First Dates and Hiding Under my Woman Hat

In my last post I explored some of the joys of online dating, such as they are.  Well, tomorrow I am going on a first date.  Yep, that's right, I'm turning forty...... well, that's not important, and I am once again going on a first date.

As I contemplate this date I am forced to think back to when I started dating and I have to admit although I had a few boyfriends and even one ex-husband, I honestly don't remember many first dates.  I certainly don't remember any that happened with a man that I had only know online, never in person.  It's a whole new world and I am, well, a bit of an old fogey so this could be interesting.

After chatting online for 3 weeks + we have decided to meet for lunch.  Actually, we decided to meet about 2 weeks ago but schedules being what they are, this was the first weekend we could make connections.  As an added bonus to the level of stress we will both be feeling, my teenage daughter (who thinks it is so super cute that I have an online boyfriend) is joining us for this first date because he feels he needs to make a good impression on her so she will be ok with us dating.  Fun, times ten, I'm sure.

Add to all that, 3 weeks of chatting and what I think of as getting to know a person and here I sit, listing all the things I have no clue about when it comes to this guy.  Even something so small as I have no idea about the sound of his voice.  I mean, how basic is that, and I am without a clue?!  I see his picture every time we chat but I have almost created a voice to go with it and I'm sure it's not even close.  Does he have an accent, a lisp, a bass or a tenor?  I don't really care either way, it's just weird to think I have no idea what he sounds like. 

If you think about it, years ago when you were dating, you would meet a person, either through school or a club or activity, maybe through friends or whatever.  A few phone calls, sit together at lunch or what have you.  If you both think things are going well, then a date is asked for, received affirmatively, set and off you go, with this person you already know something about.  This is completely foreign to me.  Ok, not completely, I have been on 3 other first dates since this whole online dating thing started, but there was only a day or 2 of chatting and we decided to meet.  This time, 3 WEEKS!  Somehow that makes it more pressure.  After all, you don't invest hours of time chatting with someone because you aren't interested.  Now, face to face, who knows what might happen.  Seriously, I may need therapy!

Anyway, as many times as I have thought about calling it all off and joining a convent (although I'd have to make a serious religion switch and who knows what to do with the kid) I am going.  I need to do this for myself as much as anything, just to prove to myself that I have the guts to go through all this again. 

Someone get the tequila ready, I think I'm gonna need it.

Online Dating With My Woman Hat

If you read my first post then you may have noticed that while I wear many hats, "wife" is not among them.  I have been single for nearly 3 years now and it was getting just a little weird arguing with myself about what channel to watch on TV or who's turn it is to do the dishes. (Although honestly I usually tell the child to do them, no matter which of me I am at the time.)  In the past year or so I have started to realize I'm no longer enjoying these arguments (I cheat sometimes and bring up past issues I thought we were done with) so this past January I decided that I should give this online dating thing a try, afterall, look at all the happy couples in all those commercials!  I mean, if there were any people not happy, surely they would be making commercials too, right?  Right?

Naturally when I make a decision this big, I need help and the voices in my head could not agree so I went to my bestie, Missy.  She did what she does best, supported my decision and started doing some research.  She came up with 1 site and I made a profile.  To protect the innocent and, more importantly, the guilty, I will not the actual sites we decided I should use, but most of them want the same information.  Loading pictures?  Not a problem.  Choosing a handle?  Not too bad.  Talking about yourself, what you want, your perfect match and first date?  Murder!  Pure terror!  No fun!  I mean, really!  What if Mr. Perfect is reading my profile and slowing falling in love with me when suddenly...WHAM!...oh look, she likes to wear her slippers around the yard and she's a CAT PERSON!  Wow, I mean, I could kill the perfect relationship with just a few wrong words (to be honest, if they had a problem with me being a cat person, it wasn't going to work anyway).  Shortly after joining this site and a bit more research, we decided to increase my odds of finding Mr. Perfect by joining just 1 more.  Interesting side note, lots of the guys did the same thing, lol.  I saw many repeated profiles.

So, I screwed up my courage, had a shot (maybe 2 before I was done), filled out the profile, tried to be clever and honest (harder than it sounds by the way) and hit the "post" or "put me under a microscope and examine all my imperfections" button and waited...and waited...and waited.  Wow, after 20 minutes you'd think I'd've at least gotten a look, right?  I'm wasn't expecting Mr. Perfect that fast, I could be patient and wait 2 or 3 days but really, couldn't someone look at me right away?  Dang.  Self-esteem started taking a nose dive.  Like I need this kind of stress!

Ok, so enough dramatics.  After a few months on 2 different online dating sites I have come to realize that the men on these sites (and possibly the women too, I'm not sure) fall into 1 of 4 categories.
1.  Clueless
2.  Nookie Minders
3.  Money Honey
4.  Real

1.  The Clueless.  These are the men who post that they are slightly over weight, have pictures that show them balding, riding their four wheelers, holding up a huge dead fish, or deer, or other previously living creature and then set specific requests in their ideal mate.  Slim, attractive, stacked, has money, no kids, a 4X4.  You laugh but I have actually seen each and every one of these things posted.  Sad, it's just sad.  If it were possible for you to get the tall, hot model type who is willing to support your icky man habits, you wouldn't need a dating service!  Aiming high is one thing but let's stay in our own stratosphere, ok?!

2.  Nookie Minders.  These are the men who think they are being clever by making sure 69 is part of their handle.  The ones who contact you quickly and within the first or second message want to know what you're wearing, your favorite position and do to have a friend.  They are also usually still married but "it's just not working and we will be getting a divorce".  They aren't, they just think it would be fun to add a little kink to their lives.  Get your own kink on with your wife Nookie Minder.

3.  The Money Honeys are the ones I didn't expect.  There is a definite patter to these "boys".  Their profiles all talk about wanting a soul-mate, a real connection and other gooey crap.  They may talk about a dead or lost girlfriend/fiance/wife and they pain they went through but they think they just might be ready to move on and you, yes you, are the perfect miss to their mister.  After one 5 minute conversation they are in love, sending kisses, can't wait to get together although they live across the state or even the country and, interesting phenomenon here, they all seem to be temporarily working in West Africa.  Weird, huh?  I know, very bizarre.  I've had 3 contact me with the same basic story and they all work for firms in the states who sent them to West Africa.  I had no idea there was so much going on there.  Shortly after the pledge of undying love and commitment, there is a problem.  Their internet is about to get shut off seems to be the the most highly used excuse and if you could just help them out then you could continue your online love from afar, until they get home and then the heavens will open and angels will sing.  When you tell them you will not be paying for their internet connection or life saving surgery be prepared for the guilt, or just block them, it's the easiest way to get rid of the Money Honey's.  Don't bother trying to report them because they will already have erased their profile because "you are the one and i don't need to look anymore".  I'm sure the same pics of them they found somewhere through Google are already posted under a different name and sob story.

These 3 groups of online daters seems to make up about 98% of what is available to women my age in online dating.  That leaves about 2% for the last category.  The "Real"s.

4.  The Reals.  These are the guys who know who they are, want to meet a real person and see if they have any connection.  These are the ones we want.  Chat a few times, see if there are any sparks, set up a safe, in public that friends or family know about, meeting and get to know each other a bit better.  These men are few and far between although

I will admit I hold out hope still.  Not as much but enough to hang on to one site for just a bit longer anyway.  Afterall, if I'm still looking then maybe so are they.  And, it is kinda fun seeing which category each on fits into.  I should've kept a score board but it probably would just depress me and when I meet "that guy" it would probably send him running for the hills before I could explain.

So ladies, if you are going to join these sites I suggest an open mind, a good sense of humor and a score board.

Luck and love to us all!

Mom Hat

SOCCER!!!  Yes, I am a soccer mom.  This is my daughter's first year on varsity soccer and I go to as many games as I can.  I haven't taken my camera yet because the weather reports all make it sound like it's going to be the end of the world type weather and I refuse to take my camera out in that.  Of course, it's been nice each game.  Ok, the first game was really cold, but it was clear.  Naturally when I do take my caera it will storm as never before.

Anyway, the girls had a particularly hard game today and they lost.  Losing is not the issue for this game however, it was more about how our girls played the game versus how the other team played.  Our girls are rough and tumble.  They can take a hit and roll with the punches, get up and keep going, as any varsity team should.  They play by the rules, even if just barely, they respect and listen to their coach, who in turn teaches them to play the game clean and hard.  The other team, not so much.  It seemed their opponents were far more interested in taking out any of our girls that seemed like a threat, including 1 girl who never did come back in to play.  I have never heard so many whistle blows in a single game and one of the girls had a warning issued because she was arguing and back talking to the ref.  There were many gasps as girls collided, tripped, rolled, bounced and sometimes were carried off the field.  This is what we saw from the stands.  It got more interesting after the game when my daughter and some of her friends came over to the car. 

Apparently the other team spend a large amount of time trash talking the girls on the field.  My daughter was called a particularly nasty name more than once as were some of the other girls on our team.  We knew they were deliberately trying to hurt our girls but I guess a little psychological warfare was going on as well.  Also, their coach was harassing the time keeper too saying she was not doing her job properly so I have to assume he has taught his girls to act the same way, afterall, we teach more through our actions than through our words.  I am disappointed that this is the level of professionalism and sportsmanship some coaches are willing to teach their athletes all in the interest of winning a game.  it was a sad, sad thing to watch knowing that these girls are learning life lessons and in my opinion they are being abused by their coach.

I know I have ranted and the writing in this post has suffered for it.  I apologize for that and would like to end by saying just how very proud I am to be associated with our team.  Our girls fought hard, played clean and can be proud of themselves for the effort they made tonight.  I'm happier with a clean loss than a dirty win any day!  Congratulations girls, well done!

American Hat

As is expected on this day, I find time to reflect back 10 years.  I thought about avoiding the typical topic of 9/11 but then I thought, why?  It was a monumentally horrifying event that still effects many Americans' lives in big and little ways.  It shocks me sometimes when we discuss 9/11 in school and I look around to the faces of the kids and I realize, they don't remember it. 

They were 2 or 3 years old and for them, this is how life has always been.  There has never been a time when they didn't have people in their families or communities over seas in danger.  They have never gone though and airport without having to take off their shoes.  They have never seen the twin towers before they were destroyed.  They have never gone a week without seeing a flag at half mast for someone we have lost.  They have never known their nation to be at peace.

I spent some time on Friday talking to a couple of students who had to interview someone about 9/11 and what they remembered about that day.  I think many of us reflected on that horrible day and the shock, the utter disbelief, the complete numbness we felt as we watched the day spill horror after horror after horror.  News casters who couldn't speak, people in the streets running, to or from the towers, or just running, not knowing why or where.  For days afterward it was impossible to function without thinking about it and the all the consequences that came later.  The loss of lives both that day and during the rescue operations, the thousands of volunteers who gave their time, their money and sometimes their lives trying to bring some relief, some humanity back out of the wreckage.  Finding out more and more about the heroes from that day, like the people on Flight 93 who chose to take a stand and say, "NO MORE!".  From realizing that someone could hate us so much that they would plan out this kind of total devastation, and be proud of what they had done to people they didn't even know. 

I thought about how far we have some from that day, that horrible, horrible day.  And about how much we have changed as well.  We have grown closer as a nation.  We have become more humane to our neighbors here and across the country.  We have recognized that we all have faults but together we are stronger than when we are apart and tearing at each other.  The Pledge of Allegiance has taken on new meaning for us and we say it proudly.  It is not just a bunch of words, it has meaning and it has value.  We are a family, arguing with each other but strong in our loyalty to each other at the same time.

I have always been proud to be an American.  I know our nation has its problems but I will stand with my brethren and defend her with my dying breath if necessary.  For all the horror and inhumanity of 9/11, what these pathetic excuses for human beings really did to us was make us stronger, more resolved and more dedicated to upholding the principles that this nations was founded upon.  Congratulations terrorists, you managed to awaken the sleep dragon.  How do you like me now?

Lover of Mother Earth Hat

So, picture this. 

We deal with recyclable items in our day to day activities.  It becomes routine to rinse, de-label, sort and otherwise deal with all the waste we used to just toss in the garbage and for get about.  As a society we have become more educated and aware of our impact on our home and many of us have taken measures to try to reduce this where we can.  This is our responsibility and I too have made a change in how I think about waste and how I can be a better Earth Lover.

So, we gather our recycling items, washed, sorted, and everything, to the curb as we are getting ready to leave the house.  We haven't set them out in a few weeks as the bins were not really full until this week.  so, plastic, tin, glass, paper, cardboard all ready to be picked up and dealt with in a as they should be in the best interest of our home.  Then we check the garbage can and find it is not full so instead of paying full price to get rid of half a can of waste, we decided to save it til next week, and off we go to our daily grind.

A full day of work/school and back home we are bound.  Imagine my surprise as i pull into the driveway and find all the carefully sorted recyclables still in their bins waiting on the curb.  My daughter went out to gather them up and read the sticker that has been left to explain the problem that caused these fine gentlemen to pass us by.  It seems they will not take the do-not-need-to-pay-to-get-rid-of recyclables unless you also have paid-for-the-ticket-to-be-rid-of garbage.  So, to get rid of my recyclables you must also have garbage.

Check me on this, if i have more waste to recycle, isn't it natural that I should have less trash?  So should I create more waste so my recyclables can be accepted as well?  How exactly does that help anything?  I mean really?

OK, so that's my rant for the day.  Thank you for listening.

Recycle, Reduce, Reuse...and save it all til you have a full can of trash as well.

Mother, Daughter, Aunt, Niece, Sister Hats

So, Friday we all showed up at the old homestead to celebrate Labor Day and a few birthdays as well.  As far flung and busy as we all are it is pretty difficult, nay, impossible to all get together for each birthday so we kinda clump them and have at.  Friday we celebrated my mom's, my uncle's and 1 of the niece's birthdays.  The niece turned 13, yep, another teenager in the family.  The other ages are not important enough and possibly a bit dangerous for me to post. 

How do we celebrate you ask?  Like any good red blooded American family...we eat, and eat, and eat.  Fresh fruit, cheese, meat and crackers and deviled eggs were the munchies while we all gather.  This was also a time to teach one fo the kids how to makes a few dishes.  She did very well with macaroni salad (which is pretty important to get right in our family) and the deviled eggs (I told her to look at the spices and used what sounded good.  Her best choice, bacon bits!!)  Then the main course, all that (except the deviled eggs, they went pretty fast)  Grilled chicken breast, corn on the cob, macaroni salad (are you drooling yet?), tomato mozzarella salad, tomato cucumber salad and fresh fruit.  Ate till we couldn't anymore, pretty typical, then opened presents.  This is a standard set up for a birthday day at my folks place.  I know I need to get better at adding pictures, you know, like any at all would be an improvement.  I will get there, I promise.

As posts go, this one is pretty boring.  I'll do better next time.  I hope.

BWLH

Happy Friday!!!

I would like to introduce everyone to a round-about that some very good friends taught me.  They do this with their kids at dinner every night (all except the H, that is just once a week) and I thought it was great so I wanted to give it a shot here. 

So, BWLH stands for Best, Worst, Learned and helped.  here's how it goes. 
1.  What was the best thing that happened too you this week?
           Mine would be that I realized I can control my reaction to my temper if I really try.

2.  What was the worst thing that happened to you this week?  (it's ok to not have a "worst" but it's the only one you're allowed to skip)
           Mine would have to be the chaos of yesterday.  See the earlier post.

3.  What did you learn this week?
          I learned a few new tools to use in the classroom.

4.  How did you help someone not in your immediate family this week?
          I set up the Class of 2017 for myself, the history teacher and the math teacher today on one of my    
          favorite teaching websites, www.thatquiz.org.

So, now you know mine, let's hear yours!!

Putting on my Mom Hat

So, yesterday was a red banner day and although I may be waving it hard, I am not waving it happy.

I had meeting after meeting after meeting today..oh, and another meeting getting ready for all the kiddos to come back to school, doncha know.  Finally made it back to my room, wolfed down some lunch and started the reams of paperwork I needed to get done today when I got a text from a very good friend asking if my daughter was planning on coming to work today.  I checked the clock and was surprised as she should have been working for almost an hour already.  Called my mom, where the child was as I had work and she did not have school, and found out she was having an interesting day as well.

My daughter has had all electronic privileges (except her radio in her room) removed because of an incident in July.  No need to go into details, she is 14...nuff said.  Unfortunately taking these privileges away does not seem to effected her much as she has been sneaking onto the internet to interface with people on her "my yearbook" account a couple of times.  I knew about 1 or 2 early this month but today she was taking pics of herself on her Nana's camera and uploading them to this account.  Got caught, got booted, did it again!  I got her on the phone, demanded her password, got attitude (I expected that to be completely honest, it seems to be her favorite form of communication, at least with me that is) and told her she needed to call her place of employment and apologize for being too darn lazy to bother going in to work today (I was a bit anrgy, can you tell?)

Now at this point I still needed to help finish the math books, see all my team teachers to get paperwork signed, print out handouts on a computer that is NOT hooked up to a printer still and recheck all my students' schedules to be sure everything is in place for Tuesday.  But instead I was logging on to her yearbook page to see what has been going on.  Could I get more frustrated, why yes!  Yes I could.  It seems she not only managed to get online today, but also at least 3 posts last night while she was in our house supposedly with no access to the internet.  Foolish mommy, did you forget to check where your mother's IPad was that you are working on to try to get ready for the race on the 17th?  Yes, yes I did forget about it.  She is resourceful no doubt about it.  Have I mentioned she's 14?!?!  Ok, I know some of this is normal for 14 but really, all of it?!  In one day?!  A day that was already pretty high on the old suck-o-meter?!  Really?!

Call back, much more attitude and she suggests I just shut it down.  Now I have already taken this and that and this and the other away but I am starting to wonder just why I am in the position of being her conscience instead of her making the decision to NOT do something she should avoid.  I realize I should guide her in these decisions and expect there to be some defiance but I also start to wonder if taking things away made it easier for her rather than harder.  Afterall, if I eliminate her facebook, yearbook, internet and TV privileges, then she doesn't have to decide nearly as often whether of not to be a bonehead online!

So, I vent a little, get some paperwork done (by highjacking the math teacher's computer) realize there is another problem (and it turns into a HUGE headache but that is the teacher hat so I won't go into it now) fix it and manage to cool down at least a little before I have to pick her up from soccer practice.  I tried to talk to her on the way home and I am being snarky, afterall, I have that privilege right now, and ask her why, why why and then the all famous, "If you were the mom, what would you do now?"  Of course, there was more attitude (seeing a pattern yet?)

And that was my day.  Can I have some Captain please?