2010 - Year in Review

I just finished reading my 2009 Year in Review and am so glad I started this tradition of annual reflection. 2009 was a really great year and I enjoy being able to revisit it, in my own words.

I love this time of year, which brings about an end but also a new beginning. Often it brings a sense of relief, renewed effort, and big plans. I have big plans for 2011 and lofty goals. But one cannot move forward without first putting to bed the past.

2010 was a challenging year. I can truthfully say I felt great anxiety nearly every day of the year. I woke up January 1 with the usual drive and sense of renewed effort this day typically brings. I hit the ground running full speed ahead making big plans and trying to live healthfully. Unfortunately, none of this was exactly for me, but for my wedding. 2010 will forever be in my mind "2010: The Year of the Wedding". It was the Big Foot of my life, forever in sight, constantly glaring down at me. I worried for ten months straight about everything a wedding makes any bride worry about. It is cliche, but it is very real.

And it overshadowed everything.

However, it was all worth it. Our wedding was perfect. And the ten months of stress and anxiety just melted away, as the sun is melting the snow outside as I type. Looking back, 2010 feels almost like a sacrificial year. I gave a year to something that was important to me; that I wanted done right and on my terms. But now, I'm excited to move forward onto the next big thing (and re-instate Oktoberfest!).



Before I do that though, I want to thank our friends, parents and my brothers and sister-in-law. It is all of you that got us through 2010, and made the wedding so perfect. The wedding may have overshadowed the entire year but all of you made parts of it great fun. The Shower, the dress fitting get-togethers, the casual dinners at our place, the great laughter. Thank you. We love you.

I hope that next year will be "2011: The Year of the Home". Yes, Mike and I are planning to buy a home this Spring. I don't know what to expect. All we can do is educate ourselves and prepare best we can. I'm excited and optimistic and very much looking forward to doing things for us, not for an event. There's a sense of freedom that comes with getting past the wedding. My husband and I are now free to move about. Pun intended.

As I wrap things up, I cannot believe I almost forgot to mention that 2010 was also the year of the dog. I don't know if that's true in a Chinese Zodiac sense, but it was for us. 2010 is the year Cooper came into our lives and we can't imagine life without him. I think I'll go take a nap with him now.

Clearing Dust off the Blog - a brief update

Since joining Facebook I find there is little need to update this blog since it's main purpose is to keep distant friends and family updated on comings and goings. However, I thought this would be a good time to blow off the proverbial dust and write some sort of update.

Mike and I had a great vacation with friends in Cape May early July and have gotten all of the drinking, eating and partying out of our system. We returned home and hit the ground running with wedding planning. I've also renewed my weight loss efforts. I've been working hard since February in this area but thought a renewal would be in order, particularly after a gluttonous vacation. I am pleased to report I am off to a great start. I get excited over these efforts because they usually mean I'll be cooking new things and experimenting a bit more and most likely trying a new physical activity. Someone told me they admired my determination this morning, but I had to reply that it's really just intense desperation masked as determination. My wedding dress doesn't fit so do I have much of a choice?

Wedding plans are going very well. I don't recommend a long engagement because it's a very large thing to have hanging over your head and it takes its toll after a while. But we're very much on schedule and the big day will be here before we know it. We just tackle one thing at a time and make one decision at a time while carefully planning ahead. I'm looking forward to the big day and celebrating all of our hard work and careful planning with our family and friends. Now that we're this far along I can finally picture it. I smile when I envision the day. Although I must admit I also smile at the thought of getting on that plane the day after and heading to Aruba because that means we had crossed the finish line and can relax haha. December will be "normal" I hope and then January we will begin the motions for buying our first home, which we hope to move into May/June, 2011.

Obviously, we have a lot to look forward to and lots of "smaller" things in the interim. It's a busy, busy time with lots to do and lots to consider. Life is good right now. And I'm suddenly very glad I decided to write this update because I didn't necessarily feel that way this morning. There's been a lot of anxiety lately relating to a situation with our current apartment coupled with a little bit of family stress. I am now looking at a larger picture and those things suddenly don't seem so bad.

Life is good right now. And I think that's why this blog is called Reflections. Because even if no one reads this, I feel better to have taken a moment to reflect.

My Current Events - an update

So many things are happening that I thought it would be a good time for a general update. I also made my first pot roast and was so proud that I really wanted to share it. You may be thinking, "Pot roast? So what?" Well, pot roast is really out of my element and I found the braising sauce fun and involved. After the roast was finished cooking I thickened the sauce and used my immersion blender to incorporate all the elements and was very proud of the result. Accompaniments were mashed skin-on potatoes, roasted asparagus and pickled red cabbage. The plate was so beautiful that I regret not having taken a photo. But I will leave that up to my favorite cooking blog authors.

I have really gotten into cooking again since the new year. I enjoy cooking immensely but found myself not doing it as often towards the end of 2009. It was a hectic time and I took shortcuts and ate out a lot and gained more weight than I care to confess. With the arrival of 2010 came a whole new approach to cooking. I wanted to try new things and eat more healthily. I am satiated by strong flavor, not quantity, so I continue to seek out new and flavorful ideas. Eating has become more sacred. When I am proud of what I've prepared, I have a tendency to eat more slowly and as a result, much less quantity. I've also found a new tool to assist me in my weight loss which has already shown results. This tool is working parallel with my desire to become a more advanced and experimental home cook. Great food and weight loss: a marriage made in heaven.

I am thrilled to report that wedding plans are on schedule. I know I could not plan this wedding unless I was fond of organization and to-do lists. Meticulous organization is mandatory, I think. Wedding planning is also running parallel with weight loss. There are so many "deadlines" that it is easy to identify mini weight loss goals along the time line. I am trying on a sample dress March 20, taking engagement photos April 25, etc. This is an interesting time in my life. Some times I am able to pause and enjoy the moment but other times I just feel like every single thing I do is simply leading up to one day: the wedding. I don't like that. I don't want to lose nearly all of 2010 to planning. I try to enjoy each day and not look at the big picture, but the small one instead. I want to enjoy this year. Luckily, Mike and I have the most amazing friends and so far wedding planning has been fun and also a breeze (knock on wood) largely in part to our friends.

So back to cooking! (This post is being written over several days hence the jumping.) Tonight on the menu we have a roasted red pepper sauce over pasta and scallops. Today is Wednesday now and I am fine with knowing I will go to the gym, shower, cook something new and different, eat with Mike, then prepare for tomorrow and watch the Olympics. I don't hold myself to very high expectations during the week. (I have since gone to the gym only to realize I had forgotten my gym bag at home, cooked, and eaten. The roasted red pepper pesto was very strong in flavor and delicious. The scallops were cooked nicely, not too long. Dinner was good. Pasta just gets so cold so fast. It is a common complaint of mine.)

So lastly in my little update, I have decided to join a few of my co-workers in this year's Broad Street Run. They asked me, I considered it, and decided, "why not?". Amy, my colleague, has never raced either and we agree there is nothing wrong with starting big. (The Broad Street Run is a 10 mile race with 30,000 participants). I'll have friends with me and this is just another added incentive to help me meet my weight loss goals. The event is 10 weeks out so now is the time to start training. Gulp. My goal is to jog the entire 10 miles. That's it. It will be my biggest accomplishment in my entire life (so far). Success will most likely bring me to tears. It just seems like the right time. Maybe 2010 won't just be the year I got married after all.

Immediate Update to Previous Post

I set the ball in motion. Mike and I have an appointment on February 8 (Mike said, "when football's over") at the venue we hope will hold our wedding. I found out that to have our wedding there on Saturdays in October, we must have a minimum of 175 people, 100 person minimum on Fridays. I really want my wedding on a Saturday for obvious reasons. In November, however, the minimum for Saturdays is 150. That makes a big difference. So right now we're looking at November 6, 2010. And if the price is right and we love the venue, we'll have the medium/big wedding I guess, trying to keep it as close to 150 people as possible and we can invite up to 175 or so knowing that unfortunately, not everyone will be able to attend.

And yes, I'm a little more excited now. Some of the pressure is off knowing that in order to have my wedding where I want it, it has to be a little on the large side, and having an idea of an actual date is also fairly exciting. Stay tuned.

Happy New Year

Since it's been quite a while since I've last posted I figured the new year was a better time than any to get back in the groove of things. November and December were bears of months for me, but I'm not dwelling on old, out of style, 2008. Alas, 2009. I confess I totally buy into the whole new year thing. It's a time of renewal for me. I get new bold ideas, I clean the dust off and tweak old goals gone unfulfilled, and overall, I start out the new year with a sense of vigor I find only spring time and the new year can inspire.

So far so good. I lost five pounds my first week "back" and I've been hitting the gym and am in the process of trying out a new training plan. I've developed my goals and incorporated checkpoints so I can spot if I veer off track. As I've posted before, I've been tracking my weight in line graphs since January 1, 2007. My 2008 average weight was 1.2 pounds more over my 2007 average. I'd like to reduce that average this year rather significantly and I have the best motivator I can imagine: a ten day trip out to Washington state this June. But more on that later. I also have the registration form for the New Jersey half marathon in May. Laugh if you will, but I don't know, I'm thinking about it. I'll have to see where I am in early March. It would be pretty amazing to go out to Washington with having completed a half marathon on my heels. Also, it would make turning 27 later in the month a lot easier to handle.

I'm really looking forward to the start of the school semester too. I'm taking a Creative Writing course for fun mostly. I miss writing, and I really feel like I have a story in my brain, however, I lack motivation. I thought taking a course would help me to become a better writer and motivate me simultaneously. I'll have to write if I want to maintain my 4.0 GPA. I'm also taking World Lit as a requirement and am super excited my new friend Jess is will be in my class. Yes, this girl. She's awesome!

I'm optimistic it's going to be a great year.

I do want to add, however, partly as a confession and partly just to be honest, that I've also been working on making some personality changes too. I definitely need to work on my level of patience and I also need to remember, although it makes me sad, that no one is immortal. I'm trying to actively enhance certain relationships and stop taking them for granted. To be more specific, my mother's mortality has hit me like a bullet. My goals for this year include making sure she has a better year, even if it that means simply not getting any shit from me.

Mike and I have also gone through some "exercises" so that we can be sure we understand one another. It's re-opened the lines of communication and that's working out really well for us. Patience really works wonders. I highly recommend it.

Another big thing this year will be the wedding planning. Dare I say I have no interest in this at all. But why should I have an interest in spending exorbitant sums of money we don't have, and the stress that goes along with trying to accommodate everyone who feels they have some sort of say in this wedding? I know that is a negative outlook, but realistic I think. I do hope once we get started and check out the venue I will become more excited. I wonder if maybe I'm just not that kind of girl who gets excited over her wedding. Every time I picture it though, I picture something small. A small wedding is going to be a fight though. That's where the stress comes in. Having to fight to have the type of wedding I want. I can hear it now, all the people I "have to!" invite. Mike and I will just have to hold our ground. Maybe I can wipe up some tears and throw a temper tantrum or two? ;-)

A Success

I am pleased to announce that our Engagement Party was a huge success. It took a lot of work, and I would never do it again, but I can look back and smile.

So many people were such a tremendous help and the party was a group effort no doubt. I also think the arrival of my big brother, Doug, a few days in advance also helped a lot. It was so wonderful knowing he was nearby and getting to see him for a little while in the the stressful time leading up to the party. Mike was a tremendous help as well and I am thrilled he enjoyed our party as much as I did, if not more.

It was really great seeing my uncles talk to Mike's uncles and hearing my girlfriends ask my cousin, Jackie, to join them in their chit chat and seeing our guy friends hang on Doug's every word. It was such a great group.

Now everything is getting back to normal. I had a really nice conversation with my mom Tuesday night and I was pleased to hear that she also enjoyed herself and was well on her way to recovery.

Mike and I are gearing up for the next party October 25, but this one is our annual and causes very little stress. It'll be nice to party again with my friends so soon and this time....I'm getting drunk!

I'll be sure to post some pictures from the engagement party when I have them.

Now Where to Begin

It's now calm after the storm and Mike and I are both very tired. It was a hectic and fun weekend - a roller coaster ride of ups and lulls, but no downs. Last night we were hoping to catch our seventh and eighth winds so that we could make it home in one piece. I met David for lunch today so I could tell him about my ring and now there are only stragglers and strangers to tell for the most part. Oh, and the friends who haven't returned my phone calls. The rest I'm leaving up to the game of telephone, word of mouth and a Myspace page blog post.

So basically, the weekend went something like this:

Friday night: drinks, monopoly, laughing

Saturday: Heavy duty cleaning! I did suspect Sunday may be the day and I knew that would mean that organization and staying ahead of the game would be crucial to a stress free celebration. I made meatballs so we had a ready-made dinner for later in the week and the house was more or less spotless. And mom always said clean sheets are the best for holidays and special occasions so not only did I change the sheets but I cleaned the mattress cover as well and I gave the mattress a much needed turn.

Saturday night: Mike and I headed out to High Velocity in Beechwood to meet up with some of the Boardwalk Brawlers for a fundraiser/promotional thing. Mike met four of my future teammates and I got a chance to get to know a few of the girls better and to get some additional information and to ask questions. I'm really glad I went. Here's a picture in which I look AWFUL. If I look over excited to be asked to be in the photo, I was.



Sunday Mike and I got up by 7:30 to get ready to head down to Cape May. We had breakfast at our favorite place, the Mad Batter, and then headed over to the Point. Getting around in Cape May is so easy - I just love going there.

Soon after I was settled in my beach chair and started reading Mike proposed and it was great! It happened very fast and afterwards we went about our day at the beach and had a blast and I had something to look at all day and calls to make and it was all very nice. I found the perfect rock to take home as a memento and to write the date on. We laughed and waved at one another and stole kisses in the surf and I couldn't have asked for a better day. And it wasn't even half over yet!

We got home around 4:00 or so and it was time to get ready for our 6:00 dinner reservation at Blackbird as part of Collingswood restaurant week. We notified the Maitre d' that we had gotten engaged and could we please have a romantic table. We were then provided with the best dining experience of our lives. It was the best meal we've ever eaten and the best service we've ever received - the experience was spectacular and we were very grateful. Blackbird helped to end the night of our engagement on a most glorious note so we wrote the owner and head chef a letter yesterday to thank him again and to let him know just how well his staff treated us and just how wonderful his food was and just how much they all added to our special day.

For all you foodies out there, this is what we ordered.

Course One:

I ordered the handmade potato gnocchi in a tomato basil cream sauce with parmesan and mozzarella. Mike ordered the same but added the optional fresh jumbo lump crab. It was a heavy dish but very nice. The portion size was slightly too large for a first course and I did not finish it.

Course Two:

I had been looking forward to this since we made our reservation. Finally after years of watching Top Chef and Iron Chef, I was going to taste my first confit! I ordered the crispy confit of free range chicken with sweet pea risotto and jus de poulet (my first demi glace). I also ordered the optional additional seared breast of chicken. The dish was to die for and I am not exaggerating. The skin on the confit was so crisp and the chicken flavor was so intense and the meat was so moist - it was an amazing experience in my mouth. I had also been looking forward to the risotto and it too was delicious - the cream just melted off the rice in my mouth and made me smile every time I had some.

Mike ordered the pan seared Chilean sea bass with artichoke and olive fregola sarda (a toasted breadcrumb-like pasta from the island of Sardinia). He also ordered the optional additional Prince Edward Island mussels. Mike's been really getting into seafood lately and he just loved his dish as well.

Course Three:

For dessert we both ordered the arborio rice pudding and I added on the polenta cookies which had a lovely hint of lemon. Our server brought out our dessert on one dish with a small candle and said they don't usually do it that way but that they thought we'd enjoy it. It was lovely.

Between the wine, the Rogue, the meal and the cappuccinos we were stuffed to a maximum and I mean it when we say it was the best meal we've ever had.

Here's a photo from the evening (our big debut):


Monday it was time for us to head back to work. Mike's parents were more or less the only ones who had not yet known about the engagement. We knew Mike's mom wanted an in-person announcement so we decided we would accommodate her. I wrote her an e-mail saying hello and that we wanted to hear about her weekend - would she be home tonight? Yes.

We headed up north to see my mom first who already knew about our engagement as she was the first person I called. We pulled up to the house at the same time and she got out of the car singing a made up song (I think) about how her daughter was getting married. We showed her the ring and had some pizza. It was loud, hectic, and rushed - the way I like it at mom's house. But time slipped away from me and we had to go. We made it over to Mike's parents house and his mom's truck wasn't there. That suuuucked. So Mike called his dad to see where she was and he said she'd be home at 9:00. Ouch. We were basically stranded as Mike didn't want to go back to my mom's so we decided to call Rudy and see if we could kill some time at his place. He was happy to accommodate us so that actually worked out really well because we all got to hang out for a little bit and I got to show off my ring some more and talk about roller derby some more and the guys got to catch up and talk about their cars.

Around 8:40 Mike's mom called and said she was home so Mike said he'd call her back in five minutes and we left Rudy's to go surprise his parents. We rang the doorbell and Mike's dad answered and yelled to his mom that Michael was at the door. I walked in the house and his mom walked into the room and she knew immediately. She started screaming and crying and jumping up and down and grabbed us both and confessed her love and happiness and thanked us profusely for the joy we had brought in to her family. Mike and I just laughed, but it was all very sweet. Then she grabbed us and ran us over to the speaker phone where she proceeded to call her brother and best friend who both live in Florida and we gave them the news. Then we all sat down and talked for an hour or so about all different stuff including our plans and she regularly interrupted the conversation to give us hugs and kisses. I couldn't have asked for it to have gone any better.

By the time we left I was dozing. Getting excited so many times just wiped me out. It was a wonderful weekend. All that's left is to get my big brother Doug on the phone who is traveling. I left him a message shortly after Mike proposed on Sunday and gave him the news and he left me a message Monday night congratulating us and saying he had news of his own. I missed his call a little while ago and tried to get him but couldn't. At times like this I miss him very much.

So next is the engagement party (which has been planned for a few weeks. ;-) ) and then on to planning our wedding. Mike is so wonderful. He takes all my excitement in stride and asks so little. I rattle off all the things that have to be done and he simply asks for reminders and an itinerary (his words not mine). I couldn't have hoped for a better husband.

*Addendum: Doug and I finally got in touch this evening and now I feel complete knowing how happy and supportive he is for us. His news was BIG, but more about that another time. Mike had shown him the ring when he was out visiting back in June so he's known for a while but now that it's all happening, hearing him congratulate us was the icing on the cake.

Betrothed

Mike and I are now engaged! Mike proposed yesterday, Sunday, 8/3/08, on the beach at Cape May Point. We had the most wonderful weekend!

More details to follow as well as a recap of the weekend.