Rrrr...

I have been working with a trainer at my gym for a while now. I already had to switch from one trainer to another once and now i found out a week ago that my current trainer was promoted to the head trainer at the gym...in Lafayette. So i tried going back to my original trainer, but i was frustrated because he doesn't know where i am or listen to me. I called my old trainer, who said that he would be in town ever other weekend and we could train together then and he'd email me and tell me what to do during the week. But that didn't happen. And he just canceled on me for tomorrow.

So i'm extremely frustrated and disappointed (because i LOVED training with him). I feel let down and discouraged and worried that i'm not going to be able to do it on my own and i'm going to backtrack... I feel like my trainer deserted me and then blew me off and, frankly, it makes me want to give up.

I know that i shouldn't depend on one person that much, but what can i say? I get attatched to people in all areas of my life, including at the gym...

Moving on up...

...or over. That's right. Andy and i figured out where we'll be living when his lease is up in a few months. My apartment complex allows me to move to a two bedroom without breaking my lease so we toured and signed for a two bedroom, two bath apartment where we'll be living after i move over my spring break in April. Then we'll move Andy's stuff over sometime after that, since he techincally has his apartment until the end of the month.

The best part about the whole thing is that they have this program where they can give you the best rate on your apartment to the day based on the availability, which means that they were able to tell us when the best rate would be and lock us into that rate. And it's only a little over a hundred dollars more than what i'm paying for my one bedroom, one bath now! Yay!

Besides that, i've had a productive weekend. Sarah and i went bridesmaid dress shopping on Friday and found what we think is the dress. Then on Saturday i went to Pyoca with my fam and a group of church people where we spent the day getting high on fumes from all of the wood we were staining. If you can picture the basement of the lodge, we have the entire floor covered with wood that we'd stained by the end of the day! All in all, a good weekend!

I actually had a Pretty Woman moment

And no, not the good kind. The being treated completely rudely in a store kind.

Here's what happened. This afternoon Sarah, my mom, and i went to shop for bridesmaid's dresses at Nancy's Bridal Boutique where i had not only taken the time to make an appointment, but actually called again to push the appointment back by a half hour because i knew we would be running late.

So we get there five minutes early, walk into the store, and stand around the front of the store waiting for someone to talk to us. When no one had time to talk to us after a few minutes, we started looking around at the dresses. Then i tried again to get a saleswoman's attention by standing patiently at the front desk and waiting for her to finish the order form she was filling out. She realized i was there, looked up at me, and...answered the phone that was ringing instead of talking to the person standing in front of her!?! Okay. I went back to look at the dresses and came up to the front desk again a few minutes later. The saleswoman who already ignored me was still on the phone so i approached a salesman (seriously, it's a bridal store...) who was working on an order form and said something along the lines of, "Sorry to bother you, but i had an appointment and wanted to know who i needed to talk to." He responded by telling me that he would "be with me in a minute." His version of a minute must have been quite different from mine because he NEVER talked to me, even when he was done.

By this time, we'd probably been in the store for at least fifteen minutes without being greeted or approached by a single person. We had also pulled at least twelve bridesmaid dresses we wanted to try on. So instead of waiting around for the incredibly rude salespeople to talk to us, we approached the youngest person on the staff who was probably in high school or college and asked to use a dressing room. She showed us to a dressing room where Sarah tried on the dresses while i continued to pull dresses we wanted to try off of the rack. She probably tried on at least twenty dresses and not a single salesperson even spoke to us other than the girl we spoke to about the dressing room. It was insane!

Long story short, we found the dress that i think is the bridesmaid dress i want but of course will not be buying it from Nancy's Bridal Boutique, which must make a point of hiring the rudest salespeople on the planet. As we were leaving, we made a point of thanking the girl who actually took the time to talk to us and making sure to mention that she was the only one that spoke to us in our entire time in the store!

Not only have they lost my business, they have lost the business of anyone i talk to about the store. They have, however, gained my complaints, which i will be sure to voice directly to them on their website as well as anywhere else i can find to review them. Rrrr...

Giving

borrowed from Finding Tara

The first Seven (7) people to respond to this post will get something made by me. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make.
- What I create will be just for you.
- It'll be done this year (2009).
- You have no clue what it's going to be. It may be a mix CD. It may be a poem. I may draw or paint something. I might bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!
- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you have to put this in your journal as well, if you expect me to do something for you!

An interesting challenge

1. Go through one whole day of your life with your phone turned off.

2. Take a shower and go through the WHOLE process of getting ready (put on REAL clothes) without once stopping to check email, answer the phone, or otherwise multitask in any way.

3. Run/walk fast for 20 minutes a day for 5 days straight.

4. Spend 1/2 hour of uninterrupted time curled up with a good book and a cup of tea or coffee.

5. Sign up for "keep the change" savings or some other AUTOMATED savings account.

6. Get 8 hours of sleep, 3 nights in a row.  (Preferably waking up and going to bed at the same time).

7. For just one night, go to bed in a peaceful environment: tv off, clean sheets, cool room, no clutter.

8. Do yoga/stretching one night before bed.

9.  Start the day with 25 crunches.

10. Pay $50 extra to one credit card.

11. Call up a friend from the past you haven't talked to in more than a year.

12. Call up a parent or grandparent and talk until THEY say they have to get off the phone.

13. Write a handwritten letter to the most important person in your life and tell them that.

14. Grab lunch with a group of friends: agree that cell phones, to-do lists, or anything else that would distract any of you from being present are strictly forbidden.

15.  Cook a read dinner and ENJOY is like you're on the Food Network: grab your favorite person, pour a glass of wine, cook with fresh, yummy ingredients like basil and garlic that make you feel all professional and like you ACTUALLY know what you're doing...

16. Start the day with a 1/2 hour of quiet.  Just find time to be you again.

17. For 5 days straight, make the time to wash you face, brush AND floss your teeth, put on pajamas, and go to bed BEFORE you fall asleep on the couch.  It's not that comfortable anyway.

18. Take a drive: forget about how much it's costing you in gas, don't have a destination, errands are absolutely forbidden.  Just drive.

19. Cook one meal with a crock pot.

20. Even if you work from home, for one day get dressed up all office chic.

21. Clean your WHOLE house.  You won't believe how much better you'll feel.

22. For one week, take a whole hour for lunch.  No work allowed.

23. Sit in Barnes and Nobles with a coffee and a stack of magazines...they're free if you read them there! :)

24. For one week, recycle your junk mail the second you get it.

25. Sit and pet the family pet for a 1/2 hour...they need lovin' too.

I don't know which ones i'll be doing yet, but i definitely plan on doing them.

That dress that every girl dreams of? It's mine!

That's right! I bought my wedding dress today! It was a tough decision for me because it is such a huge part of my wedding day. I would love to say that i "just knew" the first time i put it on because that's howeveryone in the magazines and blogs and tv shows and movies says it happens, but it didn't happen that way.

Instead the dress was completely different from what i thought i wanted at first. It has a lot goin going on - beading, pick-ups, and ball gown skirt - but the more i thought about it, the more sure i was because

• I couldn't stop thinking about it and looking at it online
• I didn't feel as comfortable or as "me" in any of the other dresses
• I compared every dress i looked at and tried on to that dress
• It will be custom made for me so that i don't have to make my body work for the dress, the dress will work for my body
• I can customize the dress, which means i can have the off-the-shoulder sleeves i've always wanted and a shorter, more managable-for-me train
• The woman who owns the store, The Chic Bride, is the nicest of the women i worked with and did not pressure me at all. Not even when i had the dress on for about an hour yesterday.
• I couldn't stop looking at myself in the mirror when i had the dress on
• Sarah started to cry when she saw me in it, which she doesn't do often.

So, without further ado, here's my wedding dress!!!

You're getting married on September 11th!?!

Some of you may be wondering why in the world we would choose to get married on September 11th. We weren't in any way trying to get that date, but that turned out to be the date that worked the best with when and where we wanted to get married. And in an interesting way, it's somewhat appropriate because it will allow us to pay tribute to Andy's mother who passed away on that day (not in the attacks on the World Trade Centers). The more we thought about it, the more it seemed that that day would work well because we can take some unhappy things and replace them with happy things.

Of course paying tribute to her will not be the same as having her here. I actually started thinking about how hard this has to be for Andy tonight when i was reading An Atlanta Bride's thoughts on having to go through her wedding without her father.

It’s hard to come to terms with knowing that my dad won’t open my hotel room door on my wedding day to see his little girl all dressed up as a bride. I won’t get to see him looking dashing in a tux and have a proud look on his face as he walks towards me to give me a heartfelt hug and kiss. Missing from our guest book will be his name. He won’t be there to walk me down the aisle and ease my anxiety as I take him by the arm and prepare for the next moment when he gives me away. He won’t be there to give a toast to my husband and me and convey genuine sentiments of lifelong love and happiness. Also missing from our reception will be the father-daughter dance. And I feel sorry that my mom will also have to get through my wedding day without her husband at her side.

And, yes, i'm posting about my wedding planning again, but that's because i'm spending most of my free time working on the wedding and it really does seem to help me let go of some of the stress by blogging about it. It gives me a way to get some of my thoughts out of my head so i'm not thinking about things over and over and over...