Link Love 6/12

Happy Sunday!!!! 🙂 I’m so excited for this week!! My Mom and I are going to Dallas later this week to do some shopping/visit the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum/just get away. 

Fun:

What Fashion Era Do You Belong In? by Kimia Madani via livingly.com

50’s Romance Era 🙂

This Is What the Perfect House Looks Like, According to Pinterest-by Angela Elias via Popsugar

Health/Body Image:

What Does Healthy Even Mean? – by Robyn via The Real Life RD

This was beautiful. It made my heart smile and feel good for a meager minute. I’m trying so, so, so very hard and even reading the same sentence of “loving and appreciating your body no matter what your pant size” is over and over again is how I find 5 minutes of comfort, I’m going to read those words every hour of ever day until it sinks in.

Side Stitch: What Causes it and How to Prevent It-by Lizzie Fuhr via PopSugar

This happens to me all too often.

26 People Share The Important Reasons They Stopped Dieting– by Sally Tamarkin via Buzzfeed

The Peanuts always make me smile, so here’s hoping they help you smile as well 🙂

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Can I Have A Burger Now?

If you are anything like me, you have a lot of random thoughts during the day. At least, I hope I’m not the only one. Lately, I’ve had this recurring thought that I can’t seem to shake about my condition with my eating disorder, recovery and overall health.

I find myself wondering daily if working out all the time and eating “healthy” is really all worth it anymore. Sure, you should probably treat your body nicely and not just shove junk food in it all the time. But at what point do we stop? At what point does “eating healthy” stop. At what point does “healthy lifestyle” stop for me?? I keep telling myself that I can cut down on the workouts and eat different food and eat a freaking hamburger every now and then (I literally can’t remember the time I ate one. Actually, I can’t remember the last time I ate fast food.) I’m scared of it. But I just kinda want Sonic so bad! But…I’m a scaredy cat. What else can I do? When can I stop killing myself to keep fit?

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Lately, I walk around wondering when I stop torturing my body. When do I “let myself go” or “let myself live”? What is that point? I’ve been thinking lately, I’ve done the whole “super thin/fit/eating disorder look” hell, there are pictures to prove that from basically my entire college career and I’ve got bridal and wedding photos to prove that I was fairly sick. Do I really have to be that extreme anymore? Do I really have to keep trying to maintain a lifestyle where buying clothes at the store is a chore because of the size or only being able to eat certain foods on menus at restaurants because they don’t have an insane amount of calories or fat? Do I really have to constantly be a slave to some sort of running/elliptical every single day in order to maintain my current weight? Eventually, I’d like to think that I’m going to be able to take a day off from workouts and not freak the frick out or do yoga one day instead of intense cardio. There has to be a point where I can eat a sandwich on regular bread and not think anything of it, right?  I mean, there is photographic evidence in my life that I was thin and I was capable of being a thin person. I will forever have those photos. So, do I keep trekking down that road? Do I stop and suddenly eat whatever normally is?

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Does it end when I just give up working out altogether? I don’t necessarily think that’s the best idea. I think that might screw me up more. Right now I don’t have a ton going on so I would need something to fill my time. Plus, that sounds like I’m basically asking myself to be more restrictive with food. Does it end when I have a baby? If I can even have one. Does it end when I eventually get my first teaching job? I don’t think I will be able to come home from work every day and do a 30-45 minute running session. I just don’t. Which scares the ever-loving daylights out of me. You can’t even fathom how terrifying that is to me. That’s a whole bunch of change just thrown at me at once. I’ll be a first year teacher, have a job from at least 7:30-4, have to figure out dinner, commutes, and I just don’t see how workouts can always be an everyday thing. It’s scary.

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This whole thought process of mine lately is scary. I just keep wondering…..what if I wasn’t a size 2, what if it was a size 4 or 6 instead. Would that change anything? Would people suddenly think I was ridiculous or would they even notice? I’m not saying I want to go from one extreme to another (which would be having a body weight that was no longer healthy for my height) I’m just saying that what if I finally got to live like a normal person?

Also, can I just go eat something from Sonic now???

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Society Is A Real WhatChaMaCallIt!

Today I found myself at a job fair. I’m on a major hunt for a steady teaching job right now. At this job fair, I wandered around and spoke to some schools but that’s not the point I’m getting to. I visited this one particular table where they had a fun-size candy bucket. Once I left the building, I sort of aquatinted myself with being “that kid” at Halloween. We all know the “one” I mean; the “one” who takes one than one single piece of your fun-size candy in the bucket. That was mean today…I took like 3..maybe 4. That’s what they are for, right?

As I was leaving the building to go run some other errands, I got to thinking about something that I didn’t realized bugged me until today. You know all those articles that pop up around Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day and Easter about ‘how long you have to run to work off holiday treats’ or ‘what 100 calories really looks like in your candy’? I decided that they really infuriate me!!! It makes me mad in my deep, down core for multiple reasons. Here we go, deep breath.

Oh! Do you get the title now? A real WhatChaMaCallIt??? You just gotta Rolo with my Mounds of Gummie jokes here.

Article examples:

These Photos of 100 Calories of Valentine’s Day Candy Will Probably Break Your Heart– by Jenny Sugar via PopSugar

How Long It Takes to Burn Off Your Favorite Fun-Size Treat– by Leta Shy via PopSugar

How Much Exercise It Takes To Burn Off Your Favorite Valentine’s Sweets– by Kaylin Pound via Elite Daily

First of all: IT’S A DANG HOLIDAY!!!!!!!

Aren’t these the days that we aren’t supposed to be worrying about calories or what we are eating. Aren’t we supposed to be enjoying these holidays? Are we not allowed to divulge a little bit?! It’s Christmas/Halloween/insert your favorite holiday here for crying out loud! Heck, even if it’s not a holiday, maybe you just had a really crumby Thursday and wanted to eat your fun-size Snickers. I don’t think you should be judged.

Second of all: WHY are we so hyper-focused on ‘burning off’ our food?

Personally, because I’m still in the process of recovering from an eating disorder I do sometimes think about how I’m going to get rid of whatever I just ate later. However, I don’t think normal people are doing that. That’s not normal or intuitive eating. That’s disorder eating!!! These articles are having people think disordered thoughts! This is how eating disorders begin, y’all! When you begin to think ‘oh, how many miles am I going to have to run later?’ or ‘how many minutes of spin class/yoga do I need to do?’ if I eat *this specific piece of candy/chocolate* that’s when you are no longer enjoying what is supposed to be a treat. That’s when you begin to not want to eat anything be vegetables and water. We shouldn’t constantly have to feel like we need to have “food guilt” when we eat a fun-size snack! It’s highly dangerous in my opinion and these articles are just thrown around on just about every holiday I can think of.

Third of all: Why does society feel the need to constantly tell us to ‘be fit’ or workout?

I see it everywhere. Magazines, Facebook, random ads that pop up, news sites, radio, there are more places I know but those are all I can dish out right now. I see these headlines of ‘shrink 3 sizes in 2 weeks’, ‘look hot from behind’ and ‘look great naked’ among countless others. This one almost takes the cake for me: ‘how I got my body back’ wait, was it lost!? Good gosh, can’t we just be happy how we are?! These articles and magazines go around preaching ‘self-love’ but it really seems like are leaning towards promoting self-hate. Why do we need any articles about this at the grocery store? Where’s the article about how to like yourself more? I NEED that one!

I can’t really say it any better than how this Instagram user I follow said it. Her account is Nourish And Eat and her name is Gina and she promotes loving yourself and eating disorder recovery. She’s pretty inspirational.

Finally: If we analyze everything we put in our mouth…..are we really living and enjoying life?

That’s the whole point of eating disorder recovery. It’s about feeling all your emotions and enjoying life and everything in it. I don’t know about you, but this girl needs her chocolate and I’d like to be able to savor it and not worry about what I just consumed and how I’m going to rid myself of it later. Life is meant to be enjoyed not merely in fun-size, but all the time. I think we just need to focus less on the ‘what’s in my holiday candy’ and enjoy eating the holiday candy we love! Because let’s be honest, it’s so so so very good and one perk of being an adult is getting to take more than one piece out of the Halloween candy bucket that night 😉

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Where’s My Magic Wand?

It’s been a long day. I can’t turn my thoughts off (which are mostly negative). But I can’t make them cease and I can’t stop myself from thinking I’m still going to hate myself tomorrow, as terrible as that sounds. Usually I can watch some childhood movie and have myself feeling a little better, but I don’t think my Fairy Godmother is showing up with her magic wand anytime soon.

Image: http://drinkupmehertiesyoho.tumblr.com/

I literally fear being hungry but I fear eating as well. I’ve spent 95% of my day focused on these type of thoughts. It’s been a hard day. I know that for most of you, my “hard day” probably seems minuscule and it’s actually not a big deal at all compared to what you deal with….but it was hell. I’ve also spent a fair amount of time today Googling odd things such as:

“you are more than your weight”

“do people still love you no matter what you weigh?”

“does weight really matter?”

And finally, “if I eat a donut will it hurt my diet?”

None of these searches really gave me the bold, punch me in the face answer I was looking for-especially the last one! However, I did find a few articles that made me feel better for a few minutes. They made me smile and think, “Hey, maybe everything isn’t so gray and dreary. Maybe I’m doing good and this is all alright. Maybe it is okay to like myself even just a little bit.” Then, after my 4 minutes were up, I basically went back to the same thoughts that brought me back into my distorted reality where I just feel…..almost hopeless. These thoughts steal my joy and don’t give me anything, yet I can’t turn them off. Maybe it stems from being alone most of the day. Maybe it stems from not watching the new Netflix show I’ve been enjoying over the past few days. Maybe it stems from….well I just don’t freaking know! I don’t know where it comes from and I don’t know why I currently feel like laying on the floor and staring at the ceiling. I just can’t explain it.

I’m not sure I really have much else to say. However, I’d like to feel happier. I mean, Easter is this weekend and I’d like to be able to feel happy on the inside. Also, I’d like to watch an Easter movie! Why are there none of those on TV?!

Image: http://www.themarysue.com/baby-disney-villains/#7

Here are those articles I was talking about:

The one in Cosmopolitan was pretty touching for me.

17 Reasons to Love Your Body Just the Way It Is– by Amy Odell via Cosmopolitan

You Are More– by Selah via Operation Beautiful

A Load of Cobblers

In case the title may have you puzzled…it’s old timey slang and basically means “what a load of nonsense”. I’ve been pondering on something lately and I’m just about to let it all out in the open.

Image: http://now.org/now-foundation/love-your-body/posters/winning-designs/

We live in a world obsessed with food guidelines (FDA), health and fitness, being thin/toned/strong and constantly talking about the latest fad to “stay fit”. There are entire magazines and websites devoted to being “healthy”, “slimming down”, telling us how we can “look our best” or getting “bikini body ready”. I search Pinterest and see the word “skinny” constantly being thrown in front of popular recipes (not that cutting out some calories is necessarily bad.) We are constantly being told we never eat enough fruits and vegetables, how eating meat is bad for you, how sugar is bad, soda is bad, bread and carbs are bad, they jury still seems to be out on how much alcohol is good in part of your diet, processed food is bad, and don’t even think about gluten. I really wish I could think of a better synonym than “bad” but I can’t right now and that isn’t my main focus. Everything seems to be “bad”and we never eat the “right” things.As a society we are constantly slammed with negative terminology for the foods we consume. I mean, sometimes these terms have us thinking twice about what eating an apple will do to our body. I swear every other commercial on TV is for some popular weight loss program or diet pill that “magically” melt away pounds. It’s all just confusing or overwhelming.

So, basically, I should eat just ice, make my own grains, not eat meat (which I need specific amino acids from) and constantly snack on fruits and vegetables? When in tarnation did eating become so tedious and like my part time job?! When did eating stop being enjoyable? No wonder there are so many people meticulously planning meals and constantly fretting over what they are eating and if it’s going to be considered correct. No wonder there are so many people with eating disorders, developing them or with eating issues in general.

I’m not trying to blame eating disorder on anyone. NOT what I’m doing. However, shouldn’t the media feel somewhat accountable for at least helping aid people for developing them? If someone wasn’t always promoting “thin” or “perfect body” campaigns and ads wouldn’t it be easier to be more content with your own body? And yes, there are some programs and campaigns out there now that promote a healthy body image and about loving yourself in your own skin, but they can’t combat everything coming from the other side telling society that we need to change something about ourselves. (Whew! Deep breath. I may be out of momentum.)

http://www.wearyourvoicemag.com/dropthetowel-this-summer/

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t try to be healthy and eat foods that nourish us, but do we constantly need it thrown in our face that how we eat is bad? Sometimes, it’s perfectly reasonable to eat Cheetos, drink your coke and eat that chocolate cake!

Image: http://www.yummyhealthyeasy.com/2012/05/decadent-low-fat-diet-coke-cake.html

I think that I just want to live in an ideal world where everything is gumdrops and sunshine. I think I just want everyone to feel comfortable with themselves, be able to accept themselves and truly believe that family and friends will love you in spite of your outward appearance. Half of being healthy is being able to feel good about yourself and sometimes I just get so caught up and bogged down by everything the media is throwing at me. I’m not even holding the bat anymore for the balls that they throw….I just try to dodge them as best I can because I don’t need that kind of negativity in my life.

Image: http://www.skinnymom.com/12-commandments-to-love-your-body/

11/7/15: A Fearless Day

Sometimes there are just some things in life that you can’t handle all by yourself. I think that I finally reached that point…..So on Saturday, I did something pretty freakin’ terrifying. I went to meet with someone about eating disorder recovery coaching.

AND guess what? The world didn’t catch on fire, I didn’t die from complete terror, the person I met with was the absolute nicest and it helped me start a very rocky, long, difficult journey down a new path without an e.d. (I even got a pet rock out of it. Okay, it’s not really a pet. It’s one of those chakra rocks.) Doing that was probably more terrifying for me than intentionally going and buying a ticket to a horror movie at the movie theater or watching creepy things on Halloween night. But I did it and I lived to tell the tale.

While I met with this coach, we talked about a lot of things, my goals, how I wanted my recovery to be, why I felt like I was ready for recover, (did I already mention my goals?!) what the eating disorder made me feel and some of the underlying reasons we have eating disorders. For example, often times, we use eating disorders as a way to suppress feelings, keep away unwanted emotions and numb ourselves. I see myself feeling numb all the time, I just didn’t know that’s what I was doing. I thought I was walking around “sad”. NO! I was really just numbing my emotions. I didn’t even realize that’s one of reasons I may have developed this. At the end of the discussion, we decided that maybe I should try and eating like “a normal person” as I call it. We decided that I should try eating 3 meals and 3 snacks. This is going to be literally hell. There’s no other words. This is hard for me. SUPER hard.

I’m commemorating this day. This was 1 hour after my session was over.

     

I started on Sunday, so I’ve been doing this for 2 days. This kinda sucks. But as much as it sucks, it feels oddly….good. So here I am….trying to start this new journey.

These help me to know I’m doing the right thing, even if it doesn’t always feel completely comfortable. (These are from my coach.)

Rhythm of YOUR Heartbeat

I’ve never had to love someone who hated themselves. I’ve never had to watch someone dislike themselves to much that they curl up into a ball on the bathroom floor and cry until their eyes are slightly sore. I’ve never had to experience someone telling me they are angry at themselves for eating actual food for dinner. I’ve never had to hold someone as they cried and felt like they were insane because they didn’t like what the mirror reflected. Finally, I’ve never had someone tell me that sometimes they felt like they wanted to die instead of keep on hating themselves.

Personally, I’ve never been exposed to the receiving end of all those emotions that are probably more difficult to hear than I know. However, I have felt every single one of those emotions, last night to be exact.

I’ve found that at  night for the past couple of weeks, I’ve grown infuriated with myself. I get so angry because I made dinner for my husband and I and then I eat it. I get so angry that I ate a meal that wasn’t yogurt. I feel like I can feel my body changing….getting bigger with each passing moment. My brain is screaming, Ed is screaming, I literally feel like screaming and my fingernails dig into my skin. There’s nothing I can compare this feeling to. Then, mixed in with all the anger, I feel….sad. Sad because I literally can’t handle it all or make myself do it. I’m angry, I’m sad and I’m hurt.

As I’m sitting there on my bathroom floor, pretty positive that my legs don’t work anymore because I can’t get up and I haven’t moved in probably 20 minutes, something I’m highly unaccustomed to happens. My husband some in. He says nothing. He doesn’t ask what’s wrong and he doesn’t ask what I’m doing. He quickly shuffles around to the other side of me and I can feel his arms encircle me. He is literally sitting on the bathroom floor with me while my head is buried in my knees. I didn’t say anything for a while or even look up because I’m pretty ashamed of my puffy red face and snot nose. It’s just shaky breath sounds for a while. Finally though, when I do speak it’s just telling him I hate food and I don’t see how I can do this. All he does is reassure me that it’s all going to be okay and somehow, in that moment, it helps.

Whoever said that marriage isn’t worth it or doesn’t work was mistaken. I didn’t realize what it would be like to have someone to always come home to and to always be there for you (or sit on the bathroom floor with you 😉 ) It’s pretty freakin’ cool/amazing/fantastic/a feeling indescribable. I didn’t realize until my drive to work this morning that the part in our vows that goes “in sickness and in health” was something we would experience right off the bat. Not that I forgot I had an eating disorder, I just forgot that qualified as a “sickness”.

That was my Wednesday and this is my Thursday, feeling sad and unsure. Tomorrow is a new day, with no mistakes in it yet.

You Gotta Live It While You Got It

Y’ALL. Just an FYI I have a few things in the works that I can’t really write down yet because I am uncertain of how they are going to pan out, but hopefully soon I will have some good news to share with you soon.

Lately, I’ve been feeling and thinking that maybe I’m just not “sick enough” for someone to want to help me with this eating disorder. I’ve felt like “well, maybe I’m not actually that sick” or “maybe I’ve just made this all up in my head” “maybe I don’t physically appear sick?” or finally, “maybe I don’t actually have an eating disorder”. But is that true? Could I really have just dreamed it all up? I don’t think so. I think that all of those negative thoughts and feelings come from my Ed not wanting me to seek help and not wanting me to get better. My Ed (and me for the most part) think I need him. He thinks that I can’t do or handle life without him. While I share both of these thoughts and I can’t really actually imagine my life without him (because, quite frankly he has been a gigantic part of my life for so long now) deep down, I do know that life without Ed is probably possible. I don’t know that life yet, but it’s a really nice thought and life to consider.

I spent many of my lunch breaks last week looking up positive and encouraging eating disorder videos. Videos that were filled with positive notes and tips to maybe try and overcome an eating disorder. (Also, I watched a lot of Kid President videos. Sometimes, he just makes you feel good about yourself and sometimes you just need to hear encouraging words from a child.) I also found a site where I could download a recovery journal for absolutely free. Maybe that will help me and guide me through this whole process.

At this point, I don’t know where I’m doing. I feel like I am standing in the middle of a bridge and if I go left, I stay with Ed and go back to his comfort zone and ultimately choose death, but if I go right, I choose the bright side and choose life, love, happiness and all that freedom. Recovery embodies hope for life and encompasses a happy glow.

I’m really scared though. If I get help, it means I have to eat like a normal person….scariest thing in the world. It means I can’t be afraid of food anymore, which is an anxiety all on it’s own. It means that my yogurt addiction has to lessen. It means…well it means a lot of things, but mostly good things. I know that it’s a long, long, painful process and journey, but sometimes, you just have to choose to go right. Life is too short to constantly be worrying an anxious, right?

It’s Just A Relapse

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBCSZbZTnSw

This classroom is an icebox. I am just so cold. Sometimes I can’t tell if that’s more attributed to me, or to the fact that my cooperating teacher keeps the room at a very cool 70 or 69 degrees. It’s quite miserable actually. Anyways, that’s beside the point of this entire post. (Just thought I’d share that I’m literally freezing all day and for me that’s torture seeing as I’m already notoriously cold.)

I’ve been married for almost a week now. It seems so odd that the kids and most people refer to me as Mrs. Powell now. Now that the wedding is over, it gives me more time to focus on school and maybe a little bit of recovery, well plus my actual marriage.

That Saturday, I had at lease 3 people ask me if I “ate food” or that “I needed to eat something” or some sort of phrasing like that. I can’t exactly remember. But that stung a little. Those words are hard to swallow; they are hurtful. I don’t even know how to respond to that or how I’m supposed to even feel about someone saying that. It’s not that I don’t want to be better y’all. It’s just that you don’t understand the fear that is stapled to that package.

It’s the fear that if I actually do start to eat something else for dinner that’s not yogurt, that people, especially those who noticed at the wedding, will think that I was just a crazy bride who lost weight so that she would be able to fit into a wedding dress. That’s not the case! Did it make me a little more neurotic? It sure did? But does that mean that I legitimately don’t have a disorder? Unfortunately, no.

I don’t handle change very well AT ALL. And literally everything about my life has just changed. I changed where I live, I mean, I have a completely different route home now!! I changed my workout routine, a week ago I changed my grade level in student teaching. I now have to make dinner at night because I have a husband. It’s a really huge transition. I’m not going to be used to it all at once. I’m already just really terrible with change….so this may take me a while.

Don’t get me wrong…I am so extremely happy. I’m so happy to have married my husband. I think about that everyday. It’s so amazing. God blessed me by allowing me to marry him!  I’m so blessed by the fact that I don’t have to go home to an empty house or empty bed. I’m always going to have someone to hold my hand, always have someone to talk to and I’m always going to have someone who will try their hardest to love me with all they have. I’m so thankful and so blessed that God sent me a man that’s going to love me no matter what, takes care of me and loves despite my eating disorder. It’s a really ugly part of me, it’s not something to be romanticized. I sometimes I to force myself to keep E.D. at bay and take him from the forefront of my mind so that I can focus on my husband and being what he needs. That’s someone I want to be better for. I want to be better for him. I want to be okay…I want to be able to eat dinner with him and not be mentally freaking out and mentally crying.

Recovery is hard y’all. Harder than I can explain. It’s draining, frustrating, infuriating, complex, and extremely painful. I personally feel like I fail at it constantly, which I’ve been told is part of the whole process. I’ve been told that you fall down countless times and sometimes you are crawling to the next step. I feel like I’m constantly falling and actually like I’ve never been able to get up from the ground. I can’t even begin to explain to you what it feels like to be in the process of recover…or even having an eating disorder at all. It’s not something words can describe. It’s a feeling that I personally believe that unless you have been dealt that card, you can’t begin to imagine what a person who has an eating disorder is in recovery is going through.

Finally, the last point I want to make is kinda about society and marriage in general. As I was driving to lunch today thinking about this post, I was thinking about how women are thought about when they get married. I’ve heard it countless times on TV or movies where the men are always joking that “when you marry a women, remember what she looked like when you married her because after that her figure is going to change”. That’s so unfair is unbelievable! It’s infuriating! How is it that a woman’s worth is reflected by the mirror or a scale? How did it become okay to poke fun at a person’s outer image like that? If you are marrying someone or are in love with someone, you are supposed to love them for who they are as a person, not solely because they are a pretty face or you are attracted to their body. I just think it’s shallow and downright mean.

Pretty sure that post was all over the place. Sorry about that (:

Going to the Chapel….& We’re Almost Married

10.17.15. A day I’ve been waiting for, for almost a year now. It seems like ages since last Thanksgiving when we actually got engaged and now it’s FINALLY here!! I’m so excited I can hardly concentrate on anything else. I find myself consumed with thoughts of the wedding all day long while trying to concentrate on student teaching. It’s strange to think that in 2 days, I’ll be married. In about 48 hours…..I’ll be a Mrs. People can refer to me by a different last name. It’s an odd feeling, but also a warm and fuzzy one. I mean, I’m marrying my best friend; can I really ask for more?

10.17.15. A day that also caused me a gigantic anxiety attack during lunch break yesterday. I was asked to do something clearly last minute and clearly out of the blue on Thursday afternoon that clashed with previous plans. It wasn’t til 8 last night I knew it was an anxiety attack, but it was. I found myself struggling not to ball my eyes out crouched down in a corner in the classroom. That would’ve been some sight, having a bunch of 5th graders march in from lunch to find their student teacher (who they’ve known for merely 2 days at that point) crying in the corner. I managed to compose myself and realize that it wasn’t that Earth shattering. It just happened to not be in my plan. Everything could still happen, it was just going to be shifted 30-45 minutes or so. I also toyed with the idea yesterday during the attack of just going into the bathroom and throwing up. It wasn’t a pretty 20 minutes I’ll tell you. Did I do it? No. Did I want to? Hell yeah. But was that actually going to make me feel better? No, definitely not. Will ED be there Friday and Saturday? Probably. Can I shut him up? Probably not. But I can lower his volume for 12 hours? I can really try harder than I ever have. I’ve got to really try. I’ve got to block out ED’s voice. For 3 days, I’ve got to listen to him scream, stomp his feet and throw a tantrum because I don’t have the time to devote a whole hour to the elliptical and him!

Getting married is stressful and really is so much effort and work to plan/coordinate. (I do have to remember though, I’m the idiot who wanted to get married in October in the middle of student teaching.) It can also be a very beautiful though. This is a magic time. It’ll never happen again. I know everyone says “you won’t remember a thing from the wedding.” I plan to prove them wrong. Sure, I won’t remember what we ate, the flowers, probably majority of the reception or special moments though: my Daddy walking me down the aisle, our first kiss as husband and wife, the vows, our first look pictures, heck, maybe even our first dance. Those are the parts that matter. I want to soak it all in. Take the time and effort to remember. Because this is a magic time and day in life.