Thanks.

cold wet teabags are supposed to work. supposedly the tannins in the tea helps reduce swelling.

Shir, I am very sorry about your grandfather.

Shir, I'm so sorry to hear about your Grandfather.

Sympathies for your loss, Shir.

Heading out to face some people. Wish me luck.

best of luck Shir. We are here. Hundreds of hands, reaching across the pond, giving you the support you need.

Luck, Shir.

best of luck Shir. We are here. Hundreds of hands, reaching across the pond, giving you the support you need.

Wow. You really are all hands.

I feel really odd telling the "how it happened" story when Shir is dealing with this, but I have a feeling she will be mad at me if I let that stop me, so...after reaching through the internets to give her a hug...here's the basic story of Friday into Saturday from my point of view.

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Drew and I have been talking about getting married for a long time, and one of the things I have always told him is that I would wait for him to ask, officially, to know we could share our plans for the future with our friends. We had a conversation along these lines at dinner Friday night; little did I know I would get my answer (or question?) so soon.

I was utterly exhausted Friday night and knew I would have to get up for graduation on Saturday, but I'd made plans to have a girls' night and didn't want to back out. When only a few of my girlfriends turned out to be free, we decided to make it a coed girls' night (what, that's a thing), so Drew and our friend Jeff were planning to join CJ, Cricket, Becca, and me. No one was free until late, though, so the "party" wasn't going to start until 10:30 or 11. We got home from dinner around 8:30, which is when Drew apparently made the infamous proposal.

But I'd thrown my back out, so I decided to take a bath, and then I was so tired that I thought I needed to take at least a short nap if there were any way I would make it through our gathering. Little did I know the furor these innocent choices would cause!

By the time our friends left, it was nearly 2 and I was BEAT. As you all know, I didn't even turn my laptop or my iPhone on throughout the night. After ironing my graduation robe, I went right to bed and was asleep in minutes. Poor Drew! I have to give him credit, though--he didn't even give me a hint that anything was going on.

My alarm went off around 7:30 the next morning, and I sleepily followed my morning ritual of reaching over to grab my phone and check my email before getting motivated to shower. I don't usually check the board in the morning because the phone is too small to read it easily, but I popped into the facebook ap and saw a curious update (omnis', of course): "[omnis] is eagerly awaiting the result of the vote in 'Lightbulbs.'" This was followed by comments from many of you, including, "HOLY SHIT IT'S KILLING ME" and, suspiciously, one from Drew: "Leave it to me to pick the night she hasn't touched her computer since 9 PM and is now getting ready to head to bed."

I had a pretty good guess at what had happened at that point, so I stumbled (yes, in shock) over to B'czy and read all of it...and then all of lightbulbs...to the point that I posted my answer, leaned over to the sleeping Drew, and told him he was the biggest dork in the history of time and I loved him very much and yes, would marry him. He sort of smiled and snorfled in his sleep, which I interpreted as joy at my response.

I then had to get up, shower, and GO TO GRADUATION, which was really not the easiest thing in the world given my state of mind. I kept checking all the wonderful updated on the board and in my email box throughout the day, and I felt very loved.

So...there you go! How it happened from my perspective. Thanks again for all the love, loves. I can't imagine a better proposal, a better community, or a better husband-to-be. Yay!