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....

I've come to appreciate a bouquet of roses. For the longest time, I was like, roses? They're pretty and all, but so are lots of other things like clean floors I don't have to sweep dead rose petals from. And thorns are poiky. (That's pronounced like boy-key. It's a technical term meaning "owwwww I pierced my thumb.") But I was shopping for groceries the day before Easter, feeling mighty fine. Spring had sprung and I'd just finished a morning full of yard work. A purple hyacinth had magically appeared in my shopping cart, 50 percent off. A few minutes after I picked up that pot, I passed the display of bouquets and noticed a small but pristine bunch of roses for just $4. Why not? I asked myself. I've been given a single rose just once or twice, and got a bouquet no more than that. There were rarely any flowers inside my house growing up - my mom is allergic to pretty much everything. I simply had no idea what a bouquet sitting on the din...

Disclaimer: I'm not qualified. To dispense advice on being an adult, you first have to have a decent amount of experience. Four years post-college doesn't reach that level. But one of my (ubiquitous) younger friends let her Facebook world know the other day, and I quote, "I can't believe....that in five days I'll be 20 years old. Oh my." First, let's applaud her use of Associated Press style in spelling out a single-digit number. Applause, please. You're missing your cue! Now that that's out of the way, let's reminisce a little. When I turned 20, I wasn't even with my family. It was the semester I studied abroad, in Costa Rica, and I managed to get through half the day without anyone making a big fuss over me and my little coming-of-age. Then the student coordinator found out. I'm pretty sure I was presented with a cake and some flowers, but I don't exactly remember. And I apparently neglected to take any photos. That al...

One ticket, please. A friend of mine appeared in a local production of "Arsenic and Old Lace." I wanted to see her in it, so as usual, I showed up on my own at the ticket table. The best part about going by yourself is that you can get a great seat even if the auditorium's packed. There's always that one odd seat smack-dab up front that is leftover after other groups have taken their spots. It's a perk of being on my own. This auditorium, however, was far from packed. I sat myself down in the middle of the prime row and settled in, noticing a mutual friend of the amateur actress I'd come to support. I waved, she waved, she and her family came to sit with me. Score! As if that wasn't enough, a pair of couples I know walked in, started to take seats farther back, saw me, waved, and decided to come sit in my row instead. Score! Clearly I was in my extraverted phase right there. Don't worry, I went back to being introverted by the end of the nigh...

Note: The following was written three minutes before the end of my 24th birthday. One of the things I hadn't quite figured out was how to celebrate a birthday as an adult. When you're not close enough to your immediate family to just do the whole special homemade-to-order dinner that you've been used to for years, that is. In college, I usually made it home for some weekend around my birthday and we had my favorite dinner -- crabmeat casserole. When I turned 21 I spent half the day doing some spec work for the editor who would end up hiring me for my first job post-college. Then that first year after college, I volunteered at a church dinner on the day I turned 22 (and, of course, ate more than my full of delicious potluck food). I still lived near my family, but I think they were all working or otherwise inescapably occupied. The day I turned 23 -- last year -- I had to work. I managed to escape for a lunch date with my two closest cousins at my favorite restaurant (...

As promised! The box came, the part was ripped from its little plastic baggie packaging -- because, what other way is there to unwrap those things? -- and I had before me a thermostat thing, a fuse thing, a couple screws and a couple bendy-things that get stuck onto wires. Oh, and a teeny little wire with the bendy-things already stuck on. (Hint: Bendy-things are connectors. I'm pretty sure.) And yesterday, when I  descended once again into the belly of the house -- that is, the basement -- I was armed with a new tool ! It's practically a requirement of every DIYer that new tool equals glorious elation. It's like giving a new fancy pen or a pretty journal to a writer. (Please don't ask how many journals I have waiting for me....) My tool, you must understand, was something called a "crimping" tool. Number one, the word "crimp" makes me think of crinolines and primping. Therefore, it must be a tool for repositioning the wires in my hoopski...

I should've become an engineer, not a writer. My dryer decided one day it didn't want to dry my clothes. I thought at first I'd just overloaded it... with a sheets load plus the leftovers of another load, it could've happened, right? But no, the second try didn't yield any drier fabric. Oh, and the air coming from the inside of the dryer wasn't actually hot. The things I overlook the first time... So I decided to try troubleshooting this myself. It's the Age of the Internet. I can do anything with the help of my friends Google and YouTube. So off I go, browsing around various appliance-repair websites, checking out potential causes of "dryer not heating" and "whirlpool dryer not heating" and "whirlpool dryer troubleshooting" and all sorts of other search terms which kept sending me to the same three websites, two of which were trying to sell me Whirlpool dryers. No thanks, I've already got one. I stumbled on a gre...

Some days, I don't think twice about going to the laundromat. I've basically relied one laundromat or another since I was almost 18. Old habits are hard to break. On the other hand, wouldn't it be nice to do laundry in your pajamas? (For me, laundromats and wearing pajamas are mutually exclusive. Yes, I know the People of Walmart beg to disagree.) So once I bought my house, I realized, Sarah, it's time for you to grow up and get a clothes washer. I mean, it's the logical next step. (After a mower, of course.) Thing was, I actually had to find a decent second-hand washer. And a dryer. I hate letting towels drip-dry. They get all scratchy and weird. Anyway, even if I found suitable appliances, I had to figure out how to get them from point A to point B. Subcompact cars aren't the best for that. Enter: The Cousin. This Cousin, a construction worker, is quite adept at lifting heavy things. In addition, he owns a Truck. In a very convenient twist of f...

I kid you not: One of the best things about my house is its dishwasher. That dishwasher means I don't have to submerge my hands in HOT water when it's 90 degrees outside. It means I can blissfully read, or write, or watch episodes of Merlin , while my dishes magically clean themselves. It's like the animals cleaning the house in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Except if I found any animals in my dishwasher, I would probably not start singing. The only trouble comes when something goes wrong with my dishwasher. Then I have to put on my handyman cap and figure out how to fix it. The other day I discovered a couple inches of water in the bottom of my dishwasher after I ran it. Thinking it would go away if I ran another cycle, I did. No dice. It wouldn't even go away if I hit the "drain" button on the control panel. (Saying that makes me feel like I'm piloting a KitchenAid spaceship. Captain, the controls are not responding!) A little Googling late...

Ya know, before I moved out from my parents’, all I got were credit card offers in the mail. Now that I’m on my own, I don’t get those much anymore (though they still come maybe once a month). Instead, I get offers to buy… Checks. (Already have some, thanks.) $50,000 worth of life insurance. (And I’m going to buy this based off of direct mail… why?) Pizza. (No thanks.) More pizza. (I’ve had pizza about once in the last six months. When are they going to get the idea?) Dish TV and Internet. (Because I have such a history of buying, or watching, TV.) Health and car insurance (Seriously? You’re using direct mail to market insurance?) Wendy’s fast food. (There isn’t even a Wendy’s in town. I don’t remember the last time I ate at a Wendy’s… maybe my mid-teens?) Subscriptions to The Economist and The New Yorker . (Pretty sure they got my address from The Atlantic . The dog- and cat-themed bookmarks from The New Yorker are pretty funny though.) Stuff from Bed, Bath and Beyond. (OK...

I’ve always wondered who invented the lawn. Regular wide-open areas are covered in woods and underbrush or two-foot-tall prairie grass – or they were (now it’s mainly suburbs). Then in front of houses, you have two choices: garden or lawn. I’ve often been in favor of having a massive garden on a city lot ( my miniscule green thumb notwithstanding ). At least they have pretty flowers. A lawn is just a boring unbroken swath of green. Yet here I am, the new homeowner with a medium-small city lot and the lawn that goes with it. It even has a devil’s strip. So I bought a lawnmower. I had thought about getting a gas mower – no cord required (and I get enough of cords vacuuming). There isn’t anywhere to plug an electric mower in on two to three sides of the house, anyway. On the other hand, I’ve rarely had more than a 50% success rate getting my dad’s gas push mower started. Mind you, I’m not talking about starting it on the first try. I’m saying at all . (I usually coaxed my brother into...

I love church potlucks. I don’t have any food allergies or standard health problems (like diabetes… yet) that preclude my eating whatever I like, or whatever looks adventurous. So I enjoy myself hugely at these get-togethers. Last week was Missions Conference at church — one of my favorite weeks of the year. We heard from international workers in eastern Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. And we ate a lot of food. For the Sunday night poluck — a pretty standard affair — I made some crabmeat casserole. It’s my favorite casserole, but it makes a full-size 8”x11” pan, or a good 2-quart casserole dish. (Or something like that. It was a big casserole dish anyway.) If I made it for myself, I’d be eating it for about two weeks. That is reason #2 I love church potlucks. I can make my favorite casserole and only eat as much as I need for one meal; my friends take care of the rest. Sure enough, the casserole dish was cleaned out by the end. Monday night was soup night. The church I attend here ...

One of the perks of living on my own is doing whatever I want with my time. But it’s also one of the pitfalls. Last Saturday morning, I realized how many movies I’d watched in the last week. I don’t remember how many it was, but it was a mix of library movies and movies I already owned. And I realized how much time I was not spending reading, or doing chores, or taking care of a host of other worthwhile pursuits. So I decided that from Feb. 2 until March 2, I won’t watch any movies. Not from the library, not ones I own. The closest I’ve gotten is those five-minute Lizzie Bennet Diaries vlogs . It’s an experiment, I suppose, to see if I can reestablish some good habits (like daily Bible reading, or finishing at least one book per week) before I start watching movies again. So far it’s paid off. Since I don’t watch TV shows either, cutting out movies has forced nearly all stories (fictional or otherwise) to come to me by way of the written word. (The LBD is the exception.) I’ve had...

Sometimes I imagine that bread grows on trees in bunches, like bananas. Complete with the plastic baggie it’s sold in. My aunt gave me a bread machine the other day, but it didn’t come with instructions. Not really, anyway; the instruction booklet stopped right before the recipes began. What good is that? So I spent Martin Luther King day with my aunt and uncle at my cousin’s new apartment. My cousin, a 25-year-old bachelor, is very good at baking bread. (Go figure.) He’s got about 7 years of experience using a bread machine, too, so he spent part of the afternoon showing me how it’s done. Start with the wet ingredients, he said. I scribbled this important information into my notebook. Then add the dry ingredients, he said. Scribble. Set the bread machine to “dough” and go watch a movie, he said. Scribble, scribble. While the dough baked, the family introduced me to a very silly movie called Private Eyes (if I remember correctly). It starred Tim Conway and Don Knotts. Yes, it was a...

An advantage of a large apartment is having space for a personal dance party. A disadvantage of any apartment is having neighbors who will wake up if you have said dance party at 10 p.m. An advantage of my particular large apartment, however, is that UD* and the other gal in this dwelling work weird shifts – second or third, or a varied odd shift – and are hardly ever home at 10 p.m. This is where my eclectic iTunes playlist comes in, along with a set of hand-me-down computer speakers that are apparently high-quality. (Harman audio, or something. I don’t recall the brand name for certain.) That setup in the sometime dining room turns it into a great dance hall – complete with a hardwood floor, I might add. Nowhere else would I be willing to dance as crazily as I do in that dining-room-cum-dance-hall. I would be far, far too embarrassed. But in the privacy of my rooms, with the curtains pulled fully across the windows, I can headbang to The Beach Boys (let me hear some of that roc...

I came home from work this evening, carefully inching my way up the main street so as to avoid sliding on the new-fallen snow and crashing into the sidewalk. I gingerly stepped one foot at a time along the sidewalk at home to get to my mailbox. I saw a double-bed mattress sitting on the front porch. Somebody, please explain to me what UD*  is doing with a mattress… oh, and a bed frame… on the front porch. They’re not even set up so you can sit on them. At least then I might postulate that someone decided to experiment with living in the cool weather that Eskimos experience. Instead, the mattress is leaning up against one of the porch posts. Also, the mattress is covered in flowers, as if it were the mattress my grandmother picked out to match the wallpaper. A lovely winter view for my front window, but not exactly your typical masculine print. All I can surmise is that it was acquired secondhand. And if they remain there much longer – accompanied, in fact, by a strange statio...

Upstairs Dweller, a guy, usually works second shift. But for the last two days he’s actually been around here in the evening. Don’t ask me why; I haven’t a clue. And tonight, as I was gleefully pecking away at my keyboard, UD did a few strange things. He jingled his keys around upstairs. (OK, not so strange.) He came downstairs and flicked the porch light on and off a couple times. Click, click, click. (We have really loud old-fashioned light switches. They’re push-button style.) He went back into the foyer and clicked a light in there on and off a few times. Click, click, click. And only then does go back upstairs (to fetch his forgotten keys?) and then back downstairs to start up the truck. Which didn’t catch the first time. Squeeeeak goes a belt. It’s an ancient, two-tone Ford, I think, so I’m not surprised at the noises it makes. The ones produced by the Ford’s owner, however…

I came down with a cold last night while I was at work. It was me and the sports editor most of the evening. I sneezed. And sneezed again. (The sports editor just kept talking to some coach over the phone.) I read over pages and tried explaining the corrections to the page designer by phone, as usual. However, this conversation when something like this: Me: “OK, I’ve got corrections for you on A1 and A8.” Designer: “All right, give me two shakes of a leg to open this thing up.” (pause) Me: “Ok. In the hoops skybox, where it says Boys and Girls in Actions, can you take the S off of Actions, make it… not plural? I mean singular?” Designer: “Gotcha. Next?” Me: “OK, now there needs to be a line around the picture. I mean a box. A border?” Designer: “Got it fixed.” Me: “OK, now there’s some weirdness going on with the… byline! the byline for the holiday cheer article. It’s what, too far to the right. I mean left.” Designer: “I see it. Yeah somebody broke the styles or something. I...

Two or three guys enter the hall to the upstairs apartment. I, the innocent little downstairs-dweller, am sitting here. This is what I hear through the thin wall. “That smells like poop.” Some rustling. Mumble, mumble, mumble. Keys unlock the upstairs door. Sniff, grunt, mumble. (What, are they drunk or something? It’s too early.) “Yeah, that’s what Brian’s like…” and some strange groaning. Laughter. Dragging some sort of tarp-sounding thing upstairs. A chime or something. Singing. Yes, singing. More speech I can’t make out. A large burp. Whistling. And it’s not me. Talking. “Huh?” No response. “What? Where’d he go? There it is.” “Yep, it’s still there.” More tarp rustling. Mumbling. “No they’re not.” Mumbling. “Huh?” More mumbling. These guys have communication problems. I think I hear a TV or something. Singing… Speech. “Whoa, juice!” (Well, that’s what it sounded like.) ---------------------- No joke. I really did hear that in the last three minutes. I...

Do you remember going camping with your family, growing up? I don’t. Unless you count church camp, with its primitive ( = you’re lucky you had a toilet) cabins and its delicious dining commons food. (Said without sarcasm, by the way. This particular church camp had its food prepared by a Cadillac-driving chef, no joke at all, who volunteered his time for the week.) But the tent thing? My mom couldn’t sleep in a tent. She had the hardest time picking out a mattress, what, eight years ago? And had to have that pillow top thing to make it comfortable. My dad, too, would probably have scared the deer for miles around with his snoring. So the closest I got to tent-camping when I was little was the quintessential backyard parties. Sometimes we even stayed out there all night… notwithstanding the stray cat that jumped on my tent and scared one of my siblings half to death. When folks at church mentioned they’d be at a churchwide camping weekend this fall, I got excited. Enthralled. Exhilar...