Here’s another wedding pic.  =)

Love!

Remember me?!

Well, I barely remember me, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t.

But I hope that you do!

Last week at this time, I was likely lounging next to a palm tree, under a palapa on the beach at the Club Med Turkoise on the Providenciales Island of Turks & Caicos.  This was probably my view…

Since I had enjoyed far too many adult beverages the morning night before, it had only been a mere 2 hours earlier that I rolled lazily out of this bed…

Threw open the blinds on the window, and gazed in amazement (again) at the view…

For lunch that day, I probably ate something fabulous, since Club Med Turkoise, despite its economical accommodations and price tag, is known for having amazing food.

I also probably ate about 4 more pieces of that dark chocolate bread that you see in the upper right corner of the picture.  Um…YUM!

In fact, food was a really important part of the honeymoon.  We sort of planned our entire day around what time we were going to be eating our meals.  In fact, food was so important that it was probably around this time last week that I was starting to get hungry again, and probably starting to lazily walk from my beach chair over to Sharkies for a grilled cheese sandwich and a margarita.

Healthy stuff here kids, healthy stuff.

Although my meals consisted of many foodstuffs that I wouldn’t normally have the desire to involve myself in at home, I’m happy to report that I greedily ate each and every morsel.  Well…except for the conch fritters.

I was scared.

Even more so than the food, I was out of my mind happy about the fact that I partook in my first (and second) workout since my pregnancy debacle.  I nearly cried as I walked hills on the treadmill.

Then, after my workout was finished, I walked into the adjacent room to stretch, and I nearly cried again.

There is just something about cooling down from your first workout in 50 days in front of a blanket of lush tropical greenery that changes a girl’s life.  From that moment, I knew that stretching would never be the same for me again.  **sigh**

What I’m telling you is that although I was supposed to be avoiding anything that seemed fun, and I complained about how much reading I was going to have to do while we were on our honeymoon, truth is that I didn’t get much reading done at all.

I was far too busy doing all of the things that my doctor told me not to do.

Don’t tell him that I said that.

Funny thing about it is that despite the fact that I worked out, ‘got my honeymoon on’, and drank more alcohol during the aforementioned week than I’ve drank in the entire past 2 years of my life, I did what felt right to me.

I returned home from Club Med Turkoise a happier, healthier girl.  As of yesterday, I’m at ZERO, and it’s back to business as usual.  I’m certainly not encouraging you to drink excessive amounts of alcohol, have sex, and work out at the tail end of resolving your ectopic pregnancy.

BUT.

I’m officially living proof that every once in a while, all we need are new friends…

[p.s...slightly diaphanous dress is completely optional...]

Good lovin…

And a stiff one.

The drink, of course.

***************

Did you miss me??!!  Tell me how much you’ve missed me!

[I'm still a little needy, that hasn't changed].

]]> http://www.joggerslife.com/2010/guess-whos-back-back-again/feed/ 12 http://www.joggerslife.com/2010/book-your-honeymoon/ http://www.joggerslife.com/2010/book-your-honeymoon/#comments Wed, 20 Oct 2010 18:06:20 +0000 http://www.joggerslife.com/?p=3996

Considering my most recent life events, including my sad failed pregnancy, and my extremely happy wedding (!!), there hasn’t been much blogging going on in my world lately.  Although I think about the blog constantly, I just can’t pull my thoughts together enough to come up with anything coherent or meaningful to write.  Unlike some bloggers, I refuse to just slap up pictures of my meals and call it entertaining.  It’s not.  So I don’t.

Last night, I made turkey tacos in honor of My Gazelle’s birthday, and we had cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory for dessert.  In hindsight, I wish that I had taken pictures, but alas…I’m too busy living, and possibly even just too lazy to dig out my camera.

I also won’t be blogging next week, because I’ll be here…

Drinking far too many of these…

With my husband.

My gorgeous, sexy husband with whom “married” activities are currently prohibited.  Prohibited.  Doesn’t that word make you want to do the involved activity even more?  Me too.

Anyone who has had a previous ectopic pregnancy will understand.  Those of you who haven’t experienced this, my hCG (pregnancy hormone) level is hanging out in the 100′s at the moment, and it needs to be at ZERO before fun can be had by all.  ZERO.  I’ve never wanted to score ZERO in my entire life until now.

It’s been kind of a buzzkill on the whole wedding/honeymoon thing, but I welcome any opportunity to take a tropical vacation at this juncture.  Not only due to the fact that we need to unwind after the past two months, but also because I have never been on a tropical vacation of any sort!

And so it goes, I will enjoy a honeymoon filled with reading.  Lots and lots of reading.

Sexy.

Scandalous.

Risque.

I love reading and all, but…I’d rather be at ZERO.

]]> http://www.joggerslife.com/2010/married-monday/feed/ 26 http://www.joggerslife.com/2010/the-aftermath-of-the-great-move-of-2010/ http://www.joggerslife.com/2010/the-aftermath-of-the-great-move-of-2010/#comments Mon, 11 Oct 2010 19:27:42 +0000 http://www.joggerslife.com/?p=3968

Aren’t these lovely?

They match my dress so perfectly.

And somehow, this vintage necklace matched those lovely handmade earrings so perfectly.  So accidentally.

And this!

This wonderful hair fascinator that I polled you about ages ago!  I love it!

All of these accessories seemed to magically fall into place months ago.  While many brides are obsessing about their jewelry in the weeks leading up to their wedding, I was already decided.  I made my mind up months ago.  I tried it all on with my wedding dress at the final fitting.  Everything looked perfect.

So, what’s the problem, you ask?

I lost it.

All of it.

Yes.  All of it.

Somewhere between this:

and this:

I lost my beautiful wedding jewelry and hairpiece!

I’m sad.  The necklace was a vintage find on Etsy, and the earrings and hairpiece were handmade.  I’ll be able to get another hairpiece (by paying full price again, PLUS $21 overnight shipping), but the earrings and necklace were irreplaceable, especially with such short notice.

I’m freaking out a little.

I’m also stopping at Jo Ann Fabrics on the way home tonight, and praying that they have champagne colored glass beads.  I might just be making my own wedding jewelry tonight.

Scared.

I am being pulled in 4,398 different directions. Normally, I’d be going batshit crazy at this point.  However, I’m actually loving it, because I was essentially “off the grid” for about 3 weeks whilst I physically and emotionally dealt with life’s most recent curveball.

I’m making up for lost time I suppose.

Even though I’m definitely on overload, I feel this strange sense of calm.  I just dealt with pretty much the worst thing that I’ve ever had to go through in my life, and I came out of it stronger and more confident in myself and my life.

Sometimes it takes a tragedy to realize what is really important.

Sometimes, you need to go through something ugly before you can see how beautiful things really are.

Sometimes, you have to stop complaining about how difficult life is, and realize that you could lose it all in the blink of an eye.

With the knowledge that I’ve gained over the past few weeks, I’ve also been hugging a little tighter.  Calling more often.

Laughing.  Laughing a lot.

This picture was taken when My Gazelle and I had just started dating.  We were fresh, our relationship was unscathed, and we were drunk.  Often.  We were living it up.  We had no responsibilities to each other or to our two dogs and a bird.  We didn’t have plumbing fixtures lying all over the kitchen floor.

We didn’t have dishes waiting to be washed in the bathroom sink.  We weren’t aware when this picture was taken that we’d even still be together four years later, much less still be together and charging through our first life tragedy together.

He still makes me laugh like this.

I don’t wish what we’ve just gone through on my worst enemy.  However, I can honestly say that the strength with which we coped with this situation has made an already confident decision completely concrete.

I’m marrying my best friend in 9 days, and it’s the best decision that I’ve ever made.

Although this post was not specifically intended to be a “Sorry I’m Not Sorry” post, I’m going to preface it by first telling you this:

“Sorry I’m Not Sorry”.

Because…

We could also call this a Wednesday Confession…

Because, well…I suppose that it’s one of those too.

How fun.  Two birds, one stone.

Did you guys know I’m getting married?  I know, big surprise right?  I’ve kept that such a secret here on the blog.  Right.  As if I didn’t tell you all about our wedding, several times over.  Down to each and every painful detail.

[p.s...in case you're interested, here's all of the wedding-related posts.  I know how we girls just love to talk about weddings.]

You guys were so supportive with my first “Sorry I’m Not Sorry” post, that hey…I guess it can’t hurt to be honest about this as well, right?  I’m kind of good at laying everything out there anyway, so none of this should surprise you.

I’m trying to get hot for my wedding.

Yes, yes I am.

I understand that this probably isn’t too surprising to any of you who are married already. You’ve already experienced the mental anguish of knowing that you’ll be wearing an incredibly overpriced dress, standing in front of a room full of your loved ones, merging your life together with the man that you love, and then having hundreds upon hundreds of photographs taken of you.  To be consequently pulled out and viewed for approximately the next 50 years of your life.

Yeah.

So in conclusion, I need to look hot in my overpriced Maggie Sottero dress.

This doesn’t involve starving myself.  I even stopped logging my food on Livestrong this week.  I know, aren’t I so wishy-washy?

The truth about my life is that I’ve barely been working out since I did the IronGirl Syracuse in July.  I haven’t really been too worried about it.  Although sweating is an important part of my world (mostly because it keeps me at least partially sane), I needed to worry about other more pressing issues.

Such as moving and kitchen remodeling (which is still not finished, btw).

But now, I’m making sweating a priority again.

I’d like to introduce you to my “Six Weeks To Sottero” plan:

My motto (as written in the “notes” section for September) is “Don’t Think, Just Do”.  Very original, no?

I’ve completed one day.

We’ll see how it goes.

Sorry I’m not sorry.

*******

Also, I want to mention that the Joggers Life TRX Try It Program is turning out to be a smashing success!  I’m so excited to be able to let you guys try out the TRX!  I’ve come to the conclusion that not only are people scared away by the price of the TRX, but it’s also sort of an intimidating apparatus in and of itself.  Somehow, my cajoling all of you in my most annoying voice (“TRY IT, TRY IT!!”) has taken away some of that intimidation.  Awesome!  For that very reason, I’m going to keep annoying you.

So far, we have Rachel and Gene trying out the TRX in September (Gene, you’ll receive your TRX next week–I had to order another due to sheer demand), Kendra is signed up for October, Kristen claimed November, December belongs to Laura, Leah is booked for January, and Angela has February lined up!

That means that March is YOUR month!  Come on, you know you want to try it.

Warning: If you are averse to paper crafts, you might want to skip this post. It’s very paper-y, and it’s very craft-y.

Personally, besides the cake, the invitations are my favorite part about weddings. At one point in my life, there was a huge boom wherein all of my friends got married at the same time. I remember getting so excited to find a wedding invitation in the mail, and I was always anxious to see how the invitation conveyed the personality of each couple.

There is something beautiful, especially in today’s electronic age, about receiving an actual piece of mail that is more than a bill, a magazine or a grocery store flier. We just don’t write enough letters that require actual postage these days. That, however, is another post for another day.

Today, I’m mailing out our wedding invitations. In line with standard etiquette (although I totally suck at this topic in the grand scheme), I’m sending them out about 2 months before the actual wedding date. I have, however, thrown caution to the wind in terms of some of the other things that the “experts” recommend. That’s just how I roll. I try not to be too stuffy.

I didn’t order my invitations from a print shop. I considered buying a box of “u-print-em” invitations from Target (some of their paper products and invitations are really cute), but I am kind of hellbent on things like this being personal. Something that you probably don’t know about me yet is that I am painfully sentimental, and I always assume that everyone else is. What I decided was that I wanted our wedding invitations to be something I could look back upon fondly, and recall the hours that I spent making them by hand.

I am very rarely the first to point out any type of talent that I possess, but I’ll be damned if I’m not crafty. When I was little, my Mom worked for a print shop, and when I went to work with her, she’d sit me down at the light table and let me trace and draw and cut and paste to my heart’s content. I’m sure she only did that because it was the only way to make me shut up and stop whining for more than 15 minutes, but that was the beginning of my love for paper, pens, crafts, and anything that meshes these three things together.

If my friends need invitations, they call me. If they need wedding, shower, or party favors, they call me. If they need gift tags or goodie bags, I’m their girl. It’s something that I love doing, and it’s one of the few things that I’m not ashamed to say that I do well.

I knew that I could create the exact wedding invitation that I envisioned, and I could give our invitations the personal touch that neither a print shop nor Target could pull off.

I began with a sketch of what I wanted. I didn’t know how I was going to get there, but I knew what I wanted: something classy, bold, and a little unexpected.

I decided to make the invitations from the Envelopments paper line by way of Red Currant Studio. I chose the Black Linen Pocketfold because I liked the idea of our invitation looking sort of like a little “package” that just folded up into itself.

On the main part of the Pocketfold, I decided to incorporate our favorite picture of us as a couple.

This picture was professionally taken at a friend’s wedding, and the photographer uploaded all of the pictures to Shutterfly. I ordered 5 x 7 copies of the picture from Shutterfly, and was very happy with the result.

I also ordered pre-cut 5 x 7 sheets of Medium Clear vellum paper, also from Red Currant, on which to print the invitation wording.

Red Currant also provided some very good 5 x 7 cardinal red cardstock on which to print the information about our “Welcome Dinner” and the post-wedding dinner party.

I was happy to find that Red Currant offered all of these items in pre-cut sizes. Although I wanted to do most of the design and printing myself, I really didn’t want to have to cut out several pieces of paper for each of the invitations. Although I only needed to make 30 invitations, I wasn’t keen on all of that cutting.

In order to personalize the Pocketfolds and the envelopes a little more, I purchased a huge pad of 12 x 12 black and white patterned paper from Michael’s. I can’t find the paper on their website, but here it is on a different website.

From that point, I made two templates: one for the top of the Pocketfold, and one for the envelope. I wanted to use the black and white patterned paper to customize each invitation a little, and coordinate the Pocketfold to the envelope.

I feel like this added a nice coordinated touch to the invitations, and once I had the template, it was very easy to cut out the shapes and stick them onto the envelopes and Pocketfolds just using Tombo Mono Adhesive tape.

I knew that I wanted a black satin ribbon in order to tie the whole “package” together, but it took me a little while to figure out how to accomplish this. I ended up ordering some small (#0) drapery grommets because I liked the “finished” look that they gave to the invitation.

Using just a standard hole punch, I eyeballed 2 holes for the brads and ribbon. This was one of the most nerve-wracking parts of the whole process because there was very little room for error–if I was 1/4″ off, my grommets wouldn’t have lined up, and the ribbon would be strung through the grommets crooked. I could’ve made a template in order to avoid crooked grommets, but after a few practice runs, I became an expert at eyeballing.

I also strung a little silver charm through each of the satin ribbons to add some extra flair (and…ahem…extra postage…). I got these on sale at Michaels, and each of the charms had a different lovey-dovey sort of word on it (honesty, appreciate, joy, faith, etc.). After stringing the ribbon through the grommets, I tied it into a sturdy knot in the back.

This was a pretty important step because the grommets were not attached by anything, and the ribbon was the only thing that would be holding them into the punched holes.

After getting everything glued and tied up, I placed a tissue square (also purchased from Red Currant) on top of the vellum paper to protect the printed portion of the invitation. Although I tested this to make sure that the ink would not rub off, I thought it looked more “official” with the tissue paper square.

Then I tied up all of the little “packages”, with a knot in the front, cut the ribbon ends into points, and burned the edges of the ribbon so that they wouldn’t fray.

Then, each of the invitations went into their envelopes, I addressed them using a silver metallic pen, sealed the envelope using Aleene’s Tacky Glue (because the envelopes were too “fat” for the standard seal to work), and finished them off with a personalized sticker that I purchased from Beau-Coup.

p.s…this is one of FOUR sets of stickers that I have purchased for our wedding. Don’t ask. Let’s just say that I now have a sticker for every wedding occasion.

So, there ya have it. Our wedding invitations, deconstructed. There are a few things that I would’ve done differently now in hindsight (namely, I don’t like the font sizes and layout on the “before the ceremony” cards), but I love my invitations. They are exactly as I planned them, and they are definitely one of a kind.

Now it’s your turn…tell me all about YOUR wedding invitations! Or, if you’re not yet married, what do you want your wedding invitations to look like??

Disclaimer:  You guys are going to have to bear with me on these wedding posts.  Since my fabulous wedding is only a little over 3 months away, I have a serious case of wedding brain at the moment.  I’m going to apologize in advance if my incessant wedding talk is annoying the $h!t out of you.  Trust me, it’s annoying me too.  It just has to run its course.

[haha...get it..."run its course"...joggerslife...run...course...yeahhhhh....]

******

If you’ve been following along with my wedding posts, you’ll know that I originally thought I wanted to wear my hair in a finger wave for the wedding.   I talked about that idea back in February, and then last month, I eluded to the fact that I had scrapped the finger wave idea.  Well, I did.  The reason?

It looked like crap on me.

Ummm...eew.

I don’t even LOOK like I’m enjoying this hairdo.  That’s just not cool.

Although that isn’t the feather I’ll be wearing (that is BFF Matron of Honor’s feather), it wouldn’t look much different with ivory feathers in it.  It just wasn’t me.  At all.

I’ve been hunting for hairdos again.  I quickly came to the realization that although I like the way that the finger wave looks on some people, my head is just too darn big to pull it off.  This is not negative self-talk, people…these are just the stone cold facts.  I inherited my Dad’s large melon, and it’s full of ‘a lot of brains’ (so he says), and there’s no hiding it (the large melon part, not the ‘a lot of brains’ part…I’m good at hiding that part).

And anyway, I wanted something with a little more…

…va-va-va-voom.

…something a little more fussy…

…and bold…

…something different…

…more “pinup”, and less “flapper”.

I’ve also been considering makeup lately as well.  I made an appointment for a consult at M.A.C., which just happens to be in the same wing of the mall where I’ll be getting my hair done on wedding day (coincidence?  I think not).  On the phone, Jadalyn (which I only remember because I thought it was a pretty name) told me to start finding pictures of makeup that I love.

…sassy…

…dramatic…

…girly…

It turns out that this is not the original “understated” plan that I thought I had as far as makeup goes.  I want to be glam and fabulous, and I want to fit in with my “Old Hollywood” theme.  Fake eyelashes are totally necessary.

Last night, I had a hair and makeup party.  With myself.  On a Tuesday.  Because I wanted to.

It kind of reminded me of that time last year when I had a skin party with myself.  I never claimed to be normal.

So, this typical ‘tinted-moisturizer-only’ gal blew the dust off of her Smashbox primer and foundation, sharpened up her eyebrow pencils (after doing a thorough shape on those bad boys), and got to work.  It was a lot of work. 

I honestly contemplated quitting the whole “girly girl” business after I almost broke my eyeball while attempting to apply a false eyelash…

whoa.

but I persevered.

feathery.

…and I even ended up having some fun…

hmmm...does this feather match my tank top?

…maybe a little too much fun…

After all of this hair and makeup business was over with last night, I had reached some decisions as far as my hair and makeup goes.  First of all, I needed to invest in a good quality eye makeup remover.  Sleeping in fake eyelashes because you can’t get the fu%ker$ off is not OK.

In addition, although I’m not exactly sure what I’m going to do yet, things are definitely going to be way more “glam” and “pinup” and less “simple” and “understated”.

I’m slowing finding out that those two words just don’t really work for me.

I know that I’ve only just met many of you, so I have to tell you something really important about me and my personality: I am chronically hung up on details. I love details. I tell stories specifically dedicated to them, and I live my life perpetually obsessed with them.

As a result, I plan parties almost completely for the details.

Details.  Can’t forget the details!

My philosophy on our wedding is complex. Personally, I would’ve loved to have a destination wedding. Roll together a wedding and a honeymoon?! Count.me.in. Let’s multitask! I love multitasking! However, that decision would have been selfish for us to do for a whole wealth of reasons, and we decided against it.

I’m not having a destination wedding. I’m having a WEDDING wedding.

And, since we’re really doing this, I will not do it half halfheartedly. Remember? I’m an ‘all or nothing’ kind of girl! We will remember this ‘one magical day’ (***cue heart-shaped confetti***)  for the rest of our lives. It should be spectacular. It should be everything we want. We’re throwing a party, and our name and personality has to be all over it.

But I’ll be damned if I go over the budget by one more penny!

Because of that, I’ve only splurged on a few things. The Maggie Sottero dress that I always wanted (which wasn’t SUCH a splurge since I bought it off the rack). Christian Louboutin shoes for the rehearsal dinner and wedding (the rehearsal dinner shoes were purchased used from eBay). Flowers from a great florist rather than doing them myself. A restaurant locale that makes great food. A honeymoon in the Turks & Caicos (discounted through Club Med, but still expensive to me).

The rest of the details?

If I’m not making it myself (such as our complicated invitations), then I found it on Etsy.

Etsy. Etsy. Etsy!

Vintage Etsy. Handmade Etsy. Lovable, kind, beautiful, unique, frugal Etsy!

In the collage above, with the exception of the shoes, the favor boxes and the table overlays, everything else was purchased from Etsy. For those of you who aren’t in the know, Etsy is a virtual marketplace for anything that is considered to be ‘vintage’ or ‘handmade’. There are no huge stores offering products on Etsy–everything is made by hand with love and affection.

Handmade placecards.

Vintage pearl necklaces.

Hand-dyed ostrich feathers that I couldn’t find anywhere else for less than a mortgage payment.

The perfect clutch with hand-sewn pearls to match my dress.

Gorgeous earrings that surprisingly match the non-matching vintage necklace (above), purchased from another seller.

The ostrich feather hairpiece that I polled you on months ago.

The perfect handmade jewelry set for my Matron of Honor, my BFF since the 7th grade.

A darling guest book that will make everyone “ooh” and “aah”.

These are all details that others might not notice, but if I were my guest (and not the bride), I would notice these things. All of the details that I’ve become preoccupied with are going to shape everyone’s impression of our day–our first day together as Mr. & Mrs. Gazelle.

And I’m not willing to ignore the details.

I’m also not willing to lose my house.

Have you ever bought anything from Etsy? If you’re married, did you plan the details on your own, ignore the details, or hire someone else to plan them for you?