January 3, 2009: It was the first Saturday of the New Year, we both had the day off so we planned to spend it together. We started by de-Christmasing (my term for removing all of the Christmas decorations) the house. Then, since it was such a nice day out, we decided to ride our bikes to Leu Gardens. We spent a few hours walking around the gardens and imagining what our yard could look like. Finally, we got hungry and decided to go to Chubby’s for a chili dog. Overall, it was turning out to be a pretty perfect day.

After eating we came home to relax. I decided to finish making our Christmas tree skirt for the next year. While I was working in the spare room, David put the ring box in our black chair in the dining room next to my hug pillow (the hug pillow was a gift he got me for Christmas, it is kind of a long story, but it involves a MasterCard commercial and my love for inanimate objects being animated).

Anyway, I took a break from working on the tree skirt and decided to go to the kitchen. On the way, I saw the box sitting in the chair. I picked up the box, shook it, and asked what it was. David replied, “A box.” So, I put it back down and sat on the couch. I thought we had simply forgotten to put an empty box away when de-Christmasing earlier.

A few minutes later, annoyed that he was not moving the box, I asked where the box came from. I didn’t remember any small boxes. I asked if I should put the box away with the Christmas stuff. David said he didn’t know what was in it and I should look. I opened it up and found the ring. He got down on one knee while I called him a jerk and said thank you. Eventually, I realized, that thank you was not the response he was looking for, so I said yes