The bearded eye-roller

BJ and I went to the grocery store last night in preparation for the X-box extravaganza. I wanted to make a shopping list on my PDA (I have a groovy little shopping program.. I *heart* it very much), but he said that wasn't necessary. BJ and I shop very differently. First I must make a menu, then I make the grocery list. Now before you think I'm over-the-edge neurotic, I'll admit that I do stray from the list while I'm at the store. If it's on sale.

BJ, on the other hand, shops like a bachelor. Seeing as he's been a bachelor for the past few years, I understand that some habits die hard. He just likes to go up every aisle and throw things in that look good. So, last night we went shopping bachelor style.

First was the beer aisle. There were just so many choices. Rows and rows of beer.

I saw these cool Barbie plates and tried to sneak them in the basket, but he found them, dammit! I think the guys would have appreciated having something girlie at the X-box extravaganza.

All in all, it was a fairly quick shopping trip. We only had to go down the beer, soda, meat products, cheese, and chips aisle. There was no produce to be found in the shopping cart. Zip. Nada.

And this, my friends, is what
$242.00 of boy groceries looks like:

You saw it here folks. I like geeks, and that's why I like hubby. He's having an X-box party on Saturday, and I don't mean just a couple of guys getting together for a couple of hours to play games. No, this is a 12 hour event involving LOTS of guys, LOTS of X-boxes networked together and LOTS of AV equipment. Oh, and lots of booze for sure. There will be so much testosterone in the house that I will be leaving town for fear of growing chest hair and a beard. Here's a snippet of an email that he sent the guys today:

This is going to be great. FOUR (count ˜em: FOUR!) big screen projectors, six X-boxes, capability for three-team action, air conditioning, wireless remotes, ah, Ah, AGHH!!! (gorilla noises).

Off the AP-Wire: There was a brown-out today in the small town of [Insert our city and state here] when a massive drain on available electrical power was caused by imported gaming, projection, and stereo devices reaching a simultaneous peak during a Halo2 game of team slayer. The frag-fest drew all available power from the small community, except emergency medical support at the local State School facility. Searching for the cause of the power drain,local police accidentally raided the dwelling of the gamers after hearing cries of hey, you killed Kenny, you bastards! and stop shooting me, I'm dead already! The errant cops then stayed on to draw top honors at the next game of Capture The Flag with human-only weapons and all vehicles.

Now if you'll excuse me, I must go have a cold shower.

I normally don't like to blog during work hours but for this, I need to make an exception.

I asked my brother what he wanted for Christmas (I drew his name this year). He wanted these. The minute I saw them I forwarded the site to hubby and said that I thought he should have a pair because they look really really comfortable. As a side note, I'd benefit too because then I wouldn't have to see him wearing black socks with his shorts anymore. That's always a plus.

But I digress.

One of my friends sent me a link to a gadget that is, well, pretty fab. I sent that link to hubby and said that I thought it was really cool. We're both geeky and like cool gadgets. The rest of the email exchange went like this:

BJ: This looks pretty freaking cool. Set up the docking station in the car so that it is removable and you can swap it to any car we're currently using. Hmmmmm...

Me: I know! I thought you'd like it... Maybe this is another Christmas present that we can buy ourselves, then I'll take complete custody of it. (tee hee... oh... that wasn't a very good try at subliminal suggestion was it?)

BJ: Oh, I thought it was for me! I get it now. You get the cool new satellite radio for Christmas with the docking stations and the TiVo recording capability and I get..............slippers.

Then I got a follow-up to that, just to dig the guilt knife in a bit deeper...

BJ: Yeah, and then for our birthdays you can get an Aviator with a GPS system, leather interior and a 7 speaker stereo and I can get ..............a tie.

He's a quick learner, don't you think?

....it's not. It really is good and it's true. That's my new motto, and I'm sticking to it.

Last night was another wonderful night in the life of this newlywed. While in the middle of watching Spiderman 2, hubby paused the movie and said, "have I told you lately how much I really like being married to you?" I thought it was interesting timing because during my ride home from work I was wondering when marriage is going to stop being so fun. I keep waiting and waiting for marriage to seem like a complete drag. You know, the ball and chain bit, because that was my experience with my 'practice husband' almost from the beginning.

So, during our heart-to-heart last night I laughed at him about the fact that he 'warned' me when we started getting serious that this relationship will end just like all his other relationships. He replied by telling me that he now has new 'data' (geek!) and he's changed his mind about that whole thing.

I'm going to have to come to terms with the fact that maybe marriage IS fun and this one ISN'T too good to be true. Yeah, I guess I have new data too.

Today marks one year from the day hubby asked me to marry him. When we first started dating, he had me thoroughly convinced that this day would never happen. I accepted him at face value, and never pushed him for anything more. He was a 'confirmed bachelor' you know.

Every so often, he'd bump up the relationship status- always surprising me with each step. Then the biggie happened. He asked me to move in with him (we lived about 1.5 hours apart from each other, making it difficult to see each other often.)

I think my reaction surprised him. He was expecting the 'rush into his arms tearfully saying yes' scene. What he got was the "I have to think about it, I'm going to go for a drive." ......"By myself", scene.

I was raised in a very conservative religion. Although I formally gave that religion up about four years ago, my parents didn't. I knew that my living with someone before marriage would absolutely kill them and even though I have issues with my parents religious 'zeal', I still respected their right to feel the way they do.

So, I came up with a compromise during that drive. I told him that I would only consider moving in with him if it was a precursor to marriage and that we had to have a wedding date set within a year. He agreed to that. This was the first and last time I ever brought up that topic. I moved in with him the first weekend in September 2003.

I'd had two fake outs in the weeks leading up to the day he asked me to marry him. One of them was a beautiful weekend getaway in a wonderful posh hotel. He'd reserved the honeymoon suite with rose petals on the floor leading up to the bed. I just *knew* he was going to pop the question. I even poked around his suit and suitcase trying to find the ring while he was getting ready for dinner. Yeah, I'm nosy like that. Dinner came and went. Nothing. The waiter asked if we wanted dessert. Aha! I thought. He's going to have the ring brought out with dessert! Ummm, no. When we went back to the room, there were new items; an ice bucket containing champagne and a silver platter with a cover on it. "There it is!", I thought. I didn't want to seem eager so I let him lift the lid. Damned chocolate covered strawberries.

The next fake out was the day before the actual proposal. He told me to get all dolled up because he was going to take me to a swanky restaurant. There were classical guitars playing in the background and candlelight at the table. Suddenly he grabbed my hand and looked at me with tears in his eyes and told me that he can't remember when he'd ever been this happy. He went on to tell me that he loves every minute we spend together and how it all feels so right. I just *knew* that this was the moment. It was so perfect, well except there was no proposal.

The following day, we decided to just lay around the house in our sweats and watch movies all day. I don't even remember what we were watching when he paused the TiVo, got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I thought he was joking so I told him to shut up and put the TiVo back on play. I suppose he didn't quite get the reaction he expected out of the proposal either. I'm funny that way. He continued trying to convince me that he was serious. I continued to not believe him. I mean, come on.... where were the candles? Where was the music?

Even on to the next morning, I still didn't believe him so I decided to not bring it up when we woke up. He rolled over and said, "hey, did we discuss anything of importance last night? I had a little too much to drink, you know." Then he started laughing. I wanted to slug him. I probably did.

So, that was my marriage proposal. Less than three months from the day we moved in together, just over a year from the day we met. I'm really quite glad it happened that way because it proved to me that he took me to all those wonderful places because he wanted to pamper me. Nothing more. He proposed to me when I couldn't have looked ANY WORSE. That, in a nutshell says it all.

So, today is a special day for me. The day that the confirmed bachelor was a confirmed bachelor no more. I haven't regretted saying yes for even a minute.