You know the novelty has worn off of living with grandma and grandpa when the kids start asking when we can move into our own house again.
Heading over to the house on my lunch break to make sure the construction is on progress.
Eleven days and counting. . . I hope.
Last week I posted a list of unique problems and challenges GOWs and WOWs face when dating a widower. This week, at the suggestion of the women in the support group, we’ll talk about some of the positive aspects of dating a widower that GOWs and WOWs have experienced when dating their Ws. Feel free to add your own list of positives to the comment section below.
Positive aspects about dating a widower include:
Many of the above qualities can be found in non-widowed men too. With widowers, however, many of these qualities are either new or are more of the forefront of their personality. I’m a very different person than I was 12 years ago. Had I been unmarried or divorced when my path crossed with Marathon Girl’s, odds are we never would have married. Even though the widowed experience was difficult, it changed me for the better. I know lots of widowers who can say the same thing.
This last week was a week of positive moves forward. First, the in-laws went on a well deserved vacation thus giving us the run of the house for the better part of a week. I think this did everyone a bit of good as we all got to relax albeit in different ways. Hopefully this brief respite will making the remaining time there more bearable for everyone.
The second piece of good news is that we finally have a close date of August 10. Yes, that’s right in 18 days we could officially have a home and a place to live again. Of course, this is assuming that the construction that they’re doing on the home before we move in gets done on time. We’re hoping to hear and update on that today. Cross your fingers that the contractors hit their deadline so we can hit ours.
Even though I hate moving I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited to move as I am right now. It will be nice to have our own place again and get the kids settled in to our new place before school starts. I don’t care if our first night there is in sleeping bags and we’re eating out of a cooler for the first day. It will just be nice to have a place to call home.
Eighteen days and counting. . . .
By accident I stumbled across a trailer for the upcoming movie Assassin's Bullet. Though the movie looks like your typical spy/assassin/thriller movie, what caught my attention while watching it was the familiar streets of Sofia, Bulgaria. So I did some research and apparently they filled pretty much everything in Bulgaria and are actually using Sofia as the main city in the movie. All I can say is: IT'S ABOUT TIME.
When movies are filmed in Sofia, they're generally used as as a backdrop for other European cities like Prague or Budapest. (Jean-Claude Van Damme has filmed a lot of his movies there.) It's nice to see Sofia actually getting credit for being Sofia instead of pretending its a more glamours Eastern European city. I have no idea where the outdoor scenes were filmed but I didn't see anything that would make me think that it wasn't Bulgaria.
The only thing that makes me cringe is how the actors say "Sofia." Westerners pronounce it so-FEE-a but Bulgarians put the emphasis on the first syllable: SO-fee-a. Yeah, you'd think they would have done their homework but since when have movie makers worried about accuracy?
You can watch the trailer for Assassin's Bullet below.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0m6kazVfTg
One of the reasons, or so I’m told, that GOWs and WOWs find this website and support groups helpful is that unless you’ve actually dated a widower, it’s hard to understand the unique issues that arise and must be worked through. Instead these women are often told by those who have never dated a widower is it’s like dating a divorced man or any other guy “with a past.”
Nothing could be further from the truth.
In order to help others better understand what girlfriends and wives of widowers sometimes have to worth, I’ve compiled a list of issues that can come up when dating a widower. The purpose of this list isn’t to slam those who are widowed. There’s nothing wrong with widowers wearing a wedding ring, planting a memorial garden, plastering their homes in photos of the late wife, organizing a 5k in her memory, or anything else on this list. They only get in the way when widowers start dating again and get serious with someone.
That being said, here’s the list. Feel free to add your own to the comments section below. And big thanks to the GOWs and WOWs on Facebook who helped compile it.
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How many divorced or single men:
Got more you want to add? You can do so in the comments below.
Val Patterson wrote his own obituary and in doing so probably wrote the best one I've ever read
I was Born in Salt Lake City, March 27th 1953. I died of Throat Cancer on July 10th 2012. I went to six different grade schools, then to Churchill, Skyline and the U of U. I loved school, Salt Lake City, the mountains, Utah. I was a true Scientist. Electronics, chemistry, physics, auto mechanic, wood worker, artist, inventor, business man, ribald comedian, husband, brother, son, cat lover, cynic. I had a lot of fun. It was an honor for me to be friends with some truly great people. I thank you. I've had great joy living and playing with my dog, my cats and my parrot. But, the one special thing that made my spirit whole, is my long love and friendship with my remarkable wife, my beloved Mary Jane. I loved her more than I have words to express. Every moment spent with my Mary Jane was time spent wisely.
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Now that I have gone to my reward, I have confessions and things I should now say. As it turns out, I AM the guy who stole the safe from the Motor View Drive Inn back in June, 1971. I could have left that unsaid, but I wanted to get it off my chest. Also, I really am NOT a PhD. What happened was that the day I went to pay off my college student loan at the U of U, the girl working there put my receipt into the wrong stack, and two weeks later, a PhD diploma came in the mail. I didn't even graduate, I only had about 3 years of college credit. In fact, I never did even learn what the letters "PhD" even stood for. For all of the Electronic Engineers I have worked with, I'm sorry, but you have to admit my designs always worked very well, and were well engineered, and I always made you laugh at work.
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To the gang: We grew up in the very best time to grow up in the history of America. The best music, muscle cars, cheap gas, fun kegs, buying a car for "a buck a year" - before Salt Lake got ruined by over population and Lake Powell was brand new. TV was boring back then, so we went outside and actually had lives. We always tried to have as much fun as possible without doing harm to anybody - we did a good job at that.
Read the entire obituary here.
I think everyone should write their own obituaries. They're a lot more personal, revealing, emotional, and they turn strangers into real people.
So even though I didn't know Val, I'd like to thank him for setting a new standard in obituary writing. I hope others follow suit.
Update: The Salt Lake Tribune has a great follow-up to the obituary that gives greater insight to Val and his life.
I kind of reached a breaking point this weekend. I won't go into detail other than to say it's just a combination of little things that are really grating on me. I'm glad things are moving forward with the house. If all goes well, we should be in our new home by mid-August. I"ll be happier, the kids will be happier, and all will be right with the universe.
Until then doing a lot of running, writing, and excursions with the kids to get by. I'm hunkering down and counting down the days until we close and move in to our new place.
This month marks 12(!) years since I got my fat butt off the couch and started running in an attempt to lose weight. When I started running in the evenings all those years ago I never thought I’d stick with it after I shed the weight. But here I am, some 4,380 days latter still running 5-6 times a week. And there are no plans to stop any time soon.
The one thing I have noticed in the last year is how many of my friends, family, co-workers, and former mission companions, and old college friends have started running on a regular basis and kept at it. It’s kind of fun to log into Facebook and see so many people log their running times and share photos from the races the 5ks or marathons they’ve run. Some have taken up running to lose weight while others as a way to deal with a divorce or health issues. But whatever the reason, it’s nice to see how happy and healthy running has made so many people I know.
In the meantime, I’ve still got to figure out a way to catch up with Marathon Girl . . . :-)
When I see all the stress, anxiety, and problems caused by social media when it comes to dating a widower, it makes me glad that Facebook, Twitter, and similar sites didn’t exist when my late wife died. I didn’t have to figure out what to do with the late wife’s Facebook page and Marathon Girl didn’t have deal with reading “I miss Krista” comments being posted on my timeline by others when wedding anniversaries, her birthday, and other occasions rolled around.
Since this has become an increasing issue in my inbox and the Dating a Widower Facebook group, here are some general guidelines for GOWs, WOWs, and widowers when it comes to social media that can help strengthen your current relationship instead of killing it.
For widowers:
For GOWs and WOWs:
For Widowers, GOWs, and WOWs:
As fun as Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites can be (and yes, they are a lot of fun), they’re not a great way to grow and nurture relationships. Please spend more face-to-face time with people instead of online time with them. There’s less of a chance for misunderstandings or other problems that way.
We need our own place. Bad. Things are fine with the in-laws. We all still love each other but the little things that come with not having our own place are really grating on me and MG. The baby needs her own room to sleep in so MG and I can get some sleep. The older kids need to stop all sharing one communal room so they can get some sleep. I need to be able to make protein shakes in the morning. Stuff like that.
The good news is that there’s a possible light at the end of the tunnel. We were able to find a house this weekend. While going on another long house hunting expedition with the realtor, he took wrong turn and we found ourselves at the end of a cul-de-sac with a house for sale at the end. It was a nice looking house but one that didn’t come up on our search results.
“That’s a cute house,” Marathon Girl said.
“You should call their realtor and see if we can see it right now,” I said half joking.
Our guy pulled out his phone and made a call. Five minutes later we were walking through the home.
The next day we made an offer on it.
Today we should know whether or not it’s accepted.
We’ll see what happens.