Third time is a charm

I've spent a lot of my life not knowing or understanding my worth. Recently this plunge back into the dating scene has caused me to focus on what I am truly worth and what I am and am not, willing to put up with. I'm worth more than the last two guys I married ever treated me like and it managed to get me into this mind frame that those relationships were the best I was going to get. Wrong. I'm a good person, I volunteer - I'm active in my son's life. I'm not going to settle for someone less than what I want. I'm not in a hurry to fall in love with anyone. Heck, I'm not entirely sure I even know what love is when it comes to loving someone other than family. However, I'm slowly learning to fall in love with myself. Physically i'm not where I want to be, however I am really interested in joining the new Kickboxing gym coming in local to me. (Anyone else want to join with me?!) I'm so very thankful for my close friends who have helped support...

I have a date this weekend. We've been texting on and off for awhile. He got back together with his ex at one point about a year ago and honestly I shouldn't have been even thinking of dating that close to when H2 and a I split. He emailed me again on POF and we started texting again. It's been about three weeks of nonstop texting. We seem to get along well. There are definitely some things we don't agree on... which includes politics, but unlike H2 and I (oh politics and that man, insane) we can agree to disagree on things. He's from Ohio, he messages me "Good Morning Beautiful" every morning when he wakes up. I think it's cute in a ridiculous way. He drives a truck and owns a Harley. I've never ridden a motorcycle before, but it sounds like fun. He says his worst habit is being an asshole when people are rude to him. I can live with that, as long as he keeps it in check. Anyway, i'll be an interesting date. I'm not sure what we are do...

I've texted, he hasn't replied. I'm done - I may have messed up, but it's his loss as much as mine. I'm not going to chase someone down who obviously can't take the time to text back. Not going to lie, it sucks, but it is what it is and it's time to get over it. It's time to throw myself into other activities. Fall is my favorite season, so we have multiple pumpkin patch trips planned this year. Washington has amazing fall colors and it's surprisingly warm during the day, which makes for some fun trips. C's Scouting troop is going to take over a corn maze one of the weekends, it'll definitely be entertaining! Next thing I know it'll be Halloween, C's birthday in November, Thanksgiving, Christmas and 2019 will be knocking at our door. In my head i'm already making some resolutions for 2019, however i'm planning on starting them in 2018. The first resolution might just be stop stressing over guys who don't stress over yo...

361 days ago I got a message over Facebook. "Stephanie, can I ask you who your husband is...?" After a bit more back and forth conversation and some picture proof I realized that my husband, who had been devoted to working on the house he purchased for us, wasn't really working on the house. He was spending time with his new wife and her kids. I've spent the better part of a year dwelling and obsessing... where is he..? what is he doing..? WHO is he doing..? This was followed by the Why's. Why me? Why her? and the what's... What did I do wrong? I was laying in bed last night thinking about everything when my thoughts changed. They changed to everything that is great going on. I have an amazing group of friends who have been so supportive of the ups and downs the past year. I've made new friends, grown closer with some friends and have gotten to the point where I can date a wonderfully understanding guy, who I am continually thankful for. I've re...

First of all, wonderful news - I'm officially divorced. I wasn't sure how I'd feel the day it happened, but in the end the amount of relief off of my shoulders was amazing. I talked to H2's newest wife a couple days leading up to the divorce, she's got herself in one heck of a bad situation. There is a part of me that wanted to help save her from the evilness that he is, but the other part of me knows that I can't get pulled back into the black abyss that is H2. I sent her some information on free legal aid in her county and told her that if she ever felt crazy and needed to talk I could help remind her she isn't the crazy one. Outside of that, I just can't. It bothered me, I felt like a bad person because of it - but I can't go down that road again. I'm over the mountain and happily skipping down the other side. I can't pull myself back up again. I've opted to leave the entire situation in the dust... no longer my circus or my monkeys. ...

So this happened :   https://www.instagram.com/p/Blo1cWXjLr2/                                https://www.instagram.com/p/Blo1xjfjENN/ I'll completely admit it - I went back and forth about being okay with this. People are mean and trolls, I don't need that in my life. I'm not the least confident person in the world, but I'm not the most confident either. Life threw a wrench in my wheels and I'm finally overcoming that, knocking myself back down doesn't sound like a fun ride. However, there will be haters in life and that is what it is. This photo set was so amazing that sharing it with the world seemed appropriate. For the first time I went on and read the comments. They actually brought me to tears. My hope is that someone will realize that even though divorce sucks and is really tough, they'll get through it. They'll even come out a stronger person. Sometimes you just need to hear that it will ...

Via POF Message - the black is the actual message, the blue is what was going through my mind... Him: Hi how are you. I'm A**c you are beautiful Me: Hi A**c - it's nice to meet you Him: Ha, nice to meet you too. I'm at work, can I text you when i'm off hun warning, warning, warning.... do not correct his grammar, it's rude. Me: I don't text right away. I've had too many bad experiences with guys who are less than moral... i'm sorry that you have to suffer for their mistakes. I'd be happy to talk to you on here. Him: Ok, i'm not like these other guys hun. I'm retired military I work in repossession and i'm in process for Snohomish county sherriff's i'm very loving caring guy and very affectionate person. Holy cow, does this guy know what a comma or a period is? Lets change the subject and see what he says... Me: Repossession? That must be a hard job. I'm glad my car payment is in full. LOL Him: ...

Awhile ago I wrote about an amazing photo shoot I did, a wreck the dress shoot with my wedding dress from H2. While we aren't quite divorced yet, this was the most freeing thing I could have done for myself. It helped with closure and helped me get out of my own head. Here's how it went... We started out with some champagne.... Then we moved on to some paint...  Next came the red wine... Then the real fun started when the lighter fluid and scissors came out to play.. and then it burned... oh did it burn. It was a lovely sight. It actually continued to burn enough that we had to throw rocks at it and make sure it sunk and burned out! A mini celebration came after the dress sunk Photo credits go to Dani Griffin at After Midnight Photography. Follow her, love her and hire her for pictures. She is amazing... she does our family pictures too. I just got back some amazing pictures of C and I from a 50's style photo shoot! <3 <3 <3 ...

Life has been all about baseball lately, practices and games were four times a week - plus balancing cub scouts, violin, birthday parties and any other random social events makes for one heck of a busy single mom. If it wasn't busy enough we won our championship and ended up in the tournament of champions. Unfortunately yesterday was a bitter sweet eliminating loss. It's a sad it's over but happy it happened situation. I made some new friends, C had amazing experiences and we have both grown to love baseball even more. You would be amazed at how into a game one can get... especially when your kid is playing. Last week was H2 and my 2nd marriage anniversary. It hadn't really crossed my mind until the pictures showed up in my facebook feed. It was almost a trigger moment as a couple tears did manage to escape. It tried to tug me back into that dark place I was in when I was with him. Where chaos and insanity ruled and I felt like everything was always my fault. I know t...

I did it! I did the wreck the dress shoot, I went through a time where I thought for awhile I wasn't going to do it, but I did it and I'm quite pleased with myself. I have to admit, when I slipped that wedding dress back on it was a strange feeling. The thought went through my head, what the heck are you doing... but then we opened a bottle of wine and it was down hill from there. This was a lot of planning for me, I wanted it to be the perfect storm of amazingness. I ended up wearing a pair of booty shorts, thigh high stockings (with bows), a black scalloped tank top and knee high black boots under my dress, which was probably what took the most thought. We started off by taking sparkling wine and fizzing it into the air, all over me and the dress. It was my own personal celebration! We then moved on to purple and blue paint in condiment containers and gold spray paint. All over the dress, I even put it on the ground and rolled in it. After the paint we moved on to red wi...

I admit it - I've never watched the fifty-shades series of movies. Until this weekend... The house was quiet (well, as quiet as can be with two kittens running around) since C is at H1's house for midwinter break. I had some crafting to do and decided that I would watch something adult. 50 Shades was a rental on Amazon and I thought, why not... for $3.99 even if it is THAT horrible it's not like I broke the bank renting it. So I watched it - This movie left me with a really, really off feeling. What you want to do with your sex life is what you want to do and I'm totally cool with that - however Christian Gray blasted through so many boundaries. That lifestyle is all about consent, but he consistently broke right through Anastasia's boundaries. Who the heck shows up in a girls apartment with a bottle of wine after she broke up with him or sends her flowers because he's stalking her on her first day of work. The first one ended so abruptly that I had...

This weekend was a little crazy at our house. I wasn't supposed to have my kiddo (it's H1's weekend) but ended up having him so his dad could do some computer work. I will never pass up an opportunity to hang out with C, so we headed off to the Seattle Science Center with some good friends. Saturday evening I had a date scheduled with K.  We had been talking online for awhile, that moved to text messages and then we finally met in person. We were originally going to meet on Friday night, however Friday evening turned into a cluster of things I needed to get done before Saturday. He was irritated that Friday didn't happen, I can't blame him there. I just got busy and time got away from me. Anyway, Saturday we met for dinner at Sushi Zen - an excellent sushi spot in Mill Creek. We met about 7:30, I wore jeans, boots and a t-shirt because fancy was not on the agenda for me. He had assured me on the phone that he wasn't dressing up either - that was an understat...

Evidently "Lose my number" - means find me on every social media site or dating site that you possibly can and keep emailing to George. I got a hit on Plenty of Fish this weekend from George....  Him : "I miss you already. I'm going to start a job in Everett and we should go on another date again soon" Me: "It's not going to happen George."  Thank goodness for the block button. and 90 people read my last blog... HOLY CRAP that is AWESOME!!

Oh. My. Goodness.... wait until you guys here about this one... I can't even think up an interesting name to call the guy. Lets just call him something boring, like George. George and I had plans on Saturday to go down to Brooklyn Brothers Pizza and hit up Funko. Since I had an minor oral surgery on Thursday and George had to work till one, we put off the date until Sunday. It was fine by me, I spent Saturday at home watching Netflix and doing laundry. Sunday rolled around and I put on a pair of jeans and a cute shirt, dressing up wasn't on my list of things to do. I wasn't sure what I thought of George, we had been talking for awhile and he seemed nice. I got to Brooklyn Brothers (not before shooting off a text to my wonderful neighbor letting her know where I was) and we grabbed a seat. The conversation was fine, nothing super interesting. I felt like I yammered on a bit more than usual, but it kept things going at least. The lunch was uneventful, he told me about his...

I've been texting back and forth with P for awhile now. I've had my son for the past three weekends in a row (we went winter camping in the snow, it was AMAZING) and life has been busy. Last night we were trying to ferment plans for the weekend, he offered to come over to my house with a pizza and we could watch movies and hang out.... I think that my answer was a bit harsh, but really... I know that coming over for pizza and getting to know each other (yeah, there *might* be an ulterior motive there but i'm honestly not sure at this point) sounds like a great idea, but here's the deal... I'm a single mom who lives with her nine year old son. If you think for one minute random internet guy that i'm going to let you come over and hang out at my house you have another thing coming to you. My reply to him: P: I could bring pizza and a movie to your place. Me: Really? P: Would that be cool? Me: Lets think this through... am I going to invite a man i've ne...

2017 was a rough year for me. I found out H2 (husband #2) married someone else, while we were still married. We were under contract for too many houses to count, my apartment was packed and we were moving. I found out H2 was nothing but a narcissistic con artist who got off on taking advantage of me. H2 lied to me to the point where he told me he had cancer (seriously, who lies about that!). Everytime I came near to catching on to his scheme he would light fireworks in the opposite direction and completely divert my attention. At one point my dad very articulately pointed out that H2 and Donald Trump have A LOT in common and no, that's not a good thing. I've gone from a reality where I was so on edge I thought I was losing my mind (precisely where he wanted me) to somewhere in between where I finally feel like i'm back in control of myself without having to walk on pins and needles. I've also learned that a good therapist is worth their weight in gold. At first I w...