Thirteen years already?

Most people think this is pretty silly, but my husband and I still celebrate the anniversary of our first date, which is this weekend. Sometimes we even cherish it more than our wedding anniversary. We figure, the first date was the most important event, which started our relationship, which led to marriage, and eventually children. But without that first date, none of the other things would have followed.

Anyway, we are celebrating thirteen years together, and yes, I have a babysitter this time! We still don't have any concrete plans nailed down, but just knowing we will have a whole evening to ourselves makes us giddy. It's been far too long since I've been on a date with my husband.

Now I've mentioned before that we don't exchange gifts anymore and haven't in many years. So I'm not expecting a pearl necklace or anything. We'll probably just have a nice night on the town. The weather on Sunday will be absolutely perfect (high of 72, low of 55), so we would be happy just hanging out in Basin Park with some hot tea, talking and people-watching. Aahhhh, I'm getting more relaxed just thinking about it.

Research and Rate, then date

Ladies, forget dating sites! The website with information you can really use is WomanSavers.com-World's Largest Database Rating Men. Women are encouraged to post about abusive or cheating men and rate them on the database. So if you meet someone and want to do a little background investigation, check out this site to see if he is on there. You could save a lot of wasted time and heartbreak if you found out ahead of time that the guy is a jerk.

In addition to the database, there are other resources to help women such as free medical advice, free women's abuse advice from psychotherapists, an abused women's message board, games, ecards, and cartoons. There are also weekly articles on topics such as avoiding abusive relationships and how to spot a cheating man. Overall, this site has something for women in all stages and paths of life.

Single friends...

Sometimes, I wish my hubby and I could have more "couple" friends. It seems like we always have single male friends who were once in a relationship and have since divorced and we got custody of the guy. Of course, we love all our friends, but it's easier to get together with a couple so no one feels left out of the conversations.

We've tried setting up some of our single friends and that never seems to work out and then you end up with awkward situations at parties. You hear of people hooking up on the internet, but I just don't see how that works. It seems like no one is honest enough online - they always use a fake persona and "build themselves up" so much. Then they are disappointed when they finally meet the other person and find out that they embellished their profile as well!