Last January Anniversary

Today is mine and AJ's three-year anniversary! And it'll be our last January anniversary! Fun fact: when booking our venue we tried to get January 19, 2019 since it's our dating anniversary, it's a Saturday that year, and 1/19/19 ain't bad. But the venue we were in love with was already booked that day (this was back in September 2017... geeeeeez!) so we were happy to take December.

Anyway, last night we did the painting things and we got some really ugly pictures hahaha

Last day in the office for awhile, hallelujah!

Engagement Photos

Well I won't go into the complete meltdown I had over our engagement pictures because I apparently don't own any clothes appropriate for a "wintry casual look" but anyways, it's all in the past now.

I spent the weekend at my mom's and we went to another bridal expo (we're on the circuit now) where my freebies this time around (assuming I don't win any contests later) included bridal Minnie ears and some nice wolf ears from Great Wolf Lodge.

Then we visited grandma for awhile (I fell asleep per usual) and made it home, and spent Sunday running errands, like unsuccessfully looking for an outfit, nails, eyebrows and pho mmmm.

Monday was borderline miserable. I had to get from Moreno Valley to Corona to get my hair and makeup done first thing. It took longer than I had anticipated. Then had to get home. AJ's mom was coming with us to help with Anana who was due to be in our shoot, but she got called into work. So after we left late, we had to stop off on the way to LA to pick her up. Hauled ass to LA to find astronomically priced parking, met up with the photographer and my amazing friends at Starbucks and hit Pershing Square!

I had never been to Pershing Square before, but my research a la Google maps looked like it could be a great little park surrounded by high rises, which was all I wanted... a cityscape. It ended up being amazingly perfect! The square was really photographic and had a lot of different things going on... from little side gardens to some modern bright color walls and stuff. Anana looked beautiful in her flower crown (you may recognize it from what I wore for Shannon's wedding!) AND the biggest of shoutouts to my amazing friends Jessica and Iris who showed up with balloons to make the photoshoot even more magical!!

Poor Anana sitting half off the step!

Jessica took these on her phone...

Can't wait to see these photos from the photographer!

I didn't enjoy the photoshoot as much as I thought I would. It was shockingly exhausting to be continually posed, walked, turning around, etc etc. But, it certainly made me love and appreciate our photographer all the more! He was great at taking charge, directing us, coming up with ideas, etc. I have so much faith in him for the photos!

We all tried to find a place to eat, and after walking up a horrible hill that made San Francisco look like Kansas, we found the restaurant we were searching for was closed. Funny, MLK day is always hit and miss and that was the same problem AJ and I had on our first date! Yeah, cute side note: our first date was on MLK day... so not the 15th like this year, but still MLK day, so that's kinda cute? Anyways, we ended up splitting up from our friends and started the drive home, but got off to eat around USC to let the traffic die down.

We had a street evangelizer hang out with us during our meal. He was nice, but exhausting. He never took a break and talked the entire time. AJ and I crashed that night around 8p, and that's saying a lot for AJ!

Poor Khaleesi didn't in on the photo shoot
but Anana sure did...!

I have an insane week at work and am barely surviving, but getting through it. Sad about Dolores O'Riordan though :(

Kate Middleton Day

Happy Kate Middleton Day!

I don't know why I continue to celebrate this, but it's stupid and I still look forward to it every year. For some reason I always equate dark blue with her (maybe because of their engagement announcement photo?)

My friend Shirley said I should have tried to channel young Kate Middleton this year and sent me this picture...

 ...but I decided to stick with my usual feather fascinator headband, Kate Middleton engagement ring, and tea! (not coffee!) from my Royal Wedding mug!

Bridal Show

I'm starting to love bridal shows. I've only been to two now, but you get a lot of freebies, get entered into a lot of raffles, and last time I even got a set of free eyelash extensions (which I'm still loving). So my mom and I made a day of it last Saturday and went to a show in Costa Mesa.

There's always a million things to see and do at these places, all clamoring for attention and contact information. I'm still waiting to hear if I won anything, but at least I got a wire twisted Bride hanger, a sparkly rose gold Bride champagne flute and some body sculpting sessions...

We also went by the swap meet and I bought a hanging indoor plant! Yay.

AJ and I started a New Year's tradition of Korean food with my coworker and her husband, and also we finished Black Mirror with some friends. Now what's left to do?! Well, wedding planning is a task in itself so oh well, I guess I don't need to waste my time on Netflix.

I also don't know what it is but I swear when it does decide to rain in California (all 5 days of the year), it's always on a Monday. I don't even mind today, I like the overcast rainy weather today.

Sugar Withdrawals

My official "Sweating for the Wedding" work began on January 2, 2018 (because I was honest with myself and knew that January 1 would be total recovery day and I would need all the food and rest and everything to get over the New Year's Eve shenanigans.)

AJ and I set our goals for January, and my biggest one, which I knew was coming (and I therefore totally overcompensated for during the holidays in anticipation of giving it up) was processed sugar. It's not a total hard and fast rule, but I have an insatiable sweet tooth and eat way too much chocolate, cookies and any other form of sweets, from candy-coated sunflower seeds to yogurt-covered pretzels. It also doesn't help that at my office, people are endlessly bringing it communal treats, from donuts to cakes.

So, the rules aren't hard and fast (I still use coffee creamer, have cereal, like seed butter on rice cakes) but trust me when I say eliminating the BS sugar has a huge impact, and yesterday I was already feeling the effects of it. I was in a bad mood, lethargic, anxious and borderline depressed. I figured it was just "one of those days" although when I felt bad, my instinct was to find some sort of sugary treat, and it doesn't help that there is still tons of holiday snacks around the office, and it made me look up sugar withdrawals. Not only is it actually a thing, but all of my symptoms were aligning with it!

So, this totally sucks, even though I am powering through it and I will be better off in the end, it still sucks! But I'm glad I finally have the motivation to do this because clearly it's a problem. I also resolved to drink more water so I think that's helping too!

On with Day 4...

Happy New Year 2018!

Man am I excited to see 2018... my wedding year! I was sad to say goodbye to 2017 though, it was such a great a year for me. But I do like the fresh feeling of a new year too, and this one has a great big finale coming my way.

My 2017 top 9 from instagram!

New Year's Eve was really nice for us. AJ's friend from Denver was in town, and aside from an all-day hospital stay on December 30, it was a good time, and we all had tons of fun at the house party in LA that we all attended.I even won a prize for best slippers and AJ won a prize for something about funny drunken dancing mess in 2017 from the November 11 wedding of our friends. Ha.

January 1 was a blur of nothingness, just reading and TV and coffee and being lazy. January 2 I also had off, but this day was more productive. I washed sheets and cleaned up and put all the Christmas decorations away and then I went to the movies and saw I, Tonya. I liked it! Margot Robbie is fabulous. And January 2 also marks the official start of sweating for the wedding. AJ and I wrote down our goals for January and are off to a good start!

There's a lot to look forward to this year...!