Monday, July 13, 2009

Oh the hijinks...

So I am midway through my month long season of extreme busy-ness. On Friday my apartment was all packed up and ready to go. Bri flew in Friday night (yay) and he drove the truck down while I picked up his mom, who was helping us finish the move. She brought her new pup, Josie, who loved the new bag that I brought her- she was so adorable in it!

While I was packing, I thought I set aside my cell phone charger separately to go with the suitcase I was taking to VB for the weekend. Alas, such was not the case. The 'rents had my car (with my car charger in it) for the weekend so basically I was SOL phone-wise. Before Bri and I began the trek south, I told him I was going to turn off my phone to save the juice and turn it back on when I was a half hour from his mom's to let her know I would be arriving shortly. Well, I did do just that, and was surprised to have 4 voicemails waiting for me- and even more surprised when I heard Bri's voice- he NEVER leaves voicemails. Long story short he never saw my car pass him when we were going through the toll booths so he thought I was dead in a ditch somewhere. His phone died and the charger in the moving truck wasn't working, so he was stopping at every rest stop along the way and calling his mother from a pay phone to see if I had checked in yet. I felt so guilty that I was driving along happily, oblivious to his stress.

Anyway, the move went well and all of my stuff is down there... my apartment is officially no more, and bri actually has a couch to sit on! We didn't have time to show Josie the beach, but she is so low to the ground and furry that it is probably for the best.

Fast forward to this morning. I had another early drive from PA into work (4 hours), so with summer hours now in effect at work I had to leave at 430 to get in on time. Last night I thought it was a good idea to stay up until 11 looking at baby pictures of bri (omg he was seriously the cutest child EVER), but this morning, not so much. I again had to stop at a rest stop to "rest" for 20 minutes. At the end of the "rest" I noticed that two security cameras were trained on my car- sweet. I then proceeded to attempt to get gas, failing the first few times as I input the wrong zip code for the CC reader (guess the bank hasn't changed my address over yet) and again when I tried to use to diesel pump for oh yeah, regular gas. BRILLIANT I tell ya.

By that point in the drive I was feeling pretty moronic. However, the cherry on top was the last stop of the trip. I had to go to the BR so I pulled off, noticing there was a tour bus. Trying to hurry to beat the crowd, I automatically veered off into the bathroom on the right. Which, by the way, was full of urinals that were occupied by males. I hightailed it out of there so fast that women going into the proper restroom started laughing at me. At that point I was ready to raise the white flag and surrender to my bed. Seriously, I have never pulled such dumb moves!

Moral of the story- Katie cannot function on less than 6 hours of sleep. bummer.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Color Scheme Blues

After we got engaged and I began envisioning our wedding, I immediately settled on midnight navy with white and an accent color that would "pop" (dark pink). I've always been very decisive, so really I just had to confirm it with Bri and that was that.

Until I saw this beautiful inspiration board on the knot. Champagne, gold and light rose pink. Stunning! Not too girly pink, just elegant. The board, coupled with the fact that Bri will be wearing his dress blues, led me to change my mind as to the whole color scheme. Our venue is very classic and warm so the new scheme would suit it perfectly. I am still kind of iffy about it though... the end of March (especially in Upstate NY) is hard... it's "officially" spring but, let's face it, it's going to be freezing out and snow will likely still be on the ground- no pretty pictures in the park for us! The new palette seems more spring-like and fresh.

Then I got to thinking about champagne dresses. What if it washes the some of the girls out? My stepmom immediately voiced her concerns that the BM dresses would take away from my white dress (which I disagree with, but whatevs). So now I am flip flopping between the champagne and the unknown. I'm going with my MOH to look at dresses soon and hopefully I will just fall in love with something! One of my BMs forwarded me some dresses in brushed gold, which were really beautiful. Maybe that could work?

Who would of thought that all of this drama could arise over something as simple as the color scheme? I'm out of my element!

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Nature and I, We're Like This (Crosses Fingers)

Today is such an awesome day! Technically it's my Friday since I took tomorrow off to pack and load (yuck), so I got all of my projects out of the way. Then my executive director came to my office for an "annual review" type deal and...I GOT A RAISE! I am so ecstatic, especially since it is retroactive from the beginning of our fiscal year, which is April 1. Yay!

Anyway, that was great news. I came home and got the kitchen packed up for the most part and went for my run. I'm on Week 3, Round 2, Day 2 of the couch 25k. It was around 8 pm so there was still daylight but yet it was nice and cool outside. The run was definitely more exerting than my past foray on the treadmill- there is DEFINITELY a difference. Anyway, moral of the story is that I was running along the path near my complex (which is on a road) when I spotted two bunnies, which was super cute. On the last leg I saw a deer up ahead about five feet from the path, munching on some grass and flowers. I turned down my iTouch to see if she (it looked like a young doe) was going to get spooked and run away, but she just stared at me contentedly, eating without a care in the world as I ran by her. It was really neat! It reminded me of the time when I was camping with my mom, stepdad and little brother in California. Cole was 5 at the time and a pain in the you know what. The deer at the campground weren't very skittish, so I held out a handful of grapes to a few of them that were about 10 feet away. They got so close and were ALMOST going to eat the grapes out of my hand when Cole decided to scare the deer by running up to them like a banshee. Awesome. It was probably for the best since I don't think it's legal to feed deer. Anyway, tangent over.

Unrelated to this post, but as I'm typing my neighbors downstairs are screaming at each other. Doesn't really sound too healthy, and it happens a lot. How can people be so angry at each other all of the time? Yikes.

When I got home today I had a package from the knot! As I mentioned previously, I participated in a "Change It Challenge" on the change it challenge board where we posted daily for two weeks the things we were doing to meet our goals. I mainly posted about C25k, yoga and the 100 pushups challenge, because that's all I've really been doing. I won (yay!), and today I got the prize- a $10 iTunes giftcard, a fitness DVD- Nikki Beach Bride The Destination Wedding Workout, and a book- 6 Week Bikini Countdown by Karon Karter. I can't wait to delve into them, and I'll definitely be posting reviews on here.

Here is to an awesome day, even with the packing!

Save the Dates are in!

Our Save the Dates came in the mail yesterday! They came out really nice- I highly recommend magnetstreet.com for anyone that is looking for a user friendly, affordable save the date website! They are a little smaller than I anticipated, but I think that it works out well since any bigger would amount to our faces being in everyones' grill whenever they passed their refrigerator. I brought one in to work to give to my co-worker and she thinks it is the perfect size- any bigger and people wouldn't put them on the fridge, apparently.

Now I just have to harass the members of my family into giving me their addresses, or even a working guest list. I know who I want to invite, but everyone else (parents, bri, in-laws) are taking their sweet time. I am aiming to send them out by September, so there is still some time left.

It seems to me that the guest list/address gathering will be the most stressful part of wedding planning, aside from the seating chart, which will be a blast I'm sure. I can't believe there is only eight months and some change to go!

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Treadmill v Outdoors

So today the plan was to do week 3, round 2 of the couch to 5k. Despite my new appreciation of running in the rain, nature had other plans, as there were severe thunderstorms going on when I got home from work. I almost resigned myself to doing a Jillian video but I really wanted to run! I made a gametime decision and decided to go to the gym at my complex to run on the treadmill. And yes, I drove there. I felt foolish driving but I'm not trying to get struck by lightening! Anyway, I set the incline to 1.0, being that I read somewhere that it simulates that outdoors. Yeah right! My legs were definitely not feeling the treadmill, and the workout just wasn't as challenging. I did work up a sweat, but after finishing the couch to 5k portion I jogged for another 10 minutes at 5.8. I checked my heartrate and it was barely 150!

Needless to say, I've come to the conclusion that running outdoors is far superior to the treadmill. Outdoors you have to deal with the weather, heat, humidity, coldness, dips, hills and the like. Since most races are completed outdoors, it makes the most sense to train outdoors. I get the feeling that if I ran on a treadmill leading up to a 5k, I would not be ready to complete the run outdoors. Plus, the changing scenery helps to keep it interesting.

It was still a good workout and I got in week 3 round 2 of the 100 pushups workout. This week is super hard! I may have to repeat it another time! Oh and very exciting---- I won a challenge on TK! Hizzle was hosting a change it challenge on the change it challenge board. Basically we had to post what we were doing to reach our goals for 2 weeks straight. Granted, there weren't many of us participating, but it is still cool to win!

Monday, July 6, 2009

Back to normalcy... for a few days!

Whew... this past week and a half has been a whirlwind! The conference went so well- I love my job and all of our members! The last night culminated in our big centennial gala, which was amazing. We hired a live 10 piece band that is well known throughout the capital district- let me just say that I am severely regretting not looking into hiring them! I originally wanted a DJ because I like Top40 and modern music... but these guys were playing all of that, live! Ah well, my DJ is awesome and we are saving a lot of money going that route.

I was out with my co-workers until 3 in the morning that night. Let's just say those are not my normal hours. I got to work at 10 on Wednesday and my plan to drive to VB from work at 1 straight on quickly morphed into work until 1, come home and nap and then stop at FMIL's (halfway point) and continue the drive to visit Bri on Thursday. The nap was essential! The bonus was that I got to see FMIL's new shih tzu, Josie. She is an adorable furball of love!

The weekend was great. Saturday was the perfect beach day. I usually like to sleep until around 9 on the weekends so on Saturday when Brian told me it was 940, I hightailed it out of bed. My phone revealed that it was 730 am (I don't even get up that early for work lol) so I pouted for a minute and then was stoked to realize I could get to the beach super early!

I'm happy to report that I kept up with the C25k while in VB. I was going to do it today, but after waking up at 440 to finish the drive I am going to hold off 'til tomorrow. This week will bring lots of packing and working out (hopefully). And I get to see Bri on Friday, yay!