All-Expenses Paid Vacation To....(Drumroll Please)

THE DESERT!!!!!!!!! Wahooo!! Bleh...

I'm getting deployed ladies and gentleman. I know where I'll be going but will not be disclosing that information. All I have to say is that it will be hot. I shouldn't complain for a few reasons. One being I will be gone when Chicago will be at its coldest temps. Secondly, it's only for a month and its the last month before LC gets home from his deployment. I will get home, and a week later he will be here. Time is going by so fast! I love it.

When I first found out about this news, I was not a happy girl. My biggest concern was, 'What am I going to do with Oliver??' Luckily, I have an awesome sister who volunteered to watch my little nugget while I'm gone for the month. So Oliver will be setting up camp at Auntie Mel's house :-) My next concern was finishing all my pre-req's for the PA program. I had a schedule of all the classes I needed to take and what semester I would be taking each class. Luckily, one of my classes is online only, so I will be doing that while I'm there. Hopefully the internet works well.

After the week I've had so far, I'm looking at the deployment as more of a vacation from my hectic/crazy/super busy life. Yes, it sucks that I'll be working 12 hour days every single day that I'm there, but I also will have no responsibilities to anyone or anything but myself. On my off time I can read for fun or SLEEP!!! More than likely, I will choose sleep over anything else. I have a year and a half left in this enlistment. I'm not sure if I'm going to re-enlist yet. The military has its pluses and minuses. I will just have to wait it out and see!

Save the Date-8 more months to go!

Our save the date postcards went out last week! And the good news is, none were returned! Awesomeness. I designed the postcards myself using Adobe InDesign and then got them printed from vista print. 100 postcards for 30 bucks! Not too bad. I went to pick up my dress this past weekend and I love it!!! I did not want take it off. What I love about it is that it's different. I've seen different variations of the dress in bridal magazines, but it's still not a popular dress. It fits me perfectly, the only thing right now that needs to be altered is the length. But I definitely have some upper body toning to do. No sausage arms for this bride to be.

Half Marathon #2-CHECK!

My goal for 2011 is to be more frequent with my posts. To help pass time, I've been keeping myself so busy. Almost to a fault. I'm a horrible fiance, the 3 months that my fiance has been overseas, I have sent him ONE care package...ONE! If there was an award for the crappiest fiance, I would definitely win hands down.

Anyway, this past weekend I ran the Haunted Hustle 1/2 Marathon in Middleton, WI with my friend, Marr. My goal for this race was to come in at 2:30. I came in at 2:27:23. So I'm very happy about that. I'd like to do the Disney Princess 1/2 marathon in February, but with the wedding coming up, financial it isn't feasible. But I will be there in 2012.
I went to church with my mom on Sunday and we found out that the pastor who is marrying us got a call for a church in AZ and he is taking it. He's a really good pastor and he will be missed dearly by my parents as well as many members of the congregation. As to whether or not he will be back to do our wedding, that still hasn't been discussed. I really hope so because I don't know who we'll have marry us otherwise! And so the stress of wedding planning begins!

Marrisa, My sister (and her sign) and Me! 2nd 1/2 marathon of the year!

Here Comes the Bride

The one thing that I love about the church where we are having our ceremony is that we're not limited to "traditional" wedding music. Even though I love Canon in D and always thought that would be my song, it's overplayed. After doing some research, and thinking about my favorite songs, I came across this you tube video. My heart melted and I got chills. This is my song! I love Taylor Swift, but never thought I'd walk down the aisle to any of her songs for the fact that it was too "pop". But this version of 'Love Story' makes the song a million times better. This will be played while my bridesmaids are walking in and I will come in between 2:30-2:50, just as the song's tone changes. I'm so excited and cannot wait!!!! Music has always been a big part of my life and I'm really happy that I get to incorporate some of our favorite songs into the ceremony.

4(ish) More Months to Go!

LC's been overseas now for two months and one day (but who's counting). I must say that I'm holding it together pretty well this time around. I've been keeping myself busy, almost to a fault. But now things are slowing down, we're getting closer to the holidays and it's starting to hit me. This is where it will mentally start to get tough.

Deployments are hard. I never envisioned myself being a "military wife". It happened by chance. I truly feel that your relationship has to be strong in order to survive 6 months apart. 6 months without feeling his kiss on your forehead. Without hearing his voice every day. Without a shoulder to lean on and someone to cheer you up when you've had a really bad day. 6 months of lonely Netflix nights (although I have enjoyed having free reign of the queue) and the end of date nights. I will say that I take comfort in knowing he's out of harm's way and that there's no violence going on where he is. Last deployment, he was in Afghanistan and I was a mess. I'm thankful for the wonderful support system that I have in my friends and family. Without their love and support I don't know what I would do. And my mom has been so great and patient. (I call her an average of 2 times a day).

I'm proud of my fiance, and the job that he's volunteered for. He's the most selfless person I know with the a heart of gold. I can't wait for him to get home so that we can begin the rest of our lives together!
"Lucky is the man who is the first love of a woman, but luckier is the woman who is the last love of a man."

Weekend In Review

Friday, I ended the work week with a nice 5 miler down by the lake. I spent the rest of the night drinking wine and watching The Vampire Diaries. It was heavenly.

Saturday, I ventured down to Hyde Park and went to the University of Chicago Celiac disease center. They were having a free blood screening and the director wanted to meet me and talk to me about the charity fundraiser I'm doing. It's a nice campus, I was only there for about 20 minutes so it was kind of a waste of my morning, but I enjoy venturing out to different parts of the city. After I arrived back home, my friend, B, wanted to go out to lunch and day drink. It was the perfect day for it, but I have an A&P test to study for so I wanted to remain coherent for the rest of the afternoon. Which I did, and I must say that I'm very proud of myself for doing so. After lunch at Nookie's, we walked around Lincoln Park for a little bit and enjoyed a cupcake at Sweet Mandy B's. I have an obsession with cupcakes. I had a red velvet cupcake. It was very good, but I have to say that it was not the best I've had in the city. So far, SugarBliss takes the cake on red velvet ;-) Lincoln Park is my favorite part of Chicago. I love the whole neighborhood aspect of it. When I'm there, I don't feel like I'm in the city anymore, which can be a relief at times.

Sunday. Well I was supposed to volunteer at the Bank of America Chicago Marathon, but my snooze button had other plans for me. Sadly, I slept through my alarm and did not get to volunteer. I will say that I needed the sleep, but bummed that I missed out on a really cool jacket. I did get up in time though to walk over to the finish line and watch the race. This was my first time doing so and it was an amazing experience. It was very emotional and inspirational. To see the smiles of these people's faces as the ran to finish 26.2 miles gave me goosebumps. There was even a man who ran with prosthetic legs who finished around 2:30. Amazing. I'd really like to add a marathon to my list of events. And I'm hoping to perhaps do it next year depending on how this half goes at the end of the month as well as making the time commitment next year.

A Day at the Movies

Today, a co-worker and I were given movie passes to go see Wallstreet because our VP of sales took the rest of our sales division to go see it last week. We took a 1/2 day, went to the movies and saw The Social Network instead. We thought this would be more beneficial to our job of course :-)

Let me just say, I loved this movie. I found it really interesting to see how the whole facebook phenomenon got started. I've always had a love/hate relationship with facebook. I remember the days when it was called THE facebook and only college students had access to it. That's what I loved about it. No creepy myspace-ish friend requests.

I first heard about facebook from a friend of mine from UW-Madison. We were talking on the phone and in the middle of the conversation she says, "Oh! Jenny poked me!" I responded with, "What the hell are you talking about?" Within in a few weeks I found out. I loved facebook because it was an easy way for me to keep in touch with my friends and classmates. I did not, however, enjoy finding out via facebook that the guy I was seeing at the time had a girlfriend.

My co-worker thought that Mark Zuckerberg was an asshole. Which he was portrayed as. I thought him to be genius. Which he is. What he did to his "friend"/business partner was horrible and sucky, but I understand why he waited to start generating revenue from the site. When facebook came out with advertisements, I was not happy at all. But I stuck with it because I was addicted a loyal facebooker.

Overall, it was a great way to spend the rest of the work day. It was a great movie, very informative and I highly suggest going to see it. Especially if you remember thefacebook.com cira 2004.

Going the Distance

One of the reasons that I like participating in races is for the charity/organization in which I'm running for. The Chicago Rock N Roll 1/2 donated a portion of their proceeds to the American Cancer Society. This meant a lot to me because LC's grandpa died of cancer last year. It was the first time he and I had ever gone through something like that in our relationship.

So when I signed up for the race I'm running on Oct. 30th, I looked to see what charity the race would be sponsoring, and I couldn't find anything. I'm guessing this was more of a "fun run" as there is a Halloween costume division. Who can run 13.1 miles in a Halloween costume anyway? I found it really hard to stick to my training because I didn't feel like there was a purpose (besides creating a PR) for this run.

Until yesterday. I was on the University of Chicago Celiac Disease center website. I was looking at their events and fundraising page. They have a charity called, "Going the Distance". It's a DIY fundraiser going to benefit the University of Chicago Celiac Disease Center and to raise money for education, research, and advocacy. I have never done a fundraiser on my own but I am sold. This will be what I am running for.

A few months ago, my mom was extremely ill. They thought she had MS and those tests thankfully came back negative, but her doctor could not find out what was wrong with her. Months went by and my mom's symptoms got worse. Finally, her doctor decided to do a simple blood test and test her for Celiac Disease. Sure enough, that's what she had. So I will be running this race in honor of my mom, who will be there to watch me cross the finish line.

What is Celiac Disease? It's an inherited autoimmune disorder that affects the digestive process of the small intestine. When a person who has celiac disease eats gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye and barley, the individual's immune system responds by attacking the small intestine and inhibiting the absorption of important nutrients into the body.

I know I don't have a ton of readers, but I'm appreciative for all the ones that I do have! If you want to find out how you can help just e-mail me directly at brewcitybride@gmail.com.

xoxoxo,
Maria

9 Months to go...Our Photographer

After the cake has been cut, the first dance has been danced, all you have left to remember your day is your photographs. So this was the second most important thing to me. I wanted a photographer who could take really great photojournalistic pictures and who wasn't outrageously priced.

We met Olga Thomas, last October. She was so nice, very laid back and did wonderful work. All for a price within our budget. So after talking to a few other photographers, we decided that she would be the one to take our pictures. I just love her work and everytime I see a new wedding that she worked on, I just get more and more excited for ours.

She came to Chicago and did an engagement session with us in May. Here's a link to some of the pictures. I blogged about it an earlier post.

Yesterday, The Donuts Won

This whole week has been super busy and I've been slacking on my 1/2 marathon training (yet again). I will give myself a pat on the back for running 7 miles on Sunday though. Well done, Maria! Anywho, yesterday I was scheduled to run 4.5 miles and do strength training. I was super excited and motivated, until I came in to work and saw that my manager bought us donuts and munchkins because it was the last day of the month. Pumpkin donuts. And muchkins. Right by my desk. Fail! Despite the fact I was broderline hyperglycemic, I still attempted to run and it did not go well at all. My legs kept cramping up and my feet felt like there were bricks in them. I did not make it 4.5 miles. Instead I did 2.5 and forced myself to do some speed work, so the workout wasn't a total bust. So yesterday, the donuts won and it definitely wasn't worth the defeat I felt. Next week I'll be back on track. 1/2 marathon in 4 weeks and this time I'm determined to beat my last 1/2 marathon time AND not feel like I"ve been hit by a truck. Side note, 9 months and 2 days before the wedding!