From Boyfriend to Fiance

I typically take time on September29th to send my sister birthday wishes...  but I really need to take some time to pen some thoughts on my recent engagement. 

That's right fellow earthlings...  Rolando & Rhiannon are officially engaged.

Officially put a Ring on It

I popped the question on Saturday (September 27th) night and she said yes...  before I get into the details of how that all came about, I guess I should start at the very beginning. 

I knew deep down inside that I wanted to marry Rhiannon about 8 or 9 months ago..  That feeling was affirmed after having a number of deep discussions about life and how we wanted to navigate through it together.

I didn't want to rush into an engagement so we had a discussion about wanting to wait till we were together for at least a year together before revisiting the "topic".  Our relationship is a byproduct of perfect timing....  one of the requests that Rhiannon asked of me was to secure the blessing of her father and brother before proposing, so I knew that I would have to develop strong relationships with them individually before making the big jump.

Much to my surprise... our first year together came and went faster than I could ever imagine.  The process of selecting a ring started in early late July and early August...  I intended to pop the question some time in October of November of this year.

Rhiannon spent a good amount of time on the road in August, so this allowed me to visit local jewelers and learn about rings while she was away.   I wanted to take my time in the selection process and I couldn't be happier with how all of that turned out.  I could pen a big write up about how I came about selecting her diamond, but I'll save everyone the trouble by acknowledging that I simply knew it the moment I saw it.   I would liken it to knowing which is the puppy you want to select for a pet from a litter.   I genuinely saw it, felt it and asked the jeweler to make it happen.

The Blessings
I have to say that the most memorable part of our engagement, was me getting the blessings from Rhiannon's parents and brother on the morning of September 27th.

I had a few opportunities to reach out to them while she was away in August, but I wanted to have the ring in hand when I approached them for the blessing.   I leveraged my parents being in town over the weekend to my advantage and diverted Rhiannon's attention so that I could sneak away and secure the OKs.

I paid a surprise visit to Rhiannon's parents house in the morning, informed them both of my intentions and they happily blessed my request.  I asked them both to keep it quiet, until I met her brother and they happily complied. 

Meeting up with AB (Rhiannon's brother) on Saturday - became a comedy of errors.   He was battling a flu that day...  we missed out on an opportunity to meet before lunch - so we tabled everything for an unspecified time in the afternoon.

AB asked me to help him with moving a scale at a house he's renovating and I acknowledged that as the time and place we would sit down and have a heart to heart about my intentions.

That plan however was thwarted when Rhiannon's car had an electrical problem...   Shaking her on the afternoon of September 27th was harder than you could ever imagine.  We finally got the car to turn over, we took it over to her father's house and while that was being addressed - I called AB, begged him to meet me so that I could talk to him in person.   The day began to unravel a little bit and feared Rhiannon was beginning to piece together some strange behavior on my part...

My meeting with AB was 180 degrees different from the meet up I had with her parents...  we talked about a number of things, but the conversation circled around our profound love for Rhiannon.  In addition to that we talked a lot about how we wanted to perceive each other as brothers.  It ended with a firm shake of the hand and with that...  I had all the blessings in hand.

The day ended with Rhiannon agreeing to catch a sunset by the Riverwalk...  we had a crazy day and I asked her to indulge with a request to simply see the sun set together.   We didn't get a chance to connect throughout the day because of the secret circus I was conducting and with that I felt like I saw sitting on a secret that was burst at the seems to get out.

Rhiannon and I have a lot of great memories together on the Riverwalk...  we had transformational date that included a boat ride over a year ago on the River, so it felt like the best place to sit down with her to discuss the day, decompress and propose to her.

It all came down to timing again, so I asked and she said "Yes".

 

 

 

 

Restless in Seattle

Penning this journal entry from a very cold hotel room in Tacoma, Washington.  I've called this little room home for over a week now and I would be lying if I said I wasn't homesick.

I speak and message with Rhiannon daily, but the time and distance apart has been unusually hard this time.  I just got word the other day that she'll be in Boise, Idaho this weekend - so we'll only get to spend a few days together this week before spending a number of days apart again.

We both have lots of travel coming up so the month of August is going to be brutal also...

I need to make it a point to recap the days, when I get back to the hotel at night.  Writing is freakishly therapeutic... 

Memorial Day/Random Observations from the Work Desk

Salutations amigos...

If you're reading this from home today, there's a good chance that you're one of the many whom are excused from work duties today.   Memorial Day however is a "bizay" day for us in the world of Retail, so I'm at the office today - anchoring the I.T. desk at the home office.

My workday will likely consist of monitoring STORIS user account usage, SOP proof reading, Spotify streaming and occasional texts with Rhiannon who has been dispatched to one of our largest retail stores.

Today's biggest perk will come by way of a comp'd lunch... I'm pretty sure we're going to score pie from NY Pizza Pub.  I haven't heard anyone cast a vote for any other places, so I got that going for me.

As for random updates regarding "life"...

Things are going remarkably well on my end...  Last week was a little weird because I found myself adjusting to not being in the Bahamas.  I never thought of myself as  "beach/resort/getaway" kinda person, but I found myself longing for the sun & water in ways that I never imagined.

Couple that with returning to a busy week at the office and all I could keep telling myself was "this is nothing like the Bahamas last week".

We did however get to have some friends come into town for the weekend tho'.  Our plans of living it up however were up-ended because of Thunderstorms and Tornado warnings.

We did however get to have an amazing brunch at Tuckers and spend lots of quality time with Goddaughters and Nieces.

English Graffiti

Just saw that NPR is providing a "first listen" preview of the new Vaccines album: ENGLISH GRAFFITI.

I'm still digesting the album and I haven't had a full half hour to completely take it in one sitting so I'll hold off on reviewing it until I score a proper copy of it next week.



May 1st?

It just occurred to me that an entire month came and went and I didn't post a fucking thing on this website...

I'm not exactly sure how things (day2day-life) got in the way of sitting down to jot down random thoughts or observations but April had an unusual amount of highs and lows.

Elliot Update - I don't think I ever posted a final Elliot update on the internets...  His surgery was a success and the little nasty bit of "mass" that was cut out was benign.  I didn't bother looking up this word, so I want to make it clear - he has the cancer that came up as "negative".  We still have to keep an eye on him and take him back to the vet if it grows back.  If that happens, we may have to explore removing teeth/bone in the area that is causing the masses to grow.  He's been slowly recovering and he's just as awesome as ever.

2nd Degree Leg Burn - I don't quite know how this never made the internets, but I strained my calf playing a game of tennis.  Went home, applied ice...  incorrectly on my leg and I ended up with a second degree burn.  How did this happen?  Well... that's a really long story, but all you need to know is that you shouldn't apply Frozen/Salt-Water packs directly to your skin and run the risk of having said packs burst on your skin.   It's freakishly painful and gross.

On the left - the ice pack being applied.  
In the Middle - the morning after... it felt like a sun burn.
the Right side - roughly 12 hours after applying ice... it began to bubble and get crazy.  I went to the doctor and it go SO MUCH FUCKING WORSE. 

I'm perfectly fine now...  the whole thing was hassle and I had to combat two kinds of pains - The Calf Strain (that took about 2 weeks to recover from) and the Burn (that took about 3 weeks to recover from).

Record Store Day! Braid - so I'm fairly certain that the best thing to happen in the month of April, was securing a copy of Braid's record store day 7" record.

Kids Get Grids - is surprisingly good.  I'd be lying if I said their new stuff makes me swoon like I did in college, but this shit really makes me excited for more stuff to hopefully see the light of day. 


Late Night Conversations: Episode 17 - The Metal Years

Just uploaded a new episode of Late Night Conversations this afternoon...  It's based around my lifelong dream to operate a Gravitron and put together a choice playlist to accompany my work shift.

This is by no means a "complete" representation of my Heavy Metal tastes / past or present - It's really hard to select and omit songs when you genuinely try to put together a definitive list.