CherryPie, yeah, not so romantic. And these days, you can add a domestic partner to your health insurance just by signing a special form saying you are in that kind of relationship (even for same-sex couples). At least we've been able to do that here in California (Anthem Blue Cross) for many years.

Here's my proposal story: DH and I dated a while and then both of our roommates decided to move to other states. We decided to move in with each other at a friend's condo (with that friend, kind of reverse Three's Company). My parents were less than trilled with that! About 6 months later a couple of our friends decided to get married and everyone invited stayed overnight at this cabin they had rented for the event. It was basically a huge party all night long. Sometime during the evening, DH and I were talking about how fun it was and how happy they were and he said something like "maybe we should get married." No question--just a statement, but hey, I took it! Next Tuesday will be our 25th anniversary!

And the day before that, the Amgen tour of California bike race is in town! The route has a sprint section just one mile west of my house. I wonder of my boss (DH) will let me have the afternoon off to go watch it?!?!?

Allison - you can't do that in every state or on every policy, it all depends on how it is written. Our policies at my company exclude it, but some in GA allow it.

Jumping in with Congratulations for JayZeeJay with extra Congratulations for her DF (Dear Fiancé) - now that's my kind of romantic guy.

As a NY State employee, I did have the ability to put him on my insurance as a domestic partner. However, if you do that, you have to pay taxes on what the partner's health insurance is valued at - it's called Imputed Income. And no way was I going to pay even more for what I think is ridiculous cost of health insurance when we could just get married and save that money.

The "gay marriage" debate has always been ironic to me, because we would have LOVED to have had the option to be in a "civil union" rather then a marriage - which has always had religious significance to us when DH and I are "devout atheists". And here are all these couples fighting to be allowed to get married....

Jen

Just jumping in to give congrats to Jay! Very cool proposal, IMO!

Love the proposal stories and "non-proposal" stories! I've never been sappily romantic, so it's nice to hear that others also choose to do things their own ways.

My weight is up again, even from yesterday. Besides the weekend of over-excess, I'm also waiting for TOM to start. I ate well yesterday and worked out, and have a run scheduled for this afternoon. I'm feeling mostly better, just trying to get it into my head that I can't ever eat like that anymore - it's not worth the crappy physical and emotional roller coaster.

Thanks to all for the congrats!! And yes, I'm actually quite glad that it was not some public and/or formal proposal. If he had done anything involving a Jumbotron, I would have crawled under my chair. The funny part is the photo we took together right after he asked me: it definitely LOOKS like we've been running from bears all day.

Saef: You're right, it will be a fun story to tell in the future. It's nice to have a good proposal story, since we have such a crappy "how we met" story (answer: online).

I've gotten some humorous reactions too since I'm 38 and my H2B is 42, so neither of us is exactly early to the party. When I told my dad, his response was "Wow. So, never say never, I guess."

Have spent last 2 weeks thinking I was eating "on plan" (except for one evening of overeating) and exercising 5 days/week. Have lost not a single ounce. In utter frustration, finally went back to logging all my food today. Realized, to my amazement, that what I thought was a 1200 cal. day was actually almost 1500. Light bulb went on - mystery of no weight loss solved - I've been eating this way for the last 2 weeks.

Spent evening sulking. How can I be such a veteran of weight control, and STILL be unable to track my food mentally? More importantly, why does 1500 cal. feel like so little? And if I restrict back to a true 1200, will that just trigger the evening binging that I finally curbed? Ugh.

On a more cheerful note, congratulations Jay! When is the big day?

Andrea, I have been calorie counting and tracking for 3+ years now. I still weight and measure everything, and put it in Livestrong, and I think I always will need to.

About a year ago I tried an experiment where I covered my readout on my digital food scale and estimated portions, and then looked at the readout to see how on target I was. This was for foods I ate every single day (chicken breast, veggies, strawberries, yogurt, etc.). I was off every time. I was usually under on things like fruits and veggies, and over on high cal foods like oil and nuts and dairy. YIKES! That taught me a lesson - I can't trust my eyeballs at all.

I'm feeling better this morning after reading one of Stumptuous' rants:

http://www.stumptuous.com/hormones-h...bly-need-carbs

I am still mulling over some of her advice:

Or, as she sums it up: "Chill the f%$#@ out." I keep saying that to myself this morning, like a mantra.

Weirdly enough, it's working.

Andrea-- I think I've been doing the same thing as you-- eating to maintain, not eating to lose. I have to suck it up and eat less if I really want to lose and I'm not sure how badly I want to currently. Maybe once summer hits and I'm not working I can focus on it more.

Good advice Saef. I've been stressing that I won't be able to workout on Friday and I haven't missed a day in probably close to two months. We are flying to Spokane after I get off of work so the only exercise I'll get will be walking through the airport. I need to look at it as giving my body a break. Dd and I are planning some nice walks while I'm in Spokane which will be much less than my normal exercise, but that's OKAY (at least I'm telling myself that).

Sleep ! If I hear one more person or read one more article telling us to get more sleep, or enough sleep or X number of hours of sleep, I am going to have a hissy fit. Have these people espousing enough sleep ever considered that some of us would love to have X hours of sleep, it just doesn't happen.

Well, I get plenty of sleep. Sure there are nights when I wake and can't get back to sleep, but it's been pretty rare lately.

I decided to start tracking my food again. I started yesterday. Dang, I was OVER by almost 900 calories. It had to have been the puff pastry I used to wrap my chicken breast. It sure tasted good, but I can't do that.

I saw a photo of me from about 8 years ago just a little bit ago. Dang, I wish I still looked like that. Maybe I should print it and hang it somewhere to remind me of what I want.

Michele~I thought of you when I read this: Hilarious Yoga Mat for Sale on Craigslist.

I just about died laughing at that.

Neurodoc: Oh gosh, we haven't picked a day yet. I secretly wonder if we will actually get married. We are so unreasonably proud of ourselves just for managing to get engaged. I think the effort of planning a wedding might be the end of one or both of us. Neither of us has any talent or initiative in that area.

Saef: That was a nice read. I liked that part about doing parasympathetic-friendly activities. This strange inflammatory disease I have is partly due to overactive sympathetic nervous activity (they think), so I am supposed to be trying to balance it out. But things like yoga and wandering through nature still seem like luxuries, not "exercise" or "work" or other justifiable tasks. It is good to be reminded by others that these activities are just as essential as a hard workout session.
The quote "your body is your best data point" was my favorite.