Where you been all my life?

I’ve been busy. Busy and tired. And my blog has suffered because of it.

So here’s my updates:

Went to Weight Watchers on Friday and was up 1 pound. I’ve been see-sawing over the last couple of weeks. Not sure why, but have a sneaking suspicion that I’m going to talk about later in the post. Saw my nutritionist today and shared my concerns with her. She is so helpful and really gets my predicament.

I started the new job. It is good, but like any new venture in life it’s a little stressful. Lots of names and faces to remember, lots of stupid questions to ask, and lots of web work to get done. Last week flew by.

Memorial Day weekend was fantastic. Saturday my friend Amy and I went to Soak and had awesome pedicures (and some tasty cocktails). I got my haircut on Saturday afternoon, nice and short in time for summer.

Sunday we took a drive up to Loyalton, CA, ran some errands and then went to Tropical Penguins Scuba so Travis could get some dive/snorkel gear. While we were there we signed up for our Scuba certification. It is something that we have been planning on doing for awhile and we want to get certified and dive a few times before our trip to St. Croix for the wedding. We should be diving in Tahoe by August and will keep you posted.

Monday we headed up to Chimney Beach so Travis could test out his new gear in the frigid Lake Tahoe waters. He even caught a few crawfish in the lake!

Travis and Paul wade into the water

Daisy taking a swim to catch her tennis ball.

Travis and the catch of the day

Yummy - Tahoe crawfish

Beautiful Tahoe day

So, in a nutshell, that was our weekend. I’ll try and keep updating more frequently, but between the new job and a sneaking suspicion that my thyroid is out of whack again, I just don’t have a whole lot of energy at the end of the day.I’m going to be making an appt. with my doc sooner than later because the fatigue is back and I’ve been pretty stagnant with the weight loss over the last few weeks.

The hard thing about having Hashimotos is I never know if my thyroid is really acting wacky or if I’m maintaining such a busy schedule that my body and mind call uncle and demand that I sleep. What I’ve learned over these last few years is that I have to be aggressive with my treatment. If I suspect that my body is off then it probably is.

Here’s to a four day work week!

Engagement Encounter & Marriage as a Sacrament

Catholic Engaged Encounter - a surprisingly enlightening weekend

We finished the Engagement Encounter this afternoon and I have to say that, much to my surprise, I found it really valuable. Topics covered included how to fight fair, forgiveness, sexual intimacy, family planning, values, planning and setting goals for our marriage, and creating our betrothal pledge.

Travis and I had already spoken about a lot of these topics, and there weren’t any major surprises, but I really enjoyed having dedicated time for us to explore these topics with no interruption. We were forced to be really focused, which was exhausting, but in the end very worthwhile.

I think we both took a lot of things away from the encounter, but for me the biggest thing I took away was a new found respect for marriage. I’ve been struggling with the question why do people get married?

Of course, I love Travis and want to spend my life with him. I want to have children with him and for legality reasons I figured getting married made that easier and less complicated. I certainly don’t have the pressures that my mother or grandmother faced when it came to marriage. I know I can support myself financially. Romantic right?

I hadn’t thought a lot about the way that God played into our relationship until this weekend. Suddenly, our relationship and our future marriage have a lot more significance.

Before I met Travis I had been single for quite awhile with no serious boyfriends or prospects. So it got to the point where I prayed one really simple prayer, “God please bring me one good man. Just one.”

I hadn’t thought about this in a long time, but the prayer was answered, and not just with a good man, but a great man.

Let me back up and explain for a second why we are having a Catholic wedding or at least why we thought we were having a Catholic wedding.

Religion has always been a part of my life and I’m what is called a Cradle Catholic. I spent my childhood in CCD classes and Sundays at church. Throughout my life religion has played a role in significant ways – when my mom had cancer I relied on my faith and prayer, when I faced my own health issues I prayed and prayed that things would get better, when my heart was broken I prayed and found solace in knowing that there was purpose behind my pain, when I have a tough decision to make I pray for guidance.

I haven’t always been devout or perfect. There have been times when I don’t feel particularly connected to God.

When we got engaged I found myself at a crossroads. Having a non-secular wedding would certainly be easier, but my gut said that having a traditional wedding was important to me.

Here is how I rationalized it:

• Tradition – My family has practiced this religion for generations.
• Travis didn’t have a preference.
• I knew that I wanted to have a ceremony that was meaningful.

After spending the weekend talking about marriage I realized what makes a Catholic marriage different from a normal civil service. In the Catholic religion marriage is seen as a Sacrament. This means that in the church, marriage is the same honor as becoming a priest or nun. It is seen as a calling and has a purpose.

The calling begins when two people fall in love. I truly believe that when Travis and I met we were brought together by a force greater than cupid.com. When a couple make the choice to marry, they choose to have that calling recognized, cemented and celebrated by their community of family, friends and church.

Then it is the couple’s responsibility to share their love with that community and to be role models for a strong marriage. Not to go too JC on you, but it is our responsibilty to demonstrate God’s love through our relationship.

This purpose makes it that much more sacred and special to me. I had never thought of the marriage as greater than Travis and I. I had imagined us having a family together, but never that our marriage would matter to anyone else.

I hope this is making sense? I feel a lot of emotion about this topic and hope that I’m not boring you with all of these thoughts. This was what Oprah would call an A-Ha! moment.

Anyway, more to come about the encounter, but I would highly recommend it to anyone who is considering having a Catholic wedding. And if you aren’t Catholic, but you feel that tug in your heart that is telling you that your wedding ceremony should be sacred than I would encourage you to seek out a similiar program of your own faith.

Love is a powerful thing and it’s our responsibility to show that love to the world.

Engagement Encounter – Day One

We started the Engaged Encounter last night and it went from 6:30 to about 10 p.m.

The format goes something like this:

Couple who has been married for awhile shares their experience on a specific topic.

Priest chimes in with his thoughts on the topic.

We break out individually and write about the topic for 20 minutes.

Then we get back with our mate (the priest’s words, not mine) and discuss the topic together for 20 minutes.

Last night’s topics were called Encounter with Me and Encounter with We. It required a lot of reflection about our families, our self image, and how we perceive romance and disillusionment. It was deep stuff!

We dove right into the deep end and some of it was really hard. It really requires thinking about our relationship in a different way and then trying to communicate how we are feeling.

I have to say that I enjoyed last night, even if I shed a few tears at one point. The couple that was presenting said that they’ve been involved with the Engaged Encounter for 13 years and believe it is one of the few times that a couple can completely focus on their marriage.

Today is the longest day of the weekend. We start at 8 a.m. and end around 10 p.m. The fact that I am up at 5 a.m. is worrying me a little bit, but I’m pretty sure that is what they make coffee for.

Anyway, if I have time I will post about what today brings. The topics are across the board and we should have some interesting conversation.

In ‘n Out Burger Diet

Down 1.8! I tricked the diet gods yesterday by having In and Out burger, pizza and cocktails. I laugh in your face Weight Loss Gods. Ok, not quite. I’m more or less eternally greatful for any loss that I get even if I don’t quite feel worthy of it this week.

This brings the total weight loss to 6.8 lbs. Watch out 10 lb. goal I’m about to kick your *ss.

I’ll confess right off the bat that I did not want to go to the meeting this morning. The last two weeks have been intense and I was feeling really wiped out last night.  And I was sure that the scale was going to be up because I indulged like crazy last night.

To my surprise I was down and I it was really the motivation that I needed. Next week my plan is to get back to the basics – 5 or more servings of fruits and veggies and at least 8 glasses of water a day. I’m starting the new job on Monday and know that the first week is going to be intense. The Windspire is going to be featured on Extreme Home Makeover on Sunday – check it out on ABC at 7/6c.

We’re attending the Catholic Engaged Encounter this weekend, which should make for an intense weekend as well.  We start tonight at 6:30 and won’t be done until 3 p.m. on Sunday. I will most definitely post about this experience. My friends who have attended have given me some clues as to how the weekend will go, but I think the experience is different for every couple.

Off to finish up my last day at Renown!

Engagement Photo Inspiration

In the one second of spare time I had today I decided to take a gander for engagement photo inspiration. Here are my findings:

The essence of Madmen – This couple did an editorial Madmen-esque shoot. The photos are done by Meg Perotti. I love the style of these. I think there should be more smiling (you’re in love right?), but I love their clothes and the photos.

Funky (in a good way) – I love these by Jennifer Causey because they are fun,creative and use the city scape well.

Jessamyn Harris did these. I think they are so  fun and stylish. Also they have real emotion, which I love so much more than smiling for the camera.

I can’t wait to get our engagement photos done! We don’t have any professional photography of the two of us. I already have an IKEA project planned for the photos. Yeah!