Rules of Engagement

1. Tell me that you were planning to buy my dream truck for me instead of a ring.
2. Ask me twice.
3. Once while I am in the shower trying to think of what to say.
4. Watch me scrub the kitchen til it shines.
5. Buy me a pretty ring.
6. Make sure it is the exact ring I want (3mm yellow gold plain band for those who want to know).
7. Put it on my finger while eating lunch.
8. At Tokyo Grill. In the food court of the Lakewood Mall.
9. Tell my mom and your mom. And sisters.
10. Go on our merry way.

That's all the rules. They were all followed today. Just like that. In that order. Now it is time to get hitched. Any ideas???

Hero

Dear boy on the street corner,

You are my hero of the day. Maybe of the year. I'm not sure about the second one. Seeing you today made me so happy. I don't know your name, where you live, or really anything about you other than the fact that you skateboard and go to LBCC. I am very thankful to you today, and I am sure Mother Earth is, too.

When you decided to drop your skateboard in the gutter and drop to your knees in the street, I admit that I thought you were crazy. But when I saw you pull a paper bag from your pocket and begin to scoop up trash with your clean hands, I almost shed a tear. Then, you filled your bag, ran to the trash can to toss it, ran back, jumped on your skateboard, and went off to school.

Thank you, boy on the street corner. Thank you for cleaning up our home one street corner at a time.

From,
Heidi

You might laugh...

But two nights ago we had a funeral in the house. A hermit crab funeral. For Hermie. Hermie was a good little hermit crab. We got him and he was normal sized, with a good, strong claw, in ideal health; the perfect Mexican Red-Legged hermit crab. We got him not knowing what a hermit crab can do. Overnight, he ate all the bad glass anenomes that had taken over the tank. Then he ate some algae. After that he ate a shrimp we threw in for him as a reward. We were very pleased with our little Hermie.

Until he ate the good anenome. And the snails. And any fish that were slow enough or small enough to catch. I still loved Hermie after all that, until the day he climbed up the glass heating element and ate my pink sea cucumber, Brain. Now, that might not seem like a huge deal to you, except Brain was a part of my Valentine's Day present two years ago. Brain was special. It was that day that I hated Hermie.

Yet, I couldn't get rid of him. Who in their right mind would want a now softball sized, custom shell needed, vicious hermit crab? That would be nobody, so we were stuck with him. He grew on us. We stopped trying to make the tank pretty with colorful anenomes and swimming fish. But we had Hermie, and he sure was a sight.

Last week he was hanging out on the sand, outside of his shell. Weird we thought. Hermit crabs don't do that. He went back in, but wasn't the same. He wouldn't eat, and just kind of hung around the bottom of the tank. Two days ago we threw in his favorite food, shrimp, and he didn't move. Hermie had gone to hermit crab heaven.

So we threw him a hermit crab funeral. And now we will celebrate his life by getting pretty fish. And maybe another Brain.

(Hermie entertaining Snuff at the beginning of our time together)