Happily Ever Regrouping

Life has definitely been a bit chaotic in the last month between the wedding, honeymoon, and subsequent reintegration into the real world. While I can't say I'll have all my thank you cards out by the one month mark, most of them will be done so I'm going to take that as a victory. May 11 was our perfect day, everything went off without a hitch and turned out beautifully. After all the agonizing about the little details and irrational worries, I can now sit back and be perfectly content with the wedding we had. If I had to give one regret it would be that due to the rain in the beginning of the afternoon we had to do our first look pictures inside the church instead of in the courtyard near the fountain. Luckily it cleared up in time do some some outdoor pictures after the ceremony so I'm looking forward to seeing those. Our photographer, Kristin at KLP Photography takes the most gorgeous natural light shots so I really wanted to get those when possible. I do wish we could have gotten more outside, especially some of the family pictures, but such is life. That said, I'm still tempted to put on our wedding clothes again and do another shoot with her sometime but I'm not sure if the pictures would really have the same meaning. Here are a few pictures from our sneak peek (naturally all photos via KLP Photography)

First look!

Walking down the aisle

Trolley on the way to the reception

Unfortunately I don't really have any pictures from the honeymoon at this time since we completely forgot to bring the camera. We did snap a few pictures with Eric's phone but both of us haven't bothered to upload them anywhere. We spent a week in Montego Bay, Jamaica at Sandals Royal Caribbean and it was amazing. The resort was a little smaller than I expected but I was pretty happy with the food and drink selection. We really wanted to get an adults only all-inclusive since we're not very active vacationers and just wanted to take it easy for our honeymoon. We did do a dolphin encounter at Dolphin Cove which was amazing, especially since while we waited for our timeslot we could explore the rest of the park which had several animal encounters and other activities like kayaking. We love stingrays so Stingray Bay where you could hold a stingray and then snorkel with them was a big favorite. Back at Sandals we did a couples spa package in a cabana by the ocean which was extremely decadent and relaxing. I'm starting to see the appeal of spas now.

Coming back to Omaha after a week in a tropical paradise was definitely a jarring change. While I missed our pets dearly, real world is not nearly as much fun as being a beach bum. As it stands, our house still looks like a wedding exploded in it. Thanks of the generosity of our friends and family, we received many wonderful gifts which we are now realizing we didn't plan space for. Everything will find a home but I think I'm going to have to reorganize the entire kitchen to do it. We've been enjoying playing with some of our new appliances this week but still haven't figured out where to put them. I thought we had a lot of counterspace until I actually started unpacking things. Our back room is probably going to look like a Bed, Bath, and Beyond for awhile while we get everything reshuffled.

Menu Planning - The Beginning

After a busy weekend of wedding planning I find myself back in Nebraska with an empty fridge and no meal plan for the week. In retrospect, I probably should have done this before I left so I didn't have to scramble today to get something together for dinner. Now that the bar is over and I have a lot more time on my hands, my current goal is to overhaul our diet to try and make it fresher and more balanced. Right now I'm only doing a full plan for dinners since breakfast and lunch tends to be a fend for yourself type occasion. I will probably start making myself a rotating list of lunch possibilities once I get a better feel for the dinner plan.

I have been writing up the week's dinners and grocery list for the past three years but now it's time to take it to the next level by starting to cut out convenience foods and adding in more vegetable sides. We have definitely had some difficulty in making sure that each meal has some sort of vegetable since I usually only plan the entrée which at times will be pretty much devoid of vegetation. I expect to be eating a lot of salads in the next couple weeks while I adapt to preparing actual side dishes with my meals. Frozen vegetables are also good options so that will be a matter of figuring out the best way to jazz them up a little. There's nothing wrong with a bowl of plain frozen veggies but it's easier to eat them consistently if they have have more flavor. I feel like fresh vegetables are easier to prepare plain since they tend to have a much better flavor than their steam-in-bag counterparts.

As far as recipes, I rely pretty heavily on the "Cook this, Not That" Books and Southern Living's 1001 Ways to Cook Southern. I do use some internet recipes when the mood takes me but there's just something about flipping through cookbooks that I enjoy. As I start cooking new and more involved dishes I imagine I'll start branching out more.

Without further ado, the current dinner list:

Hoisin Beef Kabob (salad)

Tacos (salad)

Burgers (fries and chili lime grilled corn)

Shrimp and Grits (salad)

Garlic and Herb Stuffed Chicken (garlic cream asparagus)

Shrimp and Pasta w/ Creole Cream Sauce (salad)

Coke has how many carbs?

I think the most frustrating part of a diet and exercise plan is the lack of instant gratification. I officially started doing this late last summer but moving/finals/holidays almost completely disrupted our exercise routine for the rest of 2012. The only progress on my measurements has been the 2" off the waist before everything got temporarily suspended. I suppose I should be grateful I didn't put it back on in that time but it's still frustrating. Sometimes I think I look pretty good but if I look from the right angle all I can see is my lack of progress. The worst part is knowing this lack of progress is completely my doing.

They say it takes 21 days to form a habit which in my opinion might need some readjusting. My current plan is to do three days of weightlifting and three days of cardio on the elliptical while keeping my carbohydrate consumption under 100g per day. This level of exercise/dieting should be a sustainable level for me. My last real attempt at dieting involving tracking everything I ate but weighing everything, calculating the calories in each ingredient, and logging it was just far more effort than I could hope to keep up with everyday. However, it was very enlightening to see how I ate for a couple weeks. My overall calorie intake is actually pretty reasonable but carbs are my main offender. Soda is one vice I'm not willing to completely give up which is unfortunate since I seem to be intolerant to all artificial sweeteners. Right now I allot myself one soda a day which eats up a little over a third of my daily carb allowance.

I am really hoping to see some more progress now that I am being stricter with my exercise. My diet could also use a bit more work. Most days I am meeting my carb targets but some days, like today when I cook something like quesadillas, I overshoot it significantly. I am also trying to add in more fruits and vegetables which will require further adjusting to compensate for these new additions. In a sense, getting married has provided the motivation I needed to really take a look at my habits and be completely honest with myself. In the past I have made a lot of excuses like "Oh, well I don't eat sweet things so I can't be doing that bad" or "I just have a muffin top because the rise is too low" (which is half true, my days of super low rise are over most likely) and that is how 30 pounds steadily added themselves to my frame while I justified my inaction.

I do hope that even if I haven't see the results in the measuring tape yet that there still are changes happening. Increasing my weights has been slow with the break and I'm still not lifting a lot but I think I'm getting stronger. I hope that by my next fitting in March the dress will have to be taken in even more at the waist. I hope that I can train myself to drink at least one glass of water a day (I really hate water and it does have a taste - previous attempts at using a filter have failed to entice me to drink more). Finally, I hope that I can start marginally enjoying exercise. For now we will start with 21 days of keeping the exercise rotation and go from there.

It's Bacon!

Today we learned a valuable lesson about recipes that involve a bacon lattice - don't. About a month or so ago I saw a picture of a bacon wrapped turkey and just knew I had to make it. One turkey and a pack and a half of bacon later we had this masterpiece:

All bacon, all the time

I apologize for the low quality of the picture since I used my phone. Once again I forgot to take that plastic thing off the legs. One of these days I will actually remember to a) buy twine, b) take off the plastic, and c) tie the legs like I'm supposed to.

Overall this was a fairly simple recipe. I sliced some of the bacon and put it under the skin over the breast, salt and pepper with onions and celery in the cavity, and then wove a bacon lattice over the skin. Because a bacon wrapped turkey wasn't decadent enough, I served it with mashed potatoes and stuffing topped with gravy which was of course made using the bacon fat laden drippings. One bonus of the lattice was that I didn't need to baste the turkey since the rendering fat did it for me. I put it in the oven for about 3.5 hours at 350 degrees.

The turkey itself was moist and the bacon flavor apparent. However, at the end of it all I think a regular brined turkey is a better choice. This was quite decadent and we ended up paying for it with a feeling of unpleasant, greasy fullness not long after finishing. I think Eric might actually be afraid to tackle these leftovers despite his general enthusiasm for turkey. It was a good you have to try this once dish but too much. It might have worked better with lighter vegetable sides but I don't think I will be making it again.  

Long Term Planning and You

aka the type of self help book I should have probably invested in a couple months ago.

As of Friday afternoon I will be officially done with law school which is simultaneously liberating and terrifying. I'll still have the February bar to darken my days and haunt my nights but it's still the end of an era. Like most of the aspects of adulthood, I sort of assumed things would just fall into place by now but instead things took a left turn into what can only be described as a swirling vortex of uncertainty, optimism, terror, and pure unadulterated panic. The original vision had me plugging along at an established firm but life and health forced me to reevaluate that plan. Eric is currently building his own practice and while it's not completely off the ground yet it's slowly becoming a viable business. Right now he's working out of the house primarily which I love but sadly I think those days are numbered as the hunt for the right office space continues. However, it would be great if things worked out so he could split space with some other attorneys and maybe share the cost of support staff so I suppose I can't complain about it. It does leave some questions as to where I'll fit in but we'll figure that out when the time comes. I might just end up being less "front facing" and take over the home office mostly.

Going into business for yourself is scary. I could never imagine myself going without the security of a salary but in a saturated legal market sometimes you just have to make your own job. It's entirely possible that one or both of us will end up in a firm after we get a little practical experience but I have high hopes that our little firm will make it. There's certainly the potential for a good income if some possibilities pan out to keep the overhead levels down. On the flip side, there's also the potential for catastrophic failure. I'm still contemplating the possibility of a side job but I'm not sure what kind yet.

Probably the best benefit we're seeing so far though is the chance to really explore what you want to do. It's easy in law school to say "Oh, estate planning is totally my jam" but it's another to sit in front of a box of documents and play untangle the mess. We've heard from so many lawyers that you just have to find your niche and with that stories of people who worked for decades before finding that one thing. As a solo/micro firm we have the ability to dabble and the initial need to take everything and anything we feel reasonably competent to take on. It will probably be awhile before either of us finds our niche but it's reassuring to know I'm not going to be stuck working on whatever someone else tells me too or inadvertently signing up with a firm that would never take a case in my yet to be discovered niche.

Even more than my nascent career path though, I worry about my personal self. Law school has been the most challenging experience of my life and I feel like I lost some of myself in the process. I need to rediscover my hobbies and find out where I fit in here in Omaha. I got a lot more into video games but that's not exactly particularly social and productive. I'm exciting to get back into homebrewing but I'm more the creative director than the brewer. I'm hoping when I'm less stressed I can finally enjoy my sewing machine and makeup again. Free time finds me at a loss these days. I need a social life and I've completely forgotten how to make small talk with anyone outside of law school. I'll be spending the next couple months brainstorming ways to get out there and become a more well rounded person. This kind of stuff should really come with a manual.

Crane, Crane, Go Away

Eric and I met while on a study abroad program in Nagoya, Japan so it seemed appropriate to try an incorporate that into our wedding. Origami cranes were a perfect way to bring a touch of Japan to our decor and the meaning attached to folding 1000 cranes was perfect for the occasion. There is a Japanese legend that your wish will be granted if you fold 1000 cranes. With this in mind, I bought origami paper in three shades of purple, silver foil, white, and white with various patterns to match our overall color scheme so everything would look tied together. In my mind I had visions of cranes hanging from the ceiling, cranes dangling from luxurious manzanita centerpieces, giant vases of cranes, crane escort cards, etc...if you could put cranes on it then I thought it. It was going to be an easy way to add a diy element to a wedding planned from a distance and cut my florist bill by reducing the amount of flowers needed for the reception decor. I had a plan and it was good.

At least it was a good plan for about the first 50 cranes. Now I'm about 500 cranes in and I'm pretty sure I'm going to start trying to make origami cranes out the blankets in my sleep. There's also some self inflicted pressure in trying to finish them before we go to Knoxville for Christmas so they'll be available for the florist/wedding planner if necessary. Couple this with the fact that it's finals for the next two weeks and I'm about ready to kill past me for thinking this was such a clever idea. Of course at this point I'm in too deep to quit.

I know that one way or another it'll get done even if it means just bringing what I have at Christmas and hoping no one needs the rest before I come back for the wedding. I'm really trying to remind myself to take a step back and remember that it isn't really that important. No matter what things are going to get done and it'll be awesome because it's something that we made to symbolize the beginning of our relationship and our wishes for the future. That being said, I'm definitely going to think long and hard before adding anymore diy projects besides the ringbearer pillow (which I also need to put together still). Maybe if I'm lucky I'll finish these ahead of schedule and finally get back to the stocking I've been trying to make for the last year and a half. Turns out I'm a way slower cross-stitcher than I thought.

Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels...

said no one with a deep fryer ever. Since I haven't updated this in a small eternity, some quick background may be in order. Eric and I got engaged this past July with the wedding set for May 2013. One less fun offshoot of this has been the need to seriously buckle down on my diet and exercise to try and undo the havoc law school has wrought on my body. I don't want to say how many pounds I'm up since the end of undergrad but it's a number I previously said would look absolutely ridiculous on me. To be fair, I don't look half as bad as I expected to since I went from a quasi-pear/rectangle to a quasi-hourglass/rectangle (depends on how much of a spread you want between the waist and hip/bust measurements).

Wedding dress shopping was definitely a humbling experiences. I expected to be a higher size than usual since the designers I liked ran true to size but having the size 10 sample fit almost perfectly was a bit of a shock. I want to blame it on my chest but waist was still on the 8/10 line. I've added about 3-4" inches on all my measurements since the last time I cosplayed so it was past time to pull my head out of the sand. At the beginning of the summer I was at the 120-125 mark which is a perfectly normal weight for a 5'4" woman but looks a bit puffy on my frame. My engagement ring is a 3.5 if that's any indication of what level of tiny bird bones we're dealing with. At this point I have a goal "spread" of 105-115 lbs instead of a specific weight because it's going to depend on how the weight comes off and how I feel. I'm never getting back to undergrad size (and I would like to keep some curves) so it's whatever point I look like I'm not smuggling a small tire around my midsection.

The high hip area is the bane of my existence. It's like it can't commit to being pear or apple shaped so the fat split the difference leaving me with a fairly defined waist, a lower stomach pooch, indented hips, and a permanent muffin top. Low rise jeans are not my friend anymore and I'm starting to think mid-rise might not be enough. I might have to learn to love the higher rises.

So what am I doing about this? Trying to cut carbs for starters. I tend to do pretty well in terms of raw calories but carbs are a great weakness. Between my love of fried food and soda it's been an uphill battle. Throw in the fact I can't seem to tolerate any artificial sweeteners except for stevia and you have the perfect storm for dietary failure. Cooking is a double edged sword, while I can eat a lot healthier by preparing my own meals, I can also cook all my favorite carb bombs. There have been some small improvements at least with reducing my soda intake and snacking. I might never survive on a keto or paleo style diet but I can try to limit myself to a 100g of carbs.

For exercise we've been lifting weights for the past couple months. We do rotation of 2 days of arms and 1 day of legs with back and shoulder mixed in. I wish I could say I was getting some nice muscle definition but my arms look exactly the same. They do jiggle less when I them but it's still a little disappointing. I'm hoping by the time the wedding rolls around they'll look more defined. Right now I'd really love an elliptical to add in some cardio. I've tried my best with a treadmill but even after working for months I just can't get past a fast walk without knee pain. Walmart seems to have some relatively inexpensive ones so it's on our list if we come into a little extra cash.

I'm not really sure what my current weight is since I don't have a functioning scale for various reasons. I do know that I still can't get into my old pants but my waist is down about 2" from the high point so I'll take it. It would be nice to see 25-26" again for that measurement and I hope I can get there. At this point all I want is for my permanent muffin top to go away but naturally that seems to be the stubborn spot. Maybe using this blog again will help keep me more accountable.