Adjusted Reality

“Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.” – Mark Twain

Tag: wedding Page 1 of 5

2009 Resolution Round Up

Now as I sit here on the last morning of 2009, I’m waxing philisophic about the year, but not quite as much as normal.  You see, it’s been a very thinky last few months.  I”ve mused on my job.  I’ve mused on my weight.  I”ve mused on my running, and come to a lot of conclusions early, so today was just really to put the proverbial pen to paper and commit to what I want to accomplish in the next year.  I feel like I”m forgetting things, but it’s not as if this is my only chance, right?  I mean there is always my annual “before 31 to do list” and mid-year check in, and all that crap.  Man, I make way too many lists.

Anyhoo, let’s get onto it.  I have a house to clean and then copious amounts of booze to drink.

Kekekekeke ^____^

Kekekekeke ^____^ 12-24-08

Last year’s resolutions:

1.  Body: Will continue to eat in a manner that is mostly healthy as I do now and improve when I can, continue improving my fitness, and work on reaching my goal weight, whatever that ends up being, in 2009.  While I’ll always work on improving my muscles and endurance, I’d like to get to the point where the scale is just a double check a few times a week that I’m not way off track, and food journals are a thing of the past, by the end of 2009.

Did I do it?  …sorta.  I’m more into measuring my progress by my running pace, and how my jeans fit now.  150-ish was not what I envisioned my goal weight, but it’s where my body wants to be.  So there.  I am no longer food tracking, and I’m only weighing about 1-2 times per week.  If you don’t count these two weeks of vacation, at least 80% of what I eat, I consider a healthy diet.  So I’m pretty happy.

2.  Fitness: I will do at least one new exercise-y thing a month.  This cannot include running, DDR, yoga, traditional weights, or Cybil the arc trainer.  By the end of the year, I would like to transition 1-2 days per week to something like dance classes or volleyball or some other competitive sport OR seriously start training distance running/triathalons.  By my 30th birthday, I need to pick ONE of these to focus on and concentrate on it (and make ancillary resolutions/goals based on what I pick).  I guess what I’m trying to say is to start working out for a reason that is not just to make the scale go down.

Did I do it?  …well, I didn’t do this exactly, but I definitely went into the year exercising solely for weight loss, and now I approach it as a sport.  If someone told me that running would never take another pound off me at the beginning of the year, I would have probably stopped.  Now, I could honestly say I would continue.  I think that’s what I was really going for here, and mission accomplished.  I also got a bike and rode it a bit, tried dance, zumba, roller skated, did some diving and swimming, and rediscovered my love for circuits.

3.  Soul: I will pick something creative and establish a plan by my birthday to complete a concrete goal by the end of the year.  Decide if I’m going to pursue writing (maybe actually giving a novel or book of some sort a go), songwriting/recording, pick up drawing/painting again, acting, or work on selling my necklaces.  Maybe take up web design and flesh out this site into a pretty one like I used to do and really give blogging a go beyond just using this for personal theraputic purposes.  Realize that I need to pick ONE of these and focus on it or I’ll feel as lost as I did in 2008.

Did I do it?  …eh.  I tried to do the etsy thing and never got off the ground.  I tried to write a novel and got about 30k words in and threw a tantrum.  This blog is still just my soapbox.  I drew a christmas card for Zliten, but that’s about it.  That’s ok.  I at least stuck my toe into the waters here, that’s at least half credit, right?

4.  Get married sometime this year!  That’s about all there is to say on this one…

…hey, 100% there.  Next!

5.  Allow work to be on the back burner one more year. Of course, be open and receptive to any wonderful opportunities that fall into my lap, but work on enriching my personal life and hobbies instead of focusing on promotions, raises, extra responsibility, etc. Realize that having a 40 hour per week stable job right now that I can pretty much just leave at the office when I walk out the door is a blessing that is giving me opportunities to further the work on my body, fitness, and soul.

…hey, 100% there as well.  Maybe even too much sometimes, tee hee.

All, in all, not bad. It was a rough year in some aspects – shakeups at work, a lot of uncertainty with Zliten’s unemployment stuff, extreme frustration with my lack of weight loss.  However, I still have a job at a company with an awesome, successful, and stable product.  I made huge strides in my running, completing a half marathon and improving my pace at both slow and fast distances all year.  Zliten got a job in the industry right when it was looking grim.  We still own our house and make mortgage and the “oh crap” fund is still there.  We’re making it.  2009 was not the best year ever, but it wasn’t so bad.

So what’s up for 2010?

Need more fiber, apparently.  12-24-09

Need more fiber, apparently. 12-24-09

1.  This is the most important and different one for me – for one year, I am going to not attempt to lose weight.  As long as I maintain under 155, I’m going to put any pressure on myself to take off weight.  I’m going to focus on my running, and continuing to eat healthy.  This break really put into perspective how healthy I usually eat – I’m not eating horribly at all, but I’ve been feeling blech from eating not homecooked food for most meals and the sweet crap around the house (popcorn, almond roca, truffles, etc etc).  Now, if I *do* take off weight somehow, I’m not going to be opposed to it, but the biggest present I’m giving to myself this year is the gift of stepping on the scale, and not wanting to be less than I am, for once in my life.

2.  Running – I want to do a half marathon in under 2 hours, and I want to run a full marathon (no pace goal, just run the whole thing… well, who am I kidding, I’ll have a pace goal by the time I finish training, but anyhoo…) this year.  After that, decide what’s next.  Martial arts?  Triathlons?  More marathons?  Ultras?  Also, I want to make sure to not forget stretching and yoga.  That’s when I start getting injured like I am now with hurty butt.

3.  I will dedicate 6 hours per week to writing, revising, reading other books, or outlining.  I want to finish what I started for NaNoWriMo, and then move on to another one.  It would be peachy keen if I could do some necklaces, I would love to start songwriting, but I think this is my year of writing.

4.  I’m not sure exactly what I want to say here, but I want to figure out what’s next career-wise.  I have spent the last few years keeping my head down and trying to stay out of the way so I can support the creatives, get my check, and go on my way.  That is SO not me.  I can’t continue to do that forever.  I might not have the ability to get what I want just yet, but I want to have a direction by the end of the year.

5.  Some one liners: Travel outside the country.  Be more spontaneous.  Continue to whittle down my smoking.  Try something new with my hair.  Continue to draw things out of the magic hat.  Host some game nights at the house.   Attempt to keep a cleaner house so it’s not embarrassing when someone comes over unannounced.  Do more industry events and get over my boredom with networking for networking sake.  Play more games.  Continue to live a life where I can have at least ONE memorable thing I do each month (2009 has many more than 1 per month, but that’s my absolute minimum requirement).

So there, it looks like I have a lot to do, so I best get crackin’.  How was your 2009?  What are you most looking forward to in 2010?  What is your biggest resolution or goal for the next year?

Happy New Years, and I’ll see ya on the other side…

The First Week Back to Reality

Since I seem to be ahead on posts and this doesn’t get up on the blog until Friday, I’m just going to jot down my progress and what’s going through my head each day.  Overall it’s been sort of a “detox” week.  You never understand how inactivity and eating junk affects you until it’s no longer the norm.  A week and a half was long enough!  Here is my journey out of it…

Monday:

Did – Got up around 8:45, very bleary eyed.  30 mins DDR as planned in the morning and was too hungry to do yoga so I sank into the couch with dinner and didn’t get up instead.  Bad Quix!  Will make it up sometime this week.  Had a very healthy day of eating (ate a promax 20g protien bar for breakfast, a homemade tuna sandwich for lunch, carrots and snap peas with hummus for a snack, chicken masala, rice,half a tortilla, and peas for dinner, and a honeycrisp apple for desert) coming in right under 1500 calories. Weighed in at 159.0.

Felt – I am feeling very bleh.  I think a week and a half of no consistent exercise and not watching what gets in my cakehole has actually made me tired, almost a little depressed (I’m not my bouncy, energetic self), lethargic, and I have this little bit of nose/throat funk – had it for almost a week now but it hasn’t turned into anything.  I’m sure it’s not helping that it’s *greygloomyrainy* outside.  That always makes me in less than a happy mood if it lasts more than a day or 2.  So I am going to ignore the way I am thinking and feeling and dive back into healthy and hope this will all pass.  Looking forward to setting out for a run tomorrow, but just feel too exhausted right now to see how that will be any good.

Is this what I felt all the time before?  I seriously feel like I am slogging through molasses for the last week since the day after the wedding.  I feel like I am broken.  Someone needs to find the circuit that shorted and replace it please.  I can’t remember a time when my body has felt so… useless.   Not even after the half marathon – after one day off I was up and ready to go again.  At first I told myself that it was good to give myself a break before the wedding.  Then, after I just felt like I needed to sleep for days and it’s just not getting any better even though I AM getting plenty of sleep.  Hopefully just returning back to normal habits will right me, because this sucks.  I think this part is worse than the weight gain.

Yes, this too shall pass.  I just need to get through it and learn from it.

Tuesday:

Did – Got up around 8:45, just about as bleary.  5k run and weights at the gym after work.  Ate another promax bar for breakfast (can’t beat 20 g protien for 200 calories even if they aren’t the tastiest), had snap peas and a plum for a snack, some leftover homemade lentil soup and a gigantic salad for lunch, a junior burger for dinner and then I realized I was WAY under my calorie range so I snacked on some raspberries, a 100 calorie bag of popcorn, some turkey pepperoni, a few rice chips, and a sugar free popsicle.  Came in at just under 1400 calories.  Weighed in at 156.8

Felt – Morning – still bleh.  It’s still grey and dreary, I’m still in this state of nose/throat thing being icky but not bad enough to call myself sick.  I feel tired but not tired enough to feel like I need rest, but tired enough to make workouts feel like WORKouts.  I still suspect this is just my body rebelling after taking more time off working out than I have in years WHILE eating junk.  I’m hoping that slogging through another workout or 2 and later in the week when the sun comes out, I’ll be back to my normal self.

Evening – WOW!  What a difference a little sun and a great workout makes.  My nose and throat feel better, my mood is back to happy, and the workout felt GREAT (even during).  This is totally encouraging!

Wednesday:

Did – Got up around 8:45 slightly less begrudgingly.  30 mins DDR in the morning, yoga session at night.  Ate another promax bar, a turkey sandwich for lunch, fish, brown rice and veggies (wedding present fresh fish from Alaska) for dinner, and a honeycrisp apple, snap peas, pita chips, and hummus for a snack.  I did splurge on half a serving of ice cream and a special k bar for desert but I had the calories for it. I came in just over 1400 calories.  Weighed in at 156.2.

Felt – It was still hard to get up this morning (I was hoping to get up a little earlier), but I think it was more because I was kinda sore from my workout and also was having weird dreams.  DDR was tougher that normal, but definitely a marked improvement over Monday.   My nose is still running, but my throat isn’t sore!  My mood is definitely in a better place.  I don’t feel like I’m about the grab the day by the huevos and storm castles, but I don’t feel like curling up into a little ball and hiding away either.  I’ll take it.

Thursday:

Did – Got up around 8:35, more alert than I have all week.  I could have gotten up earlier but I was having a cool dream, and when I did, I kinda sprung out of bed instead of being bleary eyed.  I did a full weights session (one set max reps with the ball), and after work I made up that yoga session I missed as well as ran a 5k!  I was totally workout woman today!  Ate yet another promax bar (I’ll have to change it up a little next week but they’ve been great this week) for breakfast, a cut up black bean burger, some corn/bean/pepper relish, and tortillas for veggie tacos for lunch (this was SUPERB), snap peas and some jerky for a snack, and grilled chicken, taterflowers (half mashed potato half cauliflower) and veggies for dinner.  I also splurged and had a few vodka drinks.  I came in just under 1500 calories.  I forgot to weigh in the morning, and at night after my run I weighed 156.4.

Felt – I am finally feeling emotionally like myself, and workout wise feeling close to normal – though I still have this freaking nose funk on and off.  While I still don’t feel 100% strong, I’m feeling like I can get there.  I’ll have to build my running up a little more next week because that seems to be doing wonders for me in terms of both mood and physical well being.

Today I’m weighing in at 154.8 (yay, under 155!) and feeling pretty darn good heading into the weekend.  If there is anyone out there who’s not on the workout train or off the wagon eating-wise, just climb back on!  Let me give you a proverbial hand.  Get through a week and you’ll feel SO GOOD.  I know I do.

The goal now is to get through the weekend as close to 1500 as possible, and next week… well, we’ll talk about it then.  What have you been up to this week?  Any awesome plans for the weekend to share?

Pictures from graph jam, because graph jam rocks!

Wedded Bliss, And The Road Thereto… Part 2

Oooh, you actually wanted to hear about my WEDDING, not just partying in Vegas?  Ok, ok, here we go…

Sunday: A Nice Day for a Tropical Wedding…

Zliten and I both had issues sleeping past about 7 am, but we made a go of it until at least 8, when I got up, looked at my mop of a head, and decided to wash my hair instead of trying to style my ratty 2 day old casino smoke smelling fro.  Oddly enough, given enough time, even my hair plays nice and does the straight thing well.  Then I touched up my nails/toes – so glad I did the polish coat earlier or I would have been in trouble here.  At about 9:30, the first of the girls showed up to get ready and Zliten took off for the reception area to make sure the sound system worked properly and to set up the decorations.  Yes, the BOYS ended up setting up the reception tables.  How cool is that?

We grabbed some breakfast and poured some champagne and my maid of honor started on one of the bridesmaid’s hair while I did my makeup.  It took me longer than I thought it would because I was trying to be SUPER careful that everything was perfect.  Then about an hour before I had to be down there we started on my hair.  Since it was freshly washed it was taking forever to hold a curl, so my poor MOH and one of my bridesmaids spent the whole time curling, spraying, and pinning to get through my entire head.  I ran down there about 10 minutes late with my dress in my arms (we were supposed to be there 30 mins early).

I got to the ready room and the wedding coordinator was NOT happy with me.  Apparently I was supposed to traipse through the entire length of the casino and dirty my dress, and she put her foot down and FORBADE us to wear the silk flower clips we had made for our hair citing that I had signed the contract saying no outside flowers.  What. the. fuck.  No outside real flowers I understand, but HAIR CLIPS?  And who seriously yells at a bride 10 minutes before the wedding starts?  After answering a few questions on how I wanted things to go (Yes, Dad walk me down the aisle.  No, bridesmaids can just stand up there.  Yes, you can say God, why not, it’s a special occasion.  Blah de blah) I got into my dress and waited for things to start.  Finally, at that point, I was starting to be a little nervous.  “Don’t trip” was my mantra.

It was suuuuper windy so my hair probably got a *little* windblown on the short walk from the ready room to the chapel, but then the doors opened and I saw everyone at it was pretty much surreal.  My dad walked me down the short aisle, and then Zliten and I got up to the podium and things started.  Apparently everyone but me was an emotional and nervous wreck (all my girls, half the guys, Zliten, and all the parents besides my dad were tearing/choking up).  I was a little shaky up there but it’s more like the culmination of SO MANY MONTHS of work for just this short moment finally hit me.  I wasn’t so much nervous as *overwhelmed* by everything.  I guess I get it from my dad, I’m just not a crier.

The ceremony was very short and very sweet, especially the speech that T gave – he was supposed to officiate but the casino had rules against it, so we compromised and they let him speak for us.  It felt like almost no time passed and it was over, we walked out and let out a sigh of relief.  Whew – we r married! 🙂  Then, it was picture time.  And more picture time.  And still more picture time.  They took about 130 pictures in all.  Finally, we got to come to the reception and be announced as Mr. and Mrs. Zliten McGnome*!

Things just flew by once we got there.  I remember visiting with family and friends, there was some wine, and I remember being told I had to eat so I ate.  The food was pretty much delicious!  Then, we visited with friends/family that weren’t sitting at our table for a while and then it was time to toast!  My MOH gave a very sweet, short toast, and then the BM got all emotional on us (it was very sweet), and then I got up and thanked and introduced the wedding party and family and the champagne got flowin’.

Then, we cut the cake.  We sorta fumbled it because we hadn’t discussed how to do it, but the maitre’ d stepped in and helped us.  We did *NOT* smear cake all over each other’s faces, but after being egged on, we gave each other a little streak on the cheek.  The cake too was delicious – it was vanilla and buttercream frosting with strawberries.  Very, very nummy.  I’m not a huge cake person, but I got down almost the entire huge slice they gave me.

Then, our first dance.  We had prepared a fairly elaborate east coast swing thing, but Zliten kinda lost it.  After everything that day, we barely had it in us to just keep triple step, triple step, rockstep and do the dip at the end.  However, I saw the video, and we still looked pretty cute doing it – so it worked out.  After that, a lot of the family had cleared out and we were left with mostly friends, so we collapsed all the people into one table and worked on polishing off more champagne and wine.  The zune kept playing the SLOW songs so we went ahead and DJ’d ourselves and got down to some Zoot Suit Riot and chatted and the rest of the time just flew by and we had to give up the reception room, so we moved the rest of the people and the booze up to our room.

We spent the next few hours just chillin’ and drinking a little more and piling onto the bed for pictures and I happily shed the dress for some jeans (as wedding dresses go, it was pretty casual and comfy, but it felt goooood to be out of it).  We got hungry and headed out for The Noodle House, which was delicious.  We have a BUNCH of Chinese/Vietnamese food snobs in our collection of friends and they all loved it.  We then meandered to the Luxor to hit the club…which was closed for the night.  We lost a few people on the way who were tired, then lost a few more when we couldn’t get in, so we walked back to the Excalibur and hit up Dick’s Last Resort for some drinks (as some of us weren’t dressed for the club yet), and then after some yummy drinkies, it was just Zliten and I.

So what does one do on their wedding night?  Quarter poker and whiskey until 5am of course… and talking to some crazy lady from Arizona who kept giving us martial advice.  Finally, we hit the room and CRASHED.  It was the first night we slept well all trip.

Monday: Still Recovering

I woke up around 11 and just couldn’t sleep anymore.  I did the read my book in the tub thing and sit at the pool thing again and then FINALLY Zliten got up and we walked around the casino for a bit and then went to our 1:45 appointment to check out the pictures.  We got a few prints for free, but decided to buy them all (since it came with the pictures on DVD, as well as the rights to enlarge/print/distribute them).   I joked that I was just too hungry to pick which ones I wanted, but it was sorta true.

We then meandered looking for food at the MGM and ended up passing Emeril’s restaurant.  If you’ll remember, we missed out on Emeril’s in NOLA, so we figured this was perfect.  To be quite honest, we weren’t that impressed with the food itself, but the atmosphere and pace of service was great.  We realized we hadn’t just sit down and had a leisurely meal with each other in…forever.  We played a bit more slots after lunch very leisurely (I think we started with 20 bucks and ended with 20 bucks and played for 3 hours) and then headed back to the room and changed to go out for the night.

We got free show tickets and a free dinner with the wedding package, so we hit the 7pm showing of Dirk Arthur’s Xtreme Magic.  Sure it was cheesy, and we ended up seated on the very side of the stage so we sorta kinda saw behind some of the illusions, but it had flashy costumes and good music and big kitties (lions and tigers and panthers, oh my).  After that we hit the steakhouse and had yummy bread, gigantical caesar salads, and awesome steak and seafood.  Another nice, leisurely meal with just us two.  We agreed we have to do that more often.  We wanted to try for desert since it was comped but just couldn’t do it.  After that we played roulette.  At first I was down, then I was up and Zliten was WAY up, and then we both came down some, and we finally left a bit up.  We hit the hot tub and then called it a night.

Tuesday: Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

Got up at 9am to pack and just barely fit everything into our suitcases (Zliten thought we’d need to buy another bag, but I knew our pack fu was strong).  We then took a cab over to In-N-Out and yep, it was just as good as I remembered.  Mooyah just cannot compare.  Since it was actually pretty close we walked back, tinkered around the casino with some money for a while, I ran over to MGM and turned in our last money voucher (machines don’t give money when you cash out, just vouchers) and then we waited for our airport shuttle.

The flight was totally uneventful EXCEPT getting through security.  So we had repacked quickly and changed which of the 4 bags we were carrying on at the room that morning, and I remembered in line that we had our toiletry bags in our carry on (so one round of repacking right there ensued).  Then, when we went through the x-ray machine, apparently we had forgotten one bottle of wine and some of my hair products in the carry on, so we decided to check it instead (what’s another 15 bucks, right?).  Zliten went to take it down to the terminal and when he tried to get back in, they had given him the wrong boarding pass.  The machines to print them out kept rebooting when he hit print, so he had to stand in line AGAIN for the ticket counter AND for the security check.

We got home, and our lovely friends had made dinner for us and fed us some drinks and then we went home and enjoyed the hell out of being in our own bed, and didn’t leave the house or our PJs until we had to for work Thursday morning.

Next Vegas trip (which, why lie, will probably be within the next year because it’s way too fun to go), my plan is to come up Thursday, do the nightclub thing that first night, spend Friday doing a straight casino night, take Saturday mellow and do a dinner and show, and then fly out Sunday morning.

Whew, I’m exhausted just reliving it in text.  If you want to see a few more pics have at it.  If you’re actually on FB and want to see more, add me as a friend and check out my tagged pictures, Zliten’s mom uploaded a bunch but I think they are only viewable by friends of friends.  Eventually I’ll have all the disposable cameras and digi pics and videos from everyone and upload that into one massive flickr or something, but I’ll wait to gather all that until everyone is less sick of hearing wedding, wedding, wedding.  So what’s the plan moving forward now that I can check a major milestone off my list?  Stay tuned to find out…

*Of course they didn’t actually announce us that way, but ya know…

Wedded Bliss, And The Road Thereto… Part 1

Hindsight is 20/20.  On one hand, there are a lot of things I would do over if I could min/max the trip to be perfect, but on the other hand, it was an awesome, magically delicious time so why worry about it, right?

Thursday: Let the Debauchery Begin…

It started well – the parking lot we wanted to park in was full, but a spot opened up just as we got there!  We even made it through security without the white glove search (though we were carrying lots of weird wedding favor stuff).  The flight was very…uneventful.  We flew US Airways and I actually think I’ll refrain from using them again even if they are the cheapest.  I’ve never had a flight that landed on time (and have missed connections with them before), they cost the most to check bags, and their service – meh.

We got our bags without incident (I had major nightmares about this because I was forced to check my wedding dress) and shuttled and got to the hotel and the room.  After checking in, this one was much nicer.  This one was right at the front of the casino, had a comfy bed, DIDN’T have mirrors all over the walls and ceiling, and we didn’t have to walk past the rejected mall kiosks to get to our room, hoorah!

We were starving and parched so we found the best man (who had actually gotten there 9 hours earlier, and spent the day by himself cuz he was the first one there, oops) and after a few libations at the Tropicana and some quarter video poker, we headed out to the strip and settled on Planet Hollywood as our food destination.  After balking at the steakhouse prices, we settled on the Spice Market Buffet (for more detailed food reviews, hit the yelp links).  The one thing I will say – while I doubt it was *all* the food’s fault, I’ve never felt so sick after a night in Vegas.  And I am a pretty accomplished drinker, so…take that how you will.  After that we hit the piano bar for some ridiculously expensive drinks (though we had a 2 for 1 coupon so it wasn’t *too* bad) and enjoyed the piano guy’s humor.  I could sit at a piano bar forever – but this is Vegas so we continued on.

This is where the events of the night gets hazy.  I know that we played a bit more at PH, and then the New York New York (where I won 80 bucks and Z and the best man lost about that much), and I know we made it back to the Tropicana to drop our best man (BM from here on out because I am lazy) off who was exhausted, and ended up meeting some people playing more quarter poker (I think).  We convinced everyone to go swimming (even sleepy BM) – gotta love 24 hour pools.  Then, after completely ruining my hair we went right back out and hit up the Hooters Casino.  I believe there may have been some wings and onion rings ingested, as well as a little lot more whiskey.

Then, we sat down at these machines that have this fishing networked bonus round where if anyone at the machines won, you got to play.  In my drunken state, I was FASCINATED by them and got so excited when they came up.  The quote of the night was – Me, “Winner winner chicken dinner!” Zliten – “No, they’re fishies!” Me – “Oh yeah…winner winner FISHY dinner!”.  Apparently it was adorable.  The cleaning crew (as it was 6am-ish around this time) kept cheering us on every time we hit the bonus.  I even made Zliten pull more money out because I was having too much fun playing (which is VERY uncharacteristic of me).

When we left it was sunrise, but silly us, we decided that that just meant it was time for champagne!  We went to the MGM across the street and sat down for more quarter poker and mimosas.  This is where it gets VERY hazy, as Zliten seems to remember us going through about 4 bottles of champagne (I am *pretty* sure that it wasn’t all us but who knows).  Around 10:30 am Friday, my Thursday ended with a ceremonious pass the hell out on the bed.

Friday: Not for the Squeamish

Seriously, skip this day if you don’t want to hear about throwing up.

So, we had the limo scheduled for 2pm to pick us up and take us to the courthouse to get our marriage license.  I told Zliten to do whatever it took to get me out of bed for it, but apparently it was NOT happening.  So instead, they took the limo and rode around.  I’m glad SOMEONE got to use it.  I woke up around 6:45 pm and still felt like a mach truck slammed into me, but we had some friends to meet at 8pm at the Centrifuge Bar.  I choked down a little of the leftover room service I had demanded we order that morning, got dressed, and headed back out to hit the bar.

I got through a few hours alright, and the rum almost made me start feeling better (hair of the dog, indeed), until I just all of a sudden felt WORSE.  Like, eject button impending.  Since I’m pretty accustomed to airing a lot of dirty laundry on my blog, I might as well share another secret about me – I am a VIOLENT puker.  I get this crazy rash all over my mug because of the ridiculous face I make at the toilet.  I would make a HORRIBLE bulimic.  Getting this rash is NOT optimal 2 days before my wedding.  First I tried a public restroom that was crowded, and got shy and decided I’m going to tough it out for now and do the deed in private. Yeah – I’ve always had incredible puke control.  It’s one of my super powers.

After the gathering disperses, I said I need to go back to the room and tried to figure out how to make myself feel better without throwing up.  So I tried a nap and some TV.  Worse.  I tried to pray to the porcelain god and my brain wouldn’t let me – though I felt SO SICK.  Finally, after a few hours I get the hang of relaxed face upchucking and get rid of what ails me.  I feel better, but now my throat tastes awful, making me feel sicker.

Finally around 2:30 am I feel like a human again and considered going back out because I kept getting texts about people having fun, but then got up and walked around the room a bit, and realized that it was not a good idea.  If I was at 20% before I was only about 45% now.  And I had to get married in a day and a half.  So my Friday was spent mostly in bed, feeling like poopcakes.  Around 3:30, Zliten tried to drag me out, but with a little twist of the arm he fell right into his pillow and started snoring before I could say please.  It was really cute.

Saturday:  A Little Jittery

I woke up WAY early and all the caffeine I had over the last two days (yes, the diet soda … sometimes my complete lack of caffeine tolerance backfires) hit me.  I felt twitchy and if I got panic attacks, I’d imagine this is what the beginning of one feels like (heart racing, can’t stop your brain, needing to pace, etc).  Also – the fact that it was the day before my wedding I think *finally* kicked in the butterflies.  I got up, read my book in the bathtub, got myself some breakfast, played some poker, sat out at the pool for a while, and then FINALLY Zliten got up and we got out and got moving.

We took a cab to get our marriage license and then met up with a group of friends at Caesars to get some food in us.  Since beyond a few bites of leftover room service I hadn’t eaten since Thursday night, I was SO READY and felt zero guilt getting myself some yummy meatloaf and almost finished the entire gigantic plate of it.  Then we hiked back to the Tropicana with our friends in tow and played around the casino a bit and then headed up to the room where we had accumulated a bunch of alcohol somehow.  I finally decided it was time to have a drink or 2 as I was about to go deal with a HUGE group of my family, and after the day before and the weirdness that morning, I didn’t feel terribly social or hospitable.

After a quick getting ready we left in a cab and headed to the Ruben family dinner my dad had arranged (we just went for the cocktail hour).  The nice thing about losing 115 lbs from the time when they last saw me means there were compliments lavished all around and we had lots to talk about – and things which I am very comfortable talking about (my running, how I eat, etc).  That part went quickly and some wine certainly helped.  Next, we ducked back to the Mandalay Bay for our “rehearsal dinner” (no rehearsing but we needed to eat) and stuffed ourselves full of delicious crab and shrimp and all the other nummy stuff.  After that, Zliten ventured to the room for his early retirement, and I enjoyed another glass of wine with the survivors of dinner and caught up with a friend I hadn’t seen in 10 years!  However, wine + tired = SUPAHTIRED so I went to bed pretty early.

…next installment – the wedding day!  See ya tomorrow!

I’m Back: The Short Version…

So, in short:

Vegas was fantastic, the wedding went off (almost) without a hitch, and a great time was had by all.  I am happy, full of relief, and finally feeling how EXHAUSTED I am after being under that much stress for that many weeks of planning and preparation.  I didn’t really sleep well from the time I left for Vegas until Monday night, and my sleep schedule is kinda screwed up anyway from being 2 hours behind in pacific time and getting up later than I should regardless.  Although I got 9 hours last night and feel like I needed about 20.

So I’m going to leave you with a picture, go catch up on your blogs, and get some mother lovin’ sleep over the next few days and get back into it on Monday.  Everything.  Life.  Running.  Calorie counting.  This week is for sleeping, eating what makes me happy/healthy/feel good, and moving only as much as I feel like.  I feel a little guilty pulling the “I’ll start Monday” BS, but it doesn’t feel like an excuse, it feels like my body REALLY needs some time to decompress and not worry about ANYTHING.  Oddly enough, since I’m pretty much convinced fruits and vegetables don’t actually exist in Vegas, I’ve been naturally loading up on those since I’ve returned and plan to continue with the soup and salad bar for lunch today.

Oh yes, the picture… caption should pretty much be “Whew, we actually made it!”

Now, I’m going to try to get through the rest of the day without tripping and falling face down into my pillow.  See ya next week with more details!

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