I'm engaged!

As long as I had been single I had this image in my head. I would be the old single lady.. Living in a condo in Florida...wrinkled skin from laying in the sun the majority of my life.. And playing bingo on Tuesdays. Somewhat of a golden girl television show script of what my life would inevitably end up being like. Because, I thought I would be inevitably single. In October that all changed. I went to the dentist for a regular appointment and ran into Lisa (my fiancés mom who works there) she came over and chatted with me. The conversation was just catch up but ended with the exchange of my number and her son, Derek's phone number. I texted him later that evening and we began making plans for a date in the future. A few weeks, phone calls, and thousands of texts later we go on our first date to a Shilohs, a local steakhouse. It's your typical "first" date. Except I planted a kiss on him at the end of night and then got out of his truck and ran inside my house. I got butterflies and my 24 year old self had to tell my 16 year old self to pull it together!

After that date, if we had spare time, it was spent together. Word got around to me that his mom said we would be married by the first snow fall next winter! This scared me at first but then the thought made me excited, content and overwhelmed with a joy I couldn't hide. I hadn't felt those emotions in years. Plus, his mom had been our modern day Cupid. It only seemed appropriate she could predict our future too!

Derek works for an electric company as a lineman. He works really hard and it makes me even more attracted to him that I know he is dedicated to his job. When we first got together he would leave for work on Monday morning and come back home on Thursday evenings. It brought us close together in a short amount of time. We were laying in bed one night and the topic of marriage came up. I said something along the line of be saving for a ring. Well he took it to heart, and I meant it with all my heart too. Engagement was brought of a few others time and I told him, "I want to be legitimately surprised, you down on knee, and my parents blessing."

We both had bills to pay a few weeks before Christmas and I didn't think Derek had any extra money. He kept hinting that I might get a ring around "tax time" so I had pushed the idea out of my head. I went to dinner with some of my high school friends and Derek had been out with his uncle and his papaw. He told me they had been to some junk yards and couldn't wait for me to get home. We were sitting in his bedroom and he looked at me and said, what would you do if I had you a ring right now? I said, you don't have a ring so why are you asking me? He kept repeating it and being persistent, so much to a point that I was getting annoyed. I said stop asking me that. I was sitting on the end of his bed and I will never forget the moment as long as I live. Derek walked over to me, got down on one knee, pulled a ring box out of pocket, and asked me to marry him!!!

There in his bedroom, I cried tears of joy, knowing my life would never be the same.