Still Alive!

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. Life has been... busy. Samantha and I are still together. It's hard to believe we have known each other such a short time; it seems like we've been together for a long time. She has started to make some friends of her own here, which makes me glad. We are still taking dancing lessons -- last week we learned the cha-cha crossovers, tango promenade and waltz walk-around turn.

Samantha's fall semester starts after Labor Day; her classes are online. From what I can tell she will have a pretty full schedule. As for me, with the end of summer things always get busier so I anticipate a bit less time at home and more time doing various activities.

It's 3 months ago tomorrow that we first spoke on the phone. Wow, what an amazing (and quick) ride it's been! It's wonderful though.

Iris

I don't know if it counts as a "dating blog", but check out Nothing's Going To Change My World. Iris, if you read this -- turning off your comments insulates you from criticism but also from support. Hang in there.

Still Dancing, Etc.

Samantha went home to Vegas today for a visit; she'll be gone for about a week. A good chance, again, to reflect on where we are and how far we've come.

We had 3 dance lessons this week, learning the basic steps for:

• single-time swing
• east coast swing
• west coast swing
• rumba
• salsa
• cha-cha
• 2-step
• progressive 2-step?
• nightclub 2-step?

I'm not sure about the last 3, they are country/western dances we weren't interested in. For our last lesson, they had us pick 4 dances of the ones we'd been shown to work on. We picked waltz, tango, east coast swing and cha-cha. We worked on learning additional patterns:

• waltz -- hesitation step
• tango -- left hand turn?
• east coast swing -- ladies' under arm turn - right

We had a lot of fun! When we got home we practiced for another half hour or more. It was great. We decided to sign up for ongoing instruction in the "el cheapo" category, which will still be a lot for us to handle time-wise anyway.

Other than dancing, we've fallen into a pretty comfortable existence. I've been a bit down due to a death in the family, some issues at work, and some money concerns. It's been a bit trying for Samantha to deal with and I know it's been frustrating for both of us. Still, we spend a lot of time together, and we talk about things a lot -- often 'til late at night. We talk about faith, and our beliefs, and our hopes and dreams for the future; our families and our concerns and issues and goals. This past week we've been housesitting for my sister out in the boonies so it's been kind of like a mini-vacation. We are still getting to know each other but already we are pretty good at knowing what the other wants/needs/expects. It's positive.

I'm taking suggestions for what to do with this blog -- it probably needs to be renamed or re-purposed or something. Ideas?