About one month before Christmas 2001, Paul told me that he had already purchased my Christmas gift. I was shocked as Paul never bought Christmas gifts any earlier than two days before Christmas. I started thinking (always a dangerous time!) and I could only imagine that Paul had bought something "HUGE" if he had put this much planning into this gift. Much to my anguish, I guessed that the gift must be an engagement ring. OH MY GOD! What was he thinking? We hadn't even discussed the possibility of marriage!!! How do I handle this? What do I say?
Well, to make a long story short, after many hours of worry and long-distance phone calls to Janet, I discovered that I actually did want to marry this man. So after the long self-discovery phase, along comes Christmas and what (to my shock and surprise) does Paul give me??? A DIGITAL CAMERA!!! What??? Yes, it was a very, very nice digital camera but what the heck happened to MY RING?
Well, after a couple of days, I finally confessed to Paul and told him about my whole "paranoia about getting married" scenario. And he laughed!
New Year's Eve arrived and I was sick with a very bad cold. Paul came over to watch movies with me while I sat on the couch with my flannel jammies and my big fluffy slippers keeping me warm. We missed New Year's Eve and then, when we heard horns honking outside, we paused the movie and exchanged New Year's wishes. As I laughed about the "party atmosphere" we were celebrating with this year, Paul turned to me and held up a little blue box and asked me to marry him. At which point, in total shock....the first words out of my mouth were, "Where the %@*# did you get that???" After I left the room for a few minutes, I did finally come back and say "O.K. I'm in!" ..... and so we were officially engaged!
