So I was reading through my posts from my old blog and realizing that I filled out a lot of those stupid survey things. I mean, A LOT. Shouldn't I have been studying or doing homework? Of course in undergrad I didn't start actually really studying for exams until my junior year, and I stopped writing in that blog in the middle of my sophomore year, before I started dating Keegan even! That's a long time ago!

Old blog!

AHHH! I found my old blog! I knew the address had something to do with the Led Zeppelin song "Fool in the Rain" but it's been a long time since I had that blog. I'm now reading through it to see what I used to think 4 years ago :-P

My really old blog

Oh man, now I have something new to read...

Lent

Although I am not Catholic, I have been observing more about the Catholic faith from Keegan's family and by doing a little bit of extra reading just to familiarize myself with the customs of the church. I've always heard people discuss what they're "giving up" for Lent and never really known what that means or which religious groups actually do that as part of their celebration leading to Easter.

"There are traditionally forty days in Lent which are marked by fasting, both from foods and festivities, and by other acts of penance. The three traditional practices to be taken up with renewed vigor during Lent are prayer, (justice towards God), fasting (justice towards self), and almsgiving (justice towards neighbor). Today, some people give up a vice, add something that will bring them closer to God, and often give the time or money spent doing that to charitable purposes or organizations."

I've been thinking a bit about what it is that would be my vice, something that would be hard for me to give up and would actually cause me to pause and think a minute whenever I actively chose not to use that particular vice. My major vices are Diet Coke, sweet treats, and television, and of those three I think it would be most beneficial for me to give up the sweet treats. I don't always have much time to watch tv, so that wouldn't necessarily be causing me any added inconveniences by eliminating it for the next 40 days. Plus Keegan will be home and watching television too, and in a small-ish townhouse, I think it would be difficult for one of us to give it up without imposing on the other. Also, I know I would not stick to that through Lent, seeing as how March Madness will be entirely encompassed by that time period. As far as Diet Coke goes, I've already began limiting myself to one per day and I would literally not function if I stopped drinking it entirely. Caffiene is not something you can give up cold turkey, like smoking, so it would be unwise to select something like that to give up for Lent, at least in my case. Plus, I would be so irritable that I might annoy people to the point of driving away the new friends I've made here at Duke.

But with sweet treats, I mainly use them to reward myself for hard work, or when I'm feeling blue. I don't really eat that much ridiculous stuff, but cookies, sweet cereals (mmm, Cinammon Toast Crunch, mmm), mints, and the occasional milkshake from Cook Out (we're talking once every 5 weeks though on that one) generally work their ways into my diet. I could also include general junk foods, like french fries and other fried food, in that category too. I think if I really want to become more active in my faith, I should start turning to prayer instead of to my box of Capn Crunch for pick-me-ups, and hopefully that's what giving up sweet things will help me do.

So I guess I have until Wednesday to finish the bag of mints I have at home :-P

Entitlement

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the sense of entitlement felt by most people (at least most Americans), including myself. I certainly didn't grow up with everything I wanted, but I definitely had everything I needed and even a majority of the things I wanted. But I still appreciated that my parents were the ones that paid for those things, my clothes, my summer camps, etc. and that they had worked hard to save the money to pay for them. I am also extremely fortunate that my undergrad education was paid for; however, I also selected a school I knew would be affordable for my family. I didn't even apply to any of the private schools or anywhere out of state because I knew what I wanted to study and I'm sure that NCSU prepared me as well as any other school, though admittedly in different ways. I knew my parents couldn't afford $40K/year tuition at a school like Duke (not including the housing costs), and that I have two younger siblings, so why would I pick a school that would drain them of their resources? I graduated with no student loans and nothing owed to my parents, which is amazing for me and has allowed me to start saving for other things, like the down payment for a house. But I know how rare it is for someone to not have loans to pay (even though I offered to pay them back) and I think that at least makes a little bit of a difference even if I am unbelievably spoiled in that sense.

Still, while I was at school I bought my own food, my own clothes, paid for my own textbooks, any outings I wanted to take, etc. Pretty much everything except my tuition and housing I bought for myself, and I'm so glad that's how it was, because now that I have my own reliable income, albeit small, I know how to save my money and how to limit myself to things I really need and to save for those things that I really want instead of just buying them whenever I feel like it. I'm happy and blessed that I've managed to save about 40% of each pay check so far (although a lot of that is going to the wedding, but that's sort of an unusual, once-in-a-lifetime thing) after I've paid my portion of the rent, utilities, and groceries. I've been fortunate there have been no major emergencies that required large financial sums, so hopefully in 5 years or so, Keegan and I will be able to buy that house and take our trip to Italy to celebrate my graduation. We've each already started setting aside part of each paycheck so we'll be able to slowly afford the trip, and I think that will be good for us; we'll have worked hard to pay for the trip (rather than taking money from our parents or something) and I think it will mean more to us. That's another thing lacking from people today- working hard allows you to appreciate what you have, but when you sit around on your ass and take my money to pay for your living expenses, you're not really going to learn anything and you're going to continue being useless. I have no sympathy for people who don't try to work for themselves to better their own lives and instead rely on everyone else to bail them out of their difficulties.

Now I see kids today who think they are supposed to have their own television and computer in their rooms (we had one tv and one computer and we learned to share) and that their parents are supposed to spend $1000 on them every Christmas to get them those 10 games they want for the Wii they got for their birthday. They are entitled to tacky Ugg shoes that cost $200 along with the new iPod they wanted because oh heaven help us, they can't have the last model of iPod, it must be the most current, the most advanced, even when the old one works fine. Coming from an uncoventional family, I always had 3 or 4 Christmases with all my various parts of the family, but at the house with my mom and stepdad, we each recieved about 4 presents, and we were happy to have them. For our birthdays we got $20, not some Wii or PlayStation thing, and we were thankful. I was thankful at least, I guess I can't speak for my siblings. We went to the beach once a year, for 4 nights, and we only did that for about 6 years, then we stopped going (although I'm not sure why...). Not month-long European excursions, which I would have loved to do but now appreciate were not the best choices for our family when you don't make too much money and don't want to blow $60K on a trip.

I'm not saying that taking nice trips and treating your kids is not a good thing to do; I hope that when Keegan and I have kids we are able to give them interesting trips where they are able to learn something new or see something they'd never see anywhere else. But I want them to appreciate those things, so I think that will be where the challenge lies.

Taking the trip to Ecuador last year was pretty much the best thing I've ever done for myself; I knew I would see people living in conditions that would have been unacceptable for me, and I wanted to knock myself down a few levels, I wanted to really appreciate that I had a heated and air conditioned place to live, that had doors and windows and a roof, electricity and food and reliable plumbing with clean water and sanitary food.

I'm not sure this post is really conveying what I want to convey, but basically I'm just tired of people who think they deserve everything and screw anyone who stands in their way, because it's only them that matters. Who cares if they drain all the money their family has saved to go to a college (that they only got into because their family could technically scrape by and pay for it) where they earn mediocre grades and don't actually accomplish anything, because at least they got what they wanted. Who cares if they pester mom to buy several pairs of $100 jeans because that's what the kids wear nowadays. Who cares if they're rude and ungrateful because that doens't hurt them, only the people sacrificing for them. That's what I see now, and it's depressing. That's like Al Gore's or John Edwards' feelings they they are entitled to have 40,000 square foot monstrosities that cost more than an entire county to provide energy for because they can afford to pay extra to use that power to pollute the environment they're so publicly blaming everyone else for damaging. But I digress.

I'm definitely not saying that all people are this way, it's just what I've been noticing lately. There are plenty of people who sacrifice what they have to help others and should be commended for it. I just hope those people are the ones who are able to make lasting impressions on the youth today. And even the adults today.

Well, the goals I set for myself are a little lofty, but I think I'm doing alright. Unfortunately I'm getting a bit of a scratchy throat thing going on here, so I was unable to go to Body Tone this week because I didn't want to push myself to the point where I became all-out sick, especially since I have two midterms next week. So there's one goal I didn't meet. I have run twice since Monday and plan to go again today (3/5 days), I drank 64oz of water 2/4 days (48oz the other days and haven't started the tally for today yet), done my sit-ups every day, and limited my snacking pretty well. I only did weight things 1/4 days, but I could do them today and one of the weekend days to still meet my goal of 3 times per week.

Keegan's family has a really nice scale, so maybe the next time we go there for dinner, which will most likely be next weekend, I can weigh myself again and see if 3 weeks of effort has put a dent in that 135lb mark. Hopefully it has and that I will be able to maintain the same rules for the next 4 months.

Today is our 33 "monthaversary" and a week from today will be the 4 month marker until the wedding, eee!

Also, I have a meeting with Monty today- I hope to set some real goals and ground work so I've got a goal to work towards. I always work better with a plan.

To add on to my previous post... other goals I'd like to try to meet each day and/or week to improve my overall health, both mentally and physically:

Do 150 sit-ups/crunches of some variation each day
Don't snack after dinner
Do some sort of lightweight/resistance band exercises for 20 minutes, 3 times a week
Find 15-20 minutes each day to just sit and think/pray/do whatever I need to calm myself and de-stress

I think that's all I've got for now. But I guess that's a good thing, otherwise I'll have way too many goals to start with!

Goals for a healthy lifestyle

Lately I've been feeling a bit under the weather; I know this always happens to me in the winter, but I try to focus on how spring is just around the corner and that it will be warm and sunny before I know it. But there are other areas I should focus on also, and I've thought of a few goals I'd like to meet on my way to being physically and mentally healthy.

Drink 64oz of water per day
Run 4-5 days each week
Attend Body Tone once per week
Eliminate foods from my diet that don't actually benefit me (such as snacking on high-calorie foods with little nutritional benefit- candy, chips, etc)
Sleep 7-8 hours per night
Limit myself to one Diet Coke per day
Reduce the time I watch television each day to 1 hour
Increase the amount I read (for enjoyment) each day to 30 minutes

Last week I did run 4 times, I did attend Body Tone, I read 30 minutes per day for fun, and I slept 7-8 hours per night. My eating overall was alright, but there was some degree of unnecessary snacking.

Weight at high school graduation (2004): ~150 pounds
Weight at college graduation (2008): 118 pounds
Weight as of February 1: 135 pounds

This is a ridiculous amount of weight gain in a short period of time, but granted I did weigh myself after eating out of the ordinary foods at a Super Bowl party, and on this past Thursday (February 5) I weighed 131.5 pounds. The goal is to get back to 125 pounds for the wedding, with preferably more muscle tone. Fitting into my dress nicely would be a good goal :-)

Wedding woes

The pressure of planning a wedding is starting to get to me I think. My initial plan was to do as much as possible last semester because I knew this semester would be busier once I was starting to narrow down my area of interest for my (eventual) thesis work. All in all I thought I did a good job in getting ahead, but there are really a lot more smaller details that I didn't have time to think about before. What about wedding favors? How do I lay out a program? Where would I get these printed? What passages should be read and who do we want to read them for us? What songs do we want played? Where do guests sit in the church? When should we register for gifts? Should we even do a gift registry? Do we want people to sit at specific tables at the reception? How informal is informal? Should we throw rice/birdseed/bubbles? What sort of champagne should we use for the toast? How long should the running slideshow be? Should we put other cute little stories about us somewhere? How should I wear my hair and how should my bridesmaids wear their hair? Same goes for makeup? What else (other than flowers) should be on the tables at the reception- candles? Which of my colors should I use where? How exactly do I want the flower arrangements? I have a florist and certain flowers picked out, but that's not enough, I need to know how I want things arranged and where I want them placed... gaah!

We had pretty intense wedding prep meetings the past few days; back in September when we attended the marriage prep forum, we also filled out this FOCCUS survey that asks about 180 questions related to various aspects of married life (finances, religious goals, children and family life, in-laws, sex, etc). The tests were scored based on the similarity of our answers and then whether or not those answers were in agreement with the way the church feels they should be answered. For example, the test asked a question like "My future spouse and I have agreed to not having children"; we both disagreed with that statement (since we both want kids) and the church's stance was that we should also disagree with it, since that's one of the goals of marriage in the eyes of the church. So yay, we agreed with each other and with the church. It turns out that each section had 2 -3 key questions and we agreed with each other and the church's answer for all of them, but we disagreed about 25% of the time. Many of those were because I answered "Undecided" for a lot of questions regarding religious practices of the Catholic church because I'm not familiar with them. And we also had ones we had talked about since then, such as questions pertaining to finances, so in September our answers were different than what they are now. Like we've talked about joint checking accounts and stuff, but at that time we hadn't. Plus where would the fun be if we agreed on 100% of all life matters? That sounds pretty dull truthfully. I think there needs to be some disagreement, otherwise how would we grow as people? How would we learn the benefits of compromise and to think differently from how we typically think? Mind you, not serious disagreement, but enough to make life interesting :-)

We met again with Father John last night; he's a really nice guy and I'm glad he's going to be the witness at the wedding. I learned some interesting things about the process of a Catholic wedding though; we're not doing a full mass obviously, since I'm not Catholic and neither is anyone in my family, but the ceremony will still take about 45 minutes. Apparently the bride and groom actually sit down for part of the ceremony, during the scripture readings, so they're not just standing up there for 20 minutes listening to someone talk. And the members of the wedding party actually sit down in the front pew and family sits in the second row. When it gets past the readings and into the vows, we stand up again, as do the members of the wedding party, but the priest stands away from the altar; it is to symbolize that the priest is just a witness to the event, and that Keegan and I are marrying each other, not being married by a priest. I think that's interesting because the typical scene is the bride and groom facing each other with the church representative facing their joined hands. I've never been to a Catholic wedding and I've only attended 2 or 3 other weddings that I can remember (I don't think being a flower girl to 4 or 5 couples really counts, especially when twice of those times it was to my parents when they remarried), so it will definitely be a learning experience for me. I'm glad there's a rehearsal! I'm pretty positive I wouldn't know what to do otherwise. Oh, also, there is no "Who gives this woman to this man" phrase, and the groomsmen and bridesmaids walk in on their own, instead of together. And apparently the mother of the groom and then the mother of the bride are the last to enter before me. But I guess other people probably knew that already...

Well, time to get to this huge stack of reading I'm working steadily through. Only one class today, but lots of reading and writing for the review paper. Maybe I'll start some of my homework in there too...

One more thing, I can't believe it's February! And according to our theknot website there are only 137 days until the wedding. March will be here before I know it, and since spring break is in March, that will really fly by. We go to break on March 6th or whatever, but then we don't go back to class until the 16th and by then the month is practically over. Or at least halfway over. Then April comes with exams and suddenly it's summer and I have no idea how I got there or what I'm supposed to be doing in lab. Oh goodness.