OK, so we didn't exactly elope. We just got married a whopping 12 weeks (to the day) after our engagement, around 12 hours from home, with 12 people watching. Close enough? Circumstances being what they are, we had decided to get married in Canada. No, I don't live anywhere near Canada. No, we didn't go to Niagara Falls. It was just a little family gathering in an uncle's back yard. But when you're planning a drive of several hours -- you make it fun. Miata fun! It worked like this: He drove through the night to reach my house, where he parked and we got into my convertible to embark on the journey. I drove most of the way to Canada so he could nap -- we stopped at a Checkers fast-food restaurant for lunch on the way. It's one of my favorite chains, though I know it as Rally's. He'd never heard of the place, so I introduced him to Rally Fries. Mmmmmmrallyfries. Of course, when you're in Canada, you get Tim Horton's. W

Delayed hope makes the heart sick, but fulfilled desire is a tree of life. --Proverbs 13:12 I remember some nights when I was living on my own, I couldn't fall asleep. On some of those nights, I cried, alone in my room where I was safe from the pitying eyes of my friends. I don't like crying in front of people. In college, my longtime roommate -- my best friend there, in whose wedding last year I was maid of honor -- didn't see me cry until two or three years after we met. It's a trust thing, a privacy thing, maybe a pride thing too. And whether it was lack of sleep or hormones or loneliness, on those nights I cried I knew I'd feel better in the morning, that the inexplicable sadness I felt would not feel so ... unbearable? Most of the time, if I cried -- if, once in a while when -- it was late at night, some hours after I'd seen a touching interaction between a friend of mine and their child, or after I'd watched a chick flick. The kind where the

I pride myself on being independent, if it wasn't obvious from other posts on my blog. I fix my own household problems.  I hold myself accountable for stocking the pantry.  I wax my own car(s).  I generally like practicing being a responsible adult. But having my husband fix things around the house -- actually, finding the broken things himself and fixing them promptly -- has made me feel unexpectedly well loved. I've been married three weeks now, and spent less than half that time with my husband actually in my house. Between honeymooning and sending him off to a work site a 5-hour drive away, I've not spent as much time at home with him as normal newlyweds, I imagine. He's an engineer-type who gets a kick out of fixing stuff -- or at least feels more relaxed when things aren't broken. In the 9.5 days he's been at my house, he's already found and fixed several issues: The dryer that wouldn't heat The too-long dryer vent hose The screen door

This happened. 😁

The blog hasn't had a facelift in ... a long while. And I've slid out of the blogging habit. Maybe if I change the one, I'll change the other too? My blog, if it were a town.

So I'm engaged now. Yeah, Me-a-year-ago is just as surprised as you are. On April Fools Day 2016, one year ago today, I had just figured out I had better buy myself some flowers instead of waiting around for Prince Charming to prance in with a bouquet. I wasn't exactly expecting Prince Charming to show up anytime soon, if at all. All I can say is, God clearly has a sense of humor. The short version is, I thought I was just having lunch with an entertaining out-of-town business traveler and it turned into... History. Most of this history played out over a distance of some 1,300 miles (give or take a hundred or so), over Facebook, Skype, email and vacation days. Considering I always thought I'd be terrible at a long-distance relationship, that could be the most surprising aspect of this whole surprising epic. So it was easy to go on living my independent, solo life. Most of my acquaintances didn't even know Prince Charming existed until several months after I met him.