Monthly Archives: December 2011

Random thoughts

The best is yet to come

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It’s almost time!  I am sitting around, digesting a delicious lunch from Blues City Deli.  I keep double checking my wedding "to do" list to make sure I’m not forgetting anything, but guess what?  I’m pretty much ready.  All I have to do yet is pack my overnight bag, and SHOW UP to various events.  Everything and everybody is in place, all vendors know when and where to be and what to do, the final counts are in, a really fancy dress is in my closet, the stockings are hung by the chimney with care…it’s almost go time!

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And yet it’s NOT yet.  I have to wait until Monday.  Today is Friday. 

It’s FUN time though, for sure.  Our friends and relatives are converging on us now and over the next few days and it’s just wonderful!  In the past I’ve attended a fair amount of weddings, and I always wondered how the bride felt, how the couple felt, how on earth you could pull this sort of event together, how it would feel to have all the attention on you.

Answer:  Stressed, stressed, lots of organizational skills and advance planning, and AWESOME.

People keep asking, aren’t you excited?  Well, I’m getting there.  I’m getting pumped, but I’m worried, I’m panicking we’ve forgotten something important, I’m stressed over spending enough time with friends and family, I’m stressed over the fact that some of my jeans don’t fit (before a 7 day cruise, mind you), and I’m trying to stay relaxed so my skin stays awesome and my hair stays shiny.  Also I’m cooking dinner for 14 tomorrow night…that’s something I’m starting on soon.  (How do you cook dinner for 14?  Again, organizational skills and advance planning…there are also SIX tins of cookies thawing on my table.)

Also I just can’t believe it’s almost time!  It seems like it’s been so long since we got engaged yet the time has flown.

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My laughing face is both awesome and singularly unattractive. 

And with that, I leave you for now.  Wish us luck!

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Food

Foodie Penpal and other gifts

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This month’s foodie penpal was from Erin.

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Cute holiday "spreaders".  I want to use these on a cheese ball, but haven’t.

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The chocolate is awesome, and the nut mix is delicious plain or on salad.  I had some of the hazelnut spread on wheat bread, which was a little weird, but not bad.  Probably would be better on plain or maybe pumpkin spice bread….

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Sadly the mug didn’t make it in one piece, but it’s the thought that counts!

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And a cute card!  Thanks Erin, you rock!

New to the program?  Here’s what foodie penpals is all about:

-On the 5th of every month, you will receive your penpal pairing via email. It will be your responsibility to contact your penpal and get their mailing address and any other information you might need like allergies or dietary restrictions.
-You will have until the 15th of the month to put your box of goodies in the mail. On the last day of the month, you will post about the goodies you received from your penpal!
-The boxes are to be filled with fun foodie things, local food items or even homemade treats! The spending limit is $15. The box must also include something written. This can be anything from a note explaining what’s in the box, to a fun recipe…use your imagination!
-You are responsible for figuring out the best way to ship your items depending on their size and how fragile they are. (Don’t forget about flat rate boxes!)
-Foodie Penpals is open to blog readers as well as bloggers. If you’re a reader and you get paired with a blogger, you are to write a short guest post for your penpal to post on their blog about what you received. If two readers are paired together, neither needs to worry about writing a post for that month. *US Residents only please at this time- hopefully we can expand soon!*

If you’re interested in participating for January, please send  an email to Lindsay at theleangreenbean@gmail.com and include the following information:
-Your full name
-Your email address
-Your blog name/address
-Your twitter handle (if applicable)

I sent my goodies to Sarah at the Smart Kitchen this month—go read about what I sent!

On another gift note:  I participated in a blogger gift exchange sponsored by Jill at Run with Jill.

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Here’s what Nina at run (dance) love sent me.  Gu, feetures socks, a little necklace, and some other stuff.  Awesome!!  Thanks so much :)  I sent some goodies to Elizabeth at Running for Bling.  It was fun to participate this month!

 

Food

What I’ve learned

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Don’t get married right after the holidays unless you are okay with being a few pounds heavier than the previous month.  Or if you have better will power than me…which is possible, but unlikely. 

I’m okay with it half the time (the time I continue to eat) and the other half of the time I’m beating myself up.  I realized today that I’m now at a point where things are how they will be on Monday, and I THINK I’m okay with that.  For instance, I may weight three more pounds than I did pre-Thanksgiving.  I can still wear all my clothes, so that’s not a problem.  I never was able to quit biting my fingers and fingernails.  Did I try?  Not terribly hard, but nonetheless, my fingers are going to be gross for my wedding day.  Oh well.  I still have faint sports bra tanlines too, and I tried to get rid of those.  At least my skin (especially my face!) looks awesome, my hair is shiny and healthy, and my arms have never been more muscular.  Sure, a few less pounds would have made them look better, but I think it’ll do. 

So do I fast for the next three days, or plan menus which involve mac and cheese and wine?  I think we all know the answer.  We’ll just say I’ve purchased the ingredients to serve mac and cheese on New Year’s Eve, and tonight will definitely involve at least one glass of wine. 

I have been continuing to kick my butt (and get my butt kicked) at the gym and running outside (thank goodness for lovely weather), and I’m still making every effort to eat lots of fruits and vegetables.  I’m just not quite able to kick my cookie habit.  I think that’ll just have to wait until we return home from the cruise, and then the pressure will be off, and I’ll have plenty of time to just relax and get back to my weight goals.  (By relax I mean teach ridiculous amounts of children, but I think you get the point—no wedding to plan, no wedding pressure). 

How about you?  How’s the holiday weight gain treated you?

Random thoughts

Boxing Day

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Yesterday we had lunch with an old friend of Chris’s and also met her fiancé.  They are getting married in May, so of course we talked "wedding."  I gave some advice, you know, since I’m all knowledgeable about planning them and stuff, plus, if we brides and soon-to-be-brides didn’t give tons of (mostly) unsolicited advice, well then who would!  I told her the stuff I was told that I found least helpful, such as "be true to yourself" and "we had the wedding of our dreams for $200 and you should be able to also!"  I also gave her some pregnancy advice and asked several times when they were planning to have children, since people always have opinions on that and she needs to get ready.

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Jen, Chris, and my Chris outside of Dressel’s.  I thought about getting a picture of me and Chris, but figured we’d get enough pictures taken this weekend, and most particularly on Monday.

After a potato-heavy lunch, it was gym time!  Mike is giving me an extra two sessions this week (that brings the total to four) so that I can really be in excellent shape to walk down the aisle.  He said the end of our week will be dedicated to bouquet-tossing techniques.  Oh, and I’m definitely questioning his diet—evidently he ate so much on Christmas that he threw up.  Like I did, but when I was around 5 years old.  He claims it is because ordinarily he "eats Paleo, no grains, no dairy" and spent the day eating cookies and other junk that his body couldn’t handle, but I say throwing up is a sign of weakness.  And saying that you ran 10 miles to make up for it is probably a sign of exercise addiction.  But then again, there’s no way to win the healthy argument.  Either you aren’t healthy, or you are just too healthy, or you don’t exercise enough, or you exercise too much.  No winning, much like the wedding planning—everybody has an opinion, and most people just like to tell you to be "true to yourself" and then they will tell you exactly how to go about doing that. 

Yes, I have a bit of an attitude today.  I’m allowed, I’m getting married in less than a week, and dealing with all the wedding planning stress. 

Happy Anniversary to my parents! 

Christmas

Christmas fails and wins

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Fail: Remember my reservation I made for Eau Bistro?  Evidently they made it for Cafe Eau when I called.  We showed up at noon, and no record of our reservation.  I was flipping out, and they said, oh, did you make it for Cafe Eau by accident?  Well, I know that I didn’t…but that doesn’t mean that whatever idiot I spoke to on the phone didn’t.  Considering we are having our rehearsal dinner at Eau Bistro, I’m pretty sure I know the difference between the two restaurants.  Yup.  Luckily while we were making a fuss to the hostess (I hate doing this but I also knew I was in the right here) the manager happened to overhear (one hour wait, we were told, and then maybe we’d get a table…when we made a reservation weeks ago!) and we were squeezed in.  The food was great though, and we enjoyed the meal after our initial fiasco.  Lesson learned:  double check reservations!

Fail:  we decided to go see a 2:30 showing of Sherlock Holmes.  Oops.  Sold out right before we had a chance to buy tickets.  And then there wasn’t another decent movie showing for 2 more hours, so we just went home.  I don’t understand why a movie theater would have no showings between 2:30 and 4:30 when it has tons of screens.  Seems weird.

Win:  We did a ton of cleaning.  Went through a closet, found stuff we had totally forgotten even owning, and managed to make enough room to put some stuff in there we needed to store!  Now the middle room has LESS boxes of wedding gifts.  Sometimes I feel like we have too much stuff, but I think really we just need more cupboards.  Or need to get rid of the crappy stuff. 

Win:  Lots of good movies on television:  Home Alone, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and later, Elf.  We also got the Hangover II on demand for later tonight. 

Win:  Dinner will be salad and cookies!  Salad to feel healthy, and cookies because there are tons on hand.  Our next door neighbors gave us a plate of cookies this morning!  We might open up a bottle of wine too.

Win:  Not having to travel!  And getting a whole day to relax with Chris.  We ended up doing quite a bit of cleaning, but overall it has been fabulously relaxing. 

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Fail:  Not having anybody else around to take our picture!  Or asking anyone at the restaurant. 

Win:  We’ll have plenty of pictures taken of us next weekend.  In case you are new, I am getting married in ONE WEEK.  If you are not new, I’m sorry.  I’m just really excited (as I should be, so please don’t mind.)  We’ve been making lists of everything left to do!

Win:  Family and friends start arriving Thursday for the wedding.  I am so excited to see the out of town people!  Of course I’m excited to see the in town people as well, but I see them more often 😉

How has your Christmas been?

Here’s a "wordle" I made today from my blog.

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Christmas

Merry Christmas!

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I hope you have a wonderful day with your loved ones, no matter what you celebrate! 

We are going to a lovely brunch and then to see either Mission Impossible or the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. 

I’m writing this the night before, though.  It’s 8:23 pm and we are watching Forrest Gump, Rocky III and A Christmas Story (yes, all three, Chris keeps switching back and forth) while I am catching up on my blog reading.  In about an hour I’m off to work—11 pm service for Christmas Eve with 10:30 prelude.  I invited Chris to come but he is probably in for the night.  Hopefully we can relax on Christmas Day and not worry about wedding planning until Monday…hahahahahaha!