buildering, its not just for the urbanites anymore

Suzanne and I went to Agri Park in Fayscrizzle last night to do a bit of moonlit buildering. I must say the friction was very good. Definitely reminiscent of those 45 degree days at Valley of the Blind when I couldn't feel the rock and didn't care because I was sticking 5.10ab crimps like Garfield on the back glass of your weird aunt's car. Whatever, my calves are sore. I think that Suzanne is going to be a world class climber, both because of her climbing aptitude and how shockingly good she looks in Capilene. But thats really more my enjoyment... in 8 months.

Eloping. Its cool right? I don't know anyone who has done it, but I am not ruling out the possibility.

The Hirsch told me that engagement was horrible, and that I should just skip that step when the time came and I am beginning to see why. She wants to marry me, and I want to marry her. I should have just brought Kent with me when I proposed and we could have skipped a bunch of yearning.

Yearning, yearning, yearning.

I painted for the first time since 2nd grade Monday night. I used oil paints. I am BAD! Oh man, it looks like Dennis Hoffman from Rain Man got a hold of Bill Murry's character from Caddyshack and from that, made a play. My painting is the oil and canvas manifestation of that play, void white pigments. I can't make white from blue, red, and yellow. I tried pouring the paint through a prism, but that didn't work. Just kidding, I didn't really do that.

Still yearning. ing.

The Christian life is so much more than sin management, and Satan is a bastard for making me think that it isn't.

So... I got engaged...

I have been getting a lot of flack from people saying that I "never" blog. Well this is obviously not true, however, my blog cycle is just a little slower than most people. I normally get a little blurb in about every quarter. Not too shabby I think.

But so if you are reading that I got engaged Saturday to the most wonderful, beautiful, smart, and fun woman ever, then you are probably a little disappointed that I didn't call you. Sorry. Of course, you could have been pinning away for Suzanne, just waiting for your time to act. The time passed.

The engagement story (man version):

Friday night I packed up all the stuff I needed to take Suzanne fishing, and her ring. This was a two stage process that lasted until nearly 1 am. I then woke Saturday morning, at 5:30, with rolling bowels. I took care of that problem, because I am a problem solver, and then filled up the cooler with ice and grabbed the wine (Kendall Jackson, Cabernet) and glasses and opener. I picked up Suzanne at about 6:30 and we drove to Beaver Tail waters. We got there and I brought her waders and snuck her gear up to the front of the trooper. I was helping her get he waders on when an old dude drove up... and he was a chatty old timer. So I promptly gave the "not interested in you, I brought her, man," laugh and showed Suzanne the fly vest I bought her. In the pockets were strike indicators, weights, leaders, tippet, and a fly box with some flies I tied and notes. Actually, I split up one letter I wrote to her into five parts and split them up between the pockets. I then put little numbered pieces of paper on the pockets. I told her to open the pockets in order of the numbers, something she evidently didn't need to be told.

While she is reading the letters, I am putting my waders on and being generally busy. I am completely freaking out. I've got this really weird shaking thing going on in my hands. I felt like I just shot a deer. Anyone who has shot a deer, and felt that feeling, you know, everyone else things I'm an idiot. I'm OK with that. But I was shaking and Suzanne was kind of teary. When she finished, I brought her around to the side of the car away from the talkative old man, I have no idea if he was still trying to talk to me, I was completely zoned in on Suzanne. I then told her I meant everything I wrote. I got got down on one knee and opened that little box and asked if she would marry me. She said she would. She then knelt down with a crazy mixture of crying and laughing and she kissed me. I put the ring on her finger and we hugged for about 30-45 minutes. Then we fished, and drank wine.

Highlights (for engineers): The covering on the ring box is amazing. Its supper grippy in sweaty, shaking hands. I had a killer idea of packing the wine glasses in a pair of (clean) wool socks. I put the glass into the sock open end first deep enough so the stem and base were completely in the sock, then stuffed the toe down the open end. It worked great! Notes. There is no way I could have said all that stuff knowing that I was going to say, "will you marry me?" Writing it down was much better.

So that's how I got engaged. It was a great day, tough loss to Auburn, but I got that whole wife question answered, and I am thrilled with the answer. I could think of no better possible answer.

In other news, Preston led the way to Weddington boulders, and subsequently some sweet problems. Too bad I had a headache from the champagne I drank the night before. But return trips will be made and the balance problem finished and renamed something awesome. We also had some killer discussion between evangelical theology and reformed. This really was amazing.

I am definitely much closer to the evangelical camp than the reformed, but it is good to shake the tree and watch all the stuff not firmly attached to the trunk come falling out. I feel like talking about these things does that. Being accepting of another person's right to hold his or her own views while not yielding on your own, its great. I look forward to more of these discussions hopefully taking place in community group with wiser believers than me. I'll put the biggies here as they happen. I might even be willing to break the quarterly update regiment.