small life, slow life

Alright guys, it’s truth-telling time. I’ve been wanting to write here for so long, and to talk about our upcoming wedding (and how it’s SO very small-life-slow-life), but I’ve felt totally caged by the fact that…

…I am not an expert. I have nothing huge to teach you. 

My life is very often not small…or slow! It’s big and fast and MESSY as all get-out.

I don’t have it all down, I don’t have it right, I still get moody, I totally still struggle, and I don’t want to have to come here and put on a persona that isn’t mine and question if the content I’m creating is truly helpful. So starting now I’m dropping the guilt and just talking in my own voice about what I know. No holier-than-thou, I have it figured out but you don’t  anything. And no more feeling guilty about paying for the domain each year but not writing much of anything at all.

So I’ll sum it up by saying this: My intention is to live a smaller, slower life. And more often than not, I struggle with that. And from now to always, I’m going to be very open about it. 🙂

Phew! I feel better.

So what happened in six months?

Well, C and I got a new place:

Move in day in January.

We love it! It’s a cute one-bedroom and very us. I can post more pictures of how we decorated soon.

We started planning our wedding! Much more on that to come but suffice to say that we’re doing it for under $12k and it’s at sunrise. On a farm. We’re so excited. It took a little while to convince our parents that a sunrise wedding with gluten-free breakfast and mimosas after was actually an excellent idea but I think they’re fully (read: mostly) on board now.

I tried on wedding dresses! And bought one!

This is not the dress I bought.

You’ll of course see the wedding pictures to come but I’ll tell you now: my wedding dress is MUCH more “bridal” than I thought it was going to be. I really thought I’d end up with a flowy-Bohemian something. But nope — super girly is what I went with!

Also C and I picked out our wedding rings. I met my friend Orr in Beverly Hills just to “look” at rings at her favorite jeweler (I had my mind made up to get one I wanted from Etsy). This was the second ring I tried on. I texted a photo of it to C and we both agreed this was the one. It’s been really  hard not to wear it. It’s a pink sapphire, just like my engagement ring. I love it!

We picked, after WEEKS of deliberation and oodles of samples, our invitations! They are not at ALL what we thought we were going to pick. I worked in the fancy-schmancy invitation business for a while and this was not what I imagined my future wedding invite would look like, but I love it! (This seems to be a theme with our wedding.) And actually it’s on my to-do list to mail out these invitations today, since we’re 4 months out and chose not to do a save the date. Eek. Nervous!

It’s a little hard to tell from the photo but the paper color is a very pale blush and the type and envelope liner are a deep navy.

My best friend D is pregnant and due next month! Ahhh! I’ll be a true auntie soon! I’m so excited. And D was kind enough to address our invitations.

Also, I got promoted to assistant manager! I was really nervous going into the interview and barely slept the two weeks before. But I got promoted in November and it’s been an amazing ride since then. I’ve seen my skill-set completely change in the new role and I’ve even become sort of a numbers person. Who would’ve thought?! I still adore working for lululemon and truly can’t imagine myself anywhere else.

St. Patrick’s Day with Arin & Chelsea

I recently re-read the entire manga of Fruits Basket (all 23 books). C would come home and find me moved and crying on the couch. I love this series! I haven’t really watched any anime or read manga since returning from Japan — it would bring up old pain sometimes, but I pushed myself to get over it when I was unpacking in our new place. I love Fruits Basket! I cried so much and totally want to read it all over again.

Kyo & Tohru: I heart them for life

I truly do not know what to do about wedding shoes. C is only an inch taller than me and I kind of hate heels to begin with — but all the pretty sandals are super uncomfortable and the comfortable ones are super ugly!

Saw these at Nordstrom. I tried them on and my feet died immediately.

We met this cat yesterday and both fell head-over-heels in love. He’s a Bengal and our groomer has to give him up because he doesn’t like other cats. We missed making him ours by just about 20 minutes – so sad! Have any of you ever owned a Bengal? It’s C’s dream.

This is Benny the Bengal.

Hmm…what else? Oh! I think this might be the one thing I’m forgetting to do:

Small life slow life? I wish!

Yeah. I’ve had a lot of trouble the last few months figuring out my balance and a lot of things got sacrificed along the way. I just started eating better and working out again regularly and I don’t think I started sleeping well again until just a couple of weeks ago. I’ve had to learn when to draw boundaries with work and let people know that I’m not available on my day off (I’ve got that mostly down but am still learning). I’ve also had to learn when not to turn off lululemon-work and jump right into other kinds of work: wedding planning, de-cluttering, etc. REST is a big one I skip out on so I’m working on saying “no” (even to things I really want to be a part of) in favor of evenings on the couch and an early bedtime.

Thanks for being so patient with my extended absence and I’ll be working on how to plan your wedding on an EXTREME budget in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!

xoxo

Jen

Crossing the street on the way to shop for wedding dresses 🙂