Brilliant!

I  mean really the whole thing was just perfect, wasn't it?

I'm taking about the Royal Wedding, of course or specifically Kate Middleton Princess Catherine's dress.

I know everyone's seen it by now but here's what I could find from google images just to allow ourselves to drool just a bit longer.

I really wasn't into all the hoopla, was never a Royal obsessor but the media told me otherwise and I  willingly obeyed and ate it all up.

I got up somewhere around 5 o'clock-ish and am a bit embarassed to say that it's noon and I've spent the majority of the morning watching all the coverage as well as googling Grace Kelly's wedding dress and other celebrity weddings which I will conveniently include here for you to relish as well.

Can you say the word iconic?

The only other recent wedding gown with sleeves that I could think of was Ivanka Trump's dress.  And boy was it gorgeous.

Beautiful. There's really nothing more to say. This commoner-wedding lover got her fix today and I should probably do something constructive with my day other than goo-goo-ga-ing over dresses.

 

Facebook is a bride's worst enemy

You know how it's supposed to be this magical moment when the bride and groom see each other for the first time on their wedding day? Well on my wedding day when I walked into the church and got my first glance at MY groom he looked pissed..not exactly the storybook moment I was envisioning.

Later on my husband told me he got super annoyed when he saw his crazy brother-in-law jump in front of the professional photographer we paid good money for so he could get the money shot of me walking down the aisle on his camera phone.

HIS CAMERA PHONE.  He got in the way of our professional photographer and the photographer's fancy schmany camera so he could get a shot of me walking down the aisle on his CAMERA PHONE.  And then he proceeded to take that photo of me on his camera phone with my eyes half-closed and making some weird face and posted it on Facebook.

Imagine my surprise when I got back from my honeymoon and went back to work to have people I barely know tell me, aww welcome back I saw your wedding pictures!

Really? How is that possible? I mean I barely even KNOW you and I haven't even seen the pictures from our photographer.

One word for you. FACEBOOK.  Yes, for girls like me Facebook is our worst enemy. And when I say girls like me I am referring to insecure, type A personality control freaks that do not photograph well on your CHEAP CAMERAS and are less than thrilled that you decided to share theses photos with 200 of your closest friends. 

Listen, I am not a photogenic person. I know this. It's been painful growing up with two very photogenic sisters. So I know that my wedding photographer had his work cut out for him but little did I know that everyone and their mother thinks they're a photographer these days and felt it was their duty to photograph our wedding day and promptly post them on Facebook without even bothering to think hmmmm the bride does look a bit cross eyed in this one maybe I shouldn't post. NO! OF COURSE NOT.

I know it's silly to some but the fact is a bride wants to look and feel beautiful on her wedding day and years from now wants to look at her wedding pictures and think, "damn I looked hot...what happened to me??"

But seriously this is an important day and the reality is most people don't take good pictures and most of the point and shoot cameras our there don't do justice to the DRESS.

I know this for a fact because the photos of me in my wedding dress that wound up on Facebook are NOT GOOD. So yea, I guess I'm a little sensitive about photo-taking at weddings and believe that you should "leave it to the professionals."

So when I attended a wedding last week of a dear, dear friend I may have been a little miffed when the lady next to me kept getting annoyed because the photographer [as in PROFESSIONAL photographer] "kept getting in her way" as she phrased it.

The first time she complained about the photographer I kinda just politely smiled and shook my head. But after she started doing ninja moves to get IN FRONT OF THE PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER I felt I had to intervene. And so next time she complained about the photographer I responded,  "well, they did hire HIM to take pictures and not you" and added a small laugh at the end in hopes that it would come across as light and airy because you know I'd hate to offend her.

Luckily for me she was not offended at all; in fact, she spent the rest of the night focusing her attention on me and getting embarrassing pictures of me out on the dance floor.  Her favorite picture that she snapped was one of my armpit. Yes, the open bar had given me the confidence I needed to think I could dance and she got the perfect close-up of my armpit while I was dancing with my arms in the air. 

I am waiting for it to surface on Facebook.

I guess the title of this post should be anybody with a camera that I am not paying a few grand to make sure I look good is my worst enemy.

Fit Pregnancy

Let me just preface this by saying, No, I am not pregnant BUT that doesn't mean I don't have a right to browse through Fit Pregnancy magazine if I'm killing time at the book store waiting for my ride, right?

Well, apparently Barnes and Noble doesn't think so because Fit Pregnancy is wrapped in a plastic cover which means I can't read the magazine for free which is what my intention was.

I've had my eye on Fit Pregnancy for a while now. It's one of the magazines promptly  displayed  in the checkout line at Whole Foods at Columbus Circle and since I seem to find myself at Whole Foods every other day (yea we're that household that does not buy in bulk or plan weekly meals and so somewhere around 4 o'clock we  I realize that we've got nothing for dinner and make the pilgrimage to Whole Foods)   I always check out the cover and vow I will not make the same mistake I made with the small fortune I spent on bridal magazines.

Real Simple Weddings, Martha Stewart Wedding, New York Weddings...yup I bought them all.  And seriously folks, I could've really saved a bundle if I had just went out and bought a damn subscription when the whole wedding madness began.

Martha Stewart Weddings costs a whopping six bucks an issue but I could've gotten the ENTIRE YEAR for 12 bucks!

NO, I WON'T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE TWICE!

But I'm a bit superstitious and can't bring myself to BUY the magazine when I'm not even pregnant...maybe that's like a no-no you know...kinda like the same theory of you shouldn't go wedding dress shopping or ring shopping if you don't even got a man.

And even though there's ALWAYS a mad crazy line at Whole Foods there's never really enough time to browse through the magazine.  You gotta be alert at Whole Foods--there's a very complex (no, not really but it does seem to befuddle newbies) numeric color coded system that designates your corresponding register.  But enough on the checkout line at Whole Foods because this is not about Whole Foods this is about me wanting to flip through Fit Pregnancy Magazine!

Which sadly I did not but somehow ended up flipping through a bunch of bridal magazines....Oh wedding planning how I  miss you! Just like a bad relationship now that all this time has passed it's so easy to just remember the good times.

Two Steps Forward...Two Steps Back

Be proud people I just applied to a job. Granted it's 1:15 in the afternoon and I told myself I wanted to be done by noon. It was definitely morning when I started working on it.  Hey, at least it got done.

For anyone out there on the job hunt...I feel you. Applying and looking for jobs is no easy task. It takes sheer determinaton to not just throw in the towel. Sure, it sounds so easy 'please submit your resume and cover letter' but writing a cover letter takes me for-EVAH. You can't just have a generic one you know-you want to tailor it to the job description plus I periodically send lines from my cover letter to my sisters and BFF for them to proofread to make sure I'm not commiting some kind of gramatical sin.

So, I've got one more job I want to apply to and at least one "networking" email to send but I'm procrastinating because I really find this whole applying for jobs and interviewing for jobs thing to be EXHAUSTING to my soul and mental happiness. 

But still be proud people because I did get one application done. Granted, I finished off a bag of my favorite Easter candy during the process....

Old People Class

Every Monday and Wednesday at 10:30 if you need to find me I'll be at the gym at my "old people class." I recognize this is perhaps, not the most politically correct way to describe my gym class but that's what I call it.

Technically, I think the class is called "Fit for Life" or something like that. It was the first class I ventured into taking after joining the gym earlier this year and I didn't really know what to expect. I got to the class early and there was an older lady already there that greeted me with a warm smile and told me I'd need hand-weights and a mat. Soon others started arriving and I couldn't help but notice they were... umm...kind of older than me...  I figured since it was during the day that the class would be full of stay at home moms but stay at home moms would be more like my age group and this was NOT my age group.

I actually thought about going to the front desk of the gym asking if this class was for seniors but what if it wasn't and what if someone in the class overhears me...I'd hate to offend anyone but at the same time I didn't want to spend an hour stepping from side to side for aerobic activity. I came here to burn calories damn't! 

Let's just say I totally walked out of that class thinking that perhaps the man upstairs couldn't wipe the smirk off his face.  Stepping from side to side?? Yea I'll show you stepping from side to side!!  I totally broke out into a sweat in the first few minutes and was sore for days. It was such a good workout and the people in this class are friggin' hilarious.

Do you remember this commercial from the Superbowl? It's a car commercial and it's set in a senior home where they're all talking over each other and yelling, WHAT? to each other.  This is my class.

Everyone knows everyone and have been working with the instructor for it seems like forever the way they talk. In my first class, half the ladies were more interested in gossiping asking the instructor,  "Have you seen, Jenny? Is Amy coming back?" I'm pretty sure this crowd was especially boisterous because it was right after the holidays and everyone was just catching up with everyone but it still made for one comical cardio session. The instructor plays off this crowd beautifully and never misses a beat. Ruth, your other left.  no your other left. NO YOUR OTHER LEFT.  There you go Ruth!

It really is a riot and I may call it my old people class but let me tell you these old people they mean business and could probably put a lot of younger folks to shame. My butt saunters in at 10:30 but they've already done the water aerobics class that started at 9.

I can only hope that I'm that active at their age. I totally give them props. And it warms my heart how kind they all are and how determined they are to do the moves even if they don't always get them right. One gentleman in particular is so sweet. Roy. Always says hello to everyone and calls me Miss. I have a huge crush on Roy.

So yea, I faithfully work out every week now with a bunch of "old people" that kick my butt and make me laugh out loud and that's my kind of workout.

Audacious

I admit, I'm not in the best of places right now. I've been driving the bitter, "woe is me" bus heading straight to pity-ville all the while playing Radiohead at full blast.

I've already abused chocolate. Made a batch of brownies yesterday under the guise of I'm just a good little wife that decided to bake her hubby brownies. Little did he know I stood over the sink licking that bowl like a junkie just thirty minutes before he got home.

The sick to my stomach feeling after I finished licking the bowl still wasn't enough self-destructive behavior that I decided to steal a play direct from my sister's playbook-retail therapy.  I went and bought me a hundred dollar pair of jeans. I DON'T EVEN KNOW IF I LIKE THEM.

I know that feeling sorry for myself is a wasteful extravagance and yet I can't seem to stop watching old re-runs of Grey's Anatomy on Lifetime. Oh, it's shameful really. As soon as my hubby leaves the front door I'm grabbing  the remote and flipping from CNN to Lifetime. Grey's comes on at 9am. All the angst and turmoil why did I ever stop watching this show??? I'm pretty sure we stopped being Grey followers after we discovered  The Office and Michael Scott.

During more wasteful time in front of the television, I came across the movie, "Hope Floats" with Sandra Bullock where she plays a woman that goes back to her hometown after learning on a talk show that her husband wants a divorce. I didn't watch the entire movie, after all people I do have a job even if I do it in yoga pants and a brownie-mix stained t-shirt.

But there's one scene where Sandra's old high school flame gives sad, depressed Sandra a good, talking-to in attempt to whip her into shape and tells her,  "...you used to be so...audacious." Fighting words if I ever heard any. (this is what I thought AFTER I went to dictionary.com and made sure I knew the meaning of the word audacious) 

But you know what, I used to be audacious TOO. For goodness sake, I moved to New York city without knowing a single soul in this town. I used to be so fearless. Damn't I used to be 23!

Things have never come easy to me-and this isn't a pity party-it's the truth. There are some people that live their lives where things just seem to fall into place or at least in their career lives. This is not me. I may have ended up with a great job in the big apple but I got my start at the mail room. Literally the mail room. And it was humbling but let me tell you-you learn a lot about people based on the mail they get. I could share some stories with you! But I was in that mail room for only a few months and got my butt hired in the newsroom.

Don't get me wrong-I'm still bummed and yea... still a little bitter (I won't lie) but determined to at least try to get a little of my 23-year old self back.

Let Down

They say when one door closes it's so another one---the perfect one---opens. Well you can take your motivational speech and shove it where the sun don't shine.

I knew it was a long shot-I knew it was a miracle they even called me back after I applied for the job-heck usually I never even get a response so when I did get a call back...well let's just say this girl thought MAYBE just maybe her break has come and she'll finally land a job that fits her. . Anyway it doesn't matter because at 12:33 the HR lady sent the carefully worded email letting me know, it was GREAT talking to me but they've decided to "move on."

I guess I didn't even let myself know how much I really wanted that job until I learned I didn't get it because I certainly didn't think there'd be tears shed over the news.

I will be the first one to tell you that getting laid off, albeit under the umbrella of a recession and a bad economy hits you hard. There is comfort that you aren't the only one-that dozens of others in your  company met the same fate...yet you can't stop the voice inside your head that says,  still they choose you.

You-in their eyes were dispensable. Not the chic that sat next to you or across from you. You. You were laid off and no matter how much you try to shut that voice up-it's always there. And you've looked at it a hundred different ways and on a good day you tell yourself-you know what everything happens for a reason.
 
Well after two years in unfulfilling freelance gigs the "reason" is still a damn mystery to me.