About US- Honey Graham and me - The Next Chapter: How we got Engaged

By Mama Posted in Family Life October 13, 2017, 12:14 AM

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I posted about a year ago about how Honey Graham and I met.

Since earlier this month was our first date-a-versary, I thought I'd continue with the next chapter of our life.

We already knew we were meant to be together after our first weekend together. He came up to Laramie the following weekend and spent the weekend on my horribly uncomfortable futon and yet he STILL wanted to be with me. And that weekend, a nasty snowstorm shut down all the Greyhound busses (he didn’t have a driver’s license!), so he was forced to stay with me an extra day! Somehow, we survived. Ha. And somehow he survived on that stupid futon.

One weekend shortly after all of this, I had to go up to my parents’ house for some reason. I don’t remember. I missed Honey Graham something fierce. I talked to him practically constantly. One evening, I was in my room talking to him and he kept dropping hints that he wanted me to say something to him. I was terrified to tell him this because I had been so hurt in my previous relationship and I was afraid that he didn’t feel the same way about me. We kept talking and he kept trying and trying to get those words out of me, and finally I told him that I loved him. Much to my relief, he told me he loved me too. We still tease each other about this conversation.

We spent more and more time together, and I brought him up to meet my parents for Thanksgiving. We had a fun time. They seemed to like each other and that was another sigh of relief for me. He even survived my sister’s demon cat, who liked to sleep in the room he was staying in.

We decided to spend Christmas with our respective families, and it was hard for me. We sent each other texts constantly and talked every night. I remember two text messages he sent me. The first was “I love you with the light of a million stars. I know, wrong units :)”. The other was “I miss you. I want to kiss you in the cold air. I can’t wait until we’re surrounded by our great grandchildren.” Aw.

I got really sick in January with a weird infection. It cleared up, but the medication left me vulnerable to other infections and I got mono the next month. I got it BAD. I missed tons of school. I was the sickest I’d ever been up to that point in my life. I remember I finally went to the campus doctor and they tested me for various things. I had barely enough coherence left to get in the car, grab a smoothie from Sonic, and drive down to Fort Collins where I collapsed in his bed for the weekend. I was really sick. I got sicker and sicker. Eventually, I was able to drive back to Laramie (I took him back up with me and the horrible futon because there were days I literally could not walk across my apartment without help). He went to my professors and got my homework and notes for me and everything. He took such good care of me. I remember watching him play video games while I was in and out of sleep. I remember watching stupid game shows with him. I remember falling asleep watching various movies. Poor guy really had to take care of me. I ended up missing over a month of classes.

Eventually I started feeling a little better and I remember one afternoon when I was finally able to resume exercise, walking around Fort Collins with him. Somehow, we had started talking about getting married and our wedding! We talked about where and when we’d get married, but he had never even asked me to marry him! I guess we had just both assumed this was going to happen.

Soon it was spring break and once I had finished a make up exam and turned in a very late paper, I took Honey Graham up to my parents’ house to spend the rest of the week. There, he had a conversation with my parents about me, and my parents gave him their blessing to marry me! The next day, my mom and I started wedding planning and Honey Graham and I picked out an engagement ring. It was a fun time. My mom did a fantastic job throwing a wedding together in just a few short months. We decided to get married in July since that was practically the only time we wouldn’t have to deal with the threat of snow and it worked out for everyone to fly or drive from all over the country to attend! (My family has a lot of teachers, so summertime worked out best for jobs and all of that.)

In May, I finally limped through the rest of my semester. Right before finals, Honey Graham’s granddad passed away. He told his Nana he could either come down right then or he could wait a week and bring me down with him. Nana said she wanted to meet me. So, we planned our trip for me to meet his family! I was very excited and nervous.

We stayed with his mom in Austin (she picked us up from the airport) and we met his dad and Nana and other family members. We also visited the town we’re currently living in so I could meet a bunch of his friends from when he lived there. That was a strange day, but I loved seeing the town he lived in for a while (which we’d eventually end up moving to!).

Well, we got back home and I found out I had been asked/told to leave my graduate program since I missed so much school and my grades suffered. You had to maintain a B average and I had gotten one single C, so that was the end. This really hit me hard and I was really upset for a long time. I was too sick to go to class but not sick enough for medical leave. Grr. Makes me mad just remembering it.

I decided to move to Fort Collins when we got married. We started looking for apartments and getting ready for our lives together! We found a VERY spacious 2 bedroom, 1 bath. It even had a small fenced yard perfect for a dog! We both really liked it, despite its issues. There was a huge living room area with the first (big) bedroom across the room. Then to the left was the kitchen. There was a little nook off to the left with the sink and counter, and then the large kitchen had a stove and refrigerator, with a storage area both to the right and the left. The left storage area was like a huge closet. Then, to the right of that was an extra room that we’d use for an office, with two small closets off of that, as well as the back stairway (it was a garden level place). To the right of THAT room was the other bedroom (also big, used for guests and my craft room), which was also huge and had a nice closet in it. This apartment had some major issues. The floor was not level. The bathroom was teeeeeeeeny tiny and the shower was barely big enough to turn around in. The kitchen had the most bizarre layout I’d ever seen: the sink and some cabinets were in a little “nook”/hallway with carpet on the floor. The stove was on the other end of the long, narrow room with a few other cabinets nearby. (The large pantry closet was next to it too.) The refrigerator was on the other wall with some open shelving next to it. HGTV would have thrown a FIT… But it had a lot of storage and even though it was very difficult to do any major cooking or baking, we managed for a year. The living room and bedroom were very nice and I got a lot of work done in the office and lots of projects made in the craft room/spare bedroom. Anyway, I’ve rambled on too long about this place.

Honey Graham and I also decided to start looking for a dog. There is the BEST adoption center ever in Fort Collins, and we started dropping by on a regular basis to get to know the dogs. We couldn’t actually adopt a dog until after the wedding and honeymoon, but I couldn’t wait to get started. (See post about Crunch Berries HERE. and HERE)

My mom and I kept wedding planning and before we knew it, we had our apartment and it was almost time for our wedding! I got out of my lease in Laramie a month early and we moved all my stuff down to our new place with a lot of help from my parents. It was quite the adventure since we were moving stuff OUT of Honey Graham’s place and my place and INTO our new place. Plus, we were receiving wedding gifts! It took some coordinating and my poor dad driving a huge, empty Uhaul (it was the only one they had) over 100 miles on the interstate, but we finally got it all done and we got to enjoy our apartment for a few days before the wedding. We sort of consolidated our things as we unpacked. The local thrift centers were pretty happy with us for awhile.

A couple weeks before the wedding, I went back up to my parents’ house to get ready. My friends finally arrived from the midwest and a bunch of my family arrived a few days before and it was one of the best times of my life. I really enjoyed my last week as a single woman.