Our new guy, Murphy. Love him!

Mmm... Breakfast

So, I was honestly going to take a picture of my delicious breakfast as an homage to my all-time favorite fruit - the red raspberry. As I set the bowl on the counter, what was that in the background... oh yes, a Kitchen Aid! I won't lie... the placement of the bowl was intentional, as I believe I have finally crossed the threshold of a domesticated almost-married adult with the gift of the Kitchen Aid. I also won't lie that I have no idea what to do with this thing. It's not like I'm whipping up cookies everyday, and that's all I really know to do with it.

HELP!

Fwd: Lad Lit

Hahaha, I'm curious to see if this email forward to my blog works.  Sorry, Nick, I had to. This was too funny!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Nick Collins
Date: Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 10:31 AM
Subject: Lad Lit
To: "Smith, Lindsay"

So I'm buying 4 or 5 new Mike Gayle books on Amazon, and I'm disappointed to see the tag "lad lit" on some of his books.

Much Better Than Muzak

We met with our classical guitarist last night and picked out the wedding music*. Here is a link to the song that'll be playing when I walk down the aisle... it was breathtaking to hear in person!

http://www.guitarinterludes.com/files/Romanza.mp3

This is one expense that is well worth it, in my opinion. It'll be so classy and elegant to have a live guitarist and I couldn't be happier with the music we chose. It's a Spanish Romantic song, and is so dramatic and passionate and emotional. I'm hoping tears don't ruin my makeup and/or make me do the awkward-cry face while I'm paying a photographer hundreds of dollars per hour to take hundreds of pictures of me!**

* I do realize that most of what I talk about as of late is weddingweddingweddingmarriedomgi'mgettingmarriedweddinghoneymoonwedding. I do realize. But hand-to-my-chest, being engaged is the absolute best time of my life. Sure, there are the low-points {how much to spend? how to deal with different people with different ideas of what to spend, etc. why is it always about money :(?} but everything else is just so great. Even just talking about our wedding day and ceremony and what not brings us closer together I think. Anyway, off of that tangent, seriously, being engaged is the bomb, and while I am starting to get REALLY excited for The Big Day, I'm also a wee bit sad that it'll soon be over. The engaged buzz/glow will be done. But then the real fun begins, right!?

** A word on the crazy prices of wedding photographers!? I saw many many websites full of awesome photography, starting at $4500. STARTING AT?! You've got to be kidding me. I hate to talk money all the time, but we ended up going with one for around $3000 and we got all of the perks we were looking for {CD with all images and photographic rights {their pitch was even "You can print the pictures off at Target if you'd like!" MY KIND OF PEOPLE!} as well as a very nice album, and DVDs created from all of the images, etc.}

*** There was no *** in this post but *** will be a word on the hair appts. Sorry, did not realize this would turn out to be a full-blown wedding post, but DAMN I waited too long to find a salon! Who knew people made hair appointment so far in advance? People have almost laughed at me when I tell them I want appointments 4 weeks from now... it's almost like booking a dentist appointment!

It's Friday, Bitches!
Today couldn't have been a better day for the horrendous construction project outside of my building to cut the lines {I don't know the technical details, people!} to our internet, computer systems, phones, etc. You'd think I would have slipped the construction foreman a $100 to cut the lines! Hehe, whoops, just kidding, ha-ha, nervous laughter!

So when the Boss Man was all "take off today if you have nothing to do" I had my keys out and my purse on my shoulder by the time he was done.

Off to the mall! {Shush, don't tell Nick.} I won't lie... I bought myself diamonds! I mean, I have to brag about it, right? How often does a lady buy diamonds? I think this was the first time ever. What I ended up buying was my wedding band(s... shhhh!). I won't lie... buying diamonds is pretty fun. The best part is, I window-shopped online before-hand, and picked it out before-hand, so I was able to walk in confidently and say "I want this, I saw it online, I know I want it, don't try to sell me anything." Because MAN, I hate sales-people. They suck hardcore!

Now I'm at home, a sweet feeling because it's not even 4:00 yet! The night is young...

FOOD

I'm having a really stressful day at work, and all I can think about it going to lunch, and how I'm going to order a great big cookie and a soda. I don't like that I turn to food when I'm stressed out, but at least I can recognize it... but really, Foggy Bottom's cookies are amazing, and I'd probably want one anyway, stress or no stress... : )

 

P.S. I have a wedding dress fitting today. WHY AM I EATING COOKIES?!

 

Radio Head

I have this thing where I listen to the radio on my drive in to work, and as I'm turning my car off, whatever song is playing is the song that I end up humming or singing to myself all day long. This is either an awesome trait or an annoying trait, depending, of course, on the song. This morning it was Rodrigo y Gabrielle with their awesome guitar duo. So this afternoon I'm still plucking along on an imaginary guitar and pounding away on the wood of the acoustic guitar while I issue purchase orders at work.

What's even more uncanny is if I'm listening to a CD. Same thing happens, I hear the last song that was playing when I pull into work, but the funny thing is when I leave work and return to my car, I can almost be singing the exact same line of the song from when my engine shut off nine hours before. My mind just picks up where the song left off, sometimes to the exact lyric.

But on days when it's something like Collective Soul's "The World I Know"? Well then, you better not cross my path because I've been singing this garbage song in my head all day and I'm about to break. True Story.

Invites

So you all saw my super cute invites, right?  Well, I was so paranoid that some would get lost in the mail, much like random socks go missing in the dryer, never to be seen again. Nick got a call from his mom about one of her cousins who didn't get the invite in the mail. She heard about it in a round-about way {I cringed!} and the cousin asserted that she wasn't invited.  I sent out their invite on 7/22/08! I swear! Turns out, looking up addresses on whitepages.com isn't the best way to go about it, as they are frequently incorrect. Now I just hope she doesn't think she was invited last minute {guests are to RSVP by next week} and oh I just need to get over it and hope their feelings weren't inadvertently hurt!

 

I'm Still Alive

Now that a couple of days have passed since my blood draw (I believe it was my first blood draw of my whole life - is this really possible? I am 26! How is this possible? It is possible.) and I am still alive here, I'm able to view the experience with less fresh glasses. Not rosy, but less fresh/raw/it-just-happened-and-I'm-still-anxious-about-it glasses.

 

Honestly, I thought FOR SURE that I would throw up, faint, or do both. I'm so so shocked that I didn't do either. And you're probably wondering "why keep beating a dead horse, this is the 2nd or 3rd mention of it on blogger/twitter/etc. in the last few days?"  Well, if you knew my history of "doctors appointments" especially ones including needles, well you'd understand.

 

I think the Xanax probably had a lot to do with it, but to be completely honest, I still lost my shit. I basically had to lay on the exam table as flat as a pancake. I asked Nick to remove the thing they call a pillow (I disagree - def. not a pillow) from underneath the exam table paper so I could be closer to 180-degree and get the maximum blood flow to the head. When the nurse came in, I started getting dizzy and anxious (just from hearing her come in! - my free arm was already draped across my forehead so I couldn't even see anything because even just the sight of the needles could make me faint). When she tried to find a vein, I started to get antsy and move around a bit, moving my legs and feet and trying to disassociate.

 

She poked my right arm with the needle, which didn't really hurt, but then I hear an "Oops" and a scurry out the door. At this point, I was getting more and more anxious by the minute. I was probably starting to breath heavily and/or hyperventilate. The onset of an anxiety attack! Fun Monday afternoon activity.  And really? It's not the pain that gets me - I'm not really sure what it is to be honest!  I didn't even realize that I was having anxiety attacks re: doctors/needles etc. until my doctor said "why don't you try Xanax?"  

 

Back to my riveting story, a minute later, the nurse came back with another nurse (I'm assuming one who is "better" at drawing blood?) and they poked me in the left arm. They had to tourniquette my arm pretty tight because my veins were in hiding. (Poor things were just as nervous as me.) THAT made me anxious as hell, because I could feel how tight it was around my arm. The nurses and Nick kept giving me updates "You're doing great, wow, you're almost done, almost over, you're just about done, you're doing great" and that REALLY helped as well. Because honestly? It didn't feel like ANYTHING. The initial poke BARELY hurt, and after that 1 second poke, I didn't feel a thing. I don't even think I felt the needle get removed.  I make it sound like this was all a piece of cake for me, but it wasn't. I was still very much anxious and "in the zone" and freaking out. After they were done with the blood draw, my arm started to go numb, and my hands were hurting. At this point, like I said, I wasn't looking at anything, my eyes were shut, and  I was hyperventilating as well as sweating like crazy. I had a washcloth on my face and neck, and I couldn't see anything.

 

Finally, I peeked out of the washcloth and looked at my free hand, and figured out why my hands hurt - my fingers literally curled up in my hand. Picture making your fingers into a duck-bill profile, then try to touch the duck-bill profile to your forearm. YEAH, that's what my hands looks like - both of them. It was really bizarre and kind of frightening, but to tell you the truth, in hindsight, I'm glad I had something else to focus on other than the thought that I just had a needle piercing my vein and drawing blood. The nurses had to get my some hot packs to relax the muscles in my hand, they were stiff as a board and there was no moving my fingers. 

 

Anyway, to finish up the story, I laid on the table for a few extra minutes, trying to figure out what was going on with my fingers and gain my composure a bit and calm down. I think part of the anxiety that people like me face is the embarassment of having such an anxiety disorder for medical-related issues. It was very embarassing for me, but the nurse was so helpful yet unfazed, and Nick was so nice about it. I kept putting myself down, rhetorically asking myself mid-procedure "WTF. Why am I like this? Why am I such a freak?" because I just wanted to note out loud that "yes, I understand this is a weird reaction, I do realize that, I don't think this is normal" because I was so sensitive to how people would react to my reaction. I realize this is silly, but it was part of my anxiety as well. Now that it's sort of "established" with my doctor/nurse that I am this way, hopefully the next time I have to do this (way far away future!) that part of the equation won't be there.

 

Wow - I didn't think I would be so wordy about this - I didn't realize I had so much to say. But honestly, once I left that place, I felt like a million bucks to have the experience behind me. Well, more like fifty bucks, seeing as how I went home and promptly fell asleep for 15 hours. Anxiety/panic attack will do that to you. It DRAINS you, trust me!

 

Epilogue: I wrote this and left it in "draft" mode for quite a while. I typically don't talk about this with people, other than to say "Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of needles." Little do they know. But, this site has been so helpful to make me realize I'm not the only nut out there that I've decided to hit the "Post and Publish" button. If I know you in "real life" (I have what? 3 readers of this site?) I probably haven't talked in much detail about it. Although my close close friends know ALL ABOUT the time I went in for a cavity-filling and ended up throwing up my lunch (Nacho Cheese Doritos) all over the dentist office. It's actually quite cathartic to write it down on paper (screen?), and hit the publish button. Now it's not such a secret. Helps with the "apprehension of being judged" factor of the anxiety. Anyway, I thought to myself, "if someone reads this and they see a little bit of me in someone they know, maybe it'll help him/her to understand that person better." So there you have it.

Who-Hoo!

Awesome news from my wedding photography consultant - we're getting a 2nd photographer for free! It's like Christmas in August!