This girl's love story. Part One.

If someone would have told me five years ago that I'd be spending weekends waking up early to go hiking with my family in the mountains, pointing out deer and bears to my boys, and seeing some of the most beautiful sights this country has to offer, I'd tell them they definitely had the wrong person.  I liked going to loud concerts, pub crawling with rowdy friends, sleeping until noon and working two jobs to support my shoe habit.

If someone told me five years ago that I'd fall head-over-heels in love with a man who was the furthest thing from a preppy, tan concert-goer { the kind who used more hair product than me } I'd tell them they were crazy.  I had a "type"...I thought.

Although I would pay to be allowed to sleep until noon now, most everything else about my life changed just over five years ago when I began dating a co-worker I'd worked with for over three years.  We had never met in person, { he worked at a different location } but we talked on the phone multiple times every day for work.  Over a short time, a friendship developed and soon after, I found my heart skipping a beat when I'd see his name show up on the caller ID in my office.  I suspected he had the same type of crush on me.  He was smart, funny, kind, generous and hard-working; things I knew I wanted but hadn't found in earlier relationships.

What I now know was a complete misconception, I thought he was shy.  I knew he knew I was single.  I knew he was single.  Besides the blatant fact that company rule stated managers { him } were not allowed to carry on relationships with other employees { me }, our obvious chemistry left me unable to figure out why he hadn't attempted to spend time with me outside of work.  Finally, I manipulated encouraged him to ask me to a movie by mentioning there was one playing that I "reeeeeeally want to see" but had no one to go with.  

That's all it took.  He asked me to dinner and a movie.

There were a few days to spare before our big night out, so I prepared by shopping for a new outfit, getting some tanning in...and oh yeah, I sent my mom into his office to check him out for me.  I had to know what I was getting into.  Plus, my mom is totally cool like that.  She went in and pretended she was interested in placing an order with him, then reported back to me that he had really nice arms, green eyes and black hair.  And he was tall.  After my previous relationship, where I was forced into only wearing the flatest flats just to see eye to eye, I was thrilled to hear this bit of information.

I built this man up to be Prince Charming.  He was going to pick me up from my studio apartment in his Ford F-250 and sweep me off my feet.  

Not so.  

To be continued...