interesting question, mom...

talked to my mom tonight, getting caught up, and I mentioned I went to visit my boyfriend last weekend. She already knew, I'm sure, because my sister would have told her. But anyway, after I mentioned it and brought up my boyfriend, my mom asked me when I was getting married again.

Funny, in the 4+ years I was with ex before we got engaged, I don't recall my mom once asking when I was getting married. She may very well have, and it's just I don't remember. It's been a long time.

Anyway, I was more than a little surprised that my mom asked me that. I'm taking it to mean she approves, not that I need her approval. But it's nice to know my family likes my boyfriend enough that they wouldn't object to me marrying him. :)

meeting the OX

As in, the Other Ex. Well, not THE Other Ex, who would be the ex of ex's OW, but who is completely irrelevant at this point. Now, this would be the relevant to my life now OX...

I met my boyfriend's ex this weekend. It was pretty much by accident. We zagged when we should have zigged (or vice versa) and ended up running into her when none of us expected to. Have to hand it to her, when she realized the situation she handled it well, and politely. Truth be told she handled it better than I did. I pretty much sat there with no idea of what to say. It had just been too weird to hear her say "oh you must be...(insert real name here) for me to do more than nod yes. And really, what was I supposed to do? Say "it's nice meeting you, too?" That big of a hypocrite I'm not. lol

It wasn't until later on that I got around to thinking about why this seemed so weird to me. Some of it, I think, is simply because up until several years, the idea that I could find myself in a situation like this - meeting a boyfriend's ex-wife - just wasn't on the radar of my life. And truth be told, my boyfriend and I have been doing our best to avoid this particular scenario for the past couple of years. He deserves to keep his life private from his ex, and I haven't been in any big hurry to meet the woman who hurt him so badly.

But a lot of the weirdness is because of how she found out about me, and from knowing that she talked about me with their kids, and from assuming that I'm still a topic of discussion from time to time. Oh, I know it's not really about me. It's about my boyfriend. I just happen to be the person he's in a relationship with, so I become part of these conversations by default. Doesn't make it any less odd to know that people are talking about me.

Ya know though, now that the first meeting has happened, I'm relieved that it has. It was inevitable, and it's better that it happened in some innocuous way rather than at some event in front of their kids.

But it's still weird.

gulp...

I've got 2 kids - one college-aged, who is taking a semester off, and a younger one still  in high school but at the age when he/we need to start thinking about college for him.

My older son is drifting a bit. He's not sure what direction he wants to go in. He's warring between doing what interests him but knowing there's not really a future, and figuring out something else that interests him (he has a lot of interests) that would lead him down a career path.

Younger son is...well, I'm not sure what younger son is thinking. The most I can get out of him is that when it comes time to go to college, he wants to go somewhere that's not here. As in, he wants to move out and away.

Alrighty then....yeah, younger son is still kind of mad at me. For what I'm not exactly sure. Moving on with my life after the divorce, near as I can tell. For me having been angry and hurt because of what his dad did. For talking to my friends about my (in son's mind, his) life. There's probably a ton of other reasons, stuff he perceives as something I've done wrong. Ah, the joys of living with a self absorbed teenager...

I know he's entitled to have his feelings. And he's not being ugly or belligerent, at all. It's just he usually radiates this wall of anger when he's around me. It gets old.

Anyway, I've been attempting to have these "are you thinking about your future?" conversations with both kids. I'm pushing harder with older son because...well, because he's older, he's an adult and damn it, he really needs to figure this shit out, kwim?

So, with older son, I broached the subject of the possibility of me moving when younger son is 18, out of high school, and hopefully in college. I asked older son if he would be surprised to learn I've been considering that option. He said he wasn't surprised. I did also mention that there were several options about what I could do with the house, and my decision would include taking into consideration where the kids are heading at that time.

It was kind of scary to admit aloud that I've been thinking about this. It would mean a lot of big changes, and impact a lot more than just me. I've gotten better, much better, at dealing with change. But still...this would be scary...

ps. the good news

still waiting to find out the details, but got the good news yesterday I (we) were hoping for. now just waiting on the details so I can make some travel plans, or rather, have travel plans made for me, and then I can look forward to a wonderful weekend away with my sweetie. :)

woman vs toilet

and I'm pretty sure woman wins! I won't know for sure until I can figure out a way to get the corroded and stuck on nut and bolt from the old handle off so I can put the new handle on, but I'm reasonably sure that I replaced the innards of my toilet tank and fixed the drip. Okay, except for the handle, I know I replaced the parts. I just haven't been able to test for drips, yet.

I need to stop at Home Depot on the way home from work tomorrow and pick up something to get the bolt off. I'm thinking hacksaw. :D

All-in-all, not a bad weekend. Much too short, and I'm really not ready yet to face another week at work. But I'm hoping Monday brings really good news on another front, so I do have that to look forward to. I so need to put my own job search in high gear. I don't know how much longer I can deal with clients who can't find the Internet Options>Tools on their browser. Oh well, at least I haven't had to ask anyone if there's a blue lower-case e in the upper left corner of their screen lately...

And no, I'm not kidding. Happens on a regular basis. Yes, still. Now aren't ya glad you're not working as tech support? lol

new beginnings...second chances

It's been just about 2 years, so I guess technically it's not a new beginning any more, but I'm still in awe about how wonderful my second chance at love has been.

One of the nice things about being in an LDR is that my boyfriend and I do a lot of our communication online, and that means I can go back and look at our emails and chats from when we first started getting serious about each other whenever I want. So today I took a little stroll down memory lane and now I'm walking around with a big ol' goofy grin on my face. :D

Hello 2012

Here's to another year of looking forward, moving in the direction I've chosen, accomplishing things I had previously given up on, enjoying life, appreciating all the good, wonderful, positive things in my life, and knowing that I am loved, cherished and adored, and that I love, cherish and adore in return.

2012

It's right around the corner. Time to start reflecting on the past year, and continue to plan where I want to be and what I want to accomplish in the new year.

It's going to take longer than I have at the moment to sum up last year. There was several setbacks, but there was also a lot of forward motion. A lot of big changes happened in 2011, for me. I expect 2012 will hold still more changes.

It wasn't until the end of 2009, and the beginning of 2010 that I began to truly appreciate the fresh slate of a new year. 2009 was a year that just needed to be done with, and I was fortunate enough to have some real new beginnings as 2010 started. That allowed me to see the new year as a fresh, clean slate with me being the one with the colorful chalk, drawing and planning a wonderful new future, filled with adventures.

And now I'm seeing 2012 that way, a blank page that I can fill with the colors of adventures, love, and joy.

a little bit more wine...

and I'm going to turn into an adolescent girlfriend posting youtube links to all sorts of sappy love songs on my boyfriend's fb.

sigh

it's hard, missing someone so much it physically hurts sometimes.

but what a wondrous gift it is to have this man in my life. I am such a lucky woman. :)

what a contrast

My boyfriend came for a visit this weekend. We had planned the visit before I was in the wreck, but the timing couldn't have been better. He needed to see for himself that I really was okay, and I needed some relief from the stress of dealing with all the insurance/car shopping stuff.

I know I should try harder to not compare my boyfriend and ex. But sometimes it's just so glaringly different and better with my boyfriend that it's hard to not draw some comparisons.

Prior to this wreck, the last wreck I was in happened about 17 years ago or so. I was in a Mustang, and got rear-ended by a pickup truck. It wasn't a high-speed impact, and there wasn't much damage done to my car at all. But I was pregnant with my younger son.

I was able to drive home, shaken and more than a little scared for my baby. I came into the house, told then-husband, and his first reaction was to go outside and look at the car.

Flash forward to now. The wreck I was in recently was more serious. I had minor injuries, and my van totaled. But neither was I pregnant this time, nor were my kids in the vehicle. I was not seriously injured The accident could have been a lot worse than it was. I was lucky.

Now, instead of a husband who checks on vehicles first, before making sure his pregnant wife and unborn child are okay, I have this incredibly sweet, wonderful man who flew to visit me for a weekend, who needed to make sure I was okay, and who wanted to pamper me. He looked at the scrapes and cut on my head within seconds of seeing me at the airport. He wanted to look at each and every bruise, so he could see that they were healing and fading already. He made sure I had plenty to eat, ran errands with me, and even came to the eye doctor with me just to sit around waiting for a couple of hours.

Before he left today, I tried to tell my boyfriend how much it meant to me, and why it did, although without going into the exact details of why. To feel the love and level of caring from him truly does feel like such a wonderful gift.

it is a contrast... 

once again, it's all about me :D

I started to answer a post on SI about effort, and my reply quickly turned into an "it's all about me" response, when it should have been about the person who posted in the first place. So I decided to post here what I was going to reply there. Because here really is all about me. lol

The SI poster said: I can still be positive and be divorced, huh?

and I started my reply:

yep, sure can. :grin:

I'm not saying divorce is your answer. Only you can make that call. I am saying that divorce is not the end of the world.

I will also say that I thought I had a decent marriage, until the day my life imploded. It wasn't a great marriage, but I wasn't unhappy.

At least that's what I thought, until ex left and I had time to step back from everything and process and think. Turns out the marriage really wasn't hadn't been all that good for a long time and I hadn't been as happy in it as I liked to think I was. Don't get me wrong. I was mostly happy with my life. But I hadn't been getting the emotional support from the marriage that marriages are supposed to have.

Had ex not left, I would have stayed married to him for the rest of my life. I also would never have found out what I was missing out on.

And now that I have the kind of relationship where I have that emotional support, where I am clearly a priority, where what I feel and what I think matters, I can't for the life of me figure out how I stayed in my marriage as long as I did, and did without this.

Divorce might not seem like it's the answer we want, but sometimes it ends up being the answer we need.

well now, that was embarrassing...

visiting my boyfriend this weekend. we went out Friday night with friends for dinner and then to see my boyfriend's son play at the piano bar where he works.

guess boyfriend and I were a little too obvious in our smooching, because the son not only saw us, but razzed us about it later.

oops! <insert very embarrassed smiley here> lol

okay, as embarrassing as it was to get caught making out in public by my boyfriend's 20-something yr old son, I'm glad the son was comfortable enough with us and our relationship to give us a hard time about it.

so this goes in the "it's a good thing" column. :)

adjusting to a new normal, again

Sometimes you don't realize how truly spoiled you are by something, until that something is no longer there.

Being in a long distance relationship, I've been so fortunate to be able to have daily, almost unlimited chat/IM contact with my boyfriend. I've been at home, taking online classes and he's worked from home for a while now. We usually check in with one another at least once a day, in addition to our usual hours long evening chat.

All that's changing. My boyfriend will be traveling weekly to a client site. He's going to be more than a bit busy there for a while. I'm thrilled for him for the opportunity, but I'm really going to miss being able to chat with him whenever I feel like it. All about me much, huh?

Yeah, I know. There are more ways than chat to stay in touch. We've talked about it. If you hadn't noticed, we're pretty big on the communication, the two of us. lol  So there's a plan. We will find ways to have at least some daily contact, although we both realize there simply won't be the time for as much contact as we're used to. We just have to adjust to a new normal, again. 

if I weren't already smitten

I would have been after yesterday. Got an email reply from SO when I asked him how he slept the night before ~ "each time I woke enough to turn over, I thought of you and smiled."  Oh yeah, my insides melted with that one, and I walked around with a huge goofy grin on my face for hours.

Gotta love a man who has such a way with words. :)

you know he's a keeper when...

One of the things I'm finding rather remarkable about my relationship with my SO is how incredibly comfortable I am, despite doing a bunch of real life, normally embarrassing things around him. Turns out I don't blush nearly as easily as I thought I did, and I really like being accepted for who I am, and not having to pretend I'm someone I'm not.

I'm not sure it was a lesson to be learned, exactly. But I got to discover what it feels like to have someone care enough about me to take care of me when I didn't feel well this past weekend. I wasn't sure what to do with that, for a while. It's hard to let someone in that close and not be afraid he'll feel differently. It was sad to realize I hadn't had that depth of caring in my marriage, for most if not all of the marriage. I remember thinking that the last time someone did some of the simple, basic things for me when I was sick that SO was doing was when I had been sick as a child and my mom took care of me.

I think it makes SO  a little uncomfortable for me to be so appreciative of things that he does that he takes for granted, because they're such an inherent part of him. He has said something similar to me, about things I've said to or done for him, and I usually answer "it's just me, being me" so I think I understand how he feels.

But I'm going to keep on appreciating this wonderful man who came into my life when I least expected it and I'm going to keep him just as long as he wants me to. :)

things are looking up

Yesterday I went to talk to the financial aid people yet again, and this time I got some results I can live with. The original grant still hasn't shown up, but they gave me another, one-time only grant for this semester which covered my tuition. So I was able to register for classes. Yay me!

I have to pay for my books out of pocket, and then get reimbursed when the original grant comes through, but at least I'm able to go to school this semester.

I've been taking lots of baby steps towards my new life. Now I feel like I'm taking a giant leap forward.
I'm so ready.

New life, here I come. :)

Spoiled, I am just so spoiled

Maybe this is what an adult relationship is really supposed to be like, and my view of normal is so skewed that I can't see that, but I can't help but think how very lucky, and spoiled, I am to have someone like my SO in my life. I am constantly amazed at how easy it is to just "be" when I'm with him.

That's not to say I'm not putting any effort into this relationship. Of course I am, as is SO. We both greatly appreciate what we have and are nurturing it. But the more time we spend together, the more I realize how well we truly mesh together, and how one-sided this relationship is not.

I'm really liking this new normal I've discovered. :)

what a difference a year can make

A year ago, my husband kissed me goodbye, told me he loved me and walked out the door to go to work. I had no idea that he had packed some of his belongings in secret, loaded them in his truck, and didn't intend to ever come home again.

A year ago I started on the journey I'm on now. When I started off, I had no idea how I'd take the first steps, much less where they'd lead me. All I knew was that I had to start moving, so that I could start to rebuild my life.

In the past 12 months I have walked on paths I never imagined I would. A few times, I took the road more traveled, and was glad for the company on my journey. But when I could, I challenged myself to take the road less traveled, the paths I had previously not chosen while I strolled through life.

It turns out that choosing to take the road that leads out of my comfort zone has brought me some of the greatest rewards and joys.

A year ago, I was sure I would never be happy again. Today, I've had the biggest, goofiest grin on my face, and I'm happier than I've been in a very long time. :)

how'd I get to be so lucky?

Today was one of those days. Not a good day, mostly. Crap from having to
get a divorce and having to be a single mom. Okay, it was a curl up in
bed, stay in pj's and cry kind of day. That's how much of a not a good
day it was.

But despite of all that, it wasn't all bad. While my
kids went off with their dad this afternoon, I was chatting with my SO.
What started out as our quick, let's catch up chat turned into a
marathon, all day and again at night chat because I was having such a
not good day. Because SO knew that I needed to not be alone, so he
stayed with me all day, the only way he could. It's a LDR, btw.

I honestly don't know what I did to deserve this man. It's kinda funny,
because he says the same thing about me sometimes. But today, and days
like today, are why I know just how damned lucky I am that this man is
in my life, this kind, caring wonderful man, and that he loves me and
worries about me.

I'm so glad I fell in love with this man. *big goofy grin*

may be getting some financial aid for school

I really hope so because it means I'll be able to take classes full time both semesters next year. If I can that will bring me all the more closer to my dreams of being gainfully employed and financially stable. Plus, it will free up some of my support money so I can hopefully pay down my debt some, and maybe do a little more traveling.

In other baby step news, I now have a savings account. Okay, so I opened it with only $25 but the online banking site I'm using automatically transfers money from my checking account into the savings. Right now it's a small amount that will be transferred every 2 weeks but I figure it's better than nothing.

The thing that I really like about the site I'm using for this savings account, SmartyPig, is that you can set up specific savings goals for a certain amount of time. So if you want to save for a trip, and Christmas shopping, and home repairs, you can set those all as goals, with specific dollar amounts and time frames to each goal. Then you can see the progress you're making towards each goal.

So I'll see how it goes and if it works out the way it's supposed to I'll set up new goals as I can afford to.