To clarify, i'm getting married in 2 days. Hes a dream, they come true. However i'v been scrambling all over the place since I single-handedly am making this whole thing happen! Flowers, venue, photographer, suits, food. Luckily my amazing maid of honor made all the bouquets for me (I wish I could show you the process! We made them from thrifted dresses. I love fabric bouquets, they last longer and are much cheaper!) I'll show photos once I have them I promise. Yet all of that aside I have 2 hours waiting for a laundry cycle to write. Lets begin.
I'm getting married in 2 days. I know I already said that but bear with me. When he 'popped the question' in December it was no surprise, we had been talking about it for almost a year at that point. So I figured we would have a fall wedding, spend the year planning for the wedding as casually as possible, and come October we would have ourselves a lovely wedding. Except for one small detail. I'm not currently a resident of Canada. In fact, given another few months i'll have to leave Canada since my passport will run out. So either I would be spending 6 months in California again this year or we would get married sooner. Then my best friend/maid of honor told me she's leaving on a religious mission. In March. DONE. Three days after he proposed we set the date for March 2nd. I had three ish months to plan a wedding which sounds alright.
Now I have some words of advice. I'v been to many weddings in my life and it would appear that no matter how long you have to plan you always end up with the same problems. Thus far our wedding party has had one broken engine, two passport problems, and three fussy professors making it impossible for one groomsman to attend. When your wedding party is only 15 people small you don't expect these things to be a problem. But i'm happy to announce we are one day away from everyone arriving and so far we're only spending 1/4 of our budget on travel. Ouch. We love them, it's worth it. I'm getting off track.
Three months is a good amount of time to try to get back into shape. Of course, everyone makes that vow around the holiday season, I -will- start going to the gym this year. I'm going to lose all of that holiday food. Then the proverbial gym membership is made and ended within the first two months. Well I did try. We where starting to pack for the move at the time I got back to Canada in the end of December which meant I spent a lot of time grumbling about my back being in pain and straining one ankle or the other. Suddenly it was February and we where moving in! More strained ankles and sore backs and promises to start doing yoga and going for jogs...tomorrow.
Our first trip to Costco to stock up for the new flat was very successful. Kept the budget under 200$ and managed to buy everything but window cleaner. As we strolled the aisles exchanging yes's and no's to things we needed and didn't I noticed a bag of Chia seeds for a great bargain and thought I might give it a shot. 14$ isn't bad considering how many bags of quinoa and couscous I buy on a regular basis and I was curious to see it's effects.
I believe the first time I had heard about it was in a documentary I found on netflix called Hungry for Change ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MvAM97VDE8 ) which I highly recommend. They talk about adding gelatinous foods to your diet. Not jello or pudding but naturally gelatinous foods such as Aloe and Chia seed. So I took it home, read the instructions on the side of the bag, and came to a wonderful discovery. Chia seeds become gelatinous after you add water, they swell up to 12 times their original size. Which means that I can add a tablespoon (the recommended amount per meal) to my salad dressing, or my omelette in the morning and the seeds will expand in my stomach. A natural diet suppressant. I'v never put much store into diets since they change as often as clothing fads, but this was different. If I have one horrible secret that even I don't want to own up to it's how much of an anxious eater I am. Come any stress and you can find me in the kitchen with a handful of crackers, nuts, olives, just about anything. So here I was weeks away from my wedding and you can bet I had been guilty as they come and desperate to change it.
WHEW! Sorry for the rant. Anyways, thus far i'm down by about 7 pounds from my usual weight. Partially because I cut my daily salt intake in half (makes you retain water and bloat! Not good for wedding photos) and definitely because of portion control and no more snacking thanks to my lovely Chias! I never feel exhausted, and I am super pleased with the result. If you have any questions about them feel free to ask away.
Projects! Last year I bought a lovely antique 1800's chair for about 20$ off of craigslist. After pulling away the shoddy upholstery job, rusted nails, and stained foam seat I found the original beautiful purple velveteen upholstery. I was so smitten with it, my first project chair and it held so much history! Unfortunately the rust has stained it beyond salvaging and I was forced to move on. I'v spent months mulling it over in my mind. What should I do with that chair? I considered giving it a quick art appeal and reselling it even. But in the end I couldn't part with it. It has too many flaws and too much appeal for me to try to find a new home for it (i'm sitting on it as we speak. Hey, even horsehair can be comfy!). Here's a photo of the original undressing process.
Since we have moved into our new flat and the interior went from a rather modern quirk to a much more fitting Victorian style this chair stands so beautiful and so alone. We have no dining table at the moment and for a while it was just this one chair that would have been the closest to a dining chair we could come. Until just a few weeks ago (first weekend of the month) when everyone was leaving their leftovers on the curb and we saw another beauty. Black, arm-less like our first chair, and with a much larger seat. I snatched it right up, who could resist free curbside like that? Clamped, glued, and now in perfect working order I'm looking at my two mismatched chairs, scratching my head wondering....what am I going to do. At first when we where headed in a more modern direction I had thought to collect odd chairs and spray paint them odd colors, given than our whole kitchen is rainbow. Now there is no way we could tie in our dining room with our living space that way. I'm thinking black with grey..possibly faux tweed seats but I have no clue. Until we have a table though, I think it will all be fine.
Thanks for reading, as always.
-Julie.
No comments:
Post a Comment