Toad Kissing – The Memoir

Posted on March 31, 2012 by Master Toad Kisser

What’s all of this about Kissing Toads, anyways? Well, friends, here is my secret passion … my writing and my manuscript … And the inspiration for all that I write to you and for you here, my lovelies.

Today is so exciting for me – I’m thrilled to be able to share a peek at my Memoir, The Art of Toad Kissing, with my Dear Friends in the Toad Kingdom!

As I write here – so do I edit over there – working diligently with my charming editor to bring Toad to life …

Without further ado … The Art of Toad Kissing, The Prologue Wish me luck in my literary journey

xoxo

Master Toad Kisser Heidi Lee

I’ve kissed the toads so you won’t have to …

If you like what you read, sign up for The Toad Kingdom Times – I’ll shoot you news from the Kingdom.

Master Toad Kisser

Author, Blogger, Online Dating Expert and Master Toad Kisser, Heidi Lee, is a 40-something professional who managed to successfully navigate the Toad Kingdom. Finding Happily-Ever-After wasn’t easy – experiences ranged from humorous, to tense and straight into frightening. However, she did it, and she developed some simple rules to help others guide their way to meeting others.

Follow Me:

Online Dating Lies – I Confess!

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Master Toad Kisser

I lied in my Online Dating Profile. I admit it. Do you forgive me? Do you think I cheated to find the love of my life?

Seriously, folks, lighten up!

Online Dating Sites are – whether we want to admit or not - Internet search engines. And these search engines deliver results on basic criteria:

Woman – 38 seeking Man 40 – 49.

So is it ok to shave your age or height? Is that a lie? Don’t want to be lumped into an older category and miss out on meeting the people who can keep up with you? …

Yes – decreasing years, inches or even pounds is without a doubt a lie. And if you lead into a potential relationship with a lie – no good can come of it. But, if you simply want to broaden which search engine results return your profile, go ahead and knock off a year or two.

Let’s explore …

Say I’m a fantastic fella who just celebrated my 50th Birthday? What if for my 50th Birthday I took a bicycle tour of New England, and what if I was planning to run a marathon this spring? Would you – Ms. 38 year old seeking slightly more mature gentleman for long term relationship - not want to look at me because I just came into my golden years?

So, my darling 50 year old gentleperson, I think staying 49 for a little while longer is perfectly acceptable if your goal is to simply bypass the stinky search engines. But if you choose to tell this little white lie, be sure to fess up – immediately in email conversations.

“I know that my profile states that I’m 49. Truth be told, I’ve been 50 for a little over 6 months. I understand that you were looking for someone a tad younger, and I also understand if you don’t want to continue talking with me. I just find that to meet someone who can keep up with my active lifestyle, I need to trick the search engines a bit.”

And if you do this, be ready for the people who don’t approve to tell you what a horrible crime you’ve just commited. You aren’t meant for them anyways – they are old and stuffy in nature, and they probably don’t want to admit to their own deceptions. Believe me – they’ve lied too.

But your potential Matches – they will understand. And they will probably be relieved to share their little white lies with you as well.

Trust me – we all do it. Some of us just don’t get caught. If you come clean first, you can always ask … “So what part of your profile did you fib about?” Give the other person the forgiveness to confess up front as well.

Just don’t go overboard. I’m not giving you permission to say you are 20 pounds lighter, 10 years younger, or a 4’9″ inch gentleman with the heart of a 6’2″ inch Goliath. Those lies are unacceptable.

As for my lies, they were two-fold … I rounded up. I am – SHORT. At best, I can fill a measuring tape to 5’2 3/4″ but I have always put myself at a solid 5’3″.

And I mentioned my cat – which led my Prince Charming (PC) to think I was a cat lover when in all truth they aggravate my allergies. I had a cat because I had a house – on a ravine – where little critters liked to play. So as much as I didn’t like sneezy, watery eyes – houses on the ravine with cats don’t have Mice …

Now we have his cats – Thelma and Louise.

But what about my very own Mr. Perfect? What about my loving PC? Did he lie in his profile? Well, no – not even a little bit. Not with words, anyway.

But he did lead me to believe that he was a Major League Baseball Player in his profile. I’ll tell you about that one next time <wink>

What does everyone else think? Is it ok to tell little white lies, or am I wrong?

Loving Regards,

Heidi Lee

Master Toad Kisser

Follow Me:

Boomers Carnival 252

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Master Toad Kisser

Welcome to the Boomers Carnival, Dear Friends! I’m thrilled to introduce each of you to great resources for Toad Kissers of all ages! Meet some friends in the world of boomers, midlifers, travelers and foodies!

Since we’re coming from a dating site today, don’t miss the story of how two long lost lovers re-connected after 60 years, over at the Midlife Crisis Queen!

SoBabyBoomer says, “Client-first” simply means that the Baby Boomer client’s financial success and well-being comes before all other considerations. The question is: Who do you trust with your retirement nest egg?

Do you still play with your food? Would you ever base a business on it? The A ccidental Locavore visits Pinch Food Design and finds it is possible to mix fun and food.

Tom Sightings has stumbled across several new sites that could prove useful to seniors, and he offers the links this week at Sightings at 60.

And finally – we’re giving you a little bit of extra love encouragement here at Toad!

Enjoy the warm weather!

Master Toad Kisser

Follow Me:

Kitten Heels Bringing Back Desire

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Master Toad Kisser

High Heeled Shoes and what they have to do with desire? Want to know more?

Check me out over at my dear friend Ande’s site, BringBackDesire, where I dish all about my passionate addiction …

Love to all! Back next week. And stay-tuned – April’s Toad is just around the corner …

XOXO

Heidi Lee

Master Toad Kisser

Follow Me:

Online Dating Encouragement And The Lucky #128

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Master Toad Kisser

Online Dating still seem like a nightmare?

Have you been on too many dates-gone-bad already this year?

Do you meet people who don’t seem to fit into your vision of Happily-Ever-After?

Does heartburn take over before the waiter even serves your dinner?

Is Online Dating worth all of this hassle?

Of course these things will happen. And yes, sitting through a bad dinner with a foul-breathed troll is an ugly experience. True, you probably have moments where you want to give up.

But most certainly, when you find the right person the Happily-Ever-After is worth all of the hassle and the heartache. I promise.

So today’s note is for my lovelorn, tired friends and readers who simply can’t imagine having to scan another room searching for the face that matches the photos – only to find the reality isn’t George Clooney incognito.

Rather the face has a few more wrinkles or pounds than expected and the personality of the person behind the email rivals your third-grade teacher’s nails on the chalkboard.

Dear ones, remember, you will meet many great people in your journey for love and you’ll also come across a handful of Toads.

People often ask me how many Toads I’d kissed before I met my Prince Charming (PC). My answer – 127 Frogs and Toads – and my PC was lucky number 128!

I know – scary number. And that is the number I hope to help you avoid. As I write to you, I try to give encouragement and advice, but I sometimes forget to remind you what and who you are looking for as I help you to Toad-Proof yourselves.

I found my Prince, and we are living our fairy tale in Green Bay, Wisconsin. We are approaching our 2nd anniversary of our first date – March 28, 2010 – and we love waking up to each new day as husband and wife.

So as you are putting your heart out there, remember this. Not everyone is going to fall head-over-heels in love with you. In fact, some of the people you meet won’t even like you. And this is perfectly ok. They aren’t meant to.

You won’t like them either. But when you do finally find Him or Her, you’ll recognize it. Your pulse will hasten and your cheeks will flush when your hands first accidentally brush. And you will feel a strange combination of excitement and contentment.

I promise.

And in the meantime – remember to look out for Toads!

Back to you soonest …

Loving Regards,

Heidi Lee

Master Toad Kisser

Follow Me:

Hoping For Love – Try Soul Surgery

Posted on March 5, 2012 by Laura Lee Carter

Hoping for Love but feel lost? When you don’t know what you’re looking for, it makes it so much more difficult to find it!

Have you ever heard of the expression: What you focus on grows?

Turns out, this is particularly true when it comes to dating. If you wander into online dating without a clue of why you are there or what you hope to accomplish, you will attract a lot of toads, men who also have no idea why they are trying to find a date.

That’s why I recommend that you spend some serious time focusing on yourself, where you are in life and what your highest priorities are BEFORE you drag someone else into your life. This may seem like common sense, but these days, common sense is NOT so common.

I know of what I speak. When my marriage fell apart in my forties, I felt pretty disillusioned with love in general, and my ex in particular. Part of me wanted to go out there and finally find the love of my life. But when I was painfully honest with myself, I realized I had major doubts if love even existed in our world today. I figured, I’m in my forties and I’ve never seen it yet. Is it just an illusion?

Then I started my own local dating service and learned I was not alone. Most of my clients felt the same way. We all knew we had caught glimpses of love through various relationships, but we still wondered. And yet we were also certain that finding love was our highest priority now. We wanted to believe, but were not certain.

This mystery and uncertainty led me to finally call up a beau from college, a man I hadn’t spoken to in over twenty-five years! This took some serious courage, but I was that desperate to understand how my past disillusionment with love had led me to this place.

Somehow, through a month or so of discussions with my old lover, I reached a place of emotional catharsis. One day I woke up and just knew I was through being held back by my past shame. I felt the great weight of my past lift and then I knew I was ready to love again!

This process I now call soul surgery. Sometimes we need to revisit our past, mend feelings and tie up loose ends, before we are ready to move on. Call it karma or whatever you must, but as soon as you find clarity about your past, your present goals will feel so much more focused.

A few months later I did meet the love of my life through Match.com. He was the first man I met through my profile. He winked, I e-mailed him back, and a few days later we spent our first date talking for ten hours! Seven years later, we still enjoy each other completely!

Laura Lee Carter

Laura Lee Carter, M.A. Counseling Psychology, worked as a research librarian for 25 years before leaving academe to become a master blogger, author and psychotherapist in 2005. She is best known for her blog: Midlife Crisis Queen, and she also maintains the Healthy Aging Blog and Stress Management for Writers and her Believe in Love Again blog, to promote her new book: How To Believe In Love Again: Opening To Forgiveness, Trust, and Your Own Inner Wisdom.

March Toad Of The Month

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Master Toad Kisser

Species Name: Tuber Potatus Hemorrhoidius

Common Name: Spud
Species Description: Tuber Potatus is a high energy, low return investment Toad with an emotional dwarfism and delusional complacency. Often bred in single-parent homes, the overindulgent mother/father did not equip the offspring with emotional maturity for post-umbilical cohabitation.
Mating Calls: This tuberus variety entices potential mates using naive facial expressions and mischievous winks. A common flirtation occurs in Aisle 3 where Spud may ask, ”Excuse me, Doll, can you tell me if this peanut butter spreads better on bread without the crusts?” The innocence in the voice entrances the prospective host, awakening a maternal craving which she confuses with a youthful sensuality.
Habitat and Distribution: Basement dweller and bottom feeder, this toad typically moves from maternal womb immediately to host environment – seeking the shelter lost with the separation of the tad-pole like umbilical cord. Hunting grounds may include shopping centers, playgrounds or electronics stores. Specific to the Online Dating habitat, this species will lurk in age groups likely 10 to 15 years the senior, understanding that mates within his own age group may not have fully matured maternal instincts necessary for this creature to thrive.

Important note of Mating Call variations in the electronics environment. Spud uses an offensive attack – preying on weak and confused host prospects with his inflated knowledge of the widgets within the Remote Controls.

Distinguishing Characteristics: Heavily weighted back end ensures successful infestation in preferred Lazy Boy. Boyish charm and an increased libido make this Toad easy to spot with a trained eye. Potential victims of this Toad must realize that the heightened sexual energy will quickly be replaced by a new Xbox 360 in the host’s living room. Essential to explain that this Toad is carries a rare mutation of Hemorrhoidal Warts that scientists struggle to classify – therefore treatment is unlikely.
Symptoms of Infestation: Not to be confused with Freeloader Toad - this specimen camoflaging his sofa-driven tendencies with a childlike energy – potential hosts hope to absorb Spud’s youthful dynamic through process of osmosis. Victims may experience cravings for inline skates or hiking gear – believing these activities could reduce the gravitational pull of the couch, the hammock, the barca-lounger and when forced – the loveseat. Advanced stages of infestation show the host females finding fulfillment with dinner at the drive-thru and dessert in front of a 52″ new screen airing Jackass the Movie …

Meet more Toads …

Master Toad Kisser

Follow Me:

Meet The Toads

Posted on February 28, 2012 by Master Toad Kisser

Pucker up and put on some protective lip gloss, ladies. Because it is time to Meet the Toads. I’m often asked why I speak of toads rather than frogs when it comes to kissing. The simple answer is that all toads are frogs but not all frogs are toads. Toads are uglier. Toads are fatter. And toads carry warts. Frogs, on the other hand, are simply slimy and green.

I know you can’t imagine kissing another toady date. I have been there. My whole mission is to help you recognize the Toads before you get stuck living under a toadstool in a land far far away ur Happily Ever After. With names changed to protect the innocent, naive and clueless men in Toad clothing who are populating the online dating sites, here is a sampling of the cast of characters I have come to love along the way. I wonder if you will recognize any of them!

We’ll share a new Toad each month, so remember to check in to see which critter we feature at the first of the month.

Master Toad Kisser

Follow Me:

Reese Witherspoon, This Means War

Posted on February 25, 2012 by Master Toad Kisser

Reese Witherspoon, I’m happy to say, has an action movie, This Means War, hitting the big screen about Online Dating. In her upcoming film, she plays a Citizen of the Toad Kingdom where she juggles 2 dashing men who also happen to be …

Best Friends
Undercover Spies

Does it get any better?

Recently interviewed about the upcoming movie, Reese posed a question to the Toad Kingdom …

“”I have never dated two people at the same time… Is it OK for a woman to do that? I have no judgement on people who do, as long as they are honest.”

Reese, I’ll be first in line to see your movie. I’d love to thank you for using your Celebrity status to bring such a timely and important question to the Toad Kingdom.

The answer … Absolutely and without doubt! We have to kiss a few frogs to meet our Prince Charming. Just because we have dinner with Tim on Friday night doesn’t mean that we have to turn down seeing This Means War with Ryan on Saturday. Just be sure to keep each of their personal details sorted.

In the Online Dating world, you will communicate with many people by design. You will likely want to meet a handful of those people to determine if you have any chemistry – and that takes more than 1 date to make a commitment.

Thinking that you’ve found a life long commitment from an email chain is naive at best – and exploring multiple prospects is sort of an unspoken expectation that we pretend to ignore. You don’t ask – I don’t tell – capiche?

But … this dynamic does not give you carte blanche to date multiple people for extended periods in time. That is where you become a <insert bad word here>.

One of my clients is in this very situation. Ok – so the guys aren’t International spies, but she has 2 or 3 hotties whose company she enjoys. She is in early stages of her investigation.

Needing direction in one of our weekly calls, she asked, ”Heidi Lee, I’m really starting to like this guy, and I know he feels the same about me. But I have dates lined up next week with 2 other men with whom I’ve been emailing. When is it Not OK to date multiples?”

Folks, I found my very own Prince Charming (PC) while dating multiples. When PC asked me out, I had dinner plans with a Detective and a Marketing Manager already on my calendar. But the moment I knew that PC was for me, I ended all other potential relationships.

(By the way, that moment was actually on our first date, and we’re now happily married for almost 2 years).

So rule of thumb – it’s really a gut check. I ask my client two questions,

Would this great guy feel betrayed if he knew you were out with someone else, or would he simply be competitively jealous?
If the tables were turned, would you feel betrayed to see him on a date with another woman?

Dear ones, the When and How to commit to dating just one person is subjective. The important lesson I hope you take from the 3.37 minutes you spent reading is - in today’s world – you are not a tramp or any other derogatory word for filling your dance card. You are simply a woman (or man) who is smart enough to look at all options. If you can keep up, go for it. Have fun.

Reese, thanks for being a positive voice for Online Dating. Any guy who would have met you online would clearly have been very lucky.

Citizens, let’s hear from you. Do you agree with this, or am I off my rocker? Do we have to limit ourselves to just 1 at a time, or can we keep our choices open?

Warm Regards,

Heidi Lee

Get your Free Copy of my book – Click Below

How to Toad Proof your Online Dating Profile

P.S. I’m hoping for a wedding invite from the yet unmarried. I’ll keep you informed!

Master Toad Kisser

Follow Me:

5 Low Profile Online Dating Strategies at CupidsPulse

Posted on February 24, 2012 by Master Toad Kisser

Cupids Pulse welcomed an article for the Celebrity Toad Kingdom, Friends! Hop on over to their pond and take a peek. I’m thrilled with the positive energy being shared in the comments. Would love to hear from the Citizens of the Toad Kingdom as well!

Turns out, we are all Celebrities in our own way.

Can you guess who the debut Celebrity Toad was? Click Here to read all about it!

Side note … want to meet another Celebrity? Check out Used Car Salesman Toad over with my friends at YourTango.com

xoxo Heidi Lee

Master Toad Kisser

Follow Me:

May 2012
M	T	W	T	F	S	S
« Apr
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30	31