Kicking and Screaming My Way to the Chuppah
Like most brides-to-be, I want to look my absolute best on my wedding day. I have the fabulous dress, sparkling jewelry, a great hair and makeup artist, and when the time comes I’m sure I’ll be manicured, buffed, and waxed to perfection. But, alas, there is one area that requires a bit more effort than just making an appointment with a local salon: my physique.
As of January 1st, I was in possibly the worst shape of my life. I hadn’t worked out in a steady basis in over a year and ate whatever I wanted. Probably the only thing that’s saved me from being 300 pounds is that I live in an urban environment that requires a lot of walking. When the holidays ended I realized I had less than 4 months until the wedding and it was time to get my act together work-out wise.
And so I began Operation Wedding (appropriately called “OW” for short). I put myself on a diet on January 4th and have been following it diligently, with the exception of the menu tasting at my venue (of course I had to make sure all the food we’d be serving is good for our guests’ sake). Boy, I sure do miss French fries and pizza though.
I’ve never been a big fan of working out and have yet to steadily go to a gym for more than a few months, so I decided to try different things to see what sticks. The first thing I tried out is the Jillian Michaels’ 30 Day Shred DVD. I had heard on the wedding boards that the workout will kick your butt, and boy does it! Even though its only 20 minutes long, I could barely get through the workout the first couple times I did it. It’s a little easier now but still great exercise.
A friend of mine got a group together to try out a Hoboken Bootcamp class so I decided to check it out. I thought I’d be okay since at that point I’d been “Shredding” for a couple weeks, but boy did I feel that workout. I was sore for days afterwards. I highly recommend this class if you live in Hoboken; unless, of course, you actually enjoy walking and moving your arms without pain.
- Yep, I look just like this. Kinda sorta.
I’ve always heard good things about Club KO, the kickboxing gym, so I decided to see what they have to offer. After attending an information session I signed up for a 10 week program there that incorporates kickboxing classes, personal training and a diet plan. Fortunately the diet plan is similar to what I’d already been doing, so that’s not a problem.
I have taken a few kickboxing classes now and I really like them, even though I usually want to murder the instructor while they’re happening. The personal training sessions have basically entailed a young guy forcing me to do crazy things like pull-ups, much as I try to convince him that my body was not designed to do that. My arms were sore for 6 days after the first session. I plan to still continue the other things I’ve been doing for variety but it will be good to have a more structured plan.
The good news is, this all seems to be working. I have lost a few pounds, but my focus has mostly been on toning. My clothes are fitting looser, and I can’t stop touching my newly firm abdomen. And all of a sudden I’m noticing these strange contours in my upper arms. I think they are commonly referred to as muscles, but I’m not sure because I’ve never seen them on me before. Suddenly I’m not cringing at the thought of wearing a strapless dress in front of everyone I know.
(P.S. – those who follow the future Mr. Loco’s blog will get a kick out of the fact that he is 5 feet away from me right now writing an entry that is pretty much the polar opposite of this one)
2009: Three Cats, Two Homes and One Proposal
I guess if I had thought about it, I would have predicted the zillion “year in review” Facebook applications that are popping up about now. While some of these are a bit much, I do have to admit that they’ve got me thinking about all of the ups and downs of the past year.
At this time last year, my then boyfriend had recently been laid off from his job, with few prospects; my mom had just been let go from her job of over 20 years without so much as a dime of severance pay; and a close family member had just been diagnosed with a serious, life-threatening illness. Suffice it to say, these were not the best of times. Everyone around me was pretty much miserable, the economy was in the crapper and there was talk of a next Great Depression. I remember when the year ended, thinking “good riddance… don’t let the door hit you on the way out…”.
So here we are, at the end of 2009, and what a year it’s been for me. Early on, it was much like the end of 2008 – dealing with loved ones’ illness and unemployment. But at some point, things started to turn around.
My boyfriend got a part time job, and then another part time job, and although earning much less than before his layoff, he had fulfilling work and was able to pay the rent. We decided to live together, so in June I moved into his apartment, inheriting two additional cats (for a total of THREE cats… oy) and enough Yankees memorabilia to make the folks in Cooperstown jealous. While people always talk about what an adjustment it is when a couple moves in together, we are one of those freaky couples who never argue and agree on things easily, and we quickly fell into a routine. The extent of our adjustment was this:
Me: “I hate scooping out the litter box”
Him: “That doesn’t really bother me, I’m used to it”
Me: “Okay, so how about if you do that in the mornings, and I’ll make the bed?”
Him:”Cool”
Of course for me the pinnacle of 2009 was in early August when my boyfriend sat on a step at the end of Newport’s Cliffwalk and asked me to, ahem, make it official (yes, I still give him crap for that). After a few minutes I figured out that he was actually proposing and not asking me to join a cult, and the euphoria that followed is something everyone should experience a few times in their life. The last 5 months of the year were pretty heavily focused on planning the wedding, which I’ve really enjoyed.
If you ask my mom she’ll tell you something different, but she’s getting by okay too despite her layoff. She seems to still manage to scrape together money to buy People Magazine each week anyway. She’s really excited for my wedding which has kept her – well, if not cheerful – certainly as close as Mama LoCo gets to experiencing that emotion.
And most importantly, after a tough road of surgery and treatments, the ill family member is healthy, in remission and thriving. My number one wish for 2010 is that this person stays this way.
So, what will 2010 bring? In April, of course, there’s this little party we’re having with 125 of our nearest and dearest, followed by a two week dream honeymoon in Hawaii. In June, we’ve got my nephew’s Bar Mitzvah; at some point I need to dedicate a blog entry to this kid, he’s pretty awesome. And it looks like there will be another wedding to celebrate later in the year with the recent engagement of Hat Girl, one of my bridesmaids and closest friends (yay!). With so many of our friends getting married, I’m expecting that there may be a few new babies in our life over the next year. Who knows, we may even make a little LoCo of our own in 2010. It’s amazing what a year can bring.
Four Months ‘Til I’m Totally LoCo
This whole “engaged to be married” thing is going so fast. It’s hard to believe that on Christmas Day my wedding will be just 4 months away!
At the moment I’m finding myself in “calm before storm” mode with the wedding planning. The first few months after that perfect day in Newport, I spent a lot of time running around North Jersey to meet with potential vendors. Now that the selected rabbi, photographer, videographer, DJ and florist are all in receipt of my hard earned deposit money, I’m finding myself with… really, not that much left to do. The big things are taken care of, and now it’s a matter of fine-tuning the details.
It is amazing to me the myriad of options available for every single wedding related decision that needs to be made. For example, for a Jewish wedding you need to buy a Ketubah (Jewish wedding contract). Who would have thought that there are 1,000s of styles of Ketubahs available? Fortunately, Future Mr. LoCo and I have found one with a style and wording we both really like.
I just spent some time online looking for my perfect veil, now that I have finally decided what style I want. When I selected my dress at Kleinfeld, they put this beautiful veil on me that matched the dress perfectly. And then I saw the price tag. $550 for a piece of tulle that I’m going to wear for 20 minutes? Uh, no thanks. I’m discovering lots of good online sources for veils that are much less expensive than what you find in bridal salons.
And then there’s figuring out exactly what our guests are going to be eating on the big day. One of the things I’ve been most looking forward to in this whole process is our cake tasting, which happens in a couple weeks. Our cake is included in our contract with our venue, which gets the cakes from my hometown bakery – Carlo’s in Hoboken. If that sounds familiar, that’s probably because it’s the bakery from the TV show Cake Boss. I’m really hoping we’ll get to meet Buddy during the tasting. (As an aside, between getting my dress from “Say Yes to the Dress” Kleinfeld and the cake coming from Carlo’s, I keep joking with my fiancé that we just have to have 8 kids and shrink ourselves to “little people” size to have all the TLC shows covered)
I still have some small things to take care of, like ordering our yarmulkes, scheduling our tasting at the venue to select the menu, and of course preparing and mailing the invitations; but for the most part, there’s not too much that has to be done right at this moment. I do expect another flurry of activity as we get to within a month or so of the wedding, but until then I can relax a little. Although, I have to admit I am really enjoying the planning. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with myself when this is all over!
Mile High
Last Saturday I found myself in the Business Class cabin of a 737 as it made its way from Madrid back to New Jersey. For other people this may be a remarkable occurrence, but for me it was the sixth time this year that I filled out a blue and white form, got my passport stamped, and had some quality time with the customs agents in Newark Airport’s B Terminal.
My job responsibilities at the Mega Corporation that employs me are global in scope, which means that several times a year I travel abroad for projects or meetings. Back in college I majored in marketing and international management, so I essentially have the job I dreamed about back then. I always pictured jet setting around the world, shopping in Paris, having tapas in Spain and a beer under the stars in Amsterdam. And, yes, I have had the opportunity to do many of those things, and many people have told me how fortunate I am to be able to see much of Europe on the company’s dime.
Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is not quite so glamorous. For one, between my schedule while I’m there and the time difference, I consider it a success if I get four hours of sleep a night. When I am awake, most of my time is spent in an office building or on a plane. My eating patterns get all out of whack to the point where I usually can barely button the jeans I brought to wear on the plane ride home (admittedly, the aforementioned tapas and beer may have something to do with that). Then there are fun incidents like the time I got food poisoning in Rome, or when the future Mr. Loco called to tell me about a serious family emergency, and because of the timing of the flights it took me a day and a half to get home. I was in Barcelona when the Phillies won the World Series in 2008, listening to the audio stream of the radio broadcast over the Web in the middle of the night (RIP, Harry Kalas). I’ve missed birthday celebrations, Springsteen concerts, and (worst of all) episodes of Say Yes to the Dress while overseas.
Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy my job and considering the employment issues so many people have had of late, I am thrilled to have it. I have had a lot of fantastic experiences while in Europe, from walking along the Seine at twilight, enjoying fresh gnocchi in Rome, and hanging out in the Red Light district in Amsterdam (okay, just in case my boss is reading this – I’m kidding on the last one). The fact that almost our entire honeymoon is being paid for with my airline and hotel points is certainly an added bonus. I just want to point out to everyone who has said how lucky I am for having the opportunity to travel to Europe that it’s not all crème brulee and vina roija.
Meanwhile, this all may not matter soon. The Mega Corporation I work for recently merged with another Mega Corporation to form Super Mega Corporation, which means there is a possibility that my job tasks will be changing in 2010. Stay tuned….
Introducing My Past to My Future
As you can tell from my previous entries, a lot of my time lately has been spent planning for the future –the wedding, honeymoon, and all the good stuff that follows. But one of the weirdest things about getting married is that you spend every spare second with someone who you’ve only known for a few years. You feel like this person knows you inside and out, but really, they have no idea what the first 20 to 30 plus years of your life were like except for what you tell them.
This all came to a head for me last weekend when I traveled down the Jersey Turnpike to the PA Turnpike, got off on Route 1 and headed into the past. My hunt for the perfect wedding invitations brought me to the area where I grew up for the first time in years; specifically, the homey neighborhood of Northeast Philly where I lived until the age of 11, and the nearby suburb that was my home all through middle school and high school.
I have to admit that my “formative” years were not my best. While others view their childhood and adolescent years as idyllic, mine were far from it for various reasons that I don’t feel like getting into. Suffice it to say that each decade of my life has been better than the last. Yeah, sure can’t wait to turn 40! (heh, not really)
As I showed my husband-to-be my elementary school, the cul-de-sac where I played kick ball, my high school , the suburban house with the in-ground pool… it was, well, weird. I was able to maneuver each turn without aid of a GPS but it was like visiting a movie set of someone else’s life.
Since the time when I left that area for college I’ve lived in three major cities; gone from making $6.50 an hour at a mall CVS to… well, a little more at a large corporation; met some amazing people; and most importantly, finally figured out the best way to blow dry my naturally frizzy hair. I’m truly not the same person I was back then, and I think taking this excursion was a good reminder of that.
Of course, in typical future Mr. Loco fashion, my fiancé was most excited about the hoagie shop where we got lunch. Not that I can blame him – I do miss those cheesesteaks and hoagies!
An Age Old Tale
When I was younger, I always assumed that I would be married with a couple kids by this age. It’s funny how life works out sometimes. At the age of 28, I decided to move to New York. This was something I’d wanted to do from the time I graduated college but for various reasons it took a little while to get there. I was finishing up my MBA program, I was single, and I wasn’t too happy at my job in Philly, so it was the perfect time to make a move. One of my close friends who was planning to move up to the NYC area at the same time told me about Hoboken, and from the first time I stepped foot in the town I loved it.
Now, here’s one of the major differences in lifestyle between Philly and New York: in Philly, by the age of 30, most people are married or close to it. In New York, at the age of 30, people are on match.com, going out every night, and hopping from relationship to relationship. By my unscientific observation, many people here don’t start to seriously think about marriage until they are a few years into their thirties.
So, flash back to me at 28. I assumed I would settle into Hoboken and my new job, make some new friends, meet a nice Jewish boy, and live happily ever after. Well, Hoboken and the new job were okay, but the making of the friends was tougher than I thought. So I focused a lot of my energy on the pursuit of the nice Jewish boy. I turned to the modern day “Yenta”, aka Jdate.com. I met some nice guys. Some I even dated for a month or two. Some of the guys I was “eh” about and some I kinda liked. But I discovered quickly that many people here don’t seem to take relationships very seriously. The thing with Internet dating sites is, when you log in and there are 300 people who meet your search criteria; how do you possibly decide on just one? It’s kind of like shopping for a wedding gown, actually.
Fortunately, at the age of 34 I started dating that really nice guy from my beach house and, well, you all know how that worked out. My mid-twenties self would have been horrified at the prospect of getting married at the age of 36, but looking back on it, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. And what’s making it more fun is that several of our mid to late 30s friends are getting married around the same time. That’s New York for you…
Getting the Show on the Road
When I got engaged in the beginning of August, it was such an exciting time. Relishing in the love I share with my fiance, sharing the good news with friends and family – life doesn’t get any better. And then the wedding planning started.
Before getting engaged, we had always talked about having a spring wedding. Winter and summer were out due to weather issues. As for fall, we knew it would most likely be a Sunday wedding since we’re Jewish and, well, anyone who’s ever met the future Mr. LoCo understands that us having a Sunday wedding during football season = good chance of me getting stood up at the altar.
So, spring it was. And early-ish spring at that, since we didn’t want the wedding to be close to my nephew’s early June Bar Mitzvah. Waiting until 2011 wasn’t an option since, as I pointed out to my fiance repeatedly before he proposed, we had to get moving if we hoped to produce a couple little LoCos.
While I was delighted that we were able to secure a late April 2010 date at our dream venue, the amount of work involved in planning a wedding in 8 months seemed insurmountable at first. When I started checking out a message board that catered to brides getting married in April 2010 I started to get a little freaked. The girls there were talking about their invitations and hairstyles. Invitations? I didn’t even have a friggin dress yet!
Fortunately, I’m a very organized person who manages projects for a living. So, I tackled this the same way I handle a work project. I put together a spreadsheet with a line item budget – boy do I wish I kept this first draft, I could use a good laugh. Thinking of what needed to be done, I developed a timeline that involved me booking a vendor every couple weeks. With the help of my dear friend the internet and oogles of unsolicited advice from anyone I’ve ever met, I set off on planning my dream wedding.
On a side note, I have to give my mother credit. It took her all of four days of me being engaged before she started to give me a hard time about wedding stuff (issue #1 of 762: disagreement with my life long dream of having purple as my primary wedding color).
The Day I Started Going LoCo
Originally written as a Facebook note on 8/4/2009:
Saturday August 1st was a perfect day. Even though it had been raining most of the summer, Dave and I woke up in our B&B in Newport to find the sun shining and barely a cloud in the sky. After breakfast, we set out for Cliff Walk. For those who are unfamiliar with Cliff Walk, it is a 4 mile long walking/hiking trail that runs along the perimeter of Newport. The views are gorgeous – you are walking along a cliff with the Atlantic Ocean on one side of you, and the backs of many of Newport’s famous mansions on the other side of you. There are flowers all along the pathway, and it smells and looks phenomenal.
Although Cliff Walk is about 4 miles long and parts of it are very rocky, neither of us got too winded by the walk. Which is why I was surprised when, starting about two-thirds of the way through, Dave kept asking how much longer it would be until we got to the end. Once we did finally reach the end, Dave said he would like to sit down for a few minutes, “to stretch”. There were some steps there, and he sat down on them. I stood on the steps, leaning against a column, since I didn’t want my muscles to tighten (good thing too – I’m not sure what he would have done if I sat next to him!).
For a couple minutes we chatted about what we would do next. I was getting antsy to leave, so I asked him if he was ready to get going. He said he needed another minute. It turns out this is because there were people walking by, and he wanted to wait until we were alone. At one point he asked me a question (don’t remember what it was). Then, he said “I have another question for you”. All of a sudden he pulled something out of his pocket – a box from Anastasia’s, my favorite jewelry store in Hoboken. As I am shakily opening the box, he explains that he is giving me this as a placeholder ring, until he can get me a diamond ring, but that he is ready to (something to the effect of) “make it official”. I think I was confused or overwhelmed, but it took me a minute or two to fully understand what was going on… I said to him “is this what I think it is”? Finally I came to my senses and gave him a giant hug. All I could say was “okay”.
As a female, I have often daydreamed about the proposal moment, and what it would be like. But you never can imagine what it is like until you’re there. For example, in my proposal daydreams, I wasn’t wearing gym clothes, dripping in sweat, with my hair roughly the shape of a bowling bowl from the humidity. Plus, I didn’t expect that my IQ would drop to about 20 when the moment finally came – and stay there for several minutes afterwards. But it was perfect, and a moment that I will never ever forget.
We decided to wait until the next day before calling anyone so that we could have that day to ourselves. I am glad we did this, because it turned out to be one of the best days of my life. We finally left the “scene of the crime” (as I would later refer to it) in search of the trolley that was to take us back toward our hotel, since there was not a chance that we were going to walk the four miles back. I saw a trolley sitting on a corner idling and asked the driver if he was going to the wharf. It turns out that he was doing a private tour – but offered to drop us off on the way back. So, we ended up getting a free tour (minus a nice tip for the driver, of course)! Not that I remember anything that the driver said at that point (see IQ comment above).
We went down to the wharf area and had a nice lunch at a restaurant on the water. Then we took a 90 minute sailboat cruise around the harbor. After that it was back to the hotel to wash up and change before heading back out for a nice dinner. A couple weeks earlier I had made reservations at a highly rated restaurant on the harbor. Although the hostess had no idea that we got engaged that day, we were given what I would consider to be the best table in the 50+ table restaurant. It was up on a high deck overlooking the water, but in the corner for privacy. We watched a beautiful sunset and enjoyed delicious food and wine. Perfect!
The “moment” was fantastic, and I don’t think I have stopped smiling since. But, I have to say that the best part of all this is now – sharing the news with our friends and family and celebrating with them. Our families were overjoyed, and at least one family member (who shall remain nameless) cried when they heard the news. Our friends have been so excited for us (of course, knowing our friends, that’s probably because they know we will have an open bar at the reception). The support and love we have seen over the last few days has been overwhelming. I am choking up just writing about it.
I Have a Blog!
For years I have resisted. As those around me succumbed to the temptation, I alone held steadfast. Finally, the pressure got to me, and I couldn’t take it anymore…
So I started a blog.
I guess I shouldn’t be suprised that I’m here. I have always enjoyed writing and come from a pretty literary family. Heck, even my 12 year old nephew has a blog – although, he is one of the most entertaining people I know.
I expect the topics to evolve over time. My current life’s obsession is planning my upcoming April wedding (those of you who know my soon to be married name will get my blog name). So, I expect to be writing about such exciting topics as “How to choose the perfect shade of lavender for bouquets” and “Bridesmaid dresses: chiffon or satin?”. After that we’ll see how it goes!
