TODAY!

It's here! It's here!! My wedding day is here!!!

I get to marry Corky today.  That's happy!!!!!!  

I do not really feel nervous.  
I do not really feel stressed.
I do not really feel like much will change.

However, last night when I was going to bed, I realized that now that I'm going to be married, the whole rest of my life opens up.  Being engaged but not married yet was like a gate that was closed. I could see through it, but I couldn't get to the other side of it because it was locked.  Today, it's going to be unlocked and flung wide open!

We will be husband and wife.  Is that going to change anything about my life?  Not really.  Not immediately.  We'll come home, go to Curaçao tomorrow morning, have our honeymoon which will probably be very similar to every other tropical vacation we've taken together.  We'll come back, go back to our jobs.  Say I love you every time we leave or hang up the phone with one another.  We'll start looking for a house again (we almost bought one in Sept but that didn't happen.)  We'll be just like we are now, except I'll have a different last name: Shaw.

I do feel excited.
I do feel anxious.
I do feel eager.
I do feel very happy.

One funny thing to leave you with.  My favorite cousin, B, is in town, she's one of my bridesmaids.  Last night she came to the Zumba party at Hardcore Training Studio.  She must have laughed when she saw the address with the street name!  She came to me and said, "Kate.. how the hell did you land a job on Shaw street?"  LOL!!!!  Just another day in the life.  

XOXOXOXO

2 - Seven

2 days.

This is going to be short.  I'm exhausted.  I woke up SICK!!!! UGH UGH UGH!!!!

Then later my naturopath emailed with the results from my blood draw on wednesday.  My ferritin went from 19 to 7 in a month and a half.  The range is 10-291.  Seven??? That number is mind boggling.  It was 13 in July, 19 in the end of August and 7 now.  What?

Anyway, sick or not, low ferritin or not, I had to work today.  Taught 2 classes.  God I'm so tired.  

GOOD NIGHT!

ENVY!!!

I am so envious of you!!!!!  You get to be FULL!  You get to eat food that you actually fucking LIKE!!!! You don't even look at the calories.  Or the fat.  Or the carbs.  Or worry about what that's going to look like on your body in a few days time.  That doesn't even concern you!  All that matters to you is that it tastes good!

I don't get to have that, apparently.  I know, I know... people will tell me "You can beat this, Kate."  "You can do it."  "I believe in you!"  But no.  I can't.  I never will.

"I can't eat that."
"No, you THINK you can't eat that."
"What's the difference?"
"Perception."

Well no, that is not right because if it's my perception then it's a rule for me.  Perception is the difference for YOU.  You've never had a voice in your head whispering to you, "Don't eat that... you don't need it.... it's bad for you.  You're fat enough.  If you eat it, you'll be sorry.  That's right.  Leave it alone... good girl..."  

You've got blinders on!  All you see is what tastes good, what's quick, what's available.  Turn that shit over and look at the label!  THINK about it!  Welcome to my LIFE!  Those numbers rule my world.  They dictate whether something is "good" or "bad."  Something can taste so fucking good but if the numbers are wrong I will say, "No. I don't like that."  Which is a total lie, but I have to say it because that's the rules.  You'll never know how that feels.  And that makes me so envious I can't even stand it!

It's 11:47pm!  And you know what I really want?  Like want in the worst way?  Peanut butter and banana on bread.  Like a sandwich.  I'll eat it on rice cakes once in a while without too much fuss, but bread is like taboo or something.  So scary.  But it tastes so good.  When the sandwich has a little squish to it, because the bread is soft... Not like rice cakes.  They crunch and are a little salty... the bread is sweet, so sweet, almost TOO sweet!  But it's so soft... and I want it so much.  And the peanut butter tastes so good with banana... it's not fair!  Why can't I have that?  I know the answer... but I don't have to like it.  

Or you know what else I want?  Yakisoba.  I love the noodles and the sauce and the veggies and I love eating with chopsticks and I like when it has chicken in it but even better when it doesn't!  And it's salty and the veggies are soft and cooked and they're so so so good.  I love when there's broccoli in it because it becomes all soft and squishy and the sauce is stuck in the little pod thingies... ah it's so fucking good and I want it SO BAD!!!!!

Those two things (the pb and banana sandwich and yakisoba) are not horrendous things.  They're not like junk food.  But my brain is like NO YOU CANNOT HAVE THAT!!!!!!  Why?  Is it because it tastes good and heaven forbid I should ever be allowed to have something like that?  Or is it just unsafe?  I don't know.  But I know that people eat that shit every damn day and envious doesn't even begin to describe the way I feel about that.

3 - whoops!

3 days

Sorry!  I didn't mean to skip a day.  As you might imagine, things are BUSY BUSY BUSY!  Oh well.

Last night I went to dinner with Corky, his brother and their dad who is in town for the wedding.  I had never met their dad before and I didn't quite know what to  make of him! He's nice I guess.  Anyway I ate a sandwich... which was scary!  But it was literally just turkey and lettuce and tomato.. and at least the bread was whole grain!  So.. whatever!  I didn't want to look stupid in front of Corky's dad (well I needn't have worried but still) so I did that.

Then for some reason I was soooo hungry when I woke up this morning.  I woke up at like 6:30am and my stomach felt like a huge empty tube of toothpaste (to borrow an image from a book) and all I could think about was "I really want to have cereal for breakfast."  I've been pretty good with food, sandwich notwithstanding, so I figured I could have a little.  Then I thought I was ridiculous because I'm getting married in 3 days and I'm waking up thinking about cereal!  Am I insane?

5 - Incentive

5 days

Well... Corky left the food at home again (ugh!!!!)  Whenever we have food in the house that I don't want to deal with being tempted by, he takes it to work.  Except here's the thing, 8 times out of 10 he forgets!  So I've been avoiding brownies and oatmeal all morning.  The oatmeal I want to eat... the brownies I want to chew up and spit out!  UGH!!!!! I haven't been so tempted to do chew & spit in forever!!! I can't even remember the last time.. I think it was June!  That's a damn good run for me.

Anyway.  Today is going to be a busy day.  I have a (long awaited and much needed) hair appointment at 12.  Then I have to nanny my boss's son from 4pm til about 8pm.  He wants me to bring my bird with me because he reeeeaaallllyyy wants a bird.  So I'll load Bijou up in her travel cage and bring her along.  Should be fun for the kid... not so sure about Bijou. Lol!!!

I've eaten oatmeal with yogurt (instead of milk) and an apple and greek yogurt (I use it like chips and dip) and fat free cocoa.  It's only 10:15am but that's probably all I'll eat until at least like 2:30 or 3pm.  And then if I don't eat dinner, I should be fine.  

I am SO TERRIFIED that the dress isn't going to fit on Sunday.  AHHH!!!! It's making me crazy!!! I just want it to be Sunday already so that I don't have to deal with the idea of facing today, tomorrow, Thursday, Friday AND Saturday with the guilt of food, the anxiety about the dress....

Last night I was telling Alena, "The stress of a wedding dress while dealing with an eating disorder is alone enough for me to ensure that my marriage doesn't fall apart.  I don't ever want to do this again!!"  

6 - Freak Out

6 days.


I don't know what it is but I just can't seem to find the motivation to write on here these days!  I make myself do it because I know someday I'm going to forget how I feel right this moment and I'm going to want to remember how I felt and what I was doing the week before I got married.

Today:
8am -Woke up
9:30am -Taught my Zumba class at Ballroom Dance Company
11am - went to my therapist appointment
12:15pm - returned home
12:15pm-4:15pm - did stuff around the house, hung out with Corky 
4:15pm - went to R's class at SAC
5pm - came home to change my sweaty Zumba shirt
6pm - Taught my Zumba class at Hardcore Training Studio
7:30pm - went with Corky to Sí Señor (ate some of his food and a diet coke)
8:15pm - went to Target with Corky to buy Scattergories (which they didn't have)
9pm - Went to Safeway and bought apples, yogurt, milk and oatmeal
9:20pm-10pm - played with bulldogs, facebook, phone, etc
10pm - ate an apple

That's what I did with 6 days left until my wedding.  

But I am FREAKING OUT!!!!! About the dress of course.  I can't even think about it or I'll start crying.  So here's some pictures to distract me:

This game is my worst nightmare!!! OMG balloons!!!!

My tea was cold today

I'm that one emoji.. you know the one ;)

An old pic.  (see I think I look so thin here.. compared to now I'm huge)

7 - Busy

7.

Wow.  A week!  I can hardly believe I'm writing these words.  But at the same time it feels like I've been waiting forever!  

To be honest, when I was a kid, I never thought about marriage.  I definitely wasn't one of those girls who would lie in bed at night imagining my wedding day.  I would lie in bed at night making up stories in my head in which I was someone else, somewhere else, doing something else.  Marriage and life afterwards wasn't even a thought in my brain, much less a prominent one.

When I was about 14 or 15 I swore to my dad one day that I was going to get married in jeans someday.  I hated wearing dresses!  I don't know what that was about, but as a young child, preteen and even teenager (to an extent) I was very uncomfortable with myself in all aspects.  If I wore a dress I thought everyone was staring at me and thought I looked weird.  I was convinced that I must look weak, feminine and wispy in a dress.  That wasn't good.  I needed to be strong and invincible!  Which is hilarious to think because I was a shrimpy kid and looked anything but invincible.

But I have to say.... something grew out of that.  Some kind of strength.  Not sure where it came from, except maybe to think that it came from years of being told, "You're wrong.  You're bad.  You're the problem."  And knowing that nobody truly had my back but me.  Not my parents.  Not my sister.  Not my friends.  Just me.  I would play alone in my room for hours, making up alternate worlds for myself to exist in for a time.  A thing I still do to this day.

So no.. I never thought about marriage at all until I was a teenager, at least 14 or 15 when I made that declaration to my dad.  Fortunately I've come a long way since then.  Corky is very lenient about a lot of things but I think even he might have something to say about that.  Thankfully I overcame my abhorrence of dresses.  I actually didn't think too much about marriage until Corky proposed!  I've had 18 months to decide a lot of things.  

The best thing I've decided?  That I'm going to be okay.

8 - Ready, Set, Go

8 days.

This is gonna be a short entry, just because I actually really don't feel like writing.  But I'm going to do the last days (I hope) until the wedding, so I have to put something.

Tomorrow I need to go through my house and get rid of ALL food except apples, yogurt, rice cakes, reduced sugar jelly and cocoa.  

All food has to go.  I cannot eat any more than like 800cal per day.  I have to work out every day.

That dress HAS to fit damnit.

9 - The Witching Hour

9 days!!!! EEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now the nerves and stress are wearing off and I'm just flippin' excited!

This morning I taught my class and it was GREAT!  Alena was there and we had a blast.  Then we went to Goodwill to go shopping for our Halloween costumes for the Halloween Zumba party the night before my wedding... it's going to be amazing.  We laughed so hard over the wigs!  Then we drove to Spirit of Halloween store to pick out make up.  I'm not going to tell you what our costumes are because I'll post pictures (eventually) and it'll be a surprise.  Then we went to New Seasons and bought probiotic drinks and walked around looking at stuff.  I almost died laughing when Alena misread "Fingerling Potatoes" as "fingering potatoes."  LOOOOOOOOL!!!!!!!!

Oh crazy crazy.

Corky and I had to go to the courthouse EEEARLY this morning to get the marriage license.  He woke me up in my witching hour.  My sleep cycle is so strange that if I sleep past like 6 in the morning, my deep sleep cycle is between 7 and 8am.  If I have to wake up for anything in the 8am hour, I have to get up before 7 or else I'm dead asleep.  Corky, bless his soul, set his alarm for 7:20am.  I was so cranky.  Thank goodness for Monster.  I believe I've said that before.  And I'm sure I'll say it again!

10 - Scared

Yesterday I went to my Naturopath.  Alena's brother came with me because he has decided to go to school to be an ND, and he wanted to "watch one in action."  It was kind of cool having him there.  

Anyway, every time I go see my ND, she weighs me.  It's a blind weight so I never know what the scale says.  But yesterday she said to me, "Given the fact that your wedding is so close and you have stress about the dress fitting, do you want to know what trend your weight is taking?"

I almost said yes.  But then I thought, what if she says it's higher?  I'd be fucked in the head for days!  So I said no.  But then she said, "Okay, well... I recommend you try on the dress this weekend."  I must have had an awful look on my face because she said, "You want to make sure it's not too small OR too big!"  

But she could not recover that one.

Now I am absolutely terrified.  I'm SO SURE that I've gained weight.  I can't even deal with it.  I have 10 days to make sure that dress fits.

Can't I just elope?

In the words of a blogger I follow, "stop the world, I want to get off!"

12 - Busy

As I sit here this morning.... at 10:43am... having had tea, diet soda, rice cakes, an apple and a yogurt (amounting to like 325cal and that's all I will have for a long while yet) and nowhere to be for several hours, I realize... I AM SO BUSY!!!!!!!!!

There's miles of laundry to do.  You can't even see my kitchen table.  My room looks like it experienced an F5.  Cleaning the bathroom(s) wouldn't be a bad idea.  The dishwasher needs to be loaded.  But I don't want to move!

In 12 days I will walk down an aisle in my big, expensive wedding gown, preceded by 7 of my very best friends, to be joined forever by law to the man I love.  I can't tell you I'm not stressed out.  I am, a little.  But the stress is giving way to a new feeling: anticipation!  I've waited so long for this day and now it's only 12 days away!

Not much will change for me once I'm married, except I won't have to plan a wedding any longer.  Corky and I have lived together for several years already, so we've no need to be registered anywhere.  My mom said yesterday that one thing that changed for her when she got married was the sense of permanence, but I kind of already feel as though this is pretty permanent.  So we'll see.

I think, once I'm married, the focus of questions will change from weddings to children.  I am not looking forward to that line of questioning!  :(

No Zumba today.... my body is worn out and needs a rest.  I do, however, have a nannying gig that I do every tues/thurs for my boss's 11 year old son.  He's a crack up and I enjoy spending time with him.  So that's good.  It's kind of nice to have a forced break from Zumba.  My body yells at me when I do too much (like I've been.)

14

14 days.  2 weeks!  God I hope that dress fits.

Today was my friend's birthday.  A while back, before my friend Alena gave me permission to use her first name on my blog, I called her "A" and this other friend was "A2" because her name also starts with A.  Now I'm allowed to say "Alena" so now "A2" will be "A."  Got that?  Lol.

Today was A's birthday.  She's a Zumba friend (aka Zumba Family).  So a bunch of us got together and planned a birthday surprise for her at her 4:00pm Zumba class.  Yesterday, I went over to my friend D's house and we baked 2 carrot cakes for A's party.  As it turned out we only used up 3/4 of ONE... so A took the other one home.  D tried to send the remainder of the first one home with me but I did NOT want that shit in my house, so I gave to Alena to give to her dad and brother.  Hopefully they like carrot cake!

It was so fun.  There ended up being 6 (yes SIX) more instructors in A's class aside from A!!! We all did one song each, except for Alena and I did one together 'cause that's how we do.  It was really funny because this one girl, L, is brand new to Zumba (literally got licensed end of September) and this was her debut.. and she did a crazy merengue and TOTALLY pulled it off!  She just came out of nowhere and rocked it.  It was so amazing.  I know I can take no credit whatsoever for her and her awesomeness, but I was proud of her.  She was nervous but you wouldn't have known it to look at her.  I've known her since kindergarten or first grade and I was laughing with her today because I'm sure no one ever would have guessed that the two of us would be Zumba Fitness instructors later in life!  We weren't exactly, shall I say, extroverted!  ;)

So... 2 weeks until my wedding.  You know what I'm finding?  I wish I could invite more people!!  There's several people I've grown closer to in the last month or so and I wish I could invite them!  It's a bummer, but we've already got over 120 people coming so... it's going to be a blast.

If I haven't mentioned this before, I'm adopted.  I have a biological half sister.  She said she wants to come to the wedding, I sent her an invite and everything... so we shall see if she'll actually show up.  I kind of hope she does!  But I am trying not to be too hopeful because I don't want to be disappointed if she doesn't come.  :(  But maybe she will!  I'll just not think about it I guess, but I'll for sure keep you all posted on that!

Also, if I haven't mentioned this before either, our honeymoon destination is Curaçao.  Wow... 2 weeks.  I can't believe I just typed those words.

Corky is leaving town tomorrow night, heading to Seattle area for a work related thing.  Alena is going to come and stay the night with me so I don't get lonely. :D Hee!  I love my friends. 

My Babies - Abigail

Abigail Shula

I had a dog once when I was younger, for like two days.  Now that dog (Bettina) is my mom's dog and she's totally neurotic and annoying.  I didn't think I'd ever have a dog.

Then we got Abigail.

Abigail Shula, Abby or Abs for short, is my almost-two-year-old French Bulldog.  She's brindle and has the cutest little buttcheeks!  (Did you know Frenchies have buttcheeks??)  I picked her up from the airport on Feb 24, 2012.  She was shipped to us from somewhere in Missouri.  I went into the cargo place, saw a maroon kennel on the counter, bent over and looked inside.... and jumped away!  She was so cute I couldn't even look at her!!!  My mom and I took her kennel out to the car and I took her out right away.  She immediately went to sleep on me.

Abigail is spunky, playful, sweet, calm, cute as hell and snuggly.  Here are some pictures of Abigail being those things!

Cute Abby

Snuggly, sleepy Abby (and Corky)

Stubborn Abby!

Precious Abby

Spunky, playful Abby

Silly Abby

Halloween Abby

Abby & her doppelganger.

16 - Sleepy

16 days.

Last night I didn't fall asleep until 7am (so.. this morning??)  I had to teach a class at 10am.  It was the Zumba class from HELL!!!!

"It's too loud!"
"It's too quiet!"
"Turn it down!"
"Turn it up!"
"I'm leaving!"
"I can't hear it!"

The first half of the class consisted of me being glared at by 14 people in the mirror, while straining to hear the beats and cues of my music which was playing at about negative 5 decibels.  It was awful!  I was ready to cry!  Thankfully Alena was there (she made 15, but she wasn't glaring at me lol) and I was certain that she was commiserating with me.  One lady literally said, "I've had enough!" and walked out!  At the end of class a lady came up and told me that some of the other instructors have their music very loud, which I know to be true (because I've been there!) and I didn't think mine was that loud at the start.  But when I first plugged in my iPod, I turned around to find two or three ladies with their hands over their ears!  Alena came running up to tell me, "You better turn it down or people are about to leave!"  I was so confused because it didn't seem all that loud to me!  I know I'm hard of hearing in one ear (from lots of ear infections as a kid, although my hearing is still very good) but geez... I'm not THAT deaf am I??

The lady after class told me that the music just "scared them" and I that I should have turned it up way sooner.  It was just one of those days where I couldn't please anyone... and I was running on no sleep so my fuse was VERY short.  Needless to say I was very relieved when my stretch song came on.

Then I went with Alena and my mom to pick up my wedding dress.  I was afraid I was going to have to try it on but I didn't.  So that's fortunate.  Now I'm waiting for my mom to come back over so we can go try to find her something to wear to my wedding.  

In 16 days.

How do I feel about that?  I'll tell you - I don't!  I really don't have any feeling about that.  I think I'm just so buzzed about it that I feel literally nothing.  It's like standing next to a jet engine - it's so loud you can't hear a thing.  Your ears become overwhelmed with sound.  My brain is just overwhelmed with stuff.  So I feel nothing.  Which is good, considering I know a lot of brides-to-be who have been so stressed that they turn into A Creature.  Not a woman, not a bride, A Creature.  I don't want to do that, so I'll gladly take feeling nothing over feeling like A Creature.

I am, however, SO EFFING TIRED!!!!!  I woke up this morning after less than 2 hours of sleep going how am I going to make it through this day....?  I really have no idea.

Family

I know I posted earlier today once.  But I had such a profound experience earlier this evening that I just have to write about it.

So... the backstory to this is a little complicated, but long-story-short my family is VERY dysfunctional.  Not the "we put the 'fun' in 'dysfunction'" kind of dysfunctional but honestly, heartbreakingly dysfunctional.  Half the time I feel like I'm floating around in space by myself.  When I think back on my childhood, my whole body hurts.  I've lived on my own (or with Corky) for the last several years, and rely on myself, my fiancé, my friends and my animals for family.

Dinner at my house usually consists of Corky heating up some frozen thing and me eating an apple and a yogurt, and kind of picking at things throughout the evening.  Or else we go out to dinner - he gets whatever he gets and I get salad.  Everywhere.  

So many decisions to make.  What do I want?  What is "safe" for me?  If I eat that, will I get fat?  Are you sure?  And so on it goes. 

My best friend Alena's family has kind of "adopted" me into their family, which has been a tremendous help.  I don't know what I would do without her/them.  They've literally saved my butt on more than one occasion!   

So tonight I went to my friend D's house.  D is married with 3 children, the youngest of whom is a senior in high school.  I know her through Zumba and she is one of my favorite people in the world.  She, like me, loves to bake.  Anyway, I went over there this evening because she was going to help me decorate masks for my wedding.  Her husband was there and he hung around the kitchen and talked to us for a while as we worked, then he retired to the couch to watch a TV show while D and I remained at the table.  

We talked about everything and nothing.  Zumba, friends, family... everything.  It was a really fun few hours, spent with no limits on discussion topics.  Then, it was dinner time.  D's husband asked, "Is she staying for dinner?"  And D told him "Yeah, she's going to try my shepard's pie!"

You want to know the weirdest thing?  I didn't even panic!  I have been SO stressed about my family's issues, plus the wedding, plus work, plus my eating disorder that I had just had enough!  This might make no sense, but I was relieved to have D taking the reigns regarding food.  Just this one time, it was like I had NO control... and I didn't even mind!  
I helped her chop cucumbers into the salad bowl, her husband set the table, and she got the rest of the food out.  She put 4 glasses on the table, poured 1% milk into all of them, and put food on the plates.  I didn't bat an eye.  

Her husband called their son down for dinner.

We sat down.

I ate everything she gave me.

I even drank the milk.

Holy shit... I forgot how good milk tastes when it's a) eaten with dinner and b) not nonfat!  D chose my portion.  She chose what I drank.  She took CARE of me.  It was such a relief, and it was exactly what I needed.  I needed to feel like part of a family SO BADLY that I almost cried right into my 1% milk!  Don't get me wrong, I have family.  Aside from them, Alena's family is my other family, and I love them dearly.  But the fact of the matter is that D's home is untouched by MY eating disorder (because she doesn't know about it, really.)  So this experience was different than when I eat with Alena's family (which I also love, because I feel loved there.)  It was like my eating disorder didn't have a voice, for a while, because I was a guest in D's house, and her husband and son were right there... it would have been rude for me to say, "oh I can't eat that..."  I know I didn't have to finish it all.  I could have said, "okay, I'm full now, thank you," and D would have said, "okay!"  But you know what?  It was an okay amount.  Seemed like a lot but.. I guess I was hungrier than I thought I was!

This whole "family-food" thing was something I desperately needed but did not know I needed.  I needed someone to say, "Just eat this.  It's fine.  It's good for you.  You're safe."  I can't tell you I don't feel any guilt about it now, but at the time?  Totally guilt-free.

20

I get married in 20 days (including today.)  I am trying to find something profound to say about that, but nothing is coming to my mind.  

I should eat less.
I should work out more.
I shouldn't wave my hair because it'll ruin my hair before the wedding.
I should drink more green tea.
I shouldn't be stressed.

I need to eat less.
I need to work out more.
I need to finish the wedding favors.
I need to work on the masks.
I need to find a way to de-stress!

None of this is making sense! I have a strong feeling the next three and a half weeks are going to be a little nuts.  I have a strong feeling I'M going to be a little nuts!!! Oh god.

So I can't remember if I mentioned to you on this blog that I no longer teach Zumba on Tuesday nights.  That gives me a lot of anxiety because I use my classes to keep my worrying at a minimum.  On the one hand, it's nice because my body is TIRED from so much dancing.  But then my brain goes all crazy with it.

I heard something the other day about how when you work out too much your body goes into anaerobic mode and skips aerobic mode (I think that's how it is...?) and you don't burn calories you burn oxygen.  I'm not too terribly freaked out about that because I don't really understand it, and I'd like to keep it that way (lol!) but it did give me a reason to think twice before exercising myself half to death on a daily basis.

On Friday, my fuelband's numbers were SO high!  I did not even know you could see numbers like that on a fuelband!!!! It took me two whole days to recover from that Friday.  

You know what I wish?  I wish there wasn't so much pressure to look good in a wedding dress, or fit into a wedding dress.  The dressmaker's words have been haunting me for the last week and change, "don't gain weight!"  Oh how I HOPE I haven't gained weight!  There aren't works to express my deep desire to lose weight instead.  I don't care what other people think.