Time with Family and Good Friends

I realize this is not being posted in the morning, but life has been busy.

The past month I really enjoyed getting to spend time with my family and friends. Between everyone coming here to New York state to celebrate with us and having a reception in New Orleans with my partner’s side of our family, I am cherishing those moments because it will be a while before it happens again. This will be my first holiday season without going to St. Louis… it will be different. No Christmas Eve dinner with my family or cookies and eggnog toasts on Christmas morning.

However, I was reminded this past week that I have some pretty great, new friendships here. I love hanging out with 2 of my coworkers and I made a friend from the job I had temporarily back in June/July. And this past week while we were with family in New Orleans, my coworker was so kind to stop by our place and grab packages that were left on our door step. 🙂 I am looking forward to hanging out with these folks and hopefully I get to video chat with my family 🙂

 

Getting Gifts from Strangers is Weird

This will likely be the last wedding related post, but it is something on my mind a lot lately as my in-laws’ friends have been sending us gifts. My partner does not find this odd at all because apparently for as long as he can remember people he does not know and never met have given him gifts. I have never experienced that. I always knew everyone because they were all friends of the whole family.

My partner and myself have never met these folks and never even heard of them before, yet they are buying us gifts and coming to a big party my in-laws have been planning for us. It just feels weird to me. “Hi, nice to meet you! Thank you for buying us that $150 whats-it.” Anyone else have an odd feeling about that? I know its part of my in-laws’ socialite lifestyle to go to a lot of parties for folks they do not know, but to me it is completely foreign.

Why Did We Get Married After 9 Years Together?

So not a question I was expecting to get an email about through the blog, but ok. My answer. It is not a crime to want to do something that is perfectly legal. While I may be liberal in many ways, I can be conservative in others. I wanted to marry my partner a long time ago, but we felt that it would have to be something we did not want to make others happy.

Why did we get married now? Insurance and other silly bureaucratic things pushed us to do it before the end of 2018. Our taxes will be better for it. We also say these were great excuses to get the low key wedding we wanted. We were pretty happy with how it turned out.

In my personal life, it also seems to be of interest why I am changing my last name to his. If we have children, I want to have the same last name as them and my maiden name does not hyphenate well. Additionally, while I love most of my family, my maiden name still came from a person who deeply hurt me and I feel like changing it is a symbol of me move on from that pain. I get a lot of, “oh…” responses to that. It is the truth, though.

My opinion is that as long as I am not doing something unethical or illegal, then what is the problem? What does it really do to your life that I am making choices that only impact myself (and my partner who is consenting to them)? People fuss way to much about what other people are doing, especially when it has no affect on them at all. I am not angered by these questions, just expressing my thoughts on the matter.

Post Wedding, Halloween and Serious Sugar Withdrawal.

I successfully lost 10 lbs, my goal, before getting married last weekend, but with all the sweets I had between my mother’s birthday on the 25th, our marriage celebration and Halloween. Whoa… serious sugar withdrawals. I spent most of the week with a bad headache and sweets would only curb it for 30 min. I refrained from sweets for 2 days and the headache subsided.

I would say it was the first time ever that I felt I could naturally tell myself I do not want sweets because they are making me feel awful. It did not feel like torture cutting myself off from it. It was just an obvious and normal thing to do. This is just another moment where I see how I had serious issues with food and anxiety. I appreciate that I am making strides in better mental health.

Additionally, in working to lose the 10 lbs, I tracked my calories and would say, “Holy Sh*t! How did I do this for 2 years!? It is EXHAUSTING!” While I am reminding myself how many calories are in foods, I am so over it. It was amazing to take a break from it for a week so I could enjoy the festivities more last weekend. Although, I would like to continue feeling better with less aches and pains from the extra weight (these boobs are killing my back), more flexibility again and good digestion.

Therefore, it is back to tracking. I will enjoy breaks at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Plus, I am still giving myself 1-2 days a week where I can eat out or have dessert. On those days, who cares about my calorie out versus calories in. I just can not deal with the anxiety from the mental struggle I put myself through last time I worked hard to lose weight.

After Halloween, it was not just about cutting sugar and getting back on to weight loss. This week was about getting back to my daily life. Nope, we are not going on a honeymoon. The honeymoon stage in our relationship ended a long time ago. I was back at work on Tuesday and loved it!

We rather like being real and made the first week of being legally together special by doing a few extra things for each other. He made dinner 4 nights this week and built a bookcase we received as a gift. I let him take the whole week off work to play way too much video games and took in the garage and recycling bins. We were also focused on getting use to wearing a ring all the time. I forgot mine at home on Friday and he kept forgetting to put his on until lunch time. Its a work in progress.

Hope you have a great week. Happy End to Daylight Savings Time! Do not forget to fall back those clocks one hour if you are in the States. It took me ten minutes this morning to realize it was really 5 AM, not 6 AM.