One Saturday morning in March, I woke up early to clean up the backyard. After eating breakfast, I went outside in my old jeans and t-shirt and started raking. Owning five dogs means that the yard needs regular cleaning. Yet, I hadn’t been keeping up with the cleaning because of the cold winter. After a lot of sweating and hard work, the yard started to look good. As I continued working, I heard someone walking down the driveway. It was my boyfriend, Leon. I was glad to see him even though I looked terrible.

Leon helped me clean the yard and the morning went very quickly. When we were done, he suggested that we go to lunch in NYC. I got cleaned up fast and we took the train to the city. We got off at a stop in NYC that I wasn’t familiar with. I thought maybe Leon found a new restaurant for us to go to. When we walked upstairs from the train station, I saw we were in the diamond district. I looked at Leon and he said, “Let’ go pick a ring!” I thought I was in a dream as we walked in and out of jewelry stores in the Diamond District.

We couldn’t find a setting for the ring. Leon looked through each set of rings and delicately touched each one. I had tears in my eyes when we found the setting. It was beautiful and I asked the man if we could put a different stone in it because the diamond in the setting was very large and I didn’t want it to be too expensive for Leon. Leon said to the salesperson, “That’s the ring and that’s the right stone. Can you please size it now for my fianc�e.” The man sized the ring, Lee paid for it and we left with the ring in the box.

In the middle of NYC, Leon took the box out of his pocket and with a shaky hand, took mine and said, “Will you be my fianc�e person?” He was so nervous that his words came out shaky and he didn’t say, “Will you marry me?” We went to lunch but we could hardly eat because we were so excited and nervous. We called family and friends and everyone was excited for us. I went to bed that evening and when I awoke, I looked at my hand to make sure that the day before was real. What started out as a bad poop day turned into a diamond of a day!

For many weeks following our engagement, I teased Lee that we weren’t really engaged because he didn’t ask me to marry him! Leon still helps me clean the poop and each time we are out in yard, I think about how that day turned into my surprise proposal.