Gag.

As anti-bride as I have become....I'm beginning to be excited about the wedding for a few reasons. I am beginning to be excited to be the bride. Warning: gushing over love and wedding things follows, so if you can't stomach it right now, turn away.

Mostly, Fiancé and I have somehow evolved into this extremely functional-we-don't-fight-about-anything stage of our relationship even whilst planning the wedding. I'm not complaining or trying to toot my own horn, I'm just amazed to how this happened.

history: In our early years, we never fought about anything. We discussed a few times when there were slight problems...ie: he kept comparing me to his most recent crazy ex in front of people, and I just had to tell him, in private, this was not cool. I told him once and it never happened again. Once we moved in together, we went the first 6 months without any major problems...and then just an occassional growing pain type fight you encounter when you live with someone long term.
Now that we are approaching our two year mark on living together, becoming engaged and planning a wedding AND dealing with the usual problems with Kiddo's mom, we've had some shitty arguments. The last being in March, which was when I decided we were done arguing over anything wedding related. We would compromise or drop it, and I would stop pushing him about what he needs to do and just let him take care of things. He is responsible and if I don't bug him about it, he'll get it done sooner and not feel resentful about doing so.
We've been on this high since then....doing good things for each other and cooking together; overall just enjoying each other's company and appreciating each other. It's mushy-gushy type of stuff, but I can't get enough of it. I'm sure we'll do something in the next 4 months to ruin this, but hey, that's life.

The second reason for heightened excitement about the weddings is my shower is coming up soon...this means presents and cake and mimosas, oh my! I never had a birthday party growing up....my family never had the money for all the crap that went with a kids birthday (decorations, favors for the other kids, etc...) so it was just a few gifts and a dinner out to Bill Knapp's with my grandparents since I shared my birthday with my grandpa and my mom's is two days later. I have been saying for a while now I'm only doing a shower because my mom didn't get to have a traditional one for my sister and since we registered for so much stuff it would be rude not to but I'm secretly excited about it. A whole party for meeeeeee! Where I get to be pretty and people will give me presents and I don't have to play the games (even though my girls have been forewarned about making the games as cool as possible, since I hate them) Shhh though, don't blow my cover, I have a reputation to uphold.

So in conclusion, my mood matches the weather today: gorgeous and sunshiny. Sorry if this post induced vomiting.

PS-It's Kiddo's Birthday today! Happy Birthday Kiddo, you are an amazing person, and are growing up into an awesome little woman!! xoxo

Phew!!

I came through Christmas and New Years only gaining 6/10 of a pound. Woo! That was me attending two Christmas family functions, celebrating our engagement impromptu style the night of with friends, partying with friends, getting pretty intoxicated on New Years Eve and then celebrating our engagement with the family all while not journaling.

I don't think that's so bad. The one shitty part is, last year I DID keep track and lost about 2 pounds but oh well. It's behind me now and I'm all about doing things the right way. I am going to work out with my WW buddy right after work tonight and will be doing so every Tuesday and Thursday. We also plan on getting a treadmill, but it may have to wait a bit longer since the engagement guitar threw off our fiances for the month.

Stress level is subdued as I am trying to not freak out over things I normally would. I refuse to spend my life in a constant state of panic, and there isn't much I can do about the things I worry so much about anyways.

Wedding planning is coming along. We have an appointment Saturday afternoon at 1 for the venue. Hopefully our date is available. If not, we'll work something out.

Yay for life. Time to work.

So this is the New Year.

I am a little scattered brained today. This week has confused the shit out of my sleep schedule and I slept like crap last night. Most likely because I took a two hour nap yesterday while fiancé watched one of the 15 college bowl games on tv (we still don't have cable, so I can't really argue when there is literally nothing else on) but I digress...

I am trying to get to a point....but I'm having trouble remembering what it was in the first place. Oh yes, the standard reflective New Year's blog. That is where I was going with this.

I love New Year's. I actually think it is a semi-neurotic girl's best friend. Here is why: you get a fresh start. The Calendar says so. It is a new year. Right now we all have 363 days in front of us (barring any freak accidents) to do with what we choose. Here is how I choose to spend 2009:

The biggest one that pretty much overlaps with the other small promises I have for myself is
1. stress management. I will strive to get a handle on my stress level and bring my normal state of being down a couple notches on the stress. Along with this, comes the
2. healthy lifestyle I want to continue practicing. Eating right and exercising has a HUGE impact on my moods. Last but not least, I want to
3. find a new hobby that incorporates the first two. As much as I love reading, its competely sedentary, makes me sleepy and hurts my eyes when I over do it. Other than that, I've decided only the extreme OCD truly claim cleaning as a hobby, therefore I will no longer do so (haha), I don't have much in the hobby area these days. There is a yoga studio literally next door to where we live, and in a couple weeks (after I've been active on a daily basis again for a bit...I don't want to hurt myself) I'm going to go check things out and join a beginner's class.

I am excited for 2009. If you can't tell from the fiancé talk, Boyfriend proposed on Christmas night and has transformed into Fiancé, woo! We are pretty much set on the end of August (Tabulous: you will get a full explanation on this at a later date) and I'm getting my first taste of real wedding planning. I have a binder going already with preliminary guest list and timeline of things needing to be done. So one year from now, I will be a Mrs. AND a Step-Mom. I am actually excited about both those things, strange as it may seem. I really do love Kiddo and Little One and can't wait to be an official, legal part of their lives.

Now I know things probably won't go exactly as planned and there will be times where I am stressed over things I shouldn't be, eating deep fried things and sitting on my ass, but we are all human and if I think I'm NOT going to mess up, I would be crazy.

Happy 2009. I hope everyone has a great NEW year.

Beyond the Grey Skies.

I have somehow mentally convinced myself to stop being in such a shitty mood. Go me. I am a bit surprised how easy it was. Most of why it is working centers on this: a majority of things I've been worrying about are things that either aren't worth worrying about because they are so minuscule (like, where to put this or that at the apartment) or they aren't worth worrying about because there is nothing to be done about them (having to pay ANOTHER $200 deposit for our utility account for the new place while not getting the other one back until January)

I am nothing but excited for the impending engagement. I know it is going to happen sooner than later and that is enough for me. I mentioned the whole wedding thing recently, in passing and how excited I am to see Shelby's ring Friday and he goes "I need to go shopping by myself soon" and I asked him if he wanted me to get started on Kiddo's and Little One's shopping Friday and he said, yeah but I still need to go by myself to get your stuff but I'm convinced he is getting the ring then as well (!!!) because the comment was triggered by me mentioning Shelby's.

Yay for being happy again.

I also made another pretty:

Rant.

I need to bitch, and since just about all my girlfriends (Tabs, if you want to stop reading now, I will understand) have already listened to the condensed version of this speech, I don't want to annoy them with the long and painfully negative/whiny version so here goes....with a bit of our history before the actual bitching.

On New Years Eve, bf and I will have been together for 3 years, or at least it will have been three years ago that I kissed him for the first time, and since I stopped even looking at other guys after that night (yes, it was that good) I pretend its our "anniversary" since we took things so painfully slow at first and there really wasn't a day when he asked me to be his gf or anything. I am not complaining about how slow things were for us in the beginning, it was what I needed at the time and it worked best for both of us.

This year has been the year of FOUR weddings. One in March, three from Sept. 20 to Oct. 10. Many people I know and love have gotten married or gotten engaged this year. The weddings have been awesome fun, but have given me the insane, crazy, I want to get married as soon as possible, itch.

The M word first came up one Friday night back in February or March. I don't really know how (probably since I was a bit drunk I brought it up, but I can't remember) but I do remember him saying, "it definitely makes it easier for me to ask knowing you will say yes". The seed is planted.
It comes up again in the end of March, when we went to Columbus for a weekend, wandered through a mall and I showed him what I thought I wanted ring-wise. Of course, the one they get out of the case for me to try on is a $7,000 2 carat, round cut solitare. He says, wow that's it? It is sort of boring, then we see the price and I start laughing and his eyes get huge and we say thanks and leave. I later conclude the band must have been platinum and it was in the mall so the mark up is very high. The marriage talk pretty much subsides for the whole summer.....until fall wedding season begins. And we catch the bouquet/garter at his brother's wedding. And his extended family keeps asking me when the next wedding will be. And his brother and friends ask me to marry him because "you're so awesome". And his mom and sister always call me Aunt Sara when I'm playing with the little kids. And just being at friends wedding's makes me all teary because of all of the looooove and pretty dresses and romance. The crazy wedding thoughts continue to build.

Then, the first weekend of November, we dropped his car off to get an oil change and go to lunch. At lunch I ask him what we are going to do after to kill time before the car is ready, and I smile. He says, "no, I don't want to look until I've saved some money" I point out "you won't know what to save unless we go look since I don't really know what I want anymore". He can't argue, ring pricing ensues. I was shaking the whole time we were in the jewelry store. Very excited. So I chose three rings that day that I loved equally. He qualified for financing and I told him to come back whenever he is ready and choose from the three. I almost wish now I would have made him choose that day because the waiting and thinking about it is driving me fucking insane.

My crazy, irrational side is thinking things like, "why hasn't he done it yet? Has he changed his mind? What's wrong with him? What's wrong with me? Are we okay? I am really ready to spend the rest of my life with him if he can't even go get the damn ring and ask me in the timely fashion?"
My logical, rational side replies with, "he hasn't done it yet because he knows how I am and he's trying to catch me off guard. He hasn't changed his mind, we just moved into a great new apartment together and he loves me. He is just being him, and I know he will do it when he is ready. I am just being me, and I need to focus on other things in life besides the proposal. Yes we are fine, our relationship is evolving but that is what happens and we are happy, which is all that matters. Yes I am, he's my lobster, even if he isn't on the schedule that is in my head.

So this is a glimpse into what is going on in my head about 5 or 6 times a day. Its a bit unnerving if I may say so myself.

I am seriously I woman possessed by the thoughts of proposal/wedding/marriage. I NEVER EVER thought I would be like this either. Its ridiculous and I don't really like it, but I can't seem to distract myself from it.

I wish he would just do it and get it over with! All I want for Christmas is ring on finger!!!!!!! end rant.

I don't really feel better, but at least I can look back at this blog and laugh whenever we do get engaged.

Credit needs to be given

Saturday, while we needed a time waster for his car to get an oil change, we went to look at rings. At first he said, "no, I don't want to look until I save up some money" but then I pointed out he doesn't even know how much money he needs to save and he couldn't argue. Plus I reminded him it is only looking and nothing will be bought because I do not want to be with him when he picks it out.

So I picked three. One of which he actually found in the jewelry case and I really liked. Now he will pick one (hopefully not by price, but by how much he thinks I will like it) and it is all up to him as to when.

He couldn't have made up for what happened last week any better.

Yay.