It's LGN time!

As my wedding is only in 185 days (six months exactly from tomorrow!) I have begun the arduous task of getting into shape.

Last summer running, The Firm, and yoga got me good and toned all the way up until my knee surgery. Then I once again became a lazy bum. Now it is time to reverse that effect!

Because of the degenerative cartilage in my knees I'm not supposed to run more than 2 or 3 miles at MOST three times per week. No worries about that, there's nowhere to run around here except a church parking lot and I can't run for longer than three minutes in the chilly weather before I'm totally winded. So to create interest and give me something more interesting and effective than yoga (in terms of fat burning) I bought another video from The Firm yesterday. Technically I'm not supposed to do anything high impact to save my sad knees, but this particular video advertises itself as being low impact and will therefore be better on my knees.

Sort of related side note: when I was kid I would watch my mom huff and puff and sweat away while doing aerobics in front of the television and I would think to myself, "I'll never do that". Eating my words now. Hopefully they're no fat low cal words.

So that video should get here within the next week or so. I figure I can do that video two or three times per week, do yoga one day to stretch myself out, and then every other week on Tuesdays at 7:15pm go to...

There is a Zumba class at the local rec center. I discovered this last night based on suggestions from Facebook friends. Each class is only $5 and after I talked myself into going (I'm not very good with the whole all alone in a group of strangers thing) I really enjoyed myself! The normal teacher is very sick right now so we had a substitute. She

Kicked.
My.
Butt.

It was crazy! So fast paced and intense, I didn't even realize how much I was sweating till I came home and peeled off my clothing. It was kind of a bear on my knees so I can't do it often, probably a bi-weekly thing, but boy was it fun! She had us moving and lunging and cha-cha-ing for over an hour. I'm amazed I can still move today.

This was my first time doing group aerobics, and also my first time doing any kind of aerobics or dancing in front of a mirror so I could see my every move. I'm often terrified that I look like a total idiot when I dance or work out, but watching myself last night I can tell you that I'm actually not bad. Pretty good, actually, if I'm going to be honest with you. I was one of maybe five new people and the room was packed and as I looked around a lot of them seemed as though they hadn't been there before either. But I was also told that the normal teacher doesn't kick butts like that either so perhaps that's why.

I still have half an hour before I have to go to work! I'll probably leave a little early and stop to get myself some orange juice. I used the last of it yesterday and that makes me sad.

In either case, I am determined to look hot hot hot on my wedding day, and I'm excited to really get started!

Ciao!

Oh Em Gee Itza Weddin', Yo!

I had a lovely weekend. It was the least amount of driving I've done in quite some time, which was nice especially because gas went up to $3.49/gal (ridonkulous!!!!).

Saturday was spent at a Pampered Chef party with ladies from work, which was a great amount of fun and lots of super-dee-duper great food! And I've decided that some of my registry will be through Pampered Chef. It's absolutely worth it, especially since a lot of the stuff they sell isn't sold anywhere else. It also helped because my younger sister is getting married in May and her bridal shower is on the 27th and, as the maid of honor, I needed to get her some kind of kick butt gift. Thanks in advance, Pampered Chef! I won't tell what I got her, since she might read this and I want it to be a surprise.

On Sunday I got to go to church downtown where I've gone almost every other weekend I spent in town. While there I not only signed up to be a tutor for a program the church will be doing to help out the local school but I also met some new people and got to chill for a little while before hiking it up to Columbus. Back at my birthday my sister and brother in-law gave me a gift card for a chain of super expensive really nice restaurants in Columbus. The cheapest place is called Cap City Diner, and its cheapest thing is somewhere around $7. Johnny and I decided to meet up for lunch and make use of this $40 gift card.

Now I will tell you the beauty of this diner: the portions are so huge that we had to share, so dinner cost significantly less than anticipated and I still have quite a bit left to use at a future date on that card! Score!

After this Johnny and I went over to see Erin and Derrick (sis and bro in-law) because, now that Mom is gone, I need some serious help with my wedding planning and Erin is my go to, seeing as how she has already been there done that. So our evening was spent going down a list writing to-dos and now I have a bunch of emails to write, websites to check out, decisions to make, etc. Doing all of this mixed with knowing that next weekend would be spent in premarital counseling hit me like a water balloon:

Holy Crap I'm getting married.

And not only am I getting married, I'm marrying that guy over there. A guy I've known for years and often believed was too good for me. I had so many moments of "I'm marrying Johnny Cross" it was ridiculous. You'd think the rock on my finger and four and a half months of engagement would have told me this long ago, but it wasn't until plans started really truly happening that it occurred to me I wasn't dreaming anymore.

So in the midst of all the planning and mayhem that will slowly begin occurring over the next six months I will be standing there staring gooey-eyed at him. The him most girls spend their lives waiting for, the knight in shining armor, the dream come true. You know, him!

***tangent: writing that sentence, the word "him" look super strange all of a sudden...***

So here I sit in my too-warm apartment after running and eating dinner and watching a movie, all by my lonesome, looking forward to the day when it won't be just me anymore. I'll not be lonely anymore, whether I want to be or not *wink*. 


Anyway, planning is underway. We have a location for the wedding, the reception, and the honeymoon. Deposits must be put down on all three. My sister is making my dress, two of three groomsmen have been selected, all the bridesmaids have their dresses, I've contacted a photographer, a friend is doing our engagement photos, I have a meet about the cake this weekend... It's all coming together, slowly but surely. My mind is full of lists, a notebook is full of lists, and somehow all of these lists will becoming a wedding. MY wedding. Technically, OUR wedding.

Insanity.

I've got it!

My job, most of the time, is fairly mindless. Except for when I have to do simple addition I just listen to music and let my brain wander a little as my fingers type claims automatically.

Due to this I have had ample time in the past few days to contemplate my book. THE book. The one I know many of you are waiting for (and you'll probably be waiting kind of awhile, unfortunately...).

At first it was suggested that I chronicle Mom's life, from beginning to end, like a biography. Well, that would be kind of hard and a little too pragmatic for my artistical imagination. So I thought about it, and then I thought some more, and then it hit me. What I want to do is take my Update posts, Mom's thankfulness status updates from the month of November, and stories about Mom for all 16 months of cancer, from beginning to end, from Dad, the nurses, people who drove her to radiation, my aunt and grandmother. Through this I hope to show how one woman coped with this illness even though she knew it would kill her, how she never complained and rarely let it get her down. I know for a fact that her joyful, peaceful spirit through the entire ordeal ministered to not only her family but also to every nurse, friend, acquaintance, student, etc that came into contact with her.

This idea, in my head, feels much more manageable than the overwhelming task of chronicling everything people can remember about her without her here to give her own view of things. Of course, if she were here she would be embarrassed that I'm writing this story in the first place. In either case, I intend to start as soon as I can once I've outlined things a little. I'm very excited, and I really hope I can live up to the expectations I feel everyone has for me and this book.

In other news, work today gave me no time to think about and refine this idea at all. Systems were malfunctioning at work today, so much so that I actually got to chat with the people sitting around me for a good hour and a half because none of us could do any work. Eventually we were all given paper claims instead of using the electronic system and things went on as usual, though due to needing to catch up two missing hours of stats I was cranking out claims like there was no tomorrow and had little time for extra thought. Hopefully this little problem will be fixed by morning.

And I went for a run!!! My first real run since before my knee surgery back in September, and boy did it feel great! Technically speaking I'm not supposed to run anymore due to degenerative cartilage and an aversion to being bionic by the time I'm 35, but by golly it makes me feel good. Unlike power walking I really feel like I'm doing something good for myself.

Whoa. My brain suddenly went into wedding planning overload. I know, seems random, but I took a break from what I was writing above when I got three phone calls in a row and then called back my fiancé, who was the first caller. Two hours later I'm exhausted and full of to-do lists so I'm going to go now. Oh, and PS, if anyone has brilliant ideas for making a wedding cheap and pretty and fun, please fill me in!

Adulthood: It's all in the power tools.

My weekend was lovely. Not only did I successfully teach my friend to skate well enough to eventually make it around the rink twice with only one minor fall, but I also did all of my laundry and had a wonderful time with my Johnny. And as an added bonus, I had a short breakfast on Saturday with a good friend and got my ears candled (for those who don't know, this means I went to a little boutique spa where they lit the ends of beeswax funnels on fire and stuck the small end inside my ear to suck out all the build up). It was amazing what a difference that process makes on my hearing! Plus I got to chill at SpaGirl and chat it up with the owner and the mother of a peer from my grade school days all about my upcoming wedding (in just over 193 days... ah! Panic!). Speaking of which, Johnny and I start premarital counseling on the 13th. Finally!

I made it back to Cincinnati on Sunday in time to catch the end of the Oscars. As I do not have cable tv because I don't have the money, I bought one of those digital converter boxes.

After I brought it home and read the directions I realized I should also have bought a TV antenna. When I told Johnny my mistake he said "Oh, I have one you can use". Then we forgot about it when I saw him, so two weeks or more after I bought the darn thing I finally got the antenna. The moment I got in the door of my apartment last night I was hooking everything up.

 The antenna hooks into the box, which plugs into the tv, all three have to be plugged in, and then I had to steal the AAA batteries from my guitar tuner to make the converter's remote control work so I could program it and find all the channels. I get 19 channels, including the one that was showing

The Oscars!!!
I know, that is a terrible photo.
The picture kept skipping and pixelating and I realized I had to adjust the antenna to fix that. Totally new concept to me, since I've had cable my whole life, but it's good to learn new things!
All of this I did on my own with no major problems except for the one where I didn't have any AAA batteries... But it was all worth it to see Colin Firth win Best Actor in a Leading Role and The King's Speech win Movie of the Year. Completely and totally deserved.

Just to make sure I continued feeling like an adult after my converter box achievement, I went into the office today for the first time in two weeks and I actually have a cubicle. My own cubicle, for the first time ever. Then I blew my own stats out of the water by completing 255 claims, 22 claims past the required 233. For the past two weeks working from home has made it so I was only able to finish anywhere from 165-200 so this was a big deal. Of course all of this adult-ness was ruined when I went for a power walk around the neighboring church parking lot for 25 minutes as the beginning of my Denise Austin regime. Power walking always makes me feel stupid, but I'm not supposed to run so I guess I'll have to deal.

Then I came home and paid my bills.

**sigh** Being an adult is so lame. After this I'll be doing my workout, writing a grocery list, and cleaning up so I can stand my apartment tomorrow. At some point soon I'm going to start canvassing the Goodwills in the area for a coffee table. It's amazing how quickly being a kid ends and responsibility starts.

But feeling adult doesn't mean I have to dress and act like one! Peace, homies!

Thoughts About Life and My Mom

Ever since my mom died Dad has been writing notes on Facebook about his history with her, explaining how she was the final key person to bring him to the Lord and helped him become the man he is today. He writes about how influential she was to him, what a great person she was, her faith and her ability to teach with passion and understanding, and the more I read about it the more like a failure I feel. I am nothing like my mother, and I know that no one can say anything about me like Dad has said about her.

I know that might seem selfish, but it's also a longing. How much would I love to be that kind of person, to be loving and caring, to be so sure of my faith? Instead I am a big screw up who wishes her life was worth more and meant more. Every day I sit here doing my work, trying to do my job well, all the while thinking that it's so completely pointless. How does keying insurance claims bring glory to Jesus? Really, how does it? How does moving to Cincinnati constitute adventure? Is this really what my life is going to be like? I feel like a broken record because I discuss and wonder about this all the time, so much so that sometimes I leave other people in the dust feeling useless and unneeded without meaning to. I pray all the time that God will mold me and use me, like that song Potter's Hands my church used to sing all the time. "I give my life to the Potter's hands". I just hope He gives me answers soon.

It would really help things kind of a lot if life wasn't so darn complicated.

Sorry, I just needed to vent.

Tonight will be an epic night of skating (and teaching a friend to skate... what ho, good times!), tomorrow morning will be a lovely breakfast with a good friend and a noon appointment to get my ears candled (sounds medieval, I know, but believe me it's necessary and helpful), an afternoon with my family which will most likely be spent discussing tux options with my younger sister as a hopeful attempt at being a good maid of honor, and then the remainder of the weekend will be spent with my Johnny. He plans to teach me to shoot a gun, the tomboy in me is really super excited about it! Then, on Monday, I get to go back into the office finally!

Here's hoping all of you, my dear friends, have a lovely weekend!

Book Excitement!

For those of you who actually know me, even just a little bit, you know that I love books. I love to read, I really do. It's significantly better than television and it actually helps me unwind and relax.

When I was in high school I was that girl walking down the hallway between classes with her nose deep in a book, still able to dodge people without looking up. Think Belle in the opening song of Beauty and the Beast (the Disney film).

Johnny often asks me why I like to read, what's the point, and I try to explain that by reading I can escape my boring life by becoming part of someone else's life for a day. It is also possible to learn quite a bit from reading, not to mention that it helps in terms of vocabulary, spelling, and grammar.

I admit to often rereading the same books over and over, and that I tend to buy a book and then not read it (though when I finally do read it realize that I loved it and remember why I bought it in the first place). It is my goal to someday have an entire room full of books, floor to ceiling.

Anyway, I've been bored of sitting in my apartment all the time so last night I took myself out to Half Price Books. Yes, I know this is a website owned by Ebay, but it is also a store. A compact store with both new and used books for significantly less money than if I bought a book at Barnes and Nobles or Borders.

When I buy books I never know what I'm looking for when I go. I never make lists. Wait, just kidding. I rarely make lists. Now that I live on my own and don't have all the books I'm used to having (like L.M. Montgomery's Anne books, or The Chronicles of Narnia, or all of Dad's books by Mark Twain) I do have it in mind to buy those up bit by bit till I own each series. However, most of the time I don't have anything in mind and instead just browse the aisles for interesting titles that have nothing to do with sex and whose labels aren't that hot pink associated with most modern female writer's books.

One of my favorite writers of all time is Elizabeth Peters, also known as Barbara Michaels, who wrote the Amelia Peabody series. I've been slowly collecting those books over the past three years and finally, yesterday, discovered what I believe is the very first Amelia Peabody book. This made me very excited, as I've wanted to see how she and Emerson met and married but could never find the books. *** if you've never read that series, I apologize. 'Twould take too long to explain, but I'll bet it's on wikipedia somewhere *** 

But yesterday was a bad day in terms of how I felt about myself so I found myself wandering around, straying from the trusty fiction department toward sports and religion and such. As I walked I discovered an end cap covered in pilates, yoga and exercise kits that contained books, CDs, DVDs and probably those elastic workout bands. I already have videos for pilates and yoga and plain ole exercise so I ignored that end cap, but wondered about possibly getting a book of yoga or something so I wandered into the sports section (which included hunting.... Sorry, but I just don't really considering hunting a major sport...). Looking up I struck gold.

Almost all of my workout videos are by Denise Austin, who has a frustrating voice but workouts that work, and she wrote a book or two. I discovered one last night called Shrink Your Female Fat Zones.

It contains a 6-week plan for every female body type. As I sat down to start reading it before buying I discovered that her writing is lovely, as it explains everything in layman's terms without making you feel like a moron. Not only does she give you a workout regime, she also explains what each workout does, how walking benefits your body, gives step by step workouts that take no more than 20 minutes out of your day, shows morning, midday and evening stretches, and finally she gives shopping lists, meal plans for three different calorie intake amounts and also gives recipes for yummy things like homemade bean burritos and roasted chicken or couscous with lemon or thai chicken curry... The downside is those times when she lists beef or hamburgers, in which case I will substitute for homemade spicy black bean burgers or tofu or chicken (now that I live near a Trader Joes, my chicken will be organic to avoid those horrible hormones and chemicals they pump into animals nowadays).

This isn't a crash diet. It isn't even really a diet. She still leaves room for snacks, including things like Oreos, graham crackers, popcorn, ice cream, etc, teaches portion control and explains how some kinds of fat are good for you and necessary. It won't make you starve or fill up on nothing but meat. She says it's really a lifestyle, not a diet. This is the plan she personally uses for herself on a daily basis. And this book has sent me through the roof. By using this plan (obviously I won't follow her recipes and shopping list all the time, I'll add my own stuff in there as she explains how she figured the calories for each meal) I can enhance my energy and my nutrition and keep up my metabolism and figure for years and years to come. There are people who have been using this regime for decades and still look just as good now as they did at 20, some even better! So I'm really excited, this is seriously the best $9 I've ever spent.

I bought the book last night and have already read through almost the entire thing. I intend to start next week on Monday, so I have time to shop and prepare and figure out what time I will set aside for my workout each day. Unlike many other times when I tried to do this on my own, I'm determined to make this work. :) Plus it'll  keep me from sitting on my butt all day long, and it targets specific areas I want to work on. Not to mention that I'm getting married in 197.5 days and intend to look good. Wish me luck!

Apartment Excitement.

I've decided that, since I'll be living in this apartment at least until September, I need more color. Most apartments nowadays are all white and beige and boorrring. So today I FINALLY hung up my Indian bead curtain and used what are supposed to be regular curtains as a kind of decor. It took this long because I kept forgetting to borrow a staple gun from my Dad and/or sister.

However, I also went to Ikea for my very first time ever and discovered a $20 coffee table I'm really excited about

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and this rug, which I love love love. Both of these are for my living room, which looks overly large and kind of boring.

Then I went to Urban Outfitters (the website... sadly, there is no U.O. store around here) which I absolutely adore due to its uniqueness, and I really want to create something like this, only bigger, for my living room wall.

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My only sadness is U.O.'s lack of anything lavender or purple in general. There's lots of antique colors, but very little in the way of blue or purple. As I have recently discovered/decided my favorite color is any shade of purple this makes me very sad. However, I still love this duvet cover

and this one

and I'm hoping that dear Johnny likes at least one of them...

In either case, I am slowly but surely giving my living space more personality, and by registering Johnny and I can give our eventual living space (assuming it isn't this apartment) an Emily/Johnny flair. I really just love making my space my own. :)

Here is a.) Christmas lights covered by a sheer curtain I had no other use for and b.) the reason I'm so interested in duvet covers. While, yes, this bed spread is heinous that is not the reason I'm looking. Call me strange (Mom always did...) but I absolutely adore this spread. No, the reason I'm looking at duvet covers is because with this new wall covering my room is basically all one color and I'd like to add some interest. Plus, I love antique floral prints.

And here is the bead curtain I finally hung with two more of the originally unused curtains. Yes, I did that drawing you see on the wall as well. 

Hopefully I can find contact paper (did you know walmart.com has NO IDEA what contact paper is??? What is this world coming to!) so I can create that tree decal for my wall. I have a number of family photos on the wall that I'd love to connect together using the tree, and then create another for a different part of the wall that is currently bare. The more time I spend here the more personality this place will have. And it helps that the Ikea is literally a ten minute drive up I-75 from my apartment. :DD

Apparently I go back to work at the office most likely on Wednesday this week. I'm actually rather looking forward to it. And on Friday I'm supposed to go roller skating with a group of my friends I haven't seen in awhile! I'm so super excited, mostly about the roller skating part but especially for the hanging with friends WHILE skating part! I love love roller skating and rarely ever go so here's my chance! 

But for now I'm going to get up off my keester and do a workout. I've been a lazy bum and it's actually starting to show and I can't let that happen! I'm in a wedding in just over three months and then I have my own wedding in six and a half months - whoa. That's kind of really soon - and summer is literally right around the corner. Time to go sweat! Wish me luck!