And even before that...

My sister Nancy is a teacher in a nearby school and had a conference to attend in a small resort town about 5 hours away. The group coordinating the conference distibuted a list of other locals attending in case people wanted to arrange a car pool. As a result, my sister received a call from a woman she didn't know named Jodi and they drove the 5 hours to and the 5 hours back from the conference. Along the way they happened to get on the topic of family and found common ground in the fact that they both had a single relative, in their thirties, who (they felt) needed to be fixed up with someone. By the time they returned home telephone numbers (mine and his!) were exchanged and a plan for a Fix Up was made.
After having been on 2 other blind dates that did NOT go well, I was not very receptive to the idea. Beside the whole dreaded Blind Date thing, this guy had a 5 year old child and that, in my book, qualified as way too much 'luggage' to get involved with.
Fast forward a year. I still had not met anyone, but I did meet Jodi (1/2 of the Fix Up team) when I was at her school for my work. Apparently before I had even made it out of the school she was on the phone calling my sister to say "they would be perfect together". Within a week I received my first call from Kevin and we made plans to get together.
A little over 8 years later, I remember almost every minute of that day including shopping for something to wear, getting ready, not liking what I was wearing (silk shirt that smelled like fish after I washed it!), borrowing a shirt from a neighbor (thanks Mary Claire), and waiting for the buzzer to buzz to finally meet the man I would eventually marry. The date was GREAT. We went to dinner at a super little restaurant called Mother's (does the name of my blog make more sense now?!?) and talked from 8 til midnight. After he dropped me off I could hardly sleep. I REALLY liked him and hoped more than I had ever hoped for anything that I would see him again. The next day he called and we have been together ever since.
Funny thing too... that "luggage" I wanted to avoid helped me see a very important side of Kevin only minutes after meeting him: getting into his very clean car I noticed there were little princess toys sitting on the back seat where his daughter usually sat. Most guys I know would have tucked those toys away in the trunk in a situation like that, but not Kevin.
Thank you Nancy and Jodi (my sister-in-law)!

PS: I got tears in my eyes remembering/writing this and thinking how lucky I am to have my Kevin. I think I'm really going to enjoy this whole blogging thing!