Friday, May 20, 2016

1 Year

It was exactly a year ago when I started the slow unravel of my life that I just wasn't happy with.  This was the day that I realized that for a very long time I was faking happiness in photos, blog posts and life in general.  The life I was living was suffocating me.  I couldn't be myself.  I was depressed.  I needed out.

In all reality I could have stayed.  I could have blocked out the judgmental comments, the constant need to control my ever move, the insults, the controlling behaviors....even the single marriage therapy session I went to, I could have participated more but once the talks started I shut down.  Why?  Why am I hear listening to lies?

But what example would that be for the girls?  Do I want them to grow up thinking it's okay for a man to do the things that were going on in our home?  Do I want them to see me stressed and upset all the time?  The fights?

For me it wasn't going to get better.  There were always theses phases of time where things seemed a little better but then they'd get bad.

I wasn't perfect either but after so long I just gave up, shut down, over it.

One year ago I was miserable and when I look at my life today I cannot believe the change.

Nice Guy and I are still dating, last night we went to his son's baseball game..  It was fun!  The girls (Annika, Annabel and his daughter) played the entire time.  I caught them a few times walking around holding hands together.  His son told him he was glad we came and watched him play (it's going to take a while to win over his son, he's 10 and very protective of his dad).

Last weekend Nice Guy and I went to a theme park just the two of us and had an amazing weekend together.  He's a total gentlemen, quiet, calm, fun to be with...

The girls are happier too.  They've both told me they like having two homes...I was so worried that this whole thing would mess them up, while things could still happen right now they are so happy.

You only have one life so you just have to do what you need to in order to make it a happy one and in one year I have fully accomplished that.  I cannot wait to see what's to come.

Thursday, May 12, 2016

Dreading Father's Day Early

We just had Mother's Day and mine was wonderful.  It's usually a tough day because I don't have a mom and this year my mom's birthday fell on the same day.  I made it through it though.

Father's Day is going to be rough.  I'm actually trying to figure out who I know doesn't have a father so I can make plans with them!  How sad is that?

The girls will be with their dad that day.  Nice Guy and his kids will probably do something with his dad (I don't want to be in the way of that day for them).

All I can think is that I'll be all alone that day and it feels weird.  What do I do with myself?

I'm hoping I can come with something to keep me busy...

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

My Girl

My Annika, she's so much different than her sister.

She's sensitive but tough.

She claims to be shy but there's not a single person she won't talk to.

She refuses to watch anyone get bullied at school, she calls out bullies right to their face!

She knows what she likes and doesn't like and isn't afraid to tell anyone.

Sometimes she can be a bit of a brat, like today at school when it was Muffins for Mom's day and she wouldn't sit next to me to have a muffin!

I know when she's tired in the afternoons after school because she'll be mean to me and Annabel and 2 seconds later she's slouched over in her car seat asleep.

She can run!  She runs like a pro and FAST!

She's completely fearless and people can tell right away (like Nice Guy who can't believe the crazy stuff she does but likes that I let her do her own thing).

I've tried to make her into my little ballerina or tap dancing star but I've failed.  She's much too tough so this year we're looking into gymnastics!

She looks just like her daddy, enough that even he gets freaked out about her facial expressions.

She loves music class and wants to sing on a big stage!

Us together at the Mother's Day Tea at school


Making my cake for Mother's Day


Her boyfriend at school gave her a rose so now they're married!


Muffins for Mom's this morning in our forced picture because she was dying to go play on the playground!


Love her.

Sunday, May 8, 2016

The Good Mom

It's different now this year that I'm considered a single mom.  Even though I rarely got a Mother's Day gift from the girls' dad he would at least acknowledge that I was a good mom, but after a while his words lost meaning to me.

Today my neighbors who see me daily stopped over to give me a Mother's Day gift.  These are people that we say a quick "good morning" to and sometimes a "good afternoon".  We see them down in our laundry facility or at our mailbox.  The girls have gone over to their apartment to pet their dogs a few times with me.  They brought me a card, some little molds for making chocolate and a balloon and they thanked me for being a good mother to the girls.  It's amazing when people with very little interaction with you can tell things like that.

Nice Guy noticed it too and told me he really likes dating someone who is such a wonderful mother.  That means the world to me now.  I'm trying to maintain some balance in the girls' lives as we've gone through this divorce together.  I always tell my friends my main goal in life is to "not fuck up the girls".

Even the ex's girlfriend has told me what a great job I'm doing with the girls.

I'm trying.  If you follow me on Facebook you'll see that we've been very into doing lots of "fun" experiences this year.  We're limiting money we spend on "stuff" in order to have experiences together.  We're all loving this new life we've started this year.

So when someone calls me a Good Mom I feel really good about all the decisions I've made.  I love these girls more than anything.



Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Hot Dogs

I got a phone call from Annabel's preschool today in the middle of the day.  The first thing I thought was that she had gotten sick or something happened and that I'd have to pick her up.

The director of the school asked me "is it okay if Annabel has a hot dog for lunch with the rest of the kids?" Haha.  Annabel's school provides lunch each day but it's usually a sandwich (she doesn't like bread) and a canned vegetable (I don't like that).  Today they had hot dogs and Annabel has a strange obsession with wanting to eat hot dogs all the time!  Annika and I don't like them so I don't usually buy them since they go bad before Annabel finishes the whole package.

I told the director that she could have a hot dog.  She thought that we were vegetarians since Annabel doesn't bring anything with meat in her lunches.  We aren't, but I used to be and Annika and I eat very little meat, really only chicken.  Annabel would eat an entire cow or pig if we let her!

Annabel was so happy when I picked her up today.  She told me she got to eat 2 hot dogs (no bun, she told them "I no like bread").  She said she cried and was mad when they wouldn't give her a hot dog so she told them to call me and ask!

I told the director that anytime she wants to eat what the other kids eat that it's fine.  I don't want her to feel left out but I know the majority of the things they eat she just won't touch.

Silly girl!

Monday, May 2, 2016

Tattoos!!

Saturday I had a "best friend weekend" with my best friend in Orlando!  We've now been friends for 17 years.  We met back when I was 16 and dating her brother.  We dated for 6 years so I was pretty much part of the family and we've stayed friends this whole time.

We have a mutual love of Harry Potter.  I love it while she is a bit obsessed!  We used to go to Walmart at midnight the day the books went on sale and would buy them and go home and read the entire book in a day together!

We've also been discussing for about 10 years about getting a "best friend" tattoo.  We didn't want a dumb symbol or anything like that so we decided that for the weekend we would finally settle on a design and make an appointment.


And here they are!!  We've both been wanting a tattoo on our wrists and we decided to go with a Harry Potter theme.  The quote comes from here:

http://everythingharrypotter.tumblr.com/post/202807904/youll-stay-with-me-until-the-very-end-said

But let me tell you, the wrist is PAINFUL!  I have 2 dragonflies on my shoulder blade that I really didn't think hurt at all but this was bad!  It only lasted 2 minutes but I have a really thick tendon in the middle of my wrist were the "he" from the and the "v" from very are right on.  I wanted to scream!

We both couldn't stop looking at the tattoos all weekend because we're both so pleased with them!

Next tattoo for me will probably be one to honor either my mom or dad.  I have an idea for each of them but I just need to save up the money and get it done!

Sunday, May 1, 2016

Nice Guy

I'm finally getting a chance to sit down at my computer this weekend!  I keep having issues connecting my laptop to my new iPhone but now I think I've got it figured out.

So, I'm still dating Nice Guy and he's the only person I'm dating.  We've actually already had the "exclusive" conversation and both agreed that dating new strangers sucks and we like each other and want to see where it can go.

Three weeks ago we went on an amazing date.  It started off with him bringing me flowers.  I have never had a guy give me flowers before or after a date.  Then we went to a really nice restaurant out on the beach.  After that we were going to try to watch the sunset but it was cloudy so we decided to go back to his place to watch a movie.

The really nice thing about Nice Guy is that we never seem to run out of things to talk about.  We have a lot of similarities, we both have kids (he has a son and daughter), we both like Harry Potter and action movies and we both like to go out and do fun stuff but also like to just sit at home and play board games and relax.

After watching the movie we had a talk about how neither one of us wanted to have sex yet.  He started the conversation and I immediately felt 100% more relaxed because I was planning on saying the same thing!  We want to get to know each other first, because it really is weird meeting someone on a dating website, we're strangers!

He asked me to stay the night but I felt weird because I had no pajamas or toothbrush and I desperately wanted to wash the makeup off my face!  We drove back over to my place (he actually lives directly across the street from my neighborhood so it's a 2 minute drive!) and he stayed the night.  We slept horribly!  Neither one of us have slept in the same bed as anyone besides our kids in a long time.  Luckily we both laughed about it.

Since that date he has met the girls and I've met his kids.  We explained to the kids that we're just friends, of course, we're interested in more than that but it was important to both of us that the kids like each other and us.  We don't want to confuse the kids right now (both our ex-spouses are in relationships that are children are confused by) but we really enjoy having fun together.  So far we've all been to the beach to see the sunset, to a little festival on a small local farm and we took the girls to their first movie, The Jungle Book on Friday!  His kids have been to the movies a lot but Annika and Annabel have never been and they LOVED it.  I can see us going a lot now.


This coming weekend for Mother's Day he asked me what our plans were.  I told him Mother's Day is not at all a good day for me.  I had planned on taking the girls out to the beach for the day and that's it.  He asked if he could come with us (his kids will be with their mom) and afterwards he wants to take us to lunch because I'm a great mother and I deserve to have someone take me out.  I wanted to cry!  I haven't been out for Mother's Day since my very first one, which was the last one my mom was alive for.

So far this guy is perfect.  No red flags, no issues.  Can't wait to see were it goes :)