I love you, & that's the beginning & end of everything. -F. Scott Fitzgerald

We met at work, while James was working in the meat department and Katy in the bakery. After months of working up his nerve, James finally managed to ask Katy out. She responded with a hard no. However, fate, or our coworkers, worked to fix this mistake, and after much leg-pulling, James asked Katy out again a week later, with a more positive response. After a few dates, we went steady, and continue falling more in love with one another every day. "No" continues to be one of Katy's favorite words.

After asking multiple times, I got James to tell me his goals for 2018. He said what they were, but the only one I heard was that he planned to propose by the end of the year. I became aware of his first idea of how to do so when James started buying me flowers randomly, which was to attach the ring to the flowers eventually. I had to stop letting him know when I caught on, as every time he found out I knew the plan, he would change it. Around November, James went to spend time with his mom. Afterward, I noted that he was extra tight on money. James quickly realized that I knew he had the ring, and began to tease me about where he must have hidden the ring to keep me from knowing where it was, going so far as to have an empty ring box. It was in his Jeep, in the center console. I knew. He's terrible at these things. We planned a Friendsgiving party (somehow my idea), and James "snuck" out to get the ring under the guise of showing off his new car. I had already figured out this was the night he was going to ask. He came back in with a sneaky grin on his face, thinking I had no idea what was going on. He brought me with him to the middle of the room and finally asked the question, after a reasonably cheesy speech. And finally, I got to say the words he hoped to hear. "Yes!" I cried like a baby, and then showed off the ring he had gotten me, I could never have seen my future without him in it.