Introduction: Recap

On November 11, 2009, boyfriend and I went to look at engagement rings. We only went to one place, Brilliant Earth, in San Francisco. I liked a few of their ring settings online. Boyfriend made the appointment and I tried on various settings in their antiquey collection. Some were beautiful but looked too much on my hand, others were just not my style. I wanted one similar to the ring my grandmother had: a solitaire with small side stones in the band. We decided on the Antique Nouveau with a knife edge, and I love it.

PICKY GIRL/BRUISED MALE EGO ALERT: The ring was ordered and picked up in time for a trip to Canada over Thanksgiving weekend. He "proposed" the night before, and I "accepted" but the next morning I decided I wasn't happy with the presentation of the ring. While I knew that it was coming eventually, and I had picked out the ring, the "proposal" was less exciting than the proposal to look at rings. It felt like he was handing me the remote control to the TV. Unromantic and uncreative--the box wasn't even open so it wasn't even being presented to me. The next morning I decided I couldn't accept under those terms despite my acceptance being a "sure deal." If I did, I felt I would resent starting our life together feeling unhappy and as if he just wanted to get it over with, off-loading the ring onto me.

Over the next month, few opportunities presented themselves to give me the ring. A refurbished conservatory opened near us and we went: nothing. On December 23, we had Christmas dinner at Madrona Manor, a pricey place that I saw online and would have considered as a wedding location (turns out that it was nice, but too pricey, and the layout I don't think would meet our needs). We had a great dinner, sat by the tree in the parlor room, listened to carolers. I thought maybe since this was our X-mas Eve (I was leaving to visit family X-mas Eve night) it would happen then and there. It could have been placed under their tree or in the paws of the stuffed bear or maybe one of the carolers could have introduced it... I know, a bit cheesy, but ...it didn't matter. It didn't happen then.

We got home and boyfriend suggested opening one gift that ngiht like real X-mas Eve. I was psyched. Finally, the ring! But no, it was snowboarding stuff (which I love, too, by the way). I went to bed a little sad. The next morning I got up and he suggested the we open stocking stuff first. I thought, alright! It's in the stocking. But no, nothing in there was box shaped. We opened all of our gifts--including a day planner that I requested--and the last one was a large heavy rectangle.

I lifted the package and said, "Well, this isn't a diamond ring." It was a cookbook that I asked for. But I was sad. Was he waiting until we were at the airport? On NYE? I packed for my trip, and sat on the couch to look through the planner. It wasn't exactly what I had in mind since I wanted it to serve the purpose of keeping appointments for the wedding.

I said, "I was hoping to use the planner for planning our wedding." Boyfriend, who was sitting next to me fiddling with bike gloves, says, "Well, you can't plan a wedding without this." I turn toward him to see an opened ring box. :-) "Would you like to make it official for 2010?"

"Yes." I got a little choked up despite knowing it was coming soon. I said that I was thinking it would have been in the stocking and he said, "Why would Santa be proposing to you?"

Well, I guess not. He's already happily married.