!!!!!!!!!

Post #301,826 by laura 1/2/09 11:21:40 AM Reply	!!!!!!!!! I'm sorry. This warranted extra exclamation points: I'm engaged!!! He popped the question on NYE. It took me until today to answer. Yesterday I was so wound up all I could do was clean. My mother would be so proud of me. He's a psych nurse by day, a contractor by night. He loves guns and motorcycles. He's an adrenalin junkie and wants to take me sky diving. Not gonna happen! He loves my kids and has a soft spot for my son. He's smart, funny, makes terrible puns and drinks way too much coffee. I've know him a couple years. He sits about 5 feet from me every day at work. We banter back and forth all day long, sometimes drawing the boss out of her office to remind us we do not get paid to chit-chat and laugh all day. I never thought of him in "that" way until a few months ago. Since then he's been coming over daily, monitoring my recuperation and doing manly things around the house. He drove 60 miles to come shovel my snow. He drives a Geo and the back seat is filled with power tools and grout. See Andrew? Women are not all about what kind of car a man drives. He's nice. Authentically nice. You know when you meet someone who is kind and giving and you think "Wow, I wish I could be more like that?" That's him. He says corny things like we were destined to meet. He inspires me. He confronts me. He challenges me. He is going to marry me. Kinda takes my breath away! Holy crap. This is going to be some year.
Post #301,828 by rcareaga 1/2/09 11:31:57 AM Reply	hot damn! Congratulations to the lucky bastard, and all good wishes for your bliss. cordially,
Post #301,830 by drook 1/2/09 11:37:40 AM Reply	Woot! Tell us when you set a date so me can make plans for the drive. And just so Andrew doesn't have to say it ... this doesn't mean women don't care what kind of car a man drives, it means you don't care what kind of car a man drives. -- Drew
Post #301,847 by laura 1/2/09 12:50:11 PM Reply	:-) Not even near setting a date or planning a wedding! I only said yes 5 hours ago! Lots of business stuff to take care of. Two houses to sell. My mom's estate is still up in the air and I was banished from my family shortly after she died. Long story. He thinks it's important for me to reconcile with my sisters before we get married. I disagree. It is a point of contention. He has 2 daughters, one just graduated from college with her teaching degree and the other is a sophomore at a private college in K'zoo and planning on med school. They are beautiful girls. He raised them well. And I want to give my kids time to adjust. There are a lot of things to consider and a lot of expenses to cover. I also had a miserable year of fighting, funerals and hospitals and need some time to catch my breath. He, on the other hand, wants to go for it and work out the details later. I'm a planner. He flies by the seat of his pants. We are either going to compliment each other nicely or drive each other crazy! At any rate, he has a cottage up north near West Branch and I would love to get married up there and do the whole casual beach wedding thing.
Post #301,863 by folkert 1/2/09 2:59:03 PM Reply	Re: :-) We are either going to compliment each other nicely or drive each other crazy! Ummm... YES! both!
Post #301,831 by boxley 1/2/09 11:39:50 AM Reply	dang, wished you could have made up yer mind at my house congrats!
Post #301,848 by laura 1/2/09 12:51:39 PM Reply	I'm still wired You might see me knocking on your door in 15 hours or so...
Post #301,854 by boxley 1/2/09 1:08:48 PM Reply	I would wait until I get back from mississippi :-)
Post #301,835 by malraux 1/2/09 11:49:08 AM Reply	Congrats! That's great! Regards, -scott Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
Post #301,836 by Andrew Grygus 1/2/09 11:51:17 AM Reply	Well, maybe the hormones have . . . . . finally worked their way out of your system. Congratulations! I hope this works out really well for both of you.
Post #301,852 by laura 1/2/09 1:00:44 PM Reply	The hormones blessedly, are gone.
Post #301,840 by Another Scott 1/2/09 12:03:57 PM Reply	:-D Congratulations to both of you!
Post #301,842 by mvitale 1/2/09 12:07:40 PM Reply	Gratumalations! Wooness! Yayness! -Mike "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin, 1759 Historical Review of Pennsylvania
Post #301,843 by hnick 1/2/09 12:14:52 PM Reply	Yay for you!! Don't blow off the sky diving automatically. The first jumps are always on static line and low enough that it's not too cold. It'll still curl your toes and it really is kind of fun. I wish you all the best. Hugh
Post #301,845 by drook 1/2/09 12:26:53 PM Reply	Not necessarily You can do a class and do your first jump solo. Just a lot harder to find a school qualified to do it. And much more expensive, because the class is longer and you need two qualified instructors to jump with you. Other option is a tandem jump where you're attached to the instructor. -- Drew
Post #301,849 by laura 1/2/09 12:55:11 PM Reply	I'll take a pass on that. I'll go to the shooting range. I'll go riding with him. I'll do the jet skis at 75mph. But I wont jump out into nothing. I've taken enough leaps of faith this past year. I'm staying planted on the ground for a while.
Post #301,851 by hnick 1/2/09 12:58:28 PM Reply	I hear that. Go with what's comfortable for you.
Post #301,853 by drook 1/2/09 1:01:53 PM Reply	I found it surprisingly (and disappointingly) unexciting Sitting in the door of the plane looking down at nothing, the urge to not fall out was pretty strong. Once we'd hopped out, there was no sensation of falling. Just wind, and a great view. Second time, we had to deal with cloud cover. You can't jump if you can't see the ground and we had to circle the drop zone for 20 minutes looking for a break. We were about to cancel, since the sun was going down, when we saw an opening. I saw the hole in the bright white clouds as we approached, a sudden blindness as we hit the shadow and my eyes adjusted, then we dropped under into a technicolor sunset. Absolutely amazing. But still no sensation of falling or flight. I've got to do a solo jump so I can spin around and play a bit before pulling the cord. -- Drew
Post #301,859 by Another Scott 1/2/09 1:22:20 PM Reply	An alternative. I'm not sure what it's called, but I remember an amusement ride when I was a kid. You get strapped in a harness like a parachute, but you jump off a tower that has a couple cables running from it. You get the sensation of being in a parachute and bouncing around, but there's no real danger. Unfortunately, the closest picture I've found is this, but it's not like I remember... http://www.cs.utk.ed...r/activities.html Cheers, Scott.
Post #301,860 by Andrew Grygus 1/2/09 1:55:58 PM Reply	Deluxe Erector Sets used to come with . . . . . plans and accessories for an animated amusement park parachute jump.
Post #301,850 by hnick 1/2/09 12:57:17 PM Reply	Well, live and learn. I actually knew about the tandem jump, but not from personal experience. I think Bush senior did one. I wasn't aware of the former option. Static line isn't bad and considerable more usual for new jumpers.
Post #301,844 by a6l6e6x 1/2/09 12:24:06 PM Reply	Well, hot damn! Echoing Rand here. Wonderful news, Laura! Alex
Post #301,861 by beepster 1/2/09 2:43:33 PM Reply	Woohoo! Is we invited???? I will choose a path that's clear. I will choose freewill.
Post #301,877 by Ashton 1/3/09 5:50:31 AM Reply	Love. It. And a Geo !? Why, that's close enough to a Citroën Deux Chevaux ergo, the guy's got cuth. May all your arguments be of the sort which end, as the root source manifests ... in uncontrollable stitches {of giggling == That kind of stitch.} OK then - no need to enroll in that nunnery, sistah..
Post #301,882 by laura 1/3/09 11:40:12 AM Reply	Not ruling out the nunnery It's still my retirement plan. He's a bit older than I am, and last night he said he was going to pick up a 3rd job working on a psych unit on the weekends to cover all the upcoming expenses. Geez. Between running himself ragged and falling out of airplanes, he will surely die long before I do. Enter the convent. Quite. Peaceful. Three hots and a cot, plus wardrobe. No need to worry about hair and makeup. And lots of ladies to gab with. I'd be okay with marrying Jesus as my 3rd husband. Hell, I've done worse. He seems nice, and with all the other nuns in the world married to him, he wouldnt have time to get in my face. It beats living under a bridge rolling drunks with Box.
Post #301,884 by crazy 1/3/09 12:29:40 PM Reply	I heard that retirement plan has some interesting twists This christmas day an old lady (70ish) was sitting in a hallway in a nursing home. She was kicked out of the convent about 10 years prior. She had become aggressivly sexual. So she spent the day, interacting with all the family members that were visiting their relatives. Flashing her tits, playing with her nipples, masturbating, and asking every guy who walked by to fuck her.
Post #301,892 by Ashton 1/3/09 5:16:04 PM Reply	Er, yeahh.. but.. one has to recall here an important distinction between dedication ... and obsession. (Hey, and too: sex-obsession can be more co$tly than crank; and that's just the $-part.) Believe this lady modelled her persona on a particular character I seem to recall in MAD -magazine. Coulda picked worse (imagine if she'd read the Weekly Standard instead: My Gramma2?)
Post #301,893 by Another Scott 1/3/09 5:36:55 PM Reply	Sounds like a side effect of dementia to me. "Hypersexuality in Dementia" - http://apt.rcpsych.o...rint/11/6/424.pdf (8 page .pdf): Studies of the prevalence of sexually disinhibited behaviour in people with dementia report rates of 2Â17%. Burns et al (1990) found that 6.9% of 178 people with AlzheimerÂs disease living at home, in residential care or in hospital showed sexually inappropriate behaviour (exposure, obscene sex language, masturbation, propositioning others), with about equal frequency in men (8%) and women (7%). There was a significant positive association with severity of dementia. As with much of the existing dementia treatments, there's not much they can do to treat it except give drugs which often have severe side effects. Cheers, Scott.
Post #301,925 by Meerkat 1/5/09 2:43:18 AM Reply	Wowzies! Congrats! Am a bit stuck for words for no good reason, but, congrats! May you have all those exclamation marks, and more. They said I was gullible ... and I believed them
Post #301,927 by Steve Lowe 1/5/09 3:46:20 AM Reply	Congrats! Marvelous news :)
Post #301,937 by jake123 1/5/09 11:14:17 AM Reply	Congratulations, Laura! May you have many happy years together.
Post #301,939 by mhuber 1/5/09 11:28:12 AM Reply	Congratulations! You've done enough of the overcoming obstacles. Now to the good stuff!

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