Photo Blog Day 2

I wrote this yesterday and managed to delete it :(



Anyway...



It has been a hectic time at work lately and that is why my desk/office (yes I enjoy the luxury of having my own office) looks like this:


Carla McWhorter Meyer would probably go into shock at seeing this! Next week I hope to post a picture of the cleaned up version!

How it went down

People keep asking me how exactly Jerry proposed. So...read on...

I arrived home from work a little after 4:30 - it was a terribly frustrating drive home thanks to a mild accident on North 71 that hadn't made the traffic report yet. I was not in the best mood, but Jerry and I had plans to go to dinner at El Pueblo kind of in celebration of our 2 year anniversary. So, I perked up a bit as I got out of the car thinking about delicious Mexican food!

I perked up a lot more as I opened the front door to find roses laying on the floor, creating a path through the living room. I started picking up the roses as I followed them around the corner into the kitchen. Then I gave up the picking up part, dropped the roses, and followed the rest of the path through the kitchen and down the stairs to the basement. By the way, it had to be entertaining for Jerry to watch me attempt to tip toe (in heels mind you!) past the roses on the stairs without tripping.

And there was Jerry standing in the middle of the basement family room - still dressed in his shirt and tie from work, holding his hands behind his back. I should mention that there was another beautiful fall bouquet of floweres (pictures to come later) sitting on the table, and the sweet sounds of "Easy like Sunday morning" on the iTunes (long story).

Jerry asked me to sit in front of him. This is the point where I thought that this was going to be more of a romantic gesture of some kind, but not quite a proposal. He proceeded to tell me how happy he has been for the last 2 years (yada, yada, yada - in all the excitement, whatever words came out of his mouth are all a blur of my memory right now, sorry).

As he started to get down on one knee, I had this moment of disbelief. When others might have said something along the lines of "No Way!" or possibly "Shut Up!" - the only word that managed to come out of my mouth was "Don't!" I have no idea why people. But Jerry, midway to kneeling and the box now visible from behind his back, stopped and said, "Did you just say 'don't'?"

To which I responded, "No...go ahead. Do."

And then he showed me the beautiful ring set (he bought the full wedding set), pulled the engagement ring out of the box, and handed it to me. We hugged. We kissed. I handed him back the ring... so that he could properly place it on my finger. And we hugged again.

As we were hugging, he ever so sweetly whispered in my ear, "Uh...you haven't actually said yes yet." I think I may have screamed yes.

He then told me that he told my dad that it was his intention to end the issue of us living in sin.

Um... When did he talk to my dad?

Ah, the truth comes out...

Earlier in the week, Jerry commandeered my cell phone and used it to search my address book for my father's cell phone number. He then texted Dad to see when he was working from home this week. THEN, on Tuesday, when Dad was working from home, Jerry drove to my parents' house to meet my father and ask his permission.

Too cute!

So there you have it... the engagement story. And we do not have a date yet, but I will be sure to share when we do have a date!

Photo Blog Day 1

It was a toss up on what to photograph tonight. Unfortunately for the Mariachi band at El Pueblo, they lost to this: 

That's my pretty new engagement ring from my pretty new fiance. Yay!

Day 1

It's technically Day 1 of my intended photo blog... maybe I'm waiting for inspiration to strike. Maybe I'm just waiting for this day to end so that I can go home, grab the camera, and head out to a nice low-key anniversary dinner with Jerry. (Mmmmmm....El Pueblo!)

Work has been crazy-busy this week. As in, I arrive at the office at 7:30 am and start right in to responding to emails and making changes to documents, read some website copy, write some website copy, and then I look at my clock and it's already 4:00. I love these days and I hate them with just as much passion. I like being so busy that I'm not constantly watching the clock. I hate that these days are the result of others not being able to properly spread out their work.

I also LOVE my easy clients... the ones who take one day to review a document and propose changes. The ones who only require one round of changes. The ones who tell my boss how delightful it is to work with me. Yeah I like them! I'm talking to you Pharmacy Recruitment!

Other things I don't like: 3:30 meetings when I leave the office at 4, constantly broken Kyocera printers, co-workers who yell down the hall rather than walking to your office, and the inability of the thermostat to maintain a comfortable temperature.

Highlight of my day today... a general curiosity to see what ever happened to the co-workers that I left back in Texas four years ago. Turns out Vernon went on to become an 8th grade math teacher. I found the blog that his wife keeps - and that one of his family members updates EVERY DAY! Crazy!

Look For that Day 1 picture...Coming soon!

October is Anniversary Awareness Month...

Today is my one year anniversary at work. I honestly thought that the combination of the economy and the merger would put me out of a job before I reached this point. I still fear a "last in - first out" policy should we have to make cuts. In any case, yay for one year.

Tomorrow is the two year anniversary of my first date with Jerry. We are having a mild celebration with dinner at El Pueblo tomorrow, and continuing to recognize the event with a much larger dinner at Boi na Braza on Saturday. Do you find it odd that I am getting slightly geeked about going to a Brazillian Steakhouse? I mean, I barely eat meat to begin with, and I am excited about going to a restaurant where they put out some salads and sides but expect you to just eat a lot of meat? Something feels so very wrong with that.

On that note, I am launching a new idea... that will probably take a lot of work on my part. I am going to incorporate a 365 photo blog into this here blog... a photo each day of something going on in my life. I have a feeling this means a lot of photos of my house as it undergoes some reconstructive surgery! But look forward to that - starting tomorrow!

Ah...kids

On Saturday, Jerry and I met up with his sister and some of her family for lunch. They were in Cincinnati for their oldest son's soccer tournament. After lunch, and before we headed to the soccer fields to watch the afternoon game, Jerry and I made a trip to Wal-Mart. I don't want to admit why we were there. And yes, it is true that I had to go to the bathroom THAT badly that I was willing to use a public restroom...at Wal-Mart.

In the restroom, I can hear a little girl (4 or 5 years old) who is in the large stall with her grandmother. I walked into the restroom half-way through the conversation, but the little girl was talking about when she is a parent. And the portion that I heard went something like this...

Little Girl: And after I have kids, then one day I'll be a grandma. And then after I'm a grandma, you know what I'll be?

(Honestly, I expected her to say that she would be dead and then things would really turn awkward - because such a discussion while people are trying to do their business isn't awkward enough - but it's even better than that)

Little Girl: Then, after I'm a grandma, I'm gonna be a pony. Then a doggy. Then maybe a cat.

Grandma: That's wild.

The grandmother's reaction might actually be my favorite part of the story. no emotion. Just "That's wild."

Lesson learned - maybe using the restroom at Wal-Mart isn't all that bad. I mean they do have toilet seat covers as well.

Driving Lessons

Yesterday was another long day for me as I taught my weekly night class after working at the 9-5 job. In class last night, I decided to do an activity to help the students to become better acquainted as they choose teams for their project. In order to organize them a little more for this activity, I decided to buy a mixed bag of candy, allow them to pick a piece of candy, and organize them into groups, based on what candy they chose.

So, I needed candy.

I decided to stop at Kroger in order to pick up a bag of candy. Of course I was stopping there at 5:00-ish in the evening. There was a lot of traffic in the parking lot and I decided to just park in the first row that I came to. I happened to follow another car down this row. He passed the closest spot on the right and turned to his left. So I immediately pulled into the vacant spot, only to realize that his intention was to back into the spot (I don't know if this was his original intention or if he realized that a spot wasn't open on the left and was going to then back into the available spot) I realized what was happening and I was going to back out of the spot and let him have it (even though there were plenty of spaces to choose from a mere 3 cars down).

I put my car in reverse and began to check for clearance to back out. At that point a 3rd car pulled down the same aisle. I had nowhere to go, so I thought "Screw it! I'm not responsible for him being an idiot and attempting this maneuver during Kroger Rush Hour." I put my car in park and proceeded to gather my bag to walk into the store when the first guy gets out of his car and approaches me. I told him that I would gladly move but that I couldn't get out of the spot - really, I was happy to move for him (he scared me!) To which he just gave me the evil eye and then hopped back in his car and parked in the previously mentioned space just a few cars down.

I jumped out of my car and power-walked into Kroger (which was another adventure of white-trashiness and the most disgusting female mustache I have ever seen, but that's a story for another time).

Anyway, this experience got me thinking that there are certain rules that you should follow when parking ANYWHERE...

1. You have to move quickly
2. If it's a crowded parking lot and there are multiple cars lining up behind you, don't waste your time or mine trying to back in to a parking space.
3. If you do wish to park in a particular space, indicate so - turn signals are good, or possibly a maneuver that prevents someone else from taking the space (seriously, the way he passed the space made me believe he was PASSING THE SPACE!)
4. Don't you probably need access to your trunk - and isn't that difficult if it's not facing out?
5. Don't waste your time getting out of the car to approach the person who took your space - just park your land yacht and do your thing