After two and a half years, I’m one step closer. Progress has been made, decisions are being put into action.

And….

I’m Getting Married!!

It’s been three days and it’s all still sinking in. There is this gorgeous shiny piece of metal and diamond on my hand, a sweet, wonderful and handsome man in my life and there isn’t much I can say that will really put a tangible or accurate word or expression to what is swimming in my head right now.

For most of you who may or may not know about me and Ben – here it goes. We’ve been dating for two and half years, all long distance. Go figure, we lived in Pullman for years together, didn’t really know eachother, and didn’t start dating until AFTER I left back for the west-side. But it has been nothing short of wonderful.

Bless this man for his patience. Bless this man for his bi-weekly 600 mile roundtrip drive to see me. (Don’t worry we switched of driving duties – I drove plenty too!) Bless this man for his patience in dealing with me!! Whether it’s my impatience, my neurosis, my endless hours in the kitchen, baking projects, picture taking, bad jokes, freak outs, crying sessions, or me falling asleep on the phone after long exhausting days. Bless him.

I just couldn’t be more giddy, thrilled and jumpy over this. We agreed a long time ago that we weren’t going to do a holiday-proposal. No Christmas, New Years, or Valentine’s Day confession of love…just not our style – we deemed it to cliche. But really, when your man is getting down on one knee, it just happens, dates or holidays be darned. And Christmas was when it happened.

So, remember when I said Bless him for his patience with me? Well, apparently I made him crack. I freaked him out. He had a bit of a panic attack. A shut down, little mini freak out session. It wasn’t intentional, but after sitting under the Christmas tree in my (now our) apartment, and opening our gifts he said he had forgotten one part of my gift back in Pullman. 
Okay, no big deal. Really! Not a worry on my little furry head.
After posing the question of “when do you want to go back to Pullman?”, it happened…he quieted down, and kinda imploded. What is a girl to do when her hunny just clams up? 
I tried to help, get him to talk to me. But oh dear. He promptly got up, stated “I have another gift for you in the pick-up. I didn’t want to give it to you today, but let me go get it.”
Well….it didn’t dawn on me that he was planning anything. We agreed – no proposals on Christmas. So to me, I was in the clear.
So he hurried outside, to presumably get my “other” gift out of the pickup. (Only to find out later, he was texting my Bestie Beka freaking out and needing some reassurance and calming down – she didn’t answer) I got on with my business in the apartment, put in a movie and hunkered down with the pupper until Ben came back inside. 
Are you as mad at me now as I should have been with myself for not realizing what was happening?
Once he came back in, he dashed into my room to “wrap” my other gift he didn’t intend to give me. So there I sat, still unknowingly waiting for my fate. 
Finally Ben emerged with a bag in hand, handing it over to me and sitting beside me. Gingerly removing the tissue from the bag I whipped out a bottle of blue liquid, jewlery cleaner. Apparently this was something I would be needing?
And then with a look of “confuzzlement”, I stared at him as he got down on one knee, pulled the ACTUAL gift out of his pocket and professed his love. Kinda. It came out more as “I’m sick of the 600 miles of driving just to see you, and I love you so very much I just want to be near you. Megan, will you marry me?” 
The further he got into it, the quicker and more “word-vomity” it got. 
But hey – now that I had caught up with what was going on, I blurted out “YES” and promptly burst into tears hugging him and blubbering like a fool.

Despite it all going so catastrophically “not according to plan” – it went perfectly. 

It may not have been his original plan (going to Pullman to recreate our first date – a picnic in the park), and it might have been on a holiday (something we agreed we’d never do) – it still turned out perfectly for us, full of love and a complete comedy of errors. It’s a calamitous cluster that will make us laugh for years and years to come. 
I’m a lucky girl.