{the beginning}

five years ... seems like yesterday, seems like forever!

five years ago tonight ... a new adventure began!

five years ago today i had taken all 3 girls to Bible camp for the week and when i got home i felt brave!

rickey and i had had a very good marriage.  

i had 2 amazing step-kids and he and i had 3 more girls that we had added to our wonderful family.

i knew that marriage could be good, very good, in fact and that i was only 45 years old and {hopefully} had lots of life left to live and i didn't think i wanted to live it alone!

i knew that in a week i was starting new job and thought it would be nice to have someone to share the excitement and nervousness and adventure with. and i honestly thought it would be nice to have someone to go out to pizza with once in awhile!

i knew that i missed companionship.

i knew, from conversations that rickey and i had had way back in the beginning our our relationship over 20 years earlier that he wouldn't want me to be alone and grieving forever.

... and i knew that rickey was not coming back. i had come to terms with that, and i knew that he was thoroughly enjoying the glories of Heaven and wouldn't want to come back ... even if he could!

i knew that i'd never stop loving him, but, i thought maybe, just maybe, God had someone new out there for me ... and how would i know if i didn't do a little looking?

so ... i got brave and went WAY OUT of my comfort zone and created a profile on a {collective gasp} online dating site called "plenty of fish" ...

i was very vague about who i was and where i was from and most other identifying pieces of information.  i simply went by runner girl and showed a photo of myself running in the hope memorial relay the month prior.

i also peeked at a few of the profiles that were posted ... you know, guys close to my age, those who lived relatively close to me {i didn't think i wanted a long distance relationship} and those that seemed *nice* ... as if you can really tell from a photo and a profile on a dating site! {besides i was very skeptical that  "those dating sites" worked anyway!}.

i remember that i saw the profile of a "dr. cheerio" {who later messaged me that he couldn't wait to come home after a long day of work and sit on my lap ... thank goodness for the delete button!} and another guy from peshtigo {who was looking to get married in 2 - 3 years and told me that in his first message to me ... another delete} and then this guy {above} whose profile intrigued me the most {and i can't pinpoint the why, there was just something about him that drew me in} ... but there was no way i'd make the first move, so i just looked!  i almost deleted the plenty of fish account that i'd just created, before shutting down my computer, but figured it was harmless and i'd never hear from anyone anyway {remember, online dating sites don't work}!

little did i know that this guy, doing pushups in an ad for the gym he worked for, would get a notification that i'd "creeped" his profile ... eeeek!

had i known that, i'm pretty sure i wouldn't have slept that night, and i'm pretty sure that i would have deleted what i'd just created ...

needless to say, he did get notified that i'd looked at his profile ...

and i didn't delete my profile ... 

and that is just the beginning of the story!

stay tuned tomorrow if you are interested in hearing more of how it all unfolded!

{*i love to reminisce ... rick can't believe that i remember the details so vividly, and he's glad that i don't expect him to!}