Internet Dating: It's Not Just for Creepers Anymore

About 10 or 15 years ago, there used to be this huge stigma surrounding Internet dating/meeting people on the Internet.  I have an aunt and uncle who used to meet "friends" via the Internet back in the day and everyone else in the family gossiped about it like it was some huge scandal and how creepy it was that they were meeting people online.  It was even more creepy when they went out and met said Internet creepers in person. 
Fortunately, we've come a long way, and Internet dating doesn't have that same "Oh no you don't unless you're creepy" feel to it at all.  I have several friends, colleagues and family members that have met their current husband/wife/girlfriend/boyfriend/significant other online.  There are various sites that you can use, the most well-known probably being match.com and eharmony.com.  I think that several years ago people thought that meeting people on the Internet meant that you were planning on doing something indecent, like swinging or cheating.  Now, meeting people on the Internet is a great alternative to picking up someone in a bar (which I think is ultimately way more creepy than meeting someone online).  It is really easy to set up a profile on one of these online dating sites and for me, it was actually a lot of fun to see e-mails from my potential suitors coming in. 
I'll backtrack a bit here so you know where I'm coming from.  Flashback to spring 2007 (day before Easter) and the conversation between my first husband and I about how we had tried to make things work, our relationship had its run, now it was done, blah blah blah.  I was a bit (OK, a LOT) bitter that the entire time, he had his Cupcake on the side.  I was 29 years old, newly separated, and I wanted to jump right back into the dating game.  However, as I had long since outgrown the bar scene (was never into it at all, really) I knew that was not an option for me.  I went online and checked out match.com and signed up for a 3 month trial.  It was a lot of fun setting up my profile, answering the questions they asked and then having my sister take a profile picture of me with her dog (I then had a disclaimer that I did have a dog, but the dog in the picture was NOT my dog-sorry Schpeen).  There were all types of questions, ranging from the basic eye and hair color, to the truly superficial:  "How much money should your potential date/mate earn?"  There were also some off-the-wall questions such as, "Do you like or hate thunderstorms?" 
The only thing more fun than creating a profile was seeing the responses to my profile.  I originally communicated with 3 men, all around my age (late 20s/early 30s) and went out on a date with one of the three.  Of the other two, one was only interested in hearing about how good of a kisser I was and the other one got shipped off to Dubai to work on a container/cargo ship.  I did end up going out on two dates with the third one, but that would deserve a whole blog to itself (carpet cleaner/Neanderthal man). 
Finally near the end of May, I met Justin, who was to become my husband in about a year.  We communicated via e-mails on match at first, then by phone, then on dates.  We moved in together in February 2008 and got married in 2009.  If I am being 100% honest, I was a bit embarrassed at first to admit that we met each other on match.com when people asked.  Now I tell people with pride that I met my husband online.  I must have had some bad family vibes hanging around me at first when people asked me how we met. :)
So, for any of you singletons out there, women or men, who are still looking for Mr. or Mrs. Right, or maybe if you're newly separated or divorced and want to get back on the dating horse, try one of the online dating sites.  Maybe you will meet your special someone and maybe you won't, but I guarantee you'll have fun with the online dating process.  You may even end up with some very special dating stories to tell like yours truly.  Try it-you may or may not be disappointed.  Shrug off the stigma about online dating that you may have or that others may have and take a chance.  It worked out in my favor and also for several other people that I know. 
Good luck!
Until next time, I remain,
Jenuinely Yours

"Treeson" (Yes, it's supposed to be a play on words)

Last summer Justin and I decided that we wanted to get a couple of trees cut down in our back yard.  Both trees are maples, quite large, and growing way too close to our storage shed (not to mention that the one tree has limbs and branches hanging over about 3 of our neighbors' yards, but I digress).  Last summer we did not have the funds to pay for this particular bit of work to be done, so we decided that when we got our income tax money back the next spring, we would take care of the renegade trees.  The tax return should (hopefully) be deposited in my ever-dwindling checking account very soon, so I decided to get on the schtick and start looking into getting rid of the trees. This past weekend I started looking up some tree removal companies so that I could call them and get some estimates for getting those trees taken down.  I placed an online request for an estimate with a well-known tree removal/landscape/etc. business in the Northeast Ohio area where we live.  The online request sheet claimed that they would contact us soon so that we could get said estimate into our hot little hands. 
My husband stayed home from work this past Wednesday because our babysitter had a dentist appointment (along with her three kids) and they had to leave their house by 3:15 P.M.  There is no way that is physically possible that either he or I could have McKenna picked up by that time, so he took the day off.  At some point during the day he noticed a car parked in our driveway.  Turns out that it was an employee of the aforementioned Cadillac of tree removal/landscaping/etc. company and that he was there checking out the trees that we would like to have removed.  Umm, what happened to contacting us first?  Interesting that the company just sends someone out to your house to make an estimate.
To wrap this tale up, the employee quoted a price of $3200 to remove both trees.  Screw that.  For that price, those damn trees can stay up.  Back to the drawing board of calling some other local, smaller, personally run tree removal companies that will take the trees down for a much lower rate (hopefully). 

Pressuring Myself

I know that I am a person who often puts way too much pressure on herself.  Of course lately a lot of the self-inflicted pressure that I have been feeling has been relating to motherhood and taking care of our child. 
One of the main self-inflicted pressure items that I have been having issues with lately is the fact that I am an "old" mother.  I know in the technical sense of the word that I am not an "old" mother, and I am especially not an "old" mother in today's society.  Many women wait until they are in their 30s and 40s to have their first child nowadays.  You have to understand where I am coming from here, though...my Mom had me at 18 and had my sister at 25 and was done having kids.  My sister had her first child at 16 (she is currently 25) and her second at 24, and is now contemplating having a third.  All of this, along with comments from certain people, have compiled to make me feel like an "old" Mom for having my firstborn at 33.  And yes, we are planning on having at least one more, and yes, I have for some reason set a deadline of no more kids after 38 on myself to make matters worse.  I don't want to be having kids at 40.  No particular reason why, I just don't want to.
Another thing that I've been beating myself up about...this weekend we had to start introducing McKenna to formula.  I have been back at work for 4 weeks now, and of course now that I'm not able to nurse her most of the time, my supply has dropped off considerably.  Also, some of it is my fault, as I have been lazy and instead of nursing her in the evenings Justin and I have just been giving her expressed milk in a bottle.  She was taking 3 oz bottles at every feeding and just in the past week or so she has bumped up to 4 or 5 oz bottles at a feeding.  4 and 5 oz bottles with decreased milk production does not equal a successful way to feed our child.  We started giving her bottles with a 3:1 ratio of expressed milk to formula, or if she's been particularly hungry, a 3:2 ratio.  She has only been on the formula mixed with expressed milk for two days now, and seems to be OK with it.  I can't help sometimes thinking of other friends with children and being all like, "Hey, they were able to successfully nurse their kids for a year or more.  They also probably weren't lazy sluts like me and didn't nurse their children in the evenings and in the middle of the night when they woke up and needed a feeding."  Once again, no one is putting pressure on me but ME.  I think my friend Rachel said it the best to me the other day when we were talking about the aforementioned topic; she said, "I think that you need to do what's best for you and what works for you."  Thanks Rachel for the reality check.  Sometimes I need it. 
Until next time, I remain,
Jenuinely Yours

Notorious

My poor husband.  The man can't go anywhere, in any city even close to where we live, without being recognized by someone.  Of course, since he is a male kindergarten teacher, he is somewhat memorable ;).
Case in point...a few weeks ago we attended a 40th birthday party for one of our friends at a bar in a city that is about 10-15 minutes away from where we live.  We were sitting at a high-top table with some other friends, just enjoying the company and some beverages (of course alcoholic) when suddenly, behind us, we hear: "Hey, don't you teach at Elementary School X?"  Of course Justin says "Yes."  Then this random man goes on to tell my husband how he currently has his grandchild in class, this grandchild thinks that my husband is the greatest thing since sliced bread, etc.  Now, while it is nice to hear my husband being complemented, I can't imagine sitting there with an alcoholic beverage in front of me while talking to the grandfather of one of my students.  Certainly the topic of the aforementioned alcoholic beverage came up with this man (who also had his wife, sister-in-law, and brother-in-law with him at this same party, so now there are 4 people who know that my husband teaches at Elementary School X and is so and so's kindergarten teacher).  We joked about it, tried to switch cups with a friend at our table and claim he was drinking water.  It was just so awkward.  I'm not even quite sure how these other people know our friend who was celebrating their 40th, but it just always seems like my husband runs into someone he knows somehow through his teaching job.  Luckily these people didn't stay too long at the party either, so the awkwardness was removed from the equation.  It's not like we were planning on sitting there and getting really shit-faced drunk, but it is nice to be able to have an evening out with some friends and a couple of drinks and not be approached by someone saying, "Hey, aren't you so and so's teacher?" or "Hey, don't you teach at Elemetary School X?"  I'm just glad that we live far enough away from the district where I teach so that I don't run into my students on any regular basis.

Le Divorce

I was thinking about divorce the other day, just randomly.  If you line up the grandkids on my Mom's side (myself included) two out of the three of us have been through a dissolution or divorce.  66% isn't a great percentage in that regard.  My sister (the only one who has not been in this situation) once told me that she'd rather bury her husband in the backyard before she'd divorce him.  If you add my cousin's significant other into the equation, that brings in yet another divorce situation, which would bring our divorce rate up.  What does this say about my generation and relationships?  It seems to me as I've gotten older (and somewhat wiser) that relationships are largely disposable.  People from my parents generation and my grandparents generation (in general) tended to stick it out in their marriages.  People in my generation seem to take divorce as an easy out, and I think that many (not all) people go into a marriage in the current day and time thinking that they can always get out if things don't work out in the marriage.  In my situation, I didn't use divorce as an easy out.  I was with my ex for 10 years (from our Freshman year in college-1997-until our divorce in 2007).  We were married for over 6 of those 10 years.  What happened? you may wonder.  Well, we did end up growing apart but DH also had someone else on the side that he "fell in love with" and just wouldn't give up.  Did I try to make it work?  Like hell.  I threatened, I cajoled, I begged, I cried.  I stayed up nights wondering what I had done wrong and what I could do to make him love ME again and not the SweeTart on the side.  Of course, looking back now if you try to make the fruit even more forbidden the more tempting it becomes.  My ex was so addicted to the forbidden it wasn't even funny...I am sure that my disapproval made his affair all the more fun for him.  We went to couples counseling (per my request) for two sessions before I decided it was an exercise in futility and that we needed to stop wasting time (and money).  We talked, "tried" to re-connect (all of this was pretty one-sided, IMO), and tried to work things out so that they didn't end up in a divorce.  Alas, after months of pretending that things were going to work themselves out, I finally grew weary of the entire situation (I had found out about SweeTart the day after Thanksgiving 2006 and I officially decided to call things off the day before Easter 2007) and just end it.  Due to circumstances that were somewhat out of my control, we had to put off our divorce (which was actually a dissolution) until December 2007.  To make a long story short, I had taken a voluntary leave of absence from my teaching job from January 2007 to June 2007 in order to complete a 600 hour internship that I was required to complete for my Master's degree, which led to no income and no health insurance.  Unfortunately I had to depend on my now ex for that at the time, so we weren't able to end things until I was gainfully employed again.  Not to defend him, but to be fair he was very generous with paying bills and helping out with other household and insurance related costs during that time.  Hell, it was the least he could do since he was busy stuffing SweeTart on the side.  My dissolution (divorce) was not the easy way out.  It was my way of saying that the relationship had met its end and that I wouldn't put up with my husband having his SweeTart on the side and eating it too.  I know that my cousin's divorce wasn't the easy way out either, nor was the divorce of my cousin's significant other.  I just wonder how many others look at divorce or dissolutions as an easy escape clause though...
Also, you should never say never.  In my wildest dreams (or perhaps nightmares) I NEVER thought that I would be divorced.  I always thought that my relationship with my first husband was rock solid, nothing could break us apart, etc.  Don't ever get too smug about your relationship; you never know, you could possibly be next on the divorce/dissolution train.  Don't look down on people who are divorced as failures or people who were "just too lazy" to make their relationships work out.  It is when people become overly comfortable and complacent  in their marriage that the rug gets pulled out from under them. 
In closing, does the high divorce rate of our generation make us strong, independent people who won't put up with our significant other's bullshit?  We tend not to turn our heads the other way when our SOs have gambling addictions, alcohol, drug or porn addictions, affairs, etc.  Does the fact that many of our parents and grandparents did turn their heads the other way (or just lived in denial) when it came to the above in their marriages make them stronger or weaker than we are?  Kind of makes you think, doesn't it?
Just some food for thought.  Until next time, I remain,
Jenuinely Yours