Sheila and I are Engaged!

At this point in time, the whole world can now know.

Sheila and I are engaged to be married.  I proposed marriage on the evening of 4/25/14.  She had just arrived, and we went out to my back patio to talk (we've spent a lot of evenings there enjoying the Arizona weather lately).

I made the decision to propose marriage at 8:45 in the morning of 3/27/14.  I had been praying about it, and while walking over to another building for a meeting which I was chairing, I decided that it was time.

I spent a couple of weeks deciding how to do this.  Do I take her to a special dinner?  That might tip her off.  I wanted it to be a surprise.  Do I wait until a normal day?  With the way things are with me, good luck with that.  Last Friday, as documented in my previous entry, presented its own fair share of problems.  And, I've got another one or two of them to work out as I type this.

Anyway.....our original plans were to drive down to Tombstone last Saturday.  Then I checked the weather forecast....it wasn't good.  High wind gusts were forecast all day long, and there was even rain the forecast.  Rain in April here is unusual, but a day of wind gusts is not.  Usually we get a full day of wind gusts whenever I have an off Friday, but since it wasn't an off Friday it had to instead happen on that Saturday.  The same day I wanted to propose.

So......the weather forecast made me propose one day early.  I knew that Friday morning I wanted to do it, but I needed a day without complication.  Well, I didn't get a day without complication.  My camper shell glass mishap was one of those bizarre anomalies right out of left field.  So I have a replacement on order. Fine.

Then there was that damned malware attack, which may not have been McAfee's fault.  In the headlines today was one of them that Microsoft has a serious security flaw in all versions of Exploder....excuse me.....Explorer.  As much as I would like to blame McAfee for it, I might be wrong in doing so.

Well.....that one was overcome.....even if I had to talk to a call center in India.  (I'm going to give those guys kudos on this one....they fixed the problem!).  At this point, I'm thinking, there's nothing else left go wrong this day.  The H E double hockey sticks with it.  I'm going to propose!  But I had to wait for her to come over, and when I saw her car pull into the driveway from my upstairs window, I knew that the moment had arrived.

We were then on the back patio.  I said, "can you come over here for a second?"

She did.

"Can you set that down right there?", referring to the cold drink she had in her hand.

She did.

Then I dropped to one knee and took her hand in mine.

"Sheila Dxxxxxx, will you marry me?  Will you become my wife?"

As I expected, Sheila said yes.  That was the best answer anyone's given me on a question for several years.  I then opened up a bottle of wine from Chile that I had been saving for a special occasion, a wine that Cost Plus discontinued since too many people liked it.

So.......fifteen years of being single again are ending.  A wedding is in our future.

We don't yet know when this will happen.  I'd like to think it will be later this year.  I don't know.  I have to get my house ready for her and her kids, and, I think all of us, even though we knew this was coming, just might want to let the idea of marriage and family ferment in the recesses of the mind for a little while.

All I can tell you, is that we want to do a road trip for the honeymoon, and we're thinking that Route 66 might be it.  Or.....it might be Santa Fe, Las Vegas, the ghost towns of Nevada......who knows.

The important thing is that this is going to happen.

We ask that you keep us in your thoughts and prayers.