Moving!!!

So I don't have a lot of extra time to write at the moment as I am supposed to be packing to move into my new apartment!! Woohoo!!! I go in to sign the lease tomorrow and will get everything moved over on Saturday. I simply can't wait!! It feels a little unreal since I've been camped out at my mom's house for so long. Anyway, I'll be posting pictures of my new abode as soon as I get everything set up. :) However, to hold you over, I made a little slideshow of pictures of Tyler and I from last week. It's a little cheesy with the hearts and all, but Tyler has gotten me into cheesy. :) Things are going really well with us, and I will post more about that later as well!

Happy days are here again!

So I've got some big updates to share! The first, for those of you who haven't already seen it on Facebook, is that I am a girlfriend to someone for the first time in about 4 years. :) His name is Tyler. We actually met through that dating site that I've mentioned on here. Tyler sent me a message and we started talking. We met for coffee a couple of days later and things have just progressed from there. He's 29 and he works for a TV station here as the Master Control Operator...basically he makes sure shows and commercials air properly. I've been to his work a couple of times and it's pretty cool. I got to sit in the studio while they did a live newscast, I got to sit behind the anchor desk, and I got to meet some of the pseudo famous Channel 6 personalities. (FYI, Don Nelson is usually wearing jeans, not dress pants! ;)) It's only been a few weeks but we really click. I've missed that feeling of actually wanting to be with someone all the time and having them feel that way about you too. I was pretty scared about getting into a relationship again because of all my emotional baggage from the past, but in the end I realized that if I let those fears run my life then I would lose out on a lot of great things. My instinct said to go for it, so I have. Tyler makes me really happy. Right now I'm just seeing where life takes us but so far, soooo good! :)

And my second piece of big news is that I will hopefully be moving into my own apartment on May 8th! I'm just waiting to get final word from the apartment management that my application was approved, which I'm hoping won't be a problem. It is a two-bedroom apartment in Meridian...about 10 minutes from my office, I believe. I really am so excited I can hardly contain myself! :) This will be my first place that is ALL MINE! It's going to be amazing. I will post pictures of the place once I get settled, but all y'all should keep your fingers crossed for me this weekend that I get approved!

Other than those two news items, it's pretty much same ol', same ol' around here. Last weekend I went to Rexburg to visit my sister and dad. It was a good time! My niece is just cuter and cuter every time I see her! And my nephew Zack rode there and back with me so we had some good bonding time. OH! And I got my nose pierced finally. No one in my family likes it, but Tyler and my friends do...and I do. I'll post a picture of it soon. :) It's really not a permanent thing anyway. I will probably leave it in for a year or two and that's it.

Anyway, I will write again soon with apartment and boy updates!

Here it goes...

So this is the blog that I have been putting off writing for several months, mostly because of my unease over how people would react, but since this is going to be a permanent change in my life I decided it was finally time to spread the word.

Basically, to sum it up, I've left the church...not officially but I've stopped attending meetings and doing other church related things. I'm not sure how to exactly explain why without offending people. My mother and sister are certain that I left because of my divorce, but that isn't really true. My divorce was the catalyst, but not the reason. Here's the story...

When my divorce started happening, I also started thinking about my place in the church. It just struck me that for the first time in my life, I was going to be independent and it was really my choice whether or not to go to church. After a lot of pondering, I realized that I had no desire to keep going and that my main motivation for being active throughout my life has been to please other people. When I was a teenager I went because I was supposed to, ya know? Then I went to a church college and got married in the temple...but you can ask Ryan, after we got married we hardly ever went to church even though we were "supposed to". We always had a hard time with doing the things we were supposed to, like reading scriptures or attending the temple on a regular basis. I always wondered why I had such a hard time doing the things I was supposed to or not doing the things I should stay away from. I think slowly I realized that I was tired of feeling like that...like all of the things I wanted to do or didn't want to do were bad. I realized that all of this guilt over church things wasn't doing me any good, and that it was guilt I was forcing on myself...not guilt that I was feeling from God.

To go back in time a bit, after my brother died some of you might remember I had a crisis of faith. At the time, I decided that God was much more forgiving than we gave him credit for. I decided that really all you needed to do was be a good person and be good to the people around you and things would be fine. Obviously I changed my mind later, but now I am back to thinking that. As far as my brother goes, I just can't believe that he was punished in the afterlife for the things he did here like the drugs. He already suffered enough on Earth because of his choices.

As far as my marriage goes, I also think that I rushed into it because of the church. I don't blame the fact that it fell apart on the church, but I can't help but feel it shares some blame in me making a reckless decision as far as who I chose to marry. Ryan was the first LDS guy that showed real interest in me in college, and he was someone that I was attracted to and liked. I think that was the main reason I rushed into things...I mean, he was LDS and I got "inspiration" from the Lord that he was the one for me so what else did I need? I don't know that this is true for everyone, but another couple of reasons I rushed into marrying Ryan was because we weren't allowed to have sex before marriage and that's something most people are eager to do, and at 22 I was making my way into Old Maid territory in the LDS World. I made a stupid decision in marrying Ryan after knowing him for about five months. If I had known him better beforehand, I probably wouldn't have married him to begin with. I also stayed in my marriage MUCH longer than I would have if we hadn't of been married in the temple. I was so unhappy through most of our marriage, but I didn't think of divorce as an option because our marriage was eternal. Even after Ryan told me he wanted a divorce, I wanted to work things out not because I still loved him but because I thought I was obligated to try to fix things because of our temple covenants. I think doing all of that just gave me a lot of mental trauma I would have been better off without.

I'm not sure how many other details I should go into here. Like I said, I don't want to offend anyone and I don't want to dis on the church. I know that most active LDS people are going to read this entry and feel sad for me, but please don't. Honestly, I am so much happier now. I don't have any self-imposed guilt. For the first time in my life, I am not so worried about when I die I might not make it to heaven. I feel like I can finally be myself and just have a real sense of freedom. I still believe in God but I don't think that I will ever be involved with organized religion again.

I wanted to share this with everyone because like I said before, it's not a temporary thing. I know this will be a decision that is permanent, at least for the foreseeable future. I hate to hurt my mom and sister, but at the same time I know now that I have to be true to myself and I couldn't do that while remaining active in the church. I hope that in time they will accept my decision and will still love me and support my decisions as much as they did before...I hope the same for all of my friends out there too. It's hard when you grow up LDS and later leave the church because pretty much your entire support system is made up of LDS people and this church is your life...when you leave it you sometimes feel a sense of isolation from your LDS friends and/or family. I hope that won't happen. Just please remember, I am still me, am still a good person, and am happier than I have been in a long time. =)

Yes, I suck...

...and I'm not afraid to admit it. ;) I apologize for my lack of blogging lately, I just never seem to make the time to do it but figured I'd give it a little attention today since I got off work early for an appointment.

So...what's new? Not much really. I'm still working at CWI and I really like it. I've gotten to know co-workers better and there are some amazing people there. :) I guess eventually I won't just be doing scheduling, I will also be helping with other Registrar tasks like transcripts, which is something I'm much more familiar with from my time at UVU.

My friend Shannon got a job as a "go-go dancer" (hate that term) for a club here in downtown Boise, so I'm usually tagging along with her there on Saturday nights. Honestly the novelty of that place is starting to wear off. The guys who go there are usually kind of scummy, but I really don't go for the guys anyway...I just go to dance, which I've gotten really into since I moved back here. It's good exercise and a lot of fun. I just have to get over my nerves because I usually don't like people looking at me!

And dating. Ahhh, dating. =P I think as of my last update, I had been dating someone. His name was Greg and he turned out to be a bit of a jerk (not to mention possibly gay...that's still being debated!) Anyway, I don't think it was too long after the last blog that he basically dumped me, saying he didn't think that we'd be good in the "long term". I agreed with him, but still didn't like getting a rejection right after the divorce! So since then I haven't really dated anyone in particular. I've joined a dating site a couple of times...yes, the same one. I keep deleting my profile and then rejoining once I get bored. ;) So I've talked to quite a few guys off of there, but no one too special.

It's very weird to be single...especially now that's it's been awhile since Ryan and I separated. I've always been more of a relationship person and I really don't like this dating around thing. I wish I could just find someone I click with and then I could stop all this online dating...not go clubbing so much...just be more of a homebody and enjoy time with that person. Of course it always seems like when you WANT a boyfriend, you never get one so I'm not holding out much hope.

Well, I guess it's time for the big confession. If you are very observant, I've been dropping hints about it since I left Utah. Basically I'm not active in the church anymore. I've had a blog written out since about December explaining why but I've been terrified to post it, worried about all of your reactions. I think for now, I will just leave it at this and if you guys want to hear more of an explanation of why or what my life has been like in that aspect, leave me a comment and I will write about it later. Just know that I am very happy and enjoying my life. No regrets. :)

Hope everyone is doing well!!

Pictures galore!!

So I will try to write an update this week but for now I figured I would deliver some promised photos!

This first slideshow is from my celebration weekend with Shannon. We went out and had some fun in honor of me being single again!

This second slideshow is actually just from this last weekend...just chronicling some of our fun times together!

IT'S OFFICIAL!!!

The divorce is final!!! It's felt like it's taken forever but I can finally put it behind me!! I'm going out tonight to CELEBRATE! It's a celebration that I plan to continue into the weekend. Hope to post pictures soon! YAY!!!!! =)

Party Girl

First off, I'm sorry for not posting in awhile. Believe me when I say that life has been a little crazy since my last entry! ;) Figured I would give a quick update on my job and then move onto other topics. I've been here for almost a month now and am really liking it. :) I have my own cubicle, which I've only decorated with a few photo's at this point, and I've gotten to know a few co-workers pretty well and think they are just awesome. It's a fun job and hope to stay here for awhile to come. :)

Anyway, there have been two big things taking up my time lately. The first is Shannon and our nights out together. Lately we've been seizing opportunities to go to clubs and such. The first we went to was at the beginning of January and it was China Blue downtown. That was kind of odd and I didn't like the guys hitting on me, but I guess it wasn't enough to put me off of it forever! We went to a bar in Nampa a couple of times because the guy Shannon was dating was DJing there. We've been to a place called the Bull's Head Pub a couple of times (we were there last night). And last weekend we went to a hookah bar, some 18+ dance club downtown, and to Cowgirls in Kuna with a few of my coworkers, which was awesome! It's been really fun actually. Once I get up enough courage to join Shannon on the dance floor, I'm pretty much always guaranteed a good time. :) We have now deemed Thursday nights as our night to go out and cut loose...although it is making Fridays at work pretty rough for me!!

Now the second reason I've been busy is that I'm dating somebody. :) I was going to wait until the divorce was finalized to write anything about it but the papers are at the courthouse and we're just waiting for them to be processed...plus Ryan already knows about it so I figured there's no reason to keep it a secret now. We've been dating/talking for about a month now. It's been good. :) We aren't officially an item or anything, but I can at least say on my end that I'm not dating anybody else. We spend every weekend together (he works during the week) and it's always a lot of fun. He's very understanding of my whole situation, which is nice. Anyway, I don't want to spill too much. He does know about my blog so I don't want him to come on here and find me spilling my guts about our situation. ;)

Well, I am being a little more proactive with my apartment search lately. I looked at two places yesterday. One seemed like a real possibility until I found out that they wanted a $200 non-refundable deposit per cat and needed them to be declawed. I'm going to look at a place after work tonight...it looks really nice but is in Caldwell so that's a definite con.

I guess that's about it for now. I will try to do a better job of updating from now on. :) Hope everyone had a good January and are having an even better February!