Running

I just got back to the hotel. I parked at the McDonalds (there is only 1) and took off on the sidewalk. I was able to get 3.5 miles in this morning and it felt awesome!!! Due to the craziness that has been my week I haven't been able to run or workout. I had a doctor appointment yesterday for a routine yearly thing and the scale is not my friend and I hate it. I made it a point to tell the doctor that in October I was 4lbs away from my goal weight. He asked what happened, I said I ran a 1/2 marathon and apparently that's not an excuse to eat whatever you want. He said running a 1/2 marathon sounds painful. I told him it wasn't so bad and I got the bonus of a trip to Miami.

So after that horrible reality check on the scale it was that much more crucial to me to get out and run. I'm at a wedding I know there will be lots of food and I plan to fully enjoy all the yummy shrimp. I plan to have fun. I just needed to know that I at least had 1 good run in this week!

It was wonderful to get out and my legs felt great and the weather was perfect it was just around 60 degrees. AAhhhh fantastic!!!

After this I would like to say I will truly buckle down and focus on losing weight again but the reality is I'm scheduled to work at the restaurant Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I need a roommate! I also need them to hire one more hostess so I don't have to work 4 nights and can go back to 3. I can say I will do the best I can with the time that I have!

In Edenton

Last night I drove up to S's and dropped Jack off. Then I went by my parents place to have my car loaded up with stuff. Then I drove home and I was supposed to pack, but I was tired so I went to bed instead. This morning I planned to wake up super early to pack before my doctor appointment, that didn't happen either. I decided to pick up my living room and vacuum instead. I thought my doctor appointment would go by quickly but he was in surgery and running late. So I didn't get home til a little after 10 and then I finally started packing. I think part of it is the fact that as incredibly excited as I am this is bittersweet. He's my younger brother. I begrudge nothing, I am excited and happy but it's hard, I'm the oldest. Then I thought of my friend who has just lost her husband and I think about the fact that we are the exact same age and she just lost the one who she thought she was going to spend the rest of her life with. So I prayed for her.

I left my place at 10 til 12 and arrived in Edenton at 5, it's a looonnngggg drive!!! I thought about my friend Anna (We Three Sams) as I drove past Greenville and wished that I had time this weekend to swing by to meet precious Jonah.

I drove directly to J's parents, they were fixing dinner for my parents, grandmother and I. It was so nice to have that waiting on us upon arrival. We ate the delicious chili and homemade bread and then my Grandmommy was fading fast so we left for the hotel.

I'm happy that my brother has found J! I'm so excited for the wedding this weekend! All the preparation and excitement and the big day is finally almost here!

This side of heaven

I have had tears so close to the surface all afternoon. I was driving to drop Jack off at S's place and I thought of my friend having to pick out a casket and make arrangements and decisions and hold it together for her 3 children. Her facebook wall is full of comments of people who love and support her and want her to know that she is not alone.

What a reminder that we are not promised tomorrow. That we have been instructed to make the most of every day. Not in the sense of seize the day for your own personal fulfillment but rather make a difference in the world around you. Life is so short and time moves so quickly that I sometimes feel like I blink and another year has gone by.

One of my friends contacted me this evening to ask me what had happened. When she found out she said she doesn't understand why such tragic things keep happening. It does feel like there has been one event or diagnoses after another that is hard to accept and caused the families hurt and heartbreak. I don't think we will ever know on this side of heaven the reasons. I know that we have been offered peace. "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." John 14:27

"I raise my eyes toward the mountains. Where will my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth." Psalm 121:1-2 33"

Please Pray

I have a birthday buddy, she and I were born on the same day in the same hospital and growing up I would always share my birthday parties with her.
There was a group of us who went from nursery through the 8th grade together. After leaving 8th grade she went to public school and I went on to private school. She got married not too long after high school if I have my facts straight. She has 2 girls and I think a boy but I'm not positive I'd have to go look at her facebook. Because of facebook she and I have reconnected and say the occasional hi and commisserated over turning 30 together.
Her husband fell off a roof either yesterday or today and was killed instantly. I just received a text message from PMG who formed the group of girls that I went through preschool thru 8th grade with. This breaks my heart. I'm trying not to cry as I sit at my desk and type this. I just want to reach out and tell her that I'm thinking about her and if there is anything I can do to let me know and I will as soon as I get to a computer that has facebook access. I hope that whoever her husband was working for had workers compensation insurance because that insurance will pay out and help her as she navigates through this.
We never know the why, we only know that God is so much bigger. I can offer her no words of comfort other than to tell her that I am here and if there is anything I can do to say the word.

Packing

So the big wedding weekend is fast approaching. I mentioned that I packed 3 bags for my one night away. I had 6 outfits which was one bag, one bag of shoes and one bag for hair and makeup. You never know what you need and I like to be prepared and have options. I really struggle when I have to pack for a plane because I'm SO NOT good at consolidating.

When I was younger and traveling with CAR I learned how to consolidate and managed to travel for an entire summer tour with only 2 bags. It was impressive, let me tell you.

So now I'm getting ready to pack for this wedding weekend. I know what I'm wearing to the wedding that has been taken care of. I have no clue about the rest of the time. I'm thinking big suitcase, a bag for shoes and another bag for hair and makeup. I looked at the weather and it will be warm so that means sundresses and sleeveless tops and flip flops. I just have to figure out which ones...

I promise I will provide pictures. Normally I'm bad at remembering to take pictures but I plan to buy a disposable camera and snap away!

Jumping Jack

Remember last night when I mentioned that I hoped my dog would stay put in the kitchen where I had him safely ensconced? I arrived home and he greeted me. I had to take pictures because it's really quite incredible what he jumped to get out. I'm no longer sure what to do. Please excuse the messy clutter, this is what happens when I have no time to stop and I'm constantly running in and out and just using my condo as a place to sleep. Please note the fact that my dog is very short, he jumped that, suggestions are welcome!

Oh and yes he has a crate but after being in that crate while I was at the full time job all day I felt guilty putting him back in the crate while I worked another several hours at the restaurant.

It's torturous!!!!

Or maybe not torturous as I'm getting paid to sit on the internet all night, however. When you have a million one things to do and the restaurant is so slow that the total number of guests is 18 it makes for a night that drags...

I need the hours and the $$$ and I am getting paid to update myself on Facebook and various assorted sites. I have a pile of laundry that is covering my bed, my house needs to be straightened up. I need a roommate and the site I signed up for and actually paid for the year has not sent me an email since Friday for a match. Maybe they just don't have anyone. I'm trying not to freak that I don't have a new roommate yet, it does take time.

I have to close tonight and tomorrow night. I'm so glad I requested Wednesday night off. Had I not I would have been scheduled to close again. I love the restaurant where I work but inevitably if I don't request it they will schedule me the night before a trip and then I have to work all day and night and then pack and it's not fun.

I'm hoping that Jack Banner does not greet me at the door again tonight. I have a gate that I put up in front of the kitchen but because little dude has springs for legs the other night he jumped the gate and was there at the door when I opened it. So tonight I moved the book shelf in front of the gate and a chair hoping to deter him from trying his escape tactics.

It's time for me to sign off the restaurant owner just walked in =)

Work in Progress

I went to the bachelorette party this past Saturday for J. I try not to sugar coat on here, I was a party girl, and I've given full disclosure of this fact. I wasn't into the drug scene but I drank, and drank a lot in my early 20's. This has tapered off and now I try to be responsible. As I get older I am realizing that it's just not good to not remember things and not fun to feel guilty over dumb things that you did that you don't remember.
Honestly drinking is something that I'm not great at doing in moderation. I'm working on this. I don't drink during the week. On the weekend I've got it now where I try to only have a drink or 2. I have had times where I've seen way too much consumption and I find that who I'm dating definitely influences how much I drink. S isn't a big drinker so this helps me. Bachelorette parties tend to have alcohol. J's was no exception. J and her friends did a great job of having a good time and maintaining I on the other hand well... J's sister is a bartender. I love her! H is very pretty and fun; she's 6'2 so it was great fun to watch heads turn as she walked around. H asked if I wanted to do a shot when we first got there and I said sure. She asked tequila and I said that was fine. I know that tequila doesn't make me mean and doesn't do weird things to me like it sometimes does for others. So I think we had about 3 shots in addition to drinking beer. Then at the very end there was an old guy who bought us jello shots. I had been up since 6:30 that morning. I had run a 5K, I had been running around all day long. I had no business doing shots, I should have stuck with just beer. Why is it that when you drink you suddenly are willing to take that one more shot? All reason seems to fly out the window when you have that shot being offered to you. I remember walking out of the bar and climbing into the car. I fell asleep in the car on the way home. I don't remember anything after that and I was so concerned that I had done something to embarrass J. I texted her and promised no shots at the wedding. I mean Saturday was one thing but the wedding is a whole other story entirely. (At my friend MFT's wedding her sister had a flask of whiskey, and I don't want to be that sibling). I will do a much better job this coming weekend of drinking my glass or 2 of water in between each drink. J called me right after she got my text and told me that I was totally fine and just fell asleep. She said she was glad that I had fun, and that she had had a wonderful time! The intense anxiety I had lessened after talking to J. I guess because I was in a different city I wasn't quite so worried about what people thought. I knew I had a driver, one of J's friends volunteered as DD. I dislike not remembering but if the worst I did was fall asleep then I can breathe easier. There is a scene in the movie Bride Wars of Anne Hathaways character on spring break. The normally reserved, demure Emma is up on stage dancing. It was the result of one too many tequila shots. I can honestly say I was not up on a stage dancing, although in my early 20's I did dance on a box at Time once, it was great fun! Anyways I'm just aware that I am a work in progress, I will never ever be perfect, and I need to make sure that at the wedding festivities I drink a lot more water!

Small World

I was reminded yesterday that Charlotte is a very small place. Jess from Dude and Sweetie (I don't know how to embed links into my posts but I follow and the link is on the side of my blog and if you want to go visit she's an amazing writer and will make you laugh and cry) anyways she friend requested me on FB and I was so flattered and of course I accepted. I was on her people you may know list. Turns out she went to church with guys I went to high school with and she has friends and family here. I found her blog through Hailey who writes Me and My Boys, another blog that I follow, another fun writer to read, she's just done a post on making baby food and I was super impressed! Oh and they both have extremely adorable children!!
I've learned from working in restaurants as well as other part time and full time jobs that Charlotte, for as big as it is, is very much a small town. In talking with someone you will usually find that there is someone that you know that they know. Or they know someone who knows someone. Growing up here I have roots. I love my city. I also understand that I better not say anything if I have nothing nice to say.

So Much

Law have mercy what a weekend. I took Friday off from my day job in order to go and get my oil changed before the big drive this coming weekend to Edenton, NC. I woke up went to the dealership (way too much for an oil change but I like the guys there because they are honest). After the oil change I went to Crate & Barrel and picked up the gift for my friend who was having a shower the next day. In one of those awesome ways that God provides, I won an award at the daytime job and was able to redeem the prize for a gift certificate to Crate & Barrel and this paid for the shower gift. So I picked up her gift and then went to the grocery store to grab lunch. I had lunch and then realized I needed to color my hair because I forgot to do it the night before. I have really long hair and I hate having to color it myself but it is so much less expensive then going to my hair stylist. I keep it as close to my natural color as possible. I color because I have gray hairs and I refuse to have gray hairs. So I did this and then had to take Jack to my parents house. I ran him over came home, got ready and worked at the restaurant that night.
Saturday morning I was up early and I ran a 5K. I then had to run home in order to get ready and throw outfits in a bag because later on in the day I would be driving to High Point for my J's bachelorette party. I met one of my best friends, PMG and her husband and S at a yummy restaurant called Red Rocks in Birkdale. They have a FABULOUS brunch menu but I just had coffee and water because I was on my way to the shower after meeting them. I got to catch up with them and they got to meet Shawn and then I drove a little further north on 77 for my friends bridal shower. I had a wonderful time getting to see my coworkers from the last job and catch up with them. Fortunately this shower was close to S's house so I was able to run there and print off directions to get to J's place in High Point. I kissed him bye and then drove up to High Point for the party. I packed 3 bags, one for hair and makeup, one for my 6 outfit choices and one for shoes purses and jewelry. I had no idea what I was going to wear and no idea what the others were wearing so I needed options. Plus when packing in a huge hurry I tend to overpack because I don't want to miss something. I got ready at J and B's place and the others all arrived. We went to Ruby Tuesday's for her dinner and then back for gift opening and then out to a fun country bar in Winston Salem. They had a Tim McGraw cover guy who was performing and actually he did a good job. J's sister is a bad influence, I may or may not have had a few tequila shots and I so don't do liquor well. This morning I drove back and then went over to my parents where we baked cookies for the rehearsal dinner. We made oatmeal raisin, snicker doodles, 7 layer cookie bar, mexican wedding cookies, and date bars. My mom will also be making chocolate oatmeal cookies (also known sometimes as chocolate do-do's) and haystacks.
This week I work til close at the restaurant Monday and Tuesday then Wednesday I have to take Jack to S's place and swing by my parents to put wedding stuff in my car and then Thursday I leave for the wedding.
My head is spinning with all that has to be done and accomplished in the next few days. I'm SO glad I took Friday off as a mental health day!!

Thankful that they're ok

I have a running email with my mom through out a day. Today I hadn't heard from her after lunch. I sent an are you ok email. I get this back in response.
"Well yes but, Dad is fine also however we were in an accident going out to lunch today. Dad came and we were turning left onto Phillips Drive on campus to go out the back way to Hwy 29, when a student in a jeep grand Cherokee coming up Philips T-boned the Driver’s side door of the Honda. I am looking and see this grill heading straight toward us and bam glass goes everywhere. Dad is covered in glass no blood and I have glass on me. Backed up traffic 3 ways at a very busy time of the day for this campus. I knew the police officer in charge, the guy who hit us and the EMT, she is Rebecca the mom of CAR members that the Lebetz joined. We could not open the Dad’s door so they had to call the fire department. Here comes the fire chief, the first responder and a hook and ladder.
The side of the Honda is really bashed mainly the driver’s door but the back door is off as well.
I called the office to let them know and when all the paper work had been done Dad and I drove the van home. I changed clothes and ate some lunch with Dad and drove back here. We will have to see about renting a vehicle to drive to the wedding cause I don’t think this is going to be a fast fix. The student who hit us apologized and hugged both of us and kept saying how sorry he was. We were sorry too."

Then she sent me an email right after saying she just got off the phone with her brother who can't come to the wedding because he has to have back surgery. This is actually probably not a bad thing as he tends to stress my mom out so I think it's a blessing in disguise.

Not So Jumbled Up

I've spent the morning processing. Both my work and the conversation that S and I had last night.
I finally specifically got the words I do see a potential future with you.
S and I are so very very different. I believe that after 6 months you know. He does not feel this way.
I asked him if he felt he would have a better idea after 12 months, he said yes.
I told him I will give him 6 more months before I bring this subject up again.

If you've read the chapters of my dating story it's pretty obvious that I've not been so great at relationships. With S it's been different all along. Before S my longest relationship was 11 months. We moved in together, we lived life together and it all fell apart around month 6 although we stayed together for 5 more months.
I talked to my friend KH about what's going on. Here's an excerpt from our conversation:
"Ok .... so you want me honest opinion..... L, yes, I think you are being unrealistic and crazy and then again I don't. Are you madly, passionately in love with him???? Do you want to be??? I think you need to answer those questions first. You want him to profess his never ending total love for you, but I haven't heard you say that about him. How do you feel about him??
From what I've heard from you, this is the healthiest relationship you have EVER been in. Neither of you is rushing things, you have fun together, you share common interests, you can get all hot and sweaty and gross looking, but he still thinks you are beautiful after a run. Why do you always need to put a timeline on things? On the other hand, if you can't say you are ready to walk down the aisle with him, maybe he isn't the right one and you do need to move on.
I think before you ask for his profession of faith to you, you need to make sure you want it from HIM ... not just from SOMEONE ... but from HIM.
If you can see yourself with him for the REST OF YOUR LIFE, then isn't that worth waiting for?"

To which I responded:
"I can’t be madly passionately in love with someone who I can’t trust to feel the same way for me. Initially I felt all the crazy stuff that I always do when I start dating someone and usually it’s reciprocated. Because he doesn’t feel that way for me I don’t feel it for him, I haven’t let myself because I stand to get hurt.
Of all the guys I’ve dated he’s the one who I don’t really see walking down the aisle for (because I don’t want a wedding) but I do see 5-10-15-30-50 years down the road. And this brings me back to it’s scary because what if it’s all a dead end?
I’m ok that he doesn’t go to church. Naturally I hope someday that one changes but even if it doesn’t and we had kids he would have no problem with me taking them to church.
It’s worth waiting for if I know that it’s going somewhere and isn’t just a dead end but what if I put all this into it and then it’s over and I get hurt?

To which KH replied
"L..... You can't control the way he feels. And you shouldn't be trying to control the way you feel. I think about how scared DH must have felt ...... he knew of my baggage, he knew I'd tried to push him away, he knew we had never even talked about getting married, and there he was on bended knee in a restaurant full of people including parents.... proposing and professing his commitment to me. I though he was nuts to be honest ... why in the world would he want to be with me with all that "stuff" I brought with me?? I still struggle with that stuff and so does he. But he must have known what he wanted and risked everything for it....

I just really think you should give it more time ... give him more time ..... if you are holding back in your feelings, maybe he can sense that and is holding back too? Let him see you, L ... all of you. Because if you marry, you have to know who it is you are both living with for the rest of your life ... not just who you want him to see today."

So I'm still processing. There is a big part of me that is ready to just drop it all and say that it's never going to change and he's never going to come around and I'm going down a dead end. But if I'm really honest with myself I'm scared.
I watched Ghosts of Girlfriends past the other night. It's the movie with Matt McConaughey and Jennifer Garner. The very end of the movie he's talking to his brother's fiance about love and how if she walks away because she's scared it's the biggest mistake she will ever make and she will always regret it, because he has and he regrets it. It's a chick flick, and I love it!
Staying in this relationship with S means taking a huge risk on my part. It means that I spend 6 more months having to let S get to know me, it means that all of the walls that I have are going to be weakened. Yes I would love to have children and yes I would love to get married. Yes I have a ticking clock screaming in my ear big time that I'm about to run out of time completely. Like I said yesterday time moves so quickly, I blink and another year has gone. S doesn't understand my urgency he feels we both have all the time in the world I don't feel that way. He does, certainly, but I do not.
So the question comes down to am I willing to risk that this is just a dead end in order to see if 6 more months is enough time for him to have a clearer picture of where this is going. He's given me the words that he definitely thinks there is potential. I have to decide if I feel that this is enough to give 6 more months of my life. I refuse to be madly passionately in love with someone who doesn't feel that way for me, it's those walls I talked about earlier. Initially I felt all that and I kept thinking I was going to hear those words and I haven't and it's caused me to become more gaurded and cautious. So why do I even keep him around? Because I've had the ones who declared that they were madly passionately in love with me and it was a flash of a flame that was quickly gone. Because I know in my heart that I'm terrified that if I do spend more time with him then I am going to become more real and I'm scared that if he gets to know me better he's not going to want me and that would be why this is a dead end. Not because it actually is but because if he actually knows me how is he possibly going to want me.

Bring your kids to work day

Today is bring your kids to work day and my company has participated. I love it. It's fun to see my coworkers kids and have the opportunity to meet them! My Dad often took me to work with him when I was in middle school. He worked close to the school that my brother and I attended and when I would have play practice he would run over and pick me up and I would study while he finished up at work.
I memorized my lines to Tom Sawyer sitting on the floor in a corner of his office.

I sent it

It was driving me crazy so I finally came out and explained how amazing and wonderful I think S is and then I asked him for information. I told him it's like a hamster running on a wheel in my head and I keep going round and round about where things are going.

All Jumbled

My brother is getting married in less than a week, my younger brother. He was born 2 1/2 years after me. When he met J I knew that he had met the girl he was going to marry. I have been excited and happy and encouraging. I'm truly thankful and ecstatically happy that I'm going to have a sister. J is a blessing and we're all so thankful that she is marrying my brother.
I was over at my parents on Monday night, my Mom had a bad day at work and my Dad was at work. I was talking to her and I was feeling weepy and I could tell she was so I put Jack Banner in the car and drove the 15-20 minutes over to their house. Jack was super excited to see his Grandma, he gets so wiggly and barky and it's super cute. I was talking to my mom about the wedding and all that has to be done and all that has been bought.
I never want it to be thought that I am not excited. But there is a bittersweet aspect. This is a big change. I'm always excited and happy for wonderful events but there is a tinge of bittersweet because change means we're growing older. I know that life moves forward. I know that wonderful moments are to be had, and challenging times as well. I am the older sister and I'm watching my little brother get married. This too is bittersweet. I am delighted that these two have found one another. I am excited that they are about to start their future together. I look forward to watching them build their life together.
It's hard for me in the respect that I have so many mixed emotions regarding my own life right now. I will be 31 this year, no it's not old but 30 is all but disappearing on me so I know 31 will go even faster. It's been 6 months since S and I started dating. In my opinion you either know or you don't how you feel about someone. I think that because I don't know what he's thinking it's causing me to pull further and further away because I don't want to get hurt. It's easy to be madly head over heels for someone who can tell you that they feel the same way. Early on I felt that way because I thought surely he was going to share with me his feelings. Months have gone by now and while he's become my really good friend I'm not going to put myself and my heart on the line for someone who won't do the same for me. I've come to realize I can accept the fact that church may never be his biggest priority. It's important to me and I'll continue to go to church without him. I have moments when we're together and I look at him and my heart totally melts. He always texts me at the end of my day to ask how it went. Then he calls me if I'm not at work later on in the evening. He sends me good morning emails. He almost always opens doors for me. When work isn't insane he sends me an email to see how my day is going midway thru. I just struggle with the fact that it's my perception our relationship doesn't seem to be going anywhere. I think I feel this way because he's not talking to me about "how he feels" as cliched as that sounds. With M3 and RS they both were talking about this stuff. But they also were both flashes of insignificance, they didn't last. They had nothing to back up what they were saying. S has been more gradual but he is consistently considerate. He has all the time in the world to find someone and get married and eventually have kids, he's a guy at 40 he could marry a 20 year old and his life would be peachy. I have friends who have had children after 35 and they have beautiful healthy children. I know that S wants to have children eventually but right now where he's at really wouldn't be conducive to having kids. I know he's really good with little ones, I've watched him with his friends little girl and it was so cute! Patience has never been a characteristic that I've possessed. I'm trying to figure out if I have the patience to continue.
With all that I have going on and all that he has going on it's going to be 7 months before I will even be able to sit down and ask him any question. I figure this isn't something to discuss via email because that leads to too much room for misinterpretation.
In my head I see what the future would be like and I have an idea of how things would go. I've kind of got an idea for how I would handle the nightmare of trying to plan a wedding (yes I love all things bridal and bridal shows and all that but when it comes to my own I have no desire to go through this simply because "weddings" cost a lot of money and I have none but my Mom has my wedding all planned out already but with my Dad having been out of a job for a year this is really not something I would like to put on my parents) so I can see the "wedding" and I can see the next 5-10-15-20-30+ years and I have an idea of how it would go but because I don't know how S feels and I don't know what he's thinking I don't know if he can see the next 5-10-15-20-30+ years and I'm not even sure he thinks that way.
So my head is a jumbled up place right now of thoughts that keep going round and round and I'm trying to maintain, it's probably a good thing my schedule is so crazy and I'm not seeing S at all this week.

Faithful

So if you've picked up on it I've been a little stressed over $$$. I've been waiting and waiting and waiting for my NC state refund from taxes. IT CAME TODAY!!! I checked my account and it was THERE!!!
He always provides, He is always faithful, He always knows what our needs are before we do and provides for them.

Team Meeting

I had my team meeting which FRB leads. The good news, they may be doing away with these meetings soon. This would be a good thing. For me I don't care but I really dislike sitting through a meeting where the team leader can't stand to look at me. I normally would speak out and offer opinions but in these meetings it's better if I just listen and agree.
She never really calmed down this time so the whole meeting was kind of tense. She's not meeting her goals and while this is totally out of her control I guess it means that perhaps her job is on the line? I don't know, I wouldn't understand that as she works incredibly hard and always has. I certainly hope this is not the case.

Time keeps moving faster

WOW I was just reminded that today marks 6 months since I started my job. Sunday is 6 months since I had my first date with S.

It's no wonder I freak out about the fact that it's 6 months and I don't have a firm grasp on "where things are going" with S. With time moving so fast it does get to me sometimes. I'm letting it go right now.....

back to work

Provision

My roommate moved on Saturday. I'm happy for her, for new opportunities. I was happy to have her as a roommate. I think she will be just as happy to have her own space. I am trying to remember that even though my current circumstances seem overwhelming and I feel like the wave is about to come crashing down and everything is going to fall apart this is just not the case. God is bigger. In looking on paper, yes the inevitable outcome to what I see is that it will all implode and I am not going to make it this next round of bills. But I look back and He has always provided. I make bad decisions, I make poor choices. I try to learn from these mistakes and I know that I will always be learning and growing.
Today as I looked at the numbers and the growing sense of panic and stress nearly overwhelmed me I realized that I needed to go where I always go to find peace. I know that He is my rock and I He is my comfort, no matter what.
Psalm 61:2-3 "From the ends of the earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the foe. I long to dwell in your tent forever and take refuge in the shelter of your wings. Selah"
Psalm 62:1-2 "My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken."
Isaiah 26:3-4 "You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the LORD, the Lord, is the Rock eternal.

Antsy

I have no complaints about my weekend it truly was awesome! Friday night I worked at the restaurant. Saturday morning I ran 10 miles. Then I got ready for the day and picked up my bridesmaids dress that I traded out hours at the bridal store for my alterations. The dress currently fits but if I lose any weight then it's going to fall down. Because I bartered for my alterations and the dress does fit I'm just going to see what happens, fingers crossed that the dress stays up for the ceremony and then I can change after.
I picked up my dress and went and caught up with my friend K and dropped off the birthday present for her little boy J who just turned 1 in March. Then I went home to pick up Jack and headed up to S and we had our fabulous date night.
Today I had church, then an awesome strength training session and then drove up to S and ran errands with him followed by dinner.
I just feel out of sorts. My roommate moved out yesterday and I think instead of trying to rent the room out as I have been I'm going to see if I can list it has a crash pad for $100 less and hope that I find the right person.
I know that God is in control and I'm not. I get antsy over the fact that S and I have been dating 6 months next Sunday and there still feels like a lot of unresolved subjects have been talked about. He's not sure if he's going to the wedding and I need to know so I can let J and B know for their numbers. I honestly can't imagine my life without him but the flipside to this is the fact that I just don't know what he's thinking and I don't do well having dated someone for this long without knowing that it's going in the direction of marriage and then we swing back to the subjects (mainly one subject) that we still need to further discuss.
Add to this the sheer amount of things I must do over the next few weeks added to the extra shifts at the restaurant that I must work and be thankful for. It's going to be an absolute miracle if I can keep my voice through out all this!

Date Night

S and I went on a date last night. We went to dinner and then to see Date Night. I don't want to give it away but I LOVED this movie!! I didn't know exactly what to expect because I thought the previews looked cute but I just wasn't sure I wanted to see it. I'm so glad I did!! Minus some language I really did enjoy this one! Then we went to WalMart, it was a great date night =)

Shoes

When I started running and wearing this type of shoe (found at www.shoes.com) I realized that I was going to have to wear the fun shoes less often. Ironically I pay more for my running shoes than I have ever paid for a fun pair of heels. I have a love for shoes, especially high heels. S isn't even really a fan of them because he says they are bad for the feet. I personally will wear them because they make my legs look better and my legs need all the help they can get. Typically on a day to day basis I wear a lot of flats and this afternoon I was dreaming about shoes. So I decided to take a little break and view some fun shoes found at www.zapos.com and www.shoes.com

Friday

It's a good thing it's Friday as my concentration is pretty much shot. At lunch today I took something to be mailed, registered for a 5K and picked up a bottle of water, all in all a productive hour!

I'm going to try and pick up my pace time with this 5K and see if I can set a PR.

Where I'm coming from and why I love reading blogs

When I first started my blog it was because I felt "cheesy" writing on the MySpace blogs and PYS had her blog and I enjoyed reading about her life. She has hers set to private because she goes into way more detail about life and work and basically it's a voyeuristic view into her head and I'm by nature very nosey so it's great because I get to read all about her life and thoughts. She's also hilariously funny when it comes to her stories and she has a crazy family (her words not mine) so she has never ending material. She's so entertaining that another friend of hers approached her and asked her to do a stand up comedy routine for a bar here in Charlotte.
I've had this blog for a while now. I transferred over all my MySpace blogs and then started writing rather sporadically but when I would be inspired I would write. I found this a great outlet for stuff I didn't want to share for all the world to see on Facebook and this way it's slightly more anonymous for those in my life who I talk about. I've always regularly followed my PYS's blog and then last year I picked up a few more because they had links to them on FB. When I started my current job I no longer had access to FB. This left somewhat of a void because I tend to need to "space out" my tasks in order to appear busier than I am. There are in fact times where I'm busy but usually I need to have something to go look at to take a "mental sanity" moment… At my old job I would jump on FB and catch up with what my friends were doing and give my own status updates and take a few quizzes and maybe play a quick game of wordplay.
One day early on at this new job I realized that I had access to Blogspot. I was reading one friend that I followed and then I would click on someone that they followed and then click on the blogs that this other blog followed and it was rather a domino effect. I would read comments and funny comments I would click to read their blog. I suddenly found this whole world that existed that I had no idea was so comprehensive. I love reading about families and kiddos and single girls and girls who have triumphed over adversity. I love the ones where I start to laugh out loud and suddenly remember I'm at work. I love the ones where I have to click off and blink fast because they've made me cry because of their story. Those that make me laugh and cry are fantastic! The fashionistas who share their looks and ideas are marvelous! I've actually found blogs written by friends from school and it's been unique to catch up with them this way. When I start to follow another blog I like to go back into the past and basically blog stalk but really I'm just trying to get a better idea of who I'm reading about. I don't understand those who leave snarky, mean, or inappropriate comments. If I don't like what someone has to say then I just won't read their blog. There is no need to be rude or hurtful towards others. I've started to leave comments because I genuinely want to say something positive or encouraging and let the writer know, hey I'm here I like what you have to say and I keep coming back and reading more because I like your style.
So thank you to all those who are honest and share your life and stories and fashion and who provide a bigger picture for me while I sit at my desk and work, because believe it or not I do actually get quite a bit done in a day.

Maybe it's lack of sleep

I hate feeling powerless and overhwhelmed and that's how I'm feeling today. I've said before that I can take care of myself and this is mostly true. I've also seen where all of my needs have been met while going through a deep financial valley. A lot of times this was because of my parents and I feel horrible having to accept help from them.
With my roommate moving out it leaves a gap and while I'm going to try and pick up extra shifts at the restaurant and I make more now then I did at my previous job there is definitely a sense of looming doom. Of one false move and this house of cards will tumble.
I know that I'm fortunate and I'm blessed and I don't have to worry about sick babies and in a lot of ways I'm self absorbed because I don't have little people who refer to me as mommy and I just have to take care of a very high strung little dog who thinks that I'm the best dog mama ever, because he has no frame of reference other than me and really even though I make mistakes all the time he still loves me.
I know I shouldn't look back because what's done is done. I believe that somehow someway it will work out. This is when it gets really hard to not start nagging S about the future. We have enough to tackle before we move forward and I don't need to be trying to push that subject before we reach some kind of agreement when it comes to church/what we believe/what our philosophy will be. In my head it would be easier if he would just say hey let's run off to the courthouse real fast and then we put my place on the market and voila all problems solved except this is not the case and this is not how it's done. Although I did have a funky dream that we decided to get married in a target, and all our clothing came from target, it was slightly bizarre!
I hate the fact that I have gained all the weight I have and the clothes that I wore last summer just don't fit right now.
Anyways, I write this just to try and calm myself down because as I sit at my desk and work on renewals it gives me too much time to think about the unknown and this kind of mood leads to a down ward spiral of all kinds of unpleasantness and I'm trying to remember to focus on the positive.
I do have 2 jobs. I do have a puppy that is cute and I'm learning how to handle his barking better. I have a wonderful family. I have great friends! In general I really do like my life. I have a great guy who whether it works out for us to share the future together or not has been a really wonderful part of my life for the past 5 1/2 months. I have sundresses, lots of sundresses and these do fit and hide multitudes of sins!! When I was working out at the gym the other night I could actually see tone and definition in my arms and chest. Unfortunately that's where I I always stay fairly small and it's the lower half of my body that reflects additional poundage but I digress, sundresses are my friend and hide this, add a short sleeve little sweater and it makes most sundresses work appropriate. Plus I have a ton of black and black is my best friend right now.
A winning lottery ticket would be fabulous but I don't play the lottery LOL

My new sister

I've talked some about my brother's upcoming wedding and I am truly so excited!! Last night I was just thinking about how blessed my family is that J will become a part of our group. I was thinking back to how they met.
To give some background before J my brother was dating a girl who he met his senior year at NC State. She was a sweet girl but totally and completely wrong for my brother. I was very thankful when he finally broke up with her for good. B had just finished obtaining his masters from NC State in December and in January he moved to Greensboro to start his dream job. He decided to try Match.com and wasn't loving it but came across J's picture. J's account was just about to expire and she responded to my brother's email and after emailing back and forth they set up a date. Their first date they played tennis and B contacts me afterwards and is freaking out. Valentine's is the following Saturday and he wants to ask her out but doesn't want to assume she has plans, he wants to buy her flowers but not roses because that might freak her out. What about a card should he make one because all the good ones are going to be picked over. He asked about tulips and I said that's a great idea. Then I told him that making a card would be good for the following year but not this one as he could be misconstrued as cheap. I reminded him that I worked at Hallmark and the good cards are not going to be picked over by Wednesday, most guys won't buy their card until Saturday morning. So he asked her out and they went ice skating and made dinner and watched movies. My brother was smitten. J is smart and sweet and lovely and classy and (sidenote she's 5'11 1/2 and my brother is 6'5 so they make a gorgeous couple!! She grew up in Edenton, NC and has 2 sisters, and she's the shortest sister it's going to be a very tall wedding party!!) back to the story B drove to Monroe the day after Valentines and took my Grandmother and I to dinner the next day and tells us all about her and shows pictures and makes us promise not to say anything to my mom. I'm sitting there thinking my brother has met the girl he's going to marry.
A few weeks go by and B sends an email to my parents to tell them about this wonderful girl he's dating. He sends it on a Saturday morning and every Saturday my mom goes to Monroe to take my Grandmother to get her hair done and run errands. So I call mom and I say I've been dying to tell you about this but I promised I wouldn't and you just got this email and I can't wait so I'm reading it to you. Oh and by the way Grandmommy knows already.
Then when mom gets off the phone and looks at Grandmommy and says "you've been hiding something from me" to which my Grandmommy replies "oh good I'm so glad you know now it's been so hard not to tell you about this". B brought J to town to introduce her to all of us I think in June but I can't remember. We all fell in love with her. She's beautiful, she's smart, she's sweet, she's the perfect compliment to my brother. She is a teacher who was finishing up her masters when she met B. Throughout the summer she helped my brother work on finishing a chest of drawers. They went to Michigan to see her older sister and her husband, they went to Annapolis, they hung out and did fun things together.
I knew that B had found the one and it came as no surprise when he told me in October that he had purchased a ring. He'd called her Dad and asked for his permission and he originally wanted to propose on the tennis courts where they had their first date but it was way too crowded the day he wanted to do it. He had also thought about proposing at a concert they were going to that Saturday but he didn't want to wait that long. So he figured out how many tennis balls it would take to spell out "will you marry me" and on her laundry room floor he spelled this out. She came home from school and she looks and while she was figuring out what those tennis balls said B was on one knee with the ring. I got the text message while I was at work at the restaurant and it was all I could do to contain myself!! So finally when I saw that they had announced it on Facebook I was able to put my own status update, Congratulations B & J.
We had the engagement party for them the last weekend in March and everyone had such a good time! I know the wedding is going to be even more fun!! On May 1 in Edenton my brother is going to marry the most wonderful girl in the world and I am going to have a sister!!

Trunk Show

A few Saturday's ago I mentioned that I worked at the bridal store for a trunk show. They had all the Amsale gowns from the current season in the store. Today I took a break from work to share a few of my favorites. These gowns are way out of my personal price range but I still appreciate their beauty, and they were even more stunning in person! These gowns are found at www.amsale.com

It never made sense to me

This story has stayed with me now for 3 years so I'm writing this to let it go. When CF and I were dating I went and purchased quite a bit of clothing for G so there would be no need for her to have a suitcase when she was coming for her weekend visits. I personally thought her mother, sfa, had awful taste and never dressed the kid as cute as what she was. I was also tired of the "I love my mommy" shirt that always seemed to wind up in G's suitcase. I was also tired of the fact that sfa would forget to pack socks and underwear and usually only packed one pair of really ugly shoes or boots. So I took it upon myself to purchase a few outfits. I was always on the look out for cute little girl clothes. I made sure that she had a drawer of socks and underwear and I made sure she had a few "I love my Daddy" and "Daddy's Girl" t-shirts. This eliminated the need for a suitcase and allowed G to feel more like she had 2 homes rather than a place she visited every weekend.
CF and I started dating in October and by January sfa had begun to see me as a threat, or maybe she was just ticked that CF was moving on with his life instead of being forever devoted to her, who knows. It could also be that she was just inherently evil and never wanted anyone else to find happiness but I digress. So sfa had become increasingly hostile to me. There had been a meeting between CF and sfa to work out custody details and discuss the role of significant others in G's life. It usually never went very well b/c sfa wanted him to do exactly as she said because she was the only one who knew anything when it came to "her" child.
In March we picked G up for a family dinner at CF's Mom's house. They had family in town from NY and wanted everyone over. We picked G up and she had this precious little skirt and top on and I was actually surprised that the outfit was actually acceptable (CF's mom and I had the similar taste so of course any outfits she or I bought for G we each complimented the other's taste I still keep in contact with his mom, LOVE her!!) anyways, the cute outfit was ruined by the most awful pair of shoes. They were an ugly shape and had sequins all over them and they were totally inappropriate for the outfit and looked ridiculous. I noticed that they were Geox which didn't mean much to me at the time.
We go to dinner and G and her cousin play soccer after dinner. She has to wear the shoes she had on because we didn't have a change of shoes for her. Sfa calls CF the next day quite upset because G's shoes had been messed up. CF says this is not a big deal he'll just buy her a new pair. Sfa then reveals that she bought them from a pricey shoe place in Ballantyne and the shoes were $80… YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME SHE SPENT $80 ON A PAIR OF SHOES FOR A 4 YEAR OLD?????? Was my reaction when this story was relayed to me. I was APPALLED!!!! I am all for good shoes, and I understand the need for little kids to have good shoes to help their foot development. I found great deals on the stride rite shoes I would buy for G. So he had to go with sfa and G to purchase another pair of shoes from the same store and they were just as ugly as the first but more practical. I bought G cute little ballet slippers with sequins from target for her to have on the weekends when she was at CF's.
The fact of the matter was sfa was a teacher and so was the guy she was living with. I knew how much CF was paying at the time for G, and it was a lot. Yet sfa always wanted more money and always said he wasn't giving her enough and yet she could afford to go and buy the kid $80 dollar shoes…. What's more sfa is now married to that guy, they have a baby and yet in a recent court ruling CF now has to pay 80% of sfa's costs for G along with 100% of her expenses when she's with him.

In writing about this story I can finally let it go. It reminds me once again how thankful I am that thing worked out the way they did!

Chapter 8

I have to take a step back to August of 2007 right before CF and I broke up. I received a My Space friend request from RS. I wanted to deny it but before I did I accepted because I am a naturally nosy person and I wanted to know what his profile said and it was set to private so I had to accept the request before I could view it.

What I found was that he had moved to SC and been through rehab and had been clean for I think 2 years at that point. He was gainfully employed (he'd not held a job for more than a few months while living in Charlotte) so I decided I would just leave him on my list of friends but didn't contact him and he didn’t' contact me other than asking for the friend acceptance. He was dating someone at the time and I figured it was harmless to be My Space friends.

For the next 2 years we would talk occasionally but for the most part I kept him at arms length. February of 2009 we're both on Facebook at this point and he's dating a girl that I figured I would like and I make a trip to Atlanta to visit my friend before she gave birth to her daughter. I arranged with RS to meet for lunch on my way back to Charlotte and meet his girlfriend. It was the first time we'd seen each other since somewhere around 2004-05. We went to McDonalds for lunch so their kids could play and we caught up with each other. Honestly I was nervous but since was meeting his girlfriend I figured it was safe. It went fine and we went on with life.

He broke up with her a few months later and I questioned him on it and he said she was just too young and wasn't going to change and she was insecure and gave me some very good reasons as to why they were no longer together. So fast forward another month or 2 and I've just gone through the breakup with Mike3 and I had realized that I needed to get Jason out of my life. RS and I made an agreement earlier probably somewhere around September 2008 that if I was still single at 35 then he and I would get married (these agreements are bad ideas don't make them).

He was joking around one day saying I would be 35 soon enough and I asked him what he wanted. He had become more flirtatious and I figured if he wanted to say something he needed to lay it out on the table. I was about to turn 30 and I was a little freaked out about it. So I was in a place in my life where I was willing to take a chance. He sent me this long long email about how he had always wondered what it would be like to really actually date me and how he was sorry for the past and I bought it all hook line and sinker.

I arranged to meet him the following Saturday for lunch and it was over that lunch that I love you was said and he asked me to move to Greenville. I have no excuses and looking back I do understand HOW STUPID I WAS TRUST ME I GET IRRITATED WITH MYSELF JUST READING THIS. I agreed to move and went back to Charlotte to put the ball in motion.

I started decluttering my house and contacted my realtor. Meanwhile my job had gone from bad to worse to unbearable and I was looking for jobs down in Greenville. I told him that if he was serious about me then he was going to have to meet my parents and told him that they weren't going to accept him with open arms because of how badly he had hurt me. He said he was willing to do this and did in fact come up to meet them.

He was a little freaked out about it but he did fine. I met his Dad and step mom on one of his visits to see me. He started talking marriage as soon as he asked me to move so I'm pretty much thinking this is it. Here I've been so cautious about letting him back in my life but this is the real deal and he's really serious this time and I'm going to move and we're going to make it work. Despite the crazy debt, the fact that he's always going to be a recovering addict and the best part of all the absolutely insane crazy baby mama who causes as much drama as possible. Oh yes I was looking at a wonderful future but being me I figured it would all work out and we were a team and it would be challenging but because it was us we could do it. Yes I'm something of a hopeless/stupid romantic but that changes by the time this story ends.

My birthday he came up and took me to dinner and it was lovely and I really appreciated it. Then the next weekend was labor day weekend 2009 and I made plans to go down for a visit and actually stay at his place. To this point we had just done day visits because it's only about an hour and a half between Charlotte and Greenville. So I arrive on Saturday and we go for dinner and it's wonderful. We get movies, I bake cookies, it's great. The next morning we go to church, it was fantastic. Then we had a party to go to and as a part of this party was an AA meeting.

The meeting was an interesting experience but I was ok with it. I had told him I would go to a meeting with him and it seemed to be a big deal to him and this was actually a good way to handle it because of the fact that it was a party and then the meeting and then the party ended, kind of like a Bible study or something. So the next morning I wake up and go for a run but he's acting way different. Then we meet my friends for lunch and he's acting weird.

When I returned home and I knew something was up. He had a dental appointment and had something done to his teeth and couldn't talk on the phone although I would find out that he could manage to talk to the girl he dated before me. I asked him a couple times what was going on and asked him to talk to me. Then I saw a comment she made on his facebook page and I realized that he was talking to her again. So I called him out on it and asked him to please be honest with me as to what was going on. I finally receive this response from him (posted on 9/14/09)
From: R
Subject: Re:
To: "L"
Date: Monday, September 14, 2009, 11:21 AM
L,
I have been extremely busy and haven't had time to respond. I do apologize for that. I have J this coming weekend and didn't have him this past weekend. We will probably be camping. I don't have a court date as of yet, my attorney never asked the court for it to be on the calender according the the Judges clerk. My lawyer hasnt returned my messages nor email in like 2 weeks and if I don't hear back from him today I'm probably going to find a new one.

My clothes dryer caught on fire yesterday, I had events I volunteered at all day Saturday and My son is sick and not in School. I have a PTA meeting tonight and don't know if Crazy Baby Mama will be there or not, but I do know she used Medicaid to pay for his doctors visit last night. I have a dentist appointment in the morning, a Voluntter meeting tomorrow night with CCA, and And event Wednesday night. In regards to us, I just don't truly think we were meant to be more than friends. We love each other and care about other and have known each other for a long time, but I just don't truly think that we are made for each other.

I felt last weekend like you expected more out of me than I was willing to give you and that you deserve someone that can give you what you need. I also felt like you were expecting me to in someways be the me that you knew from the past, which I'm not. We have been through a lot together, but in someways we seem to view the world in completely different perspectives. I also know that with my life and schedule the way it is at the moment that I can't give you the attention that you need, just as I wouldn't be giving myself and my recovery the attention it needs.

I hope that we can still be friends. I can put your stuff on my porch covered this weekend if you will let me know when you would like to come and get it. In regards to previous girlfriend and I being friends on facebook, we are talking again and where it will lead to I don't know. I put my life in the hands of God a few years ago and no longer try to influence the outcomes I just pray, talk to others, and follow my heart on things these days. I'm am grateful for the experiences in my life today even the ones that don't work out as I would like them to. I hope you have a good week.
R

The email I wanted to send to him but I didn't originally posted 9/16/09
" I told you that there were a lot of things I wanted to say. I've come to realize that just because you no longer use drugs and alcohol you still have treated me the exact same way as before.

You shut down on me and completely quit talking to me. You made me believe that you wanted to marry me and you talked to me about the names of future children. You were all about me moving and us sharing our life together. Then in the space of 24 hours I have no idea what happened because you would not talk to me. You simply cut me out of your life. You told me I was still in love with the you from a few years ago and not who you are now. This is not true. I loved the man who you are today but you will not accept this nor hear me when I say it. You determined that I am not in love with you and therefor I am not.

You told me that our perspectives are too different. I had sent a few emails explaining how I felt and how I was looking forward to the future but you shut me out. You started talking to another woman and you quit talking to me entirely. What I thought were sincere promises are all lies and I don't understand why you feel the way you do about me loving the you from the past. Apparently there isn't much difference in the you from the past and the you now.

In looking at my past relationships I see this very same trend and now I understand where I learned it. Instead of talking to me you turned to someone else and now she is back in your life.
I believed that despite our different perspectives and beliefs we could make it work because you convinced me of it.

You seemed so sincere about our future and our life. You talked to me about future and family. You have done to me exactly what you have always done and I made the mistake of believing that it would be a different ending to the same chapter. The definition of insanity, and you told me this yourself, is repeating the same pattern over and over and expecting a different result. It took you 2 years of being my friend to get me to trust you again and then you flipped the switch on me and now we will no longer be friends.

Obviously you don't value the friendship that we had. I'm done. I have forgiven what has happened but you will not be back in my life again. I have only myself to blame for being in the place where I am now. I was a fool and I let my heart lead my head. I naively believed that love would conquer all and that you really did love me as you were telling me you did. You shut me out, you quit talking to me, you did not ever give me any chance to understand why or how it is simply finished.

I knew you well enough to know it was over on Labor day monday when I returned home but it would take you a full week to finally be honest enough with me to end it. I made you end it because you will not be able to talk to me again and you needed to be the one who did this. If I ended it then I would not have the closure that I needed because of my mistake in reopening this sick and twisted story of ours.

I loved you, as my friend, as the man who was telling me what our future held, as the man who in some ways has made great strides in his life, as the future father of my children. I loved you deeply and would willingly have walked over hot coals for you had you asked me to because I loved you.

It has nothing to do with who you were and everything to do with who I saw and now I understand what I saw wasn't real and this just leaves me in a place where I am confused and hurt and lost and hoping that at some point I will find a man who loves me for me and when he tells me he loves me and when he tells me he wants to marry me and have children with me that he is sincere and not telling me a lie."

Yeah this was not a pretty place in my life. But it was over and done with. Interestingly enough the same day that I got the email from him was the day after I sent my resume to my FRB for a job opening that she told me about. A week after that I had a phone interview, a week after that an interview and a week later a job offer. It was very clear to me that he and I were not meant to be together because of how quickly my life fell into place as soon as he was out of it.

In order to distract myself I signed up for match.com again but I was only on there for a week or 2. I was going to try the whole seeing lots of guys thing and see if maybe that would work out for me but it just gets too confusing.

I ran my first 10K in September and while running this race I noticed a guy who seemed to be trying to pass me so I sped up then we kind of did the neck and neck thing until I was just too tired and trying to finish so I quit and let him go on.

2 weeks later I was running my 15K and he came up to me at mile 7 and said hey I remember you from the 10K. I asked how he was then we went on running. He was waiting for me at the end with a cup of water and introduced himself. I was intrigued and looked up race results the next day to figure out his last name.

I looked him up on Facebook and sent a message saying it was nice to meet him and a few questions and then I told him if he never responded then it would be like I never sent the email. Fortunately for me he responded back. We talked that Thursday and then had our first date that Sunday. We've been hanging out ever since.

He met my family at Thanksgiving, we've been to Miami where we stayed with his brother and ran a 1/2 marathon. We just ran another race this past weekend and the rest is yet unwritten. I mentioned that with RS I was a stupid hopeless romantic and I'm still a romantic just a little smarter (hopefully) when it comes to who I believe and who I trust. I have a feeling te best is yet to come!!

Random Thoughts

The air just turned off and the elevator just quit working, ahh the joys of daily work life =)
I'm glad I take the stairs, hopefully the fact that I take them a few times a day up to the 4th floor counts for something!!

aahhh the air just turned back on, this is a good thing since I sit next to a window and that creates solar heat!

The blockbuster near my house is going out of business because the shopping center wants to put in an IHOP. I use the red box at Harris Teeter so this doesn't really affect me but I got My Life in Ruins and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past for $3.99, previewed.

Then I had an unexpected visit from S and I took him back over there since he is a movie fan too! Then he and I went to Marshall's in the same shopping center and I helped him pick out some shirts for the summer. He was in need and I am always happy to help someone else shop!!!

We're having a soup lunch today which it's kind of hot but I like the free aspect of it, my contribution is brownies, the super fudgy, super rich and covered in icing kind, YUM!! And I wonder why I dislike my current clothing size, ugh!

Ok back to work

The conversation I hope we have

I don't think that the conversation about beliefs is over with S. I know that it will come around again. I think it's important to be prepared. I'm praying for the right opening and the right opportunity. I've had a scripture verse stuck in my head for days. It's Romans 5:7-8 "Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”- Romans 3:23-24
Saturday nights message actually defined the term sin and it's origin, in the days of archery you would have someone stand beside the target and when they didn't hit the bulls eye that person standing there would yell sin 6 inches or sin 4 inches. Sin was missing the bulls eye mark. So applying this to today sin is missing the mark of perfection that God set for us. Grace is why we have hope for the future. We've been given this amazing gift because of what's been done for us.

It gets all murked up by legalism and religion and human shortcomings and failures and misconceptions. It's actually really simple and summed up in 4 verses.
Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
John 3:16-18 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son"

Yes there's more to it but really in my mind when it comes to what I believe this is it. I believe that God created everything. I believe that there is a Father, Son and Holy Ghost and I believe that God loved us so much that he sent His Son so that we could have eternal life with Him.

Weekend Recap

What a weekend!! Friday night I made my way up 77 to S's place. He had prepared baked ziti and all I had to do was put it in the oven. S arrived home shortly after I arrived and we caught up with each other and what had been going on. I hadn't had a working phone the entire week because of dropping mine in the bowl of melted butter so it was nice to catch up!! (sidenote I do now have a working phone again). We knew we would have to be up early so I went to bed by 10ish. The race the next day started at 7:30 and packet pickup was from 6-7.
We arrived at the race location around 6:40 fortunately we were able to pick up our packets and numbers. We put our bags in the car and pinned on our numbers. We made our way over to the start line. It was a brisk morning perfect for running! S was running the 1/2 marathon and I was running the 10K. I had trained for the 1/2 but 2 weeks ago when I was trying to run the route I realized how much I was hating life and hating running and I decided that I needed to back off and since I had no trouble running the 6 miles I changed my registration to the 10K. The cue was given and we were off. It's the 9th year that they've held this race and they had the most people this year that they have ever had run it. I was comfortable, rested and ready which is a nice feeling for a race. I eased my way up, S had already taken off on his own to run at his pace. I enjoyed the scenery tried to get around the people who were in my way. We ran down Barclay Downs, to Runneymeade to Sharon to Providence and at Providence and Sharon (Charlotte is confusing when it comes to roads, we have Queens Rd and Queens Rd and Queens Rd west and Sharon Rd and Sharon Rd and Sharon Amity and Sharon Rd West and there are others and if you've never been to the city I think Charlotte is the reason that GPS was invented) anyways at Providence and Sharon Amity or it may be Sharon at this point but anyways the 1/2 marathon runners kept running up Providence and the 10K runners got to go up Sharon. Then we turned down Ferncliff and ran Ferncliff back to Barclay Downs. This race is just mean for it's hills. There was a steep hill running up Ferncliff and then once you got past that there was one more incline and then to get to the finish line it was a gradual incline and I felt like I was NEVER going to see the finish line. If that's how I felt I imagine it was that much worse for S. I ran my 10K at 59.57 which is a 9.44 minute per mile pace. I'll take it and I plan to improve on it. I would like to see my pace decrease, the first race I ever did I actually ran a 9.11 pace and I've never been able to do that since and I think it's a mind thing.
I was SO EXCITED FOR S!!! He ran the 1/2 at just under 2 hours and his per mile pace was 9.08, he ran 13 miles at that pace which is awesome!!!
Saturday after the race we just relaxed. I knew he was dreading church that night and I told him we needed to leave at 5, I had a plan. I waited and 4:45 went and 4:50 went and 4:55 and he's still laying on the couch. At 5 he asks what time are we supposed to leave again and I said 5. So he gets up and asks what he's supposed to wear and I tell him casual. I love the Saturday night service at Forest Hill. He finally gets it together and we get the dogs taken care of. I had him out the door at 5:15 which is actually the time we needed to leave, I haven't mentioned this to him as I plan to use this tactic in the future it worked so well on Saturday. I did tell him if he didn't want to go that I would go ahead and go and he could just meet me for dinner later but I think after last time he realized that this would be an unwise move on his part. We were on our way and we're almost to exit 23 on 77 and he goes I think I forgot my wallet, to which I responded no you didn't you picked it up with your cell phone. He came up with a few others on our way down and he was sure the "villagers" were going to chase him out with burning torches. I just laughed at him. We arrived and he sat in the car not wanting to get out. I handed him the car keys and told him that if he felt threatened or intimidated he had the keys and he could escape if he needed to he just had to come back and pick me up later. We walk to the doors and there were two cute ladies greeting people. They tell us that they thought we were there friends and the guy who they thought S was had just had surgery so they were really surprised to see us and then realized it wasn't who they thought, which was cute and made for an easy entry into the church. There is always coffee available and I ask S if he would like any and his response was no it would keep him awake.
We make our way down to sit on the row where I knew he would have the most leg room. We get settled and the music begins. I have to say I really do miss the worship from my church whenever I'm at Forest Hill but since S is so uncomfortable with anything church I figured Forest Hill is the perfect place for him. John Kasay is who gave the message this past weekend. He is a Carolina Panthers player and I've heard him speak before but Saturday's message was so perfect and so completely made sense. I had prayed about the message that we would hear and I was nervous but the message was about God's desire to know us and to be our Father. Kasay talked about how God had a plan and how Adam and Eve messed up that plan when they ate the fruit and then how God had to fix what had been messed up and then the big idea that God desires to be our father. It was just an incredible, incredible message. I know that S was listening to it and I hope that his ears were open!
Then the last song played and we all get up. All I asked S was if it was as bad as all the others and he said no and then I said where do you want to go to dinner. He said it was up to me and I pointed out that since he was the one who ran the 1/2 then he is the one who picks out the place. So we went to Big Daddy's which is a burger joint and he got a huge bacon burger that looked incredible! We had the fried pickles for our appetizer, YUM!! It was a perfect post race dinner!!
Yesterday the day was so perfect we went up to Lake Norman state park with Jack and Sophie (poodle puppy) and did the trail around the lake. It was fantastic!! Today Jack was so tired that I took him out and he came back in and crawled back into his crate, he'll sleep all day long today!

Vent

Dear FRB,
This situation is ridiculous. I refuse to continue to apologize or act remorseful for something that I never did and for the imagined wrong of replacing you with my boyfriend.
I understand that you had a lot going on at the time that you felt replaced. I heard you as you explained all this to me and I that night in December and I apologized and asked what I could do to fix it. You could not give me an answer. I asked if you wanted me to continue to ask you to run and you said whatever. So I gave you space which turned into a chasm but there is nothing I could have done that would have made things better.
At the point when you finally had the conversation with me you were so far gone in your anger towards me that there is nothing I could have said or done that would have made the situation any better. Unfortunately for you I work with you. That means that you continue to have to see me, much to your dismay.
I will not apologize for meeting my amazing boyfriend. I will not apologize for wanting to spend time with him. I did my best to continue to include you in my weekly running schedule despite the fact that I much prefer running on my own. I no longer even run with the one that you feel has replaced you.
You have created a situation that is uncomfortable and noticeable and completely unnecessary. My closest friends I can go for weeks not seeing and in some cases not even talking to them and that does not make them less close to me or less of my friend. I understand that life is busy and they are as busy if not busier than I am. They also know that if they need me all they have to do is call, text or email me and I'm there as soon as possible.
I have to deal with your attitude towards me and I do my best not to let it get to me. I do my best to remain as neutral as possible in the work environment and this is just not easy. I have no idea how you explain this situation to coworkers or if you do. I have no idea how you have spun this to make me the evil one but I'm pretty sure you have. I haven't done anything evil I just started dating an amazing guy. If you had to work a few nights a week, make sure to spend time with your dog and not just leave him home and ignore him, make time for your family and also find time for your boyfriend along with your other friends perhaps you would be a little more realistic in your assessment of the situation.
I refuse to continue to let you get to me. I have erased the prior knowledge of our friendship and now you are just a coworkers who dislikes me and I have no idea why.

Signed,
Your FRB

Chapter 7

September 2008 I broke up with KS and decide to try the EHarmony thing again. Within a few hours I had a request for communication from Joseph. He was younger than I (27 to my 29), very involved in church and a ministry program.

He and I had our first date at Festival in the Park. Which was fun we walked around and talked. Then we ended up at Salsarita's because I was hungry but he wasn't and right as they were finishing up my order and ringing it up he had to run to the restroom. I was kind of insulted as this was a first date and usually the guy should pay and we were at a Salsarita's for goodness sakes. I paid and went outside to sit. He came out and we had an interesting discussion.

I went from one extreme with KS to another with Joseph. He was what I now refer to as a holy roller. He's the type I have 0 respect for. He was super immature and this could have had something to do with it. About 2 weeks into seeing each other we agree to take a 2 week break to "pray" about things and see if we're meant to continue seeing each other. OK I'm all about trusting in the Lord's will for you life and seeking Him in all things but when it comes to dating, just use common sense and don't make it spiritual because really unless you have an ultimate knowledge and regularly know that you know that you know that you're hearing from the spirit this type of thing is not bad, I mean I did spend quite a bit more time in my devotional but realistically if you're having to take a time out to pray about it perhaps you don't need to be seeing each other, end of story.

I like to go out, I like to have fun and he wasn't that type. I did see him after the 2 weeks was up. I went with him to his Grandmother's 90th birthday celebration (yes another one I always seem to do well with families). Joseph was an oldest child of 2 parents who were free spirits. His Dad has always done odd jobs and is a self employed contractor. A few years ago Joseph's mom was tired of always wondering where the next check was going to come from and she cheated on his Dad with a wealthy older man. She left his Dad and married this old guy.

Her decision devastated Joseph, his brother and his Dad. This happened right before Christmas 2006ish and they hadn't decorated for Christmas since it all happened. Joseph and I decorated the house and his Dad was so appreciative. He was involved in a ministry and the married leader of the ministry had an indiscretion and had to take a step back in order to salvage the damage. He had to step up as temporary leader. He had so much going on in his life and then right before Christmas he told me that he felt like God was telling him he needed to be single, which I was fine with. I realized that I was kind of tired of the continual spiritual theatrics and I just wasn't really the right person for this guy anyways.

I had already given him his Christmas gifts and he called me to tell me that one of the shirts was too big. I told him he could do whatever he liked with it including pass it on to his Dad. He sent me an email a month later telling me that God had big plans for me and I just deleted it. I just didn't have any need to keep that one around in my life. It was after him that I decided I needed a break from dating. I mean is it any wonder, after all the drama of the previous years that I would decide to take a step back and evaluate things…

I would still randomly receive messages from DB. I received one New Years Eve and after he asked when he could see me I told him I want to kill you after 5 minutes in your presence and we have nothing in common. I have to also mention that I was short on funds and there was an upcoming concert I was SO WANTING to go to. The following is a condensed version of my text conversation the night of SuperBowl Sunday 2009.
BG: "Did you see me during the half time show?" (He is a huge Springsteen fan and goes to a ton of his concerts)
Me: "No I was driving home but I figured you might be there."

BG: "I still want to see you"
Me: "No you don't."

BG: "Yes I do why won't you give me a chance to show you how much I will spoil you, etc etc etc... all stuff that has been said before"
Me: "no it never works, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result."

BG: "I'm not saying date each other I'm saying be friends with benefits, that's different."
Me: "No"

BG: "You know I never give up"
Me: "You know I never give in. Watch the game have fun"

BG: "why won't you give me a chance it will be different"
Me: "no watch the game have fun"

BG: "ok well if you change your mind let me know"

So I'm thinking about how much I want to go to the Billy Joel/Elton John concert that's here in March. I'm thinking that I'll give him the chance to prove to me that he's not a complete and total tool or as a friend of mine would say, douche. So I send a text message. "If you get tix to the Billy Joel/Elton John Concert I will hang out with you. No benefits involved but I will buy your dinner"

Response: "I can get tix no problem (and he can I know this) but there would have to be benefits involved." which just proved yet again why he's an a$%. He seriously doesn't get the fact that he has no concept of right and wrong b/c if you really wanted to hang out with me as much as he says he does he would get those tickets and go and not expect anything afterwards.

My answer to him was never mind then. He responded that the tix would probably be front row and back stage (and he's not bluffing they would be) but to me there is just something fundamentally wrong with expecting benefits (ie:sex) for tickets. Seriously I'm not "that" kind of girl and but since I brought up the whole conversation while I can believe him to be an a@# I also have to remember I put the topic out there.

The next day I was taking a facebook break at work. I'm nosy like that. BG is on fb and I happen to click on one of his friends and it was quite interesting what I found. I thought he was dating someone that summer and it turns out he was. He was he took her to Maui, she had pics of the trip. Add to that she's listed in a relationship, and there are pics of game night, at BG's house that were just posted 2/1/08. I'm seriously curious why he's contacting me when he's with this chick. She graduated from App in 93 and lists Huntersville as here home but I think she mostly stays at BG's big house.

This is from my post last year (2/5/09) after finding this information on FB
Right now I'm just blown away at what a low life he is. Obviously I didn't like him before but NOW NOW I THINK HE'S a a*(&)*)*()& and when he contacts me again, b/c you know he will I'm going to ask how (insert her name here) is doing.

OMG I'm just so freaking pi(*&&* off I can't stand him anyways and right now I just want to send a nasty hate email but if I do that then he'll think it means that I'm jealous and I'm not I just think he's an *&^%$# my blood pressure shot up so fast I now have a headache. I CAN'T STAND HIM why did I ever have to meet him. AND WHY THE H$%# DID SHE GET TO GO ON THE TRIPS AND ALL I EVER HAD GOT WAS A BUNCH OF B*&$#@@@T. Reality b/c I would have killed him and I can't stand him and I know I couldn't spend more than an hour with him without wanting to shoot him.

The producer I work with told me I should email him and say you know I was really thinking about the concert but don't you think your girlfriend might be upset. I mean she has herself listed in a relationship and has pics of them in a bunch of her albums.

I can't stand him, I've never been able to stand him and I need to stop thinking about it. Thank goodness I'm focusing on being single b/c right now I am so tired of having to deal with the b.s. of which this is a prime example.

Yes I was a little angry/upset/ready to go after him. He just made me angry because I didn't like him and then I find this and it didn't go over well with me at that time. I sent one more email to him, this time personal email to personal email. In the subject I stated "you do not have to respond to this" in the message I stated that "you have managed to surprise me for once and not in a good way. You messaged me new years eve and Sunday and you have a girlfriend and she is obviously there with you right now. I never pegged you for a jerk. Lose my number, Lose my email do not contact me again. I've lost all respect for you today"

A few weeks later I was at work at the restaurant and I look out and see this guy and a car and I thought that looks like DB. Sure enough it was. His company was having a dinner at my restaurant. So I managed to stay out of his line of vision til it was time for me to leave. I took evil delight in the fact that I knew I looked fantastic and he was just a great big loser!

At the end of February I decided the break had been long enough and since my brother had recently had wonderful luck on Match.com I decided to give it another go. It had now been 3 years since I had been on and I figured that there would be new people to meet and hoped my experience would be better. Jason didn't even send the usual wink or email instead he im'd me, a new thing that match introduced. I didn't really like it because I didn't talk to anyone til I read what they had to say about themselves and I figured out how to deactivate this feature but lucky for Jason I liked what he had to say and we started talking.

I had a date with him the next day for lunch. We sat and talked for hours. He grew up in NJ and had moved down to Charlotte to be closer to his nieces and his parents had followed him down. When he moved here he was engaged but the engagement had ended the year before. There was definitely a connection with. He came over to the next night and we watched movies.

Jason was something of a player. I never could figure him out. He worked 2 jobs like I did so we were both busy. Then he had a friend come to town from NJ who stayed for a couple weeks so that meant that I only saw him sporadically. We saw each other from the end of February through March but I just never could trust that he wasn't going to hurt me. I realized the need to proceed with caution because he and I had a lot of chemistry but I knew that he wasn't someone I could ever really trust.

April 2009 I had a guy from high school friend request me on FB. I had never really been friends with this guy but I had always thought he was so good looking. He was 2 years ahead of me in high school. He had been a wild child party boy since graduation but there had been a change in him the previous August after his relationship with his fiancé ended. His best friend was a Christian guy and he had been witnessing to Mike3 and and one August night on a porch he gave his heart to the Lord.

Mike3 and I started talking on FB and I told Jason that we needed to be just friends thus clearing the way for me to go on a date with Mike3. Yes I dated another Mike, despite my first 2 horrible experiences. It was a BAD idea and I should have never given him the time of day but I thought he was genuine and he was really good looking and I just wanted to believe the best.

A week after our first date he gave me an ipod. The Monday after our first date he brought me flowers. He would blow up my phone with text messages to the point where my cell phone bill was outrageous! We started going to a Sunday night program at my church and I really appreciated the fact that he went to church with me.

I would sometimes take dinner on Friday nights because he had class and he would have worked all day. I tried to do nice things since I knew how hard he worked. There was a 5K race that he had agreed to participate in with me and the Friday night before he was going to stay over at my parents house. I tried to make plans to have food for him but he didn't know what he wanted and he wasn't giving me enough information to plan to be there for him at break time to have dinner. I tried to explain to him that it's not just a spur of the moment thing to take him dinner and I have to plan it out. He got so irritated with me he told me he was just going home.

I felt for sure he wouldn't show up at the race the next day since he didn't stay at my parents but he actually did. We ran the race and afterwards had the day to hang out. Then that night we had a concert to go to that I had tickets for with a bunch of my coworkers. We actually had a really good time at the concert but that would be the last fun thing we did.

We had a get together down at the lake house with my parents friends for my Dad's birthday. M3 spent the whole time on the phone texting and was so rude to my parents friends, who are all really nice! They were not impressed and thought he was horribly rude. It was like a flip had switched. He got really stressed out and I have no idea what happened but he just changed. He quit talking to me. Quit sending me text messages. Quit communicating with me and I tried to understand but when the guy isn't telling you what's going on then it's hard to be understanding.

I suggested that he wanted to break up with me and he didn't argue and he changed his FB status so I took that to mean we were done. Most of these conversations were being done over text message which is a bad idea and since then I refuse to use texts for anything other than general comments. This was on a Tuesday and that Thursday he called and wanted to talk about it because he wasn't sure what had happened.

We made plans to watch a movie that Saturday night. Saturday night rolls around and I had to work at the restaurant til volume. I get out of work around 9 and I go home to let Jack out then I tell him I'm on my way. He texts back will I stop for a frosty and coke and I respond sure just tell me where the wendy's is that is close to your house. He texts back to just stop at the first one I see. Where he lived when I went at night I would go the highway because if I went through the city it required going through some not so great parts of town that I don't travel by myself at night.

I got a little irritated but thought ok no big deal there's probably one just up the road from his house. I got to the exit and start looking for wendy's and there's not one. I go to the Harris Teeter that's close by and pick up a 2 liter of coke and then text him asking where the wendy's is and explaining where I'm at. He says there's one off exit 16 which would have meant back tracking or one over near my parents which was not close to his house and both locations were in areas where I didn't need to be by myself at night. I was livid at this point. Here I was trying to do something nice and this inconsiderate Jacka#$ is trying to send me into these unsafe areas of town.

I arrive at his place and he and his parents (he lived with his parents because after he ended his engagement he had no place to live) were already watching a movie and 1/2 way through it. It's also already 10 and I have church the next morning. So I finish watching the action flick and then tell him I'm leaving. I tried to be nice to his mom and dad and not let on how angry/hurt/upset I was. The next day we had plans to hang out but he sent me a text telling me he had to work.

I was going to try and be nice and take over a frosty and try to explain to him why he had hurt my feelings but he ended up working til 11 that night and I was already in bed. I had written him a really nice letter detailing that he had hurt my feelings, why I thought he was such a good guy, and that I really wanted to work on this. So I decided to email it and I did and he just said got your email, are you coming to the class on Wednesday night. His friend was leading a Bible study and I had said I was interested.

He and I got into a text fight that Tuesday and he tells me that I'm trying to change him and I'm not spontaneous and all we ever do is what I want to do and I never do what he wants to do which was just untrue. I was so furious with him at this point. I had actually been very good about going to see him. We had hung out with his friends several times. I had gone over to his house to watch movies a few times including the previous Saturday.

He texted me when the class was about to start asking me where I was and I sent him a text telling him that apparently I couldn't be whatever it was that he was looking for. He texted me bye and that was that.

A week later I get a text asking I wanted to read his final paper. I had been editing his papers for class (he'd gone back to school to try and get his degree) and I said sure thinking he wanted me to edit it. I was already in bed so I asked if it could wait til the morning. He emailed it and a few minutes later I get a text asking what I thought, I responded I thought it could wait til tomorrow. But since it seemed like a big deal to him I got up and read it. He'd done a good job so I responded that he had done a great job and he had come a long ways as a writer and I was sure he would get an excellent grade. To which I never heard anything back.

I found out from a friend that he had called me clingy and some other unflattering things. I promptly went in and deleted him from facebook and myspace and deleted his email from my contacts. I was done. To call me clingy was ridiculous and the other stuff that he came up with just infuriated me. I had tried really hard but I was DONE with him.

At the end of June I was at a wedding helping set everything up and then we had the wedding and reception and as I was leaving the reception I had 3 text messages the first said hey how are you, the second said have you forgotten about me and was sent 10 minutes later, finally the third 10 minutes after that said I guess you don't want to talk to me anymore. So I responded that no I had been at a wedding all day and asked how he was. To which he asked who I was at the wedding with, I responded with my parents. And he called me CLINGY whatever he's the one who sent 3 text messages within 30 minutes.

He also re-requested me as a friend on facebook recently. Due to the fact that he did give me an ipod and did pay for my computer to be completely rebuilt to run better I did accept. I basically ignore him and if he's on I jump off immediately because he always wants to IM me. It's the only time he tries to contact me so it's easy to avoid him.

JB came back in the picture briefly but he was still so untrustworthy that I just finally quit letting him come around. And then July of 2009 I made the biggest mistake to date.