Wednesday, March 23, 2011

How I met T

T & Me on Halloween 2010
I'm Karla, single mom to 4 wonderful, smart, adorable, and amazing kids (and no, I'm not biased) - Jackie, age 22, married and pregnant with my first grandchild;  Joey, age 20;  Jenna, age 11;  and Kami, age 9....I also have a German Shepherd named Maggie and a cat named Mack.    So, I guess one could say I have my hands full.

Now, what more could be added to my already crazy life?  Well, it has been 6 months, 2 weeks, and 4 days since Terance (aka: T) and my paths crossed at the pool in Seacoast Village.  At the time, I was 8 months into a very traumatic divorce, and T had recently lost his beautiful wife Christina to cancer.  While I was definitely hoping to meet someone, I certainly wasn't expecting to meet anyone that day!

I will not get into the details of my divorce, as that is over and done...I will just say it was very difficult and painful, and I did everything I could to save my marriage for several years.

Now, on to where the story picks up and my new life begins!  One of my best friends, Julie, had been inviting my girls and me over to swim at her housing complex for months.  It seemed every time she asked me I was either busy already, or the girls were with their dad.  However, on this particular Labor Day weekend, I had the girls and actually had zero plans.  So off to the pool we went.  I am not a swimmer...I can dog paddle and float, but swimming is not on my list of things I like to do...so hanging out under the umbrella with a cold beer was my plan for that afternoon.

That is exactly what Julie and I were doing when she said "here comes Terance"...and quickly explained to me who he was.  I had remembered the story of his wife passing and how upset Julie had been, however I had never met the family.  He came into the pool with 3 kids following behind him...TJ who was 9 at the time, Charlie who was 7, and Claire Marie who was 4.   After the proper introductions of everyone...we all begin to hang out and talk.  I remember feeling so comfortable with him, almost like we had been friends for years.  After the pool time was over, T invited Julie and I over for a BBQ and we of course accepted...only for us to all end up hanging out in the hot tub.  It was a lot of fun and I was super excited to just be hanging and laughing with friends, and best of all, all of the kids were running around and having so much fun together.

T and Julie started talking about a rib cookoff they were having with some friends the next day (Labor Day), and I casually invited myself and the girls (ha ha) and promised to bring a pot of my famous chili beans...over the next few weeks this led to more group bbq's, hanging out in the hot tub, and even a concert in the park in Montecito.  The best part about all of this was that T had become my friend...a good friend.  A friend I could tell about my match.com emails...a friend I could tell about my funny dates that resulted from those emails...and a friend I could even talk about girly issues in front of.  Oh what fun we were having.

About two weeks after we had met, he was going to Vegas with a friend from college.  Well, I didn't have my girls that weekend and my best friend Gina happened to live in Vegas...I'll never forget him saying "hey why don't you come to Vegas with my buddy and me this weekend"...and my answering..."why not, I don't have to ask anyone, I can be spontaneous"...So I went.  What a fun weekend...I was able to get to know T a little better, hang with my friend Gina, and it was just awesome.  On the last evening of the trip, he told me he would like to date me when we returned.  The gears were quickly switching from friendship to dating...I wanted to see what happened...so of course I said yes.

For the first month things moved pretty slow...I was pretty sure he wasn't ready to date....he was pretty sure he was.  I also wasn't sure if I myself was ready to get serious, and for some reason my gut told me if I decided to date T...it was going to be exclusive and serious.  We went to dinner, lunch, hung out...but I was still taking it pretty slow and was a bit "non-committal".  Well, by early October, after a lot of thought, I decided to take the plunge and commit to dating T and only T.

By December 10th, I became his next door neighbor...which leads us to today.  Between the two of us we have 7 kids, a dog and a cat...we live next door to each other...and we are getting ready to take a road trip to Texas in an RV with 6 of those kids!  Our life has already had some very funny moments...it is filled with a lot of laughter, noise, toys, and craziness.  In an effort to document the moments that may have already happened, or will for sure happen in our future, I have created this blog.

So, welcome to T and Me plus 7!  I hope you enjoy following our journey to happiness that is sure to be filled with lots of love, laughter, and blessings!  

3 comments:

  1. I am honored to be included in this first post, I am so glad my intuition was working ;D I wish you all the best, and the love and the laughter is what will continue to bring it on...love you guys...G

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  2. I love reading your "Blog" and am so happy that you and "T" are doing so well. Hope your trip is a blast and I look forward to seeing your blogs about it. Drive careful, have fun, give Jeff, Tena, Monica, Steve, Brett, Brandi and the kids a hug for me and tell your Dad & Peggy I said "Hi"

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  3. Have I said how much I love you guys lately? I DO! Woohoo, and soon you can say that to each other! I DO! :D

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