Staying in Shape

Posted Thursday, February 28, 2008 4:09 AM

I could chronicle the latest in invitations and our RSVPs (they're starting to come back!!), but maybe another time?  I see on a lot of boards and websites questions and anguish about getting in shape for the big day.  So I think I will dedicate this post to what I'm doing about this issue.

I grew up not exercising very much at all.  I wasn't overweight during my middle or high school years, but I certainly would not classify myself as athletic or fit.  When I started college I was 110 or 111 lbs and a stately 5'1".  It wasn't until I met my then-bf, now-FI that I started going to the gym.  I hovered around the same weight for a while because I happened to be living in a house with a chef (a former pastry chef) who isn't shy about using butter.  Hot damn, we all ate well there.

As a junior, I moved out of the house and into an apt.  Continuing my gym regimen (half an hr of cardio, followed by some weights), I lost 6 lbs, holy cow!  After I graduated, Alfred got me into running and friends got us both into indoor rock climbing.  After graduation, I guess, is when my general health reaaaally started to matter to me.

I started training for (running) races, moving slowly from Bay to Breakers (a 12K) to half marathons!  Nowadays, with the wedding coming up, that hasn't been a top priority, but that doesn't mean I've stopped exercising.  I remember a time when I was obsessed about my daily exercise and did my cardio (I have a spin bike in the apt) for half an hr 7 days a week and at one point (around this time last year) I was down to 96 lbs.  Crazy I know, but remember, I'm a small person!  And yes, I did eat.  I was also rock climbing 3x a week.

Let me tell you, the rock climbing does wonders for toning the arms.

My current exercise routine looks like this:

Monday: spin for 30 min, do crunches and pushups
Tuesday: 30 min cardio (treadmill or stairmaster), rock climb for 1.5 to 2 hrs (you're not climbing the entire time), weight room until I get tired (usually entails 2 sets each of bar dips, pushups, pullups....sometimes bench press if I have a spotter).
Wednesday: see Monday routine
Thursday: see Tuesday routine
Friday: see Monday routine
Saturday: spin sometimes (usually rest, hehe)
Sunday: rest

After big holidays or vacations, sometimes I'll double up on the cardio sessions on TTh making that about 50 min of cardio.  I realize that the above schedule will look terrible to some (most?) of you, but I like being fit.  I don't have much of a nightlife to speak of, but that's ok with me; if I do make plans, I usually make up for it on the weekend at some point.  I love having arm definition, my legs look fantastic in a pair of heels, and I can rock a backless/sleeveless dress.  For the first time in my life I have a toned and pretty flat tummy, wee!

I'm currently 102 lbs and have kept this weight for a good while now.  Anyone in the Bay Area interested in giving rock climbing a chance should check out Touchstone Climbing-they have gyms in various parts of the Bay Area.
 

RSVP

Posted Friday, February 22, 2008 6:48 AM

They're starting to come back to us in the mail!  Slowly, yet surely.  Yesterday's mail contained the first one and today we got another one today!  Minor detail that they're from invitations that have the address and information of the reception location that closed down (my mom...so rash and just sent everything out the second we gave her her portion of invitations).

Oh February...

Posted Monday, February 18, 2008 5:01 PM

Where to continue this saga that is Wedding Planning?  The practice "pommander" that I made this past weekend?  The preparations for our scuba certification?  Dealing with the fact that our reception venue closed the freak down?

Yeah, let's start with that one.

My mom calls me last weekend , distinctly remember it was a Saturday night.  She asks me if I'd eaten yet and if I had a moment to talk.  She tells me that our restaurant for the Chinese banquet has closed down.  I'm oddly calm at that moment, asking her if she knew for sure, if she had seen hints of "closed forever" with her own eyes.  She said this was based on what a friend had told her earlier that day, but that she would check for herself tomorrow (Sunday).  I say, cool, maybe they're just remodeling.  My mom is suspicious of the fact that the manager did not give my parents a heads up.

Sunday rolls around and my mom tells me that the restaurant is closed, but all the furniture is still inside.  She managed to find a security guard that works in the plaza and he tells her that the manager has just packed up and left.  She tries to get in touch with the manager of the plaza, but to no avail.  She then heads to the Chamber of Commerce to try to get some contact information, but is given only an address (to what, she did not specify....my mom tends to be very vague which is seriously frustrating, especially in times like these) and that it's "useless".  She also mentioned something about not being allowed access to phone number information.  I shrug.  All I know now is that it's less than 3 months to the Big Day and I am without a reception venue.  Both sets of parents have already mailed out the invitations.

At first, I am absolutely fuming.  THIS is what I get for trying to make my mom happy and allowing her to throw a traditional Asian banquet.  I toy with the idea of starting over and having the wedding in the SF Bay Area, but then I come back to reality when I think about the cake and photographer and the chocolate fountain, all vendors we have put down deposits for.  Ugh.

MOH and BMs are supportive, which is nice.  MOH offers addresses of other restaurants in the area.  Mom is already starting the hunt for a new place.  Alfred is trying to keep me from pulling hair from my head and consoles me by saying that he'd take care of the corrections needed for our invitations.

Being at work that week was not helpful.  I was utterly distracted and unable to stay still at my desk.  I was tired from lack of sleep, anxious....it was not so great.

Thankfully, by the middle of the week, my parents told me that they would most likely be able to book a restaurant we had been considering earlier, when we first started shopping around for a reception venue.  The pluses are that we won't need any partitions to separate our party from the rest of the restaurant because we get a whole room!  The sound system is already built in, so no worries about renting equipment.  The linens (choice of colors included) are included.  The venue itself is much prettier, I think.  There's also an upstairs, so I'll be able to get those aerial pictures I dream about.

We probably will need to tweak the menu again, which will hopefully be only a minor pain.  It's slightly more expensive, but for everything we're getting, it seems to be worth it.

I didn't expect to have a crisis like this, but dang, I'm glad it ended well.  It's just a little scary that even though we put down a deposit and signed a contract at the old place, that this still happened.
 

Where Did That Month Go?

Posted Tuesday, February 05, 2008 4:10 AM

Hm, so I have been MIA.  It's been quiet on the blog, but lots has happened since I last posted.  My BMs seem to be plotting out my bachelorette party and bridal shower, so that's exciting.  I've also seen the proofs to our engagement session-we spent a good 2 hours at the Pasadena City Hall and Arcadia Arboretum (it was a new location for our photographers).  Now the fun seems to be picking which picture(s) we like the best to blow them up into monstrous proportions to display in the lobby area of the reception location.

Just before the e-session, I had my hair and makeup trial with my ppls, one of them being the lovely Mrs Caramel of weddingbee fame.  She and her cousin and sister are friendly, wonderful people and I love how my makeup turned out.  Fake eyelashes might just be my new best friend!  I didn't have a clear idea of how I wanted my hair, but they pulled off the "classic, elegant" look that I wanted.  We'll all be sure to spray enough hairspray on the actual day though...my hair is just super Asian and just wants to lay flat and straight all the time.

So back to picking out a picture.  I went to the bridal fair at Fort Mason yesterday (mostly for floral inspiration) that was hosted by BVWeddings and Huckleberry Karen and I saw a booth from a photographer (I want to say Ed Pignol) that totally caught my eye.  There was a series of pictures on canvas that made me go, "Oooooooooo I want that!!!"  I talked with the representative there and found out that they get this kind of work done through Simply Canvas, but they only work with professional photographers.  I wonder if I can get my photographer to offer something like that.  The thought of not worrying about framing options is thrilling.

Hm, what else!  Well, I've picked up my veil from the bridal shop (this was in time for my hair trial) and I've got a dress fitting coming up this Friday.  I am SUPER excited to see my dress again, it's been about 4 months!  This will be my first time seeing and trying on the dress after the seamstress has cut it up.  I am hoping that I have not gained weight after the holiday seasons.  Oh man, wish me luck.

In non-wedding related news, I got accepted to the University of Washington (UDub from now on) for grad school!!!!  Nevermind that I'm still waiting to hear back from 4 CA schools, I will revel in the fact that some school wants me, ha! 

Invitations are done!

Posted Tuesday, January 08, 2008 5:55 AM

Oh lordie me, the invitations are done, or at least done enough that I consider them done.  On Saturday night, 3 BMs and each of their SOs plus one GM spent almost 6 hrs measuring, embossing, gluing, stamping, and stuffing (inserts) their hearts out.  It was arts and crafts to the extreme for many of us.  I expected some trepidation and maybe some mumbling about the slave labor, but everyone did such an awesome job.  To give myself a little credit, I think I did a good job being zen about little things that happened, like BM A drawing zig zags using Elmer's glue  and not getting the corners!  Luckily I kept my cool and just asked her to include the corners (she had done maybe 10 in this way) and she suggested that moving forward that she use dots of glue instead.  It was very diplomatic.  It was our fault that we didn't have glue sticks (there was one for about the half dozen gluing jobs that we had), so oh well.

Backing up to earlier that afternoon, Alfred and I spent a little time zipping around town to pick up clear address labels and heading to my work to get return addresses printed on said labels.  I had spent maybe half an hr in the early AM walking to the post office and getting stamps; I ended up spending about $120.

Just before we headed out to pick up GM J (he lives right on the way to the East Bay), Alfred was in a frenzy of activity drawing diagrams and writing instructions for what had to be done at Craft Night.

The only hiccup we experienced was that we didn't get enough cardstock to emboss our married monogram with; it was to go on the flap on the cardpocket.  Luckily, we're only short a dozen or so and will be able to do that ourselves.  GM J, bless his heart, was kind enough to instruct us on how to center our little squares of cardstock on the embosser (which we picked up from Wilshire Graphic Press....awesome awesome vendor to work with FYI).

BM NN's fiance has a sweet, new SLR camera (courtesy of BM NN) and took some pics of the night.  I'll try to see if I can find a way to load the pics off of google and post them here...
 

I'm a BM, too

Posted Saturday, December 22, 2007 4:29 AM

I am totally welcoming myself back onto the web for blogging purposes.  Grad school applications are all in and I just need to fill out a FAFSA.

Anyways.

So back in October, BM NN got engaged to her bf!  And guess who gets to be a BM??  I suppose it's not that big of a surprise since I gave it away in the title.  So far, I've helped plan a surprise engagement party at the Bubble Lounge in SF and that was really really enjoyable.  It was fun to get them to want to meet up with BM A at the lounge "just to say hi" (the story we concocted was that BM A, who is a grad student on the Peninsula, was in town for the night).   Everything worked out, all 20 of our guests showed up, there was tons of bubbly, and Alfred was able to procure pumpkin cheesecake from Miette Patisserie.  Success :)

I've also gone dress shopping with her and her MOH.  Can you believe she bought her dress at the second salon we went to?  The dress (from Amy Kuschel) was the one for her though.  We all got choked up looking at her reflection...

My most recent thing was to help them gather some photographer information. The location of the wedding (Edgewood Golf Course in Tahoe) has a list of recommended vendors, but we wanted to explore other options.  Thankfully the lovely readers of weddingbee.com were able to help me out and give some great suggestions.  They now have new leads to check out and I'm feeling pretty proud of myself :P
 

Chocolate Fountain-confirmed

Posted Tuesday, December 04, 2007 4:45 AM

Whew, what a relief!  I received an email this morning from PureBlissChocolate saying that my date is secured (and therefore that the deposit check arrived in SoCal a-ok).  Oh happy day.  Because I will be supplying my own dipping yummies, I asked BM A if she could do some "research" for me when she has her inaugural Girl Engineer fondue night.  I need to know if precut angel food pieces will be fresh for the wedding banquet; if not, I can always choose a different dipping item to take its place.  I don't feel too bad for her.  She's a grad student....research is her middle name.

At the moment, Alfred and I are slowly tackling our invitations.  I hope we get our act together, I know the time will fly by so fast.  Grad school applications are getting submitted, one by one.  Soon I will be done and all my stress will be focused on all things wedding related.  Sweet.