Tid Bit Texts

I like things streamlined, uncluttered, and organized.  But I also love history, old things, and hoarding memories.  Uncluttered and hoarding don't really go together but I think I've managed a balance.

Since I was little, I've kept small photo or shoe boxes that I fill overtime with little keepsakes like birthday cards, notes, playbills, tiny things I find and other items that trigger memories.  Over 27 years I have quite a few boxes.  Some are stored under my bed at home in Denver and I've accumulated a collection in NYC.

Now that a lot of things are digital it is getting more difficult to capture some of these memories.  I've become mildly obsessed with using the snip-it tool on my computer to grab screen captures of ecards (see here) or facebook posts (see here).

Immediately after Dan and I started dating, I wanted some way to remember some of the sweet exchanges we shared via text messages.  So I started a Google Doc and I copied down the more special digital conversations.  I figured I would just have them always to look back at and smile at some of those early moments.  Now that we have this blog I can share them here! I have more than 8 pages so I'll just share a few for now. 

9/11/12

Dan: I had a great time tonight.  It’s fun to have dinner with a wonderful person.  I like spending time together with no church meeting or lesson to write.

Steph: I agree.  I had a great time too.  Thanks for being so sweet.

Dan: I’m glad you had a good time too!  More dates to come! You are very sweet as well and have been for a long time! Have a good night.

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10/10/12

Dan: Oh I forgot to say you looked pretty tonight.  I enjoy getting to walk, talk, hold hands, and put my arm around such a wonderful person tonight

Steph: Me too.  It seems too good to be true

Dan: Well it is true.  Not a dream as far as I know lol. I agree it has been good & I'm excited to see how the adventure goes in the time ahead.  First month and a day has been pretty awesome.

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1/27/13

Dan: Made it back to my place.  Thanks for a wonderful evening and for being my girlfriend

Steph: Thanks for giving me a chance to be your girlfriend

Dan: I wish I wasn’t a bonehead and had my life together earlier.  You are worth it and I’m glad I finally noticed and took the risk to ask you to be my girlfriend

Steph: God has perfect timing

Dan: Can’t argue there.  God is pretty good.

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3/5/13

Dan: I miss your smile & how you always brighten my day

Steph: I miss your hair, tiny fuzzy ear, your strong hugs, and sweet kisses, how you make me feel special and always put me in a good mood.  Also, chocolate

Dan: I miss snuggling, getting to put my arm around you, kisses, playing games, you making me feel so spoiled & cared for, back massages and tickling you even though you start it first : )

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6/10/13

Steph: take me to Kansas with you.  I’ll sleep in a wheat field and be no trouble at all

Dan: Well that might be an expensive last minute plane ticket

Steph: Fine then I will just take my scooter

Dan: My transporter would be faster. lol

Steph: Nah Mandy and I decided to fall off the grid together.  Erase our identities and disappear

Dan: That’s not fair to me.  I want to be with you

Steph: that can be arranged 

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Asking a Question

So as Stephanie's last post mentioned, we had a status change on Facebook this last Saturday.  But let me share with you what went through my mind in the hours leading up to the question.

So I had been debating for several weeks about when I wanted to ask Stephanie.  I got the blessing from her parents like 3 weeks ago and already had the ring.  So anyways, I texted with Mandy about some options, but Stephanie said once or twice "when am I going to get my ring" (may not be an exact quote).  Anyways, so that had me thinking maybe I should do it sooner rather than later.  Last Friday, I went after work to visit some friends of ours named Josh and Lynn.  Josh had a stroke 2 months ago and is still recovering.  Anyways, I asked them what they thought I should do.  Lynn said if you know you love her and have the ring why wait?  That connected with me as we are not promised tomorrow and I knew I loved Stephanie and wanted to marry her.  So then I took the long train ride back to Bay Ridge that night and made a quick stop at Rite Aid to get chocolate, streamers, and a red three wick candle.  Then I went to my apartment and to sleep.

I feel asleep quickly; however, I woke up at 6:30am and couldn't go back to sleep.  Guess I was a little nervous and my mind was running on what I needed to do.  So I developed my MASTER PLAN of how I would ask her to marry me.  I would sneak down to Stephanie's apartment and decorate it, then go to our small group brunch, after brunch go ice-skating (we planned to do this already), after that grab a nice dinner in City or Brooklyn, then go back to Stephanie's however make a quick detour and walk through Owls Head Park.  For those of you that don't know we decided to start dating on a bench in Owls Head Park.  So then walk through the park find that bench.  And since it would be late and dark there probably would be no one at the park (Stephanie mentioned numerous times that she wanted it to just be us).  I just had to make sure no pot smokers where near us, that would sort of ruin the mood.

My Master Plan was a good plan I think and now lets see if things went according to my MASTER PLAN.  So I started the morning getting my drawing supplies and working on creating love notes for Stephanie that expressed what I felt in my heart.  I feel like they turned out well (see last post in the blog).  Then I made a shopping list.  I had love notes, streamers, chocolate and candle but still need more supplies.  Also at the same time I texted with our friend Janet who was hosting brunch to find out when Stephanie was suppose to be there to help with brunch (10am).  Plenty of time for me to be sneaky with decorations.  After finding out time I told Janet to keep the secret.  She replied "I already sent her a message on facebook".  My heart sunk a little but I knew Janet was messing with me and she was.

So I went and got flowers.  I knew I needed roses for an engagement however combining with stock flowers was a spur of the moment decision that worked out well.  Also at the flower shop I found Philbin a cuddly bear that I new she would love.  Then I went to the dollar store to get balloons.  In retrospect I need to pay more attention to balloons.  I got red and pink.  However, the pink ones when I opened them said happy 1st birthday not exactly what I was going for.  The red ones were good, no writing problems.  However, later at Stephanie's apartment they were really hard to blow up and I realized they were helium type lol.  I blew up three of them a little.

So I got the supplies together and went to her place.  I was doing good on time.  I began decorating, hung the drawings, streamers, balloons, and made a place for the gifts (flowers, puddles, etc.) I will say to hang things, Stephanie's kitchen stool was not that stable and I kept thinking I was going to fall while hanging stuff and get hurt and then ruin the day.  But thankfully I didn't fall.

So got everything setup and it was 11:20am.  So I decided to go get my haircut.  It was too long and I knew we would be taking pictures later.

Then I went to Janet's for Brunch.  I was trying to keep it cool.  But because I had been thinking about this all morning, Stephanie was correct, I was sweating.   I should have worn different clothes because I sweat when I'm nervous.  Anyways, I tried to hide what I was planning to do.

Once brunch finished, as I mentioned earlier, the plan was to go ice-skating in the City; however I had not counted on one thing.  Stephanie was like, "I need to go to my place to get my ice skates."  I tried to be like lets not worry about them and just go but she wasn't having it.  I tried to come up with some excuse like we had dinner plans so needed to get back at certain time.   But no matter what I could come up with she wanted to go back to her place.  I was more nervous the whole walk along 3rd avenue and back to her place because things were not going according to plan and I couldn't change it.  Stephanie mentioned on the walk several times that I was acting weird, that didn't help.  I felt like I had failed and it wasn't going to be that special.  Eventually I got in my head that Ill just go with the flow and propose in her apartment.  Not the way I planned but will make it work.

So we were at her building and she opened the door to her apartment and red, white and pink streamers meet her as she went in and I had her set her stuff down.  She put her stuff down and I shut the door.  And we started walking on the love paper trail I created on the floor.  She moved from one drawing to another.

Once she went to the last one where the flowers, candy, and stuffed animals were, she looked at them and then stared at the last drawing that said "will you marry me" and had a picture of me proposing to her.  At that moment I had her turn towards me and I started telling Stephanie all the things I love about her and how I want to spend the rest of my life with her.  Then, I got down on one knee and said "will you marry me" and thankfully she said YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I guess asking a question didn't go as I planned, but that's life and all that really matters is she said YES.

Status Change

We posted this little collage to break the news to everyone in one quick blast on Facebook.

Then we counted stats and lots and lots of love and comments from all over.  Thank goodness for the snip-it tool so I could snag these sweet notes of congratulations.

 

Then my mom posted something on her wall and we raked in more congrats!

We received lots of other messages, texts, calls, handshakes and hugs.  Here is an ecard from my friend Amanda, and a post from my sissy Jessy:

Something is fishy

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Maybe Dan will share his perspective on the day, but for now here's mine:

The things in (italics) are what I was thinking in my head at that moment. 

Just like any normal Saturday, I chatted with my mom in the morning and on this particular day I headed over to Janet's house to help make brunch for small group around 10 am.

After making scones, pancakes, scrambled eggs, homefries, and sliced fruit, the guests arrived around noon.  Dan was late but I didn't get his text that he was getting a haircut so I didn't consider anything of was off.  While eating brunch I noticed that Dan was squirmy and sweating, like a lot.  I thought maybe he wasn't feeling well so I tried my best to make an excuse to leave...it was getting late anyways.

We did have plans to go into the city and go ice skating but I was wearing a skirt and my skates were still at home so when Dan suggested we head straight to the city I protested a bit that I needed to go back to my place and drop stuff off, change, get my skates.  Also, I wanted him to pick-up his new glasses.  Girl is controlling so I got my way.

As we were walking I started to feel like something was amiss.  First he said he was going to make us dinner.  Then he said he was going to take me out to dinner.  At this point it wasn't even clear if we were going skating.  He was skirting questions and saying "it's fine" as an answer to everything I asked.

(me) something is fishy
(dan) it's fine
(me) well where are we going to dinner?  long pause
(dan) Tanoreen (how convenient it was across the street)
(me) why are we going out?  Today isn't special (you should have taken me there last week for our anniversary)
(dan) it's fine
(me) Did you make reservations?  Because you have to have a reservation.
(dan) No.  We can make them now.

So we go and Dan makes reservations for 7:30. Me thinking (that's a weird-o time.  I'll be hungry before then.  How long are we going skating for?  Why can't we go out in the city?  We won't be dressed-up enough for Tanoreen).  And then we went to the eyeglass store.  I'm really confused and starting to get annoyed that he is acting so weird.  I considered just going to my place while he got his glasses and I would grab my skates and meet him back at the store.  For whatever reason I didn't bring that up.

As we got closer to my place I was getting more uncomfortable with not knowing what all was happening

(me) please tell me what's going on.  where are we going?
(dan) it's fine
(me) I feel really uncomfortable
(dan) Has that house across from your building always been like that?
(me) Yea, they never finished the addition (me thinking this is really bizarre small talk, I know he doesn't care about that house and I know we've talked about how ugly it is and how much I hate it.)

By this point I had that confused nervous feeling like when you are watching a scary movie and you know someone is going to jump out or something bad is going to happen.  The anticipation!

When I opened the door to my apartment I knew immediately.  There were red, white, and pink streamers hanging everywhere and a big sign that said "I Love You."

Dan shut the door and told me to put all my stuff down.  The rest is a blur.  I remember he told me to look and read everything.  I spied the flowers on the table and the sign that said "will you marry me" but I was scared and didn't want to look closely at it just yet.  Pieces of paper were on the ground leading into the room and forming a giant heart on the floor. 

There were pink post-it notes on the wall forming a heart shape. They said: We have laughs.  We have kisses.  We have sleepy faces.  We have surprises.  We have silliness.  We have hugs. We have snuggles.  We have joy.  We have love.  We have each other.

The next two notes on the wall were sweet and heartfelt love notes, one filled with special Bible verses referencing qualities of love.

The last spot to go was the table.  There was a huge bouquet of flowers on the table with roses and my favorite stock flowers.  A new snuggle buddy bear named Philbin.  A three wick candle.  A giant box of chocolates.  And our two other buddies Stowaway and Puddles.

I turned around and Dan was on one knee in the middle of the paper heart.  He said some beautiful things that I wish I wish I wish I had recorded and then he asked "will you marry me?"  I got down on the ground with him and said "yes, of course I'll marry you."  Then we hugged and kissed.

Kiss Bomb!

I had been insistent since the beginning of us talking about engagements that I wanted it to be a special moment between only him and me.  No friends.  No strangers.  No big screen.  Nothing.  No one but us.  And it was perfect.  He did it in the privacy and comfort of my home and a place where we had spent so much time and built so many memories.

So although it wasn't a complete surprise (because boy can't hide his nerves and I'm a suspicious person) it was a totally creative and unexpected way of asking a question that I knew was coming but still felt so little girl happy and scared about.

CHEESE!

After the intense moment was over, we cancelled all plans and reservations and just soaked each other up the rest of the day.  Of course first telling all close relatives and then snuggling up to watch a movie and toasting to ourselves over Thai take-out.  A perfect evening in my opinion. 

Boscobel

Here is another Memory Rewind post.

Friday, August 23, 2013

We made a mad dash through Grand Central Station (my fault) to catch the MetroNorth train upstate along the Hudson River to the tiny quaint town of Cold Springs.  I had done a bit of research and decided this would be a nice little place to explore and have a mini getaway for the day.

The Boscobel House

It was a grand idea and we had a splendid time.

It was beautiful and sunny but not too hot and humid.  A cool breeze but not too cold.  We walked up the main street and stopped in a small Italian place to grab drinks and sandwiches to have a little picnic.  We decided to walk to the historic house and grounds, Boscobel, along the mildly scary road that ran through town and when we arrived it was better than I imagined. 

We got the audio tour and found a nice shady place to sit on the lawn overlooking the river and valley.  We found the best iced tea I have ever had and enjoyed our lunch on my picnic sheet while listening to the history on the audio and the Shakespeare actors practicing behind us.  I felt so relaxed and calm.  It was overwhelmingly beautiful and so far away from the noise and stress of life in the city.  It was just a special day just you and me. 

A view from the picnic sheet

Kiss Bomb!

We figured out how to work the panormaic feature on my phone and wandered around the grounds admiring all the green and all the quiet.  And maybe being a little bit goofy too.

There was a garden and a fountain and a hiking path with small waterfalls and knotty wooden gazebos. 

We brought Rocky Pants because that little guy is always looking for a good adventure!  He liked conquering the views.  And then he somehow managed to fall out of Dan's pocket and was all alone in the great big world until we came upon him on our way back up the hill.  Boy are we lucky that guy stood out otherwise we might have lost him forever!  Dan will never live that incident down.  

I basically fell in love with that place and became quite possessive of it, declaring it as our secret getaway and totally rationalizing the possibility of getting married there (not gonna happen).  Sheesh, I'm quiet obnoxious with those pie in the sky expectations.  

We headed back to town and enjoyed some ice cream and the little pier area by the river. 

I really really enjoyed that mini trip and I  hope it will not soon be forgotten.

P.S.  That night we checked for ticks. 

Rewind

I kind of wish we had started this sooner or I had documented better in other ways our first 14 months together.  I've never been very good at keeping a consistent journal or caught the scrap-booking bug.  But one thing I have tried to do is copy down "sweet texts," take screenshots of some of the ecards, and gather keepsakes from special places.  Of course there are always pictures and the many tiny details I capture in my mind!  All of these will help string together special moments I hope we remember for a long time. 

So these first posts will be like hitting the speed rewind button on the remote and recalling a few tid-bits from the beginning.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

We met at Coldstone to "debrief" the youth camping trip.  I remember what I was wearing...you ordered pecans and rainbow sprinkles for your mix-ins...we chatted about the camping trip and a few other church things.  Just a normal meeting.

Then, when I started to grab my bag to go, you pulled out a piece of paper and placed it on the table and nervously said: "I have one more thing to talk about..."

"Stephanie, I like you."

My heart started pounding.  I remember I had to put my elbows on the table to attempt to cover my mouth and hide my smile as you listed off the things you were looking for in someone and wondered if I wanted to date.  I was a mix of happy, confused, worried, and excited.  How long and how much had I prayed that you would notice me? How many tears and disappointments had I swallowed when I tried so hard to give up hope of something happening?  How did I convince myself I had moved on but knowing my raisin heart would always belong to you?

In the moment, I bumbled along attempting to explain how I felt.  I was confused.   How or why had you changed from the previous fall when you told me you didn't like me more than a friend?  I was happy.  Could a dream like this really come true?  I was worried.  Well, because I worry, and I was thinking about all the things that could go wrong and anxious about what people would think.  I saw the disappointment in your eyes when I said I needed to think about it.

I called Mandy immediately after we separated from that awkward walk from Coldstone.  She told me I would regret if  I didn't try to date you.  The next couple of days I wrote lists about pros and cons.  I prayed.  I worried.  I dreamed.  I tried to make the choice with my head and not my heart but it felt so impossible.  I was a bundle of nerves before our follow-up chat the following Sunday when we agreed the choice would be made...(and that story for a later post)!

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P.S. A couple of months after that Coldstone chat I found that typed paper you had put on the table.  I swiped it because I knew you had forgotten about it and I wanted to keep it because it captured so much of the moment, Dan grammar and all :o).

Dan had the idea to start this blog? Really?

Yes I did have the idea to start this blog.  Although Stephanie gets all the credit for the name Tons and Bunches.

The reason I wanted to do this, as Stephanie knows so well, is my memory is not the best in the world. However, our story together I don't ever want to forget and I want to remember as much of it as possible.  So here we go and I apologize at the beginning for my grammar, but that's just who I am and hope you enjoy the mistakes as well!

So anyways, here is one moment of our lives together.  August 21, 2013 Stephanie and I went to the Empire State Building.  It was so cool.  I have always loved and been intrigued by buildings and architecture.  And it was so cool to go to the very top and see so much of New York City.  However, one of the best parts of the night was taking pictures with Stephanie at the top.  I've  never been a huge picture person growing up, but having a girlfriend and falling in love changes that (at least for me).  And I love when she snaps a picture on her iphone to give a surprise kiss.  I love to surprise her.  And the reaction it brings about in her.  So here's to the surprises we have shared together and to the surprises in the future!

Just some ecard captures

 

 

The beginning

Anyone's life can seem interesting to an outsider, right?  People watching, eavesdropping, reality television, and blogging!  People like to know about other people, sneak a peak at their world, or be a fly on the wall as stories unfold. 

To me, my life is ordinary and sometimes boring.  But years from now it's the tiny things I want to remember and share and treasure.  Basically, I just want some way to remember and document that doesn't involve scrapbook pages, stickers, and glue.  I want it to be a story about making life together.

So we'll start here...