Meany.

I am going to get a little deep today – ever so slightly (hopefully without sounding like a douche).
I have been a complete bitch lately. I am stressed out, nervous, excited, anxious, annoyed – a combination of emotions that seem to make me mean. The worst part is I am mean to the people that are the nicest to me – my family. The one person I have reason to take my aggression out on does not get the grunt of it. Why is it that I am taking things out on the people who least deserve it? Maybe because they are easy targets and they have proven that they will love my unconditionally. Despite that fact, they don’t deserve it.

So I pledge today, that I will begin to treat the people I love and who love me, better – no matter what happened during my day. Wait… can I change that to now – 12:27 EDT, because I snapped at my Dad this morning… so I don’t want to start off on the wrong foot. This all means I need to let out my aggression through other outlets. Those outlets shall be:
- - Exercising: I know this is a standard and very uncreative outlet but I am working out 3-4 times a week anyway so it is an easy goal to stick too.
- - Cooking:I eat chicken most nights for dinner… let’s see how creative I can get.
- - Home Decorating: Gamer and I are in the middle of purchasing our first home… I need to pick out paint swatches!
- - Sex: Self explanatory.

BTW – Welcome to my new readers – I shall call them “TT” and “Hairball,” they make a very cute couple. I am so happy to hear that my sister and her boyfriend are now readers. Assholes. I mean… “I love you”

Just saying the word “Diet” makes me hungry?

Before I start… Am I a douche? My sister and her boyfriend seem to think that the title of this blog is douchie… is it? I am open to suggestions.

I added a new element to my blog (I am so damn fancy), please scroll to the bottom of the page… I’ll wait…

Now all you can see how much weight (I am not) loosing! Like most brides, I am trying to lose weight and tone up before the big day. I have to admit, I failed for the first few months… I could not find the motivation to stay on a diet plan and go to the gym more than once a week. I was in bliss, happier than I had ever been. I had just gotten engaged, safe to say that dieting was not at the forefront of my priority list – showing off my new ring was. Then it hit me – at my first dress fitting. I put on my dress, a dress I am still absolutely in love with, and I realized I hated the way I looked in it. No amount of undergarments was going to make it look better. For this reason, I have been battling the bulge.

I have had a weight issue as long as I can remember. I cannot blame it on anyone but myself, I sat on a couch my entire childhood eating spoonfuls of peanut butter, ice cream and chips, spending no time outside exercising. I did not even walk the dog for my parents – fatty fatty two by four. It was not until high school, after joining Weight Watchers (another great program), that I lost a significant amount of weight. My confidence shot through the roof and for the first time, I was really somewhat happy with my body. But it was almost ten years ago that I lost that 50 pounds… college and graduation brought some of it back… but I have flip flopped within 5-15 pounds of my lowest. Although I am still within five pounds of my lowest, I am medically considered overweight. Honestly, it is not even about the numbers on the scale anymore, I just want my wedding day to be the one day I don’t think about my weight, I don’t want to think about people looking at my flabby arms, my back, double chin… none of it. I want to look beautiful that day; but more importantly, I want to feel beautiful.

For about a month, I have been tracking every calorie, fat gram, protein gram and carbohydrate that has entered my mouth. I am working out at least four times a week – both weight lifting and cardio workouts. To be honest, I have not lost what I thought I would. Eight pounds since October, that’ it. It was not until I focused solely on eating as many proteins as possible that I finally started to see some results. I sat at the same weight for about 4 weeks… FRUSTRATING!!

Of course, if I could afford a personal trainer, expensive diet plan and food maybe things would be different. But alas, I am doing this on my own, with the support of the Fatsecret (Google it) and a monthly gym membership. If you are trying to lose weight on your own, I would suggest FATSECRET, it is free, easy and the community members are fun.

Keep me in your thoughts as you eat your fried goods and sweets - lucky. My next weigh in is tomorrow. Let’s see how good I was during the holidays.

I created this blog about 8 months ago and this is my first post. Nice.

Let me start off by saying that the “Sweet Release” (http://lifeneedsamanual.blogspot.com/) blogger is my mentor, if you don’t follow her yet… you should. I am not going to pretend that my blogs will be nearly as funny or as awe inspiring as hers but maybe just maybe, still worth a read.

A few warnings about my writing:

1. Despite spell check, my grammar and spelling skills are a complete failure. Which is really unfortunate since a large portion of my job involves writing for the masses and Word was designed to avoid such mistakes.
2. I write as I would speak, more evidence that my writing style fails. But if you and I were in the same room, I would be quite eloquent…
3. I am a chicken shit: I think that it may take me some time to get the balls to speak candidly and honestly about my personal relationships.
4. I will steal ideas from other bloggers in terms of style, content and format – but I will never plagiarize, I will always cite my source(s).
5. I use ellipsis way too often…

I am about to embark on what is, by some (myself included), considered to be most impactful step of my life, marriage. About two and half years ago I met, “The Gamer” (a nom de plume to protect our privacy, I stole this concept from my mentor and many other bloggers) and from the beginning of our relationship I have considered myself very lucky – he treats me with respect, adoration and love. Don’t get me wrong… we fight. We are human.

Our relationship grew fast… he was the first to say “I Love You” a mere two months into the relationship and I followed suit 30 seconds later with “I Love You, too” – I think that it is safe to say, we both fell hard.

The Gamer is like no other man I have met or dated. He is genuine, obsessed with video games, loves to sing, enjoys theater, loves to play sports, is extremely competitive and he is sensitive – a true cornucopia of traits, another reason I consider myself lucky; it is like a I got a mix the all of the good traits I found (and didn’t find) in my past relationships wrapped up into one package.

Karaoke, sushi, movie dates, Ocean City trips, Nationals games, softball games, Arlington, Shatner and so many other great memories developed our relationship. I am not listing the bad moments (please see #3 above), not yet at least. Although, I must admit… our engagement was the result of the lowest point in our relationship – even after a game changing fight (me being the bad guy), The Gamer surprised me with a proposal. And when I asked “Why now?” – He responded, “Because even as angry as I was with you, I could never imagine my life without you.” Not to shabby.

So for the past nine months I, with the help of family and my bridesmaids, have been planning our wedding. With the exception of the standard rules of etiquette, we are making this wedding our own… as all couples should. I hope to make it a reflection of us and our dream (ok, let’s be honest my dream) wedding. And with only 68 days left until the big day, I look forward to sharing the fun, drama, and even sometimes stupidity involved in planning a wedding. And from there, the afterglow of marriage.