What's a-goin' on?

I know all of my millions of readers are on the edge of your seats wondering what's been going on with me, H2B and our dear Layla. So here's an update:

Layla has officially been "diagnosed" by her vet and her trainer as having severe separation anxiety. Basically, this means that our calm, lazy, well-tempered girl has a panic attack whenever left alone. This leads to destructive behavior in her attempt to find us. Our carpet may never recover. She is on some meds and we are working with her veerrrry sloowwwllly on being left alone for short periods of time (we're up to 5 to ten minutes). Thank goodness H2B is here to give her the company she needs or the apartment would probably no longer be standing. She's eating her food now, praise the lord. It has taken us awhile to get the right combo on kibble and wet food so that she'll actually eat it, and for her to be anxiety-free enough to eat. She loves the pig ears and her bones, so we'll put some weight on her in no time!

H2B is settling in nicely as well. The military movers delivered his things a week ago and he is already unpacked and our households have been officially consolidated. He is spending his days doing some much deserved relaxing, long walks with Layla, laundry, cooking, and cleaning. It's like heaven. I come home to a spotless house, a happy dog, and an H2B with dinner to greet me!

My own road has been a little bumpy during this transitional period. Not only are there so many (good) changes going on, but I am in the middle of a small medical scare. No need to bore you with the details, but I spend the day on Monday getting various tests done. Not exactly my favorite way to spend a vacation day from work. The worst part is that apparently stress can make this type of thing worse, so I need to relax. Can you see the vicious cycle forming? More details on that as things progress. Nothing life threatening, just a minor complication that can be easily fixed. More details on that as things progress.

Oh yeah, and there's wedding planning going on. Sorta. We got distracted...

Aaah Weekend!!!

What a great weekend! H2B was in town since he had Friday AND Monday off for MLK day. He met me and some friends and coworkers at our usual Happy Hour spot at 5 and we all had a really great time. Happy hour went into over time, we didn't get home until about 9:30 or 10.

Saturday was a marathon. For someone who rarely likes to leave the house for extended periods of time on a weekend day (I mean really, if I need to go to Target and the grocery store, I break it up and do one per day), I'm amazed at myself for having this much stamina. So here was our Saturday:

Event #1: Crate & Barrel for our first wedding registry experience. Super overwhelming to pick wine glasses from an entire wall of them! But we had a good time and didn't disagree on much. Dishes, silverware, cookware, etc! The kitchen is really H2B's domain, so I deferred to his preference most of the time.

Event #2: Lunch (and a beer) at Buffalo Wild Wings. A nice break to clear our heads before Event #3

Event #3: Macy's for wedding registry part two. This time I was running the show, sheets and towels are some of my favorite things and The Hotel Collection is just so yum!

After that we went home for a short rest before

Event #4: Drinks with some friends at a bar near home. Super fun but we had to cut it short so we wouldn't be late for...

Event #5: Dinner with other friends at a Baltimore fav, The Brewer's Art. The food was excellent, as was the beer. And the wine. And the company!

Sunday, H2B and I stayed close to home and made soup for lunch and a yummy yummy casserole for dinner. Finally some relaxation!

Monday, H2B left super early to beat the inauguration craziness of DC. Since it snowed all day, I spent the day in bed. I read a little, I watched a little TV, and I took a couple of naps. I also did some online wedding registry management. An altogether great weekend! Now I am back at work refreshed and ready to get stuff done!

Is Optimism Exhausting?

or is something else making me extremely tired?

This whole week I've been a slug. I've been to the gym twice (and it's Friday, not good) and have been pushing the snooze button like it's my job. It doesn't seem to matter how early I go to bed, I just can not force myself to wake up. Thank goodness I shower at night or I would be one stinky chick.

So what could it be? I have some theories:

- It's hard to face a 5 day work week after so many days off for the holidays, especially when there are no days off in the foreseeable future.

- H2B and I spent a glorious 2 weeks together and my subconscious is depressed without him to snuggle with and talk to.

- I haven't been exercising as much and so am low on energy.

- It's one of those weird sleep cycles we all get into and in time it will correct itself.

In any case, it's Friday. I'm going to the gym after work (I swear!) to exhaust myself even further. I will then go to sleep at a reasonable hour (like maybe 9 or 10) and sleep in tomorrow!! My hope is that will kick this cycle to the curb so I can get back to my usual self. Plus my sister is coming down from New York tomorrow, so I need to be well rested for some sisterly bonding / wedding stuff.

Hurry up and wait

I feel this is an ever present phenomenon in several aspects of my life at the moment.

The wedding plans have come to a screeching halt. After about six weeks of drowning in a sea of to-do's, I finally relinquished control to my mom. Unhindered by a 9-5 job in cube-land, within ear shot of dozens of colleagues, she managed to book all remaining vendors and thus has become my hero for the bazillionth time. The thing with planning a wedding is that you scramble to book venues and vendors nine months to a year before the event. However, once you've done that, you sit back until a couple of months prior at which point you scramble to choose whether you want white or yellow daisies, what font you should use on the invitations, and if your first dance should be a cliche, cheesy ballad or something you both actually enjoy. Hurry up, then wait. Repeat.

Things at work seem to be going the same way. Clients come to us frantic to get a brochure printed or web site built by next week or some other insane timeline. So we race around getting cost estimates from photographers, designers, printers, mail houses, etc only to wait a week and a half before getting approval to move forward. We then get the first draft of XYZ project done in record time! Hooray!! But then we can't get the clients to respond for WEEKS!! Hurry up, then wait.

We have set a date!!

At last I have an answer when people ask when I'm getting married! Hooray! July 11, 2009!

Most people who know me well (and some who don't) know that on most days (we're talking 99 out of 100) I get a 44 oz. fountain diet coke, also known as a Super Big Gulp or SBG. Thus, H2B and I felt it was important that our anniversary be 7-11. We are so glad that our one stop shop venue (ceremony and reception) was available on this special day!

I have decided on a dress and once I get back to Baltimore (I'm visiting my mom in California at the moment) I have an appointment to get measured and order it!

On to flowers, invitations, and cake! Oh my!

A non-linear process for a linear thinker

Last weekend, H2B and I toured our first possible wedding venue. Granted, it's the one and only place we've seen so far, but it's pretty awesome. The cost is not prohibitively high, and seems almost reasonable, and the best part is this: they do everything for you but the flowers, cake and music. YES! Fewer logistics for me to deal with! I'm also getting ready to fly to California to visit my mom and order my dress.

So a picture of my wedding, oops, OUR wedding, has begun to form in my head. Great! I was starting to feel like a defective bride! So for the past few days, instead of focusing my undivided attention on watching the many many hours of shows that are recorded in my TiVo, I've been googling like crazy!

Yup, CRAZY. I am a linear thinker so my first instinct is to take on one thing at a time. I'm learning, however, that this way of thinking is not compatible with the wedding planning process. My brain does not know what to do with this. In the span of one hour last night, with a glass of wine at my side, I googled the following (and sent H2B many many links for his opinions): wedding hair, honeymoon locations, wedding cakes, invitations, and area rugs. Okay, so that last one actually falls in the home decorating category, but you can see my point.

All of these ideas are great, but guess what? We can't do anything until we find and book a place. I am so anxious to do that because I feel like once a date is set, the next logical thing will magically make itself known to me. Plus the added bonus of having an actual answer when people ask when the wedding is!

I'm sure my fabulous Excel skills will help me keep track of what has been done and what still needs to be done. It's a shame that project management of this magnitude is not an appropriate thing to put on a resume!

Gym Personas

Over the course of my twenties, my workout habits have varied widely. There have been times when I spent 30+ minutes on the elliptical every night, I went through an intense, at-home yoga period, and then there have been the do-nothing-but-sit-on-the-couch phases. I joined my current gym about six months ago and go on most weekdays, with week long breaks on occasion for thesis writing, social commitments and general laziness.

About a month ago, I had a wellness assessment at work “just for fun” and discovered that my body fat percentage is way higher than I would like (on the bright side, my cholesterol is only 127). In a panic, I asked my health assessor/colleague the best way to reduce my body fat. When I told her I do about 30 minutes of cardio three or four days a week, with some resistance training after, she told me I need to up my trips to the gym to five or six per week, with 45 to 60 minutes of cardio AND a boost in my resistance training.

It’s taken me some time, but I’m now fairly comfortable ellipticalling for an hour at a time and, since my gym has a personal TV for each cardio machine, I can channel surf until I find something motivating to watch (helpful hint: the food network doesn’t work). However, at times I prefer to people watch, a timeless favorite of gym-goers everywhere, I’m sure. Today I want to share with you some favorites of mine:

Petite Runner Chick – A staple in gyms world-wide, this cute-as-a-button daily runner typically sets the treadmill at a quick pace and sticks to it forEVER. She rarely lifts weights, which makes me wonder if she’s an endorphin junkie. She’s not disgustingly skinny, but thin and in good shape. Not much fun to watch.

Old Weightlifter Man – This man is either in his mid-50s or in his late-40s and not aging well. He has thinning hair that sticks straight up and wears a tank top, you know, the kind with arm holes that go all the way down to his wrinkly, gross waist, and too short running shorts. He hangs out in the free weight area, but come to think of it, I’ve never seen him actually lift any weights... hmm...

The Gym Rat – Not much to say about these, we’ve all seen them. They spend a set amount of time on the treadmill, switch to the elliptical and hang out there for awhile and then switch the stairmaster. They are way too skinny and I just want to feed them a piece of toast.

Bodybuilder Guy – This guy is in his late-twenties or early thirties and is ALWAYS at the gym. He does five or ten minutes on the treadmill to warm up and then hits the free weights hard. He has big, bulging muscles (overcompensating perhaps?) and can lift those really big dumbbells that I used to wonder what kind of person actually used those?? His neck is nearly non-existent and is always talking to his fellow bodybuilder guys about sports or protein powder.

Lazy Old Lady Walker – This older woman gets on the treadmill, sets it for about .5 mph and strolls along while browsing through a magazine. Clearly, she subscribes to the theory that just being within the four walls of the gym will improve your cardiovascular health, burn more calories, etc. I swear I saw her chewing gum while “working out” one day. A variation on this character is the woman who locks her elbows and desperately holds herself up on the stairmaster or elliptical while her legs move faster than the speed of light. Super muscular legs, but probably not quite doing much for overall fitness...

Weird Office Guy – I think this guy is unique to my gym, although my workout buddy is convinced I made him up. He shows up every night around 5:45 (my workout buddy arrives after 6, if at all :) ), wearing what looks like a business suit only without the jacket or tie. No joke, the guy is wearing slacks with creases down the front, a button down shirt, loafers and BLACK SOCKS!!! He heads straight to the weight machine area, you know, the circuit one, puts down his backpack, does a couple reps on a couple of machines and then he disappears!! I have no idea how, but I never see him leave. I’m fascinated by this one, I only wish he provided me with more than five minutes of entertainment during my own, totally normal, workout.

A Weekend of Productivity

I had some lofty goals for my weekend. Since I frequently spend my weekends with my husband-to-be in the oh-so-glamorous town of Fayetteville, North Carolina, weekends I spend in Baltimore, alone, are usually jam packed with errands and chores that I can't squeeze in during the week. And now that the weekends before the big move are countable on one hand, the pressure is on to get a lot done.

My goals for this weekend were simple: steam clean my carpets (which are moving with me and it's easier to haul a rented steamer up three steps in the current house than two flights in the new place), pack everything that's not an absolute necessity for the next three weeks, and hit the gym Friday night, Saturday and Sunday.

Friday night, I had dinner plans with some friends I work with. They had to get home on the early side to walk their dogs, so I figured I would still have time for the gym afterwards. Well, as it turned out, a pretty good sized group of co-workers ended up at the same bar we were having dinner at for happy hour. So when my dinner buddies left, I joined the crowd for some more drinks. The motivation to shed some pre-wedding pounds vanished, but I stuck with Bacardi and Diet Coke, so at the calorie intake was somewhat limited.

I woke up Saturday morning, spent about half an hour enjoying the extreme comfort of my bed and plotting my day. I decided to get the carpet steaming out of the way first, workout second, and wrap up the day with some packing. As I headed to Safeway to rent a RugDoctor, I got a text from one my drinking buddies from the night before saying he was heading to the gym. I was tempted to shift my schedule, but decided that if I was to lose motivation mid-day, the carpet steaming was priority numero uno.

I had expected the steaming process to be a comedy of errors, but everything went off without a hitch. Even though I had a 24 hour rental window, I returned the RugDoctor immediately after, just in case the motivation waned as the day progressed.

On the way home, I called my old roommate, who lives about 20 minutes away to see if she and her dog could use a visitor. I hadn't seen her in ages and thought we could chat for an hour or two and I could go to the gym on the way home, leaving the packing for Sunday. Here's where my plans went way out the window. As it turns out, Maria is the only one of my friends who wanted to talk about wedding planning more than I. In fact, until yesterday, any wedding thoughts lasting longer than ten minutes stressed me way out. I have no idea how to start, where to start, and who to ask for help.

After five minutes of browsing through dresses on weddingchannel.com, we stumbled across a the site of a designer whose dresses were just my style. We got so excited that we found a bridal shop nearby who carries the entire Alfred Angelo line. After a quick shower to shave my legs and get feeling a little more bride-like, we were in the car.

I'll spare you the details of the four beautiful dresses I tried on, and leave it that I found a dress that I love. We went from the bridal shop to a sushi restaurant for a late lunch/early dinner and then to the liquor store for celebratory supplies. I arrived home around 9, had a couple glasses of wine, and was asleep at a decent hour.

Today, I managed to pack a few boxes and then get to the gym. With new found wedding dress motivation, I pushed myself to my limit. So much so that any thoughts of packing the rest of belongings vanished.

I find it disappointing that I don't feel that my weekend was productive when, in fact, I managed to get a lot accomplished. It's a bummer that, had I not set such high goals I would appreciate my productivity more. But the other side of that coin is that if I hadn't set those goals, far fewer items would have been crossed of my checklist.

Avoiding the Reality of Wedding Planning

Having just changed my official status to "engaged," I've discovered that in order to have a beautiful wedding with the pretty dress, color coordinated flowers, a yummy cake, and all of my loved ones present in the same room at the same time, I actually have to organize and plan that in order to make it all happen. Not that I didn't know that in the most logical sense, but now that it's a real thing that I have to actually do, I'm a little overwhelmed. So far, all I've done is some basic Googling of venues, dresses, and invitations. Oh and I've downloaded about 8 different checklists to follow during the planning process, should I actually ever truly begin.

For the time being, I'm using the excuse that I'm moving September 1 (a mere 27 days away) and I'm only 3/4 finished packing and I couldn't possibly start planning a wedding in the midst of all that moving stress. I am, however, fully aware that this is only an excuse and come September 6 or 7, when most of the boxes are unpacked, clothes are put away and dishes have been neatly organized, I will have to figure out where to start this monumental undertaking.

All of that having been said, this procrastination should in no way be taken as lack of excitement about marrying my best friend, who I've known since we were just 12. Way back in seventh grade, I never would have guessed I would end up spending the rest of my life with my lab partner, with whom I dissected a cat.

Of course, I could always take the easy way out and get married at Waffle House...

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