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So now that the initial rush of ohmygodwe'reENGAGED has worn off, its time to at least start thinking about the details and what this all means in real life.

And what it means is that we have to start planning a wedding?!

At first the whole idea made me feel all sorts of squeamish. Not because I have any sort of doubt about my ability and desire to commit to the jboy, but because ... well ... weddings are BIG events. Big formal events. The kind of events that I sort of dread. And the word "bride" just sounds sooooo girly and anyone who knows me knows I can fake the girly role when need be, but deep down, I am a tom boy through and through.

But something has happened over the last week or so. I don't know if its the overwhelmingly happy response of all of my girl friends or some sort of inner girlyness coming out, but the idea of planning a wedding is actually starting to sound ... fun? And I find myself thinking about things like what do I want my dress to look like and what kind of flowers do I want? Don't get me wrong, the most exciting part of wedding planning for me is still trying to figure out where I want to go on a honeymoon and what location will let us go mountain biking and hiking and kayaking and recover while sipping wine next to a fireplace or firepit or some other type of fire-bearing gizmo. But the frilly-er details are intriguing to me too. Beyond the honeymoon I am most excited about picking flowers!? Really?! Who is this woman?!

I don't want our wedding to be a huge fancy ordeal. But I'm loving the challenge of trying to figure out how to plan a big party that represents us and who we are. Its kind of cool, really.

That was my answer. I think. I don't really remember. I remember the way my boyfriend walked out of the bedroom with a goofy look on his face and I remember the way I started shaking and I vaguely remember him getting down on one knee. And after that it was a blur. There was more shaking and some tears and all I know is that when it was all over I was as happy as I have ever been in my life.

It wasn't a huge surprise. After almost five years and many many conversations, I knew it was coming sometime soon. But I was not expecting it Thursday night. The way he did it was so simple and sincere and beautiful. It was perfect. Everything about it was perfect.

Friday morning we got up and went to Omaha for my cousin's wedding. At first I felt a little guilty getting engaged the day before her wedding. It was supposed to be her weekend. But then I remembered that she and her (now) husband got engaged en route to someone else's wedding and how great she thought the whole thing was. And she was right. The whole family was there and we got to all celebrate together. My cousin who was getting married was the most excited of all. She flipped out when she found out and for the rest of the weekend every single time we saw her or her (now) husband they were all "Congratulations you guys!!" We finally told them they could STOP saying that and they were like "Noooo!! We're so excited for you!!!". At the reception my cousin got do do the first dance with her husband and then danced with her dad. After that she got on the mic and called Josh and I and another couple whose anniversary was that day up and we got our own dance. I was so embarrassed but it was also very very sweet.

I'm still in shock. All weekend my parents were introducing Josh to people as my fiance and everytime we were like "whooooah ... that's WEIRD!". But its so very wonderful.

We just got back from Omaha about an hour ago and tomorrow morning we will be leaving to hang out with a bunch of friends for a week in Colorado which sounds like the perfect time for more celebrating. I really couldn't be much happier.

We have tons of pictures from the wedding and will have tons more from Colorado but you will have to wait until next week. I promise to make it worth the wait.

Oh, and the ring is BEAUTIFUL and perfect and SO me! :)

... to everyone who has a friend or relative who is in a long term relationship but is not yet engaged:

Do not feel the need to constantly harrass the person as to why they are not yet wearing a ring on their finger. It is annoying and nosy and after a while it gets very very old.

My boyfriend and I have been together for 4.5 years. Thats an awfully long time. We talk openly about marriage, and weddings, and what ours will be like. Neither of us are in any sort of rush to tie the knot seeing as I am still in school and am still 10 months or so from actually being able to support myself. I would love to be engaged, but it doesn't mean that I am unhappy with how things are now.

Almost every single day (literally) for the last year or two I have fielded questions as to when we will be getting engaged, why I have no ring, et cetera et cetera et cetera. And I'm tired of it. I'm tired of constantly having to defend my relationship. I shouldn't have to. Things are pretty great.

When we got back from our trip to Colorado this week, the first question from everyone was "How was your trip?". The second question was "So ... no ring?".

Its getting old. And in all honesty, its sort of taking the fun out of the whole experience for me. Why does everyone feel the need to try to force things and speed things up and put in their two cents about the timeframe in which we should be making lifelong commitments? They mean well, but they're not helping.

Don't people have other things to worry about besides the status of my relationship??

I mean, really ... don't we LOOK happy?

Ok, I'm done. Just had to get that off my chest.

Please note, I'm not talking about ANYONE who reads this blog. Unfortunately the people who need to hear me say "Just leave me alone about this ... please?" aren't readers. Maybe if they were, they'd get off my back.

I realized in writing my last post that I talk about a whole lot of stuff.. and that rarely do I go into any great depth about my boyfriend or our relationship. And I fear I am giving you, dear readers, the wrong impression.

This is what you should know:

He is the biggest, most important thing in my life right now. Bigger than law school, more important than Ironman. I don't talk much about him or our relationship here because its something I'm very protective of.

Those of you who know us well, or have read this blog for a while* know that we have had some big ups and downs over the years. Things with us are really really great these days, and have been for a while. There are things we are still actively working on, but they are getting better and better all the time. There is stuff I wish I could blog about, stuff that he's given me permission to blog about, but I'm just not comfortable with it. We're far too much a work in progress. Thats what my actual pen-to-paper journal is for.

The fact that I don't talk much about him here is very much by design.
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* don't bother going back and looking for the posts I'm alluding to - they have long since been deleted

I came home from class on Monday to find my apartment totally clean(and believe me, that alone was a chore), which honestly, would have been enough to make me happy on its own (hey, I'm easy to please). Then I saw that my kitchen table had had a makeover.... complete with red table cloth, super tall skinny candles, heart shaped doylies (!!!), and seriously pretty flowers of a type that I can't name (shame on me for not being more girly).

The boyfriend was away running errands (please note that he lives 45 minutes away and actually has a job, so the fact that he was at my apartment in the middle of the day on a weekday was way abnormal), so I had nothing to do but sit and glow and feel super loved until he got home. As if all this wasn't enough, when he got home he cooked up this chicken and fruit glaze dish, which we ate with a bean salad, bread from Wheatfields, and this cherry desert thing. Oh, and there was a bottle of wine.

It was a wonderful Vday. Romantic and relaxing at the same time. It was perfect.

After having a long discussion with the DSL people my dad told me that my internet was only working at 25% of the speed it was supposed to, thus I spent my morning waiting for the SBC repair man to come out. Everything was fine and dandy until he wanted to use my laptop to check out the internet. He then proceded to take my computer, run the ad-aware and norton anti-virus programs, update things, and reprimand me for my use of AOL. I felt a pang of guilt as these are usually the duties of the computer geek boytoy... and here is this complete stranger doing his job, filling one of his roles in my life. Oh, computer man, why must you put me in this awkward situation? I wonder if the boytoy will feel as if someone has tromped on his territory.

Fortunately for the BT, the only role this dude could fill was that of computer fixer-upper, as 1. we speak different languages (his involving gigs and megs and all sorts of numbers that mean nothing to me) and 2. He's married.

My mom just sent me this pic of the boytoy and I before getting in the water to start Ironman USA! Pretty cute pic of us even tho my head looks freakishly large...

Edited: Ok so I haven't quite gotten the hang of posting pics yet. You're just going to have to deal ;) Click on the actual post for the full shot :)

So the boytoy has started a blog . Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be written in English...

;)