1 year. 2 penguins.

1 year ago today I was in my kitchen baking a cake for the most recent order, chatting up a girlfriend of mine counting down the time to get ready for a SF Giants game we were attending and talking about how I needed to meet someone who was my kind of crazy. The kind that didn't want to fool around with dating lots of randoms, who knew what they wanted, had a good head on their shoulders and who I just clicked with.

I had just joined an online dating website about 7 weeks prior and it was slow going. Not because I didn't get responses but because honestly...there are some real sleezebags. Yeah. Bringing that word back!

Septemer 5th, 2013. Me in the kitchen. Covered in powdered sugar rolling out fondant.

My phone dinged. I answered.

It was a sight to see!

The first email was from wildatheart79. He was cute. Not sure what I thought about his pics on his profile as they were all selfies and what normal guy takes selfies. Weirdos. But man did he have some gorgeous green eyes. Seriously. The greenest eyes I have ever seen. He emailed once, then not even 15 minutes later he emailed again stating how my profile was the closest to what some would call a 'match' that he had ever seen and his account was about to expire. It was no joke.

Divorced
3 kids
Love country
Suck at dating (this was really in our profiles)
Long walks on the...oh wait.

I am sure there is more but those were the four gotchas. After his second email I recall distinctly looking over at my girlfriend and saying "he just might be my kind of crazy". Weird how random moments stick out and had he not been so persistent I may have backed off, ignored him, gone to my game, forgotten about his email but he was, I didn't and it is a day I wouldn't change for anything.

I didn't join a dating website expecting to find perfection, I joined it to get my feet wet, to try dating and oddly just before him I realized I wasn't a typical 'dater'. Good thing though, cause neither was he.

It has been 12 months now, 1 year, 365 days since that first email, the first text, the first call and I still feel just as giddy about him now as I did back then, even more so actually. It's not to say that we don't have disagreements, that some days we just don't like each other and that our situations don't cause some friction, what with ex's and visitation days and such. Being who we are though, we take it in stride. We make the most of each day and although some days there are tears (yes I am a girl and I cry. Duh.) or some disagreements, or some eye rolling or silent bed times where we don't face each other the number of smiles, laughs, hugs, kisses, stories shared, memories made and butterflies felt outweighs all else. Each day he reminds me that he has found his penguin. Perhaps not by saying it but my showing me.

I mean. Just yesterday he fixed the garbage disposal, the attic door and put a lock on  our bedroom door finally. If a lock on a bedroom door in a house full of 6 kids doesn't scream perfection I don't know what does. Haha.

We disagree but it never fails we talk later and realize both of us were over it before it even started. we often finish each others sentences and blurt out the same random song lyrics or thoughts. We used to say we shared a brain, and now we also share a heart. After having been in our past relationships, we never take anything away from them but we do bring to our current relationship the lessons learned from them. We aren't perfect. We don't pretend to be. We don't have it all figured out and there are hardships in this just like any relationship. The difference so far is that even on the bad days we wouldn't want to be anywhere else with anyone else.

Happy 1 year to my love.