~ My husband Tom ~

        So many of you have asked -- what's the story with Tom? How did you meet? Yada yada yada. Yes, I admit it's a little unusual. So let's play twenty questions.

Q: How did you guys meet?
A: The internet, actually. Long story, but basically, a friend of mine dared me to put a classified ad on the net, so I did, saying that I would be in the St. Louis area starting school, and was looking for a friend. Tom was one of the people who responded. We emailed daily for a few months, and we met when I got here. The first thing he said when he saw me was "What's up, Dalmation Girl?" because I was wearing my red 101 Dalmations T-shirt (the one where the Dalmations look like they're sticking out of the breast pocket). We went to see a really bad movie (hey, I thought that since it had John Travolta in it, it would be good, but it was not) and spent the whole time criticizing the movie while some old lady told us to be quiet. It's taken off since.

Q: Is he Asian?
A: Nope. His parents are Hungarian.

Q: How old is he again?
A: Yeah, yeah, so it seems crazy, the 10 year age difference. Yes, that seems huge, but when you get down to it, it's not really. We get along fine. I'm just really mature for my age, and he's really immature for his age. ;o) Seriously, though, I will admit .. at first, it freaked me out. That's what kept us from going out sooner. I was a little concerned about the age difference. Now, I hardly even notice it ... except for when my friend Carol calls him my "geriatric boyfriend." :o) I was also bothered for a while because I couldn't be myself around my undergrad friends, who were "weirded out" by his age, so we didn't hang out with my friends as much, which was a shame. Thankfully, when I got to grad school, my new PT friends were much more accepting (as some of them were his age!) and were always demanding that I bring Tom to events. So now, Tom is truly involved in all the important aspects of my life.

Q: What does your family and his family think about the age difference and your relationship?
A: My parents had the opportunity to meet Tom for the first time in mid-June 2001 and realized that he's a good guy, and they are happy to have him as an addition to the family. Tom's family (including his aunts, uncles, cousins, and even his sister-in-law's parents) love me. They think I'm cool. :)

Q: What does he do?
A: He works for Advanced Solutions, Inc. (ASI) at Southwestern Bell as a Network Specialist -- he just got the job on February 7, 2000 to help with DSL troubleshooting. Right now he's working for a degree in Information Systems Management at Webster University in St. Louis and is planning on graduating in December 2003.

Q: What do you like most about him?
A: I like that I can be myself around him. He expects nothing  more from me. I feel like I'm complete when I'm with him. The happiest moments of my life have involved him. He understands my rather strange sense of humor, he puts up with my incredibly variable moods, and he's always been there for me. In fact, the reason I became such good friends with him is because he helped me through a very emotional time when I was in a rough transition period after breaking up with a boyfriend. Also, when I badly sprained my ankle (both times! and to the same ankle!), he was right there, watching out for me and caring for me all the way. And geez, he LIKES TO COOK! Yay! :) Likes to cook, and cooks well, I should add. There's so much that I like about him ... he's laid-back, has a great sense of humor, and wants to get the most fun possible out of life. Oh, and he remembers the little things (funny, he forgets the big things!). For example, one time I told him I missed using chopsticks (not many college kids use 'em, and I used them all the time at home). So the next time we ordered Chinese food (several weeks later), he went to pick it up and brought back 2 pairs of chopsticks!! Another time, I just randomly thought I'd like a piece of pumpkin pie. So I asked him if he liked pumpkin pie; he said he hadn't had any in months ... and the next thing I knew, he bought a pumpkin pie for us to eat! (It was really yummy by the way.) Around Christmas time, while passing by many lighted houses, I told Tom that I had always wanted to decorate my house with lights, but it was just something my family never did. So we ended up buying lights to string around his apartment ... and even decorated a tree in his apartment! There's nothing he wouldn't do for me .... the list goes on and on. Sometimes I tell myself I really don't deserve him, because he's too good to me. But something in his heart says that I do deserve him, so who am I to argue?

Q: How long have you guys been together?
A: For sake of not being able to update this page every month, we started dating sometime in September 1997, and we married in December 2002. So you do the math.

Q: Do you guys fight a lot?
A: Like any couple, we have our ups and downs. It usually depends on how stressed the both of us are. Most of the time I instigate fights because I'm stressed and I take it out on him (and I know that's wrong). But yeah, we fight. A few times it got to a point where I was ready to call it quits, but then I realized that I couldn't give up everything that we had. We talked out our differences, what annoyed us about each other, and resolved to try to be more sensitive to those points ... and since, we've been getting along much better.

Q: What kind of things do you guys do together?
A: Tom and I have done a ton of things together. He took me to the Lake of the Ozarks (MO) and Grant's Farm (MO) for a weekend. We went to Six Flags (MO), the Arch, and the St. Louis Zoo over my spring break '98. During spring break '99, we went to the Tennessee Aquarium (Chattanooga), Rock City Gardens (in Georgia -- beautiful!), and Graceland (Memphis). He has also taken me to Meremac Caverns (MO) and took me for my first horseback riding adventure! In the summer of '98, we saw "The Phantom of the Opera" at the Fox Theater (MO) -- an excellent production, and my first-ever viewing of a huge production like that. He took me to my first, second, third, fourth (etc) .... hockey game, featuring the NHL's #1 team, the St. Louis Blues and to all the baseball games I've been to. For our one-year anniversary, he took me to a They Might Be Giants concert, a band I'd been wanting to see for a long time. And we also got to see Collective Soul, my second favorite band of all-time, when they came to the American Theater in St. Louis (and saw them AGAIN for our 2 year anniversary!). I ate my first freshly-cooked lobster (and had to crack the sucker open by myself) with him and his family. During the summer of '99, he took his first plane ride ever to visit me and we went to Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia -- 2 places he'd never been and places I hhadn't been in a long time. He even flew down for New Years 2000 to spend just the night with me. He took me on my first ice skating adventure (I fell 4 times). We went to Pensacola, Florida with 10 other of his friends for my "graduation vacation" in May 2000 -- easily the best time I've ever had on vacation, and (despite great seasickness) I got to catch a grouper and see dolphins! We went to the Rams-Redskins game on November 20, 2000 at the TWA Dome (St. Louis) for my first real pro football game ever! Final score: Redskins 33, Rams 20. Go REDSKINS! For Spring Break '01, we went to Orlando, Florida and had fun at Sea World, Universal Studios, and Disney's Animal Kingdom. Our honeymoon took us to Couples Negril, Jamaica and our 1st wedding anniversary a cruise aboard the Carnival Paradise to Nassau, Bahamas; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands (for pictures, click here).

Q: Do you guys get along with each others' friends?
A: Yep. I'm good friends with his friends, and he likes my friends, especially the PT friends I've made (it helps that they don't treat him like an "outsider" as some of my undergrad friends tended to do). Actually, I have gotten close to his best friends, as well. I've been to funerals and births. And now, a few weddings (Congrats to his brother Rick and Becky, who were married July 28, 2000! Congrats to his friends John and Laura, who were married August 5, 2000! and an additional Congrats to his sister Christy and John, were married on June 9, 2001!). I got to celebrate when one of his best friends caught McGwire's 61st home run in 1998 (I'm not kidding, I know this guy!). He's attended many of the parties my friends have thrown. I'm even considered an "aunt" to his godson!

Q: Would you say he's a romantic?
A: A romantic? Goofball is more like it. :o) Yeah, there are times when I want him to be a romantic, and he is sometimes ... but for the most part, he's a goofball. Which is good, because I love silliness in my life. He likes to make people laugh, and I like to laugh. But if romantic means he dotes on me hand and foot ... sometimes he does. I crave attention, and he likes to give it to me. So it all works out in the end. What's the most romantic thing I can think of him having done so far? There are a few. I remember him being late in picking me up from the airport ... when he finally showed up, he had a dozen roses in hand. That was why he was late. Another time, we were at the Fox Theater in St. Louis to see David Copperfield (for the second time) and he went to buy drinks ... and came back with a single red rose. Another one of the biggest ones that sticks out in my head is the first time he told me he loved me. It was in March 1998, after we'd been together for six months. We were lying in bed, me curled up on his right side, and he suddenly blurted out, "I love you." He had told me before that he'd never say those words until he truly meant it because both he and I had been through a lot of hurt that way. So we just lay there holding each other tightly, both of us promising never to let go. That promise was reaffirmed on May 19, 2001, when he asked me to marry him after a fabulous dinner in Little Rock, Arkansas at Spaule'. We were married on December 29, 2001.

Q: Do you believe he's your soulmate?
A: Let's get this straight first -- I used to believe in soulmates. I don't know if I do anymore, because I don't want to curse myself (yeah I'm superstitious). All that I need to know is that we both love being in each other's company, and we love each other despite knowing the greatest faults of the other. If that makes him my soulmate, so be it, but I don't need that word to further affirm how we feel about each other.

Q: What do you think is the reason you guys are still together?
A: We communicate well. I think that the reason my past relationships failed was because we never communicated. With Tom -- I can tell him anything. He knows more about my life than anyone else. Whenever anything happens in my life, he's the first person I want to call, that I absolutely have to tell. I can tell him about my day, regardless of how boring it may have been, and he wants to hear about everything. He tells me everything (it's funny -- he says that telling me things makes it "reality"). But any problems I have, I can talk to him about. He's my best friend. I hope never to lose that.

Q: Why did you make this page about him?
A: Funny you should ask that. I was actually really mad at him about something really trivial (one of those moods again, I guess) and instead of taking it out on him, I decided to make this page and remember all the good things about him, all the things I love about him. And yes, it did work -- I am no longer mad at him. :)