What's YOUR Love Story?

In honor of Valentine's Day, I'm linking-up Becky from Mrs to Mama for a fun Valentine's Day link-up!

1. How long have you and your significant other been together?

Well... we 1st met back in December 1997, so we've known each for a little over 14 years now, but we didn't become a couple until December 2006, so just over 5 years!

2. How did you meet? {What's your "love" story?}
We met in Jr. High Sunday school. I've written about it before, but here's the shortened version - he approached me after Sunday school one morning and gave me a little folded up piece of paper before running off. It happened to be a love poem he had written me (let's all say "awww"). We proceeded to be friends throughout high school and into college but didn't start dating til the later half of my college years.

3. If married, how long have you been married?
We just celebrated our 3 year anniversary this past September.

4. If you are married, where did you get married at? Big or small wedding?
We got married here in our hometown. We didn't have HUGE wedding like some people we know, but it wasn't exactly tiny either... I think, counting our wedding party and their dates/spouses, we had just under 150 people come. Many relatives of mine I hadn't seen in years (or ever!) and lot of my in-laws ministry sponsors. If we were to do it again I probably would have had my mother-in-law cut her guest list more as it was literally half the guest list she took up (in her defense, she honestly thought most of them wouldn't come, but wanted to send a courtesy invite... yeah... most of them came.)

5. Do you have any nick-names that you call one another? Do share!
Nothing real corny or cheesy like in my past relationships - ours our simple, he calls me Baby, I call him Hon (short for Honey).

6. Name 3 things you love most about your honey.
His head is on pretty straight for the most part, he has ambition and goals, he takes care of us.

7. Tell us how he proposed?
He proposed in a way that totally threw me off. I knew it was coming, but graduation had come and gone, as did Christmas and New Years so I kinda figured maybe he'd do it around Valentine's Day... so I was completely thrown off when he did it at post-church lunch at Chili's the 1st Sunday of the new year with his brother and his brother's jailbait girlfriend sitting at the table with us. Obviously he had planned it, but to me it was totally random as it's not like Chili's is "our" place or anything (I don't recall ever having been there with him prior! LOL). Anyways, we were discussing when he should schedule his 2 vacation weeks for work as he has to submit those in January and I told him it all depended on him and he finished my sentence by asking if it all depended on him asking me to marry him, in which he got down on 1 knee and asked.

8. Is he a flowers and teddy bear kind of guy for v-day, or strawberries, champagne, and rose petals?

Well, he's not a fan of giving flowers because he doesn't see the point - they wither and die within days which seems like a crappy gift (and is why he gets me several wooden roses from the fair every summer). But he's not exactly the most romantic either... I guess you could say he's more practical when it comes to gift giving, getting me something he knows I want and will make use of.

9. Are you a sunset dinner on the beach kind of girl, or pop a movie in and relax on the couch?
Dinner on the beach sounds romantic, but in reality, we spend more time sitting on the couch watching movies (either DVDs or whatever's playing on TV).

10. Tell us one thing you'd like to do with your significant one day. If you could do anything? Go anywhere?
Travel to a different country - maybe a tour through Europe, or to the Australian outback... maybe relaxing on a beach down south... something like that that we've never done before.

11. Tell us what you plan on doing on this Valentine's Day.
Probably dressing up for our usual Valentine's dinner date, maybe a movie... not sure if Jay will be joining us or staying with a sitter - that's still TBD.

12. Are you asking for anything this Valentine's day?
Nope. I honestly have no suggestions as I've been finding it hard to come up with ideas for what I want these days as I tend to focus more on Jay.

13. Give us one piece of advice of keeping a relationship strong and full of love.
Communication is key - we're not mind-readers (or at least the majority aren't) so unless you talk out how you're feeling if something is bothering you or you feel hurt, your partner might have no clue. If you want your relationship to be successful you MUST communicate to each other.

14.  Show us a picture of what love means to you.

 

Old people still in love after all those years... really shows you that love really can last forever!

Our wedding, 3 years later

I've seen this wedding meme pop up several times the past few months or so and it looks like a lot of fun! Since today is me and hubby's 3 year anniversary I thought I would do this meme in honor of it!

A is for Attending

We had right around 120 people, having invited about 140, despite our reception hall only being able to seat 120 in the main dining room (oops!). We got lucky though and were able to squeeze everyone in one room!

B is for Bridesmaids

My bridesmaids were (from left to right) my little sister, my best friend from Junior High and High School (she was Matron of Honor), a friend of mine and hubby's that we had both known since Junior High, and my roommate & best friend from college. No, they didn't wear the hats during the actual wedding - the hats were part of the guys' attire but they let the bridesmaids take some awesome photos with them! And as you can see, at the reception, some of them decided to wear their sashes as scarves =)

C is for Catering

We actually didn't have any "special" catering as our reception hall included the food as part of the building rental. We did buffet style for the dinner though, as we figured that'd be easiest for everyone. I honestly don't remember too much of what was served! But I do remember it was all really yummy!

Hubby actually made the suggestion of who to do our cake - a supervisor friend of his from UPS at the time, her mom makes cakes for a living and from time to time she would bring some in to share with them at work and he said it was the best cake ever. She makes her own special icing too, which is excellent! Everyone loved the cake and kept saying how good it was and the best part was just how reasonable her prices were compared to most of the other "big name" cake people in town. We also had her do my baby shower cake and I plan on calling her up and having her do Jay's 1st birthday cake too when the time comes.

Should also note our awesome cake topper! My Matron of Honor had one of these for her wedding almost a year prior to mine and I loved it! After having a hard time finding a way to do our WoW characters as a topper (as Figureprints is expensive and has their lotto system) I thought this was a nice alternative. The maker of the cake topper was originally a company on eBay called Ling's Moment (you can find their current site by Googling them). Basically you do "Buy It Now" on eBay and they send you an email with color palettes and a questionnaire about your attire, etc. They send you several pictures throughout the process so you can change a color or have them add something etc. I LOVE our cake topper - it's currently in a display cabinet in our house.

D is for Dress

I got my dress from One Stop Wedding here in Rockford. It's a smaller boutique in town and was the 1st place we went to for dress shopping. I tried on a handful but this one seemed to be the best of them and because it was off the rack we got it for a great price! I want to say it was an Alfredo Angelo. It had a row of buttons down the back of the dress which I loved and it's actually a light ivory instead of white. One of the straps was broken when we bought it but my mom, being the seamstress she is, could easily fix that and we did the unique criss-cross thing in the back. I tried a handful on at David's Bridal (and had a really pushy saleswoman who almost made it seem like I *had* to pick their most popular dress they were pushing) but this dress was in the back of my mind the whole time and I decided that was the dress and we ran back and got it before they closed for the night.

E is for Engagement

We got engaged at the beginning of January 2008 so we had roughly a 9 month engagement as we were married on September 13, 2008.

F is for Flowers

Unity Candle display (ignore stuff in background)

My bouquet

Bridesmaid bouquet

Pew bow

Reception table centerpiece, sat on top of mirrored glass

The chapel outcome

Our flowers were all DIY. I wanted red roses which are expensive and I have allergies so real flowers were out of the question anyway. My aunt used to do flower arrangements so she had some experience doing them and my mom is crafty too so between the 2 of them they did all our decorations and flowers. We used LOTS of the weekly 40% off coupons from Michaels and Hobby Lobby and my mom cleaned Michael's out of their faux red roses the day after Valentine's Day when they went on clearance too, lol...

G is for Groomsmen

Hubby with his groomsmen

From left to right we have hubby's 2nd youngest brother, our good friend who lives about an hour away whom we originally met in World of Warcraft several years prior, hubby, hubby's brother that's a few years younger than him, hubby's youngest brother. Years ago in college I was at a party with some friends and one of the guys was talking about a wedding he was in where they were doing the zoot suit look and OMG I thought that was the coolest idea ever and had to have it for my own wedding. Hubby was all for it too and so we opted for the longer suitcoats and the fedoras and we got the guys all pocket watches with chains as their wedding party gift that they could wear the day of as well.

H is for Honeymoon

The view from our hotel room balcony!

We went to Vegas for our honeymoon, getting there late Monday evening and leaving early Saturday. We did lots of tourist-y things like visiting the Hoover Dam, a nearby chocolate factory, seeing a Vegas show (Bite - an adult show with "vampires" dancing to classic rock), walking The Strip and stopping into all the famous hotels and casinos along the way (we started at the south end at Mandalay Bay and spent and entire day walking all the way north to the Stratosphere), and road the indoor gondolas at the Venetian and checked out the wax museum too! We stayed at The Plaza on Fremont Street in the downtown area and had an amazing view outside our window too!

Some tips: 1) Don't walk from Fremont Street to The Strip and especially not in heels - it's A LOT further than it looks, the flat topography lies! 2) Slots A Fun is an AWESOME place to hang out and kill time - cheap, but good (and large!) booze, low pay-in costs at the tables and $1 footlong hotdogs!! We went to this place several times on The Strip (it's out in front of Circus Circus, across from the Riviera).

I is for Invitation

 

I went to a bridal show shortly after our engagement and for $20 down, if you got your tuxes from this one tux shop located in our local mall you would get your invitations for free (or rather, they would rebate the cost). Our colors were red, black and silver and our theme was double hearts, so we went with these simple invitations.

I also made Save the Date magnets for people too!

J is for Justice of the Peace

Hubby's dad is an ordained Reverend/Minister who has his whole missions ministry that he does and hubby specifically requested that his dad wed us. It was the only request he really had so I agreed to it (although the months before the wedding he did start getting a little bit more into some of the wedding stuff and became a little bit more opinionated than he had been, hehe).
 

K is for Keepsakes

  

For our favors to guests we made M&M tins with red and ivory M&Ms as well as placeholder cards that I made that sat atop little doubleheart topped bells (not pictured).

L is for Ladies Night

My bachelorette party... it was held 2 weeks prior to our wedding (as the night before is just tacky) and the same weekend as my bridal shower as one of my bridesmaids lives in Minnesota and it was easier for her to have them both the same weekend so she could just stay with family in town. Since my sis is underage and was a bridesmaid and I invited hubby's brother's underage girlfriend to join us we kept it PG13 to start and invited my mom and my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law and cousin (who were 10 at the time). We went to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner (which had just opened the week before so it was a bit packed!) and then went bowling for a bit afterwards, where those of us old enough could get drinks from the bowling alley bar. Gotta admit, I was feeling a nice buzz when we left there and me, my 3 legal bridesmaids and my aunt (who was our DD for the night) went bar hopping for the rest of the night. They made me do that bachelorette scavenger hunt game where you have to take pictures doing random things, like dancing on top of a bar (which a bartender let us do on one of their empty back bars so long as he didn't notice, lol...), and get kisses (on the cheek or hand) by an assortment of guys and retrieve a condom from a bathroom, lol... it was interesting! The first bar we went to was laidback and played 80s hairband metal which I found awesome. The bartender also looked like hubby's brother's twin too which was a bit odd and we met some creepy old fart who was trying to teach us "golf swings". We went to a bar downtown that I liked and my aunt insisted we go dancing at the gay bar downtown as well, so we did (we were pretty drunk by this point, all I remember was dancing with my bridesmaids in the cage they had and some gay guys posing for a picture with us, lol... oh and I got a "goody bag" too from there!).

M is for Music

We put together our own playlist for the ceremony and one of my brother-in-laws performed a song that my father-in-law wrote and sang at his wedding years ago that he let us borrow for our wedding. For the reception we had a set of DJ's (Sounds Unlimited from Rockford, IL) who I met at the bridal show I went to - they had polka on their playlist which sold me as my dad and grandpap are both big on polka and I had to have at least 1 polka played, lol... whatever they didn't have in their catalog they said we could submit on CD for them and they did a great job. They were older guys but had been in the business since the 80s and were known for DJing the annual fireman's ball event every year and they were a lot of fun and did a really good job! They also had the best price in town too!

Our 1st dance was to our song - "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol
The wedding party's dance was to "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey
For Father/Daughter dance we used "Butterfly Kisses" by Bob Carlisle (which btw, is a REALLY long song when everyone is watching you!)
And Mother/Son dance was to "Moon River"
For our last dance we played "Closing Time" by Semisonic

N is for Newlyweds

We spent the day after our wedding at my parents house with family and relatives from out of town for a brunch and we opened our gifts too... and fell asleep on the couch for a bit before running out to Target to buy some last minute stuff for our honeymoon, like a camcorder we had on our registry as well as a luggage set.

O is for Old, new, borrowed, blue

Old and borrowed was a ring I wore, new and blue were my underwear I ordered that had "Bride" printed on the butt, lol...

P is for Photography

We had Solko Photography for our photography and well... it could have been better. Originally when we booked we had the owner slated as our photographer. We went with them as my matron of honor had them for her wedding and they did a really good job. Well, a few weeks before my wedding I get a call, requesting we permit them to have one of their other photographers shoot our wedding as another bride they booked on our day decided last minute she wanted their videography services and the only ones that could use the equipment were the owner and her husband (who was already slated to shoot that wedding, meaning she would have to do the video). They gave us a great break on our package, basically giving us our album for free, and we agreed after seeing the other guy's work and it looking fine. However I was a bit disappointed in the lack of candids he took and that we didn't get some photos with relatives we never see that I really would have liked to have gotten. To be honest, one of my bridesmaid's dad's was taking photos the whole day too and I really liked more of the ones he took better! And the album... I was under the assumption I'd get to pick which photos went in the album, but apparently not - they chose them and had it all put together by the time they called me and some of the photos... I would have chose others. I was told I could switch out 3 for free and then a fee for others. Yeah... since I owned the copyright for the proofs I bought an album and compiled the ones from the photographer and the one's from my bridesmaid's dad (and others who took photos) and put together my own wedding album which we display on our coffee table. Don't get me wrong, our photography was fine, just... iono... not quite what I thought I guess you could say.

Q is for Question popping

My ring!

 When and where he proposed was a bit of a surprise! I knew it was going to be sometime after my college graduation in December 2007, as we had talked before and he said I had to finish college before he would propose (as a way to motivate me to stick with it as I was really hating school the last few years). Christmas came and went with no proposal, as did New Year's, so I was expecting maybe for Valentine's Day. (I knew he already had the ring as I came across a receipt for resizing so I knew it was going to happen to eventually). We went out for lunch after church that Sunday to Chili's with one of his brother's and his brother's then-girlfriend. Him and I got to talking about when he was going to take his 2 vacation weeks that year and I told him it all depended on him and he slide down from his chair, pulled out the ring and asked if it all depended on him asking me to marry him. Obviously it did and that was what I was implying. While I still am a bit confused by the location (up until then we had never gone to Chili's together and even now we don't frequent there often, lol...), it was definitely us - laidback and a bit random, lol...

R is for Reception

Our reception was at the University Club in Rockford, IL. My aunt had her wedding there nearly 11 years or so prior and since then I had always envisioned mine being there. It's an older historic building in downtown Rockford and very pretty. We had a sit down, buffet-style dinner and then dancing in the next room later in the night. There was also a bar however we only had open bar for hubby and I as I had heard of horror stories where the whole wedding party had open bar access but gave drinks out to LOTS of the guests, making the bar tab nearly half of the reception cost!

S is for Shoes

I wore strappy block heeled sandals in an ivory color to match my dress.

T is for Trash the Dress

Yeah... no thank you. Granted I'll only wear it once, but I can't bring myself to trash it like that.

U is for Unique

Well we did the Zoot Suit type suits for the guys, we used my dad's 1965 Corvair as our getaway vehicle, and our cake topper was custom-made.

V is for Vows

 

We just stuck with the traditional ones.

W is for Wedding Woes

Oh we had quite a few!

1st, my grandma (mom's mom) passed away the night before. She had been sick in the hospital for awhile now so we knew it was going to happen sometime soon. I hadn't been close to her in years though, but it was still a bit sad. All her kids and her brother were in town for the wedding and got to say goodbye to her though and they said the wedding was a nice distraction too.

The morning of my wedding, while on my way to the hair stylist, my mom calls asking how much I really wanted to wear a veil. I wasn't that crazy about them to begin with so we bought one from Hobby Lobby for a fraction of the cost of a bridal shop's. Apparently while steaming my veil that morning my mom got the iron a little too close and it melted part of the veil - oops! Oh well, I didn't want to wear one really anyway, lol...

Then, my mom never met us at the salon as she got held up at the reception hall fighting with them over the chairs in the dining room setup. We were paying them extra to set it up banquet style like they did at my aunt's wedding (as that fits the most people in there, which we needed) which I guess they no longer do very often, but apparently half the chairs they used were too high that when sitting you couldn't get your knees under the table!! My mom got my aunt's inlaws involved, in which her father-in-law had been president at the club several times, and they took care of it for us so my mom could meet us at the church in time.

What we refer to as
"the hairspray incident"

As we're getting ready before the ceremony my mom said she wanted to spray my hair with hairspray one more time to make sure it held. As she spraying my hair like crazy we notice 1) it doesn't smell like hairspray and 2) my hair is wet. Turns out, my sis had used the spray bottle awhile back and used it for water on a hot day to spray on herself and my mom forgot and so she had soaked my hair we had just paid to have done! Fortunately we had a big curling iron to fix my curls and my matron of honor had heavy duty hairspray with her that we used and we saved the day!

It rained almost all day - we didn't get to take very many outside photos at locations we had planned and we couldn't do the dancing outside like we had wanted.

My dad's side of the family left and went back to the house to hang out between the ceremony and reception so we didn't really get any photos with them like we had wanted.

Hubby had trouble getting my dad's Corvair to start several times.

The DJ messed up my sister's last name during her introduction - I gave specific notes on how to pronounce it, as it rhymes with Harris...  yeah, he just said Harris instead /facepalm

During his speech before dinner, my dad goofed and said hubby had fallen in love with my sister many years ago instead of me. There was a pause after he said it and everyone burst into laughter at his mistake which he caught right after he realized what he had said, lol...

I'm sure there were others but those were the most memorable, lol...

X is for X-Rated

No one that does this meme seems to know what this one is supposed to be, lol...

Y is for Young Kids

Since we didn't know any little boys at the time (besides our nephew but we weren't sure if they would make it or not) we didn't have a ringbearer. Hubby's little sister and my little cousin, who were both 10 at the time, were our flower girls - hubby's sister carried the rings and my cousin did the flowers.

Z is for Zzzz

We slept good that night (took hubby forever to get me out of my dress and then it took me forever pulling all the bobby pins out of my hair, lol...), had brunch with family the next day and then Monday morning we left for Vegas which was nice, fun and relaxing!

Happy Anniversary, Hun! 

We've had our share of ups and downs these past few years we've been together, but like our vows say, we take each other "for better or for worse." Here's to many more years together!

Flashback to First Kisses, the conclusion

 
For the past few weeks, after having seen the new Dentyne Ice campaign stating that the average person has 28 first kisses I decided to started a Flashback series, flashing back to my own "first kisses." This is the series conclusion - hope you enjoyed it!

The 3 remaining "first kisses" I've had... well, not gonna lie - I drink alcohol from time to time (save for these last 9 months of course!), and I did drink a bit in college and while I lived down in school...

Just to be clear, I'm not a lesbian or even bi, but I did have a few "first kisses" with the fairer sex.

The first was with my high school best friend. We were at a party, having a good time (it was quite a crazy fun night, despite me getting really sick at the end of it) and we were sitting around on the stairs between the 1st and 2nd floors of the townhouse. I don't remember why and I was drunk, but I got the urge to be silly and kiss her, so I did. It caught her off guard at first and apparently one of the guys that lived there (who liked me a lot and always let me drink there for free) came around the upstairs corner and caught it too. He had a typical guy reaction and just for fun, we kissed again just to get a rise out of him as we thought his reaction was hilarious! And that was that - nothing more happened. Just drunk and being silly with a friend.

Another female "first kiss" was shared with my long-term roommate on New Years one year. We went to a New Years party with some friends and our boyfriends (which for me was with hubby at the time). Midnight came and went, I didn't remember how it happened, but I think one of our boyfriends dared us to kiss, so we were like "okay, whatever" and did. Again, completely innocent and just us being silly as most guys always seem to have the most hilarious reactions to it - hubby included (he's the type that pulls out the camera! lol...).

And the third... the girl from Walmart.

This happened just post-college. Hubby and I were invited by high school ex to a friend's birthday party. High school ex's good friend and former roommate (whom I knew from our freshman year there as they were neighbors in the dorms that year) was telling me about how he liked this girl that was there, but didn't know if she was single or if she liked him. I told him I'd try to find out and see if I could get her to spend some time with him. I got to talking with her and learned she worked at Walmart (we both thought the other looked familiar - she had recognized me coming in there late nights during the week with my fellow theater managers, picking up snacks for our screenings). After a few minutes, she said she knew I was trying to get info for my friend, as she was aware he liked her, but that she had a boyfriend and just wasn't interested.

I don't remember how we ended up kissing - some match maker, I am, right? Tried to hook her up with a friend and well, I'm the one that ended up kissing her! Ooops! It wasn't really a big deal though and yeah... we were both drunk - like Jaime Foxx and the song goes, I blame it on the alcohol - and I'm someone probably dared us to it.

And no, it's not like I do everything I'm "dared" to do - I just don't see a simple kiss with another female, especially when I'm clearly straight, to be that big a deal, I just think the reactions from the guys (hubby included) are pretty amusing and hilarious!

So that concludes our Flashback to First Kisses series and brings my total to 8 - not really sure where Dentyne Ice is getting their statistics from, but 28 "first kisses" seems like quite a bit!

What do you think about that claim?

How many "first kisses" have you had?

Flashback to First Kisses, part 5

 
For the past few weeks, after having seen the new Dentyne Ice campaign stating that the average person has 28 first kisses I decided to started a Flashback series, flashing back to my own "first kisses." 


The next I guy I've spent kisses on... if you guessed hubby you would be correct!

I've mentioned in the past our long history together, but for you newer readers, here's the "condensed" version.

We met right before Christmas 1997 when we were in 8th grade, as he approached me after Sunday School one morning, handing me a piece of paper (which turned out to be a love poem he wrote for me) before running off. We had an up-and-down rollercoaster friendship throughout high school. He had a crush on me for most of it, yet at the time I had a 2-week crush on him he claimed to be over me. We ran in the same circle of friends up at church and he was hurt when I started dating my first boyfriend, as it turns out they were friends from the church basketball league (which I didn't know til after the fact). After high school, when most of us went off to college, he was one of the few friends of mine from back home that actually bothered to stay in touch with me, via AIM and email - I thought I had a good sized set of friends from high school, but I guess when you go off to college and have to make more of an effort to keep in touch with people you learn who your real friends are. Anyways, we kept in touch online over the years, occasionally meeting up for lunch or sitting together at church on Sundays when I was back in town. Halfway through college, when I was with my college ex, he started coming down to visit once a month for a weekend, joining us for weekend-long stretches of mostly just playing WoW during the day and evening and drinking at night.

Around this time he had finally broken up for good with his psycho ex-girlfriend after her "baby's daddy" got out of jail and she promptly cheated on him (which we all knew was going to happen) and part of the reason for his frequent monthly visits was just to get away from it all, despite her still giving him hell. I felt bad for him, as he took it kind of hard. I went to a cousin's wedding that June though and had an epiphany - I hate the 80s movie Pretty in Pink.

In the movie, Molly Ringwald's character has her best guy friend Duckie in front of her the whole time - Duckie obviously is in love with her and is willing to do anything for her, yet she still wants the jock after he dumps her because of his popular friends. Knowing she still wants to go the prom to show the popular kids they didn't break her, Duckie offers to take her so she doesn't have to go alone, however once they get to the dance, the jock apologizes and she quickly blows off Duckie to get back together with him. I realized, hubby had always been like my version of Duckie, being a good friend throughout the years to me, always wishing deep down I'd give him a chance as he had to suffer watching me date other guys. I thought, he deserved a chance - why not?

And I'll admit, I started developing a bit of a crush on him that summer, looking forward to his monthly weekend visits. I was still with my ex though and at the time didn't have a good, valid reason to break-up with him though, so nothing came of us until the weeks before Christmas when I finally severed the tie with my ex. My ex and I took a 2 week break before the end of the semester so he could focus on his finals and I gave him the ultimatum to make an effort to find a job or else I was leaving as I was tired of his laziness. He did nothing the entire first week and didn't start to even go look for jobs or fill out applications until almost the end of the 2nd week. That was it. I was done. During the break, hubby and I started hanging out more, one on one, just as friends. He took me out for dinner a few times and we went to a few events in my hometown together too.

One night he kissed me.

We had just saw his younger brothers band play that night and drove through Taco Bell for a late dinner before he dropped me off. We were sitting in my parent's driveway, the radio playing in the background and we said goodnight. I went to go get out of the car when I felt him pull on my left arm and heard him say "wait." I turned back around to see what he wanted and he pulled me in for a kiss. It didn't last long, and I don't remember if I kissed back or not, but I remember it felt great. We both smiled, said goodnight, and said we'd see each other at church in the morning. I went into the house and my mom was there, sitting in the front room as I guess she had been watching out the front window, spying, after she heard my sister (who was spying from her window upstairs) let out a shriek "THEY'RE KISSING!!!" lol...

Things were over with my ex by this point and hubby and I officially started dating 2 days before Christmas 2006. Originally, we had talked about waiting a few months to start dating, so it didn't look like I was jumping from 1 relationship to the next nor did we want to hurt my ex's feelings as he considered hubby to be a friend of his (hubby didn't reciprocate the feeling though - he always thought my ex was a jerk and simply put up with him for my sake), but after a few weeks of acting like "friends with benefits" and spending time together, we both decided that neither of us really wanted to be single for the holidays when we didn't have to be. I texted him on my way to work (before texting while driving was illegal in our state, mind you!), asking him "Can I be yours forever?" He responded, "Forever and ever." And we spent our first Christmas together the next day, celebrating Christmas Eve with my family and then Christmas Day with his.

Now, that's been 5 "first kisses" I've had so far - remember I said I had 8?

The next 3 might come of a bit of a surprise to some of you... so I'll save it for our "surprising" conclusion - next week!

Flashback to First Kisses, part 4

 
For the past few weeks, after having seen the new Dentyne Ice campaign stating that the average person has 28 first kisses I decided to started a Flashback series, flashing back to my own "first kisses." 


After being home for the summer from my first year of college for a few weeks, Joe wasn't calling me back and things weren't going so well with the ex - he was confused about our relationship/friendship and said he was going to his mom's house for the weekend to think things over, as I wanted to get back together and he honestly wasn't sure what he wanted, if he ever wanted to see me again. He said he'd call me when got back at the end of the weekend, but he never did.

I was hurt and upset and started chatting online with the only person who was around at the time - a guy a friend of mine had introduced me a few months prior whom I met in person at an anime convention a few weeks prior. He talked with me a bit as I gushed my feelings, helping calm me down a bit. A few days later he said he had a good friend of his who had also come off a long-term relationship a few months prior and that we had quite a bit of interests - especially rock music - in common and he was wondering if he could give him my screenname. I figured it couldn't hurt and said sure, why not. Turns out, he had showed his friend my photo and his friend thought I was cute. We chatted online for a good week or so, staying up til all hours of the night/morning getting to know each other and "watching" late night music videos together as we chatted.

These guys lived about an hour and a half away though, even though the guy I had been talking to went to my college, and they decided to make a visit into town to take me and my friend (who had introduced me to the first guy) swing dancing one night, as my friend and I made a weekly effort to go that summer. It was a little awkward at first - I mean our only prior interaction really was chatting online - but we warmed up to each other. He came into town to visit at least once a week for the next few weeks and when I was spending my Monday evenings over at school working on the weekly summer newspaper he would drive over and meet me for my dinner break.

The 4 of us planned a trip to Six Flags near the end of the month and that was when he asked me to be his girlfriend - on their way over to pick us up, they stopped by school and grabbed a copy of my newspaper, as I had requested since I really wanted to see how it turned out. Flipping through it, a piece of printer paper with roses on it fell out, with the words "Will You Be My Girlfriend?" on it. He grinned, I smiled and that was that.

I'd like to say our first kiss happened later in the week - he had come into town for the day and we spent the majority of it watching movies and anime in my parent's basement. It was starting to get dark and he had to head home so I walked out to his car with him to give him a hug goodbye. It was then he asked if he could kiss me, which I said yes, and he did.

We spent 3 and a half years together (only the first 2 years were enjoyable though, as he got too sucked into WoW and became a lazyass, never wanting to go anywhere or do anything that required him to be away from his computer) before I came to my senses and eventually broke up with him. One of the things we both agreed on when we first started chatting online at the beginning was that neither of us saw the point in dating someone you couldn't see yourself eventually ending up with. Somewhere during our time together, I lost that vision and the one I had of a future with us together wasn't one that was too appealing to me.

The next I guy I've spent kisses on is well... I'm sure you can guess this one! But check in next week to see if you're right!

Flashback to First Kisses, part 3

 
For the past few weeks, after having seen the new Dentyne Ice campaign stating that the average person has 28 first kisses I decided to started a Flashback series, flashing back to my own "first kisses."


The next "first kiss" I had came from a sort of weekend fling I had with a guy at the end of my 1st year of college.

It was near the end of the spring semester and everyone on my floor was going out for 1 last weekend of fun before finals. My ex, while we were more like "friends with benefits" by this point (basically acting like a couple taking things slow, but we weren't actually together), he was doing the guy thing of playing his video games and my roommate invited me to go out with her and some of her friends on our floor.

We went to a frat party that night where a lot of dancing was going on. While there, I ran into this guy named Joe whom I had met a few times at our usual weekend party-spot (where I frequented with some of the guys that lived on my ex's floor). He was single, I was technically single, and so we danced for a bit.

It started getting late and people were clearing out of the party. I had to get back to my dorm and get to bed as I had to be up early the next day for an end of the year BBQ the newspaper staff I was on was having. My roommate wasn't ready to go back though and was planning on finding another party with her guy friend that came with us. Turns out, Joe lived in our building, in the all guys wing, and had to get back as well since he had his first final in the morning and offered to walk back with me, as well, I'm a cute female and really didn't want to make the trek from Greek Row to the dorms by myself at 1/2am. He walked me to my wing, which was on the way to his wing. I thanked him, we traded numbers just in case either of us was up for hanging out again, and we said goodnight. Before he left though, I decided to be a bit bold and gave him a kiss goodnight, with a flirty smile before heading upstairs to my floor.

Not having any finals until later in the week, I was up for hanging out with Joe again the next night and gave him a call earlier in the evening to see if he had any plans. He hadn't and so we agreed to meet up later that night and find a party. We ended up going to 1 and then crashing another on the walk back to the dorms. We kissed a lot throughout the night and it was really nice - he was a really good kisser! Eventually we said goodnight and talked about meeting up over the summer as he too was from my hometown and going home for the summer.

That never happened though.

I'm not entirely sure what happened - we had spent a fun weekend together. I ran into him downstairs in the lobby a few days later, after finals, when he was moving his stuff out, however I had my glasses on as I had gotten a sty in my eye and couldn't wear my contacts until it went away. Maybe it was because I wasn't going to "put out" and he knew/realized that? (a friend of mine from back home went to high school with him and said he was quite the player back then). He gave me his home number and I called it several times throughout the summer trying to meet up with him or see if he wanted to go some local event or whatever, but I always got stuck leaving messages with various siblings of his and never heard back from him.

While living in the dorms the next few years, I did occasionally run into him while walking back and forth to class - we'd stop to say "hi" or chat for a moment as we passed each other, but that was the extent of anything more. Curious as to whatever happened to him, I looked him up on Facebook last week - he's apparently married with a young kid. Still looks the same too!

The next guy I shared kisses with... well, that turned into my 3 and a half year mistake... but that will have to wait until next week!

Flashback to First Kisses, part 2

 
Last week, after having seen the new Dentyne Ice campaign stating that the average person has 28 first kisses I decided to started a Flashback series, flashing back to my own "first kisses."


Continuing from last week,  the next guy I had a "first kiss" with ended up being my high school sweetheart and we dated for just over 3 years.

It was still sophomore year of high school and it was coming up on springtime. I had never been to a school dance before as well, I never had a date for them and didn't see the point in going to a dance solo. My best friend went to public school and said that I just had to go to her school's spring formal with her, however my date had to be someone from her school in order to get in.

At the time she was having trouble in Chemistry class and was meeting a fellow classmate of hers at church youth group each week about an hour prior to start time to work on the assignments together as he seemed to get it. I forget who suggested it, but knowing that he went our youth group as well as her school, we decided to see if he'd be willing to take me to the upcoming dance. Apparently he never went to the dances before either but decided it couldn't hurt, plus after we met he thought I was cute and agreed to take me. We spent the weeks prior to the dance just chatting on the phone and hanging out up at church, getting to know each other a little better so it wouldn't be awkward or anything at the dance. I guess we both developed a crush on each other too, as the week before the dance - on St. Patrick's Day - he asked me to be his girlfriend, and of course I said yes.

We went to the dance the next week as a couple and had a fun time. At one point during some song he leaned in and kissed me. With the stereotypical teenage dance atmosphere going on, it kinda felt like something you see in the movies - romantic music playing, us dancing, dim lighting, high school dance decorations, the works. We kissed quite a bit more throughout the night. At one point he said he loved me - I don't know if he was just caught up in the moment of everything or what, but it caught me a bit off guard as we had only been dating for like a week at this point - it took me about another 2 weeks or so to be able to say it back, after I went on a week-long school trip and realized how much I missed talking with him and hanging out.

We dated for the rest of high school and about halfway through our 2nd semester of college before breaking up. It was a rough break-up, but at the time it was for the best as we both wanted different things at the time - I wanted to go out and experience new things at college, he wanted to sit around in his dorm room and play first person shooters with the guys on his floor all the time. We almost got back together a few months later - I know I really wanted to - but due to him trying to be the "macho" guy (he admitted this to me later, regretting it) and blowing me off it never happened. We tried to be friends at first, but there was too much hurt at the time and it wasn't until years later that we were able to be civil and friendly towards each other.

Part 3 to come next week!

Flashback to First Kisses, part 1

Dentyne Ice gum has a new commercial out, stating that the average person has "28 first kisses."



Now I'm assuming they're talking about first kisses, mouth to mouth, as why would you need to have amazingly fresh breath to kiss someone on the check or forehead, am I right?

When I first saw this commercial I turned to hubby and responded "28 for an average?! That's kind of a lot, isn't it?"

He shrugged and then we both took a moment to sit and count how many first mouth-to-mouth kisses we've each had. Hubby, being a guy, couldn't remember all his, but figured it was a number definitely under 28. Me? I can count mine with the fingers on both hands.

I figured for the next few weeks, this could be a bit of a fun series and have a Flashback to all my "first kisses."


My first kiss was in high school, the fall of my sophomore year.

My friends and I had just gotten back in town from a rather amazing time at our youth group's annual Fall Retreat weekend getaway up near Lake Geneva and some of us didn't want the fun time to end quite yet so we went over to this one girl's house to continue hanging out.

There was me, the girl who's house it was, my best friend, the guy friend I had an obvious crush on (he had been flirting with me all weekend too), and his best friend who was dating the girl who's house it was. Her parents had a trampoline in their backyard so we all went and jumped around on it for a bit before someone suggested we play truth or dare. I was a little nervous, as knowing the company I was in and my obvious crush on the one guy, I just knew someone going to dare either of us to kiss.

And I was right.

Someone dared me to french kiss him, however, having never had a kiss before, let alone a french kiss, I shyly responded "I... don't know how - I've never done that before."

He crawled across the trampoline towards me, saying "Here, I'll show you" and pulled his face in towards mine.

As soon as our lips were locked I felt his tongue slide into my mouth and immediately pulled back, falling backwards onto the trampoline, declaring "Whoa! That felt... weird..."

Everyone busted out laughing at my response, save for my crush, who just kinda blushed and I think felt a little embarrassed! I apologized, as I didn't mean to hurt his feelings or anything - it was just something new that I hadn't experienced before and didn't know what to expect!

In the next week or so we shared a few more kisses, usually achieved by using the excuse of "truth or dare" and each time it was a better, more comfortable experience, however we never ended up dating. He ended up asking out this other girl I went to school with (who knew I liked him and wanted to date him), citing that he had gone to Jr. High with her and they reconnected over Fall Retreat and he didn't want to risk us dating and messing up the friendship we had. I was hurt and upset and didn't really talk to him much the next few months, but we eventually made up and started talking and being friendly again.

Since that first kiss, I've had a handful of others - 7 more to be exact.

Stay tuned for next week!

Your mushy-gushy statuses make me want to pukey-wookey

Overly mushy people annoy me.

Sorry if you're one of them, but really. I get you love your boyfriend/girlfriend/fiance/spouse, but do you really need to constantly gush it out publicly online for all to see? It makes the rest of us want to puke.

My sister and hubby's youngest brother were like this when they dated awhile back - half their statuses were "I love you, you make me so happy, you're my everything..." and overly mushy stuff like that. They were in high school though and it was obviously puppy love... okay I can relate, but back then we didn't have social networking sites to post it for all to see on a daily basis.

Hubby had a relative who was like this with their significant other too. Granted, their relationship was long distance, but their statuses to each other (why can't you just post it on each other's wall??), similar to the ones my sis and bro-in-law would post, still made us all want to puke at how over the top mushy gushy they were. They got married though and were no longer long distance and quit posting all that mushy stuff 24/7.

You know it's bad when your mom even says the statuses are making her nauseous!

Now hubby and I have another mutual friend who, for some reason we can't figure out, posts at the end of EVERY status "I love you {insert girlfriend's name here}". The entire status can be nothing related or pertaining to his girlfriend, yet he throws that in at the end of EVERY status. Makes us all want to puke.

I have nothing wrong with people being romantic and lovey-dovey, but is there really a reason to post all that gushy stuff to your loved one in your Facebook status CONSTANTLY??? Like I said above, why can't you just post it on their wall? I know people who have done that (one that comes to mind was in Iraq and would post "I love you's" on his wife's wall every chance he got to go online) and it makes sense - you're directly telling that person your feelings for them. And I get wanting to tell the world you love a certain person, but WHY the need to broadcast in EVERY status or almost every status? It gets really annoying and it's a sure-fire way to get people to "hide" your statuses (which means they don't see what you post ever) or just unfriend you.

And no, it's not that I'm jealous - sure I wouldn't mind an occasional cutesy message from hubby, but if he started posting all mushy gushy stuff all the time I would start to wonder who he is and what they did to the real hubby! lol...

This Weekend's Milestones

Before midnight strikes, I thought I would take a second to point the milestones of today! =D

1st, today marks 30 weeks in my pregnancy, which means we have 10 or less weeks to go til Jay is here in the flesh (we're pretty sure he's going to be somewhat early though due to both him measuring several weeks bigger than he should be as well as me having the gestational diabetes).

Also, this weekend marks 13 years that hubby and I have known each other!

I remember that Sunday we first actually met - it was the same weekend in December as our church's big weekend long Christmas production. He stopped me on my way out of Sunday School, handed me a folded up piece of paper with my name on it and before I could response he took off running up the stairs! I could see him sitting elsewhere in the sanctuary during the church service, but didn't actually see him again until the end of January, lol... the folded up piece of paper he gave me was a poem he wrote just for me. I still have it (and it's sequel he gave me several months later).

Celebs & Marriage - Is There No Commitment??

What is up in Hollywood this week??

First it's announced that Courtney Cox and David Arquette are separating after 11 years of marriage, and then we hear that Christina Aguilera and her husband of nearly 5 years announced their separation today as well!

Watching HLN's Showbiz Tonight (as I sometimes do for Hollywood news and gossip), they were just talking about the Arquette split, playing clips of David Arquette on Howard Stern where he admitted that he's changed since they first met 16 years ago - he's not as charming as he was back then, he's gotten more mellow, etc and that their sex life isn't as active as it once was.

Hello! People change over the years - it's a fact! No one stays the same way they are the beginning of a relationship - that's why they refer to it as "the honeymoon period."

I keep having to explain this to my teenage sister, as she complains that the guys she dates all start out sweet, caring, overly romantic and they can't seem to get enough of each other and then suddenly, months down the road the guy decides he wants his space and doesn't want to spend every single day with her and isn't doing cute, sweet, romantic little things for her like he did earlier.

It's called nesting!

You get in a new relationship, things are fun and exciting - there's so much new to learn about the person (even if you've known them for years) and things feel so much different than they did in the previous relationship... but then the honeymoon period wears off and you start to nest. You don't need to to constantly impress or woo the person you're seeing anymore because you know they love you regardless (or at least by then they should) and you start to nest into a comfortable groove or routine - usually together and you grow from there.

I'm sure if you ask ANYONE who's been married for years - 5, 10, 20, 25... even 50! - and I'm pretty sure they'll tell you that they're not the same person they were all those years ago when they first started dating/courting or when they got married. I know I'm not the same person I was 2 years ago, or even 4 years ago when we first started dating - I've grown a little bit, hubby has too.

And the sex... not to get into details, but like one of the commentators on Showbiz tonight said, when you've been married for awhile AND you have kids, going a month without sex isn't uncommon! I'll admit, our sex life isn't quite as active as it once was and we've only been married 2 years. I have friends with multiple kids and I've heard that with work and taking care of the kids, especially when they're young, it's hard to make time for it and unless you think to make time for it, it often doesn't happen!


And regarding Christina and her husband, the reason behind their split?

Here's what US Magazine online reports:

“They were very much in love,” explains the insider. "But over the last six months, it ­became clear they were more like friends than husband and wife."

Um... what?!

Forgive me if I'm wrong here, but isn't your spouse supposed to be your best friend in this world? The person you tell everything to, the person you trust with everything? The person you're closest with? Your faithful, loyal companion? I'd say your spouse is supposed to be your ultimate friend and companion!

So they're splitting because they seem to be more like best friends than husband and wife? I think that's a bit ridiculous! I'm curious to hear what their definition of husband and wife are...

Marriage is a lifetime commitment - for better or for worse. Unless something major happens in your marriage (ie: abuse, infidelity, etc) there is no excuse for throwing in the ball just because things aren't as sizzling, spicy, or romantic like they once were back in the day. Even in life, no one stays the same way forever!

So far, both couples have only separated, which means they're still legally together and there hasn't been talk (in the media at least) of divorce, so hopefully maybe these couples will be able to work out their issues and realize what marriage really is and that their alleged reasons for their separations are a bit stupid.

I really hope this isn't some publicity stunt though - Cox and Arquette are both co-starring in the upcoming Scream 4 which comes out this spring but is already getting some buzz; and Christina has a starring lead role in a major feature film (called Burlesque) due out in next month. Both couples have young kids - The Arquette's have a 6 year old daughter, while Christina and her husband have a 2 year old son. If this is some publicity stunt, shame on them for putting their kids through that for the sake of media coverage!

2 Years, moving forward

Today is me and the hubby's 2 year wedding anniversary.

2 years... it honestly don't feel like it was that long ago - just last week as I was putting photos into some new albums and looking through our bachelor/bachelorette party and the bridal shower and rehearsal dinner photos... it just doesn't seem that long ago!

Considering how rocky our first year went, this past year has been relatively tame and has gone much, much smoother, which is a huge relief.

Technically your 2nd year anniversary is supposed to be your "cotton" anniversary (last year was paper and he got me the Sookie Stackhouse books while I got him some stuff for his writing among other things), I said screw it and got him something I knew he wanted which definitely isn't cotton! Oh well!

He's working til about 6pm tonight and then we're going out for a nice dinner at Applebee's as some of the new entrees on their 2 for $20 menu look really good!

Just in case he gets home early though, I should probably start getting ready, as I still need to get his gift out of my car and wrap it =)

One year later...

So it's been a year since "the incident," as it happened the day after Mother's Day last year.

Not a lot of people know the specifics (other than hubby did something stupid that really hurt me) or what we went through in the months to follow.

I guess it's good that despite what happened, it's been a year now and we're still together and still discuss our future together and are making some pretty big plans.

The memory isn't as frequent anymore, as it really only comes up when someone online mentions a similar situation they're currently in, so I guess that's good... I still struggle with the trust sometimes though, which I guess is normal. We had 13 years of trust built up when it happened and as much as I want to trust him again like I did prior, it's still in the back of my mind that it could happen again, despite him assuring me that it won't. I guess it's one of those things that only time can fully mend and repair. At least he's been helpful and more cooperative with me when it comes to me doing certain things I feel I need to for my own sanity's sake.

Things were rough for awhile there but it seems like now we're in a completely different and much better place than we were a year ago.

So here's to continuing to move forward together and put what happened in the past behind us.

This totally made my night!

So a HIGHLY amusing thing that I just learned tonight (via my college roommate) is that my ex, after us breaking up over 3 years ago (December of '06), finally has a new girlfriend.

The fact he has a girlfriend isn't the amusing part though - the amusing part is the information we gathered from her Facebook page, as my old roomie is still listed as a friend of my ex's on there and his new girlfriend's page must have it so friends of friends can view her stuff, as my former roomie could.

So his new girlfriend is clearly into anime, which doesn't surprise me as that was pretty much the only thing that could pry my ex away from WoW. She lists that one of her main interests is "Vidya Gamezz." She lives in Texas (we live in Illinois) so it's apparent he most likely met her online (probably playing "vidya gamezz"). Oh and there doesn't appear to be a single actual photo of her in any of her albums, as they're all filled with anime character photos and Farmville-type app photos.

Now I got nothing against female "vidya gamezz" players as I'm female and play "vidya gamezz" (although I think this spelling of it is ridiculous). And meeting each other online, okay well, the first 2 weeks prior to meeting in person him and I would literally pull all-nighters on AIM, however we only lived an hour and a half away and visited each other weekly and once school started up again we saw each other 24/7 practically - quite a bit different than living 15+ hours away. And I got nothing against anime - I used to watch it regularly and even cosplayed at ACEN all the years I went (minus the first year).

But, based off her profile page, she seriously sounds like one of those overly hyperactive anime obsessed girls who acts like they're 12.

There was one girl like that that my roommate and I knew from some of our art classes in college. She was nice and her art was pretty neat, but... she was a bit extreme at times. I remember my roommate had like an 8am class with her one semester and she seriously wanted to kill the girl at times to get her to shut up, as she'd start with the high pitched anime voices that early in the morning.

My ex's new girlfriend sounds a lot like this.

Which I guess is fine if you're in junior high, high school and maybe even in college... but not for anyone older. (Granted her age wasn't on her page, but he's almost 30).

I'm sure she's probably nice, however not knowing her (and not really caring to know her), we only know what her profile page tells us and I gotta say, this little bit of info totally made my night as I can't stop laughing since my roommate told me and sent me the link to her profile! Thanks Jeny!! I wish hubby was awake so I could show him, as I know he'd probably get a good laugh out of it too.

I mean seriously - not to sound like a bitch, but he's turning 28 this summer, still lives at home with his parents, and is dating a girl that sounds like she's 12 whom he probably only knows online as she lives nowhere near him. Talk about not growing up!

Have I mentioned before that I'm soooo glad I broke up with him?

Don't you just love finding out information like this about your exes?  Totally made my night!

You can't save those that don't want to be saved

"That's when she said, 'I don't hate you boy, I just want to save you while there's still something left to save...'"

Taken from my current favorite song, I once again heard it - "Savior" by Rise Against - on the radio tonight and it got me thinking about that line.

Why is it that so many seem to think they can save others from their destructive behavior?

I mean we see and hear about it all the time - if we haven't been there ourselves, we know someone who has.

They get in a relationship with a person who honestly shouldn't be in a relationship for one reason or another (coming off a bad break up, depression, they have some serious issues, alcoholism, abusive, etc), but despite all the warning signs, they seem to think they can "save" the other and turn them into someone better. While it does occasionally happen, it's very very rare - unless the person that needs the "saving" really wants to change and be "saved" from whatever, it won't ever happen - no matter how much blood, sweat, tears, heart soul, time and energy the other person puts in.

I've been there.

Just take a look at the guy I dated in college. When we first started dating, well, he really shouldn't have been getting in a serious relationship. He had just come off a bad break up with his girlfriend of several years (who I learned treated him like crap) after having caught her cheating on him and he spent most of the next semester in bed, depressed. The guy was a mess when I first met him, but he hid it pretty well, acting like he was over it. He had severe trust issues and no matter how much I tried to support him, show him I cared, and be understanding of what he had been through and was still going through... it didn't seem to matter, as evidenced by the fact that when he checked into group therapy for a few weeks back home and didn't bother telling me about it until after he had left, I asked him why he didn't tell me and the response I got was "well I didn't think you would care... my ex never cared about me." Honestly, until he had his issues with his ex and depression/chemical imbalance figured out, he really shouldn't have been getting involved in a serious relationship.

I endured though and stayed with him, thinking that with enough care, love and support he'd get better. Looking back, I can see how lazy and unmotivated he was, despite claiming to have an aspiration to get a teaching degree and his constant talks of eventually getting a job (his parents were paying for everything - tuition, rent, utilities, car insurance, cell phone and they even paid off over $1000 in credit card debt he managed to rack up during his depression phase - despite the fact they were struggling to pay their own bills back home and yet he was pretty much at the computer playing WoW or watching anime 24/7, rarely going to class and obviously pocketing the money that was supposed to go towards the electric bill). I bought into everything he said and still supported and encouraged him. But you know what, until he got off the computer chair and actually went to class or went out to get a job, everything I did to try to help him along did nothing. He heard it, but it's like it went in one ear and out the other. He knew how I felt, I expressed it to him, and despite everything he told me, he never bothered to do anything about it until it was too late. And you know why? He was quite content in his ways and being lazy.

While my situation wasn't as "severe" as some others, we see people get stuck in similar relationships all the time. There's some major flaw with one partner and they're set in their ways, yet the other person seems to think they can "save" them from their troubles, help them to overcome it. But like I said, unless the person that needs changing genuinely really wants it, it's never going to happen no matter how much you try to help them.

Alcoholics and addicts are a prime example of this - you can do the intervention, they can hit rock bottom and while it's painful to watch, unless they realize for themselves there's a problem and WANT to change that, you can't help them. You can't help someone who refuses to help themself. It just doesn't work. I'm not saying to give up on them (especially when it comes to alcohol and addicts as they need all the love, care and support of family and friends when they finally decide to get help), but don't think you can "save" them because you can't.

While it is often the girl is that one that wants to "save" the guy, you can't really say it's like that all the time. There's plenty of the girls out in the world that are total trainwrecks, but unless they acknowledge it and genuinely want to change for the better, you're pretty much out of luck.

I don't know if any of you watch the reality show Tool Academy on VH1 (the premise is, the hurting partners of "tools" sign em up for the academy to do counseling and exercises to help fix their broken relationship and the "tools" go alone at first, thinking they're on a competition to be the next Party Ambassador, revealing to us their tooliest behavior and often admitting to infidelity), but this most recent season, for the first time they introduced 2 female "tools," one of whom was a girl named Jennavecia who constantly took her boyfriend Kyle for granted (who seemed like a really sweet guy and deserves soooo much better than her!) and had a horrible habit of cheating on him and flirting and coming onto other guys. Being that her mom runs a brothel in Vegas, she really didn't seem to think what she was doing was a big deal and her and her family (on the family episode) all stated that Kyle knew what he was getting into when he started dating her, as that's just how she is. As much as we all felt for Kyle, as no one deserves to get treated by their partner the way he was, her family did have a point - he knew how she was when he first started dating her, yet he made the choice to get involved, mostly likely thinking he could "save" her.

So it's not always just guys that need "saving" or that the girls are the only ones who think they can "save" their partner.

So as a message, save yourself the time, energy, tears and heartbreak and just realize this:

• you can't save someone who doesn't want to be saved
• you can't help someone who won't help themself
• you can't change someone who's set in their ways and doesn't want to change
• they'll make empty promises that they'll change to make sure you won't leave, but if there's no action to go along with it, they obviously don't want to change - they just don't want you to leave. They still want you, but they don't want to change (ie: they want to have the cake and eat it too)
• if they don't care enough about themselves, why would they care about you?
• if they have no respect for themselves, why would they have any respect for you? 

If you get in a relationship with someone and learn they have some major flaws that could causes problems down the road, feel free to point it out and bring it to their attention - maybe they really aren't aware - but unless they bother to make an effort to change it - and just saying they'll change or whatever doesn't count, remember, actions speak louder than words! - get out before it gets anymore serious and you end up wasting your time on a relationship you're likely to regret.

The Guys I Fell For

At work I have a little radio by my desk that I have set up to pick up the local Rock Station in town. Today, while working the song "Mrs. Sullivan" by Caroline's Spine came on and it reminded me of the guy I dated in high school, as that was a song he introduced me to and liked.

I realized, I've been in relationships for over a decade now!

I feel old.

So, I thought today I'd take a trip down memory lane and briefly share about the guys that have been in my love life.

Boyfriend #0 - The Online Guy

Note: So some say this one doesn't count, while others do. I'll leave it up for you to decide - keep in mind though, this was back in the day when sites like eharmony and match.com were non-existent, so the concept of meeting someone online and having a relationship with them was pretty much unheard of back then.

During the summer between Jr. High and High school in 1998 I was spending quite a bit of time "online" as in my house we had a service called Prodigy. I became active on several of the message/bulletin boards and that summer they finally introduced an IM feature similar to that of AOLs. I had a group of "friends" on one of the music BBs and we often posted back and forth, IM'd and sent email to each other. This was how I "met" him. He was closer to my age than some of the others, we had video games and music in common, so that was cool too. I started crushing on him and after doing the whole "I like you, do you like me?" thing we decided to be boyfriend/girlfriend.

Well, see, I was 13 and my parents wouldn't let me date until I was 16. But a lot of my friends and other kids my age had boyfriends... I didn't see any harm in dating a guy online, especially since I lived in Northern Illinois, he lived in St. Louis and neither of us could drive so it's not like we'd be able to see each other in person anyway.

We mostly talked online, but did occasionally chat on the phone - he called me once while I was babysitting my sister and I called him from time to time from a payphone nearby that I'd ride my bike to, or the one at school after school. Yeah, I know, cheesy. He even sent me a handwritten letter once, with a guitar pick necklace that he clipped into the shape of a heart - it was cute! The string he had put it on was a bit flimsy though so I upgrade the charm to a chain instead. I still have it too - it's in my memento jar. It was too cute not to keep!

Well, eventually, after about 8 months or so, my parents found out and weren't happy. First off, I had a boyfriend, at the age of 13/14 and it had been going on for awhile without them knowing and second, they had found some emails Internet BF said where he told me about some "illegal" activity he had did recently (spray painting goal posts or something like that). They were afraid he was either some psycho old guy leading me on and that he'd show up at the house and kill me like some of the internet meet-up horror stories you used to hear about, or that he was just a kid who enjoys taking part in delinquent behavior that they didn't want me being involved with. Regardless, they cut off my internet access and banned me from talking to him. Well I did sneak one last email to him, letting him know what had happened, cuz I figured he at least deserved to know why I suddenly wasn't ever online anymore.

They gave me like a 6 month ban and by then we had both kind of moved on. But we never forgot each other and did occasionally keep in touch via email and then later IM in college. And yes, we did finally meet in person, twice, while in college - he came up to visit me and the college boyfriend one weekend during the end of my 2nd year in college and the boyfriend and I went and visited him for a weekend in St. Louis the following semester while making a trip down there to visit a friend of his. Both times we had fun just hanging out, reminiscing - I finally got to see him play his guitar live with his band, as he would occasionally play me songs over the phone back in the day. We haven't emailed in a few years, but that's partially due to the fact we're both on Facebook and just keep in touch that way now.

I think if my parents met him today, they'd like him. He's really grown up from the days of early high school, spray painting goal posts, lol... He's an avid Bill Reilly fan and Bill even read one of his letters on the air once, and he has a great career too that he got with his college degree. It always makes me smile when I post something on facebook and both him and one of my parents comment on it - my parents don't seem to realize it's him! Mom even commented to me one time, in person, "remember that guy on the internet you were so hung up about? What were you thinking back then..." I think at one point I was like "Yeah... I still talk to him online."

Teenage crushes come and go, but you can't just let go of a friendship with someone you once had a strong bond with and we really did.

Boyfriend #1 - High School Sweetheart, aka "The Good Ex" 

Now this is the one that everyone seems to count as my first boyfriend.

I wasn't looking for a boyfriend when I met him. It was the middle of my sophomore year of high school, I had just gotten over a friend I had been crushing on for months who led me on and then rejected me for some other girl and another friend (hubby to be exact) told me he had moved on and was over me when I had been crushing on him for 2 weeks.

My best friend went to another high school for the first 2 years, and had been telling me how much fun she had at the school dances. Being that I never had a boyfriend, and no guys in my school would give me the time of day, I never bothered going to the few dances my private school actually had. She had a great idea that I should go to a dance at her school, with her, however since I didn't go there, someone from her school would have to ask me to be their date to get me in.

That was when she introduced me to him.

Her and him had a few classes together, most notably Chemistry, and since she sucked at it and he seemed to get it, they were both meeting up at Wednesday night youth group a little before the rest of it so he could sort of tutor her on it. He seemed nice enough and went to our youth group so she explained the situation to him and asked him if he'd be interested in taking me to the dance. He was interested but wanted to get to know me a little better, as we never really talked, so we started hanging out at youth group a bit more. He was also good friend with... hubby (they played church basketball together and were always on the same team).

So obviously he asked me to the dance, much to the dislike of another friend of ours who got it in her head that he was going to ask her to the dance, even though he had been hanging out with me...? Yeah, I don't get the logic either. He actually called me up the week before the dance (which was St. Patrick's Day) and officially asked me to be his girlfriend. We shared our first kiss at the dance, and he even told me he loved me. It was too soon for me to say it back right then and there (and oh what goes on in a teenage girl's head when a guy first tells her those words!) but I did eventually say it back a few weeks later.

We dated for the rest of high school and into our first year of college. Yes, we went to college together, cute, eh? What wasn't so cute though was our 2nd semester when we took several classes together and then broke up 2/3rds through the semester... ooops!

But during the time we dated, we really did have a great time, or at least I did. I had someone to go to all the dances with me, and he would actually dance most of the night too, unlike some guys. I went to as many of his track meets as I could, we hung out most weekends, I have plenty of memories of spending Sunday afternoons watching the Chicago Bears games either in the basement at my parents house with my dad's surround sound set up, or later in his dorm room. I even got him Bears tickets one year for his birthday and he finally got to see a game in person.

So why did we break up?

Well, in short... everyone changes when you go off to college - it's a part of life. There's a transition in your life when you go from high school to college and you want different things in life. He was quite content with hanging out with the guys on his dorm floor, playing video games, while I liked to do things and be social. I enjoyed going out with everyone on the weekends, he would rather sit at his computer. I remember a few times where I'd come over to his dorm room to watch a movie with him and a little while into it, he'd get up "just to check something" on his computer, then next thing you know, he's sitting there with his headset on, yelling commands to people online, and I'd fall asleep. It got annoying. And no, it wasn't Counterstrike, he played Day of Defeat, aka DoD, which is like Counterstrike, but takes place in WWII.

I got tired of it and we broke up shortly after our 3 year anniversary. We still tried to be friendly and were close the last month or so of the semester (it was just too weird not spending time together). When we went home for the summer, we still met up once a week for McDonalds and just to chat, but that didn't last too long. I was honestly ready to get back together again when he dropped a bomb on me. He was confused and needed some time to think things over "I don't know if I ever want to see you again." he told me, and said he was going to visit his mom for the weekend (his parents were divorced) to think things through and would call me when he got back on Sunday night.

That hurt a lot. It hurt so much that I started having negative thoughts I hadn't had in years. No one was home, no one was around to talk to either on the phone or online, so I emailed someone who I thought was a friend (I recently learned they apparently never were) I had become close to, just because I needed someone to talk to. It hurt even more when he didn't call me back that Sunday. Or the next week, or the week after.

I took it that he made up his mind and that I should move on since it didn't seem like he was ever going to call.

Well, he was working for my aunt that summer, doing apartment maintenance work for her with his brother like we had together the summer before. About 2 months after I moved on, she had told my mom that he was feeling all down that I never called him back. What?! Yes, you read that right. Oh, I was pissed! If I knew he had wanted me to call, I would have, but after what he said and the fact that he said he'd call me, well, when he didn't I took that to mean it was over - I didn't want to call and bother him if he had decided he didn't want me anymore. You can bet money that I called him up later that week and was like "Um, hey, what gives? You're upset that I never called you? You're the one said 'I don't know if I ever want to see you again and I'm going to my mom's for the weekend to think things over - I'll call you when I get back.'" You could hear him go silent on the other end, like one of those moments where you realize just how very wrong you were in your thinking. I had to explain that I waited for him to call, but after a few weeks, when he didn't, I gave up and moved on, a friend introduced me to another friend, we hit off and had been dating for a month now. We met one last time, just for closure's sake. He asked for a hug, so I said okay. Then he asked for a goodbye kiss and I had to turn him down, since I was with someone else, who's previous ex had cheated on him.

We had a class that following semester and we tried to chat online, but everytime it turned into a fight over who was at fault for our relationship falling apart. Eventually he blocked me on AIM. For a few years. It didn't help that neither him or my current boyfriend liked each other.

It wasn't until years later when I broke up with the guy after him that we started talking again. My mom had called and told me she read in the newspaper back home that his grandpa had recently passed. I remembered meeting his grandparents on a few occasions - they were nice - and since he unblocked me on AIM by this point, I sent him a simple message, something along the lines of "Hey, my mom read about your grandpa in the paper - I'm so sorry to hear that, I remember he was a really nice guy! My family gives their condolences." We started chatting, civilly, and have gotten along since, having hung out in group settings a handful of times.

I do find it a bit ironic though that now I'm the one that sits around and plays video games, while he's the one going out and being social, lol... oh how the tables have turned!

He really is a nice guy though and deserves a good girl... I have sometimes wondered how things would be if things may have been different. But I guess we'll never know...

Boyfriend #2 - College Boyfriend, aka "The Lazyass"

So this is the boyfriend that a "friend" had introduced me to, that I started dating about a month after that last phone call with my high school boyfriend. Like I mentioned, I was a bit depressed and emailed a "friend" after that conversation with him. Well that friend showed my picture to his friend who thought I was cute. We had a lot of things in common too at the time - same music tastes, liked going to concerts, enjoyed swing dancing (something I had newly picked up that summer), watched anime, enjoyed going out the weekends and having fun... all sorts of stuff. He was also a drummer/percussionist, which I thought was cool - I always wanted to date a musician!

We spent that first summer doing a lot of fun stuff - going to various concerts, mini-putting, hanging out with friends... really fun times.

As I mentioned, his previous ex had cheated him on, so he had some major trust issues and stuff that went along with that. He told me he wasn't used to having someone who actually cared about him and showed it, as I had heard from various people his ex was kind of a bitch, especially once she started doing drugs. When he caught her cheating on him around Christmas, he had a major depression and failed out that Spring semester because of it, so while he was living down at school, he was taking community college classes to get his GPA back up before returning. Well, he checked himself into group therapy that Fall, telling me he just going home for a regular checkup, only to tell me after the fact he was going to be home for a few weeks because of group therapy. I was actually kind hurt that he didn't feel he could tell me the truth about what he was going through, as I had always been nothing but caring. He eventually had a CATscan done too, as the doctors couldn't figure out what his deal was. They eventually labeled it as a chemical imbalance.

He moved back home after that year and finished an AA at the local community college there, but things were still fun. He took a theater class that gave us free tickets to several Broadway shows in Chicago, such as Sweet Charity with Christina Applegate. His parents also took us to see Spamalot and The Lion King in Chicago too.

And then he got a 10day trial to WoW and got hooked. And I got hooked. However he got hooked a lot worse than I did.

He transferred back to my college and moved into an apartment and a friend moved in later and all they did was play WoW. He got put on academic probation because he never went to class and failed again. He retook the same classes that summer and... same thing again, and they kicked him out. He ended up going back to the nearby community college to try and get his GPA up, again. His WoW addiction got so bad that we had to nag him to get out of his chair and go out with us. And it wasn't just me that noticed - we all did, my roommate, his roommate, everyone. And it drove us nuts. I'll never forget the time I switched my schedule around at work just to get the night off to go to a concert in my hometown. I'm getting ready to leave, stop by to get him, and he's in a raid. That's barely begun. He doesn't want to go to the show anymore, he'd rather stay home and play WoW, like he had been 24/7. It wasn't until I mentioned that my friend (hubby) was meeting us there, I didn't have a working cell number for him, so I was going, as it wasn't fair to blow him off like that when he had to travel to get there too. I told him I was leaving in 15 minutes with or without him. I got all the way to atm when he called me, 30 minutes later "Where are you?" Uh, I left, like I said I was... Since I was still in town I swung by to pick him up, but still... I wasn't too happy with him.

We got in some fight the weekend my friend (hubby) came down to visit for his birthday. I don't remember what sparked it, but he basically promised me things would change, as I was getting fed up with his lack of motivation and behavior (he had been telling me and his mom for months he would get a parttime job, but never even filled out a single app). Well, the next morning, October 30 (hubby's bday) the electricity at his place got shut off and it cost at least $1000 for them to turn it back on. He had been subleasing from January-May from a guy I worked with and never bothered to call ComEd to get the bill changed over! And his parents had been giving him money to pay that bill each month, yet now he had nothing to put towards it! I was really pissed now and stormed out, telling my friend (hubby) "Sorry man, by the way, Happy Birthday!" Now the full $1000 wasn't entirely his fault - in his defense, he moved in in January and the bill hadn't been paid since the previous September, so the guy I worked with owed 4 months on it. We tried getting in touch with him several times throughout the month - he originally said he sent in a check, but when we called ComEd a week or so later, they said they never got it and the full $1000+ had to be paid for them to turn it back on.  We tried calling the guy a few more times, but he changed his voicemail message to some nasty message basically telling us to quit harassing him. If I knew he was gonna turn into a jerk, I never would had helped him out with getting his place subleased, as he was given the ultimatum of getting rid of his dog or moving ASAP.

Now this was going into November and it gets a bit cold out here in November, so since one of my roommates was dating my boyfriend's roommate, they both just moved in with us for a few weeks. Boyfriend had promised me it would only be for roughly 2 weeks for them to get it cleared up, but those 2 weeks came and went and it wasn't until after Thanksgiving that they moved back into their place. That month was hell - he refused to tell his parents and ask for help to help speed up the process a bit, and I had ZERO privacy, he was constantly in my space all the time and it drove me nuts. One night I came home from work and HAD to ask him to just leave for like an hour. I needed some time to myself without him in my hair. There just wasn't enough space in our apartment for 5 people (and sometimes 6 when my 3rd roommate's boyfriend would visit on the weekends) staying there at one time.

When they moved back into their place, I needed a break. I told him, 2 weeks, focus on school and make an effort in getting a job or I was done. I was tired of him sitting on his butt at the computer 24/7. He did make a little bit of an effort with the job search, the 2nd week of the break, but still... I had checked out of the relationship months ago - the thing with the electricity really was the last straw.

We broke up for good the night after he finished his finals that semester... and it took longer than it should have because it honestly took me a good 10-15 minutes to get him to leave WoW and his computer so I could have the talk with him. In his apartment. All he kept asking was if there was someone else. Which, I avoided answering at first because if I knew if I told him that yeah, I was kinda interested in someone else, that would be the ONLY part of the conversation he heard and he'd completely ignore all the actual reasons why I was leaving him. He noticed I avoided it though and asked again, so I confessed, yes, I was interested in someone else, but that wasn't why I was leaving him. I was tired of his lack of motivation to do anything but sit at the computer. I was really annoyed and pissed about the whole ComEd situation. And we had always said when we first started dating that it didn't make sense to keep dating someone you couldn't see yourself with for good, and honestly, I couldn't see that anymore. We had talked about getting married, but after 3 and a half years, he couldn't even make the effort to get a job to buy me the ring to make it official. I was tired of waiting for him to grow up, I was moving forward in life and growing up, he wasn't.

We tried to be civil in WoW and in person, since our roommates were dating (and all his friends agreed with me and backed me up on my reasons for leaving him), however once he figured out I was seeing my friend (hubby), "the shit hit the fan" or so they say. He was pissed, he felt betrayed. For some reason he considered my good friend of 9 years to be his best friend, when the only reason my friend hung out with him and put up with him was because of me. Hubby was only nice and friendly towards him because he didn't want me to stop talking to him if he came out and said he thought my boyfriend was a real asshole and jerk and why the heck was I with him? (Which ironically, is a question my parents wondered too!). Eventually he got drunk one night and left me a nasty message ("You and [your friend] can both eat bricks and go die in a f*cking fire!"). Yeah... thanks for lashing out and making me regret the entire 3 and a half years I spent with you!

It always irked me when my roommate would say "well, he's my friend too..." and I'd get excluded from things like her birthday (their birthdays were like the day after each other so we'd often just have one outing for the both of them), yet it was okay from him to crash our parties over here (It drove me nuts how he'd just invite himself over to our parties, and then sit around with my roommate's boyfriend and a few stragglers after she went to bed. I wanted to go to bed too, but wasn't about to leave my ex just hanging out in my apartment unsupervised... ). He used to talk SO much crap about her behind her back... he'd go on to me and people in WoW about how he thought she was a terrible roommate, a terrible girlfriend to his roommate and how he wished his roommate would just dump her already cuz he'd be happier without her... I'd always just be like "dude, she's my roommate, stop." I also remember one time I had suggested the 4 of us just get an apartment together and his response was "there is no way IN HELL I will EVER live with her" which was kind of funny when she mentioned the 3 of them getting a place later on that he claimed to be allergic to her cat and that's why that wouldn't work - he didn't even have the balls to tell her the truth! He wasn't allergic to cats - he had often talked of getting one himself when he moved into his first apartment!

Needless to say, he was lazy and full of crap. And I really wished I hadn't spent nearly the amount of time with him as I did.

I heard recently he quit his job (he had 2 since we broke up), moved back home with is parents, transferred to a store nearby and is still trying to finish college. And he hasn't had a girlfriend since. He'll be 28 this summer.

Looking at him, I feel a lot better about myself and what I've done since the 3+ years that we broke up!

Boyfriend #3 - Mah Hubby

Unless you're new to my blog, you know how hubby and I came to be, so I won't drag this post out any longer. If you don't know though, you can read up on our story here and here.

*note* The images used are not images from my photo collection, they are from Google - I didn't want to use pictures with my ex's for their sake, not to mention the 1 I can't stand and would rather not see for any length of time. While the last one looks nothing like my ex, I think it gets the point across pretty well though... especially you've seen the South Park episode it's from!