Internet Dating: #Winning!

Today is the last day to enter to win a copy of my book by commenting on THIS post. You can also read the completely silly interview Sarah Eden did with me HERE, and discover such important facts as what I eat on my birthday and that I have a violent streak.


And now to conclude yesterday's saga: 


So I wanted a book and I found a husband. 


(Uh, I just told my husband I was finishing up the saga of our online dating adventure and he said, "Oh, good. I can't wait to see how it ends." I'm staring at my wedding ring as I ponder that. Sorry if it's a spoiler for you guys.)


Around about 2006, things were kind of crazy. My parents' health was good, for the moment. My mom was entering her fourth year of remission from breast cancer and doing great. My dad was stable after a long year recovering from a bad fall down a flight of stairs (broke his neck, post surgical complications/infections, blah blah blah) and life was good.


But busy! We were nearing the end of the school year (I taught 8th grade English and creative writing) and I was the director of a major program at our school going through a recertification, and I had a six-year-old to drag through homework everyday, and . . . it was busy. I wasn't in the mood to date because it would require a little more energy than I had to give at the moment. 


However, I had the perfect amount of energy to curl up with a good book on the weekends. I just needed something new to read. I decided I'd do a little searching on LDS Linkup. It's a social networking site, not a dating site, really. Often, I used it as my home shopping catalog, much like when the Nordstrom catalog shows up. "Oooh, cute. I want one of those!" et cetera, and on to the next boy. But on this particular night, I was using it to find books.


This was my genius plan. I'd type in the names of several books I liked and then check out the book lists of other people with the same tastes. Then I'd see what they had on their lists that I hadn't read yet. (This was pre-Goodreads.) Anyway, girl, guy . . . it didn't matter. I just wanted a book.


Then this book list pops up that was deeper and broader than anything I'd ever seen on LDS Linkup. It was crazy. It looked like it had been posted by a literature professor. (This turned out to be not too far off the mark. Kenny was applying for doctoral programs in Latin American Literature when he switched to computer programming many moons ago.) Who in the world had read ALL of these books? I clicked. This popped up:

Ahhhhh! Scary!!! Clearly, this guy was going to beat me up and take my lunch money. He was in a rock band. My mom TOLD me about guys like that. She said, "No." That seemed like good advice.


And yet . . .


It was a good book list. A GREAT book list. And also, his profile said he was looking for : "Someone who's kind, vivacious, and loves to learn about new things; who'd enjoy Shakespeare one evening and bluegrass at a downtown speakeasy the next."


THAT WAS ME!


But he was totally not my type. So I sent him a message that said, "Cool profile and great book list."


I know. I have SUCH game. (Ow. I just hurt myself laughing.)


Then I went on about my business. I don't remember how long it took . . . an hour? A day? But I got a message back from him. It was FIVE PARAGRAPHS LONG. He asked me all about stuff he'd seen in my profile. And he had a really sexy vocabulary. The original emails have long faded from the LDS Linkup memory banks, but I remember he used the word "dichotomy." And I was like, "Ooooh. Yum!"


We exchanged emails for a couple of weeks. And then he suggested that he call me. And we talked for three hours. (I don't like talking on the phone except to my Aunt Linda. Three hours was crazy.) And we made plans for our first date. He wondered if I might like to go see Will Shakespeare's Twelfth Night at an outdoor theater in LA.


Um, YES!


We only lived 30 miles apart so we picked a night and I got ready. I got ready in the sense that I put on a cute outfit (why yes, it did include amazing shoes), and I got ready in the sense that I knew when I opened my front door and met Kenny for the first time, if there was any kind of chemistry at all, I would be staring at my future husband.


Three months later, we took this picture:

And it wasn't just for fun. That's an engagement photo, folks.


I earned this amazing man through hard work and faith. I did. Heavenly Father blessed me with a deep and great love. I am blessed every day. I am humbled by Kenny's faith and obedience and discipleship. I love him with everything that is in me.


And that's why Internet dating wins.


I hunted down today's pictures from our old LDS Linkup profiles. You can browse them for fun, if you like, HERE and HERE. They haven't been updated since just after we were married, so it's entertaining to me to go back and look at them.


I invented a fictional LDS online dating site that shows up in all my books called LDS Lookup that is of course based on LDS Linkup. You can check it out here. It will have only the profiles of characters in my books, and we're working out the profile pages and stuff right now, but it'll give you a peek at what's to come.


In the mean time, this week's giveaway ends tomorrow so if you want to win some Huntington Beach swag or cool wooden jewelry made by the scary biker dude pictured in the photos above, then check out the details here.