If you’re still here at this point, you get a cookie.

It’s just over a year since I last updated this blog, when I was about 6 months away from our wedding. Now we’ve been married for 6 months and I am back. Or attempting to be back.

So what happened?

Planning our wedding got unexpectedly stressful. Multiple well meaning people tried to offer help that we didn’t need. Help that, perhaps unconsciously, was trying to change the wedding we wanted into the wedding they thought it should be. Between backhanded comments or the silent treatment over decisions as silly as how many entree options we offered, and people buying wedding supplies for us after we had already purchased the same supplies on our own, got downright insulting at points. As if we didn’t know what we were doing.

So, I had to step away. If you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything at all, right? It got worse, a lot worse, up until the week before the wedding. It seemed as if no one just trusted us to throw a simple party. And that weddings are only done one way and we will remind you of this every single day in the hopes we will wear you down and get what we want. It was exhausting.

But then, things got better. Family arrived, and it was too late for any more decisions. Supplies were dropped off, and out of my hands. And the day was wonderful.

My hope now is to go back and recapture some of that for those of you who have stuck around. I’ll try to wrap up the posts I had half written before I left, and I’ll try to cover all the fun things before the wedding, like picking out invitations and all of that. I want to review all the vendors I used too after I share some of our wedding with you. But I think my posting will be slower. Maybe once a week. To rest my arms (I work on the computer all day and they do get sore) and to give us time to savor the experience.

Then after that… well, this year I get to be a bridesmaid not once, but TWICE! That’s twice the joy and twice the wedding planning for 2011. Let’s rock the shit out of this.

One thing that I’ve learned recently, the hard way, is the need to take care of yourself. It may be that you’re stressing really hard about your wedding, trying to please everyone. Or maybe work is dragging you down, and the stress from your office follows you home. Or maybe you have some bad habits, like poor posture or unhealthy eating, that are starting to take their toll. Whatever it is, take some time to STOP and re-evaluate.

I haven’t felt good since January. I started to have pain in my back and arms – burning and tingling nerve pain that got worse with each passing day. I know I’m very, very stressed, but I don’t think I realized how bad it was. While I’m lucky to be able to take steps now to eliminate the stress in my life, I had to hit the bottom before I started to change. I was falling behind on work, I couldn’t blog very well (hence a lot of half done posts that were scheduled for March are just appearing now at the end of the month), and I couldn’t get anything done. My doctor sent me to see a chiropractor and prescribed muscle relaxers as a temporary solution. They help, but they also make me pretty useless.

I was lucky enough to have my doctor refer me to Dr. Malcolm Conway at the Conway Clinic, who found that I had severely under used muscles in my upper arms. As a result, they were contracting and the tightening was pinching my nerves and causing pain up and down my arms. It’s been a long road, but I’m starting to feel better through a lot of physical therapy.

As brides, I think we really get overwhelmed with stuff and it can be easy to let things like your health reach the breaking point without even realizing it. This is my small effort at telling everyone to always remember to take time for yourself. If something is stressing you out to the breaking point, take a step back and re-evaluate the situation. Can you fix it, or should you look for alternatives? You don’t have to get stressed until you POP, trust me, I learned it the hard way!

If you saw our engagement pictures, then you probably figured out that NEPA Groom and I are pretty big fans of the Philadelphia Eagles. If you’ve spent time with us in person, then you already knew it, and are constantly reminded of it!

The pain of last Sunday’s loss is still fresh in my mind I HATE YOU TONY ROMO, but I’m going to try and move past that to share a story from December with you. It’s the story of our very first Eagles game!

I was able to score tickets to see the Eagles play the San Francisco 49ers on December 20th. We planned a nice weekend trip – we would drive down to Philly on Saturday and stay the night. This way we wouldn’t have a long drive come Sunday morning.

Suuuure.

As it turns out, our weekend trip fell on the same weekend as a snow storm that ABC referred to as “The Snowstorm Of The Decade”. Thanks guys! As a result of all the commotion, we left early on Saturday to try and beat the storm to Philly.

Epic Fail.

What should have been a slightly under 2 hour drive took 4 hours. I drove slow, and NEPA Groom offered lots of encouragement. I was highly stressed about all the snow and he spent the trip trying to help me keep my cool. He was also the brave one who got out of the car on the turnpike to clean the CHUNKS OF ICE off my windshield wipers that were making it impossible to see.

The good news is I only cried on the highway a teensy bit, and we made it there in one piece. After a failed attempt to walk to a nearby Burger King, we hunkered down with the fruit and cookies we had brought with us and then had a good sleep.

The game was pushed back until 4 that day to allow for extra cleaning up time, but it was well worth the wait. Check out these pictures from our seats!!

Yes, as a matter of fact it was cold. How could you tell?

It was a rough trip but it ended up being a lot of fun. I was really impressed with how we worked together, even if I did wig out a little bit. It wasn’t a trip I think either of us could have made alone (regardless of the fact that we probably shouldn’t have attempted it together, LOL).

Have you ever had a moment where you got to test you and your fiance’s relationship and how well you worked together? How did it go?

While I have plenty of wedding related goodies to share with you, I wanted to stop for a moment as there are a lot of people right now that are in need. We’re here picking colors and drooling over shoes while the people of Haiti are desperate for basic care items. If you can, I encourage anyone who can to donate some time or money to help. There are many, many ways to do so. I’m partial to the following, but as long as you care and you get the word out and do your part, I’ll be grateful. Thanks all :-*

American Red Cross

Unicef

Just popping in quickly to wish the happiest of happy birthdays to my favorite boy. Without him, this blog wouldn’t exist, and my life would surely not be as happy and interesting as it is:

Happy birthday! Love you :-*

It’s been kind of a crazy week at work, so posting ended up being lighter than I like. There’s some good stuff on the way, and I’m looking forward to sharing some more wedding ideas and news with you.

I had a happy surprise earlier this week when Cupcake Wedding gave me this little award:

The rules are: Tell everyone 10 interesting facts about yourself and pass the award onto 10 other bloggers. But um, I’m tired and want to go nap before dinner with NEPA Groom. So I just wanted to say thanks! :-*

I saw this on the fantastic Pantomime Papers blog and then ran my own blog through it. Wordle makes a happy chart with all the most prominent words on your blog, word doc, whatever.

Do I ever talk about anything actually useful? lol

Betcha didn’t even know I was gone! That’s the magic of WordPress my friends – scheduling. Thankfully I didn’t screw it all up this time.

It was a short trip away to visit some of NEPA Groom’s family. He officially asked his brother to be our best man! Yay! Here are a few nuggets of wisdom I collected from that long weekend, just for you:

• The first indicator that you’ve hit the real South is when all the tables at Cracker Barrel have malt vinegar on them instead of ketchup.
• Always hit the potty at each rest stop. You never know when the next potty will arrive.
• If you’re engaged and you hold someone else’s baby, be prepared for a fire storm of photos. Your parenting skills are already being evaluated.
• The seats in a KIA Sorento are NOT comfortable. Don’t rent one for a 10 hour drive.
• Bring your iPod/cell phone/whatever charger.
• Forget the GPS, it doesn’t know what it’s doing half the time.
• After a while, put down the camera and just enjoy the time with your family. If you spend all your time documenting the trip, you’ll miss everything.
• Dogs + beer = WIN:

All right, humor me with this Not Wedding Related post guys. I’ve held my tongue for a week on this cause honestly, I’m not sure how I feel. I’m still not sure but I think I just need to talk it through.

NEPA Groom has been a Philadelphia Eagles fan since he was born. I’ve been a fan by association for four years, and a fan by choice for the past 1 year. Our idea of a good Sunday afternoon in the fall is as follows:

+

+

= FUN.

But with the signing of Michael Vick last week, I’m not sure how to feel any more. A lot of people are really angry and want to boycott the Eagles. I understand that, and I certainly think they are right to be upset. Other people feel he paid his time and deserves a second chance to make things right. I can kind of see that too.

What I can’t see, and I can’t stand, are people ripping each other apart for having opposing views. I’ve been watching people bicker back and forth for a week now on facebook and twitter about this, and really, guys? I have a news flash for you all – no matter what you think, he’s here. This is a shitty analogy, but I feel it’s like finding out my sister (if I had one) was dating Michael Vick. I don’t think she should, and I told her so, but she’s my family and I love her and I want to be there to either celebrate when it works out, or to help her get back on her feet when it doesn’t. Yelling and fighting with her isn’t going to help.

I am an Eagles fan. I was and will still be an Eagles fan, but I don’t support the hiring of Michael Vick. I think it was a mistake, but I would love it if he proved me wrong. He’s got a great opportunity and he could do a lot of good to stop dog fighting, if he follows through. I’m not holding my breath, but I’ll be watching. And if he doesn’t hold up his end of the bargain, then Andy Reid – get him the hell out of Philly.

*puts away the soapbox*