How We Met - Beauty And The Geek

Today I have a guest blogger Mike from The Blog of Thog. I haven't know Mike long, one day he commented on being a good blogger I went to check out his blog. While I was blogging stalking him, he mentioned he wanted to challenge himself as a writer and I immediately invited him to do a guest post. Beyond having an awesome name, Mike has a dry wit that I really enjoy. 

Please help me welcome Mike to A Girl Named Michael.

Hi! Big thanks to Michael who has kindly allowed me to tell you a story.

But not just any story!

The greatest story ever told!

Okay... maybe not. But it's the story of how me and my fiancee met, which is pretty cool for me.

To give a bit of background, I had recently moved out of my parents and got myself my first house. I was 25, single, and basically enjoying life, being a massive geek and on a weekend going to a local goth club where I would drink cocktails and then dance near to females, which invariably did not work. It had taken me a long time to figure out that it was okay to be single, that I didn't need to be with someone to be happy, but I had finally got there. I am somewhat plainspoken and it makes me shudder to write this but, yes, I had "learned to love myself". In short, I was happy.

Oh - and having moved from a village to a city. I was enjoying takeaways.

Lots of takeaways.

Anyhow, I work in construction management. Without going into too much detail, I try to make the construction process as efficient as possible, keeping costs down while safeguarding the quality of the work.

I was told by my boss that I needed to study for a qualification to back up my experience to help progress. So, I applied to do a diploma at one university, and was accepted, but the course was full so I would have to wait a year. As a result, it was suggested that I check out a local college to see if they'd let me do the diploma there.

When I went to the college, I was told that I couldn't do the diploma, but what I could do is a lower level qualification for a year, to give me some grounding in the topic before I started at the university the following year. I checked with work that they would be happy for me to do it, and then signed up.

I remember looking at the list of people already signed up for the course, and thinking that one of them had a really unusual name. She also apparently also worked for my employer (albeit in a different department)

We'll now fast forward to the first week of the college course. There was one girl that I really liked the look of, but she was way out of my league. Coolness oozed from every pore (that doesn't sound that complimentary actually), she was ace. Chatty, intelligent, very pretty, everything.

Anyway, it gets to about 4 or 5 in the afternoon, and we've got a break before an evening class. I head outside, where the cool girl is. We start chatting, and she asks if I want to go for a drink.

Remember - I'm a geek, and if I haven't made it clear, not overly used to women.

Alarm bells ring in my head, and some kind of subconscious computer program kicks in.

I'VE BEEN ASKED IF I WANT A DRINK. BY A WOMAN.

OH MY GOD

ATTENTION MIKE - DO NOT BE AN IDIOT. I REPEAT, DO NOT BE AN IDIOT.

I manage to accept, and we go for a drink. I do my best to be entertaining, despite the fact that I'm limping all the way there and back due to falling when playing football the week before.

We have a nice drink, all goes well. We continue to chat to each other at college.

A couple of weeks later she texts me to ask if I could look over her assignment for her. I say yes, and suggest that we meet for a drink so I can look it over.

Five years later, me and Cherise (told you it was an unusual name) have a house together, a three year old son, and our lives have changed totally. I'm happier than I've ever been before, despite the fact that I seemingly have to empty the kitchen bin about three times as often as I used to do when I was single. But on the other hand she's taught me to cook so I save a fortune in takeaways! Speaking to Cherise it turns out that the "do I want a drink" question that she asked me at college was simply her being friendly and wasn't meant in a romantic way at all, but she is pleased that I'm not limping any more as the way I was having to lurch over the pavement was a little disconcerting.

Mike is a part-time blogger and extreme amateur video editor. Why not check out his blog at http://thoggy.blogspot.com and his video channel at www.youtube.com/ravenswingthog - and if you really want to stalk him, his Twitter is @ravenswingthog

How We Met - My Grandmother Did WHAT?!

One of the first people I asked/begged to write a guest post was Brittany. I have been blog stalking her for some time now. Her blogs (yes blogs) are full of blogging advice, product reviews, parenting tips and most recently an ode to Brad Pitt. She is always kind and full of encouragement. 

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While I would love to tell a massively romantic Twilight Saga-esque tale about how my husband and I met, alas it would bore you to death. We met at the Internet. No I mean that as AT the Internet no ON the Internet. We both started working for America Online {remember that dinosaur?} on the same day. It went downhill from there. 

Digressing....

So instead I could tell you how my  my parent's first date was at Disney Land.  I could make you giggle at the story of when she flew into LAX to be picked up by this guy she was about to go on the world's most epic date with when he shows up on a motorcycle. 

He showed up at an airport to pick up a girl who was flying in for the weekend on a motorcycle. 

Boy that had to be a fun trip with all her luggage balancing on her head. Yes, my Dad was blond. I miss that man. He made me laugh.

And once again it all went downhill from there. So let's try my grandparents.

A few years before my grandparents passed away, the subject of their dating life came up. Who would have thought that my grandmother's 80+ year old memory worked so well? Let me set the stage.

While the men (and by men I mean my father, my uncle, and my grandfather) sat in the living room watching some sporting event they were all pretending to care about (cool factor you know) the ladies of the family surrounded the dining room table at a heated game of Yahtzee. 

(Seriously, our Yahtzee games are viscous)

Between dice rolls we would crack jokes, make threats, and tell stories. Suddenly my eighty something year old grandmother (who I swear cheated at Yahtzee, I mean seriously no one is THAT good) announced she had a secret she had to tell us about how she snagged my grandfather. Well of corse at this point we were all ears, not just because we KNEW that it was a shotgun wedding (we all could do basic math...you know, the eldest child's birth was just a few months after the wedding so like, um, duh) but because the fact my grandmother was this quiet, innocent old woman who couldn't hurt a fly and she had a secret to spill. We just had to hear this.

You also need to keep in mind this was the late thirties, when certain things just weren't done. Well obviously they WERE done, just nobody talked about it.

Anywho...she was so proud of herself when she recounted how she was so in love with my grandfather. She loved him so much but she just knew he was interested in another girl besides her. Some days he would come visit her, others he would not. She would see his truck at another girls house and she would see red and green (anger and jealousy folks). One day she had had enough. He was over at her place and they were talking about getting serious when he mentioned leaving early. She didn't want him to go, she wanted to have some extra time making him fall in love with her, so while he was busy getting freshened up for his next date (she assumed), she ran outside and poured all the sugar from her mother's sugar canister into his gas tank.

Yes, my meek, mild mannered grandmother poured sugar into her boyfriends gas tank.

So of corse he never made it to his next date, he spent the evening at my grandmothers waiting for one of his brothers to come pick him up and tow his truck to the shop to figure out what was wrong with it (he had no idea what she had done). Not to get into too many details but obviously something happened that night because less than a year later they were wed and had a baby. My grandmother was a conniving woman.

The funniest part about the whole story was after she was done telling her devilish deed, my pretty much DEAF grandfather yells out...

"It was YOU?! You poured the sugar into my gas tank?!" 

Yup, after over 60 years of marriage she had never confessed. Bravo, grandma, bravo.

You can find Brittany on Facebook, twitter, her blog The Butterfly Mom

How We Met - How to Let Your Batshit Crazy Brother Help You Get Married

Today I have a very very very special guest blogger. Its some one I have known for more years than I am willing to admit out loud (*cough High School*cough). he is also very worried about what I may or may not say in my introduction....I promised I would not say anything his wife could hold against him in divorce proceedings. So I will just say he is one of my favorite people and even after all these years he still makes me laugh so hard I get stomach cramps....Please say hello to my friend Patrick.

Oh yeah Pat wanted me to add a disclaimer that for today and today only I am nor responsible for the content of my blog. 

My good friend MJ asked me if I would write a guest post for her blog. Ok, actually, her exact words were: “I was wondering if you would be willing to impart some of your mad ninja wisdom on my readers and do a guest post on my blog. Please say yes.” Who could say no to that??

So I said yes. I mean, obviously, right? Otherwise you wouldn’t be sitting there subjecting yourself to this. And so, as sort of a parallel to her “How to Date Your Best Friend’s Ex” post, I humbly present the following:

How to Let Your Batshit Crazy Brother Help You Get Married

(I came up with that title all by myself)

Let us turn the proverbial Wheel of Time back about 9 years. Picture, if you will, a young, handsomely tanned, rather muscular young man with white teeth, a winning smile, abs upon which you could grate cheese, and a killer butt.

 Now let’s picture me. (I’m Grim, by the way. Hi! How are you?). I was living in a one bedroom apartment, peacefully enjoying my bachelorhood, and when I say peacefully, I mean trying to figure out how to kill my neighbors who thought the whole complex would enjoy hearing ranchero music blared at full volume at three in the morning.

I work during the day as a government nobody (ninja by night) and found myself, one day, peacefully enjoying the conversation between two female coworkers who were discussing the unpleasantries of a mammogram. And when I say peacefully, I mean…well, never mind.

I look to my right, out the window, hoping to find something that will hold my attention until the two elephantine masochists are done commiserating, and this is what I see staring back at me:

Ok ok, not exactly that. I mean there was no shotgun. The rest is pretty spot on though.

It occurs to me that I’m staring at my batshit crazy brother S____, who, rather than wave like a real human being, gives me a “bro nod”. I look back to my left…sure enough; the Pachyderm Princesses are still there discussing breast flatulence. I look back to my right…batshit crazy brother. Tough choice, really, but in the end, family won out.

Now, understand that I hadn’t seen or heard from S____ in about three years. He was still wearing the same clothes though, and he’d brought a friend, whose name was Bob. I’m not sure Bob was actually alive. S____ says to me, “Hey!!! It’s my birthday next week! We should go do something for my birthday!! ‘Cause it’s next week!” I looked up this phrase in my S____-to English translation book and it said, “I would like you to buy me something.” Ok, fine, I thought. A brother is still a brother, right?

S____ goes on to tell me where he’s living and what time I should come pick him up. Bob stood there and stared open-mouthed at a smudge on the window.

We agree on the time and place, and I go back inside where there are now three coworkers standing in a small semi circle and looking very concerned. 

“Are you ok?” One of them asks.

“Fine. Why?”

“Well, we saw you out talking to those two transients and were wondering if you were ok.”

“Oh, them. Yeah, one of them is my brother. I’m not sure the other one was actually alive.”

The look of horror on their faces was truly magnificent. Whether for implying that my brother was a transient, or that he might be best friends with a zombie, I’ll never know. Either way, people don’t talk to me much at work anymore and that’s ok.

During the following week, S____ called me three times a day and left a message each time. I told him, after the first day, that I couldn’t always answer my phone at work and that if he wanted to talk, one message would do just fine as I would get back to him as soon as I was able. Apparently, he thought I was lying. One thing he did ask me was if I had had a crush on a certain girl in high school. I answered that, no, I had a crush on a different girl.  “Are you sure?” he says.

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure I’d remember which girl I was too much of a puss to ask out. Thanks for the reminder, though.”

He goes on to inform me that he’s staying with a girl whose best friend apparently had a crush on me in high school. My immediate reaction to this was to think to myself, Well that’s nice, where the hell was she when I was sitting at home every Friday night drowning my sorrows in Taco Time and Super Nintendo??

So I go to this girl’s house and pick up S____ and we head out to take on the town. Taking on the town consisted of getting Mexican food and heading to the Sportsman’s Warehouse where, of all the things he wants me to buy him, he picks out an 80 dollar water purification straw thing meant for wilderness survival. The gift that keeps on drinking, I suppose.

With nachos and salsa coursing through our veins, we spent the rest of the day terrorizing the city with our flatulence and threatening gang members with S____’s water purification straw thing. We were two crazed single men, rampaging through a sleepy town till the wee hours. And by the wee hours, I mean 9 PM.  

We got back to where he was staying and he decides we should watch a movie. – You know, as I’m sitting here writing this, it occurs to me that this is all sounding like a really horrific date. I’m calling my therapist in the morning—

Apparently while we were watching whatever movie it was, the owner of the house calls up her best friend, Sarah, and tells her that I’m over there right now! (SQUEEE!)

A little background on Sarah: I had known her since Junior High. We had a science class or two together and hung out in the same circles. We sat next to each other in a science class in High School and I remember that she had a nice ass.  But that was ten years in the past.

So, as I’m sitting there, in walks Sarah wearing this…shirt. I should say that it was a shirt in the strictest sense, and we’ll just leave it at that. We start to talk and eventually we all end up on the front porch just talking. I’m not sure she was ever able to make sense of whatever I was telling her, because I think I kept stopping and trying to remember what the hell I was saying. You see, she was…sitting…a certain way to maximize the shirt’s full potential.

This is a hint, right girls? I mean, I would have preferred a neon sign that pointed at her and read: “PLAYGROUND OPEN. THIS MEANS YOU!” but I figured this was all I was going to get. 

I called her up a day or so later and asked her out. For various reasons, her gay roommate being one of them, we ended up going out sooner than originally planned. The plan was, of course, to have nothing serious. We were old school friends just getting together to hang out, right?

I picked her up and we went to Olive Garden. Yeah, I know it’s cliché, but I was hungry so stuff a breadstick up your ass, ok Paisan?  

After dinner, we walked back to my car and she runs up next to me and takes my hand. This is friendship??  It’s at this moment in time, and I want you all to know this, that some neuron in my brain fired that has never fired before, and I decided that I would do something “smooth.” I have never been known to be “smooth” or to have “smooth” moments. Ok, there was that one time at Belch Canyon, but that was more of a “creepy smooth” sort of thing. Said canyon was named as such after my “creepy smooth” moment. And let me just say, guys…if you EVER find a woman who is physically turned on by your ability to belch so loud that it echoes off a canyon wall, DO NOT LET HER GO!  I’m not even sure such a girl exists, but I’m sure the government could spend a couple billion trying to find out. I digress…

Sarah and I drove all over the state and chatted and flirted. My “smooth” plan was now perfected. 

When I finally got tired of driving, or the car was almost out of gas, I’m not sure which, I took her home. She figured her gay cousin had finally passed out and it was safe to enter. I walked her to her door and she invited me in to chat for a minute. We chatted and I asked her out again, to which she agreed…and then came my “smooth” plan.

Remember we had stated to each other that this was just two friends going and hanging out. But, the gauntlet had been thrown when she held my hand! I had been one-upped and would not stand for it! So, yes, that’s right, I grabbed her, planted my lips against hers and pressed her up against the cupboard.  After a minute, I let her go, said good night and walked out, just like that. 

Ohhhh I cackled all the way to my car! I was more pleased that I had caught her off guard than that she had willingly let me kiss her! I was EVIL with a capital AWESOME! And the best part???

IT WORKED!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!!!

She went to work the next day and COULDN’T FIGURE IT OUT!!

“ HE SAID HE WANTED JUST FRIENDSHIP!!! WHAT DOES THIS MEAN???? “

Our next date proceeded as planned, and the next, and the next. We just couldn’t see enough of each other. I began finding strange female artifacts in my apartment. I went into my bathroom to get ready for work one morning and found a small purple tool rack of some sort, sitting on my counter. It appeared to be made to hold brushes of some sort. 

You know that moment in plot driven movies where the hero finally discovers the source of his betrayal, and you see his face slooowly change as the truth finally dawns on him? This is what I saw my face doing in the mirror. My brain then said, “What the??? We’re in a relationship!!! RED ALERT! EVASIVE MANEUVERS!”

But it was too late for me. When she beat me to my apartment and cooked a four item dinner for me and had it waiting when I got home…I was finished. She had me. I surrendered. Gladly, mind you.

We were engaged within three months, and were married in another nine. We just celebrated our eighth year together and haven’t even tried to strangle each other yet.

I suppose the moral of the story (sorry for the length, but I did warn Mj that I can get long winded when making fun of people) is that you just never know when life is going to say to itself, “Hey, that guy needs a little help. We need to figure out how to gently nudge him down the correct path, because he just doesn’t seem to know what the hell he’s doing anymore.” And then one day you think you’re doing everything right, and BAM!

 Enter batshit crazy brother, stage right.

Oh yeah….I made Sarah keep the “shirt.”

To read more of Patrick outrageous ramblings please check out his blog Confessions of an Arm Chair Ninja.

How We Met - Yo Babe, Wazzup?

I met today's guest blogger, Serena, way back when I first starting taking my blog a little bit more seriously. She often keeps me laughing and always has a supportive word when I most need one.

Even though I am a blogger, I often forget that emotions such as sarcasm are lost in the written, online format. I am often found with my foot in my mouth trying to explain that I really was being sarcastic, and am usually left with an uneasy feeling that the person who was offended doesn’t quite believe me. I sometimes wish that this were an aspect of myself that I could change, but then I remember, that if I was not this awful at relaying sarcasm over the internet, I would never be married to the most spectacular husband in the world.
About ten years and a half ago, I was living online. I was on my own, in school and had finally gotten an apartment that I could afford to live in by myself. The thing about suddenly being cast into the world all on your own, is that you get lonely. My chat lines were online 24/7 – just to get some interaction with SOMEONE when I was home.

I don’t know if you remember ICQ, but it was a chat line the was popular before MSN chat and after MiRC (I think I just revealed how old I am…shoot…). On ICQ you were able to put in areas, ages, sexes and it would give you a list of online persons who fit that demographic. It was really cool, and I got to talk to all types of people (both good and bad) and I do believe that it was around then that I started my love affair with the internet.

This is exactly what happened the lovely day when I first heard (read?) the romantic words from a new young man, “Yo babe, whazzup?!”. I have to tell you, I was NOT impressed. So, I replied (yes, I replied), “Hello?”. Now this is where the sarcasm comes in. I meant “Hello?!” as in Clueless-style (yes I am old), sarcastic, complete diss, why-are-you-talking-to-me hello. He heard the hee-hee-hee, I-am-a-ditz-and-love-when-men-speak-in-slang-to-little-old-me, panties fly off type off hello. Needless to say, he continued to talk to him. Luckily for me, none of his other sentences sounded anything like someone who would start a conversation with “Yo babe, wazzup?” would say.

It actually sounded remotely normal. So I kept talking to him, and after a few weeks, he gave me his phone number and we started calling each other constantly. When we finally agreed to meet, it was as if electricity ran from him to me when we first saw each other. Sadly, that statement was not sarcasm – I actually felt something happen in the weirdest way (I swear I am sane, I promise).

Anyway, seven years later, my Luv Luv and I decided to get married and four years after that, we are very happily married, even though we are presently living in two different countries. He is the only one I can imagine myself with and the only one who knows exactly how to comfort me when I am greatly upset. He is my rock and my strength, and he is the reason that I have done as well as I have in life.

So in the end, maybe my inability to relay sarcasm across the blog-o-sphere may be a good thing for me – it brought me the best thing that has ever happened to me – my only family member that I have and ever will choose, my Luv Luv, who I thank God every day for and am still puzzled as to how I became the lucky one to win his heart.

Serena (a.k.a. Bewildered Bug) is a 30-something PR-friendly “smug-married” self-proclaimed people-watcher trying to navigate through life.  This blog is my attempt at relaying my story to you. She grew up in the little island of Trinidad and currently reside in the huge metropolis that is Toronto with options to move again.  She is married and looking forward to the day when we have one or two little bugs running around the house.

You can find her Serena 

Blog: http://www.bewilderedbug.com

Follow me on Twitter!  @bewilderedbug

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/BewilderedBug

How We Met - Happily Ever After...Not

I meet todays guest blogger, Alene, on Twitter after I asked for guest bloggers. We slowly started talking and I started reading her blog. I was an instant fan. Alene is funny and incredibly honest. 


In Alene's own words: I'm positively your everyday ordinary girl. I became aware of my self-doubt and insecurities of feeling just plain ordinary. I began to seek God to know who I was and how I could be comfortable "just being me."  I took that challenge to live my life as "Positively Alene" leaving all comparisons behind this journey to live as He has called me to live...just as myself, Positively Alene! 

Thank you, Michael for letting me tell part of my fairytale (not) as we are all thinking about L-O-V-E this month.

I just have one question though, how do you begin to explain the greatest love story and how it all began?

As Valentine’s approaches everyone is singing love. But maybe, just maybe -- some of you out there are blinded - like I once was - by what real love is. I use to think it was fairytale-like with a happily-ever-after-ending every day!

While I don’t crave the romantic chocolate heart-shaped boxes or long-stem roses anymore, I do long for the romance of love. I have finally realized that I should have known from the start that my man was just not the romancing-kind-of-guy.

We met our Junior year of High School. He was stinky sweaty after a football practice and there I stood with my camera capturing moments for the yearbook. It didn’t seem like much then, but somewhere around the Christmas holidays he showed up unannounced at my house. After that day he kept coming back day after day.

You might think that was nice. Any girl would, right? It seemed perfect at first, but then I started noticing many of the guys that were my friends before weren’t coming around. In fact, they would barely even talk to me.

Determined to get to the bottom of the situation, I found out my love was threatening to beat up anyone that talked to me. I know, I should have run for the hills, but I stuck around.

I was his girl for four more years while blind to the whimsy of romance. It wasn't until the day my man proposed that I realized this fairy-tale dream of a cinema-like marriage proposal just might not be all I had dreamed it would be.

Check out this video as I retell of the day we got engaged. It's short I promise! Please let me know if you can relate. I'd so love to hear your story - fairytale or not!

You can also find Alene at Positively Alene or on Twitter

How We Met - The Next Generation

I am so excited to introduce today's guest blogger. Trinity from Trinity is Still My Name.  I have known Trinity since I first moved to the small Utah town we grew up in. She was one of the first people to talk to the short new shy girl. I would like to say we have been best friends since but with Jr. High, High School and college we lost touch with each other. Then through the miracle of Facebook we reconnected. She has been a great friend and very encouraging ever since....so with no further ado may I present to you....TRINITY!!!!

This is the story of how I met my husband, Blake.  It's a story filled with scandal and has a shocking surprise twist... Okay, so that could be a slight exaggeration, but it is an interesting and slightly eyebrow-raising story...
I actually met Blake when I was in the seventh grade and he was in the eighth in Jr. High School, but I didn't really become friends with him until many years later.  I always knew who he was, thought he was cute, but we never really ran in the same circles, and I never had any classes with him in high school either.  Once we graduated from high school, we both got a job at the same place, Morton, in Brigham City, UT.  Morton, which later became and is still Autoliv ASP, was one of the leading auto airbag manufacturers in the world.  He started working there about a year before I did.  I started there in January of 1994 (wow!  Am I really that old?!), and we worked together on the same production line on swing shift, but only for two weeks (still not long enough to really get to know him that well, but I still thought he was cute), and then he went to day shift. He was recently married then, so that obviously isn't when we started seeing each other (this story isn't THAT scandalous).  Time went on, I got married and divorced, and mine and Blake's paths crossed quite often at work (I still thought he was cute)... Fast forward to the year 2004.  By that time, Blake was a lead at Autoliv and getting ready to start up a new production line.  It just so happened that I put in to work on this line, and Blake liked my application and my reputation at work, and came and asked me to be on his crew.  We then finally got to know each other and became friends (yup, I still thought he was cute).  He was going through a divorce and I was having horrible luck with men, so we talked and vented a lot to one another.  Well, one thing led to another (I'm sure your eyebrows are raised) and in January of 2005, he asked me out...Yup, that's right, I dated my boss!  So, there's the scandal!  (I got gasps and eyebrow raises from some of my family too)  It was only for a couple weeks, and of course we did the appropriate thing and I transferred to a different line.  Things moved pretty fast, kind of a whirlwind.  I moved in with him in July of 2005 (I know, more gasps and eyebrow raising), we were engaged in October 2005, married in April 2006, and I was pregnant by June 2006 (told you it was a whirlwind).  I guess you could say the rest is history (I still think he's pretty cute)...

There's a very interesting back story to all this, however.  Are you ready?  Here's the shocking surprise twist...

When I went home and told my parents about Blake, my mom told me to ask him who his parents were.  She said it would be really funny if his parents were Troy & Jerene Burbank because she dated a Troy Burbank in high school (just before she met my dad) and her and his ex-girlfriend, Jerene, who he later got back together with and married, didn't get along so well.  And Troy and my dad had a mild altercation somewhere along the line as well because Troy had pulled my mom over to talk to her one day (teenagers, seriously, so silly and immature).  So, I asked Blake who his parents are, he told me, and I said, "Oh have I got a story for you!"... Yup, that's right, my mom and Blake's dad dated in high school!  What are the odds!... The first time our parents all got together was definitely a bit awkward for all of them, but they were good sports about it.  Our dads get along great, no hard feelings, and they have a lot in common (men are kind of cool like that).  Our moms, well, I think there still may be a bit of tension even after all these years (yeah, women can be kind of funny like that)…

So, there you have it.  Fact really can be stranger than fiction (seriously, you can't make this stuff up).  It makes for an interesting story, and we don't get tired of telling it.

You can follow Trinity is Still My Name or find her on Twitter

How We Met - I'm Just Looking for a Friend

Today I would like to introduce you to Celia my very first guest blogger. Celia blogs over at ...just trying to find my way. She is a 20something wanna be house-wife stuck in the working girl's world. Celia and I bonded one day on twitter when we both discovered we were small town girls. And them again when she agreed to be my 1st guest blogger for my new How We Met series. She is sweet, funny and very sincere. Reading her blog always makes me fell warm and fuzzy inside.



hello there lovely readers! 

i am so happy to be guest posting for MJ. 

she is seriously one of the sweetest bloggy/twitter friends i have met!

my name is Celia! 

i blog over at 

so you want to know how me and my soon-to-be hubby met?

i graduated high school in 2003, and pushed all my friends away. 

my father had gotten sick my junior year and was unable to work. 

so i put off going to college to work full time and help my parents out financially.

my parents didn't want me to, but i insisted. 

my friends wouldn't understand. how could they? they were all going to college. 

then October of 2004 i decided i wanted to reconnect with my friends. 

i missed them. and in january i was going to start college. we could now relate. 

i found an old friend on AIM. chit chatted with him for a bit and he invited me out to a little place in Seabrook,TX where his friend's band would be playing. i love live music, so i figured sure, why not?

he introduced me to his best friend. Ok. he was just some guy. no big deal.

honestly i wasn't interested in "meeting" anyone at this point.

my old friend made passes at me which i just  laughed off. 

i then agreed to meet up with him at another little local spot to watch his friend's band play. 

i showed up, and so did another 2-3 girls... all pawing for his attention. 

i am not one to paw for anyone's attention. at all.

...and i thought we were coming out as friends...

i wanted to go home. i looked around, and i saw Mychael sitting in a corner. 

i remembered him from the last time and he was really nice. 

the seating was high up so i used his leg to help myself up.

...and i didn't remove it. oops. embarrassing.

later i recognised him on my friend's myspace page, so i friend requested him.

we messaged each other and then exchanged AIM names.

we chatted online for over 6mos. i wouldn't go and hang out with him. 

i was afraid. i had started to develop feelings when i had told myself i wasn't dating anyone at this point.

i had just gotten out of a bad relationship, i just wanted a friend. 

...and i had that. 

i made up every excuse not to go out.

i was doing my hair, or nails.

then one day, he was going out of town for about a week.

he blogged on myspace about how he was done chasing this "girl".

he would leave on vacation, come back and be over her. 

wait! this "girl" was ME! I liked him...

...so we went on our very first date. 

dinner and a movie. 

everything came naturally.

conversation was great. 

i had no problem cleaning my plate at dinner. 

the rest is history!

it's been a wonderful 6 years! 

...and now...

You can follow Celia on Twitter or at ...just trying to find my way.

Love at First Sight or Second Sight!!!

The picture in my mind when I think of my grandparents.

Not that long a go my grandma had a hip replacement surgery and for one weekend I got to stay with her and be her care taker. This may not sound exciting to you and its not that exciting to me either but I love spending time with my grandma talking and watching old movies. I have always had good talks with Grandma. 

This was before I started dating The BF (I think) and we some how started talking about marriage and love. So I asked her how did you and Grandpa end up dating and get married.

I have often wondered about this because I knew that my granparents had grown up in the same small Idaho town. The same town/community that their parents grew up in (not to mention my parents and I was born there). I also knew my grandma was a few years older than grandpa (shocking) and that their courtship was short.

I knew that they both came from large families and while grandpa was the second oldest in his family grandma was the third youngest in hers. I know that grandpa joined the Air Force at 17 and grandma went off to nursing school. They had known each other for years but their paths were not on a collision course. So how did these 2 people fall in love and end up married?

According to my grandma....*

Their wedding picture!!!

One day I was running around with your Great- Aunt Ila Mae, your grandpa's older sister. We need to stop by the barber shop to drop some money off to your grandpa. he had just returned from being in the Air Force and wanted to get a hair cut.

When we walked into the barber shop there he was in his uniform (as many young men returning had few other clothes) waiting for us. I remember thinking to myself he is so handsome in his uniform I better marry him quick before someone else does. Two months they eloped in Carlin, Nevada.

I don't know if it was romantic or just practical that they eloped. I like to think mostly romantic.

* To all my family...This is how I remember the story grnadma told me so  if I got wrong let me know and if I like what you have to add or change I will make corrections. But it better be good.

Dating Your Friends Ex-Husband

Recently it was brought to my attention that I have not written about how I ended up dating my friend’s ex-husband, I have written about the dumb things he says, his patience with the things I do, my insecurities about our relationship and my frustrations but not about how we meet. I often get questions like did you know her before you meet him? Did you become friends later? Was she mad at you? Is it weird? And the answer are yes, we became better friends, no and sometimes. So for all the curious out there this is how to date your friend’s ex-husband or at least how I ended up doing it.

On my 34th birthday (how can I possibly be in my 30s) I was out to dinner with some friends. We were all laughing and joking when someone asked what my birthday wish was for the year. My response was I need a Mr. Right Now (sorry mom), I have been single for 4 years I am tired of working on myself I want to work on someone else. After much laughter and remarks about my non-sex life, one of my friends said I can set you up with my ex-husband, actually will you please date him?

After even more laughter I said sure why not wait what's wrong with him. She said nothing. This of course caused us all to laugh more and ask why she is not married to him if there is nothing wrong with him. She claimed that they were just bad together but he is a good guy and good father. So I laughing said sure give him my number I am desperate enough to date my friend's ex-husband.

Now I didn't think she would really do it, after all that's weird setting friends up with your ex-husband, no matter how casual of friends.

That night when I got home I noticed I had a text message that said Hi, this is _______. Happy Birthday! I was a bit confused. Random texts from people I don’t know wishing me happy bday is odd even for my life. Then I remember my friend saying she's going to give my number to her ex. So I text him back.

For 3 months we send texts but never talked on the phone or met. He keep trying to get together but it was a bad time in my life and I was a little freaked out about dating my friend’s ex-husband because it is weird. I am a very "modern" person but it was just weird. The only person who knew we were even texting was his ex-wife/my friend. I told no one. Not my close friends, not my sister, not my best friend, no one.

Then in January he asked me if I had seen the movie Avatar yet, which I hadn't. So I finally agreed to go out with him. This caused a fair amount of panic on my apart and then on my friends part when I told them. First I had to call his ex-wife/my friend to make sure she really was ok with all this and then I need to have a wardrobe consultation with my friends who were all shocked that for 3 months I was texting someone and then some how managed not to tell them. I am not known for my secretive nature.

That night he picked me up took me to dinner, the bookstore, a movie, and then we went back to his house to watch another movie. At 2:45AM he drove through the treacherous canyon and took me home. And I will be honest we necked a little in front of my house (again sorry mom). I made him promise to text me when he got home. And he did. We made plans for the next weekend, then the next then the next and soon I was spending the weekends at his house meeting his kids and family.

His ex-wife/my friend and I became closer friends. She says she doesn't have to worry about the kids because she knows I am good with kids and I’m a kind person. Plus she gets to go around saying she picked her ex-husbands new girlfriend.

And I get to have a kick ass how you met story, post things on Twitter and Facebook like shopping with my boyfriend’s ex-wife and get to see the looks on people's faces when I tell them, I’m dating my friend's ex-husband. Not to mention endless fodder for my blog.