Sorry for that outburst. I just came to that realization today as I logged on to our wedding Web page (it's hosted at foleysweddings.com; if you want instructions for seeing it, leave your e-mail). The page has a counter on it that counts down to the second, and it kind of freaked me out. There's still a few things that need to be done - I have to go buy engraved lockets for my sisters, I need to order a tiara to go with the veil, I need to pay off our vendors so they're not bugging me for money on The Big Day. Whew.
I went to yoga last night even though there were still some faint twinges of pain from Monday's killer yoga session. But doing more yoga actually helped stretch my muscles out a little more and so I feel much better today. I managed to squeeze in 15 minutes of cardio before the class too, so I got a little fat-burning going there.
But sadly, I likely won't be exercising again until Sunday afternoon. We've got that stupid Engaged Encounter this weekend, which basically means we're stuck at a hotel for about 48 hours straight while we listen to people preach about communication, honesty, and natural family planning. I totally don't get the whole "rhythm method" of birth control. If it were truly a safe and effective method, then there wouldn't be Catholic families out there with 8 kids. It's just too hard to figure out, what with the vagaries and oddities of women's reproductive systems.
***Quick aside*** I just talked to my best friend Garrett and he told me that he's not coming to the wedding. I'm sad but I'm also mad because he knew about my wedding, yet he chose to spend all his money on flying to Alabama to go to Mardi Gras with some chick instead. So now he gives me the big "I don't have any money" excuse and I'm supposed to just be all understanding and say sure, whatever, that's fine. Well, I'm NOT fine with it, and I let him know so (as much as I could on a work phone, anyway). That's two of our oldest and dearest friends who have given us the shaft. I'll say it again - you really find out who your friends are at times like these.
Anyway, back to dieting. I'm going to weigh myself this afternoon to see if that 4-pound loss is still registering. I don't know if it will though, since I took Wednesday night off from working out and this weekend I won't be able to get to the gym at all because I'll be in that workshop. Oh well, the hotel has a fitness center, maybe I can get down there and at least squeeze in half an hour of cardio each day. We'll see.
I am starving. And it's cold and rainy outside. Bleh. But the planning and worrying about the wedding is finally starting to subside. I'm making a lot of headway on the topiary centerpieces (made two last night, they're gorgeous, hope to post pics soon) and I think all that's left to do is pay the balances to our vendors. We're getting $700 from Mark's parents, which will really help us out with costs. Things always cost more than you expect. We were originally going to go with a 1-tier wedding cake for $75 but I broke down and decided to do the 2-tier and now it's going to cost $150. I also want a chocolate groom's cake, which I'm going to get from the Central Market bakery - way less expensive.
A friend of mine from Tuscaloosa wrote me yesterday and told me she wasn't going to be able to make it - never mind that less than a month ago she said she "wouldn't miss it for the world." You find out who your real friends are when planning a wedding. Mark was going to have one of his best friends from high school serve as best man, and he was very willing to do it, but a couple of weeks ago he had to go into the hospital and said he doesn't have health insurance and now he can't afford to come from Michigan. I guess I understand (and he wasn't lying, I checked with the hospital), but it's still very frustrating to see all of your closest friends back out one by one. Argh. Plus I haven't heard from about 10 people who have told me through other people that they are coming. The invitation asks them to call US and RSVP, not my dad or anyone else. People have no sense of etiquette anymore. And I know this sounds selfish, but we've only received 4 wedding gifts and now I'm thinking that everyone plans to bring them to the wedding, so we will have to lug them back to Austin in our already-crowded car. They probably won't even be from the registry. Double argh.
True to yesterday's vow, I didn't work out last night. My aching body needed to rest, and I was very busy making the topiaries anyway. I will do 1.5 hours of exercise tonight, though - half an hour of cardio before my hourlong yoga session. I've been doing good on the diet as well - I haven't stepped on the scale since I registered that 4-pound loss but I don't imagine that the weight has come back. I've pretty much been sticking to fairly low-cal foods - granola bar or yogurt in the morning, turkey sandwich, pretzels and apple at lunch, grilled or baked lean meat with veggies for dinner. No, it's not fun, but if I keep focused on my ultimate goal I should come out okay.
I'm craftier than I thought. Yesterday afternoon I started thinking about centerpieces for the wedding reception. Originally I didn't think we were going to have any, but then I realized that the reception IS at a restaurant and I kind of wanted to make it at least look kind of like a wedding. So centerpieces...I was going to do fresh flowers, but that's way too expensive, and candles were out because it's not at night. Then I got the idea for tabletop topiaries. You know, something that kind of looks like this. There would only have to be one for each table, so we're talking about 7 here.
Buying them ready-made would have been too expensive ($10/each range), so I set out to find instructions for making them myself. And after a trip to Michaels, I made a prototype. It's really not that hard. You just get styrofoam balls, a terracotta pot, some hot glue, fake moss and fake flowers and you're in business. Stick one ball in the pot and hot glue moss to it, then cover the other ball with flowers. Then stick a dowel or other sturdy skinny stick thing (I used the green stem-looking wire from the fake flowers) in the bottom ball and then stick the other ball on top. Voila, a beautiful centerpiece. I'm going to have to bring it to work so I can use the digital camera and post it for you here. I did it using a cream-colored hydrangea, but I thought that maybe I'd do each centerpiece in a different color and flower and put tags on each one explaining the significance of it. Like "hydrangeas were originally used in Victorian times to thank others for caring and understanding." Or something like that, and we could do roses, marigolds, sunflowers. Cool idea, no?
Workout wise, I think I might want to take a break today. The aches from yoga are still kicking my ass - my hamstrings and shoulders hurt like nobody's business. My 45-minute cardio workout yesterday didn't help things much. So I think what my body really needs tonight is a good rest. Despite what a lot of people say, I believe that skipping workouts can actually be beneficial, if it's done for the right reasons. So it looks like tonight will be my off night. Too bad - I actually wish my off night were tomorrow, so I could stay home and watch Friends.
Four-pound loss is still holding steady, and I'm psyched. My body is weird. It will hang on to one particular weight forever and a day and then one day just BOOM, let go of 4-5 pounds. Conversely, sometimes it'll just pick up 2 or 3 out of nowhere, which is majorly frustrating. And I don't think my eating habits are erratic. They pretty much stay the same (70 percent "good" food, the rest moderately bad), but my weight will yoyo every once in a while. Strange.
Last night I did yoga while Mark did cardio on the treadmill and bike. We arrived before class started and it ran late, so he got about an hour and 20 minutes in. He weighed himself at the end and saw that he's now 175 pounds - at this time last year, he was 190. So he's been losing weight too. I actually credit our living together with both of our weight losses. We're cooking dinner for two now, so we can fix those homemade, lower-fat meals without worrying about making too much food. Neither of us really eats fast food anymore, and Mark has limited his pizza intake to once a week because I give him the evil eye if he eats it any more frequently than that. Likewise, he rushes me past the ice cream cases at HEB because he knows if I linger, a carton of pralines n' cream will end up in the cart. We're kind of a support system for each other.
I'm majorly tired today. I think some of it had to do with this morning's breakfast. I had to be at work at 7 a.m. for the weekly legislative breakfast. There was a great spread of food out, and I ended up having a biscuit with gravy, a piece of sausage, a piece of bacon and some eggs. Yeah I know, but I figured having a big breakfast would help my small lunch (a sandwich and an orange) be more satisfying this afternoon. What I wasn't counting on was all that heavy food conking me out. I've had two cups of coffee so far, but I can barely keep my eyes open. And it's 10:30 in the morning. I guess lack of sleep might have something to do with it too, but I came to the breakfast last week with the same amount of sleep and didn't feel this bad. And I ate lighter at that breakfast too, so the food is a major factor, I think.
Wedding plans are coming along nicely. I'm sending along deposits to the baker and writing some thank-you notes, and we should have all of our canonical documentation ready for the priest sometime this week. Bad news is, we have to go to this Engaged Encounter deal this weekend - an intensive 3-day course for Catholic engaged couples. It starts at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and doesn't end till 1:30 p.m. Saturday. So our whole weekend is basically shot. It's at this hotel, but we don't even get to stay with each other - I have to stay with another girl I don't know, and he has to stay with some strange guy. So it's kinda like camp. Bleh.
Good morning all. I feel 150 percent better now that I've got all the stories done for the magazine. Of course, I'm feeling really good now but come April 15 I'll be stressing again - not because of taxes, but because of the next magazine. It's like a cycle - for three or four weeks I feel great and then for two weeks it's hell. But whatever.
This weekend I finalized plans for the wedding cake with the bakery - it's going to be two-tiered and vanilla with strawberry filling. She also asked me if I wanted a groom's cake (which is traditionally chocolate), but I said no. I'll probably have a grocery store bakery make it or something - WAY cheaper. Which reminds me - need to buy a cake server set. Weddings are weird. You can't cut the cake with a regular knife, oh no, you have to have this fancy thing to do it. What a bunch of crap.
I'm also trying to get rehearsal dinner invites out today. My coworker is designing them...God bless her. I'm buying her a gift certificate to a spa as a thank-you. And I also have to buy silver lockets for my sisters as bridesmaid gifts...and Mark has no idea what he's buying his guys. Jesus.
Oh, and I have some exciting news - I dropped four pounds! For a while I had been stagnating at 130 but I jumped on the scale yesterday and it read 126. I don't know what happened, it's like one minute those pounds were there and then they just disappeared. I think my extra-intense hour-long cardio session on Friday might have done the trick. I took Saturday off from exercising because we were busy with thank-you notes and stuff, but then Sunday I went back and did an intense 40 minutes. So yay. This morning the scale still said 126, so I'm in a very good mood.
Tonight it's yoga class with the super hard instructor guy, but I really don't want to go because the finale of Joe Millionaire is on. I haven't been following the show but I'm curious to know what the big twist is...but I'd rather lose weight so I guess I'll just have to read about it later.
This weekend we also went to Mass. The deacon gave this really moving homily about the war situation and how he felt conflicted about it. On one hand he wants to get this evil leader out of power...but on the other hand he doesn't want to risk innocent civilian lives, both here and in Iraq. He was about in tears and I was too. For the rest of the service I had to fight to not cry...my heart just breaks for the Iraqis, because most of them are not the violence-loving terrorists that people in the U.S. make them out to be. Right after Sept. 11 I interviewed a house full of Muslim men about it...they were the nicest people ever and they seemed genuinely heartbroken, because this was a huge blow to the Muslim religion in America and they could see that they would be hated by many after that. And they were right - someone put hateful messages on two Middle Eastern restaurants the day after. I am just a peace-loving person and that's what I pray for during the few times I do make it to church. I hate that my niece will have to grow up in a time of such wariness and fear. I don't know how human beings can inflict such pain on each other. I long for yesterday.
Okay, off my soapbox. Have a good Monday, everyone.
Name: Jen Location: DFW, TX Occupation: Journalist WHY this stupid blog?: To lose the 20 pounds I've packed on since high school and to entertain you with stories about my fabulous life. Current Weight: 138 My Goal Weight: 115 Pounds to Go: 23
