Shaping Up Continued...

My 7 and 1/2 miles on Wednesday went fantastic! Loved using my new watch to help keep me on pace so that I'm averaging a little under a 10 minute mile... if I'm able to keep that up for another 6 miles I'll be beating a personal record at the Shamrock, so I'm encouraged by that! I just need to stick to my training schedule and make training a top priority. But with that being said, I'm also reminding that physical training and self discipline should not be THE top priority in my life.

As I was having lunch with one of my dearest friends a couple of weeks ago, we were talking about our physical training and she brought up the fact that the time she was taking to shape her physical, temporary body was out weighing the time she spent training her eternal soul so she said she came up with the idea to take a new scripture verse or passage to the pool with her and to meditate and memorize the scripture during her swims.

I immediately thought of the passage in 1 Corinthians:

  "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.  Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly..." (1 Cor 9:24-26)

I loved her idea but hadn't put it into practice in my own training. Until now. This need to train my spirit along with my body has been a constant nagging in my mind over the last couple of weeks and I know God is inviting me to spend more time meditating on His Word. Because I don't want to turn down an invitation from my King, I'm going to try memorizing a new passage of scripture on all my long runs. And the first, because I've been struggling with having a true generous spirit, is listed below.

 "One person gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty.

A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.  People curse the one who hoards grain, but they pray God’s blessing on the one who is willing to sell."

Proverbs 11:24-26

This dear friend of mine also has a blog... HopeFilledAbandon. Read and be inspired. :)

Shaping Up

With my wedding less than 4 months away I am beginning to feel the pressure of umm well... not necessarily losing weight per say.... but toning up what I already have. Thats not to say that I wouldn't be thrilled if I lost about 10 pounds in the process but my mom always taught me that we should exercises to be healthy and feel good about our bodies, not to meet a certain number on the scale. SO my mission to feel good not only in me wedding dress but in some honeymoon attire as well [*wink wink*] has officially begun!

I tried to start this process back in November when I was training for the Freedom Half Marathon in Norfolk. I planned to train and then keep up my training through March when I planned to run the Shamrock 1/2. Well I finished the 1/2 marathon in November (3 min slower than my personal best *sad face* but I did get a pretty sweet medal for finishing...see below!) only to be diagnosed with mono a week later. Thus all training not only came to stop but began backsliding in a rapid, ugly fashion to the point where a 1/2 mile FELT like a 1/2 marathon. Thanks to Mono all my hard work was gone and it's taken until now to feel back in shape to start pushing myself hard  during workouts and being able to endure more than a few times a week.

My first long run since Mono is tomorrow morning! 7 miles... EEK! But I'm excited because I got a fancy new Timex GPS watch for Christmas that I haven't had a chance to try out on a longer run!

So here's to a glorious 7 miles tomorrow morning and 4 months of 

whipping my body into prime bridal condition!

The medal that I just have to show off because well, it looks the way it does. And I'm not going to lie, sometimes I pretend its an olympic bronze medal. 

Okay not really. 

But... actually, yes. I do. 

Told ya it was pretty sweet.

Photo Booth

With countless hours spent on researching wedding ideas over the past 7 months and deciding what kinds of things I wanted to have at my reception and which ones I could leave out, having a photo booth was on the top of that list. That was until I found out just how expensive they were.

I knew it wasn't in our budget to pay the typical $950+ asking price by most companies around here so I began toying with idea of making our own photo booth. Pinterest has several DIY tutorials that I began searching through. While setting up the backdrop for a photo booth seemed simple enough, I never could work out the logistics of who would take the pictures and if we could get the pictures printed instantly with good quality and without costing a fortune to pay for the ink required to print all of these pictures! Especially since I loved the idea of having one print for guests and one print for the guest book. So even though I kept coming back to the idea I always left it feeling thoroughly disappointed.

That was until Living Social came out with a deal... $250 for 2 hours of photo booth entertainment from Smash Elite Entertainment Photo Booth! Now Groupon had had a similar deal a couple of months ago that I checked in to, but they didn't have my date available. So when I saw this new deal on Living Social I called them up immediately. As I spoke to the lady on the phone and she looked to see if May 12th was available I'm pretty sure I was holding my breath. I knew that if this didn't work out I would have to give up all hopes of having a photo booth at my reception. When she came back on the line saying May 12th was open I definitely let out a big, loud, excited "YES!" (Sorry lady on the phone for possibly hurting your poor eardrum.)

I'm so thankful that we were able to find a photo booth that fit in our budget! God is so good to give me these little blessings.

Dress of my Dreams

I can't believe I haven't updated since before Thanksgiving! Apparently I'm not so good at keeping up with this blogging thing when things get busy...

I could tell you about all the craziness [good and bad] that has ensued in my family since my last post, including scary ER visits with family members and traveling for a wonderful Christmas spent with 33 of my closest family members in one house, but I'll spare you all of the details. We'll just say things are somewhat back to normal now and my wedding is only 111 days away!!!

Now normally I am not a procrastinator, but when it came to buying my wedding dress I was so afraid of making a commitment to one dress that I put off the actual purchase until this past weekend.... but I am so glad that I did!

The very first time I went to try on gowns I found one that I liked, one that seemed to suit my personality, but I was so overwhelmed with all of the different style choices I couldn't bring myself to make a decision at that time. The second time I went I had narrowed down the style choices and my favorite out of all the ones I tried on was the same one that I liked the first time, but I still wasn't 100%. I left the bridal shop that day feeling like that would probably end up being my dress but I wanted to try a different bridal shop just to make sure... because at this point I had plenty of time! Well I had the week of Thanksgiving off and made an appointment with Williamsburg Bridal and Formal, just to make sure there wasn't anything better out there! Unfortunately I ended up with Mono and my brother ended up spending that week in the ICU... (some of those ugly details I spoke about earlier)...so that trip never came to be, but in the long run I guess it was a good thing!

After the craziness of the holidays, it hit me just how close my wedding actually was and just how much I needed to make a decision on a dress! We still have family in town so this past Saturday several of my female cousins, my aunt, grandma, mom and sisters went back to David's Bridal to get my dress. I decided before going in that I wouldn't try on any new dresses just the one I had liked from the time before to confirm the size. My sister Erin had different plans. She pulled a dress off the rack (a new style that just came out in January) and convinced me to try it on... playing along like the good sister I am I put the dress on, walked out of the room and absolutely fell in love! There was always something about the other dress that I wasn't quite sure about, something that didn't make me jump at the chance of buying it the first 2 times I tried it on. As soon as I saw myself in this new dress I new it was the one.

So for once in my life I am thankful for my procrastination... and also my sisters good eye not only for fashion but for what kinds of fashion looks good on me! I am so excited about this dress, I wish I could post pictures or even describe it, but at the same time I want to keep it completely secret until May!

One last note... my wedding dress is scheduled to arrive by May 7th... my wedding day is May 12th!!! I am so glad I didn't put it off one more weekend!