Life's Tasty Adventures

Thursday was my birthday. I turned 32 years old, the hottest day in over sixty years in the city and I can safely say that it was, hands down, the most memorable day of my life.

Alan had been spending an absurd amount of time working on our backyard over the last two weeks. We inherited a weed-infested jungle where a garden used to be and decided that this was the summer we were going to overhaul it. On Wednesday, the day before my birthday, he spent over 11 hours working on it because he said he wanted to get it done for my birthday.

While he was toiling away Wednesday night I was in class doing a presentation and didn’t get back until closer to 11pm so I didn’t get a chance to see the garden at all. He assured me that, after a couple of tweaks in the morning that I could see it and that he was pretty sure I’d love it.

Thursday morning rolled around. I woke up and did some birthday yoga (which I highly recommend) and resisted the urge to run out back and see the handiwork that he and his father worked so hard on. Closer to noon Alan said he was going to head out back, finish things up and he’d let me know when I could come out back so I just sat on the couch and decided to relax by playing some Bejeweled on my iPhone.

Alan calls me fifteen minutes later. He sounds practically terrified. He tells me he needs my help as he doesn’t understand how after one evening we got so many weeds coming up through the brand new planters they just installed. His Mom was supposed to be coming over soon so we could run some errands for Saturday’s BBQ (my official birthday party) and wanted her to see it as well so he wanted to make it look as good as possible.

I thought it was pretty strange that weeds could grow up like that overnight but oh well. Considering the weeds that used to exist back there I wouldn’t be all that shocked that they mutated overnight so I bust out in my slippers and head around back.

The weeds I see are these:

And these:

And these:

I also see Alan, standing in the middle, wearing his shorts, shirt…and a suit jacket. The poor guy is sweating like a maniac due to heat but he’s there nonetheless on the hottest day in pretty much our entire lives with a mixed look of terror and excitement.

I look at him. I look at his suit jacket. I look at the roses.

I burst into tears.

Alan looks at me, smiles anxiously and gets down on one knee. He has a box in his right hand. He tells me things that I can’t entirely recall because I’m an emotional wreck but I remember they’re beautiful.

He asks me to marry him, his sweat now mixing with tears.

I’m still bawling. “Of course I will”, I say and kiss his sweaty face. We kiss again. He stands up lifting me off the patio stones and we kiss again.

There in the garden we made for ourselves, behind the home we made for ourselves, we began a life we will make for ourselves.

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Also, please, please, PLEASE head on over to Janetha‘s blog and participate in The Great Fundraising Act to help out fellow blogger and friend, Susan. She was recently diagnosed with Lymphoma and the cost of dealing with it is NOT cheap. All proceeds will go directly to Susan and the rest to the Moncton Hospital’s oncology ward. PLEASE go spend some money and outbid me on the yoga mat (although I really want it!)

Sunday, July 24th, 2011, 4:17 PM   |   All Posts, Life  |  RSS feed Pinging is disabled. But you can skip to the end and leave a response.