6 Months can change your whole world!!

So in the last 6 months I have moved to a new town, started a new job, finished a semester of college, won a national cross-country championship (as a coach), and met the man of my dreams and become engaged. not necessarily in that order! WOW!! Life is really good now and I find myself getting sappy and feeling all "touched" at the blessings in my life! I do regret that I didn't maintain my blog during my courtship, but sometimes when something is really good, you don't want to curse it by making it too public. My fiance' is named Paul and I met him online in June. We had our first date June 22nd and he drove up to Roanoke from Charlotte, North Carolina. It was at a time when I had determined to give up dating and meeting people online for at least a little while. I was pretty burnt out from the dating scene!! Anyway he is getting ready to make a permanent move to live up here in Virginia and I couldn't be happier!!

Election year

So there has been a change in my personal polls as to who my favorite boy is. NY boy hasn't done anything wrong, but he has not done much of anything PERIOD. Mortgage boy has been taking me on a total trip, and I like it. He's found out about NY boy and that got under his skin quite a bit. I was like "Dude! if I like him better than you then you won't want to be with me anyway and if I spend time with him, it might just remind me of how much I like you!!" He called me a player! I was totally flattered:)
In all seriousness though, I do find myself edging toward committment with this fellow that I haven't actually met in person. It's crazy, right? Except when you consider that he is SOO easy to talk to and I can argue with him as much as I want without it getting all personal and emotional. I like his fire. Choosing between passion and peace is a little hard for me.

back from the dead

Okay, so I haven't blogged in eons!! I am sure that I have left out several entertaining dating stories from the past several months, but suffice it to say that I am still in this horrendous game and I KNOW I will have many more stories to tell. I am currently juggling two long-distance relationships. Both of these guys contacted me on LDS dating websites. The first guy is someone who first contacted me about a year ago. I call him NY boy. It turns out that he was my brother's lab partner at BYU as well as my cousins roommate before my cousin got married last fall. He is a really stable, smart, salt-of-the earth guy. We went out over Christmas twice and again over Easter. His parents are in NC. I scare him. He's never been engaged, much less married, much less twice-divorced with a child. He is one of 10 kids in a great, humble, family. If he wanted to marry me, I would make it happen. He would be a perfect husband.
The other guy has been talking to me on the phone for 3 weeks and totally swept me off my feet. He's intense and somewhat egotistical. He scares ME a little. I will call him Mortgage Boy because he owns a mortgage company out in Utah. He has four kids and his divorce isn't quite final from his first marriage. He is very romantic and very forward and rushing towards marriage talk like there is no tomorrow. I haven't even met the guy. They are both financially secure and firm in their religious convictions, but otherwise they are polar opposites in everyway. Mortgage boy would be fun to have as a boyfriend and I am certain it would be a fiery and passionate relationship, but NY boy would be peaceful, secure and comfortable. That seems better to me for a long-term thing. He isn't as immediately attractive, but he is pleasant looking and isn't so into my looks as Mortgage boy seems to be. The plan is that I will fly out there in 2 weeks and then I am headed to NY in 3 weeks. Meanwhile Golf and I still talk all the time. We are best friends and we talk about all our dating adventures together!!

work is hard sometimes

Some days you really want to say "Take this job and shove it" only because you are so overworked and underpaid. I really should be thankful to have such a good job. I am lucky to be here and lucky to have great benefits and lucky to work with good people and lucky to work great hours. Ok, I feel better.
This morning in my seminary class we were studying the commandment to keep records and so I shared some things from my middle and high school journals with the students. Apparently it was much too interesting for them because the rest of the lesson was shot. I have never seen them so interested in reading. Why is it that they can "feast" on my silly words just to find a little dirt on me, but they don't have "time" to study the scriptures...which are essentially journals! Ah me.
Well, I have been having a fun time with a long distance flirt named Justin. I can use his name since he lives way out west. Justin is one of Sam's friends. They worked together for a while. He is all good...except for the whole "Never will meet him because he lives too far away" thing. But he tells me I am beautiful and I really want to believe him. Girls are girls and we never truly let go of our fairy tale dreams.

It's been a long time since I have been on a date. I went on one over Thanksgiving...well technically I went on two dates with the same guy. I will call him Baltimore. He was very nice and very mormon and a divorcee with 2 little girls. His girls were SOOOOO cute. He wasn't much to look at though. He was alright, but he lives up in Buffalo (I was up there visiting family). I wasn't attracted to him at all. Not intellectually or physically. Since then I have pretty much just hung out with Golf..as friends and just fantasized that maybe we'll get back together. How lame am I? I have decided that I need to take some serious action if I expect to ever find an appropriate man. My plan is to move away to Arizona in the summer. I have a couple aunts and my grandmother and a bunch of cousins and two best friends there. There are 2 things that need to happen for me to go. First I have to get permission from Ellie's dad to move her out of the state and second I need to find a job that pays enough to cover the cost of living out there. Yesterday I asked my boss to promote me from a regular secretary to a legal secretary. It was terrifying, but I have been wanting to ask for months and I figured that since yesterday was my 1 year anniversary of working for him, it would be as good a time as any. He will have to talk to the county administrator about it. The county administrator is a friend of mine, but that is no guarantee that he'll approve it. Today I got a lot of shopping done. My goal is to finish it in time to actually enjoy the rest of the Christmas season. I am excited to have Ellie this year. I also invited a good friend to join us on Christmas morning so that will make it even better. Today is the ex's birthday. I forgot all about it until I was talking to him and he mentioned it!! My friend is having her 6th baby today too!! What an amazing family they have!! Sorry this is so disjointed. I am just not focused on any one thought today. Tonight for a ward activity we are watching "Cars" on blankets in the gym at the church. woo-hoo. It's be fun just because I have the night off from being a mommy. Give a kiss to your mother.

A New Date

I went on a first date this weekend. I did the inviting and it turned out quite well. He's a 22 year old cutie from Lynchburg. The only problem with him is that he's planning to go on a mission so he'll only be around for a couple of months. I discovered a new favorite restaurant called Tokyo here in Roanoke. Their Sushi is amazing and it had a quiet and classy feel. It was a very nice dinner. We planned to attend a little mormon dance afterwards, but were disappointed to find that the sound equipment didn't make it and there was a group playing pictionary at the church instead. We tried to save the night with satellite stereo from a truck in the parking lot, but with only 7 people and freezing weather, we had to throw in the towel before 10pm. We had a nice phone conversation on my drive home and overall I think it was good for me. Maybe I will get a second date out of it, but I am not holding my breath.

More Childhood Memories

My Mom said I was a real monkey as a small child. We had a piano and apparently I liked to climb to the top of it…it was one of the tall pianos. I also learned how to go across the monkey bars quite young and I still remember sitting on the top of them. They were wooden monkey bars and I was upset that we couldn’t take them with us when we moved to Christiansburg while I was in Kindergarten. I was a very happy child. I loved playing outside and playing with other children. I enjoyed drawing and had quite a talent for it. I was constantly singing songs that I would make up on the spot and my parents say I have always been the most affectionate of all their children. I was also the girliest girl in my family. I loved playing with Barbies and talking about boys. My brother spotted me kissing a little boy on the cheek on the school bus. I still catch grief about that. I believed in romantic fairy tales and happily ever after. My dream was to get married and raise bunches of kids. Somewhere in between all the diapers and homework, I was also anticipating romantic moonlit walks after glorious masquerade balls.

My siblings were ruthless in their incessant teasing about what a sissy I was. It was not cool to be girly in my family despite the ratio of 5 girls to 2 boys. In hindsight, it was quite odd. My mother is not the Barbie type. She didn’t like to dress up and she didn’t wear much make-up or style her hair. She was a little bit granola and I became aware of her fashion faux-pas by the ripe old age of four. The eighties were all about clothes and we were a hand-me-down family. We used to get large garbage bags full of clothing from families in our church. It was like shopping to us since we never went to a store to buy anything new. I always hoped that there would be something fabulous to fit me, but generally we just wore what we could. I am still grateful for a few friends who were bigger than me and had a little style!

I have a vivid recollection of being in the third grade and going into the restroom. While I was in the stall, some other girls from my class came in and one girl was making fun of another girl because her socks didn’t match her outfit. I was painfully aware that I didn’t have the right clothes. You would think that girl would have grown up to be all snobby, but now she is one of the nicest people I know. It affects the way I feel about dressing my own daughter for school. I don’t want her to feel ashamed of the way she dresses like I did.

I tried to hide the way I really felt inside all through elementary school. I pretended to hate boys and for years I wouldn’t wear a dress or skirt to anything other than church. I was athletic and a fast runner and very competitive. I was also a good gymnast. My dad seemed to be impressed by athletic endeavors and so all of us kids tried to excel in sports. My mom was impressed by intellectual or creative endeavors and so we all took art pretty seriously. I was a bookworm. I loved reading and got lost in many a good book. I also enjoy bike riding along the street and saving my pennies to buy candy from the gas station at the end of our street. We lived in an excellent neighborhood with lots of other kids. It had a ballfield and a creek just through the woods in front of our house. I was protected from pretty much everything and my parents taught me independence and good values from the cradle on up.

childhood memories

I am in no mood to blog right now. I have been sealing up all my ramblings as of late. If I were to write what I am really thinking and feeling then everyone would start throwing tomatoes at me like a really bad comedy act. So instead of writing anything about what is going on now, I thought I would take a little trip down memory lane and blog about some of my childhood experiences. My earliest memories took place in Blacksburg VA at 102 Orchard View Lane. That is where my family lived when I was born. I was the 6th child but my first memory is the birth of the 7th when I was just over 2 years old. My mother was and is quite eccentric about certain things and she preferred to give birth to her children at home. It was 1979 and Blacksburg was no where near as liberal as California so even though she had her 4th child at home, my brother Jeremy and I were hospital babies. Sam was born at home. She was very purple when she was born and I remember that I left one of my dollies under my mom's bed but wasn't allowed to go and get her for a while. I recall the house being very dark and I have no idea what the actual layout of the house was because we moved out of it when I was only 5. I remember two bathrooms and lots of daddy-long leg spiders in one of them. I remember sharing the "playroom" with 4 other siblings and sleeping on these cool beds my dad made us from 2x4's. They were nestling beds with Sam's being the smallest and Casey's being the largest. When morning came they could all be pushed together. They probably weren't very comfortable. I think they just had slats on top that we laid foam padding over that could be rolled up and stowed away during the day. The playroom had a cupboard and each child had one shelf where we kept our toys. We were very poor in those days, but I had no idea and I was extremely happy and content. I had lots of playmates and we had a swingset with monkey bars and a very cool playhouse in the backyard. We also kept goats and chickens and that is where we got our milk and eggs. My mom baked her own bread. It was very hard and dark. She must've been so exhausted all the time. There are only 10 years between the oldest and the youngest child. My oldest sister was going on 8 years old when I was born. That's my daughter's age now. Very high maintainance. I can't imagine 5 more younger than her. My dad walked to VaTech from our house and we had a big white Volkswagon bus/van. It didn't have seatbelts or carpet in it. It was pretty torn up by the time we got rid of it some 15 years later!!

Give a kiss to your mother!!

I am back on the prowl, my friends!! Seriously. I am feeling good today. Yesterday I forced myself to e-flirt with this adorable boy who is way too young for me and I was shocked when he flirted back. That’s a “you go, girl!!” for me! I mean, he is getting ready to go on a mission so that’s totally just for fun. I also got this random message from my sister’s friend. He’s a nice Mormon boy who lives out west and is SERIOUSLY considering moving here of all places. Apparently he is interested in me because of my very cool younger sister. But I will take it. I told him that if he moved into our singles ward that I would having first dibs on dating him and he said that was a given! Ha ha ha ha…he’s probably a freak or weirdo, but it’s good for my ever-lovin’ ego just the same. My mother would advise me to cultivate friendships and not worry about finding love. My mother rocks!
Speaking of following good advice, I finally did. I told Golf that we couldn't be "just friends" for at least a month and we agreed not to talk on the phone, e-mail, text, or hang out for at least a month. It was really hard to do, but I felt so much better about myself afterwards. I regained my mojo.

I hate good advice!!

Seriously, I get good advice from people who love me and I just can't seem to follow it. Why am I so freakin masochistic anyway?! I wish I could take good advice. I just read a great quote that I am totally guilty of "“Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option”.
OK. I totally do that. Especially with Golf. What's my problem? Some times I think I am there. I mean, I had a great day yesterday. I was really on a spiritual high. Church was soooooooooo good. I was feeling completely fine. But today, not so much. "Rainy days and Mondays always bring me down".
I guess that is the problem. Or the fact that Golf just told me he may have other lunch plans with someone else. Ooh, that really burns me up. Did I mention that I am not nice!? I get mad about stuff like that. OK, technically I get hurt and then I get mad, but we don't have to talk about the getting hurt part because that is a given these days.
Yesterday my dad told me he was proud of the way I am living my life. That rocks!! I needed it too. But of course I still wonder how much of the chaos is my own fault. Like when I read that quote and saw myself. I need to take good advice. I want to take good advice. Mainly it just makes me feel guilty that I don't take the good advice. Sheesh. Seriously though, hearing the same good advice does keep it in my brain and eventually I have to follow it!! So keep it coming.
Just be patient with me. I am trying to be nicer...to myself, I mean!

raise your hand if you care!

OK, I have to whine. First, the rich attorney never even called so that's the first blow to my mojo. And second, Golf is now officially dating the 18 year old he dumped me for AND he still calls me as frequently as when we were dating. Am I asexual or something now? apparently yes. Golf texted me at work right after we had a nice lunch at the park and he was like, "I feel like I should tell you something" and then he tells me that he and the 18 year old are dating now and he thought I should know. Perhaps because I have been throwing myself at him verbally all week? Anyhoo, I got this weird feeling in my gut. Like someone had physically punched me in my stomach. I have to say, it bugs me a lot more because the girl is WAY nicer than me. Way nicer, do you see? I can't possibly be mad at her and I love him way too much to be mad at him so who do you suppose I am mad at? why, me, of course. I am such a sucker.
Ok enough whining. I am gonna have fun this weekend and somehow, someway find someone else worth flirting with!!!

Discovering the MOJO!!

I am currently waiting for a phone call from some guy who I don't remember meeting. Here's what happened: I was working and an attorney that I know called and before I passed him on to the other attorney he said he had a personal question. He said he has a friend who is also an attorney that works out of a different county and he wanted to go out with me if I was single. That is a total ego booster right there. Well I found out a few more details about the guy...his name and he's supposedly very successful financially, but I still have no clue what he is like. I asked my ex if he knew him because apparently he's got some downtown Roanoke connection and the ex said he's a nice guy but I probably wouldn't be attracted to him...well? Anyway so now he's supposed to call me at work to set up a lunch date. I am very curious to meet him...again apparently (how terrifying are first dates?) Should I go, should I not? what's the advice?

suggestions anyone?

Some days you just look at yourself and you are totally disgusted with your behavior. Most days though, you look at others and are totally disgusted with their behavior. Can we say projection? I was looking at someone else in a relationship and thinking, "wow, she was so much cooler when she wasn't dating him" and then I realized that I do that thing too. That thing where you are suddenly so overcome by your relationship that you lose your coolness and it kills the relationship. Yeah, that thing. So how does one fix this sort of a problem? Seriously, I have no idea. I could use a little guidance. Has anyone else been that person and overcome it? I need to know because I really can't spare any of my coolness. I barely have enough to survive as it is and that is getting worse as I get older. I don't even speak the same language as a lot of high-schoolers these days. Really.
I like myself when I am single better than I like myself when I am in a relationship. Maybe I just need to NEVER be in a relationship again. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. I kill me. I just have to not realize that I am in a relationship. Nothing to lose, you know? Help!!

where have all the flowers gone?

It's a seriously dumb question, right? I mean it's November and it's not even 30 degrees out there. The flowers will be back in the springtime. I was in a grumpy funk all day but no more. I refuse to pout one more day. I am thinking of planning some awesome, good-timing fun days. What I need to do is meet some new hotties. Preferrably mature mormon men, but I would settle for some simple flirting too at this juncture. My sister Candi thinks I need to move out of state. Like to Arizona or New York where I have family and could get a better job. Seriously, I am considering it. I don't think there is anything worthwhile keeping me here. No offense intended to any of my seriously wonderful, kind, amazing, and very good-looking friends intended, but I am OLD and I am POOR and I am LONELY. HERGOKULOOGIMAS!! I need to do something. There really must be something better out there for this crazy chica!!!

maturity and letting go...

I read this book about the trials of adolescent girls. I am a pyschology buff so I found it incredibly interesting but totally depressing. It's called Reviving Ophelia. It has this great definition of maturity that I like to read from time to time. I found this on page 256.
"Maturity involves:
-Being honest and true to oneself.
-Making decisions based on a conscious internal process.
-assuming responsibility for one's decisions.
-having healthy relationships with others.
-developing one's own true gifts.
-thinking about one's environment and deciding what one will and won't accept."
I know I still have a long way to go. I definitely am not developing any of my true gifts these days. In fact, I have been wasting my time all week watching "Grey's Anatomy". Benjamin Franklin was quoted in one episode. "Never put off till tomorrow that which you can do today".
That's maturity too. Growing up is awful, but not growing up is so much worse. I like who I am for probably the first time in my life. I am not depressed or in denial or looking for shortcuts to happiness. I am going to be just fine, if I can just get through the rest of this horrendously sad week.

What's the deal?

I took Ellie trick-or-treating yesterday. She has pink-eye and couldn't be around other kids so she missed all the fun at school and the church party, but I still took her around Golf's neighborhood for some candy. It was fun. The weather was nice. The neighborhood was friendly and she got lots of candy and we only went on two streets. It lifts my spirits to hang out in child-friendly suburbia for a little while. I like seeing that there are so many good families having kids and enjoying their families. It also depresses the heck out of me. I used to be one of these suburban moms with my nice house and my cluster of friends in the neighborhood...and now I am this poor single mom in a basement apartment. And why is this my lot in life? I should be asking why not. Why not me. I don't enjoy my current situation. I don't like being a single mom and I definitely don't like being on the bottom of the social status ladder because of it. The reality is that divorce causes poverty. I was an honor student in a good college, but because of my personal life, I am now stuck in loser-ville. But despite all this, I have to say that I am still happy (most of the time) and I know things will only get better for me...although they could get worse first!!! Anyway. Divorce sucks.

break-ups and trust issues

We’ve all been known to use the ‘let someone down easy’ break-up lines. Sometimes we even convince ourselves that they are true. “It’s not you, it’s me” or “I don’t know what I want right now and that’s not fair to you” or heaven help us all, “you’ll find someone that’s better for you”. I am a little bitter today. I am old and bitter. I feel like, so last-season!! Seriously. I would like a little more honesty. How about, “You are boring to me now” or “Other women are just more interesting to me”, or “I need a little more drama in my life”!! That I would believe because that is the truth. I don’t like dating. It is just uncomfortable. Marriage is so much better. And I have had the crappiest of marriages so I should know. First dates are awkward. It takes a really long time to get comfortable with someone and then you realize that the person isn’t at all what you had hoped for. Almost every date you go on will end with a sad or unpleasant break-up and the only thing you’ll have to show for it will be wasted time and more disappointment. And it’s always embarrassing to admit that you were wrong about someone. Again. I understand people who give up on dating altogether. I know I won’t be that person. I like men and flirting way too much. But the truth is, I lack faith. I doubt that I will find someone I like better. I doubt I will be as comfortable with someone else. I doubt I will find someone who challenges me intellectually and I really doubt I will find someone my daughter likes half so much. It’s easier for me to have faith in God when it doesn’t involve trusting other people as well.

making the rounds

So I got dumped today. Not totally dumped, more like put on the back burner. But emotionally, it's all the same thing. The person who I love doesn't love me the same way. It's just this sort of thing that made me give up crying in the first place and it gives me such a headache to hold back all these tears. Feeling the pain is what makes us special. It is a refiner's fire. I don't like it, but I trust that I will be ok.
The really sucky thing is that I absolutely can't give Golf up as a friend. He's been my best friend much longer than we dated. I appreciate his honesty. My ego is pretty messed up though. Call me sensitive, but I don't like rejection much.

Musings on life and marriage

My dad told me recently that life isn’t really made of hills and valleys, but is more like the two rails of a railroad track. The one rail is our trials and the other rail is our blessings. There is never a time in our lives where we don’t have both rails beneath us. I have been thinking about this regarding marriage lately. That’s only natural since I am goo-goo-crazy in love these days.
What are the motivations for getting married verses staying single? I should know this one, right? I should be an expert on relationships (no one believes that, I hope). The truth is, I only know my own experiences and I can only view my new experiences through the lens of my past. People name all sorts of trials in marriage; financial problems, sexual problems, personality conflicts, religious conflicts, health problems, child issues, and so on. I have experienced all of those things. The way I see it, those are just day-to-day issues we must all deal with at some point. I think one must consider what their expectations are in marriage. If you expect that joining up with your love will be the end of all of your trials, then you will surely be disappointed. If, on the other hand, you see your spouse as someone who needs your support get through THEIR trials and who can in turn keep you company through yours, then you can expect to be satisfied with the marriage. You should treat your spouse like you would treat your best friend. The relationship should be thought of like any other family relationship. Permanent, no matter what the other person does. And last but not least, our happiness is our own responsibility. My dad gave me a quote by Samuel Johnson, “He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.”
Boom. That is simple enough.