How I finally snagged him

I've always said I knew I was going to marry Paul before we were even dating. I had that moment of epiphany over Labor Day Weekend, 1995. Paul was dog-sitting for a friend of his who was out of town for the long weekend. He was playing with this obnoxious little poodle and suddenly I just knew I was going to marry this boy. I was 20 years old, we weren't dating, we were barely friends. But something in me just knew.

Convincing Paul took a bit longer.

We were together at Tech for about a year until Paul finished his master's program mid-semester and moved back to Albuquerque in October 1996. I graduated in May 1997 and spent a year teaching in Texas.

I moved to Albuquerque in the summer of 1998 to start graduate school and gave us 16 months (the length of the graduate program) to figure out what we were going to do--we'd dated almost three years but we'd only spent one year in the same town. There were more than a few naysayers when I announced I was moving to NM for a boy. Most people couldn't believe I was going to do this without us being engaged and no real promise that we ever would be. Honestly, I had plenty of my own doubts but it was something I had to do.

My first year in ABQ was rough. When I look back, I'm amazed and happy Paul stuck it out with me. I was horribly homesick when I first moved here--there is more than a little animosity for Texans among many New Mexicans and during my first graduate class, I was actually greeted with an "I hate Texans" by one of my classmates. Welcome to the Land of Enchantment! After I started teaching, I was transferred to a different school after the 20-day enrollment count. Because the numbers were down at the school where I was, as the last-hired, I was sent to a school that had higher-than-predicted enrollment. It was horrid--it's a tough school to begin with and the students were understandably angry about changing teachers. I was miserable. I cried almost daily and there were times when Paul would stay at my apartment to make certain I went to work the next morning.

Of course, as the year was progressing, it was getting closer and closer to my deadline for when Paul had to propose or I moved back to Texas. I've had several friends (mostly male) tell me it was rotten to give Paul an ultimatum but I don't think it was one. I just wanted to know if I was just spinning my wheels or if we were actually heading down the aisle. I wasn't getting any younger--heck, I was already a ripe old 24. Paul was relunctant to even talk about marriage so I honestly didn't know what he was thinking. Did he want to marry me? Was he just being nice to me because I'd moved for him and life wasn't exactly rosy as a result? Did he think it was all a big mistake? I had no clue.

Then, our friend with the obnoxious poodle ratted Paul out during a visit in early March that he'd gotten his grandmother's ring from his parents. That got my hopes up a bit but after three weeks with no sign of a ring, I had pretty much given up on a proposal. I was heading to Texas for Spring Break and was going to start looking for jobs back there. Paul and I were going to spend Monday together before I was gone for the week when he decided to go in to work for the morning which turned into most of the day. By 2:00, I'd had it with waiting and decided I'd just leave early and called Paul to tell him so. He told me to please wait, he'd be coming over soon.

So I went to Target.

And the grocery store and just wasted time for a few hours, knowing full well that Paul was probably waiting at my apartment. (Yes, I know--passive-agressive.) Walking into my apartment, Paul was indeed waiting there for me with the cat. Still a little peeved with him, I opted to open junk mail in the kitchen rather than talk to him.

That's when he handed me this beautiful wooden jewelry box he'd gotten a few years earlier on a trip to San Francisco. He hadn't given it to me after that trip because he thought it needed something nice in it. Something nice like his grandmother's wedding ring.
I think he said something about how much he loved me and that he wanted to spend his life with me and would you marry me? I honestly can't remember because I was too busy shouting, "Oh, my gosh! That's a big diamond!" It wasn't the most romantic of proposals but it did the job since I said yes and we got married six months later--it took 3 1/2 years to get to a proposal, didn't see a need to wait around any more. Paul's idea was "any time after May" but I'd had my heart set on a fall wedding for a long time. October 2 it was.

My sister Amy jokes about my "used" diamond. The ring was from Paul's step-grandmother Esther. She married Paul's grandfather Ralph in the mid-70's (Paul's grandmother died of cancer when Paul was about 3). The diamonds were ones from her family--the main diamond is an Old European cut which dates back to the early 1900's--but we don't have any history before that. The style of the ring wasn't really me so I did have it reset into something much simpler and part of the platinum was incorporated into Paul's wedding band.

After we were married, my MIL told me she was really worried Paul was going to mess up and I would move back to Texas. She didn't know of the "ultimatum" I'd given Paul--she just couldn't blame me for leaving him if he didn't do something. I have to admit I was really worried about Paul messing up, too. I didn't know if Paul would actually make me live up to my word. I've been asked many times if I actually would have done it--actually left him if it hadn't proposed. I don't think I really would have had a choice.

Every day, I'm so glad I didn't have to make that decision.

Spring

I've spent the last hour or so watching a variety of sparrows and finches collecting bits of the decorative grass I cut back last weekend. The sprigs left behind are apparently perfect for nests.. The weather has been beautiful the past week--I even enjoyed the three rainy days last week. I need to get back out and do some more work in our yard--some of the plants didn't weather the winter too well. It can wait though. I hate to interrupt the necessity of nest-building.

Huh.

Watching NCAA basketball tonight and playing on the computer, I started randomly typing things into Google to search. One of the more random things I was looking for was an obituary of a neighbor who died several years ago. He'd written his own obituary before his death and it definitely read as Leslie. A teacher at my school has students doing various projects for Bridge to Terabithia, including writing an obituary for the character (also Leslie) who dies in the book. I wanted to show them a copy of this obituary as an example.

While on my Google hunt, I came across a biography for an author named Martha Freeman. Her book The Year my Parents Ruined my Life is a favorite of mine in my library, partly because I just knew my own parents had completely destroyed my life when I was 13 and they moved me to Texline. TEXLINE! A town I was convinced didn't even exist because I was absolutely positive that there was no town between Dalhart and Clayton. Low and behold, there is and we lived in that town for seven years. Although it's not much of a town--425 people according to the city limit sign I have in my garage (that's a whole other post--what does one do with the assortment of ill-gotten gains from youth? Paul says we should return it the next time we're up in the area--just leave it on the City Hall doorstep. And I didn't steal it--it was a "gift" from friends when we found out we were moving to Canadian.) But as it turned out, that move to Texline wasn't that bad after all.

But that's not the interesting thing. The interesting thing is that the author Martha Freeman is the daughter of my neighbor. I didn't realize this until tonight's random-Google-a-thon. It's always amazing to me how small the world really is. Perhaps I'll send her an email and tell her all of this and how much I like her book, etc. Authors like that kind of thing, right?

TWO posts! In ONE day!

I'm fairly certain one of my student aides think that I'm either 1) a bumbling idiot or 2) a bumbling idiot who tells bad jokes. Either way, I think he feels I create extra work for him in his position as Library Student Aide, especially given my muck-up with the recent library system conversion and the itty-bitty issue that not recalibrating the barcode scanner created.

In a nutshell, if a book scans in as "Used in Library," we have to scan it a second time, deleting the last number of the barcode because when I didn't recalibrate the scanner, it inserted an asterisk thus deleting the last number of the barcode. Some of the books will then show up as checked out to a student; other times it doesn't. There was a possibility of nine other books having the same barcode and that particular book was incorrectly checked in when another student returned a different book (say I checked out to 345609100123; without the last number it could be anything from *120-*129). It is still a big mess almost a month after the conversion--I know there are students with books out that didn't show up on the list because of the barcode fiasco. It's also a mess because I have yet to convince this particular student aide to CHECK THE BOOKS IN TWICE. Not every book, dude, but if it says "used in library," scan it again. Come on, all the other aides are doing it. He thinks it's unnecessary to scan it the second time because 75% of the time, it comes up with a "barcode not found" message.

Ah, but that 25% of the time?

Today, report cards were handed out today during 7th period. I give a list of students with overdue books to the office. If a student has an overdue book, his/her report card is held. There were a dozen or so students in the library saying, "But I turned my book in." And a few said, "I gave it to him." indicating the reluctant scanning student aide. All I can do is just sign off on their pass and believe them because of the mess I created in the first place.

Eh, well. In the end, it's not a big deal and eventually most of the books will be returned. And I'd be more irritated if this student wasn't a great helper in many other ways around the library.

I just wish he laughed at my jokes more often.

So, we're idiots but the IRS still sucks

Heh--we'll probably get audited again because of that title.

Once again, Paul and I prove to be the World's Most Incompetent People Masquerading as Adults. Seriously--how have we made it this far in life without major damage to ourselves or our bank accounts?

I spoke with a person at the investment company yesterday about our big ol' IRS bill. I did have the 2005 paperwork in front of me so I was able to see exactly what she was talking about when she said we probably forgot to claim the "return of principal" on the bonds (1099-B for those of you in the tax return know). I have no idea what that means or what that is but yep. We didn't claim it.

I remember having the conversation as to what to do with that particular item and then continuing on with the tax return, thinking we'd get back to it. Guess what we didn't get back to? Yep.

When Paul gets back into town on Friday, we'll figure out what our mea culpa will be. It may require filing a challenge to the audit with the correct paperwork, filing an amended tax return for 2005, promising to stop claiming the cat as a dependent. . . . I'm sure it will cost us something in the end; after all there was $102 in other funds that were in error. But I imagine it will be a much easier final number to swallow than $7000.