I get my hair highlighted and cut by a lovely young lady named Taylor (Jones) Keever, and she used to work at the Ulta salon here in town. I was always telling her my dating horror stories. One day, I went in to get my hair highlighted and she started telling me about one of her other clients who was single. She told me his name was Shawn Elder and he liked to work out; she even pulled up his Facebook page and showed it to me. She said he was coming in soon for a haircut, so she would talk to him about me and see what he said. I waited for a while, but never heard anything back. I figured it was a no-go. I decided to go back to online dating and try match.com again. Not long after that, a young man started messaging me. He seemed nice, so I started messaging him back. We had been chatting for a few days via messages, when some of the things he was telling me started sounding familiar. I asked him if he got his hair cut at Ulta by a young woman named Taylor, and he said yes. I asked him if his name was Shawn Elder, and he said yes! It turns out that Taylor had talked to him about me, but she forgot to tell him my name! We had our first date (Shawn calls it a "meet-and-greet") not long after that!

I am a big Harry Potter fan, and one of my coworkers told me about a Harry Potter Magic Castle Treehouse in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. I researched it, and it looked like so much fun! They happened to have my birthday weekend open, so I booked it for two nights for Shawn and I as a birthday present to myself! (This was in October 2020!) I was so excited! Shawn suggested I make dinner reservations at a nice restaurant in town, so I booked a table at The Grotto for the night of my birthday. If you know downtown Eureka Springs, you know it is very hilly and parking can sometimes be tricky. We had a hard time finding a parking spot, and then were running a little late for our reservation. We were rushing, and as we walked into the restaurant, Shawn realized he forgot my birthday card in the car and got flustered. I told him it was no big deal; I would get it when we left. He seemed really concerned about it though, which seemed odd and insisted on going to get it out of the car. When he got back inside the restaurant, we sat down at our table and ordered two drinks, and he started talking to me. As he was talking, and I was listening, he pulled out the card along with a ring and I realized he was proposing! The card was part of the proposal! He then got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I said yes, of course!