Speaking of marriage proposals, I remember how fun it was when our friends David and Katherine Fedor got engaged! ( I think it had something to do with a hat, Florida and a funny headline for the family newsletter – am I remembering correctly?:-))
David now has a weblog: Palm OS Protein News . Ted and David used to work at Apple together on Newton and David’s been at Palm for a while since then.
I’m glad he has a blog…now I only wish Katherine had one too! 🙂
I wish everyone had a blog, especially my friends, and Katherine’s got great perspective. I love how she loves life, noticing the little joys in a day, how she gives to her family and how she’s helped me out of a few holes.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Katherine // Mar 1, 2004 at 9:21 am
How to respond to this? Thank you, Julie. It would take a blog to respond to this post, you’re right. Let’s see if I can sum up…David was going to propose in a towering tree on Neilson Lawn at Smith College (my alma mater), but it snowed (on April 17th, no less). I love climbing trees, and we had ascended it together before and sat talking loftily. But we weren’t about to attempt it in the snow. So he settled for just asking me in my dorm room. By writing a beautiful proposal on the dedication page of the Bible he had recently bought for me, and reading it aloud to me. He was so nervous he got confused as to how to write some of the cursive letters. I was completely surprised, even though I had already made up my mind what my answer would be. I “knew” he would be asking me by July, because that was 6 months before my graduation, and we had agreed that 6 months would be a good length for an engagement. We had talked a lot about marriage, about love, about engagement, about sacrifice, life-long commitment and what it means, and we had prayed, read books on the subject, talked with our parents, friends, and even a pastor so we’d be the most prepared possible for a sturdy foundation. So he knew my heart (I had practically begged to get engaged on the previous New Year’s Eve…but he was wise and self-controlled enough to wait). Anyway, the parts you mentioned, Julie, came in after I gasped sharply and smiled, paused and said YES. David had interrupted me from doing my Japanese homework to make his proposal. I was trying to finish it up because we had scheduled another surprise – a trip to Florida for Easter and David’s mom’s birthday. His dad knew we were coming, but his mom did not. Neither of them knew we would be arriving with a sparkling ring. My parents, however, in Massachusetts, knew all about it, because David had spent the previous night at their house, in order to seek my Dad’s consent to ask for my hand…wow. That’s another story. He prayed with my parents and everything. And they had to keep quiet until he asked me. So back to the FL trip – we were floating so high in the clouds already that David misremembered the departure time and we missed our flight!!! We had to take a later flight and David’s dad had to think of all kinds of excuses to keep his wife awake until we got there. It didn’t work and she went to bed! So she didn’t have her contact lenses in and didn’t notice the ring until I laid my hand pointedly on the tablecloth about 20 minutes after we got to the house…at which point she got very excited. David is an only child, so this was a unique moment for their family.
The hat only comes in because it was Easter weekend and my mother-in-law-to-be took me shopping and got me a lovely white hat with a bit of a white, gauzy veil to wear for the occasion. We have a big photo of us in front of their home with the hat, which is probably what you’re thinking of, Julie.
My maiden name is Stone. The headline you mentioned was later, in David’s dad’s side of the family…a cousin with a sense of humor wrote, “Fedor gives Rock to Stone.” We still have the newsletter in our wedding album, so that’s why you remember that. There were some funny articles underneath the title.
Saying yes was the best decision about human relations I’ve ever made in my life.
2 Katherine // Mar 1, 2004 at 9:42 am
And now about blogging – I feel like your blog has given me a little opportunity to blog a bit as I repond to your entries…I think I wrote at the beginning about hoping I wasn’t writing too much, since it’s not MY blog!!
I would love to have a blog of my own, but…
I DON’T HAVE TIME!
I don’t even have time to tidy the papers on my desk, which have been accumulating since November or so. I don’t have time to prepare the taxes, which are beginning to loom. I don’t have time/energy to prepare a home-cooked dinner every night. Etc. Etc. I mainly have time to educate my children, do the laundry, the grocery shopping, pay the bills, sort the mail perfunctorily (i.e. try to catch the bills before it all ends up in an enormous pile on my poor neglected desk), love my husband, try to get to Curves to exercise 3x a week, try to keep up with two friends in reading the Bible through this year, read Julie’s weblog, and (obviously) write some email. I really am at a loss as to how you manage it, Julie – you have one more child than I, and do so much more at home and on the web…I think I get more sleep than you do…! Anyway, I’ll keep your suggestion in mind (you had me composing blog entries in my head while going to sleep last night). Maybe I’ll start the “One Word A Day” blog. Or the “I have 30 seconds today” blog. Of course I spent a lot of time writing these two responses this morning, but I’m going to pay for it…and I couldn’t keep it up regularly. But it would be fun. I’d like to live one day, blog one day, live one day, blog one day…but they don’t come like that…got to run to homeschool band…catch you later…
3 Julie // Mar 1, 2004 at 11:18 pm
Wow, Katherine. Thanks for your lengthy responses! What a wonderful proposal story – somehow what I remember most is the photo of the hat!
I am grateful that you take the time to read and reply to my blog. I hope you didn’t pay a big price this morning for typing away the time!
I have to say, though, that if you posted your comments as entries on your own blog – instead of as comments on mine – then you’d have a great blog already 🙂
The “One Word a Day” or “Thiry Seconds Blog” would be fun ideas too …live one day, blog one day would work well for me too 🙂
of course, I’d love for you to blog, whenever you can find the time…until then I’m grateful for your rich perspectives posted here 🙂