my relationship goals

About five years ago, I gave some advice that I thought was sound…marry for passion – and that’s all someone needed to make a marriage successful.

A friend of mine told me that he was thinking about ‘the future’ with his girlfriend. I had been married for a little over 8 years, at the time, so I thought I knew all about what you should and shouldn’t do…which was basically don’t marry someone because you think you owe it to them because you’ve been with them for a certain amount of time – marry them because you want them desperately…and if you had passion that’s all you needed. (I was sooo wrong!)

I had been missing passion in marriage #1 for different reasons (not necessarily his fault) and so as I divorced my first husband, I thought that if I found that then it would fix the issue I had in marriage #1.

So marriage #2…I married thinking that I was marrying for passion yet what I hadn’t found out yet was that my soon-to-be-husband (at the time) was passionate with a lot of people, not just me. Regardless, looking back I realize that I was looking at one quality in each of my husbands and focusing on just that one trait, putting all hope in that one trait, instead of looking to find someone that was the ‘whole package’.

I’ve had my fair share of issues with both of my ex husbands but the one thing that I will say in defense of #1 is that he tried. He may have had blind spots that just couldn’t be changed but he tried. Even when I told him that I was done, he tried. The issue is that I had been done for months…if not longer. My fault was in waiting so long to tell him that I had issues with him and our marriage. Maybe if I had told him sooner things could have been repaired but even as I ask myself that same thing today, I don’t think that anything would have changed. He is who he is and I am who I am and we weren’t right together. I just wish that we could have figured that out 13 years ago and saved a lot of people a lot of time and headaches…but then I wouldn’t have the two best squirt league hockey players ever. 🙂

My ex husband #2 ran when things were exposed and even to this day, instead of admitting when he’s done things that just aren’t right or sane or kind or normal – he makes things worse. But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. He was raised to think that running from responsibilities was normal…that mom and dad and money would fix things…it’s just that the dad with the money isn’t there any longer and the mom didn’t invest her money wisely and instead has flushed it down the drain by supporting three of her four boys without ever getting a cent in return because they can’t keep jobs, take advantage of her and repay nothing.

So as I look to the future and consider who to date and what my next steps will be when I’m ready to even think about a serious relationship, I have some advice for my 24 year old self (the person I was before I was married).

Don’t:

• Don’t be with someone just because of the passion. If they are passionate with you – maybe they are passionate with everyone?? (keep reading – I’m going to contradict myself soon.)
• Don’t be with someone for their bank account. Obviously…this can change at the drop of a hat – take 2008 for an example.
• Don’t be with someone for the ‘hopes’ that you have together. Hope is just that…if it doesn’t come to fruition, you’ll blame them but you should really be blaming yourself for putting your entire relationship on the other person’s shoulders. Marriage is 100%/100%, not 50/50. As long as everyone is contributing fully to the hopes and dreams you’ll probably make big things happen.
• Don’t be with someone for what you think you can change them into being. Don’t change them…it won’t ever work – no matter how great you think you are at this. You may be able to change them for a short while but they will revert and either hate you for changing them in the first place or hate themselves for letting you do it.
• Don’t be with someone for the status factor. – This can change fast!! A job can be lost; someone can be voted out of office; someone can sell their business; someone can change their career dreams. And then what’s left…nothing.

Instead…

• Be with someone for all of it…be with them for who they are today…and nothing more. The person that is standing in front of you is who they will be for the rest of their lives. And you can’t expect them to be any different – that’s not fair to anyone.
• Be with someone for who you are together. You may be with this person for the rest of your life…if you are better when they are around and visa versa then all is well with the world. BUT if you are better yet you drain them of their fabulousness, then that’s not good. If you are constantly taking and taking from them emotionally, you don’t deserve them. BUT if you return the favor and both of you build each other up…then that’s a different story.
• Be with someone for passion. I still haven’t changed my stance on this. The only caveat is that the other person needs to be just as passionate (and that’s where I went wrong with my Irish Idiot). And when the passion dies, work your hardest to bring it back to life…this is one thing that can be revived if everyone is trying.
• Be with someone that pushes you to see yourself the same way that they do and the same way that you saw yourself before ‘your love’ came into the picture. Don’t get your self-esteem from them but get reassurance from them. There’s a big difference. Be you and only you and never apologize. If you have to apologize, then this isn’t your person.
• Be with the person that stays on your mind (and of course meets all of the above), whenever you have your brain on. You’ll always think about them, you’ll compare them to everyone else, you’ll want to call them during lonely moments, you’ll want to text them after every achievement…don’t ignore this because you think that you can forget them. But…forget them if there is only thing on your mind…..

So to the friend that I gave the advice to five years ago…I hope that your marriage is going well and that you can check off more ‘boxes’ than just passion, as I recommended because I only had a small idea of what I was really talking about. AND two marriages later, I can’t and won’t claim to be an expert…except I can give advice on what didn’t work and what I wish had worked.

What are some of the things that you look for in a ‘significant other’? I’d love to hear your thoughts…especially as I get ready to dive into the dating world again!

Please note that this post and most of the posts on my website/blog may contain affiliate links. Should you decide to click on one of these ads and purchase something through this link, I will get a commission from it (the pricing is no different for you than going directly to their website)(I do not get commissions from sites where you donate money or things). Not all items recommended on this site are affiliate links. I only recommend items that I feel are amazing because I’ve used and tried them. Thank you for your trust and readership!

my next chapter – the intro

“God only gives you as much as you can handle.”

We all know the phrase, “God only gives you as much as you can handle.” I truly feel that this is such a falsehood to believe on so many levels.

Here me out.

I recently sent an email to my divorce attorneys telling them whether or not I was willing to accept the pathetic excuse of documentation that my soon-to-be-ex submitted and go to mediation or pursue the documentation further. I put a lot of thought into the email and by the end of it, I realized just how tired of this garbage I truly am. He’s exhausted me and I just want out. I just want to be done with him and be done with this marriage.

Reflecting over the past year, I realize that I have been through some tough stuff…some horrible garbage, and I’m kind of proud of myself for still having a smile on my face each day.

So to my point – God didn’t turn and look at me one day and say, “I think I’m going to put Staci through misery and make her experience horrible things from her husband because there’s some lesson I want her to learn and because I know she can handle it.” Heck no. God didn’t purposely dish this {insert poop emoji} out to me.

Through my beliefs, I know that God knew what my husband would do to me this year but I truly believe that he looked at me and said, “someone in your life is going to make some bad choices that will negatively affect you and the kids, but I will make you tough enough and I will be there for you through each step and I’ll help you make lemonade out of lemons.”

I think that the phrase should be changed from “God only gives you as much as you can handle” to “God will give you enough strength to handle what is happening in your life.” God isn’t punishing me for something…he’s helping me through something that a bad person chose to do to me and the kids. And in that knowledge I can take comfort.

I’m so thankful for my faith because without it, I honestly think I would be in a deep, deep depression. But instead, the kids are thriving, I have the hope of love again one day whenever I’m ready for a relationship, life is actually better now than when we were together, and I’m almost financially back on my feet. I can feel how close I am…

The Start of my Next Chapter

The career that I left, multifamily property management, to help my husband market his business, was a rare find and was in a unique niche…one that is hard to find, for the most part, unless you are able to move to the northeast, Texas, or the west coast and I am not able to move, for family reasons. So my hunt for a new, permanent, career has been tough. I can’t tell you how often I’ve been told, “You’re overqualified” or the advice I’ve been given, “dumb down your resume” – both of these are just as heart wrenching as being rejected for a job that you really wanted.

Taking brave steps

So while I’m still searching for the perfect fit for me and the kids, I’ve started working on something that I dabbled with when I left my career – my own consulting business.

My heart belongs in marketing and working with people and I’ve come to master the art of diagnosing customer service issues as well as having a thorough understanding of increasing a small business’ marketing footprint online. And while I love to offer advice and tell people what they can be doing better, I’ve realized that it’s somewhat challenging to market my own business so this is my newest goal – the intro to ‘my next chapter’ so-to-speak.

Blogging has helped me hone my digital marketing skills and truly opened my eyes to the vast number of people out there trying to do the same thing that I’m trying to do – balance the kids and home-life with a job to be financially beneficial to everyone.

Marketing a new business is tough…sometimes marketing an existing business is tough…and not in the respect that it’s hard to understand how to do, but if there isn’t a marketing plan in place or the time present, the marketing avenues that someone has in front of them can be extremely overwhelming. Not only do you have to create the product for your customers to buy, you have to find the customers and share what you are selling to the world.

That is what can be overwhelming and where I’m trying to step in to help those that would rather focus on designing kids clothes, writing their novel, creating a relaxing environment for their clients in their new salon, or want to draw customers into their brand new restaurant. They get to create their product and offer their services and I get to help them refine techniques currently in place, within their business, so that once we find the customers the business is ready for them. Then I get to help find their customers through social media and their online presence as well as provide tips to ‘market-on-foot’ (more traditional avenues).

So while I try to figure out what my future career path is and what will fully support my newly defined ‘Fab-Four’, I’m working toward helping others…Helping others reach new heights with their business. (And it may help me reach my dream of working for myself for the years to come.)

Should you know anyone that is struggling with marketing their business, send them my way. I will forever owe you one!

Contact Take Charge Marketing!

Take Charge Marketing (click to go to the website)
Email: takechargemarketing2016@gmail.com

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Please note that this post and most of the posts on my website/blog may contain affiliate links. Should you decide to click on one of these ads and purchase something through this link, I will get a commission from it (the pricing is no different for you than going directly to their website)(I do not get commissions from sites where you donate money or things). Not all items recommended on this site are affiliate links. I only recommend items that I feel are amazing because I’ve used and tried them. Thank you for your trust and readership!

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…so there’s this guy

My divorce has stalled.

It really stinks because I want this over with.

Every time that I think I’m done with this, I realize that I’m not as far along in the ‘grieving’ process as I thought I was.

Or at least until a few weeks ago.

My Irish Idiot has been the one to file for divorce and then decided to stop turning in paperwork and now we’re over two months behind where we should be, because…he’s an idiot. He forgets that he started this process and whereas before I would read into that, now I’m just annoyed.

I’m annoyed at a lot.

He skipped out on seeing his daughter in order to celebrate his girlfriends divorce. He lied and said that he had to work and tried to blame it on something fictional that supposedly I said in order to justify not spending the entire weekend with his daughter. This would have been the third weekend for the two of them to spend together and he missed it.

I can only imagine that this is the tone that he’s setting for the rest of my daughters life.

I will be judged for saying this but I honestly thought it would feel good. I thought I would get some satisfaction from him ditching his daughter on the weekend that he was supposed to have her…when he was supposed to have her and then lied and said he had to work. I thought that proving everything that I said was true would feel good or give me some satisfaction, but the reality is that it hurt more then when he cheated on me, more then when he left the bruises…because he rejected the most beautiful thing in the world – our daughter. He communicated that a ‘fly-by-night’ girl was more important than the cutest little redhead that God ever created.

So, I’m annoyed.

I just want to be done. I want to forget that I thought he was ever good enough for me. I want him to be a grown up and turn his paperwork in to the courts like he should have done over two months ago. Yet, that apparently, is the person that I married, that I’m now divorcing.

And I’ve finally come to grips with it because I’ve finally realized that I married a loser. I’m not the loser, user or abuser – he was.

I married someone that loved the fact that I paid for everything. For him, that was all that I was in the picture for.

When I reviewed his checking account info that he submitted, it hit me how much of a schmuck I was, yet, I’m proud that I was that schmuck. I looked back to the week that we eloped and I realized that he paid for one thing while we were in Canada…he bought Tim Horton’s coffee…that’s it. That’s all this man contributed to the cost of our elopement; that’s all he contributed to our family vacation. I paid for the rest. He sponged off of me.

I’m an idiot.

Wait…am I really an idiot??

No.

I’m not. I’m not an idiot. I’m a person that was so in love with someone that I never cared about money. I cared about memories…about experiences…about our family…about our engagement…about us.

I believed him…that makes me a softy at heart, not an idiot like he claims I am…it simply shows that I was truly in love with a person – with their ‘being’, not their bank account (like he was).

It was eye opening what he was doing behind my back as I reviewed the account information. The good thing for me is that I finally am at a point where I don’t care. I truly am so apathetic to the loser of a man that I was married to, I can’t wait to wash my hands of him. Just say a prayer for the little redhead because he’s already shown that he can’t be counted on to be there for her…he’s already shown that he’ll put his needs before hers, and I never want her to be put through the same hurt that he’s put me through.

And then my family and friends enter the picture. And they remind me of all that I have to be thankful for…all that I already have in my life, even though my ex wants to make me think that I’m not enough for anything more than helping to reduce his child support amount.

Divorce can bring people back into your life that you forgot were in the wings. That sounds super pretentious but what I mean is that sometimes there are people in your past that need to stay in your past, or people that your new love wouldn’t feel comfortable around, or just simply people that you’ve outgrown based on your life choices.

…so there’s this guy…

He has been in my life for many, many years. While he may not have been an active part of my life for the last 15+ years, I always knew that he would have my back, no matter what…no matter who…no matter what the circumstances were – I could call and he would answer and he would show up.

There are very few people in my life, in anyone’s life, that are this amazing. I’m lucky enough to not only have family in-state and out-of-state that are this awesome but also friends that have been through the Big D #1 and the Big D #2 with me…and then there’s this guy.

This guy…A friend that wants nothing from me but for me to see me how he sees me. A friend that tells me how stupid I’ve been and that I need to suck it up because my ex is an idiot and how I shouldn’t stoop to his level. This friend is a guy that gives me more ‘guy advice’ than I could ever ask for. Sometimes I hate hearing it and in other times, I couldn’t be more grateful.

I love my girlfriends. They sympathize with me, they tell me honestly how life will be so much better without my pathetic excuse for an ex, and help remind me how much more wonderful my life is without my ex…and yet they are my ‘girls’.

Girls are nice…close girlfriends will tell you how it is, but they still are gentle when they say it (typically).

Guys (as I’m learning) will tell you how stupid and soft you are being without batting an eye.

And that’s why I’m thankful for this guy.

He’s told me that there’s no need to tell my ex any longer how stupid he is because he should already know it.

He’s told me that I am good enough…that I don’t need to care that my ex is already dating his third girlfriend…that I don’t need to justify anything to this Idiot.

That simply that I just need to be me and move on and realize that he never deserved me and he’s showing it now. Because I’m that awesome…and my ex is an Idiot. His words – not mine.

…and with that said:

Some of you may be saying, well, now she’s doing it again – she’s validating herself through the words of another man – and I get it. I’ve honestly struggled with it myself. I’ve told this guy numerous times that I don’t believe him, that I think that he wants something from me, that I don’t want to be anything more than friends (because I ‘go there’ unnecessarily sometimes), because I think he wants to have a ‘friend’ – a girl that’s there in case someone else doesn’t show up.

…back story:

When the man that you love with all of your heart cheats on you and hurts you, it leaves bruises seen and unseen that you deal with long after it happens. I am still trying everything I can to remind myself that only losers cheat, and only idiots leave bruises, and only morons justify it and claim that they are the victim. Yet, the victim truly does have to pull themselves out of it…for day, weeks, months, and years to come. The emotional damage that one small act can cause can’t always be repaired – it just has to be put ‘away’ and moved past and that can take some time.

When the love of your life has hurt you in a way that no other person ever could, life can be emotionally draining to deal with.

And when you hear repeatedly that “you could never be loved by another man”, and then another man shows self-sacrificing love, it’s hard to actually recognize. When you do, it’s probably too late. I’m just thankful that this guy has been my friend for a long time and I know he’ll be there for a long time after all of this garbage is over.

So this post is partly to announce the last of my regular divorce posts before my site changes slightly to focus on the future, and it is, in fact, in part, due to this guy. This guy that grinned big and wide when I walked into the room the other night and when he introduced me to his friend, he friend said repeatedly how beautiful I was and all my friend did was grin ear-to-ear…this guy that can’t figure out how to introduce me because I won’t let a label land on us…this guy that has friends that boost my ego more than he does…this guy that puts my needs before his…this guy that checks on me each day – multiple times a day – just to make sure that my emotions aren’t a wreck because of my Irish Idiot…this guy is a friend that I don’t ever want to lose.

Keep your friends close and…even closer during divorce, because divorce sucks and the more people that you have in your corner, the faster you will heal.

 

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all i want for christmas is my divorce

I have a unique perspective with this divorce because I’ve been through this before. While I’m on the other side of the table this time, and never wanted this divorce and even took a cheating husband back, I still know what is involved emotionally, financially and legally through this process. I absolutely HATE that I know all of this, but this is my reality.

My husband is making very poor choices through this divorce process and is being ill-advised, and where ever that advice is coming from, this process has been made doubly difficult because of it, simply because he won’t just stand behind his own feelings and he relies too often on everyone else’s opinions.

Whereas you would think that I would be the one making things challenging, he is the one that can’t turn anything in on time (literally months behind me) and continues to fight agreeing to a timesharing agreement for my daughter all because he refuses to not drink for four days per month.

I just don’t get it.

You would think that he was the one fighting the divorce rather than the one that started this process based on the issues that he is drawing into this. He was the one that cheated, he was the one that left bruises, he was the one that ran away, he was the one that filed for divorce.

With that said, I’ve written an open-ended letter to my soon-to-be-ex, not necessarily hoping that he’ll read it, but rather that others that are going through a divorce or considering divorce, won’t make the same mistakes that he is making.

Dear You-Know-Who,

I loved you with everything that I had. I even loved you after I found out that you had ‘fallen deeply in love’ with a woman that has no issue joining in to ruin a family and even after you did things to me that I have yet to be able to utter to another soul. I should have seen your character in choosing such a person to be with, but I didn’t, because I was blinded by my love for you.

Now though, I have seen another side, a nasty, disgusting side that saddens me.

I can’t believe that I ever fell for you. If I knew then what I know now, I probably wouldn’t have stayed very long. How you only care about money and how much everyone else can give to you without you having to work hard for it, is sad and I really hope that our daughter learns her work ethic from me and not your family. Trying to find a shortcut does nothing but prolong the inevitable of having to really work hard for what you have.

Which brings me to the point of this letter.

You were the one that wanted this divorce…do you remember? Do you remember me asking for more counseling and you laughing at me? Do you remember being so cold and heartless? I remember every word you said, every action you took, every heartless thing you’ve done.

After some of the things that you’ve chosen to do, say or participate in, I’ve lost all respect for you, and to me, that is so much worse than if I only hated you.

I just want you to stand on your own two feet…to follow through with the things that we talk about when it’s just us talking. But then your family, throws their bad advice in the mix and you back out of what you had previously agreed to – and the things that we had agreed upon were in the best interests of our daughter and it would have ended this bitterness so much faster.

For some reason, you can’t see how selfish your family is being. They don’t want the best for you – they want the best for them.

Stand up for what YOU know is right…stand up for what YOU think is worth it…stand up for what YOU know will end this battle. Stop letting others influence your decisions. YOU are the only one that has to live with me in your life for at least the next 16 years. YOU are the only one that can stop the madness. YOU are the only one that can lead this to a calm resolution because YOU are the one that started this process.

Your family only wants you for themselves – all for what you can do for them, the things you can fix, the business that you started that they can take over and tell you how to run, to share the daughter that we are raising. And you fail to see that they are so selfish that they continue to feed your delusions of right and wrong, so that you can maintain the ‘victim’ mentality, when you were the one that made all of these poor decisions.

And now…now you want the courts to feel sorry for you too. You’ve painted such a sad picture of your life and financial outlook yet we both know that I’ll be able to poke tons of holes through all of it.

I have advice for you and I hope you listen, because I’ve been through this before. You seem to be using a ton of energy on things that don’t matter. Every decision that you make needs to be something that you want, not that someone else is advising you that you should want. The anger that you expend each time that you don’t hear what you want to hear isn’t worth it and in the end will be for nothing.

Zero-Emotion Divorce: Thanks Florida.

The divorce process in Florida has become so clinical that you really need to have every T crossed and every I dotted if you want to claim something that I paid for four years ago (aka my vehicle, amongst other things), should be half yours. I recommend that you really ask yourself if it’s worth it to argue that the things that I paid for prior to our marriage should be yours.

If you notice, I skipped all of that nonsense, because it’s not worth it. I just want out of this marriage at this point, with each of us getting what we walked in with, splitting the marital assets, and what we decide is financially fair considering I left a 17-year career to support you less than 12 months before you walked out on me, and I just want to know that my daughter will be safe when she is with you.

And that’s it. If we could come to a conclusion on those things, it could be over. It’s all I want for Christmas.

You were the one that wanted out but you’re fighting so much for stuff that I paid for…is that all I was to you – a dollar sign? You’re very unlikely to win so the fact that you are fighting so hard for ‘things’ is beyond me. Use this energy for building your business instead of going after things that you’ve never had the right to claim as yours.

Work with me to end this, not against me. It seems that your pride is getting in the way and you are letting others influence your decisions instead of just standing on your own two feet and making a decision that will end this quickly and in the best interest of our daughter.

You’re wanting to battle over the most ridiculous things…harder than fighting for your daughter or building your business/finding a job that would provide you with a schedule that would allow you to spend more time with her. But instead you want to do everything you can to try to hurt me. Well, in case you didn’t know, you’ve already achieved that…you can stop trying now because you are now irrelevant to my life.

I’ve moved on with my life and just want this done. Clear your head and really ask yourself if this battle, that you are creating, is really worth it. Will it do anything but prolong what you’ve wanted all along? Will it do anything to build our relationship as adults that are trying to raise a daughter together? Will you be setting an example that you’ll be proud of your daughter watching?

More advice is just to do what’s right from the beginning. It will cost A LOT less and end A LOT sooner, if you can put aside your emotion, pride and greed and seek out a resolution instead of causing more issues each week.

The reason that I can offer all of this advice is because I’ve been in your shoes before. Although, I wasn’t fighting to take money from the man that I was divorcing. I wasn’t lying about my income or assets that I had. In the end, my ex and I came to an agreement on both our ‘stuff’ and our parenting plan because we both just put aside our anger and we put it all out there and came to an agreement that best suited the boys and settled the issues with our ‘stuff’.

And if I had done that sooner, the divorce decree could have been signed sooner.

Pride gets in the way so often, but, you can make the choice to set it aside and realize that divorce is a horrible thing and no one will get exactly what they want but there has to be some kind of resolution. If both parties can be honest and calm and make decisions that are ethical and fair, the process can fly by much faster and MUCH cheaper.

So with that said, you may take my advice, and you may not, but just know I’ve done this before and I can offer advice based on what I did wrong so that both of us can walk away sooner from this disaster of a marriage.

Clear your head, have a cup of coffee instead of a beer and then get to work asking yourself, ‘is it really worth it to fight for the shell of a Jeep in the garage that she paid for?”.  Life really can be that simple as soon as you realize that ‘stuff’ doesn’t matter, only souls, and our daughters’ is magical and pure and doesn’t need to be put through all of the ‘garbage’.

Please note that this post and most of the posts on my website/blog may contain affiliate links. Should you decide to click on one of these ads and purchase something through this link, I will get a commission from it (the pricing is no different for you than going directly to their website)(I do not get commissions from sites where you donate money or things). Not all items recommended on this site are affiliate links. I only recommend items that I feel are amazing because I’ve used and tried them. Thank you for your trust and viewership!

finding me: adventure #1

The silver lining in this divorce is that it’s forced me to really dig deep and figure out who I am and what I want out of life. I’ve started to create an ‘Elle Woods’ style vision board, I’ve spent time just being by myself, and I’ve spent time with friends, just being me, without apology or hesitation. And it’s been glorious. I really can’t say that I’ve had a day of loneliness in F.O.R.E.V.E.R.

A couple of friends that I have to thank, have committed to helping me rediscover who I am and doing things that I’VE always wanted to do (even though they want to do these also because the ‘fun things’ are truly just that awesome to do). I’m picking these things…no one else and I get to be the one to do what I want when I want to (and that’s if the kids aren’t with me because the kids always overrule me :)).

And as much as I love my kids, I need to do these adventures on my own. Mom’s forget, all too often, who we were before we had kids – and we mentally shame ourselves for wanting time alone…so I am working diligently to find a balance between mom-life and me-life and work-life. Thank goodness for friends so that I get to have fun with other adults during my adventures too.

B.I.N.G.O.

Recently, I had my own, first, personal adventure. Bingo. Yes, that’s not a play on words…I played Bingo. I know this sounds ridiculous, but I’ve always thought that it would be fun to go and play Bingo with the hard core, dauber-owning, bingo players.

It was just as much fun as I thought it would be.

A friend of mine went with me to Bingo and  we bought daubers (the ink-dot things that make playing Bingo faster) and spent $1 for three cards and we didn’t win a thing but had so much fun. The people playing are super intense and I think I was even “shushed” once or twice, because I like to talk and giggle a lot, but it was so much fun.

To get out of the house for a few hours, spend time around adults, get my blood pumping trying to keep track of 6 Bingo squares at once, giggle when I couldn’t keep up, giggle at the bad words heard around the room when someone said Bingo, giggle when there was a loud sigh of relief when the announcer said that it was not a Bingo, and giggle at the mad rush for the exit when 75 people lost and Bingo was over, was so much fun.

I’m not sure that I’m going to do it again but I’m glad I went. It was something different, a change of scenery and a chance to do something that I’ve always wanted to do – call me simple, but it was so much fun.

About a year ago, I watched an episode of Duck Dynasty where the mom and Willie went to Bingo and he attempted to ‘call’ the numbers/letters for Bingo. I loved watching the intensity of each of the players and because I love people watching I thought it would be so much fun.

The reality was that it was so much better than the show portrayed. 🙂 The people watching was awesome and it was packed with people from all backgrounds. I like the simple things, I suppose.

Create a Bucket List.

My advice to anyone getting ready to get married – write a list of things that you like to do, and make sure that it’s not all about the things that your soon-to-be-spouse likes to do. It’s wonderful to do things together and you should have regular date nights, but you should do things that you both want to do, not just your spouse.

I think that my ‘people pleasing’ mindset has compromised too much in both of my marriages and I never really asserted myself enough to get to do what I wanted to do. That’s not to say that I didn’t love getting interested in their favorite things, it’s just that neither one of my husbands ever asked me what I wanted to do on date night. It was only ever what ‘we’ wanted to do and because I was always fine with whatever they liked, they never stepped outside of their ‘boxes’ to do something that was on my bucket list. But, at least, this is something new for me to focus on – checking everything off of my bucket list.

And because I’ve focused on it – I never really realized that my bucket list is a mile long. I can’t wait to do everything. Things like camping on the beach and enjoying a resort with the rooms on/in the water have given me a new drive in life. I am going to work not for the work accomplishments but purely as a means to give the word ‘life’ a new meaning. I want to teach my kids that it’s important to set goals so that you have a reason to work hard and then enjoy ‘moments’ and life and create memories that only they can relish in.

I can’t wait to create new memories and I can’t wait to teach the kids the value in creating new memories.

We didn’t realize that we were making memories. We just knew we were having fun.

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