Finding Focus

I’m having a bit of a struggle these days finding something to focus on, and feeling strong enough to actually do anything. A killer headache that lasted all day today made me feel fat, lazy and sad. I feel like the wedding really took a lot out of me, and mellowing down is both much need, and frustratingly difficult for me. I WANT to do nothing, but after a few hours of laying around I feel the internal struggle of my mind saying “You should be doing something!” Sigh.

Mr. Gaunt

my momma

The wedding also produced a lot of stuff and a lot of garbage. Lots. It’s taken us 3 weeks to get it all under control, and we still have boxes of stuff to sell or give away, and wedding gifts to find a home. Before we moved I had made an honest effort to downsize and get rid of all the extra STUFF, but now its back! Gah! A lot of it has to do with the fact that there are 3 grownups living in a pretty small 2 bedroom house, plus my sister has some stuff in our garage, and we have a bunch of wedding stuff. On top of that, our neighborhood LOVES to give stuff away for free, and the men in my house love to scoop that stuff up. We have an excess of patio furniture, chairs, tools, etc in our garage, all that we got for free.  Needless to say I foresee a garage sale in the spring. We are also sharing 1 dresser and 1 TINY (like 3 feet wide) closet between the two of us, and that just sucks!

My job right now is well…boring. It is what it is, it’s not the worst thing in the world. The biggest problem is that it gives me way too much time to think about things. I sit and think about all the things I should do, with my job, my blog, my life in general. Its frustrating. I so want to have the strength and energy to move forward on some of my projects, but for whatever reason, I’m just not able to. I often think I need a partner (not Mr. Gaunt) to be the 2nd half to push me into something. My job is also making me take 5 unpaid weeks off before January 27th…eeek!

Lastly, my weight. I had planned to give myself a month off after the wedding, to chill out. To eat what I want, and not workout. I’m 3 weeks in, and I feel like shit, absolute shit. I feel fat and bloated, my skin feels bad, I feel tired and weak all over. Before the wedding, despite not having lost much weight, I actually felt really strong and fit. I was running 12-15 miles a week, eating small healthy foods, and felt pretty good. Cutting myself off from all of that (as fun as it might have seemed) has made me feel awful. I think tomorrow I will go running again (which I can now do outside as it’s not too hot) and ditch the sweets, cheese, cream, fat, carbs. I need more lean proteins, vegetables and water in my diet…STAT! I actually haven’t stepped on a scale in over a month, and I’d like to feel comfortable enough to do so by the time we go to Colorado (November 26th).

So for now I’m working through each day, trying to let life flow naturally and not stress about what I should be doing, could be doing, or want to be doing.  Oh and the pictures through out this post are just random fall fun (:

 

Sanity is a Cozy Lie

I’m a bit of an anxious wreck right now. Which is why there is no blogging, and nothing is coming out of my mouth that isnt wedding related, seriously, I’m useless.

Tomorrow is my 26th birthday, and I cold care less, its means nothing to me. NOTHING I TELL YOU! This coming from a girl who likes to celebrate ‘Birthday week” too!

I know there are definitely people who take wedding planning way less seriously, and let lots of other people help them and let things be imperfect. Congrats to them, I’m and insane control freak.  I’m so excited though. I’m just thrilled by how many people are coming and how much fun everyone is going to have. I’m also just really excited to see my whole vision come together. I hope everything looks as awesome as I planned and that people think its unique and they enjoy themselves. I hope its the perfection I see in my head.

I just wish this anxious almost sick feeling would go away. I also wish I had a better answer to everyone’s “are you getting nervous” “what can I do to help” questions, as I tend to just ramble like an idiot and not actually say anything interesting or productive. Sleep has also become a bit…restless.

So tonight I’m going to go to bed with my lunch packed and my gym clothes waiting by the door. I will go to work, then the gym, then maybe a little birthday dinner. I will also accomplish at least 1 painting that ships this week and I will I cross off at least 1 wedding task. Until then, send me good thoughts of sanity, I’m off to make lists.

xoxo

(hopefully will be normal soon) Morgan

TWELVE DAYS…AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Berries and Blues

Its been a rough few days. I absolutely let what others think of me, make me doubt myself. I wouldn’t even say I’m over it. There sometimes feels like an over whelming amount of thing that I need to change about myself, that I don’t even know where to begin. I feel a bit like a loser.

I applied for a fulltime position at my job (a position that I was already doing, and was very much qualified for) but I didn’t get it. I got a stupid letter saying they chose another qualified candidate. It reminded me of Cheer tryouts in 9th grade, getting the letter that just says NOPE, and then letting your brain run wild with all the reasons why you suck. Too fat, too ugly, too opinionated, not happy enough, not smart enough, not unique or interesting….” I suppose I could ask my employer why it is exactly I didn’t get the job, but I feel it would only make things worse to have her confirm what I already know. I’m trying to quickly focus my energy on what my next step is. My job will probably end in the next 3-4 weeks, and I will need to decided what that means for me. I also like to tell myself things like “You don’t want a sit down job anyways” which is true. Sitting in a chair for 10 hours a day 6 days a week has totally made me gain 5 pounds. That’s an uphill battle I don’t think I want to fight. If you sit down for 40+ hours a week you have to eat PERFECT and work out HARD just to maintain your weight! GAH! I do not want to maintain my weight, I want to kick my weight to the curb!

This week we go back to 40 hours a week, so I will get off at 11pm! This is awesome, as now I can bring back my weight lifting in the evenings. When I got off at 1am there was no way in hell I could keep doing that. Now things can be more sane. I can eat healthier and it will all be better. Well I suppose the financial bit wont be better, but whatever.

Speak of financial. We let my brother move in with us at the beginning of Jully. He needed a cheap place to stay and we needed the extra money. He paid us one lump sum to stay here through the end of September. We will use this money to pay off all of our wedding vendors. This is a HUGE deal! I feel really fortunate that all of that will be taken care of.

We also scored MAJOR yesterday at Kinkos with our wedding invitations. For 2 weeks we had been trying to find a time to go get our invitation printed and cut with this one awesome guy who works there. However for many reasons we kept missing him. On Thursday afternoon we went in one more time and he was there, but super busy. He told us to come in really early on Friday morning and that he would have time to work one on one with us.

For our invitations we needed:

-40 full color prints (2 up)

-40 black and white prints (2 up)

-100 sheets cut to size.

When we had originally gone around to get price quotes Kinkos estimated that with the paper and the printing and cutting we were looking at $120. BUT he told us it would be about 1/2 that if we bought our own paper. I think I mentioned before that we ended up buying our paper on Sale at the paper zone about a month ago. For our design I had made digital files and measurements and put them on a USB drive to have printed. So Mr. Gaunt and I got up at 7:30 am yesterday and worked with “Cool Kinkos Man” for about an hour. Shockingly all of my files and sizes were perfect and the process was totally painless. Then the Kinkos guy ended up having to leave in an emergency (his wife ran out of gas in the middle of an intersection!) as he was leaving he told his coworker what to charge and said “I’ll throw in the cuts as a wedding gift” So his co worker rings us up and Mr.Gaunt hands him the coupon we had for 10% off. The guy looks at us and goes “I can’t use this, you didn’t reach the minimum, your total is $3.72″….uhhh….seriously? that’s right, we got all of invites printed and cut for $3.72! Amazing, I know.

I have to work my last Saturday today, then I get me weekends back! I’m going to try to have a good day today and to keep positive! Tomorrow I need to make something yummy with all our Raspberries that are ready!

Waiting For Nothing To Do

As much as I loved moving, loved switching jobs, love planning a wedding, I do not love always having to do something.

I of course know that I have made all of these choices on my own, and I am glad I did, but I’m tired. Every day I wake up with a list of things to do….

I get up

I eat breakfast

I workout

I blog

I do the dishes, or some laundry

we water the garden

we think about lunch plans

we get coffee

I accomplish at least 1 wedding related task, usually envolving an errand

I go to work

I come home

I go to bed.

DO IT AGAIN!

Even on my day (only 1) off I either spend time with my family and not get shit done, or vis versa.

I know that I am a list maker, a planner, a girl with a project. Right now I have way too many projects. I like to think I could pass some of these tasks on to someone else, but I’m also anal and controlling. I wouldn’t even know where to start in dolling out duties. Not that I don’t occasionally lie around the house and do nothing, I do that too. But while I’m doing that I’m usually at least thinking or worrying about what I should be doing. Or I’m blogging, or making lists, or looking up ideas online. It kind of non stop in my head.

I really miss cooking. I miss being domestic and just keeping my house nice. The thought of spending every evening making dinner and sitting on the patio (that we don’t even have time to use) with Mr. Gaunt and just chilling out sounds amazing. Instead its making boutonniers, and having stuff printed, and doing paintings, and trying to lose weight….the list goes on.

After the wedding hopefully we can take a REAL Honeymoon and just spend a week doing NOTHING but enjoying each others company and being blissful newlyweds! No moving, no planning, no job switching, just living day to day life….nice.

We should be here…

 

 

Friends?

I think once you are out of school, Making, Having and Keeping friends is one of the hardest things in life.

It is definitely something I have struggled with over the last 8 years since I graduated High School (jeeze). Especially now that most of my friends are in relationships, working, and even having kids. It becomes harder and harder the more we have going on in our lives.

And why is it so hard?

I guess part of it is that we are busy, and its easier to just come home and sit on the couch with the people you are comfortable with. Not have to “make conversation” or “find things in common” its just chill and easy.

Another thing is Lifestyle. When you are in highschool, besides your home life, you and all your friends are pretty much living the same lifestyle. Same schedule, same goals, same shit going on. As we all get older, our lifestyles change greatly. I have friends that are married, some with kids, some without. I have friends in School, some with jobs, some without. I have Gay friends, and straight friends. I have friends who are living off their parents, or spouses, or the government. I have friends who love their jobs, who hate their jobs, and friends without jobs. I have friends who have a strong relationship with god, or with community service, or with travel. Very few friends are living the same life style. Even when it comes down to little things like food. I have friends who only eat Vegan, or Organic, or are Red Meat loving folks.

All these different lifestyle make it confusing to mesh together. What will you talk about? Where will you go? What will you eat?

And the judgemet….ooooh the judgement. Not that we are all judging each other necessarily, but we judge ourselves amongst these people who live differently. They are richer. They eat organic, they are better. They have a happier relationship. Their house is nicer. They actually like their job. It becomes a total head game of “how do I compare” which makes any and all social encouters….awkward.

And then there are the spouses. Just because we are friends, does that mean our spouses have to be friends too? Should we always double date? Should there be a BroMance here? And if there’s not….is it awkward?

Right now I feel torn. I am no longer a Party Girl. I do not really have parties, and I do not really go out partying. However I do like a once a month or every few months, go all out getting drunk at the bar night. And I miss that. I miss getting dressed up, and dancing! Often times though I feel like my friends who want to do that don’t necessarily understand the crossing of the line. They want to get shit faced 3 nights a week, or hit on guys, or just make a fool of themselves. Which is FINE, I’m just not in that place anymore. I want the occasional Party Girl, not the Party Life.

Now that I am getting married, and have babies on the brain, I desperately want to belong in the “mommy crowd” too! And not just the mommy crowd, but the wife crowd. Women who are also a bit settled down. Women who want to sit around and watch a good Rom-Com with some wine and eat fun cheese. I want women who will gossip with me about clothing and gardening and weight loss, and holidays! Women who are into their homes, or their yards, or trashy celebrity gossip! I want a friend who will come over and do henna tattoos while we jam out to Britney Spears! IS THAT SO MUCH TO ASK FOR?!!

Whoa. Calm down.

But I don’t have kids yet, so I know that puts a big kink in things. As people who have kids want to talk about their kids, and people who don’t have kids, do want to necessarily hear you talk about your kids.

But seriously. I WANT to be social. I want to re connect with my old friends and make new ones too! I want to be brave enough to invite people over for dinner (despite the fact that we may eat differently) or game nights! I want to feel comfortable in my own skin, in my house, or anywhere. I want to say YES to invitations to go places, and NO to sitting at home alone!

So that’s where I’m at. It’s hard to be social. It’s hard to be ok with yourself and with your friends. It’s hard to break out of your shell. I promise I’m working on it….really.

Does anyone else find this whole friend thing difficult?

My Closet and Pants are too Small

First things first, Mr. Gaunt arrived on Tuesday safe and sound. Hence the lack of posts.

We have been working on un-packing the house and finding a home for everything. It’s all a bit overwhelming.

My job will start on April 19th, but hopefully I can find something else to do in the mean time.

Today I worked on putting clothes away. the closet in our bedroom is TINY and only Mr. Gaunt’s clothes will fit, so I have the hallway in the guest room. It’s still tiny and sucks a bunch. One day I will have a good closet.  I had a few boxes of clothing that I hadn’t seen in a couple of months as we had packed a lots of extra clothing away a while before we moved. Some of these included pants that I SWORE to myself would fit by the time I un packed them. I would guess that they fit even LESS than they did before.

I feel horrible about my weight right now. Mr. Gaunt does too. We have both gained more weight than we would have ever liked to. It’s a vicious scary cycle of weight loss and gain. I promised myself I would never gain back the weight I had lost, but I have put some of it back on. It makes me feel absolutely dreadful!

I don’t have any specific plans for how I’m going to fix this problem, but I will. I know what I shouldn’t and shouldn’t do. I have a wedding motivating me too.

There is lots of money, weight, moving, wedding, job stress in my life right now. I’m just trying to chill out and make things better. Sigh.

In brighter news Mr. Gaunt and I too a 4 mile walk this morning, plus we have spent the last two days unloading a truck and unpacking, so the exercise is getting in. Tomorrow morning we will be doing Lake Paddens 2.6 mile walk.

And I promise to share a few more house pictures this week.

Anyone else feeling super down about the winter weight blues? Would love some motivation right about now.