Don't Stop Believing

So, four years later and I'm still happier than I ever thought I could be. It's so funny how everyone says "You'll know when you find the right one." In the back of my mind, I was always telling myself "this one's the right one" but somewhere inside me, I kind of knew I was wrong even though I hoped I wasn't. That night, after Chris and I had our VERY long talk, I walked away and I knew. I just knew, there's no other way to describe it. I feel so blessed to have fallen in love with my best friend. I realize how rare that is. For all of you out there who are looking for love, and are getting frustrated. All I can say is, don't stop believing that it will happen for you. Oh, and STOP LOOKING! I know that sounds like a complete contradiction, but it's not. Love finds you, you don't find love. Just keep the faith and hopefully everyone will be as lucky as I am in love. Yeah, I know PUKE. Oh well, I love him and I don't mind shouting it to the world.

My New Job

There isn't a whole lot to report about Chris and I. However, I did get a new job. It's kind of a long and personal story that I don't want to post to the world, but I stopped teaching third grade and was jobless for the entire summer. I was really nervous that I wouldn't find a teaching job before the school year started. I started to look for jobs in retail since I worked retail since I was 16 until I got my teaching job. I got offered a job at a furniture store on the 4th of this month and Chris told me that I should wait and see if I get a teaching job. I was so panicked that I wouldn't have a job at all, I accepted the job. Of course, the next day I had an interview for a position as a Pre-K teacher, which I got. So I was stuck with two jobs. Long story short, I told the people at the furniture store that I simply did not have the time or energy needed to perform both. So, now I teach four year olds. Boy is it different! First off, it's a lot less stress because the lesson plans are already written for you, all you have to do is follow them. Second, they are sooo sweet and listen much better (I guess they're still afraid of big people). I love my job, but it is quite exhausting! I work from 7:30 until 4:15. Chris and I also started car pooling because we work a few exits away from each other. It saves gas and we get to spend a little more time together, which is nice. That's all the news for now. I'll update you when my new niece arrives in roughly 13 days!

Vacation

Chris and I just got back from our first real vacation together. It only took 4 years (which by the way, we hit 4 years on Sunday.) I have to divulge the details because it was such a blast! We left at 6:30 on Monday morning (the 2nd) and arrived at Orlando around 3. We checked into our hotel and put our bags and stuff down. It was straight to the parks from there. We had two 5 day passes to all the Disney World theme parks, two 1 day passes to Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure, and two tickets to Medieval Times. So, we decided we wanted to go to Magic Kingdom first, so we hopped on the bus that was free and went there. We stayed until about 11:30, getting on every single ride we wanted to. We got back to the hotel around midnight and realized that we hadn't eatten yet! We ordered pizza and quickly went to sleep. The next morning we awoke early (can't remember what time) and went to MGM which has since been renamed Hollywood Studios. We went on the Aerosmith Rockin' Rollercoaster and I bought a T-shirt. Chris went on Tower of Terror, but I really don't like the feeling of my stomach dropping, so I passed on that ride. We then went to Epcot and went a few rides there, and went to Olive Garden for dinner. On Wednesday we decided to go to Universal and Islands of Adventure. First we went to Universal, which has changed dramatically since the last time I had been there. None of my favorite rides were there anymore. However, they did have the BEST ride of the trip, The Mummy. It was awesome, Chris and I went on it 6 times. At Islands of Adventure we again had the chance to go on every single ride we wanted to with time enough to go to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. On Thursday we returned to Magic Kingdom and Epcot and went to this really nice resturant in Epcot. For those of you who have never been, they have a bunch of different sections that represent a whole bunch of different countries. We, of course, ate at Italy which consisted of NOTHING but workers that were orginally from Italy. At this point Chris and I were exhausted, even though we had slept in that day we went to sleep really early. Friday was our last day there, we went to MGM again and then to Medieval Times. Right after the show, we drove home. We arrived at 7:00am Saturday morning. Needless to say, we slept the whole day. It was a fantastic vacation and we ended up losing 3 pounds each because of all the walking we did! I definitely want to make it a yearly thing. As for our 4 year anniversary, we just spent time together at home too wiped to do anything else! It was great though!

Trouble in Paradise

Although Chris and I are completely in love, there is one problem that troubles me still. When Chris was 16 he had leukemia and fully covered (by the grace of God). However, this condition left his mom overprotective. I won't pretend that I know what it's like to have your child diagnosed with a possibly fatal disease. I do know that she has found an unhealthy way of dealing with that. No girl that Chris ever dates is good enough for him, no relationship he has is considered "serious" in the eyes of his mother. She especially hates the fact that Chris and I moved in together August 2005. She's morally opposed to the idea of living together before marriage. While I understand and respect that opinion, she still reacts in an inappropriate fashion. For example, I have been dating her son now for almost 4 years. She does not know the first thing about me and every time she is in my presence she pretends I'm not there. Granted, I should try harder to strick up conversations with her, but wouldn't you be reluctant to talk to someone who HATES you? I suppose I should just accept the fact that she hates the idea of "Chris's girlfriend" and not take it personally. I do though, and I can't help it. I just wish she would TRY to learn something about me. I mean her son OBVIOUSLY loves me, so maybe she should try just for his sake? Perhaps I'm asking too much. I'm hoping that when we get engaged maybe she'll realize that our relationship IS serious and I'm here to stay. On the other hand, it could get worse. What's even harder for me is that all my ex boyfriend's mothers have LOVED me. So, having one that doesn't is really hard for me to accept especially when she has no legitamate reason to feel that way. Living "in sin" isn't enough!

Chris and Mindy 6-8-04

Now is where it really gets interesting. We decide that we wanted to go to New Orleans for American Idol auditions. We only had been dating two months at this point, but we decide that it would be fun. So, we drive the four hours there and get there at 5:00 am to get in line at the Super Dome. Pretty much everyone we're in line with were singing and we made some pretty good friends in line. At one point we even sang the entire song of Bohemian Rahapsody from beginning to end. We FINALLY get into the dome at 1:00 where they give a ticket telling us where to sit and a wrist band. They make it perfectly clear "DO NOT LOSE THE WRIST BAND" and we can come back the next morning at 6. Chris and I are exhausted at this point and we decide that we should just sleep there. So, we slept for a few minutes at a time it was hard to sleep because they never turned the lights off in the dome and people were singing ALL NIGHT and badly I might add. It drove me nuts! The next morning, they gathered us all together and made us sing "Dancing in the Streets" for the camera then started auditions at 8. The way it worked was they had about 6 tables with 3 producers at each table and they went through the stadium row by row and had people sing in groups of 4. If they liked you, they gave you a flyer to go on to the next round, if they didn't, they cut off your wrist band. They finally got to us at 1:00 and by that point I'm pretty sure the producers were sick of hearing people sing. I sang for Nigel who politely said "You've got a beautiful voice sweetheart, but I just cont." (English accent) and cut off my wrist band. Chris's got cut off too and after all that, we didn't even really care. We were SOOO tired we just went to the hotel and went to sleep. It was one of the most fun experiences I've ever had and I'm so glad that I shared that time with him. On top of that, it was a sign of things to come... we spent 3 days non stop together under extreme pressures and we made it through pretty much unscathed. In fact we walked away with a lot of inside jokes.

The Next Step

It was already too late, I was in love with Chris and there wasn't much I could do about it. I've always been the kind of person that has been unable to keep my feelings to myself. If I don't like you.... you will CERTAINLY know about it, same goes for if I do like you or in Chris's case... love you. I had to tell him, but I was afraid that if I said "I love you" to him he wouldn't say it back and I'd be left with a sinking feeling of hurt. I had been in a situation not to shortly before I fell for Chris where that exact scenario happened and it kind of scarred me. So what I decided to do was leave a message for him on AIM. I put a whole bunch of lyrics to love songs, can't remember which ones, and highlighted certain letters in certain words. Altogether the highlighted letters spelled "I love Chris" that way if he didn't say anything back I could trick myself into thinking maybe he didn't see it or maybe he didn't realize what it said. I walked away from the computer for hours, ate dinner, watched TV, spent time with my family, etc. I'm not sure exactly how long I waited, but I was surprisingly patient, I didn't want to come back and see nothing. But a few hours later, I came back and to my delight I found a similiar message to me saying "I love Mindy" and that was that. Now we had to make it official, but first I had to come back home from New Jersey.

Accidentally in Love

There were some complications involved in Chris and I getting together. I was engaged at the time and he was living with his girlfriend. These problems didn't seem like problems at the time since we had just planned on being friends. We hung out a lot, going to clubs, going out to movies, talking etc... and before you know it I kissed him. Here's where things get complicated. I knew that I couldn't, in good conscience, stay with the guy I was with at the time, so I ended it. I went home to New Jersey for the summer hoping that time apart would help with my confusion. I had convinced myself that I didn't have feelings for Chris, he was just a friend. It wasn't until I was in Virginia and was gushing about him to my cousin and she replied "Girl, you are so in love with him." I replied with my usual "No way! He's my friend, that's just weird." but deep inside I knew what she had said was true. I was in love with him, and I had to tell him and hope he felt the same way.

Good Friends

Last time we left off, Chris and I didn't really speak. However, our friendship blossomed when he invited me over his apartment for a party. We started bonding over a dumb discision I had made that night. I was sort of, at the time, dating a married man and Chris wanted to distract me from that relationship. He began inviting me over, a lot and I (without realizing it) began to look forward to us having the same shift at Ruby Tuesday. We spent hours on end just talking and before long, we became very good friends. But it wouldn't stay that way for long.

Meeting the Man of my dreams

So, my sister started a blog documenting her pre-engagement and then marriage to my brother-in-law. I thought it was a really cute idea and thought I'd like to document my romance with my boyfriend. I'm starting from the very beginning, the day we met. You know, it's funny how there are certain dates that you know and some you don't. Despite the importance of the day I met him, I don't recall even the month. We have since estimated that it must have been November of 2003. I was working at Ruby Tuesday in Gainesville, GA which was a miracle in itself. I was raised in Bayonne, NJ and it was sure chance that I ended up in that town and in that restaraunt.
I had been working there for a few months and he was new, he introduced himself as Chris. The problem was, there were already 3 Chris's working there, so opted to called him "Q" since his last name was Quinn. He would talk to me every now and then, and boy was he weird. I even thought that he might be gay and when I asked him that he laughed and said "No, I get that all the time." Needless to say, although he would soon become the love of my life.... I had NO interest in him. At least, not at first.