Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!  Here's hoping it's as crazy, chaotic, and wonderful as the last :)

Year in review: highs (Chris proposed) and (I officially am no longer a part of GRS).  Think that about covers the extremes ;)   As to this year -- well I'm getting married in Feb, suspect that'll be hard to top *g*

Ah yes, the wedding…  My friend Stef, also recently engaged, posted something the other day that really struck me.  She wrote:

When people told me sarcastically 'have fun wedding planning..' with a smirk, I brushed them off. Wedding planning couldn't possibly be that difficult. Now, nine months before my wedding I am amazed at how quickly it became increasingly stressful and how much drama came out of the woodwork. Forcing myself to do some wedding planning today, opening this book it was a nice reminder to see this. It's not about who comes to your wedding or where it is or who gets married first or who has babies or what kind of centrepieces you have. It's about you. And it's about him. It's about looking up and seeing the person you promise to spend the rest of your life with. That's a big thing. It deserves to be celebrated. Without the drama. Don't let others ruin YOUR day. 

And included this image:

Seems about right.  It's amazing how easy it is to get sucked into everybody else's idea of what your wedding should be. But it's our day -- Chris' and mine.  And every once in a while, we have to remind ourselves of that.

And then there's the fact that our trip includes a *lot* of people.  46 of us in total -- which, for the wedding, is awesome.  But we were thinking through the logistics of day trips etc.  And of course we want to go to everything…  But realistically -- we have exactly three days for tours.   We get there on Wed, so won't be able to do anything that day.  Thurs is the resort tour meeting about what options there are for everybody.  Also the day we meet with the wedding planner to finalize everything and confirm the details.  All good, but another day we're not going anywhere.  Friday, Saturday and Sunday are good to go.  Monday's the wedding and Chris' birthday :)   So yeah, it's pretty booked up.  Tuesday, tbh, we just want to vege.  And Wednesday everybody goes home.   So three days.  Tentatively -- in no order -- we're thinking the zipline/volcano tour one day and diving another.  The third, Chris wants to go deep sea diving with his dad and some others.  I, personally, would *really* like to go white water rafting -- which I feel reasonably confident I could convince some people to join me in :)  And that eats up our days.  But there's so much else I'd like to see and do.  Also, I know from previous resort experience that some of these tours will likely only be offered one or two days/week.  If they don't happen to fit in Fri/Sat/Sun we'll be out of luck :(  Ah well - maybe a first anniversary trip then ;)

But a month from today we'll be on the beach :)   I'm pretty super stoked about that.  It does make January "recover from xmas" fitness plan a whole lot more intensive than it usually is though!  But at least most of my friends are doing it too *g*  The fitness center at work isn't open yet -- I hesitate to take out a gym membership when it sb available soon, but I need it NOW!  *insert foot stomping*  hahaha ah well -- it'll work itself out somehow.   I'm also intending to pre-tan for this particular trip.  I've never been tanning (of the artificial variety) and am not even slightly looking forward to it.  Ah the things we do for fashion eh?  Sheesh.  But I really don't want to be either ghostly or bright red in my wedding photos ;)   Went to the gym for the first time in a long time the other day.  And then spent the afternoon tearing up hardwood flooring.  Yeah, felt that a little the next day ;)

It was an exciting vacation let me tell you…  Christmas -- both Christmas' actually -- were lovely.  Chris' parents invited mine to their dinner as well, which was super nice.  The rest of it though…  Well the day before New Years Eve, our furnace gave its final notice.  Effective immediately.  NYE Chris' furnace guy was there all day -- took the old one out and put a new one in.  Which, of course, meant no heat all day.  About lunch time I gave up and took a space heater and Sasha and went and hid upstairs with my Kobo and a blanket.  Hahaha that wasn't too bad.  But by the end of the day when the new furnace was in both Chris and I were pretty cold and less than ambitious so we passed on NYE plans and went out for dinner while the house heated up instead.  Sounds great right?  Yeah -- except the house didn't do its part :(   It stopped heating shortly after we left and then, being a Canadian winter, started getting colder again.  Frig.  At least we discovered it quickly -- would've been way worse if we'd actually gone out for the night.

Fortunately said furnace guy lives down the street and is a friend of Chris', so he left his own NYE party to come tweak the furnace so it'd work again.  Apparently a known issue with this brand -- a safety feature in-fact, but one we could've done without!  It was a cold night -- the heat was on, but it took a long while to warm up the house.  Booo.

Then we spent the next two days pulling up flooring.  I wasn't cold anymore ;)  The dogs were very concerned about this activity.  Sasha was entertaining -- the first few times I took armloads of wood to the truck, she came bounding along and went to circle my car, clearly expecting to be going somewhere.   Then she'd come with me, but stop by the truck and look at me rather puzzled.  By the end of the day, she just sat in the open door and watched me.   Tucker spent the whole time alternating between running around the house checking out Every Single Thing that changed without his permission, and hiding buried in his crate for warmth.

Now about that flooring.  When you pull up hardwood floors, esp hardwood floors installed by a do-it-yourselfer, there are nails.  Lots of them.  I don't actually have any form of work shoes, but I at least had runners on; I'd rather not be unsound for my wedding ;)  And the inevitable happened: eventually I stepped on a nail.  And since I had on said shoes, this was a non-issue.  Pulled nail out and life went on.

Until the next morning.  When I wore those shoes out to run errands.  In the snow, slush, and freezing rain.  Basic misery.  And realized that when you poke a nail through your shoes, it leaves a reasonably sized hole in the sole...  Fail.  Fortunately the first stop was winners, so new boots and socks later and that problem was solved ;)  Was a definite "stupid should hurt" moment -- I think I actually rolled my eyes at myself for that one.

Even though I haven't mentioned her, I still have Lexi -- she's in a new home where they take good care of her.  In a perfect world I'll actually get to show her this summer ;)  Interesting concept eh?  Yeah, we'll see.  Here's hoping!  The wedding, obviously, is forefront of my mind these days.  Hard to think of much past that.  I *love* my new job. Going to see what I can do to push that along over the next few months :)  Life in general is good.  Last year was one of change -- mostly for the better.  This year probably will be as well :)  Stay tuned to find out what happens next!