The Proposal

*This Should Have Been Posted A Couple of Days Ago*

So, my grandmother told me that she was tired of looking at a picture of my new mixer, and that she expected a new post ASAP. I, of course, obliged. Not that my mixer isn’t the most gorgeous thing in my kitchen, all shiny and stuff… but anyways. It is Valentine’s time… Sugarbear and I have never really been big on the whole Valentine’s thing. We usually just keep it low key, dinner at home, nothing fancy.

But, I did want to point out that the day before Valentine’s is more significant to us. You see, Sugarbear asked me to become Mrs. Sugarbear ten years ago, 2/13/00. And, I think the story is too precious not to tell.

So, let’s begin about 9 months prior for a little background.
 
I told about our first date in this post. A little more detailed story was that, around that time, we were doing the Experiencing God study. We met at our youth pastor’s house. One night during the closing prayer, Sugarbear, in his new found boldness, held my hand. And continued to do so after the prayer. Later, I learned that that it sort of astounded everyone the room. Well, not to be outdone in the boldness department, I decided to kiss him when he walked me to my car. It was raining. It was June. Stars were out. Music was playing… not really, but it should have been. We were standing in our youth pastor’s front yard, on this spot that had no grass by the curb. I got tired of him shuffling his feet and stammering while I stood in the rain. So I kissed him. And the rest is history. On a side note- he later confessed that he immediately went home that night and began writing a song for me entitled "Will You Marry Me"... true story, as that song actually ended up on the small album of songs that Sugarbear wrote and recorded for me for as a wedding gift... but that is another schmoopy story for another day!
 
So, fast forward nine months. We are in our second semester of college. Valentine’s Day is coming up. I’m starting to get the ‘proposal’ vibe. But, true to form, Sugarbear was a master at keeping me guessing just enough to think that I was mistaken. As Valentine’s approached, I get a raging sinus infection. Romantic, huh? Sunday was the day before Valentine ’s Day. I wake up with the WORST. HEADACHE. EVER… like, not getting out of bed, make me nauseous and dizzy kind of headache. No way am I going to church. I call my mom, and drag myself to her house so she can give me medicine and make me lunch. I then fall asleep for most of the day, and wake up slightly less ill than I was earlier. I felt well enough to go to the evening service, so off I go, sniffling and squinchy-eyed from the painful sinuses. The first thing that should have tipped me off was that before the service, Sugarbear and my mother were talking off by themselves, and my mother was acting all squirrely. The service ended, and Sugarbear and I head out to grab some dinner. I had to run some things by our youth pastor’s house too. The second thing that should have tipped me off was that Sugarbear wanted to run by his apartment and get the Chica dog. The Chica dog is a very important member of our family. I got her for Sugarbear for Christmas the first year we were dating. She is very special to him. Seriously, we’ve already started the savings account to have her cloned. (then we’ll have a whole litter!) Not really, but we would if we could:-) The third thing that should have tipped me off was when we were grabbing dinner at Wendy’s, and Sugarbear made a comment about how broke he was. I laughed, cause I thought he was just kidding, (eventually it was clear that the he was actually broke was because he had bought me a diamond ring, of course).
 
So, we then run my errand by our youth pastor’s house. We get out of the car at the curb, and Sugarbear starts looking around the ground, asking me where the spot we first kissed was. I point it out to him, as it is still the spot with no grass by the curb. He pushes me onto that spot, and hands me the Chica dog. He then starts begins this romantic, lovey-dovey speech that I contribute to the upcoming Valentine’s Day. It was one of those "you make me a better person, i want to  spend my life with you" movie script kinda speeches. It was lovely.  It wasn’t until he did the whole ‘ down on one knee’ thing that I even realized what was happening… hey, I’m pretty foggy with decongestant by this point. I, of course, said yes. Hilarity ensues as we make our rounds of telling everyone, beginning with our youth pastor and his wife, who had no idea what was happening in their front yard.

Later I learned that Sugarbear had actually bought the ring about a week before, and had spent the week showing it to people. So, pretty much everyone knew but me. My mom had even tried to convince him to propose during the evening church service, as he was playing guitar during worship. That explained the private conversation and squirrelliness. But, Sugarbear took the moment and made it simple and meaningful.

That is just like him.