Catching up

It's been so long since I've blogged. Part of the issue is that every time I sit down to do so I'm overwhelmed by everything that's happened in the last couple months that I haven't kept track of for you. So we're going to do a quick recap and move on:

1. My back is doing much better. I clocked 3.5 miles (my record so far since last August) on Friday night. I was a little wrecked this weekend from pushing more than I should have, but considering two Aleve last night was all it took for the whole weekend to clear up I'm feeling like that's progress. It's my goal to do a 10k in July.

2. I'm losing bridesmaids like flies...not losing per say, but my sister has had hip surgery, my dear dear friend Siobhan suffered an injury that she's in the process of recovering from, and my lovely friend Heather is so swamped and overwhelmed with moving and her new job (thanks to her militarily inclined hubby) that we're not sure if she can even come to the wedding! That leaves me two...but the two still standing are rock solid and have been such a huge huge help with getting me through those stresses in addition to everything else in my life that involves WEDDING stuff.

3. Alterations on the dress, fittings, shoe crises, etc. Done.

4. Trying to maintain my weight! You don't pay that much money to have the damn thing altered only to lose/gain lots of weight! We're redistributing right now...my scale hasn't budged in weeks (except on the occasional bloated day) but the girls at work say I keep looking skinnier...gotta love getting back into shape.

5. I was in shape you say? Sure, before six months of non-workouts made my skin loose and my muscles melt away. Now we're entering my eighth week of being brutalized (sorta) by my wonderful wonderful trainer (who works closely with my physical therapist!) and I have biceps. I've never had biceps before! Quads, definitely, calves, sure, glutes, absolutely. But we're talking to a girl who shuns arm workouts because they make her bored! Nothing like paying someone to make you do something to make you do something :) Last week I leg pressed 170 lbs. 30 times. Don't even get me started on what she makes me do for my arms.

6. Bridal shower been and gone, wonderful, beautiful, fun. So wonderful to see the lovely women in my life come celebrate with me! So much fun...especially being the bride! I have the bestest ever godmother and other-mother. They are so good to me!

7. Planning for bachelorette in full swing...ten days until we go! So excited.

8. I'm sure there's more but I can't think of anything. SO. That's it, quick recap.

More next time!

Ciao,
kc

Running Again

I'm not going to talk about shoes this time. Though I found them (thank God) and am sleeping again until the next crisis hits.

Well, not wedding shoes anyways.

I don't know that I've ever truly considered myself a runner. But when I sit and think about it, the days I'm antsy, like this morning when I was driving to the gym and going over the bridge that spans the Deschutes River and seeing the winter sunlight sparkle like it wanted to be 80 degrees outside, lighting the dirt paths and limning the trees and water with unreal light...all I wanted to do was hit the road, feet running, lungs breaking, with that big, fat, I'm-going-to-die-and-it-feels-so-good grin on my face that I get when my lungs first suck in that breath of 27 degree air and I don't care because the sun is so beautiful and the trail is under my shoes and it just feels right...

All I think about is running when I'm antsy.

Running isn't about looking good (like I say) or eating what I want (which I do) or losing weight or anything it's just about running.

The creak of my knees as they top an impossible hill, the scream of my quads as the pull me through the mileage, the ache of my lungs as they strain for yet another breath of unreachable air...

It's brutal, it's masochistic...

It's meditative, it's calming...

I want to move.

I want to look behind me at the road and know that I conquered it.

I want to walk with the lightness in my step that only comes from knowing that my heart gave me six miles or more in the morning and is going to do it again tomorrow.

I'm not fast, I'm not hardcore, and I never believed I was a runner. I never believed that it was a word that truly defined me.

Unfortunately, these things have a tendency to sneak up on you.

So this morning when the only thing I wanted to do was run my heart out, and the only thing I was allowed to do was two little miles for thirty short minutes alternating walking and running on a safe, flat treadmill...I was still glad. I am still elated. Because my body won't let me down if I don't let it down.

And this fact snuck up on me and smacked me in the face:

I'm a runner.

The Great Shoe Crisis

Weddings are stressful. Did anyone know that? When we first started planning the wedding, someone told us, "Weddings take as much time to plan as you have." Which is ultimately true. If you have two months, you cram it in within those two months and if things are forgotten, whatever. If you have fifteen months (like us) it takes fifteen months.

With my two back can't-work-must-be-horizontal incidents, I got a lot of planning done. A LOT of planning done.

Caterer booked, location booked, DJ booked, photographer booked (twice...don't even get me started on flaky photographers), you know...everything that seemed...well, important.

I got the dress (very critical), started registering, designed the invites and the save the dates.

All in all, I felt very confident in where we were in the planning. Like it was hurry up and wait time.

However, as we're approaching the 6 month mark, little things start encroaching on the peaceful "I'm all planned, I have nothing left to do but sit around and wait until the big day." Like, where is the wedding party going to stay? Who is going to pick up the groomsmen's outfits suits? What kind of signs do I want?

Holy crap.

At least I am pretty solid on the big details. And the things I absolutely, 100% do. not. want. Like a unity candle. Or a unity sandbox. Or anything with the word unity that just serves to make my ceremony arduous for those who have to sit in 80 degree heat and watch us do it while I roast in 30 lbs. of raw silk.

Speaking of raw silk, I got to put my dress on the other day. I had my first fitting. Small crisis developed there...

Not with the dress, it's still gorgeous and I neverevereverevereverever want to take it off and I almost cried when I had to leave it with the seamstress.

A shoe crisis.

Because I went a little itty bit over budget on my dress, I was going to be a responsible girl and wear these gorgeous shoes that I had already paid a good deal of money (for me) for. I knew they were comfortable and I thought they would be fine. These beautiful wedges...

Small problem, they don't match. Granted, no one will see them really, but they just...don't. The nude is just this side of the wrong shade and those lovely gems aren't as silver as they look in the picture. They're really more of a pewter. Which would be fine, except the detailing on my dress is decidedly silver.

So they day before my fitting, I ran around Bend to the very limited shoe selection to try and find shoes that would be (a) remotely comfortable and (b) match. We thought we had one pair, but while wearing them for the fifteen minutes the semi-bossy, very chatty Russian seamstress was fitting me in my dress, my feet fell asleep. So no good.

After the same semi-bossy, very chatty Russian seamstress (who is apparently the very best in town and the only one you should trust with your very expensive wedding dress), vainly tried convincing me into platform flip flops for my wedding (oh hell no...), and kept telling me that I should try to find shoes that would avoid having to hem the 6 layers of my dress (only $200 right there), the hunt was on.

I'd been eyeing these almost from day one of the bridesmaid shoe-hunt and so I purchased them from Zappos.com. (Free overnight shipping and free returns!)

Small problem here: I put them on, and not only were they exceedingly tall, but my feet started aching the second I put them on. No go. Sigh.

Next runner up were these pretty shoes...

Lovely, pointy and elegant. Unfortunately, I'm looking for a shoe I can wear most of the night, and while one hour in them was not the end of the world, some pinching was starting to happen about then.

Now, oddly, Tyler really wants me to avoid wedges. I don't think he realizes what's involved with walking on grass/taking photos in a forest with heels. Granted, I'm doing that to my bridesmaids, but I'm expecting that they'll take off their shoes shortly after the ceremony. I would like shoes that I don't have to try to remove when my feet start hurting. I would like to be able to wear them for 80 - 90 % of the day. Because it's damned hard to get around 30 lbs. of dress, especially to take shoes off.

These are coming in the mail in two colors, a nude and this blue. Blue isn't in my color scheme, but these are actually a quite lovely shade of greyish, earthy blue in real life...maybe my something blue! We'll see how they go...if not, free returns!

In the end, I may just end up with shoes that don't match the dress, which ultimately is all right since I won't end up seeing my feet that day anyways, but it's fun to try. I'll let you know what the verdict is.

Ciao,
kc

Looking Back

I can't believe it's almost been a month since my last post. I am so sorry. A lot has happened in that 30 days!

1. The holidays:

The holidays were a blur. Mostly because when you cram 7 people, two dogs and a cat into one small home, things get blurry. Partly because you're mentally blocking out the whirlwind of mess, stuff, and food that explodes out of every available nook and cranny onto every available surface and party because that many creatures in one home is quite overwhelming!

Christmas was wonderful though, having all of my family with me was so wonderful.  I do not say this enough: I love my family.

From left to right: Scott (sister's boyfriend), Laurel (sister), Aunt Betsy, Dad, Mom, Me, Tyler (mine!)

2. Reinjury:

Another factor to why the holidays were a blur is that on Christmas Eve, I slipped and fell in the parking lot at work, and in twisting to rescue my brain from the corner of the curb, my back went "pop"! Resetting all of my wonderful healing progress back to negative square one. Huzzah!

It sucks. I am so. Done. With. This.

I attempted to work that Thursday after Christmas, hoping the two and a half days of crowded "rest" I got were enough.

They weren't.

I've been out on leave ever since. The only good news is that I still don't need surgery. The bad news is I get to start all over again in that stupid healing process and dealing with MetLife and worker's comp and all that fun stuff. Ugh.

The only thing worse than the pain is dealing with the corporate bureaucracy that is medical coverage and leave. SUCK is what it is. Oh well, at least I know what I'm doing this time around (sort of). And my doctor told me I was the first person she's seen in a while that actually wanted to go back to work. Maybe something to do with the fact that I just did this and it sucks and its boring and I hate it and it hurts and I never want to deal with this again...

3. Wedding rings:

We bought our wedding rings! So fun. So exciting. I can't wait to marry this man of mine. He's pretty stinkin' wonderful.

4. Resolutions:

To be honest, my only resolution this year is that I'm going to run a half marathon. Period. End of story. I'm tired of being injured, I'm tired of hurting. I miss running. I miss it so so much. So, I'm going to do everything in my power to heal and get back on the road in my running shoes.

BUT, I did have a nice reflection over the success of my resolutions last year.

Let me remind you:

1. Bake more/cook more.

2. Blog more.

3. Exercise and Get In Shape.

Now, as for the first one, I did do that in fits and spurts. But it happened. Not as much as it should have, but it did.

Number two was also quite successful. In 2012, I did a whopping 102 blog posts, compared to 2011's 62! Even with the new addition to our family and my injury, I managed to churn out 40 more blog posts than the previous year. Hopefully I can keep that up, though it's already not looking great :)

The third resolution I made last year was by far the most successful. Now, here's where we get down and dirty and talk about WEIGHT. If you don't like the subject, I'd recommend you stop reading right now.

The thing you must know about me is that I have never been bashful about admitting my weight. I might not be happy about it, I might not like it, but I will openly admit it. Because no one is perfect, and everyone is different, so just because a certain weight suits my body, doesn't mean it suits yours. Please, keep that in mind. That's my disclaimer.

In January 2012, I weighed in at 153 lbs. I cried. I climbed into my swimsuit for my family vacation to Mexico and cried. Now, I will be honest: I was not fat by many people's standards.  I was definitely rounder than I would have liked, and unhappy with the way I looked, and definitely stretching it on the "healthy weight" chart for my height. But again, weight is an individual struggle. I cannot stress enough that every body and every person is different, and no one should judge themselves by me or anyone else, simply by themselves.

Regardless, 153 was the most I've weighed, even in my most "fat" moments, I had never been quite that. I did some research, and set some reasonable goals. Healthy weight loss means 1 lb. per week, because healthy weight loss is also about maintenance. If you crash diet, you'll gain it right back.

I also set reasonable expectations for myself. I was honest with how much I would work out and realistic about probable re-gain after I stopped "dieting."

My goal was 20 lbs in 5 months. A little less than a pound a week.

I'm not going to lie. It was really really hard. I am 100% a food-oriented person. I am a stress eater, I am a boredom eater. I like food. Luckily, I like healthy food. I mean, I love me my sugar, but I really really like broccoli. And apples. And bean and cheese burritos. And salad with just lettuce and Bernstien's Restaurant Italian dressing.

I used an app called MyFitnessPal which works on my phone and my iPad and my computer, so I never had an excuse for not recording what I ate. And often, I'd record it before it even went in my mouth. It was eye opening.

I would reason with myself, "I can have this bag of M&M's now, or after dinner, I can have my half cup of Chocolate Mint Chip ice cream." And it worked. Prioritizing what I actually wanted to eat worked really well. Also, eating slowly. Putting my fork down after each bite, and cutting things (like apples) into small pieces to force myself to consume them less quickly. Did you know that it takes 30 minutes for your stomach to tell your brain that you're full? And that the average recommended portion size is half of what we usually serve ourselves?

Try it. Weigh your food. You'll be hungry for the first couple days, and then you become acclimated to actual portion sizes, and you'll be satisfied. I'm not as neurotic about it as that sounds, but I discovered that I could still consume enough nutritional calories to stay healthy without overeating. And that was the biggest struggle, not recording my food, not watching the calorie intake, but putting my fork down when I was satisfied.

I still ate what I wanted. I drank beer, ate ice cream, had cookies. I did start drinking less juice, because I noticed that 150 calories is quite a lot of satisfying food and in many juices, there's 150 calories in an 8 oz. glass. That's 2.5 apples. Frankly, I'd rather eat the 2.5 apples and feel full than drink the 8 oz. glass of juice and still be hungry.

The other thing that worked for me was that the app would calculate exercise as negative calories, which means that if you run more you can eat more.  There were a couple evenings that I ran an extra mile so we could go have Chinese food, or so I could have my 150 calorie glass of wine.

Anyways. I succeeded. At my lowest weight, I was 132.5 lbs., though I didn't hit that til late June (6 months). I have bounced back up a little bit, and am at 138, but I expected that — I factored that in. I've been maintaining at that weight and I'm satisfied with it. Is it the thinnest I've ever been? No, most certainly not. Am I honestly, 100% happy with my body each and every day? No. But that wasn't my expectation.

I am proud of my accomplishment, I learned new things about eating habits that have for the most part, stuck with me. Do I still overeat at times? Yes, old habits die hard. But I got to watch my body go through a noticeable transformation. Did everyone notice? No. My family didn't notice when they saw me at the end of May, but more people did than I expected.

Tyler didn't notice either, but then, he lives with me and by default he pretty much thinks I'm the most beautiful woman in the world.

Most importantly though, I noticed. When I went to the gym, I saw it in my butt and in my shoulders. I saw it in my face and in the way my watch fit on my wrist. I saw it in the way my workout clothes fit me and in the way my pants went from snug to comfortable to baggy.

I'm done talking about weight and food and such now. I can't guarantee that I won't talk about it again, but for now I'm done. It's a sensitive subject, and if any offense came from this, I promise you, none was intended. I simply wanted to share my journey and my personal success and my personal pride.

Hopefully your resolutions were successful in 2012, but even if they weren't, the good news it's a new year and you can try again!

Ciao,
kc

Revelation

I had a revelation the other morning. My thought-train was taking me to the comment that I usually say deprecatingly about how my sister is the doctor and I'm the poor starving artist. Now, my mother always taught us never to sell ourselves short, and while it's a derisive statement, because I think my sister is super super brainy and I think of myself as less so because she's so brilliant, I do however consider myself (rather modestly, I might add) to be a fantastic artist.

Granted, this enthusiasm in my own talent is only buoyed by my fiance thinking I'm the greatest thing since sliced bread and my family equally catering to my skills. Though we all know they're biased, as the community of graphic designers in Bend keep refusing to hire me. Thus, the statement I make above which is usually in response to the query by someone of what my degree is in and why I'm selling cellphones.

Basically, in my heart of hearts I'm not sure that I'm as awesome as I think I am.

But that's besides the point.

So, to recap briefly since we were sidetracked (see? this is what happens when we're following the thought train, please try to keep up): my sister is amazing, wonderful and freakishly genius, and I'm fantastically, artistically talented.

My revelation was that the two are not mutually exclusive.

I'm not sure why we do this, but I know everyone does...we get stuck in the rut of thinking of ourselves as solely "this" and definitively not "that." Which is entirely untrue.

My sister, for one thing, is decently skilled at photography (whereas I'm not so good). And that's art. Me, on the other hand, am a true, self-proclaimed-in-the-best-braggiest-way-possible nerd. I get proud of myself when I am at my geekiest of setting up the wireless printer on the first try. I am the one in our little family (of two fuzzies and Tyler and myself) who plugs everything in and knows what goes where in order to make the whole technological jumble work just so.

I mean, Tyler thought the Wii was broken one day because I had been watching a DVD and in order to switch between the two there's a button you have to push on a box in the armoire and he didn't know that. He just assumed the Wii was broken.

Which, in all honesty, is a valid assumption when the thing doesn't work the way he thought it was supposed to.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that even though my beautiful, wonderful sister is absolutely genius, she's also an artist. And while I think of myself as a struggling artist rather than delightfully brainy, I'm also a pretty smart cookie.

I'm not sure if that means as much to you as it does to me, but I just wanted to share it and see if it takes your thought train somewhere positive too.

Ciao,
kc

It's Snowing!

This morning, I was brought out of bed by the sound of my handsome fiance dancing and singing...

"It's snowing, it's snowing, it's s-s-s-s-snowing!"

Me: "Hey honey, is it snowing?"

Silence for a minute in the other room.

Him: "Sorta..."

Be prepared for a white Christmas in Bend!

Ciao,
kc

Birthday Cupcakes

I didn't fill you in on the wonderful cupcakes that I made for my birthday!

I made Pumpkin Spice Latte cupcakes, thanks to Pinterest, and Chocolate cupcakes with Peppermint Buttercream frosting. Delicious!

Pumpkin Spice Latte Cupcakes
For the cupcakes:
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
3 tbsp. espresso powder
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp. grated nutmeg
1/8 tsp. ground cloves
1 tsp. salt
1 (15 oz.) can pumpkin puree
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup buttermilk
4 large eggs
½ cup coffee or espresso, for brushing

For the frosting:
2¼ cups heavy cream, chilled
¼ cup confectioners’ sugar
For garnish:
Ground cinnamon
Caramel sauce

Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line cupcake pans with paper liners. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, espresso powder, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt. Stir together and set aside. To the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachement, add the pumpkin, granulated sugar, brown sugar, buttermilk and oil. Mix to combine. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. With the mixture on low speed, add the flour mixture in two additions, mixing just until incorporated.

Fill the cupcake liners 2/3 of the way full. Bake for 18-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean. Transfer the pans to a wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes, then remove the cupcakes from the pans. While the cupcakes are still warm, brush them two or three times with the coffee or espresso, allowing the first coat to soak in before repeating. Let cool completely.
For the frosting, place the heavy cream in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Whip on medium-low speed at first, gradually increasing to high speed. Blend in the confectioners’ sugar gradually. Whip until stiff peaks form, being careful not to over-beat. Use a pastry bag fitted with a decorative tip to frost the cooled cupcakes. Sprinkle with ground cinnamon and drizzle with caramel sauce. Store in an airtight container and refrigerate.

Enjoy! These are perfect for the season...

Love,
kc