Burned and feeling like jello

We went to the Twins game today! It was pretty awesome, as usual. :) This time it was perfect weather! I even attempted to be sun responsible and put on sunscreen. Apparently I missed 3 places: the backside of my left shoulder and the tops of my knees. So I have 3 areas of sun burn. The ones on the knees hurt the most but they're small so I can suffer through.

Then after getting home, I took care of my 30 minute cross training session today and went for a bike ride. I've never really cared much for bike riding. I'm slow on hills, in fact I had to bail on one midway today. I don't feel like I get that good of workout but I know I definitely got a workout today! Every direction you go from my house is somehow down a hill which means the only way to get to my house is up hills. I circled the neighborhoods a few times doing hill after hill after hill. It's great for running, murder when you're doing something you don't enjoy all that much.... like riding a bike. But from what I've read biking is an excellent way to cross train for running so i'll give it a whirl.

Now off to make dinner or say forget it and try to eat responsibly at Sea Salt Eatery in Minnehaha Falls park with my book club peeps...

Day 2: Strength and Stretching

Most people would look forward to this day, look at it as an easy day. I would, except I strongly dislike strength training and stretching. I hate stretching because it hurts and I'm super inflexible. I hate strength training because it always seems to end up being an "add on", something I try to squeeze into the end of my intense workout. I'm really hoping this program will force me to work on this element because weak, un-stretched muscles will only do more damage while training for this distance.

Diet day 2 is going better than yesterday! Why? I worked 6:30-3, didn't really have breakfast and didn't really do much extraneous nibbling at work. Diet will always be a work in progress....

Wedding planning on hold, so 10K project starts!

Aside from figuring out my ceremony -reception time gap quandry (do I find a different ceremony site so I can have a later ceremony thus eliminating the gap, etc), wedding planning is pretty much on hold until my income stabilizes. :(

Instead, I'll be turning my focus to my health. Mainly my diet and my revelation that I would like to aim for a 10K. Crazy? Maybe. Was this plan induced under a post running high? Yes. But I found a fairly reasonable looking program which I posted about in the last one. Today will be the official start!

Monday is supposed to be stretching and strength. But I'll be altering it and switching and running today, stretching/strength tomorrow. I work 8.5 hours tomorrow so I know there's no way in hell I'll be getting out and running 2.5 miles after that. I'll be lucky if I can even move by the end of a long day like that(a sign I'm probably not in very good shape!), let alone run!!

The good news is that today is overcast, breezy and WAY cooler than yesterday so running should be substantially easier.

Other things to do today:

1. Go to the banks (Pampered Chef Check deposits and my personal tips deposit)
2. Close out my mystery host winner's party
3. LAUNDRY -- I need work clothes
4. general straightening up of the house
5. Fiance's softball game

So I should probably stop being on the internet and get stuff done, right?

3rd 5K -- check!

I ran my 3rd 5K today! 40 minutes! So slower than the Lake Calhoun one and way slower than my first one. But I still ran the whole thing despite wanting to stop even before I crossed the start line.

Things working against me this time:

1. complete lack of training
2. the race was delayed by over 1/2 an hour due to a downed tree from the storms the previous day. I drank a bottle of water at 8:15 to be hydrated. At about 9:05 when we were lined up and waiting for things to start at any moment: I had to pee. 

The complete lack of training is because I've done the 5K's before. Aside from trying to get a better time, there's no driving force in me to get out and train. Especially now that I've done 2 of them with out even really training. I think It may be time to up my goal to a 10K to get me back out there training. I miss running 3 days a week. This could have been happening for a 5K of course, but the spark was missing! New goal, an aggressive one at that = spark!

I found this program which I may try to do. I have weights and resources for strength training. I have the space and the hills and lakes to do some amazing training. The biggest obstacle is the increased commitment. When I trained for the 5K I trained 3 days a week and by the end was losing motivation. It also involved intervals. This one starts out running 2.5 miles. and training 6 days a week..... No cushion there! It also stresses strength training which has been definitely absent from my life. Of course 6.2 miles requires a bit more in shape muscles than 3.1!

Hopefully my new plan will be the thing I need to get motivated!

Hooray-- I don't look psycho

I finally figured out how to "unfollow" myself. It looked kind of weird having me following myself. I mean it gives me points in the anonymity column because what kind of freak does that, right? It was a snafu between google reader and blogger. This meant, of course, every time I posted something in blogger, google reader would say I had new entries to read.

It only took me like a month to figure this out......

What happened to June?

June 21st???/ Really????? I'm supposed to run a 5k in 5 days.....

I did managed to drag my lazy butt downstairs and run for 15 minutes! YAY! I don't really necessarily enjoy running on treadmills so the fact I made it 15 minutes is pretty good. I watched the last parts of Drop Dead Gorgeous so that helped the time go by.

As usual, I am bound and determined to start trying to get rid of this flabbyness specifically my pudgy legs, tummy and back....I'm pondering starting another challenge. Instead of 90 days, maybe I'll bust it into 3- 1 month segments: 1 goal a month. Build on each month. Heck, if it goes well, maybe I'll turn it into 1 challenge a month with no end date....

From my previous challenge I successfully stopped adding sugar to my coffee and cut back significantly on my sugary drinks. I've reintegrated pop into my life but it's very seldom. So I'll plan to build on that....

Possible challenges:

• work out 2x a week for at least 20 minutes
• Increase water consumption 
• weight train 2x a week
• Floss daily (no, I like many americans, do not do this. I'm sure I need to).
• Up for suggestions.....

Anyone with me on this? I'm thinking if I make the focus 1 challenge it'll be easier than 3....

Calmed down a bit

As predicted, I've calmed down a bit.

I have 100 days to make a decision on the ceremony and still get my money back. So before I on a whim cancel and have no ceremony place, I think I'll spend the next month or so shopping around for a ceremony site that could accommodate a later ceremony. If I find one, we'll cancel on Noerenberg. If we don't find one, then we'll start figuring out what to do about the gap.

Then I made the mistake of looking at this and my brain went to having a destination wedding on the North Shore..... @ this point I'd only be out $500 deposit on my venue and it'd be all in one. Hrm.

Hi, I'm Little Miss Bipolar Bear

Yesterday's bad day had me crabby, angry. Last nights Women of Today meeting had me happy and feeling blissful/at peace. Work and subsequent interview scramble had me frazzled. Ice cream had me relaxed. Sitting down.... I've crashed. Dear Fiance must think I'm losing my mind, or circling the drain further into my own insanity.

Further adding to the downward spiral: I was all excited about booking Noerenberg. Even had a potential timeline. Future Mother in Law hated timeline. (see prior post for some elaboration) due to large gap between. More than hated. Now I'm freaking out.

I made the mistake of googling the concept and reading other forums. From that search and my personal soul searching,  Something I've learned:

• Don't ask for customs and ettiquette advice on a national board. The midwest is a special special place and tends to be much more laid back due to accomodating church ceremonies, etc. At least that's my snap judgment of what I read before I got scared by the replies aimed at other brides asking a similar question as me -- I'm glad I researched before posting!
• Don't read too many opinions, I am more confused than before.
• I may be out of line planning for such a huge gap, regardless of custom. I also may be overestimating just how long I want to spend in my pretty pretty dress and how long people are willing to stay dressed up for. Apparently not everyone can be expected to have the energy and attention span of a hamster on cocaine that I must envision myself having....
• The all mighty reality of the bank account is bleak. Beyond bleak and on to scary. Reception place and dress are paid for. Ceremony isn't I have 110 days to cancel and get 100% refund. I think I may have to do that. As much as I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE the place, wonky timing and lack of immediate resolution to my employment situation/realization of negative income pretty much kill this whole deal. The reception is the important part. It's the most money. It's the timeliest part. The timing of that should be the dictator, not the other way around. 

Now I'm not angry (unless of course I reread her reply then I get a tad bit upset because she's the one who prompted this whole urgency to find a damn ceremony place), I'm sad. I don't want to be "this is all about me/us and our love. if you love us enough you'll do this" bride. I also don't want to be exhausted by dinner. 

The sadness comes from the emotional tie I had to the place. And defeat. And overall tiredness. 

I'm sure tomorrow I'll be bouncing off the walls and think I have a different decision. Stay tuned for more adventures of lil miss bipolar bear...

My No good very bad horrible day.

Horrible horrible day.

I worked 9.5 hours. ... well I got a half hour break. Yep... a whole 1/2 an hour. normal jobs you'd get 2 15's AND the 1/2 hour. Not my job. I feel like absolute crap. And I have my interview tomorrow to get ready for, a crap ton to do for the women of today and a meeting tonight which will of course take til 9:30 (that's the drawback of an organization of over 40 people who do at least 1 activity a week, if not more.. our meetings take FOREVER).

Stressed much?

Also, THIS makes me want to cry. I haven't personally seen it, but I've suspected it's been going on without written/verbal acknowledgment from HR departments. Knowing the statistics that 46% of the unemployed have been so for over 6 months just helps confirm that this. Whether you were laid off through no fault of your own, you have a sign hanging around your neck that says, "don't hire me, hell don't even look at my resume because I'm just a f* up and you don't want me". As I've said many times, maybe FIVE years ago this could be true. NOT NOW.  Take that optimism.  I believe I first read about the phenomenon on a friend's blog (I was totally going to be cool and link that post, but I can't find it and I don't have time or patience. Sorry). I didn't want to believe it was true. I wanted to believe me and my friends weren't getting through HR filters because of something we could actually change (like resume key words, etc). I wanted to believe that I was just not working hard enough/applying enough/networking enough. That's something I can control. Root of all problems -- I'm a control freak in hiding. It comes out with a vengeance and I think it's getting worse. Probably because of the big white elephant in the room that I can't control so I overcompensate......

In other news, future MIL does not like my potential timeline for the wedding day. She hates the 3 hour gap we'll have, thinks we should turn it into an afternoon meal/party out of consideration for the older adults who expect to eat within 1/2 hour of a ceremony. I could include a potentially very long rant about this but ultimately, it's over a year away so I'm trying to just drop it all from my mind. She's entitled to her opinion and that's just what it is. I'm also refraining from replying today because I'm just way too crabby and I know I'll say something I'll regret.

If you're taking bets as to when I swear I want to just call the whole thing off and elope, you're too late. I wanted to do that when shopping for a reception venue, which I ABSOLUTELY hated looking for. So far it's been the least favorite part of the process.

Ok I have 2 hours to get stuff done.

Making up for a wasted day

Well... I didn't completely waste yesterday... just about 3/4 of it! I finally picked my lazy butt off the couch. Today, to prevent the compuslive checking of facebook, email, wedding crap, etc, I didn't really sit down very much. I cleaned like crazy! I even dusted our bedroom, washed the curtains (?!?!) and bedding stuff. I went in the basement-- the land I usually avoid cleaning-- and moved the furniture around and cleaned it up. It's now set up better for our treadmill and workout zone. As of late, the fiance has been accumulating new work-out gear (I believe he's going to start trying some program as I saw him burning DVD's of workout stuff). The basement wasn't really set up for workout.. until today. =Hopefully the nice clean open space will be more conducive and motivating for working out.

And now, I get to go to a twins game! YAY!

Stupid Bureaucracy

Ugh.

After a completely not productive day, I've spent the last few hours trying to make up for it. I managed to get up and mow the lawn and clean 1 level of the house. Now I'm FINALLY working on my appeal for my financial aid snafu at the community college. Having never done one of these, I can't say I fully know how long to make it or what I need to address.

This is such a pain. Not only do I have to write this personal statement, I have to meet with an advisor and plead my case/fill out paperwork. Then submit all this crap and wait for someone to review my case.

And tomorrow I need to find out if I have any grounds for appeal of my unemployment.

MORE PAPERWORK.

Blech.

Ceremony Site: CHECK!

Ceremony site is booked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So now I can take a pause from planning to pay for that. Next up to book: DJ, officiant. But alas, there is no money for those right now so I'm leaving it up to fate for me to take this break and still find a good DJ.

Which one did I pick for a ceremony????

I went with my gut. Despite distance from reception site and the earlier than hoped for ceremony time, I went for Noerenberg Gardens. I've been in serious love with the place since I first started shopping for sites. As with everything, when you know; you know.

Chair rental was much more reasonably priced $2/chair instead of $4-$7 at Lyndale. That pretty much sealed the deal. I was not ready to pay 500$+ for chairs that people will use all of 20 minutes. Also, upon further inspection of Lyndale Gardens, the other site in contention, I realized that the place for chairs was not anywhere near the prettiest parts of the garden. Where the ceremony would happen ended up being an open lawn with a few pine trees.... If I wanted a large lawn with pine trees, I'll just book a local park and save the $$. At Noerenberg, no matter which site we go with, it's surrounded by either lake views or beautiful flowers so it's a win-win situation.

So relieved to have that booked. Now future MIL can rest assured things will come together. :)

Ceremony sites, more wedding musings and ideas

Today we went around to a few garden/parks to scope out potential ceremony sites.

We looked at:

1. Centennial Lakes Ampitheater in Edina
    PROS:

• Cheap --only $250 rental fee
• Covered -- instant rain back up
• Close to reception venue (less than 5 minutes away)

     CONS:

• Surrounded buy lots of buildings
• Not that great of view from ampitheater --rest of park is much more scenic

2. Lyndale Park in S. Minneapolis

   PROS:

• 3 sites to choose from
• all 3 of which were BEAUTIFUL!
• Still close to reception venue

    CONS:

• a little confusing getting around the lake, could be really confusing for out of town guests
• have to pay for parking

3. Norenberg Gardens in Orono

   PROS:

• Beautiful gazebo site and many other sites overlooking the lake
• still fairly cheap for rental fee-- $600 for a saturday
• Free Parking
• This is the first site I picked out while starting the wedding planning

    CONS:

• Quite far from our reception site--approx 20-25 minutes
• Can be a bit confusing as you're dealing with lake roads

4. Millenium Gardens in Plymouth

    PROS:

• Very pretty setting -water, marshes, pergolas...
• Cheaper than Norenberg and Lyndale
• Moderately easy to find
• Building adjacent to get ready in

    CONS:

• About same distance as Norenberg from hotel
• Felt kind of small --just plopped in

Branden's ranking

 Tie: Lyndale and Norenberg

3rd Millenium

4th Centennial Lakes

My ranking:

1st Norenberg

2nd Lyndale

3rd Centennial Lakes

4th Millenium

I sent an email to both Minneapolis Parks and Three Rivers Park District regarding availability for Lyndale Park and Norenberg Gardens for our date and potential times. This is so exciting!!!  I ultimately could see getting married at any of these location. Hopefully one is open for our date!

Also today, I was perusing the knot's boards and saw an awesome suggestion for the champagne toast -- adding wild hibiscus flowers (packed in a sugar syrup) to the bottoms of the champagne flutes. It infuses the champagne with a floral sweetness and hint of rhubarb and looks pretty too! Because the flowers are red, it'll match my colors too! Its about $35.00 for a jar of 50 so it's not that expensive either. 

I'm definitely at the stage that I'm just ready to get things booked and moving along. It seems like there's going to be a lot to do and I'm sick of putting it on hold. Hopefully this job interview next friday goes well and I can get back on financial track. 

wedding shoes

I hopefully just bought my wedding shoes....

http://www.zappos.com/kenneth-cole-reaction-slip-sliding-red-leather

if they get here, fit me and feel like they'll work

Wedding stuff

So, despite all bleakness regarding finances, last night I had some fun looking at cake toppers.

I don't want monograms or generic bride/groom. I don't want just flowers. I think I wanna have some fun. So I spent a good chunk of time looking things like bride/groom rubber duckies, bride/groom smurfs, little people, brides pulling grooms by the feet, bride and groom playing baseball.....

It definitely gives me inspiration.... I think I really like the rubber duckies. tee hee! :-D

Encouraging news

This morning, just when things are starting to seem at their bleakest, I checked my email and I have an interview request!!!!!!!!!!!

The amount of relief I feel right now and joy that someone FINALLY noticed my resume is unbelievable.

Rainy day = zapped motivation

Ugh. I had such high hopes for today.

I have several job leads to work on my resume for and all my women of today stuff that I could work on. Have I done that? Nope. I've relocated to my bedroom and have managed to watch some videos online and obsessively check news, email, etc.

The adventures of the Lazy Bride to be

That's what I should change my title to!

I totally wound up taking a 2.5, almost 3 hour nap today. That won't alter my sleep habits tonight at all..... *sarcasm!*

So much for getting anything done and going on a nice long walk around the lake....

AAARRRGH.

This may be a bit rambling:

So today's issue of the Star Tribune had an article about just how hopeless things are if you've been out of work for over 6 months. It's saying that people out 6 months are having an increasingly difficult time finding jobs. 49% of the out of work have been so for over 6 months. That's a pretty scary stat. It also deflates my own already low hopes that things will change.

I was hopeless reading it and then that quickly turned to anger when I was reading the comments. So many of the comments were:

 a) blaming Obama/liberals --because the economy was doing SOOO freaking awesome in 2007, right? Wait, isn't that when it crashed? Wasn't it Bush's initiatives for increasing home ownership by taking advantage of people and lax oversight that got us into this mess? ...but yes, by all means pass the blame.

b) blaming the unemployed.

Now this one really ticks me off. Comments of this variety took the road of saying, "well if the person was any good at their old job, was truly driven, was worth anything at all, they'd have a job. They must have been a weak link to be let go and no one should take them." or my personal favorite "the unemployed are being lazy and too picky. There's plenty of jobs out there, but they're not willing to lower themselves to doing them."

Yes, everyone knows someone who is perfectly content letting the government supplement their life. Everyone knows someone who is making the best of a sour situation and putting on a happy face saying "oh it gives me time to figure out what I truly want",  but for every one of those, there's countless others who just want a job that will allow them to pay their bills. To not have to say to themselves, " pay this bill or eat?" I, too, was one of those who was trying to make the best of it. Saying that very thing to myself. Check my archives, I'm pretty sure I have a post or two about it. But I can tell you that those feelings wore off after 6 months, 80+ applications.  5 years ago, people who were out of work this long could seriously be asked, "what's wrong with you?" and they probably didn't mind being off in the first place.

Now, this continual stigmatizing of the out of work as lazy, unworthy employees just keeps us out even longer. I came to the sad realization a few months ago that my skills are getting out of date and with each passing month, each job I apply to and NEVER hear from the chances of going back to a job in that skill set decline more and more. Add that to the slim chances I have of getting a job in another field because of competition with so many other people who actually have the qualifications and I question how to even stand out.

My other favorite comment had to do with "just start your own business, control your destiny". And how, prey tell does one do that if they have no money. Making less than $1200/month doesn't exactly scream to banks, "give me $ to start up". Making that little doesn't exactly allow one to have any money of their own.

I could probably ramble on for quite a bit longer about the comments on this article because I'm that fired up.

or wait, maybe I'm just one of those useless, lazy, whiny unemployed  sitting around feeling sorry for myself. *rolls eyes*

There must be a sign on my back....

That says "kick me" (well I'm pretty sure mine doesn't say kick me, probably more along the lines of a word that rhymes with duck).

So I was worried I wasn't going to get benefits because I worked. Well now it sounds like I won't get benefits because I didn't make enough? What? huh? I don't get it. And I try to call customer service and their automated system asks for my password. When I enter that password it won't recognize it. The directions on their website don't work so what in the world am I supposed to do? I just want to ask them if the income I received from unemployment benefits qualifies me for more benefits because right ow they only count my 3 weeks income from the coffee shop last year. January-May, even though I've been making decent money for only working part time, they won't count it. What?????

Even if I do get benefits, it sounds like I can no longer get the 2 more tiers  + the extra 13 week extension. It sounds like I'd only get 13 weeks. 13 weeks to figure out my life. 13 weeks should be enough to get a job right? But I've been out over 52 weeks with no real job. So 13 weeks doesn't sound like enough.

Argh. I keep trying to tell myself that I'll be stronger as a result of this and that if my fiance and I can survive this, we can survive anything. But that doesn't mean I have to pretend everything is ok.

Back to defcon 5 panic.

90 day health challenge update

Entering into one of the last weeks and I'm reinvigorated!

I think fiance is on his own personal health journey. He's been using the treadmill my parents gave us and is even looking into buying some weights!

The past two days I've been running. Yesterday was really hard, especially after being out of commission for 2.5 weeks due to illness. I made it about 8 minutes running total. During that run, I discovered a little nature trail with a super steep hill. It was nice to get off the blacktop for a change.

Today I went back out there and manged to run for 21 minutes total! It went like this:

• walked 2 minutes
• Ran 10 minutes
• walked 1.5 minutes
• ran 1 minute (up that super steep hill)
• walked 5 minutes --the hill was THAT steep. I needed major recovery time
• Ran 10 minutes -- including more hills.

Whoo hoo! I'm on my way to that 5k at the end of June!

Other health stuff:

Still not adding sugar to my coffee. I think that change is permanent which feels great! I'm also more conscious of how much sugar is in the other drinks that I like -- smoothies, chai, etc..

Diet: ... meh. I have my ups and downs as usual. My financial issue my work in my favor as we'll have to cut back on eating out and ordering pizza.

Taming the pile, organizing

I wouldn't consider myself to be a slob. I've always looked at it as "functionally messy"-- I can tolerate mess up to a certain point. When it starts impeding my functionality (either physically or mentally), I clean it up. Two things predominantly make up this messiness,

1. I hate putting away clothes so there are laundry baskets waiting to be put away. One hasn't even made it to the bedroom yet, it's sitting in the living room. My clothes wind up wherever I take them off so there's clothes on dining room chairs, in the entryway (mostly socks) and right next to my bed.
2. Paper. The bane of my existence sometimes. Like my clothes, paper winds up wherever I set it down. When one area becomes congested, I move to another area. The result is piles of paper all over. The cats further complicate this because our cats seem to love the sensation of playing with papers and laying on them. 

Last night, the piles finally got to me.  I knew bills were in those piles. And the sounds of the cats rustling through papers was just too much. So I sat down and tamed the piles. I now have a laundry basket full of recyclable papers and 4 neat piles of organized materials to take up to the office/deal with. I feel much better. 

Today, though, I must tackle the clothes. *whines, stamps feet* I don't mind doing laundry. I don't even necessarily hate folding (I turn on the tv and do that while catching up on my stories), but putting away clothes is about as favorable as cleaning a toilet with a toothbrush to me. I know I will feel much better when its done and then the mess will be gone!