Picture it…

It’s 9:20 p.m. and you’re letting yourself into someone’s house to take care of their pets. It’s your first visit to this home. The lights are off (including the one above the door you’re trying to enter…grrrr!) and it’s very quiet. You get in the mudroom door, then open the door that leads to the kitchen. You walk towards the security system keypad repeating the code over and over in your head so that you can type it in before your 60 seconds is up.

And then you hear someone say “HELLO!”

Holy. Shit.

I almost wet my pants.

Of course I jumped and screeched and my heart was racing…I whirled around and saw the man of the house standing at the kitchen island…in his BOXER SHORTS making a sammich.

The first words out of my mouth aren’t “well hello there!”. No. They were “Why are you home?????”

As if on cue the lady of the house glides into the kitchen, dressed in sweatpants and a tee-shirt, and says “SUPRISE!”

“Wow,” I said, still trying to get my wits about me. “Are you guys testing me to make sure I’ll show up?”

They laughed and said that they had some unexpected changes in their plans and they thought it would be easier to just let me show up at their house while they were still there. Thank God they weren’t in bed, which is in the room that the little dog will be in while they’re away. Wouldn’t that have been awkward?

The moral of this story is CALL YOUR PET SITTER AND LET HER KNOW THAT YOUR PLANS HAVE CHANGED! Don’t give her a heart attack late at night, there are many animals depending on her to show up the next day.

So. I joined eHarmony. I went through about 20 potential matches, eliminated all but one, went through the first three steps with the questions and whatnot, and I wound up rejecting that one too.

So probably I don’t really want to do more than hang out with someone. Which I kind of already knew.

I think my preferences are so strict that I’m not going to get many potential matches. I think that’s OK. I’m not in a hurry.
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Yesterday I met a lady who’s a client of Pete’s. She came into the vet’s office and as she was leaving she looked at me and said “Do I know you???”. I knew who she was, I’ve seen a bunch of clients, I just haven’t made it a practice to introduce myself. But, since she asked I told her who I was.

“OH MY GOD! What is he gonna do without you to run interference?”

“Well, he has Harmony for that now,” I said.

She then proceded to tell me about how LUCKY I am that I got away from him AND (since she’s a Psychologist) she described him to a tee. I was amazed at how well she knew him after only dealing with him face to face a limited number of times.

I found out that he had screaming matches with his female clients in the middle of the street. I found out some other juicey tidbits too but I don’t really need to get into all of that, I was just riveted! She stood there talking to everyone in the office for over an hour about him! She then told me to feel free to call her any time. I thought that was really sweet of her.

And now I’m sure that whole neighborhood knows everything I told her. Heeeee!

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I filled out one of those personality profiles on eHarmony last night. It was pretty lengthy but I answered everything. There’s a section in there about things you can’t stand about other people. You’re supposed to pick 10. They give you about 40 things to choose from. You’d think that it would be easy to pick out your 10 and move on…but no. I needed, like, 30 picks. I don’t like a lot of traits that other people can have. Do you think I’m too judgemental?

I feel this need to fill a crater sized void in my life. Even though my life is full right now with the girls and the dogs and the business and the vet job I still feel like something is missing. I don’t feel like Pete is missing but I do feel like someone is.

Here’s what I’ve learned about myself in the last two months. I don’t need a man that I can cling to. I don’t need a man to provide for me. I don’t need a man to make decisons for me. What I need is an adult that I can “take care of” and share my time with on the rare occasion that I’m not busy working and the girls aren’t home.

When I was in counseling I took a personality test and it was determined that my personality is that of “guardian”. It was so right on I couldn’t believe it! What the counselor told me is that I have a need to take care of other people, which is part of why I stayed with Pete for so long. Pete’s broken and I wanted desperately to “fix” him. Now that I know there’s nothing in this world that will fix that man I want to move on to someone who is mentally and emotionally healthy. I want to take care of him and learn how to let him take care of me.

I’m not buying the subscription to eHarmony. I might in the future but right now I don’t have the time to devote to a new relationship. I don’t feel like it’s too soon after Pete because that was over long before I actually moved out. I think that for now I need to concentrate on myself, my girls, my dogs, and my business.

What about the “done with men” stance that I thought I was going to take? Well, I didn’t think I was going to crave closeness as much as I have been. I didn’t think I’d miss having someone call me up in the middle of the day just to say hi. I thought I might miss having someone next to me at night but I didn’t realize just how empty the bed would feel (even though my bed isn’t empty at all, there’s me plus 200 lbs. of dog in it!). I’ve ammended my stance to being “done with unhealthy men”. Now, if only I could tell how healthy they are before I waste five years of my life on them….

What’s better than taking the dogs out on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon to play ball? (Which we did for about 15 minutes before Jezzy fell over from exhaustion resulting from sprinting back and forth across a rather large fenced in blacktop…)

Shoe shopping!

Because I am broke as a joke I took the opportunity to use up a gift card to DSW that I got for Christmas. It’s not that I didn’t desperately want to spend that sucker before now…it’s just that I don’t get out to that part of town very often. Today I was passing right by there so I took a slight detour on my way home from petsitting some cats.

And I spent two hours looking for ONE pair of shoes. Because I was only allowing myself to buy one pair, though I tried really hard to talk myself into buying two.

During my search for a pair of white sandaly type to wear to a baby shower next weekend I noticed the people around me. There were many big girls perusing those aisles. (I feel that I can say that since I’m a member of “the big girl club”.) I was quite disturbed by the number of conversations debating how many pairs of “sexy” shoes should be purchased today.

Sexy.

On the feet of women whose calves go straight to the floor.

Puhleeze.

I am a big girl. I recognize this. I was not looking for a sexy pair of shoes. I was looking for a pair that wouldn’t make my feet look huge and also didn’t hurt.

On a side note…I am very disappointed in the fact that my feet have grown in the past few years. And my feet were already pretty big. I used to wear a 9. Today I was trying on 9 1/2s and 10s! (Just shoot me now.)

Anywho, I know it’s not my place to judge others but ew.

I recognize also that I should just shut up because those big girls were there in pairs and I was there by myself…which would make me the loser, not the girls sporting the cankles.

I just thought I’d put that out there. It’s not as though I have an audience any more so I might as well entertain myself, right?

I haven’t updated in ages. I’ve been so incredibly busy! This is great! Business is awesome! I’m spending more time with my girls and my animals! I’M ALWAYS IN A GOOD MOOD! Life is so much better than I thought it could be. My only regret is that I didn’t make this move sooner.

I’m not going to rehash everything that’s happened in the past few weeks. I’m going to gripe.

Craigslist. The Pet’s section.

Burnese Mountain Dog/Golden Ret. mix puppy available

She is 9 weeks old. Crate trained, great with kids, cats and other dogs. Unfortunately, I need to find her a new home as soon as possible. She had her first round of shots. She is all black with a little bit of white fur on her chest and her chin. Excellent personality. Her brand new crate is negotiable. Please call (540) xxx-xxxx for a quicker response. Please do not waste my time. Only extremely serious persons, interested in giving her a new home need to contact me. I will not ship her, and the buyer must pick her up. Her adoption fee is $150.

Gah! Crate trained??? At NINE weeks old? Get real! Needs to be rehomed as soon as possible? Since it’s illegal to take puppies away from their mothers before they’re eight weeks old that must mean that her “owner” bought her, brought her home, and then found out that puppies take WORK. She was probably an IMPULSE PURCHASE and now the poor thing is going to be bounced around, will probably wind up being an unruly adolecent, and will be dumped at a shelter. If she’s lucky she’ll be pulled by a rescue and she’ll find her forever home right away. Though it’s more likely that since she’s black she’ll be put to sleep. That’s a very pessimistic scenario but it’s unfortunately very common.

But, I’m not going to dwell on that. I’m on rescue hiatus until I find the time/resources to get back into it. When I get involved I jump in with both feet. Hopefully one day I’ll have the free time, until then I’ll just work on figuring out exactly what I want to offer to a new group.

I’ve been busy. When I’m busy I don’t have time to dwell on the fact that the life I’ve lived for the past five years is over.

He was a liar and a cheat. He had more than one personality, one at home, one in business, and one for “everyone else”. He told me he loved me while he told everyone else that he wanted to get rid of me. He treated me well while he was busy calling and meeting up with other women. He used me to take care of his every day needs but portrayed me to be someone who never pulled my weight.

I was miserable with him. Even when the mood was good I couldn’t enjoy it because I never knew when it would go sour. Sleeping in the same bed we only touched during sex. If we so much as grazed each other when our intention was to sleep he jerked away.

I hated it when he hugged me. It wasn’t a heartfelt gesture, it was always a binding, controlling move. We rarely held hands. Hardly ever showed affection in passing.

And still I feel an emptiness. I feel like an important part of me is missing.

I know that what I miss is what I wanted us to be and not what we were. My head knows. Why doesn’t my heart?