And so it begins

Photo credit: Someecards.com

There are various catalysts to an official diet kick-off. Sometimes it's a beach trip coming up, an awful breakup, or having hit a ceiling weight-wise that made you cringe. And then there is the old favorite: the wedding. I wish my impending nuptials were the only thing kicking my bootah into gear, but the truth is that my twin loves of cooking and eating have taken their toll. I have a particular talent. If I could take it to the bank I would be Scrooge McDuck, skiing on my mountains of gold coins. I am very, very good at gaining weight. So, I bit the bullet and joined a gym.

As a part of the new membership, I "got to" sit down with one of their trainers for a full evaluation. For an hour. Jarrett brought me into his little office and asked me why I wanted to get back in shape, why was I there? I replied that I wanted to kill the little gnomes that go into my closet at night and sew my clothes smaller. Thankfully, he laughed, and I felt comfortable with this beefed-up stranger. We talked about my job, my family, how I like to work out, if I ever work out, why am I not working out, my goals, my "support system" (basically my poor, unfortunate fiancé) and it went on. But you know what? Actually sitting down for that stretch of time and talking about it helped. Even though it also involved being told I need to take, like, 18 capsules of fish oil a day. (We'll see how that part goes, Jarrett.)

Bolstered by my bravery after having just gone with a young, muscular guy to step on a scale and let him read the number out loud, I charged into the cardio room. I got on what appeared to be an elliptical and quickly realized there were no towels. Crap. I already messed up at doing gym. Aha! A little refrigerator with cool towels in it! I put my bag on the machine and confidently swung the tiny door open and grabbed a towel. Which started dripping. Did I mention this fridge was at the very front of the room? So, now, under the 20 tvs where everyone is looking, I was pretending to wipe my hands with this scented, soggy washcloth. As if my machine had been covered in jello and I just needed to wipe up before working out.

I returned to my machine and threw the wet mess on the ground because of course I couldn't find anything but garbage cans in the room. Music on, water bottle in holder, I started to move. And instantly ached. This machine was no ordinary elliptical. I was effectively doing high knee raises. Girl, it was completely vertical. But I had been doing gym so badly that I had to play it off like this was my machine. This is where I always go, and I live on this machine, and everyone wishes they were as good at this machine as I was. But I slowly realized two things: 1) no amount of shame-induced will-power was going to keep my legs moving at this rate for long, and 2) I was the only person in the whole room on that type of "elliptical." Everyone knew about this madness but me.

Reminding myself that I was a 28 year-old woman, who had paid good money to use this gym, and had every right to misuse equipment, I got off and moved to a more familiar elliptical. Sweet relief, this one I understood. And I managed to stay on for a solid 35 minutes before my legs were all "we're stopping even if you don't and you're going to be pretty embarrassed when we make you face plant in a minute." Fully drenched in sweat, I dismounted and walked like one of those old cowboys going into a saloon, all the way to my car.

Day 1: check.

Overheard on Toddlers & Tiaras...

Transcribed without comment...

Pageant mom: 

     "My daughter always wanted to be in pageants. Fortunately, kids don't always grow up to be        what they wanted to be. Because my son wanted to be a fax machine."

My friend Laura, in response: 

     "My brother always said he wanted to be 'the curb' because he could just lay there all day."

Do you know the Beau?

Today I'm headed to the grand Beau Rivage casino in beautiful Biloxi, MS! My dear paternal grandmother is turning 90, and we are flying in from all over the country to surprise her. Gently. How should I gamble the fiancé's 10 bucks?

Photo credit: Global Giants

Photo credit: Uptake.com

Photo credit: Beau Rivage

Photo credit: Beau Rivage

Getting to know me.

Convo from today, when my fiancé saw the entire contents of my study, furniture and all, in a pile in the middle of the room with newly painted light grey walls.

Fiancé: Um, how did you move all this?
Me: I'm strong.
Fiancé : But you're injured; you have a torn tendon in your ankle and possibly ruined ACL.
Me: I'm stubborn.

Will you be my bridesmaid?

After much toil over which card to send my bridesmaids (which does not bode well for the ease of a million wedding decisions), I purchased these from Gabrielle Kearney at Practically Perfect Design on Etsy:

Absolutely adorable, right? And now that I've settled on a wedding website template to use, it turns out these are totally consistent with that design as well. Here's to happy accidents!

And, bonus, all of PPD's products are printed on recycled green seal and e-certified paper and use soy ink! Made me feel extra-good about my choice.

Will they all say yes?

Hey, you.

Waiting to board the plane in the 100 degree jetway/walkway/whatever-it's-called a few days ago, I noticed this ad for the meal service available on longer flights. But I thought it looked more like the beginning of a beautiful, modern love story. Very progressive of you, Delta. Kudos. #amiright?

Reception Rankings

I understand why people get married in their backyards, or elope. Last week, I trekked around Washington trying to find the perfect hotel, that didn't quite look like a hotel, that wasn't a ballroom, that was easy to get to, that fit our guest list size, and that didn't feel like we were attending someone else's wedding. Jumbled perspectives like this are why the wedding industry has become the bloated behemoth that it is.

See, the idea with the "reception in the main hotel" thing is to make it easier on guests. My approach to the whole wedding planning thing thus far has been - what would I think if I were attending this wedding? This has lead me to ask the hotel-person-in-charge-of-weddings questions like: How many stalls does the women's bathroom have? Where can we put a photobooth? And, so if just say that hypothetically, we wanted to bring a food truck in at midnight...

Walking into the venue, I imagine that I'm one of my friends from college, who just drove an hour into town, got dressed in my hotel room, and now wants to party. Because the thing is: to us it's our wedding, but to everyone else - it's a party.

And I haven't dreamed of my wedding since I was three. When I was three, I wanted to be an architect, not a bride. That is how much of a nerd I am. (Ps. I am not an architect.)

Fearing I would not have the "aha!" moment with a venue, especially after talking to my married friends who had... my dad (who was helping in my working fiancé's stead), our awesome wedding planner, and I went venue to venue. And then I walked in one and saw this:

Hello, pretty.

Atrium feel, beautiful light, calm, romantic, suited to exactly our size. Can it be true? That's the cocktail hour space, and now for the reception. Walk through here:

And arrive here: 

If we look up from our first dance, this is what we'll see:

The room boasts five huge skylights, five chandeliers, and with a round/clover shape, you can stand absolutely anywhere and feel you are a part of the same event. It feels cozy, almost as if it's someone's home. Granted, a super rich person. But it. is. perfect.

Praises to the weddings gods, we found it. Next hurdle: finding a date that works for both the hotel and the church...