I used to be one of those people that was adamantly opposed to the notion of Valentines Day. Truth be told, I have no idea why. Probably because, for the longest time, I never really thought for myself and hating Valentines Day was somewhat of a trendy thing to do. Again, I have no idea why. I always wore black, head to toe, and I perpetually bitched and moaned about this “ridiculously over-commercialized holiday” (which it may well be, but I don’t think that’s my point).

The truth, I think, is that I hated the day only when I had no one to celebrate it with. The only real joy I got out of the day was a) seeing the flowers my mom got from my day and b) getting those chalky candy hearts from my parents (yes, I love those candies!).

But I suppose, now that I have someone (permanently), I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE Valentines Day! I love the ostentatious displays of flowers that Todd gets me, I love going out to dinner and being all doe-eyed at each other, I love giving and getting gifts for each other and I love, more than anything, being continually and madly in love with this one man.

It kind of drives me nuts that, when I get these gorgeous bouquets at work, some people just roll their eyes or make gagging noises (which didn’t happen this year, but certainly has in the past). Maybe it’s selfish of me, but I refuse to let someone else’s misery dictate how I react toward Valentine’s Day anymore.

I’m happy and we’re in love.

‘Tis the time of year that love is (apparently) in the air.

Valentines Day is upon us and I’ve nearly forgotten because I’ve had no time to “decorate” the house for the holiday…I have dish towels and candy bowls and stuff that I usually set out, but this year, it went by the way-side.

I’m pretty excited about Valentines Day this year, to be honest. I won’t wear black, as is my usual attire. Todd and I have some fun things planned and part of the day includes the pups, which will be way more fun than I think we could possibly imagine. Those two are just weird and fun.

Todd and I have already exchanged gifts…he got me a big bamboo plant that I’ve been wanting for my office (and decorated the bowl it came in with Disney princess stickers!) and I got him a gift certificate for indoor skydiving since *actual* skydiving is on his resolutions list for 2009. We exchanged the other night after I came home from the movies with Meg and found a giant bamboo plant awaiting me on the kitchen counter…yay!

I gotta say, though, that I am incredibly lucky to have Todd.

And so I leave you with this:

♥ What are your middle names?

Todd David and Micah Dielle

♥ How long have you been together?

Together? Since July 2005. Married? Since October 2007

♥ How long did you know each other before you started dating?

About a week, I guess

♥ Who asked who out?

Nothing was ever “official” but Todd initiated everything (which is out of character for him)

♥ How old are each of you?

28

♥ Whose siblings do/did you see the most?

Hmmm….probably Todd’s sisters since my sister is in Seattle and my brother is in Japan (for now) and Todd’s brothers are way far away too

♥ Do you have any children together?

Nope, not yet. Eventually, but nothing in the works for quite some time (so please don’t ask)

♥ What about pets?

Leo and Suki!!!

♥ Did you go to the same school?

HAHAHA! Not a chance

♥ Are you from the same home town?

See above

♥ Who is the smartest?

We’re both very smart about different things

♥ Who is the most sensitive?

Me. Without a doubt. Just ask Todd how he felt about pets before we got them

♥ Where do you eat out most as a couple?

anywhere that’s not a chain. We haven’t been anywhere more than two times in probably 3 years. We try to eat somewhere different every single week for date night…it’s one of our favorite things to do together.

♥ Who has the worst temper?

We’re both pretty volatile when we’re tested. I wouldn’t push us.

♥ Who does the cooking?

Todd, probably. He enjoys it more than I do. I do all the baking ’round these parts, but I can make a mean stew. I don’t suck in the kitchen, but because Todd likes it more, he gets to cook more often

♥ Who is more social?

Me. Todd can be, but generally prefers alone time

♥ Who is the neat-freak?

Both of us are, but Todd is more active about it. I don’t really have the time to be as neat and tidy as I’d like to be

♥ Who is the more stubborn?

TODD TODD TODD. He is very hard-headed when he makes his mind up.

♥ Who hogs the bed?

Ummm….me. The covers are always on my side in the morning.

♥ Who wakes up earlier?

Todd. I don’t get it. Sleep is awesome! He’ll get up around 5am every single day, including weekends. I believe he would actually go without sleep if he had the option and it wouldn’t kill him.

♥ Where was your first date?

The Sandy Station in Sandy, UT. Very classy.

♥ Who has the bigger family?

Todd…two brothers and two sisters, countless neices/nephews and ever more aunts/uncles.

♥ How do you spend the holidays?

We split custody between Denver family and Utah family

♥ How long did it take to get serious?

Whenever our evening date in the park happened…I think it was September 2005

♥ Who does the laundry?

Both of us, but Todd probably does it more than I do.

♥ Who’s better with the computer?

Todd, by default. It’s what his degree is in. I hate computers with the fire of a thousand suns…and yet, people at work STILL ask me about them. I’m not sure why.

So one of Todd’s “resolutions” this year was to go to a real science fiction / fantasy convention and he happened upon one that was held this past weekend in Colorado Springs.

It was definitely more sci-fi than fantasy but one of Todd’s favorite authors was there – George R.R. Martin. One of Todd’s friends informed him that Martin is one of very few authors that directly resembles his fan base. I wasn’t sure what that meant until I saw both the attendees and Martin himself on Saturday morning. Martin is a spry older man with plenty of years of experience under his belt, both in literature and film and he was incredibly interesting to listen to (even if the interviewer reminded me of a Will Ferrel SNL sketch). But yes, George R.R. Martin looks like the majority of his fans:

At any rate, the weekend was interesting and fun for both of us. We enjoyed getting out of town for a bit, the drive there and back was beautiful, we ate amazing food for lunch and dinner on Saturday and definitely took advantage of the indoor (very warm) pool at the hotel. We also had some pretty lively discussion regarding horror movies with the bar tender at the hotel.

All in all, a good weekend.
Next month, we’ll be doing something on my list of “resolutions” which is to see a Broadway show. Exciting!

On this day in 1849, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman in US history officially recognized as a physician.

Madeline Albright was sworn in as Secretary of State on this day in 1997, becoming the highest ranking female official in US history. She is succeeded by Condoleeza Rice and Hillary Clinton. Isn’t it kind of amazing that the last three, yes THREE, presidents have chosen women for this prestigous position?

Sasha and Malia, we’re so excited to see what you do!

Women are pretty fantastic creatures.

I’m feeling lighter today. Literally and figuratively.

The Britney Mission is in full-swing, Jillian Michaels is making attempts to kill me and I’m finding myself eating more and more vegetarian meals as the days pass.

I blew through the last barrier and am well on my way to breaking through the next one. I feel good in my clothes and that makes me happy. I have this one pair of pants that I keep around for just such occasions as this. I’ve only worn these slacks maybe half a dozen times and every so often, I’ll pull them on just to see what the current prognosis is. They still don’t fit, but part of that is because of the J-Lo booty I’m carrying around (and don’t intend to get rid of…hahaha!)…

Emotionally, school is a refreshing change for me. Five weeks off from learning, while relaxing, can also be somewhat draining. Two history classes this semester and that’s incredibly exciting for me…I can’t wait to learn and learn and learn! Upper division courses are a welcome challenge…last semester was painful with all my freshman level courses. I’m ready for a big challenge and I think that I’m up for it.

Todd brought me flowers last night and they’re cheery and perfect. My personal favorite is roses, but as those are quite pricy, when he gets me flowers on a whim, he typically gets these other little fluttery things that look like tiny lilies (I cannot remember their official name right now) that are just…happy flowers.

Plus, I have a lovely picture of cherry blossoms in Kyoto on my computer desktop and that’s just making me giddy…for Spring, of course, but mostly for visiting Japan in just under nine weeks…yikes! I can’t wait to ride a bike through orchards and take my own pictures of the blossoms…and I’ll be sure to take the fricking date stamp off of the camera this time haha!

So I got this new daily desk calendar the other day…I love calendar sales! Anyway, January 2 asked several questions, most of which are worth answering, so I thought I would.

What makes me feel alive?
Easy. Learning and traveling. I started classes again yesterday and only have one that’s actually on-campus. My professor is engaging and INCREDIBLY smart and I’m so excited about what I’m going to learn in this class. My other two classes are online and I’m equally as excited about what the next 15 weeks are going to hold. And if you know me but at all, you know that I live for traveling. I want to see everything, experience every culture, eat food from everywhere and basically just try to understand all that I can about the rest of the world. THAT is what makes me feel alive.

What makes me thrive?
Sleep, for one. I require more of it than I get, but what little I do get helps me through the days, weeks, even hours. Reading makes me thrive. It spurs my desire for knowledge and makes me want to become better. Being with people and then being alone equally are important. I require extensive amounts of time from both situations and have to be careful to do each in the appropriate manner. I’ve struggled with complicating my schedule for as long as I can remember and having Todd in my life has forced me to slow down and say “no”…and know that it’s okay to do that.

What makes my mouth water?
Eggs benedict, smothered burritos (breakfast or otherwise), tofu & curry and most importantly, PIZZA. Honestly, I just love to eat. I love the try new things (as long as there’s not mushrooms in it). Portion distortion is a big issue for me and I have to try VERY hard to not eat 4 slices of pizza. But, as someone once said to me, nothing tastes as good as thin feels….and that helps. But dammit I still love food! Date night is always exciting for me because Todd and I usually wind up somewhere we’ve never been and get to try something fabulous…that, and enjoying dinner with Todd is just a really good time.

What do I really want from my life?
Simplicity, joy and peace. I want to own less stuff, to start. I have so much random crap and the clutter in my home tends to clutter my brain. I don’t like that. Joy and Peace, I think, are hard to come by, but working hard to get them isn’t a worthless venture. There are so many other components to all three of those things, but when I boil it all down, those are really the things I want out of life.

This morning. That’s mine.

I feel terrible. Awful. Probably even ashamed.

I don’t even know what I did. But this I do know. I can trust people less. And I should be trusted less.

I don’t know what happened. What I do know is that I was betrayed and I betrayed. Not intentionally. Apparently it isn’t wise to seek out both sides of the story. Apparently giving two sides the same opportunity isn’t the best way to handle these situations. I thought it was. I thought it was fair, it was right. Obviously not.

I am sorry that I hurt someone…someone who is very dear to me and whom I love. I am incensed that I was betrayed, but in my quest to not further the damage, I intend to be done with that portion of the issue. It’s not worth it to me.

But how does one undo something she’s done without meaning to? I don’t think it CAN be undone, really. But can it be bounced back from? Probably with time. How much, I wonder?

I don’t like that I was put in the middle. It caused me, inadvertently, to do more damage and for that, I am sorry.

I am not a good person today.

So the “barrier” and I have come to a crossroads.

Only one of us can win.

I have decided it’s going to be me.

For nearly three weeks, I have been on my “Get Fit In Time for Brit” plan and, for whatever reason, keep plateauing at a particular level.

I am getting angry. I am getting frustrated. I am getting even.

I will not take this lying down. I will not give up. I will not lose the battle to the Barrier.

And so I enlist the help of one Jillian Michaels…via DVD.

I have 14 weeks to get where I need to be in time for Britney.

Yes, in 14 weeks, me and four of my friends will be descending upon Las Vegas for the Britney Spears concert. And the only way I’m allowing myself to go is to lose all the post-honeymoon/post-holiday weight. It has stuck around for far too long and my complacency has only encouraged this madness.

But in 6 days, I also begin classes again. This poses a bit of a threat against The Plan and provides yet another “in” for The Barrier, but with the help of DVDs and my own personal brand of ass-kicking, The Barrier can kindly suck it.

Can’t hold me down now! I am on a mission and ain’t nothing stopping me now…

I’m going to try my hand at writing about weddings and planning and all that good nonsense that I love. I always say that I’m going to do it and just never have…so I guess that now is as good a time as any to start.

I’ve been working weddings for about 6 years now and have picked up a couple of bits of really good information since then and figured I should share the wealth.

Weddings are hard enough to plan on your own…why bother with all the research when you can have someone else (me) do it for you? After having worked my own wedding, I have found that it can be the most enjoyable and most stressful time of your life (thus far) all at the same time. I have countless examples of this just from my own experiences….hundreds, if I add up all the weddings that I’ve worked or consulted on since I started doing this.

So here are some of the most important things that I’ve learned:

1. This is YOUR wedding. Not your mother’s, not your mother-in-laws, not anyone else’s but yours. That means, what you say, goes. The only time I’d really deviate from this thought process is when some/any/all parents are involved financially with the wedding. Then they get to have some say, but really very little. My parents, who paid for my reception, are vegetarian (well, my mom is…my dad is by-proxy) so when I showed her the menu which was 100% carnivorous, she was none too happy. But let’s be fair…with as much money as she was willing to plunk down for a party, it’s only natural that she would want to be able to eat something. Which leads me to my next point.

2. Be ready to compromise. I’ve found that it’s relatively easy to appease all parties involved. It’s not like I hate all things vegetarian…we swapped out about half of my non-vegetarian choices for 100% vegetarian and it worked out great…I honestly don’t know why I hadn’t considered these things previously! Compromise comes in various forms so while mine was found in food, yours might be in your first dance song or the flowers or even the colors…work together. Avoid fights and tears wherever possible.

3. Fit the party to the building. Retrospectively, this is something that I should have taken into greater consideration. We wanted to get married in the mountains, in a church and fortunately were able to do that, but we had to use a church quite different than the one we intitally wanted (a gorgeous historic church that only sat about 100 people). Our guest list was about 250 people long and in hind sight, that was probably too many. We could have pared that down substantially and fit it into the historic church. Think carefully about who you’re inviting to your wedding and consider where YOU want to be married…does the building fit your guest list?

4. Think carefully about your guest list. Ah….lovely segue! If you’re having a difficult time paring down your guest list and it’s absolutely necessary that you do so, consider inviting only those people who are either very close family and friends whom you BOTH know. Your dad’s boss’ kid? How well do you really know him?

5. Finally, let yourself be surprised! Know that not everything will go as planned. Something will go wrong or at the very least, not the way you envisioned it. That’s okay! But with that, you will have spent so much time planning and organizing and purchasing and booking that you’ll know exactly what’s going to happen and when. If you’re like me and like the occasional surprise, find something about your wedding that you want to be surprised with. For me, that was the flowers. I told my incredible florist what flowers I wanted and in what colors and beyond that, I told her “Surprise me.” I’d seen enough of her portfolio to know that anything she’d come up with would be amazing and when I saw all the bouquets on the day of the wedding, I could not have possibly been more pleased. Additionally, I charged my then-fiance with taking complete financial and creative control of any one thing he wanted…he chose the guestbook and it wound up being perfectly “us”. So let go of some of the madness and let yourself be surprised.

Until next time, potential brides, happy planning!

So I recently had a conversation, albeit brief, with a friend about “stuff” that was going on with me. The conversation moved quickly to religion and faith. She’s not necessarily a religious person, but I’ve found that sometimes those are the best people to bounce my thoughts and feelings off of.

I feel like I’ve been in a bit of transition with faith and religion lately. Yeah, those two are really quite exclusive to me. I still have my faith and while it’s not waning, I’ve been fairly lackluster and lazy with it lately.

Mostly, religion is starting to piss me off. Not all religion, but the organization is starting to wear on me.

I’ve been incredibly hurt by the church I grew up in and continue to be so any time that I go back. There are several examples that I don’t feel necessary to share (if you know, fine. If not, it’s not pertinent), but I feel very vulnerable toward “the church” right now. Todd and I are trying to find a place where we both feel comfortable and that’s proving challenging. Todd gets the most out of words, while I get the most out of music. We’ve found one church where we get both, but for one quite large reason, we’re hesitant to go there. Mostly I’m hesitant.

Interestingly, we find ourselves going back and back to “my” church (which should probably be referred to as “my parents church” now) more often than we mean to. Mostly because I keep getting sucked in through music. It’s like some weird form of punishment for me (har har). No really, it’s rather masochistic of me. I can’t really pull myself away from the music, but when I’m involved, I feel like I’m doing it for all the wrong reasons and I wind up just getting annoyed or irritated (at many things, including myself).

Honestly, so many of my friends have walked away from organized religion and I never thought that I’d be that person. I feel some unending pull toward being a part of a church and yet I’m scared of getting involved again because of how damaging the last few years have been for me. And at the same time, I know I need to be pro-active in my own search for truth but I struggle to do that as well. Probably because I’m lazy. Probably because I’m so busy with school that I simply don’t have the time.

I don’t know what the remedy is, if anything. Time? Desire? I really don’t know. I want to be involved again. I’m just a little scared of doing it. I simply can’t seem to let go of how I was hurt the last time I became a “center stage” player at a church.