Tag: love

Where Do I Start?

A quick Google search revealed an endless number of dating sites, where on Earth is one to start with?  That is a very good question.

Ten years ago, when I was last involved in the world of online dating, the site of choice was eHarmony or Lava Life.  And I tried them both, the first was eHarmony.  This was a site that asked lots and lots of questions, with the ideal of matching you up based on a complex personality profile.  In theory a great idea, however after 45 minutes of answering these questions I was disqualified as I wasn’t officially divorced and this site only took single people.  It in fact may have changed in recent years…

Then it was onto Lava Life, where I did actually meet and was able to date a few ladies.  My second wife, Danielle was one of those ladies, in fact two long term relationships came from that period of my life, with both ladies met on that site.

In the summer of 2017, I signed up for Lava Life and Match again and honestly didn’t have any good experiences, basically I knew I was ready and a result the only thing I seemed to be able to attract where con artists, and people trying to steal my money…  It was really ugly, and honestly turned me off the world of online dating for almost an entire year…

This past summer a co-worker and I were having a conversation about Tinder, and he was sharing his experiences with me.  And kind of a social experiment I signed up for an account as well.  So basically if you are unfamiliar with the site or app, it shows you a picture(s) of the opposite sex, and you have the option to swipe right if you like, or left if your not interested.

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You do have the option of creating a small profile under the pictures, and I would argue that most people don’t read much of the profile and are swiping based on that initial picture they see.  Originally I was not getting much interest on Tinder, and I’d be very interested to know what the man vs woman ratio is on that site…

I switched my main profile picture to a triathlon/bike riding shot and the interest picked up immediately.  Imagine that…

The other site I decided to use was Match, and most likely because of a combination of already having a profile created there, and being just a bit on the lazy side.  I did update some of the pictures, and re-wrote the profile.  Match is more of a traditional online dating site, with a combination of pictures and words, and interests that have to help “match” you up with other people.

And once I ironed out the wrinkles, and learned a bit about how these sites actually worked, I was officially back in the game.

Now with regards to Tinder, you cannot actually send a message or “talk” with the other person until a mutual swiping has occurred.  With Match feel free to send off as many messages to ladies as you would like.

Your introduction (what sets yourself apart…) I’ve found might be the most important thing on Match.  Having gone out on a few dates, I have asked about some of the ladies experiences they have had with the men that they met.  And let’s just say there are lots of interesting men out there indeed.  Some ladies are getting hundreds of messages a day from different men, and this whole process can be completely overwhelming.

So how do you set yourself apart from every other Tom, Dick and Harry?

Simple.

BE YOURSELF.

I can’t state that one enough, you have to just be yourself.

This is one thing I’ve learned from a couple of failed marriages is that you just need to be yourself, the person you ultimately want to be with needs to be attracted to you.  Not the image of the man you are trying to project.  honestly, that just isn’t going to work if your goal is a long term relationship.

Being yourself, takes off so much pressure as to how to act, what to say, even what to dress.  The lady is going to like you are or not.  And I would much, much rather have them like ME not the man I am trying to project.  It’s a simple concept, that I believe often gets overlooked.

I have yet to give any of the other dating sites a try, and I suspect that I never will.  These two are more than enough, and I’ve honestly seen the same ladies on both sites over the last few months.

I look forward to the day I get to delete these applications forever!

I’m Back Baby! ~ George Costanza

So it’s definitely been awhile since I’ve sat down to write a blog post for my little site here.  I honestly was upset for the ripple effect I saw in my personal life from a simple blog post(s) from earlier this year, and I’ve been busy!  Going back to work full time and head first dove into the world of dating once again.

And that experience is what I want to write about again.  My goal is to simple share my experiences, both good and bad and hopefully someone can learn something and apply it to their own life.  That would be aces.

As of this writing, it’s been about five weeks since I made the decision to date again.  And is that really a decision you make?  I just woke up one day and said to myself, today is the day to get back out there.  What was it about that particular day versus every other day, I couldn’t tell you.  I just knew that I finally, after almost two years felt ready to give it a serious try.  Now when I do something, it’s 100% and then a little more, as I believe that you only get back what you are willing to put in…

Two months ago, a co-worker and I were talking about Tinder, the “dating” app where you can swipe right (I like), or left (no thanks) based on a few pictures, and maybe a paragraph or two…  So as much as an experiment as anything else, I created a Tinder profile and started swiping away.  It felt very underwhelming to be looking for love on my cell phone, swiping left or right.  This site is also geographically based, meaning you can only see certain woman based on your search radius and where you are actually located.

Let’s just say in that first few weeks I learned all the single ladies in and around Barrie and Angus… I’ve yet to meet someone in person that I’ve seen online, and I often find myself wondering if someone out there recognizes me?

“Hey, I saw you on Tinder but I didn’t swipe right…”

Is that really a conversation anyone wants to ever have?

img_5624I honestly wasn’t getting much action on Tinder until I changed my profile picture.  Once I loaded this picture, Tinder blew up for me.  I would argue I saw 1000% more interest based on this picture.

I had a few ladies ask if that was really me in the picture, and yes it is!  Perhaps my all time favorite photo of me, cause in all honesty I look fantastic.  I would sleep with me…

I’d just finished a 1.5 km swim after jumping off the side of a steamship, flew out of the transition area on my bike and finished the first climb of the day.  The photographer, Mike Cheliak was sitting in the middle of the road at the top of the hill snapping away.  My arms, chest and shoulders were still all pumped up from a 40 minute swim, and start of the bike.

I also dusted off my old profile on Match which I had set up the previous summer without much success, truthfully I wasn’t ready for that whole world just yet.  I believe I went on one date, and uncovered at least three scams to get money from me.  It was not a good experience because I just didn’t have the right mindset, and any relationship that I may have started would have been doomed to failure.

The whole online dating process is a lot like answering want ads or applying for a job might be an even more accurate statement.  Your searching through all the listings, looking for the “lady” that might just be the one, that right combination of interesting words and a eye catching picture of two.  With so many different people out there, all looking for something slightly different you never know the responses you might get, and from whom…

From the research that I did, there seemed to be lots of ideas of what to include in your profile to draw interest.  And from talking with people about their experience(s) in the world of online dating, and from my own experience so far I can honestly say you are never going to know, nor should you be surprised by anything that may happen.

So over the next few months I will be sharing my experiences to date, pun intended.  And truthfully I’ve already met someone pretty special, things are going very well and it was the most unexpected person I would ever have guessed.

 

Welcome to the Next Evolution

 

Life is an ever evolving journey that will keep me on my toes right up until the day that I die, which I hope to be many years from now but in all reality who really knows?

I have been doing a lot of soul searching, reflection and subconscious thinking about my future over the past several weeks.  At times in my life I have been caught in the cycle of the nothing, but this period of time was completely different… when I am in the grip of the nothing, nothing happens, I don’t do much (usually zero exercise) and I feel sorry for myself, a little depressed, just generally not a good mental place.

Again this was different, I know BIG changes are coming and my mind has been planning things out getting ready for today.  Today is the first day of the next evolution of my life as things seem to be falling into place, perhaps not the way I originally planned or intended but that is life isn’t it?

It’s kind of funny to me when I sit here and think about things, rolling with things, being a bit of a free spirit has never been my strong suit and something I have really struggled with in the past.  I would fight against what I had planned, and what life was presenting to me, it was a struggle and it would usually end up sucking the joy and excitement of whatever it was I may be doing.  A very small change in my own mental perception of things has helped tremendously when approaching life.

Using my oldest daughter as a perfect example, as I have struggled with her or more correctly my own mental perception of what I thought her teenage years should be, and as time went by and I struggled with my vision of my daughter’s life, the way I thought it should be, and what ultimately it turned out to be were two completely different things.  The more I would fight against what was reality, and what my vision of that reality the further apart we seemed to grow.  Having accepted the situation for what it is, for accepting the way my life has turned out now I can build from here.

The next four months are going to see a lot of HUGE changes coming in this guys life, and I am very excited to see where I can end up come the end of this summer.  It’s going to be awesome!!

https://www.northwestbakery.com
North West Bakery is based in Barrie, Ontario serving Simcoe County and the Greater Toronto Area, all of our products are homemade with love.  We can hand deliver to your business, party or special event.  Visit https://www.NorthWestBakery.com for details!

 

Celebrating a BIG Win(s)!

So yesterday was a very interesting day for me, a bit of the continuation of the emotional roller coaster but in a good fun, let’s build towards something kind of day and NOT one with a huge drop back into negativity or despair.  Allow me to explain…

I woke up not feeling the best, I could feel the negative cycle that had plagued me in my past start to take hold, and it would have been just so easy to feed that cycle and the next thing I would have known, THE NOTHING would have it’s claws deep into me again and I could have lost another week doing nothing…

I recognized the start of this cycle and I reach out for help yesterday through some friends and leaned into the support circle I have created for myself and instantly felt the love and the accountability that I need to keep me on the straight and narrow.  To not slip back into back habits of my previous lifestyle.  I worked out, I went for a run and my mood and attitude immediately changed.  WIN!

I shared this experience in my group call last night, reading some pages from my journals of that past to give some insight to just how bad the negative cycles in my life would effect me.  It was a very moving experience for me to open up and share some of my darkest periods of my life.  I know that the others could relate to what I went through as we ALL have points in our lives when we feel incredibly low.  I am fortunate to have the support to quickly life me up from this.  WIN!

After my call, I had the chance to talk with both of my older children before bed and to share with both of them what I had been going through the last couple of days.  We talked about life, about how it can affect you, and ways to navigate those feelings so they don’t take hold of you and trap you into that negative cycle.  This 45 minutes was the BEST part of my day and showed me some tremendous growth on my part, to not only break my own cycle of negativity but to ALSO share that knowledge with my daughters.

This was the biggest WIN of all!

48 Hours Kid Free

As a full time father of four it’s not often I can say that. It’s rare to have any time to myself let alone two full days. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to a quiet house, the sleeping in, the getting to do whatever I want to do.

By having ME time has allowed me to keep my sanity most of the time when confronted with the chaos of four kids. Or six kids back in the day, or in the seven kid chaos coming my way later this summer. I once had a 17 kid dinner in my house and I was the only parent. It was a dream of mine, as each kid asked if they could have there friends over I said yes and yes and yes and yes until I was making dinner for 17 kids. I have the video to prove it…

Although I can’t seem to find it at the moment, believe me it happened…

These weekends I use to recharge my batteries and do the things that I love. For example I am going to go for a nice long run down to the waterfront and back, it’s full of elevation changes and great scenery. I am going to stroll the flea market and do some window shopping, and I am even going to sleep in tomorrow. No five am gym session for this guy!

I consider having the best of both worlds, full time Dad by week and bachelor on the weekends. Yes I miss my children terribly but at the same time I enjoy the peace and quiet a Friday night with an empty house brings… I think I will go play a game of pool.

And if you haven’t seen the movie Dead Poets Society, go watch it and take some lessons from it. You will be glad you did, have a great night everyone!

Happy Birthday Austin

I have a confession to make, I forgot it was my son’s birthday today.  I knew it was coming up and for some reason my mind told me that it was Friday, when it fact it was today.  Mom had made a FaceTime call this morning, which she never does and soon as the words “Happy Birthday” came out of her mouth my heart sank.  Oops, I didn’t even realize what day it was.

It was rather sad and sobering fact to me to have forgotten, as we had an awesome cuddle session in the morning while lying on the couch and it would have been nice to sing him Happy Birthday while we cuddled… I suppose it’s a good thing that he is just turning four and it went over his head that I had forgotten.

And I must also confess I am totally unprepared for a birthday today, with it still being so close to Christmas perhaps in future years just grab him a couple of extra presents and leave them in my closet for today.  I will also be spending the afternoon making a SpiderMan birthday as I like to do every year for my kids when they make their request.  It’s a good thing that the Bulk Barn rents out shaped cake pans and I am hoping that a SpiderMan head is among their selections… if not I will have to get creative.

Jennifer requested a Princess Peach cake this past year, and well let’s just say that Mario Kart is a few years behind the times and finding anything Princess Peach was several missions.  I ended up having to get creative and make a Pink Castle cake along with a Princess Peach themed background on a large cake board.  Turned out pretty good in my humble opinion.

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So today we will head out shopping, and I will enjoy every second of my day with Austin as currently he is running around and having a great time with Kristi screaming giggling and tickling as they run around the house playing Monsters…  Argghhh I’m gonna get you…

I have this giant calendar on my fridge, and the lesson that I have learned today is to write it down, perhaps set a reminder on one number of the pieces of technology that I possess.  Or perhaps I need to slow things down in my life and make sure that I focus on the truly important things in my life, like my son’s birthday.  #fail 🙂

 

 

Great Start to Monday… Surprise!

I usually get my little ones back around 8:30 am on Monday morning and it doesn’t leave much time for anything other than getting undressed and then redressed a few minutes later to head off to school.

IMG_4091.jpgWell this morning I was woken up to the sound of my children arriving at 7:15 instead, and even though I just had woken up I already had a smile on my face.  I had the wisdom to set the automatic coffee maker the night before, so that was ready to go as well.  Talk about a double win.  I type this as both these little munchkins are getting dressed from their pjs into clothes for the day, but it has been a great morning so far of snuggles, hugs and kisses and cuddles.

Well these guys want to play so I’ve got to go…

I hope everyone has the same great start to their Monday.  Go crush it!

2017 Top 10 ~ The Courage to Make Change (#1)

To say my life was flipped upside down last year would be an understatement.  From where I started 2017 and where I ended 2018 couldn’t have been more different, and in the course of that year I had more experiences than some might have in several years.  Last year felt, to me that it was 10 years long in terms of what I’ve learned and how much I’ve grown.  Looking at my recent blog post, 2017 A Year in Pictures reminds me of just much has changed. Here’s a quick recap…

I started 2017 living at the house I owned in Barrie, I had already separated from my 2nd wife (we decided to end our marriage in September 2016)and due to logistics, I was just waiting to list and sell our house to complete the physical separation.  Those 9 months of living in my basement, feeling sorry for myself I developed some very bad habits.  I had an addiction to marijuana, I started to drink more and I became miserable at work.  I was the kitchen manager at a very busy Keg location, but was transferred to a much slower location due to my attitude at work.

It wasn’t until May that I was finally able to move out and into my own place along with my four children.  I lived like a king for several months spending too much of the profit that I had made on my house trying to fill my life with material possessions as opposed to being fiscally responsible and purchasing another home, or investing the profits.  It was towards the end of the summer I pulled my head out of the sand long enough to realize two things…

First all this spending, and living the high life didn’t do a single thing to make me any happier in my life.  I was still miserable at work, I wasn’t any happier in my personal and I would even suggest that my kids were slowly slipping away from me due to my continued use of drugs and alcohol to escape reality.  This directly affected my oldest daughter the most and I saw her starting to emulate some of my behaviours.  That was the second and eye opening things that I realized, my actions were directly impacting my children.

I knew I wasn’t happy at work, I knew I needed to leave and had been given the chance to work a part time schedule at work.  They were overly generous to me, however due to some other work related issues that don’t really need to be explain I walked away from my job of 21 years in mid September.  I have been a stay at home Dad ever since.  This decision, this leap of faith, this tremendous amount of courage it took to simply walk away changed my life in so many unexpected ways.

The last three months of 2017 have seen me grow so much as a man, as a father, both emotionally, spiritually and physically.  I first started to journal a lot.  I would write pages and pages every single day, this was a long process that allowed me accept my past, forgive myself for the decisions I had made up to this point in my life.  I came to the understanding that I couldn’t change ANYTHING about my past, I had to accept it and where it had lead me.  It was a very sobering experience to understand where my path had led me, and now what I needed to do moving forward.

Spending all this additional time with my children has been life changing, having the time and energy and mindset to get down on the floor and wrestle around with them is a daily exercise that I so look forward to.  Living life again through my kids eyes has given me a different perspective on life and allowed me to a small degree to relive my own childhood in many ways.  I only need to say Star Wars for you to understand, I was 5 when the first movie came out, and as I type this my youngest, Austin is wearing his Star Wars pjs playing with his lightsaber.

I made lots of progress in my family life to end the year, learning about what it truly important and I so look forward to 2018 and the continuing chance to expanded upon and apply what I’ve learned.

I can very happily say that I’ve gotten over my chemical addiction issues through desire, hard work, stripping away many of my friends that I knew were a poor influence on me and pure will power.  Today would be day 54 since I last smoked, it had been a gradual weening off process through the end of last year, but I know deep down that in my heart that lifestyle is a thing of the past and those days will never return.  Part of that is the people that I have chosen to surround myself with and include in my life, getting help through various men’s support groups have also helped keep me on the correct path.

The greatest lesson I’ve learned this past year is being vulnerable, to open up and share what is going on in my life (at times to my own detriment) and more importantly my head and my heart.  To start to share myself with the world, I have found such a strength in sharing and connecting with other people I never knew existed before.  I so look forward to taking that to the next level this year, to transforming my emotional and spiritual life like I have never done before.

And I continue to look forward to sharing those thoughts and feelings with anyone that cares to read about them, you.  So thank you.  I will continue my physical transformation as I train for several triathlons this summer, to complete my 100 day running challenge, today being day 12.  I hope to expand and grow the startup business venture I am currently working on, and if successful will allow me to remain at home until at the very least Austin heads off to school full time in September.  And I want to continue to grow my own and my families happiness and appreciation for life in the outside world, as I am going to camping, hiking, fishing and spending as much time as I possibly can in the great outdoors.

So buckle up for an awesome 2018 that is going to be the best year yet!

100 Day Run Challenge Update…

North West BakerySo for the first time in maybe forever, although I know I did some crazy things while Ironman training a few years ago, today I did my second 10 km run in as many days. I had every intention of doing a nice and easy 30 minutes job on the treadmill at the YMCA while the kids ran around the gym downstairs with there hair on fire (not literally).

Perhaps it was the fact that I actually only ran 9.96 km yesterday and not the full ten that kind of bugged me today. I have OCD and I felt I needed to fix that, or perhaps it was the fact that I was wearing a t-shirt advertising my start up baking company for the first time…

North West Bakery

And I figured that the longer I ran the more advertising I would be getting. Is it wrong for me to have parked myself in front of a few out of shape folks sweating away and working hard? And here comes some in shape triathlete running for an hour advertising a bakery company right in front of them.

I ordered a bunch of items from Vista Print including a banner for the outside of my house, business cards, car magnets for my doors and the aforementioned t-shirts… I have high hopes that this business venture allows me to remain at home longer with my younger kids to continue to enjoy he magic of their childhood.

Tomorrow will definitely be no longer than 30 minutes or 5km, which ever comes first!

Does anyone have any tips for muscle and leg recovery that I might use? After all I still have 89 more runs to go!

Feeling Overwhlemed

It’s 8:05 am and I need to leave this house in 40 minutes with a long list of things to do today, and I am feeling slightly overwhelmed by the enormity of it all.  I have four kids to make sure they all need to get to where they need to go, and have to be at an appointment for 9:30 and then come home and flood a bunch of sugar cookies for an order, plus make some Valentine’s Day promo ones as well.

There needs to be a run done in there somewhere, breakfast lunch and dinner and I continue to update my website and new business venture that I have launched.  All while not trying to be distracted by the other things that life may throw my way and still wanting to spend some quality time with each of my children today.  I have homework and exercises to start for a group project that I am involved in, that started last night.  homework if you will, 45 years old and still having homework.

Just typing these last two paragraphs has lightened my mood and put a smile on my face, as I am truly grateful that this is my life.  There was a time not to long ago where i would wake up with nothing to do and no one to talk to.  So this short post was in no means meant to be a rant but more of a moment of pause, a deep breath if you will to understand and focus on what needed to be done today.

And most importantly to make sure that I have the right mental frame of mind to enjoy every second of it.  I hope you all have a great day as well!