There was this one day I got engaged, Part Two: What a tease

In the following weeks, Chris took me to multiple ring stores. First Jared's, which was fancy, but unimpressive. Then a quick stop in to Kay's at the mall once, only to find out that they really have nothing good. Zales that same day, which was a little more promising. I never found another ring that I really liked as much as the Robbin's Brothers one, but Chris either wasn't as impressed or wanted to check out all the other possibilities.

January turned into February, and amidst all the ring shopping and "so when are you going to marry me" joking, people from school were betting he would ask on Valentine's Day. I didn't think so. That OSF wasn't going to do it on an obvious day like that. 

Meanwhile, Chris had started a business card collage on his bulletin board. 

This is what I would stare at when taking breaks from my homework. Such a tease.


I tried not to pester him about it, but it sure is hard to not know what someone's thinking... especially in this situation. 


When March started, and we were still looking at rings every chance we got, I began figuring out that probably, probably, my extremely organized and resourceful boyfriend was just getting a head start on the looking so that, years from now, whenever he planned to ask, he could look through his files for the perfect ring. To save himself some time later, you know.


Also, he mentioned something about how he thought a year was about the right time to propose. We were at 10 months. Dang.


Then I felt bad. Had I been pushing him into this? Was I being too "marry me already!" with him? But he was the one who initiated the ring shopping. And kept taking me to more stores.


It was a very confusing time.


I remembered something my wonderful used-to-be-roommate Mandy told me a few days before she got married, when I was lamenting about how much I loved Chris, and how much I wanted to marry him, and all that blah blah blah. And she told me, as a seasoned girl at being engaged, that I really needed to be enjoying the last few months I had being single.


So last week I decided I would do just that. I would be independent, while I still had my independence! I had homework to do, and students to teach, and books to write, and scrapbooks to create, and all kinds of things that needed to get done. I didn't need any man to take care of me!


And then I got food poisoning.