I AM ENGAGED.

It's true!

A few months ago we had a talk about getting engaged, which went something like:

Me: You know, if you want to get engaged you don't have to do that whole fancy/awkward getting down on one knee surprise thing. We're us, and that's weird, so we should just decide and do it together.

Him: So I don't have to make a whole big deal of it?

Me: No, that's not us. We should do it together.

Him: Ok, awesome. That's a relief.

Me: Good. So let's get engaged.

Him: Ok!

...and then nothing happened. We work constantly and lately have been focusing most of our non-work-related attention on making our new place look like we actually live there, so yeah, getting engaged after being together for eight and a half years really wasn't a huge priority.

Last Sunday (6/13) Brian and I took a drive down to the Short Hills mall in NJ because I had shoes to return to Bloomingdales and he wanted to get an iPad. Of course we drove all the way there only to realize I left the shoes at home and they were sold out of iPads. Of course. Somehow we wandered into Cartier. And somehow they had the most perfect ring in a size 4 3/4. And then, somehow, we were engaged. The girl in the store was more excited than we were, I think. She offered us champagne, which we declined, and said congratulations a ton of times. It didn't really hit me until we walked out of the store and I looked down at my finger. It was so strange to be wearing an ENGAGEMENT RING. I still feel like I'm 16 years old (and look about 20-max) so it's just crazy to me. We called our parents and they were all excited. I kind of wished we had waited a week so my parents could be back in NY to congratulate us in person, but they've made up for it over the past few weeks.

So, that's it. We're playing "grown ups" and it's weird, but I'm undeniably happy.