Hello. My Name Is Ann-Marie And I'm A Diet Coke Addict.

I have been thinking about healthy eating again lately and examining what I put in my body.  While I am never going to be someone who makes drastic switches or eliminates any food entirely I do realize that there are some basic changes I can make to my daily diet to make it healthier and more natural.  I love Lean Cuisines because of the convenience factor but maybe I could cut those back to once or twice a week instead of the five day a week schedule I am currently doing.  Maybe I can eat a real breakfast instead of grabbing a Zone Perfect bar on my way out the door.  And maybe, just maybe, I can reduce my consumption of Diet Coke. 
I don't fall into the camp that believes Aspartame is evil but I do think perhaps that fewer chemicals going into your body might not be an entirely bad idea.  Also, the happy bubbles that I consume throughout the day make me look pregnant by the time evening rolls around.  Seriously, my morning belly is vastly different from my night belly.  Cutting back on carbonation has got to help that, right?

So my plan is to wean myself down to a two can a day habit.  I am starting this week by limiting myself to four cans a day.  After a week or two of this I am going to go to three cans a day and then landing at two cans a day.   Then maybe I can start in on my Lean Cuisine problem.

New Shoes

I broke down and bought new running shoes this weekend.  I had far too many miles on my old ones and far, far too many miles on my Superfeet inserts.  I am hoping some new shoes will help with the weird assortment of foot and leg issues I have been struggling with:  Morton's neuroma, freakish bilateral calf-tightness, sciatica and the occasional hip twinge. 

The verdict?  Meh, not so great.  I am going to play around with different lacing to see if I can alleviate the foot numbness. They sure are pretty though.  Men's Sauconys in case you were wondering.  They didn't have any women's shoes for my stride in my size. 

Money Talks

Married life has been suiting us just fine.  Since we have been together for so long and have lived together for awhile there has been no major adjustment period.  In fact, the only difference is I feel more in love with Kevin than before (sorry for the sap) and I feel even closer to him. Oh, and we have developed a freaky ability to read each other's thoughts all the time.  It's actually a little frightening how often it happens.  But there is one major marriage adjustment hurdle still before us and we are going to tackle that tonight:  finances.

Now, we have talked finances quite a bit already and know how much each other makes and what our debts are and what our living expenses are.  We have not, however, combined any of that.  We did open a joint account for wedding expenses after we got engaged but that is as far as the merging has gone.  We have been together long enough to know each other's financial styles and even though they aren't an exact match they are close enough that it won't be a big stumbling block.  I also know that money is the number one thing couples fight about so that little nugget of information is probably in the back of both of our minds as we start down this path. 

It shouldn't be too horrible but it will definitely be new ground for both of us.  I have never had to confer with anyone about my retirement account deductions or which health plan to choose or direct debit vs. bill pay or what I choose to spend my money on.  Those decisions have always been mine and mine alone. Learning to make them together will be a whole new experience for us.  We aren't merging everything but enough to be a little intimidating. Time to open some wine and break out the 10 key (I'm old school like that) and crunch some numbers.  Woo!

Dreamland

I am trying to convince myself that my dreams are so dull because I actually live a fairly interesting, involved and active life.  However, that could just be what people who spend a long time in dreamland quietly shopping for books and visiting a doctor to discuss their bunion say to make themselves feel better.  I think I bored myself into even deeper sleep.

Does Not Ride Well With Others

With my car in the shop overnight I was looking at a bleak future. A future that included (shudder) ......public transportation. I just wanted to take a moment to thank my sweetie for driving me the 30 miles to work to save me from having to sit next to the mentally unstable, the unwashed and from possibly sitting in pee.

Wedding Recap - Photos, Transport and Stress Oh My!

I have promised myself that I will have the wedding recaps done before we get our professional photos back.  We should get those between 1-3 weeks from now so I better get typing.  I aplogize for the length of these posts but this was just so huge for me that I need to give it a decent recap for myself. 

When last we left Beluga Girl and Orca Boy (seriously, the coloration is remarkably similar) we had set up the reception space and were getting ready for the "first look."  I had been all prettified by two wonderful women at the Edgefield spa and got into my dress with only a tiny bit of help to zip it all the way up. I was determined to do it myself without anybody around in the room but needed to call Diane for the final zip and to make sure I didn't have back cleavage.  Who knew your back could look so much like an ass? 

The photographer showed up before I got fully zipped and started shooting.  I was surprised how little I noticed him and how natural I felt with him shooting all the time.  I thought I would have a bigger problem with being photographed but I had so many other things going through my mind that I didn't even notice.  So I was dressed and accessorized for the wedding but didn't really feel like a bride until I got to hold my bouquet.  That was the first moment I actually felt bridal.  I loved my bouquet too.  It had wonderful yellow flowers, tiny touches of white (can we all just agree that a white dress with an all-white bouquet is BORING and should be stopped? Agree? Good!), beautiful seed pods and the pieces that really made the bouquet pop; chocolate fern curls.  I could have stared at it for hours.  The florist did a beautiful job.  Sadly there aren't any good pictures of it yet.  The billy button boutonnieres for the guys were also perfect.  A fun, unusual flower for a fun, unusual occasion.

"How the hell do we put these on?"

I met Kevin outside and the photog had him turn around for the "first look."  Now, this seems a little silly because he had seen me in my dress a bunch of times, seen the shoes, seen the necklace, seen the hair and make-up but had never seen it all together.  But it was the actual wedding day so it was a little different this time.  He looked so handsome in his tux even though his hair was still wet from hurrying through his shower.  He was SO stressed from the insane reception set-up that he was almost in tears and the first thing he said to me was "we should have eloped."  The pom poms gave him PTSD.  We quickly got out of the stressful morning mood and into having fun being together on our wedding day and taking photographs around the grounds of The Edgefield. 

Taking pictures was a lot of fun.  I felt really pretty at the time although the few photos I have seen don't make me feel that way now.  But at the time I felt beautiful which is all that matters.  I have never seen a photo of me I have liked anyway so why should the wedding be any different.  I also thought Kevin looked great but after seeing his hair in some of the shots I don't hold out much hope for either of us in our photos and he usually photographs beautifully.  Orca Boy's hair looked like it had been cut by a Flowbee.  It is what it is though.

After photos the stress came back big time when we started to worry about the school buses we had rented for guest transportation.  We hadn't heard them come up the drive-way and were kind of freaking out that they weren't going to be there.  Turns out only one of the two made it and after Kevin did some take charging with the situation our guests were finally able to head out to the reception space after waiting and waiting for the other bus to show up.  I found out later the bus driver took some wacky, long route instead of the quick easy route they should have gone if they used Google maps.  This all resulted in people getting to the reception later than we anticipated and caused us to get there later than we wanted as well.  The stress level was rising.  We were worried people wouldn't have enough time to relax and have a drink before the ceremony began and that we wouldn't have any unwinding time.  Turns out that was probably good because it wouldn't have been unwinding time at all.

On the way over we spent time stressing about the reception space and whether the cake topper was on the table so the cake lady could find it or did someone pack it away so we would have to dig for it when we got back.  I also couldn't get anyone to return a phone call or text at this time either.  Aaaarrrgghhh!  The most important thing to me was the cake and I didn't want to walk in and not see the cake in its complete state.

We arrive at Mississippi Studios and shoot up the side stairwell to the little waiting room at the top.  We could hear the pre-ceremony music we had carefully chosen (all non-sappy songs about love), could hear people talking and laughing and I could feel my pulse quicken.  I can feel it now just remembering and typing about it.  We were both so much more nervous and excited than we thought we would be.  Heart pounding, sweating kind of nervous and excited. We talked with our officiant and went over a few last minute items. We were getting more and more nervous as the moments ticked by.  We were moments away from getting married. 

(Seriously, I am feeling that heart-pounding nervousness reliving this.Yikes!)

Running on Empty

We interrupt our scheduled wedding recap to bring you this: running has become hard. A three miler that would have been nothing a few months ago now involves walk breaks. I know my "speed" and stamina will come back but, damn, I didn't think I had reconditioned that badly. Ugh.