Haven't Posted In Awhile, My Bad

Let's start with some good news: I am now 10 pounds away from my goal weight, and looking good. High five for me.  Other news, I still hate my job. But that's to be expected. I will never like a job until that job is getting paid to sit around day-drinking pretending I have writer's block but really just milking everyone's interest in my forth-coming novel. (Note to publishers, I'm ready to talk if you don't care about a 30-page proposal, or a finished piece of work. Let's do this.)

I'm watching the original Born Yesterday again, cause Jeremy's still sleeping. He's the kind of person that won't watch black and white movies, for inexplicable reasons. He can't say why, cause he doesn't honestly know, but they just seem weird to him. So I watch when he's not around.

It's still great, and I still hate Brock. With gusto.

I've included this lovely outtake from our wedding photos for your viewing entertainment. Look at my hair, that is excellent hair. All lank and lifeless. Those sweat-soaked bangs, my gut making itself known, the clearly-too-warm flush to my chubby upper-arms. Not to mention the god-awful posture. How could he possibly say no to that?

Trimming the Tree and Some Dress Sizes

Before the wedding Jeremy and I were both committed to losing weight. We set a goal, and we both reached it before we left for our honeymoon. Yay us!

Then we gained back like, 15 pounds each. Because while we walked everywhere, seriously we walked almost everywhere, we also ate whatever we wanted and... walked everywhere. Walking is not the slimming exercise everyone would have you believe. You tone, true, but you also build muscle which can read as weight gain. Which is fine if you're a dude, but if you're a girl trying to slim down building muscle sucks.

I'm not happy with the wedding pictures or reception pictures because I have this weird pouch thing happening. I guess bloating would be a better term, cause it's higher up than a pouch would be. I'm not a kangaroo or anything, but I feel like I could have looked slimmer. And that's entirely my fault. (Also, everyone who didn't tell me and/or buy me Spanx.) The last holiday picture of Jeremy and I, we both look gross. We saw it and immediately made sounds of disgust at our own images. So we're trying to slim down, together. Again. Maybe this time we'll stay fit until we have kids.

That's my ultimate goal. I want to be about 20-30 pounds lighter when we get pregnant, this way I can gain some healthy baby weight and then make Jeremy stay home with the kid after it's born and I can hang out at the gym 2-4-7. Also, I told Jeremy he's not allowed to gain sympathy weight. That's crap.

Realistically, I just want to fit into the bridesmaids dress I wore for my brother's wedding. That would be B.A. I'm concerned it'll have to wait until after the holidays, only because no one seems to know how to make healthy dishes at this time of year. 'How much does this recipe call for? All the butter in the world? That seems fine.' But if I have no willpower to say no to one more cookie, there doesn't seem to be much hope for the rest of the year, does there? That just won't do. Eff you holiday baking. No means no!

So this holiday, since we're both trying to lose weight, we're committed to keeping each other committed. He's my support, and I'm his. Seriously, it was in the vows: 'I promise to tell you you're pretty when you think you're hideous and compliment your slim and at the same time womanly curves because I know how much it means to you to be fit but still feminine and healthy.'

I wrote them myself.


In related news, (read the title, it's related) we aren't putting up the tree this year. For starters, I hate artificial trees. They creep me out. Also, ours is stored in the basement all year and I don't like to think of the spiders and whatnot we're bringing up into the apartment when we let that tree back in. So instead I'm going to build a tree out of ornaments. It's going to be terrific and sparkly, just like Christmas. With lights and garland and it'll hang from the ceiling so there's no chance the dog will knock things off with her insane tail. Oh! I have to buy Christmas cards... I just remembered that. There's no relation here except that I'm on the Christmas subject.

Also unrelated, it's 3:14 in the afternoon and I still haven't showered. This overnight thing is really messing my schedule.

I'm Drinking Peppermint Iced Tea

(That has nothing to do with this post, it's just delightful tea and homemade. By me. In my home.)

So it's been getting closer and closer to the wedding and I'm going to be honest: when I asked Jeremy yesterday morning if we were getting married in a little over two weeks and he said yes, I swore. Which was not the reaction he anticipated but as a planner (ie, a person who plans) this realization sneaked up on me, and it was not the reaction I would've expected from myself either.

The trouble, I think, with a small wedding is that because there is so little to prepare for that you think you have all this time and you really don't. There are no invites for the ceremony itself because it's a handful of people and I'm wasting a stamp on them (I said it). The reception invites don't go out out until the 11th (a Monday) because they say when we were married and I don't want them going out early and confusing people. However, I still haven't finished the invites (although the one's I have finished look lovely and I'm quite proud of them).

My dress isn't finished yet either. This is very irritating to me. (More irritating because I'm going to have to hear from my brother how he told me I shouldn't have had my aunt make the dress, and I'm going to punch him in the face when he says it. Be forewarned Scooter.) Over a year ago she offered to make the dress for me, I didn't ask her. Between my mom and her they decided it would be really nice and inexpensive for her to make my dress and I agreed, cause I figured she would have a year to work on it and it wouldn't be a problem and I could set it aside happily waiting for the day when I could wear it. And then until March, nothing happened. And then until last month, even after we had the material and everything, she still hadn't taken measurements. (To be fair, I did want to lose some weight but I was pretty close to my goal back in May and she hadn't made any progress.)

So I'm both annoyed and eagerly waiting for my stupid dress to be finished. Back to the planner thing though, I have a back-up dress. On the (hopefully) slim chance that my dress isn't done, I've acquired a cheap thrift store dress (shut up Ashley) that is surprisingly lovely and it's even white. Although that doesn't really make a difference. When I bought it, about two years ago, I didn't realize that the jackass who owned it prior apparently couldn't think of a sensible way to get out of it and so they cut the neckline. (It's a halter, you can see how this is a problem.) I saw it, it looked cute, and I bought it without trying it on. Then I got home and saw the clever hidden safety pins holding the stupid thing together and never got around to fixing it. So yesterday I took it to an alterations place where they informed me there were two options of fixing it:

1. we charge a chump-change amount and it looks like crap, or worse, something you could've done yourself
2. we charge a reasonable amount, that is still much more than you paid for it originally, and it looks like we actually tried to be professional and not snotty about it

I went with option 2.

I'm also struggling to find gifts for people. Etiquette tells me that I should give a gift to my officiate, my photographer, my maid of honor, and my dress maker. Well personal etiquette at least, they're not charging me anything and it's an important day for me and that they've cleared their schedule for that means a lot to me. They're also friends of mine and I should give them something for their help. My maid of honor is taken care of, and I'm pretty sure I have a respectable gift for my aunt, but I have no idea what to get the other two. I thought about a uniform gift for everyone but then it seemed impersonal. So I thought about individual gifts for each but then that seemed to exhibit favoritism. So I settled on a small individual gift as well as a small uniform gift. Except my maid of honor is my brother (yes, back to him which Becca agrees is the kinder and more suitable choice. plus she'll still be there cause I decided I don't care who wants to bitch about non-family being there. it's my wedding.) so if I go with something uniform it has to be unisex in some way. And then I feel bad for not getting anyone else a gift, like his parents, my parents, or his friend who is our back-up photographer, and especially my brother and his wife. Of all the people I want to be saying thank you to they definitely come near the top. AND, the backyard is going to look like a redneck's haven. Yay.

also, i'm getting married in 32 days and i'm almost at my goal weight and so is jeremy. we still have to buy luggage. other than that, we're pretty much ready to do this.

Stuff and Such

So far both Jeremy and I have lost over ten pounds each. Of course he's been doing this for a shorter time than I have but I expected him to lose weight quicker. Doesn't mean I'm not a little ticked about it though. We also started doing P90 five to six days a week. I friggin' love it.

When I started doing yoga I did it because I kept hearing how it's supposed to make you feel better physically and mentally. It's supposed to center you and all this other crap. Except I never got that. I just felt incredibly drained and like I could nap for a day. After the P90 though, even during, I feel really good. I feel like I'm making healthy progress towards my weight loss goal and I feel really energized and happy. Yoga always made me feel like I had just died, and P90 makes me feel like I could live forever, is basically what I'm getting at. Although really, who wants to live forever?

In other news, I've stopped procrastinating and have started work on my masks again as well as writing a few short stories. I've also gone back to what I like to call "Essays That Will Never See the Light of Day" and that subject is self-explanatory. I think a lot of this new energy is the change in weather, which isn't surprising. I always sleep less in the spring and summer than the fall and winter. If the sun is up longer I usually am as well. I think that's the mammal instinct of hibernating, except I can't actually hibernate in the modern age so I just get lethargic. It sucks, but then the snow melts.

Radical (Random) Honesty

1. When I was seventeen I had a huge crush on this kid with a famous physicists name (think apples) and I was so nervous to talk to him that I actually wrote a note to him. It asked what his full name was. No joke. That's all it was. And I handed it to him. Not even like, discreetly slid it across the table to him in class or anything. I waited until we were leaving and I left ahead of him, about to bitch out, and then I turned back and nearly knocked him over, and handed him the note. And then quickly vacated. I felt like such a loser. The next time we had class he sat next to me and told me his full name and nothing ever happened cause I'm stupid-shy and we pretty much talked via notes in class. I'm kinda friends with him now. Almost seven years later.

2. Sometimes when I lie to one person about something, doesn't matter what it is, I'll retell that lie to someone else even if that person has nothing to do with the lie, just to propagate it. In the highly unlikely eventuality that it will come up in conversation at some future date. As I'm doing it I will occasionally think to myself how utterly ridiculous the whole thing is.

3. I listen to crappy music. I also listen to really good music, but I pretty much only tell people about the crappy music. I have no idea why. Probably so that if they ever happen to see the music on my phone, or in my iTunes library, they'll be like, 'her musical tastes aren't THAT bad... this is actually a very broad selection. Is that album called 'World Lounge?' How cultured and open-minded of her.'

4. Over the course of say, an eight hour day, I am sucking my stomach in for at least 7.5 of those hours. The sad thing is that I'm probably not as chubby as I feel I look, but I refuse to just let my gut hang out so people can ask me if it's a boy or a girl, or when I'm due. I once had an old friend tell me she was asked that when she wasn't pregnant and I swore to myself that I would never let myself get to that point with my body. And then I got into a really good relationship and developed a 'love-chub' (a gut, not an erection) and hated myself for months. I avoided my own reflection. Sad true story.

5. I am the vainest, most conceited, most self-destructive person I know. I know I just said that I avoided my own reflection but I totally looked at (and still do) myself every time I pass a reflective surface. I focus on my face, or my hips, or how my thighs look in these jeans. If I'm passing a reflective surface, I'll glance back behind me as if something interesting is going on just where I passed to check out my own ass. If I'm approaching a surface, mirror in a store, front door of a store, shiny car, I'll check out my own walk. And then make fun of my own jeans and how they come down over the tops of my shoes. Or if I see my face, I'll make hateful comments about my acne or how frizzy my hair is. In my head though.

6. When people accidentally touch me, it makes me want to punch them in the throat. I hate it. What the hell are you doing so close to me anyway?

7. I have this weird habit of watching something, or reading something, and then imagining that a person from that thing is actually in the room with me. So sometimes when I talk to myself, which is a lot when I'm writing...or in general, I'll be talking to them. Which I'm positive is a form of mental illness and completely unhealthy and fucking crazy. I have done this for as long as I can remember. And I am amazed that no one has caught on yet.

Real Quick

Just a note to say that I have successfully lost twelve pounds since January. 18 to go. Bring it honeymoon.

Update

I'm such a tool. I was uber excited that we might get to see Harry Potter when it was released in London and then I find out that it comes out on July 7th, eight days before we get there. And then it comes out on the 15th here, when we're landing in London. So either way I don't get to see it on opening day. Grumble and sadness.

In other news, I have lost a grand total of 8 pounds. That means twenty-two more pounds and I am all set to be looking good in my custom made wedding dress. That's right, custom made. Like I'm important or something. Really I'm just designing it and my aunt is making it. But it's going to be lovely and completely original and me. And if I have a daughter and she doesn't want to wear it on her wedding day I'm going to be like, 'good cause it wasn't made for you anyway...bitch.'

Oh and I painted my nails. They look pretty and sparkly.

See? Pretty.

And someone totally re-posted one of my blogs on Tumblr. Which is pretty sweet cause it means people are actually reading it.