Not phat which is good, but fat which is BAD. I ate myself into a frenzy while I was pregnant with Miss Scarlett, but as Ethan says ’she was born a long time ago and you still have a belly.’ THANKS KID! But he is right. I’ve had the freakin wii fit for 28 days and the line on the graph is not moving and that is pissing me off and causing me not to get on it. I have to eat healthier, Uncle Paul has to stop making chocolate chip cookies and I need to work out more, simple as that. My motivation here is to publicly out myself so I can’t make any more excuses and continue to hide behind my ridiculously cute PR photo. Here was me about 4 years ago:

And here was me last night in a dress I love because it is crazy, but look at my middle and that is WITH FULL SPANX on. Ladies, there is only so much you can rely on the Spanx to do, only so much. Lycra is a miracle worker, I agree, but a sausage casing can only take so much pressure, you feel me?;)

Here is a model in that dress, not completely fair to compare myself to a model who is probably too damn thin in the first place, but clearly the middle of this dress was not made to fit a tree trunk:

Here is me after Ethan, I was trying to find something to wear to New York to go to a meeting at In Style magazine and I was buying loads of things bringing them home, taking pictures to figure out how they looked then returning what didn’t work. Rod thought I was mental. Point is, I still had somewhat of a good figure even if I had acquired a new jigglier poochier belly region after the bébé.

And here is me way back at my lean and mean fighting weight when I got married. At the rehearsal dinner in my hot Dolce Gabbana suede pants.

I would LOVE to be in the same kind of shape I was back then, not only was I thin (which is a word I would never have used about myself until now when I am clearly NOT) but I had muscles and definition and I was strong and healthy.

SO my goal is to lose 30 pounds. I figure 1-2 pounds a week is a good pace. I might even have to dust off the South Beach books. We did Phase 1 before and it totally kicked my ass and was hard as hell. But I also need to work out, I think for me that is just as important as what I eat. I plan on doing 30 minutes of walking outside with the kids EVERY day and 45 minutes on the wii fit, 6 out of 7 days a week. That should give me a good start, then I can tweak things.

I need to do this for me because I am vain and can’t stand to be FAT. But more importantly, I need to do this for my kids, I need to be healthy and be a good example for them. So wish me luck and tell Uncle Paul no more 2 for 1 ice cream deals at the safeway, k?;)

Today is my wedding anniversary.  Ethan is so sweet, he wakes up and comes bounding out of bed and into my bedroom, ‘happy anniversary mom!’  How freakin cute is that?  Said the same thing to his dad.

Anyway, since it is my anniversary I thought I would revisit my wedding journal on the wedding channel and dig up the story of how we got engaged… the way I told it 8 years or so ago.

CD and Prince get engaged, or battle of the titans

So I don’t have quite enough to do today, NOT, thought I would tell our engagement story. First off, you have to understand that it is all about control for the 2 of us, ain’t nobody gonna tell either one of us what to do. So, when it came to getting engaged, of course we both wanted some control. And, I knew I should just stay out of it and let him do whatever, but you know I couldn’t… I digress.

We were on a plane one day coming back from some business trip, and I knew that I had him cornered for a couple of hours so I decided to have a ‘where is this going’ conversation. Evil of me, I know. I had been freaking out about it, what am I doing, why am I thinking of leaving this big wig job without any type of commitment, I just moved to CA without any type of commitment… you know the drill. So rather than just stew about it and wonder and then eventually freak out on him for no reason, I figured I would just up and ask… Well, he was great about it… he said exactly what I was thinking… he thought we would have a one year blissful ‘dating’ stage, and then a one year ‘planning’ stage, and then we would have ‘an event’ and then we would have babies. Cracks me up the way he is so analytical, everything in stages.

Well anyway, what he described was exactly what I was thinking. Yipee!!! Of course in his male brain this was just an idea, but in my female brain, this was an arrangement, a contract, a promise, a commitment, a year from today we will get engaged, OF COURSE.

So we went along blissfully for about 6 months, and then I started thinking, I wonder if he thought this was a commitment, hmmmm, better ask him… so you already know what happened. Of course he didn’t think this was a commitment, he was just rambling. We talked about why or why not this timeframe would work for us, and we both agreed that it felt right. He knew he wanted to marry me, I knew I wanted to marry him, and there was nothing holding us back, so lets go for it!

Engaged yet???

So, the magical month was September, and we had been ring shopping. In fact, every time I would get nervous about whether or not this thing was actually going to happen, he would take me ring shopping. And in his ‘I need to be in charge’ way, he would every once in a while say, well I could just wait until October, what if I waited until October. uggggggg, MEN. And in my ‘I am woman, hear me roar’ way I would declare that if he didn’t propose in September, I would have to move out because that would mean that he did not honor his commitments. And he would say, yeah, where are you gonna go, and you know we are supposed to be together, so you are just going to leave… This is just cracking me up writing this, what a pair. I am constantly saying that if either one of us would just give in to the other we would have no problems.

He had done all this investigation, asking and stuff, how I wanted the actual proposal to go, was there a movie that I liked that had a proposal, how did my friends get engaged… I really just wanted it to happen when I felt closest to him, and I feel closest to him right when we wake up in the morning and we are all groggy and I realize that he is next to me all snuggly and warm. Hint, hint…

We took several trips in August and I thought, well maybe he will do it early, NOT.

Then he told me the ring was in, I could have strangled him.

I didn’t want to know the ring was here available to be put on my finger! He thought that the more info I had the more comfortable I would be with his intent, because I have trained him that this is the case. Well then I had to explain the TOO MUCH information theory to him. Now I knew he had it, so WHEN WAS IT GOING ON MY FINGER???????

I was filing some papers one day, and noticed behind the files was the bag from the jewelry store with a box in it. He was sitting right there reading the paper, and looking at me. I said ‘I think I found something I am not supposed to find’ and he smiled and said get out of there. So, the next time I was alone in the house I am feeling this magnetic pull to THE BOX. It was like in the movie Close Encounters when Richard Dryfus kept building that mountain out of mashed potatos, dirt, whatever, I was PULLED there, I couldn’t help it, it was completely out of my control. I rationalized that if I could just LOOK at it, that will satisfy me…

pulled out the bag

pulled out the box

opened the box

carefully unfolded the tissue paper…

what is this? chewed up chewing gum! Fell on the floor, LOL, this man knows me so well. He came home that night with a wry smile and me with a wry smile… we both cracked up.

Engaged FINALLY!

So, when is the damn thing going on my finger!!!????? It was nearing the end of September and no ring, and where was the damn thing, where had he put it? So he tells me one day that we are going to Northern CA for a romantic weekend getaway, the last weekend in September.

What a relief, finally this day is coming, and of course it has to be the last possible day in September. I go get my nails done to get ready (why do we do this?) We head north, I of course am thinking that he is taking me to this romantic place that we went to a year ago this time, yes he has thought ahead, why was I ever doubting him… well, no, he takes me to this place that the Best Man has recommended and because he just made the reservation 3 days ago, we get the last room in the house, hmmm. I told myself, SHUT UP, the man is going to propose, who the hell cares if he didn’t plan ahead and who the hell cares where you stay, you are with him.

So, we get there and we are both sooooooooooo nervous. It is late afternoon and we head out to the patio to start drinking and playing this trivia game… HIM: What part of your body do I like the best, boobs, butt, or head? We get drunk and have so much fun. And then at some point he has to say he could still wait until October, and my drunk self freaks out… I am shaking my head, shaking my finger, ME: you can just wait until whenever you damn well please because I am not going to be around, blah, blah, blah, more drunken mumbling.

He calms me down, more playing of the trivia game, then we stumble upstairs to go to bed and he has to say AGAIN that he could just wait. What is wrong with this man, torturing me like this! So, this time I get even more pissed, and start stripping off my clothes getting into bed, because I am just not listening to him anymore. He sits me down on the bed, half clothed, me still mumbling under my breath about ‘yeah, you can wait, wait on this, blah, blah, mumble, mumble’. And out comes ‘Would you do me the honor of becoming my wife’. We both start cracking up and crying and then he says it again and I say YES.

This story cracks me up and is so special to me not because there were horses and carriages and candles and flowers, but because it is so US!

When I was planning my own wedding way back in the day, I was writing about it on the Wedding Channel. It was my dirty little secret, the whole message board scene, my ‘pretend’ internet friends.;)  Well now that I am firmly entrenched in the wedding jewelry business, I decided to revisit the wedding channel and see if I could dig up my old stories and low and behold I FOUND THEM!  Here was my first post over there, don’t laugh too hard.

How CD met her Prince
We originally met at work, believe it or not, he was my boss. He was attached (married), and I was attached (engaged), and neither one of us thought much about the other, except come to think of it, he used to follow me around a lot at work, hmmmm… So we worked together for about a year then our project ended and I started a new one. He was no longer my direct boss, but he was my coach at work. A coach is the person that you can call and complain to that you aren’t getting treated right and they give you advice, he gave me advice all right, oh that comes later… So, we kept in touch through e-mail and every once in a while he would come visit my new project. As my boss and coach, he supported me at work in tough situations, and I was very attracted to that, a man who was supportive and taking care of me… ahhhhh. I have always been a strong, independent woman, don’t tell me what to do… so this feeling was weird, but nice!

In the meantime, I was having fun planning the wedding, you know to the OTHER guy, yet having this overwhelming feeling that the doors were closing. There would be no more boys, for the rest of my life! The planning was great fun, but I was feeling trapped, and also attracted to every other male who crossed my path, baggage handlers, pilots, busboys, the list goes on. I was also having fun e-mailing and occasionally seeing Prince. I was thinking to myself, how healthy I am that I can be engaged and still flirt shamelessly with Prince, I was soooo put together, NOT. So, I went to see a counselor, smartest thing I ever did. She told me that I had to concentrate on the guy I was going to marry, and flirting with baggage handlers and princes only complicated matters. I came to the realization that I didn’t WANT to concentrate on him and called the whole thing off.

Oh yeah, you are probably wondering about his situation… Well, he separated and then divorced based on the fact that things weren’t gong well in his marriage, hadn’t been for a long time, they had established some really bad habits, and couldn’t break through them. He also realized that he was attracted to me and wanted to see me all the time. We both recognized that we were catalysts for each other’s break ups. I am also a firm believer that we had to go through other stuff before we could be together.

So, we started seeing each other… a lot. It didn’t help that we lived across the country from each other. Whenever we got together it was this totally romantic escapade. He was wonderful, handsome, sweet, kind, attentive, listened and remembered stuff that I said. And, I was myself around him, he knew every flaw and still was attracted to me!!! I couldn’t wait to see him and eventually ended up moving to his city, which caused me major stress as you may imagine… Moving to be with a boy, away from family and friends, no idea where it was going, ughhhhhh! We both remember one defining moment when I was lying in his arms and he told me he could take care of me, I just melted at that moment. I had never trusted anyone to take care of me before, and I trusted Prince and wanted nothing more than to have him take care of me… where was ‘I am woman hear me roar’???

So, we ended up getting engaged, save that story for another installment, and we will live happily ever after. I can’t wait to be his wife, and he can’t wait to be my husband. Our relationship has its bumps, we both bring our own designer baggage to the table, but we are working through stuff with trust, respect and determination to get it right. Ooooh, now I am sentimental and must go snuggle with him…

Ah, young love.