MakingMine

Hello out there!

Wow, I haven’t posted since Saturday. That feels like a million years ago. I’m enjoying my last week of ‘me time’ before classes start next Monday. I’m so excited to get started, but I keep reminding myself to take full advantage of the calm I’m lucky to have right now. 

Let’s see…. what has happened since we last talked?

J and I went to Bed Bath and Beyond to work on our registry on Sunday. Talk about overwhelming! It started off a little rocky because we had no idea what we were doing, but we eventually got help from a great sales associate who made sure we stayed on the right track. It ended up being REALLY fun! The dishes we picked out are g-o-r-g-e-o-u-s! J and I love entertaining, so I know these bad boys will get good use in the years to come!

My friend (and official sounding board for all things wedding) Becky told us that the registry is never really over. As showers get organized and save the dates land in mailboxes, the registry will need to be updated and reworked. With that in mind, J and I weren’t horribly concerned with making sure that it was 110% comprehensive. We’ve got 7 months to go, plenty of time! :)

I seriously don’t know what J and I would do without our friends who got married this past summer. They had a beautiful wedding and learning from Becky’s experiences have made our planning just that much easier! 

I also knocked a few additional items off my wedding ‘to do’ list:

• Reserved a salon for hair and make-up
• Negotiated hotel blocks for our guests
• Booked our pianist for the ceremony
• Placed the order for bridesmaids dresses
• Contacted the seamstress who will be altering my gown
• Found the perfect designer for our invites (really pumped about this one!)
• Finally (J had been bugging me for weeks) started to get addresses from friends :)
• Picked out our save the dates

Whew! I feel like we’ve finally gotten to the fun part of wedding planning. It’s the details that are going to make the day uniquely ours! So excited! :)

Wisconsin has decided to flex its winter muscles and dump another layer of snow on us today. I can’t complain - it’s beautiful to watch and I have zero commitments for the day! Hope all is well with you! Thanks for sticking through to the end!

Last night J and I Skyped with the priest who will be presiding over our wedding Mass, Fr. Alexander. We don’t know him particularly well and since we’re planning an Omaha wedding from Milwaukee, our opportunities to meet up with him in person are few and far between. 

It was an amazing experience. It was really fun to speak with him about our relationship, what marriage means to us, the areas we’re still working on, and the absolute joy we bring to each other’s lives. Verbalizing all these ideas makes me think objectively about how I really feel. Dresses, caterers, and invitations weren’t brought up even once. We focused on the heart of August 11, 2012 - getting married! I know this sounds straightforward, but it was really refreshing. I felt so much lighter after speaking with him. Like all the wedding *clutter* had been swept away. Just like the day we got engaged.

One thing that really stuck out was when he corrected me on a comment I made. I was telling him about my decision to go back to school and the financial and personal sacrifice that we would be making over the next two years. I said that I felt so lucky to have J’s support to follow my passion. I knew that it wouldn’t be the easiest thing for us, but that he had selflessly put my happiness first. Fr. Alexander stepped in and said that I wasn’t lucky, I was blessed. It’s so true. Having J support me isn’t luck at all. It’s a blessing to have someone so amazing as my partner in life.

I also think we’re really lucky blessed to have Fr. Alexander as our priest. He’s taken a personal interest in us and our relationship. We’re going to continue meeting with him virtually at least once a month until the wedding. What a great reminder about what’s truly important in life.

I’ve never been much of an athlete. Sweating doesn’t rank high on my list of favorite things. PE was the most stressful class of the day. But it’s time for that to change. With 279 days until our wedding (nobody’s counting), J and I are determined to look our very best and start our lives together as healthy, happy and TONED individuals.

Enter Insanity. Yep, I am embarking on my first ever workout regimen. To be honest, I had never even heard of the Insanity program before last week, but somehow J convinced me to jump on his bandwagon and give it a try.

The Basics:

Insanity is a 60 day high intensity, high cardio interval workout program. There are no weights, no resistance bands, no balance balls - just my own body. I’ll be devoted to 30-60 minute workouts 6 days a week. It’s the kid sister of P90X but might as well be Mt. Everest to me ;)

The Goals:

• Tone, tone, tone
• Establish upper body strength
• Increase cardio ability

Day 1:

Today J and I both completed the fit test. It consisted of doing 8 different moves for 1 minute each and tracking the number of reps as a baseline for the program. I’m not going to lie, I was tired after the warm up. My numbers weren’t terrible, but I think I ended up sacrificing form (yes I know, the biggest ‘no no’ of all) in favor of reps. That’s definitely an error that I’m going to have to be diligent about correcting.

We also took our ‘before’ photos and documented all of our vital measurements. Nothing says true love like measuring each other’s butts. I really hated this step, but I know that it will be important to see where we came from after the 60 days are up. Who knows, maybe I’ll be the next success story!

As cynical as I am about exercising, I am REALLY excited about this program. With support from J and a friendly competition brewing, I am confident that I will complete the 60 days with great results! I’ll be keeping you updated on the good, bad and ugly of my adventure with Insanity. You can track J’s progress here.