one down...

In the other great countdown, things are progressing apace.

I am now the proud loser of just over one official Slimming World sanctioned stone. This is good - one sixth of the way there, approximately. Thirteen weeks and 15.5 lbs.

In total, I've lost a little more than that - closer to a stone and a half - as I started dieting before I joined SW. But still.

In another stone, I'll be a third of the way there.
At three stones down, I'll be halfway.
Another stone makes it four and that's two thirds.
And when five have gone, I can start looking for wedding dresses.

Hooray!

lovely stuff #2 - lampshades

Here's today's addition to the wedding email list of stuff I like - from blogger Katie at K, Tea?















She's been making these gorgeous round lightshade things - for sale at Etsy and Folksy for a bargainous £7 a pop. I'm not sure that I could make them so nicely, without tearing my hair out with my gluey hands and covering the lounge with papery petals and possibly ruining the carpet. I just hope they can make it through the post ok...

lovely stuff #1

Since the moment I got engaged and started reading wedding blogs, I've been saving all the links to stuff I like by sending myself little emails. And I thought it would be nice, and make a lot of sense, if I was to put them up on here.

So here's today's: a lovely post from Savoir Weddings with some pictures of bridesmaids. The first one is my fave - this one:














As you may recall from this post the bridesmaid thing is not really me. But this, I like a great deal. My friends (the 'non bridesmaids') can wear whatever they like and have a little bunch of flowers or some blooms in their hair and it will look lovely.

And the flowers too: brilliant. I want colourful, mismatched, bright and cheery just like this - I wasn't sure it would work before. I'm going to have to print this photo out and stick it somewhere.

bridesmaids

As I don't know really know what else to call them for now, it will have to be bridesmaids, though I'm not sure if that's what I want.

I've been a bridemaid twice before. Both times there were full skirts and puff sleeves. The first time, i was a little kid and this was fine and cute. The second I was an awkward teen and a vision in burnt pink, teamed with a pair of white court shoes.

I realise that things are different now. But when we got engaged, I thought I definitely didn't want bridesmaids.

But on reflection, I realised I do want my friends around me, possibly as sort of 'bridesmaids-lite'. I can't afford to buy them dresses. But doing it this way brings in a whole new seet of problems.

If they are just 'team spesh' as one friend termed it, then deciding who you do and don't want as part of it becomes harder. It's not a formal thing, therefore why can't you just give out more corsages/hair flowers and bring them all into the team? But needless to say, I don't want 10 ladies fussing around me and I can see this happening.

Maybe I'm stuck with 'bridesmaids'.

meringues

Really, the only meringues I want at the wedding need to be covered in cream and strawberries. But as a general term for a cute little dress, I think the term should be reclaimed. Though these simple little beauties are more like macarons than full blown powdery sugary giants.


Tell me you don't love this one from the deep well of loveliness that is Etsy:
























Sold out, damnit. But it is gorgeous beyond gorgeous.

And it's a shame we don't have J Crew over here, though I did write to them to ask if they would open a UK store. They said no, but they might start shipping here soon. This one of theirs is pretty bloody lovely too




















And here's the darling of the day from Coast - UK High Street comes up trumps:


















All three pretty bargainously priced too. Lovely.

what is being created

Today, while sending a text to bf, I wrote something which sort of made me jump a little. You might think it's silly, but I asked him:

"When will you be home?"

Home.

The flat in which we have lived for five years is still saved in my phone under its street name.

When I call 'home', I ring my parents, all those miles north, still living in the house I grew up in. When I visit, I say I'm going 'home'.

I very rarely indeed refer to the place we live in together as 'home'.

But that's what we're creating, or part of it. Once we're married, we are family. Whereever we live together is our home. He is my home. I am his.

One day, there will be little people living with us, calling the bit between the roof and the walls their home.

I don't know why I find this strange.

happy

I had a moment today, wistfully looking out of the train window (here's my view) and feeling the sun on my face when I suddenly thought:

I can't wait to get married.

Once I'd thought it, it was all I could think and I couldn't stop grinning. I'm sure the Mumford & Sons soundtrack on the iPod contibuted a little to my state of mind. But I thought about summer, and all the things I like (picnics, lying on the grass, jumping into rivers, going camping) and how the wedding would be a wonderful wonderful day next summer, even if it rains.

And then I changed trains, and saw a little girl happily racing down the train to pick a seat, then carefully choosing and eating a cupcake with joyous abandon and a huge grin, before falling asleep in her Mum's arms, still holding the cake. And I thought again, that I can't wait for the wedding. And then I can't wait for all the good stuff that comes after.

the other countdown

I guess it's not unusual for a bride to be to want to slim down for a wedding.

But then I'm not sure if losing 7-8 stones classes as 'slimming down'. That makes it sound as if your jeans are a bit too tight or you have a slight 'upper arm' issue. Anyway, slimming down, becoming unobese; that's me: currently trying to lose something between a third and a half of my body weight.

(It feels weird talking about 'body weight'. As if it's not part of me - which I guess is how you're supposed to think about it. As not part of you - something you aren't attached to in any way. Not 'my body weight'.)

But anyway.

I don't have any problems with anyone being any size they like. But it's been a while since I liked my size.

Not that I had daily problems with it, or ever whinged to other people (other than bf, who always bore the brunt of bad changing room experiences). In fact, most of the time I thought I looked fine (a sort of reversal of those thin people always complaining that they're fat, if that doesn't sound too crazy.) I know I carry ,myself ok and still have a waist and I know that has allowed me to get away with a lot. But then, you get a spate of photographs and you can't blame it on the camera angle any more. In fact, you get pretty angry and sad and disappointed and frustrated.

It might sound strange, but it's taken me a year to reach this point. 'This point' being me, actually doing this, at a slimming club, already having lost a bit and accepting that 'this' really isn't 'curvy' any more. (I love curves, I'm definitely keeping them.)

Last year, I tried to do it on my own. I managed to lose half a stone, but needless to say, without a framework for how I should be eating, it didn't really work. It didn't stay off, though exercise helped. I did get a lot fitter: started seeing a trainer, going to pilates, swimming again. That was a good decision.

So anyway. As it sometimes seems pretty damn huge and difficult, I sometimes might talk about this here.

And really, this entire post has been a way to distract myself from the bag of sweets on the office table.

moneymoneymoney

Well, my bank account is A WHOLE GRAND lighter as I have only gone and paid the bloomin' deposit for the venue. Which I guess means this is actually happening, as god knows, I would like to see that money again.

I can only assume this is the first of many painful days for our poor bank account. Also possibly the only financial transaction related to this wedding that will not cause some small degree of disagreement (see: two days ago, when I told bf I'd found a cheap florist. Turns out he thought a bouquet would cost about £10. I suggested he buy me flowers more often.)

stupid thing I don't know about weddings #1

So as I go through the process of planning a wedding, it turns out there is a lot of stuff I really don't know or understand. Pretty much every day, something new crops up.

I've not been to many weddings as a grown up, and certainly not any that look like that one I'm planning. So I think that's why I keep feeling bamboozled.

So I would like to announce the launch of a mini-series, where every so often (sometimes, perhaps, very often) I will post whatever it is up here, in the hope that someone could help me.

So, stupid thing I don't know about weddings #1:

Getting your hair done. Yes, stupid eh.

Do you have to go to a hairdresser? Do you have to get one to come to you? People suggest that getting your hair done is important. Is it? What if you're on a farm in the middle of nowhere? What is the deal here? I don't get it.

oi, Cameron, hands off my marriage

Browsing in the supermarket today, I came across this headline in the paper:

Cameron tries to woo voters with marriage proposal

I like the way they've made it sound as creepy as it should.

The Tories have talked about this before but no real threats ever seemed to materialise. But now it's assured: if they get in, we will be 'rewarded' for our personal contribution to 'mending broken Britain'. Well thanks very much Mr Cameron! How pathetically grateful I shall feel.

I don't know why but the thought that politicians should be sticking their fingers into my relationships makes me shudder. As does the thought that I would be, in any way, helping them reach some sort of target.

Now you should know that I am not a Conservative voter. But then, I would feel the same should any party suggest this - and feel very uncomfortable that this proclamation comes from the party likely to be in power very soon.

How wrong to reward someone for making such a personal decision. Will there be tax breaks for civil partners too? And what about the disincentives for single people? How about a tax break for those people who manage to free themselves and their children from the shackles of a loveless abusive marriage (because sometimes, that's the answer too). That is certainly going to help 'broken Britain'.

How about a tax on wife-beaters? Or husband-beaters for that matter? Come on - if we're going to tax people according to how we'd like to think society should work, let's go the whole hog. Maybe rewards for having more children? (Oh dear, someone's already thought of that.) Marriage isn't always the answer.

Who is being rewarded here? Is it the man or the woman? The rich or the poor? It is a crude benefit, apparently to be slapped out across the board to some who need it, and some who most definitely don't.

I wonder if I could opt out of this. I live in a Tory borough and since it turned blue, the amount of dog mess on the streets has tripled and last winter, all the grit salt bins disappeared. Maybe some funds could go back to the council for making daily life a little nicer for everyone.

In reality, any tax incentive would probably amount to £5 a year. But that is £5 I don't really need. So give it to someone else. Perhaps we could build more homeless shelters, or increase spending on education, or give it to the people on the bottom rung of life who actually need it, regardless of whether they are married, single, childless or with 17 kids. Spend it on traveller campsites; on looking after asylum seekers, on hospital counsellors or anything else that will make the Daily Mail incandescent with rage, all of which I like and think a good idea.

But I don't want it.