Little House

On Sunday I had to say goodbye to my little house. With the wedding coming up and Jason needing to move out of his current place in August, I decided that the best thing I could do is move out of my little house and save the money I would have spent on rent and utilities as a little nest egg for Jason and I to start with.

While I'm confident that this decision is the best and most responsible one I could make, that little house changed my life. I moved in there with a broken heart, and found a place that I could heal, grow, and become truly independent. I learned how to really manage my finances, what expenses are truly important and what I could do without, and how to be alone with my thoughts. I healed in that house, I grew in that house, and I became the person I am today in that little house. A little more than a year later, my life is so very different! As my mom put it, "That house served it's purpose." So while it is time to move on and forward, I do so with a little bit of sadness and definitely some tears.

Thank you, Little House. I hope your next tenant appreciates you as much as I did!

Engaged!

I got engaged on Friday. Really, truly engaged to the love of my life, the man who has become my life partner in the blink of an eye. And it has caught everyone by surprise - everyone that is except the two of us (although it DID surprise me, I have been ready since December), our immediate families and our best friends. For those of you who DON'T know, we met and began dating in October, and both of us knew for certain that we had met our life partner by December.

Because of the kind of person I am, I've always known that when I met that person and knew that I had met that person, that I would be completely impatient and ready to move forward with the rest of our lives. So for me, the last four months have been a very impatient wait... especially because Jason played me the whole time, and I truly believed that we would not be getting engaged for MONTHS! He is such a turkey!

So, Jason asks me to set aside Friday night for a special date. You know how that is, you're a couple, so you're always going out and making plans but somewhere along the line you stop having real dates. So we went out on a REAL DATE!

He surprises me with a GORGEOUS bouquet of roses, and then takes me out for dinner - a surprise - at the restaurant where we had our first date, and we sit at the same table we sat at, and have a wonderful time without that nervousness of our first date. (At the first date we talked for HOURS.)

After dinner it's down to the beach

for a walk where we take Jason's dog, Indy, on a long walk every weekend. Jason gets a backpack out of the car. I assume it's for a little dessert picnic (I don't know HOW I didn't know!). As we're walking, I look over at Jason and his cheeks are BRIGHT RED (STILL I don't know. STILL!). We walk out onto the sand, and he tells me to turn around and close my eyes so he can set everything up (Still. STILL!). When he asks me to turn around, he's kneeling with a diamond and asks, "Erin Farrell, will you marry me?" To which I immediately shake my head up and down like a bobble head to say YES, because I can't make my mouth form any words, and then tackle him in the sand. After which I proceed to sit and cry and blubber, smile and cackle for the next thirty minutes. Poor Jason... his poor heart can't handle it when I cry, even for joy. :)

He knows me so well. The ring is an antique, a diamond cut that hasn't been made for 100 hundred years, and has been in his family since at least 1940. It couldn't be more perfect. 1.1 carats of sparkling antique diamond on a simple gold band. :)

I love Jason for who he is - a man with a generous and loving heart, who sees the world and his place in it uniquely. A man with no pretensions, who doesn't realize how truly special and unique he is. My gentle giant and loving bear. A humble man who knows what he loves and loves what he does. An artist in a very different way from me, who is patient with my quirks and understands my moods. Who supports me unconditionally, and whom I support in turn. He is truly the man I have been praying for all my life. I am so grateful to have found him. (I am crying AGAIN.)

Although it has caught everyone I know by surprise, we are overjoyed and so ready to move forward in our life together. We are so different and so similar, and fit into each others lives and families perfectly. I already love his family, and he loves mine.

So thank you for all of the well-wishes. We are SO THRILLED to begin our lives together!!!!!!!!!!!!