Meeting Mom

This past weekend I had the privilege of meeting Claudia's mom. Her mom likes to visit once a month, but sometimes life gets in the way, and it had been two months since her and Claudia had spent time together. So I was honored to be invited to be a part of their weekend.

Saturday afternoon, just after 3pm, I arrived at Claudia's place just moments after her and her mom. They had made a trip to the store to buy something to wrap a "Valentines" gift that Claudia had make for me. Once inside I was introduced to Mom and then I was told that I needed to stay out of the bedroom while Claudia wrapped the gift she made me. You see I knew ahead of time that she had made me a gift because she was so excited about making it that she couldn't keep it a total secret.

Moments later she ran out of the bedroom with a thin and square silver package. I must admit that I was very curious to see what she had made me for Valentines that took her over five hours to complete. I actually had an idea of what it could be due to her asking for a CD of my photos earlier that week. I figured she had one of my photos printed and put into a frame, but boy was I wrong. She took that idea several steps forward. She had 50 of my photos printed and she put them into a photo album. Oh, and not in a photo album with the crappy static pages. She bought an album with clear inserts. It came with white pages in the inserts but she chose to replace the white pages with black, which is best for displaying photos, and created hand made white tabs to hold the photos on the page. Her gift for me is an awesome gift. Most of the photos I had never seen as prints because it is more cost effective to look at them on the computer, but I caught myself thinking, "Oooh that photo looks even better as a large print."

After opening the gift Claudia, her mom, and I sat on the sofa and chatted for a while. As we started to get hungry her mom went into the kitchen to make cheese enchiladas from scratch. Claudia said that she can now cook them just like her mom, which is awesome because her mom's cheese enchiladas were delicious. Following dinner the three of us watch the movie "I Am Sam". Claudia and I had watched it together the weekend before. It was her first time to see the movie and she loved it so much that she wanted her mom to see it to. I too am a big fan of the movie. I've seen it over 10 times now. More conversation superseded the movie. I kept trying to get Claudia's mom to tell me embarrassing stories from Claudia's childhood, but Claudia wasn't having any of that and for the most part successfully stopped her mom from making her blush. I'm happy to say that I did hear a couple of funny stories.

Due to the bad weather Claudia and her mom decided earlier that afternoon that I should spend the night on the sofa, but when it came time for bed Claudia's mom came up with an even better idea and dug an air mattress from the closet. Shortly after blowing up my bed and covering it with blankets Claudia's mom went to bed. Claudia and I proceeded to stay up until 4am talking, making play list on her computer, and sharing our affection for one another. Instead sharing a king size bed with her mom Claudia decided she wanted to share the twin sized air mattress with me. I didn't mind that so much, but it turns out her mom wasn't a big fan of the idea. I felt bad for making Mom mad and while Mom was making breakfast I sent Claudia into the kitchen to hug and kiss her mom until mom couldn't be mad anymore. It must have worked because my portion of breakfast didn't kill me. It, much like dinner, was delicious.

Sunday morning and early afternoon were lazy times. We sat around talking and playing music for a good while. But neither I nor Mom could let the day waste away and we both did some work around Claudia's apartment. Mom did some cleaning and I make a few repairs. Around 2pm we all went to Chili's to eat lunch. While we were waiting on our food Claudia tricked me into taking a small physiological quiz. She called it a "game". After I played the "game" she proceeded to tell me that she sometimes uses the "game" during interviews of potential new associates at her job. Luckily I passed the test.

Shortly after 4pm the three of us went to my church together. Well, kind of together, for logistical reasons we road in two separate cars. I drove by myself and they shared a ride together. I thought it was very cool that Claudia's mom was willing to go to my Church. Right after church I had to say goodbye to Claudia and her mom because Claudia had to pack for a business trip that she was to leave for the next day. That and I wanted her to spend some more time with her mom. I love spending time with Claudia and she with me, but I felt that desire was taking away from necessary one on one time between her and her mom. I'm happy to report that Mom approves of me. My next quest is to win over Clauida's friends who are still a bit skeptical about me. But, I hear that they have been poking around my blog and myspace account and have liked what they have seen thus far.

Lately

This is a picture of what I've been doing a lot of lately; spending time with my new, and best ever, girl friend. Here name is Claudia and I met her online. A website called faithbase.com to be exact. In years past I had tried the whole online dating thing with little success. I even became a bit cynical about it. After going out with 15 different women over a two year period, 2003-2004, and never making it to a third date, I decided to call that game over. But, time has a way of softening our feelings about things sometimes.

In November of 2007 I noticed an advertisement on myspace for a site called faithbase.com. It advertised being able to meet people of similar faith without paying a membership fee. A big part of what I didn't like about online dating was the membership fee that dating sites charged. I also noticed that the site didn't use sex to market itself, and it made a point to display photos of groups instead of only couples. After creating a profile, which is set up much like myspace, I was ready to go. I also noticed that it provided me with two profiles. One was for dating and the other was for other uses, much like a myspace page.

I contacted a few women and few women contacted me, some of them where from other states, like Ohio. I conversed with four or five locally and three from other states for a short period of time. The ones in other states were just being friendly and seemed to simply want someone to talk to. Two of the local women seemed interested in continuing our conversations outside of email, but one responded much faster and more often than the other and our relations quickly moved from email to telephone and then from telephone to in person. After two good dates but no chemistry she took the initiative and joined the witness protection program. So I moved my focus to woman number two, Claudia. After several emails, and a few of which involved me asking her to have coffee/tea or ice cream with me, she told me that she was a cautious person when it came to meeting people from the internet and she would give me a call if I gave her my number. After talking to her a couple of times on the phone she shared her phone number with me, which she had blocked the first few times she called me.

After nearly a month of telephone conversations she told me she was comfortable with meeting me in person, and during that same telephone conversation we set up a date for later that evening. We chose to meet each other at a Red Lobster. This slightly goes against the internet dating rules. Normally for the first date you meet over drinks or coffee, something that you can easily be excused from if things are going nowhere fast. I was okay with having dinner since we had been emailing and talking on the telephone for nearly two months already.

Our first date went really well. To this point it was the best first date I've ever had. After a 2 hour dinner we left and went to the Flying Saucer in downtown Fort Worth and closed the place down. Since that weekend, the weekend of January 19th, we have spent every weekend together, four in all. We both agree that we feel oddly comfortable around one another and have moved our relationship faster than either of us would normally allow. We have a lot of chemistry and have developed quite a bit of intimacy while getting to know each other over the past three months. I'm even going to meet her mom when she comes to visit this coming weekend. So far I've past every "test" she has given me, and I'm pretty confident I can pass this one too. With that said this story will have to be continued at a later, undetermined, time.

Increased In Value?

i'm not big on buying designer jean. they cost too much and i don't care if i'm wearing the latest fashion. i typically buy Levi 569 Jeans for $30 - $40. i have a pair of Levi Jeans that i've had for three or four years and a couple of weeks ago they started to develop a hole in the left leg. two days ago the small hole turned into a large hole while i was kneeling down to poke at the fire in my fire place.


does this new found wear mean that my jeans have increased in value? are they now worth as much as this pair of Lucky Jeans?


you know, i find it humorous that jeans tend to cost more as the number of holes in them increases. why is this, i wonder? the even bigger question is why do people pay hundreds of dollars on a pair of jeans with holes in them when they could have purchased a pair for $30 to $50 and put the holes in themselves. i could go and buy a pair of $200 jeans full of holes and not be able to give them to charity because of the exact same holes that made them cost so much. is that not just crazy?