggest deal breaker for most of them (with one exception, but there are very different reasons for the disaster that that relationship would’ve been). Sorry guys: I’m lazy and I hate people and I found a fella who is okay with that. Your loss? Yeah, probably. I’m awesome.

I’m glad that Darren and I can sit in the same room, doing our own thing on separate computers or whatever, and it’s still a night well spent. We both take pleasure in grocery shopping and the doofy little chores we do together. We can go out with our own friends, without each other, and that’s just fine. At the end of the night we get to come home to each other, and we get to share our ridiculously comfortable bed – us and the dog and sometimes one of the cats – and that is what makes life sweet.

So maybe he leaves his socks around and I have to bribe him to do the dishes. He also opens jars for me and gives really good massages. Among countless other things.

Yup. Lucky.

The Sock Troll

I just realized that the last day of my blog challenge asked three good things that happened, not three things that I learned. So I’m re-answering.

• The Royal Wedding, obviously. I’ll try to stop talking about it now.

• First weekend at the cabin!

• I moved from Blurty to WordPress, and I feel it’s been a change for the better.

—

And now for a slice of my life. My boring life.

Darren can be kind of a slob. Isn’t that a common complaint? He neglects to clean up after himself, almost always. It’s not uncommon to find several days worth of socks around our very small living room – on the couch, on the floor, in the couch – and elsewhere. I once found a pair of his unders wedged between the bed and the wall. Who knows how long those had been there. He’s like some kind of freaky little sock troll. O r underwear troll.

The thing is, he only works three days a week right now. You’d think he would be willing to do a little around the apartment those other two days. Well, actually he’s totally willing, but if I don’t ask him to do something, he probably won’t. A lot of the time when I do ask, he puts it off. The other day I asked him to wash the dishes. There weren’t many and they were all his anyway, and he agreed. When I arrived home six hours later, the first thing he said was “I’ll do the dishes in a minute.”

I laughed. He washed them. Now if I could get him to clean all his junk off the coffee table when he’s done with it, that would rule.

It just rarely occurs to him that the stuff he leaves around is actually contributing to a mess and we’d all feel a little better if we put stuff where it belongs.

I love my husband dearly, but dang if he isn’t just a big ol’ sloth (soft and fluffy). He’s also a hindrance in my closet-purging efforts, but that’s another story for another day. Or probably not, because it’s not very interesting. As if this was.

Reason #45465 why I don’t want children. Nothing would ever get done and I would lose my shit. You know the episode of The Simpsons wherein they hire a nanny (Sherry Bobbins!) because Marge is freaking out and losing hair due to stress? I would be Marge.