So... remember that pre-wedding photo session we had a few weeks ago? The one that I was feeling super self conscious about, and how I was terrified that it would turn out awful?
Well, the pictures are back and the verdict is in.
I officially spent so much time freaking out about it for nothing. We were in a beautiful location, we did our best to mellow out and enjoy the experience, and our super-awesome-fantastic photographer, Andrew, captured some really beautiful shots, if I may say so myself.
Enough rambling from me, here are some of my favourites!
It was a perfect afternoon & I love how beautifully all the photos came out.
I am so incredibly excited to see what wonderful things the Follans come up with for our wedding day pictures: just think, only a couple more weeks now and we'll be back in front of that camera again, hamming it up!
The next step is wondering how to sneak my tiny Jaguar figurines into our wedding day, mwahahaha. And yes, Weddingbee reference, ftw! Can you believe I've been blogging over there as Miss Jaguar for seven months now?
Now comes the hard part: we have to choose one of our favourite shots to be enlarged as part of our package - which one should we pick? Your advice would be very much welcomed!!
I had pretty boring plans for the end of my school holidays. I wanted to lay low at home (easy, since Jase has been working the whole time and has taken the car) and finish off my teaching programme for the next term, while watching a few Melrose Place episodes for good measure.
Sunday threw a bit of a spanner in the works: while most people were enjoying their Easter morning, I spent the day sick as a dog. I'll spare you the descriptions of what kind of sickness it was, but to give you a rough idea I wasn't able to eat much that day without it coming straight back up again. I finally managed to have a small meal of oats that evening, and had an early night to catch up on some sleep.
3am that morning saw me woken up with crazy stomach pains. They continued every hour, on the hour, until 6.30am when Jase woke up to find me freaking out and hyperventilating because my abdominal pains were so bad. After a bit of worry about what to do, with Jase pacing the apartment talking to my parents on the phone, and with me rocking on the bathroom floor hugging the toilet, he made up his mind - we were going to the emergency room.
I'll admit, I was more than a little nervous. Aside from visiting, I've never been to a hospital before as a patient - and I wasn't sure if it was the right decision to make. I was freaking out and in pain, but didn't want to go to hospital if it was just stomach cramps. At the same time, I didn't want to stay home and do nothing while I felt like I was dying. And so, we went. Off to the hospital, in the wee hours of a rainy and miserable Easter Monday.
It was pretty deserted and after going through the motions of my history, I was shown into a bed and a very, very unflattering gown while they took some blood and did a few tests. After a while, I was given morphine (whoa, burny light-headed feeling, jebus) as well as some anti-nausea and stomach-cramping medication. As you can see, I'm not very technical. ;) They also hooked me up to a blood pressure monitor as well as started a bag of fluids.
My official diagnosis was gastroenteritis, colitis and dehydration - all of which were combining together to form the abdominal bloating and pain. I stayed there for most of the morning and some of the afternoon, and several shots of morphine and a few litres of IV fluids later, I was set to go home. After Jason's big efforts to get me there and treated, he had to shoot off to work - so my lovely folks (who, I might add, stayed by my side all morning to keep me company) took me back to their place for the rest of the afternoon.
Thankfully, the pain relaxed and I managed to keep down some crackers later on. And to finish off my random, random day? A few games of Bananagram with my parents was the perfect way. There is nothing cooler than word games and shouts of 'peel!' 'dump!' 'BANANA'. It's enough to make anyone feel better!
I've been meaning to write up this review for the past few weeks now, and it has just kept slipping my mind. I'm blaming the wedding. I figure I might as well use that excuse now, while I can!
A few months ago, I was sent two packs of EucoFresh Laundry Powder from Bosisto's to sample and enjoy. Being honest, I'd not heard of the brand before - but we'd only recently moved back to Australia at the time, so I was experimenting with a few liquids without favouring any one brand.
- Leave a comment telling me how often you do your washing - are you slack like I am?
- Follow me on Twitter (@BreatheGently) & share the contest news with your friends!
Today started out like any other holiday.
I slept late, lounged around the house in my pyjamas, lazily arranged plans to get out of the house & had a wonderful afternoon - I caught a movie with the bff and ambled around a local shopping centre, not really looking for anything in particular and enjoying some company. Later that afternoon when it was time to go, I did what I always do: walked Kirby to the door, and stood with it mostly closed, saying goodbye.
Usually, Oscar sits behind me and watches through the crack. Today, he shoved his head out the door - so I had to nudge him back inside out of sight, since he's not really supposed to be here, and I'm always frightened of our neighbours hearing/seeing him. All was well, until he decided to make a bolt for it. Oscar flew straight out between my legs and onto the landing - and that's when panic ensued. Kirby stayed guarding the stairs, in case he tried to make a run for it and disappear, and I lunged out of the apartment after him and grab him while he was close.
I was successful - I swung out, grabbed him up into my arms and breathed a sigh of relief. That relief turned into panic, when I saw the door swinging closed out of the corner of my eye. I ran for it, but like in slow-motion, it slammed shut literally seconds before I'd got to it.
So. There I was. Standing in the hallway of our apartment complex, holding onto a terrified cat who is not supposed to exist. Kirby looked on in panic, as I frantically tried the door knob several times, realising with a sinking feeling that my keys, phone and handbag were all just inside the door... which was locked. What else was I missing? Why, my shoes, of course. I was barefoot and freaking the eff out.
First things first, we hid in a stairwell. I couldn't risk Oscar being seen, and we didn't want to leave the entire apartment complex because otherwise would have no way of getting back in. We rang Jase from Kirby's phone, explained the situation & asked if he could leave work early to let us in - except that he was in the middle of a deployment and physically couldn't leave the office.
We ended up hoofing it to Miss K's car and driving to his work with the cat sitting on my lap - talk about some strange expressions from people in surrounding cars! Oscar coped remarkably well, making friends through the windows and being pretty calm about it all considering the situation. I think I was more stressed than he was. We met Jason at his work, grabbed his keys, and headed back for home.
Honestly, talk about an eventful evening. In the end, we managed to smuggle Oscar-cat back upstairs, thankfully not running into any neighbours on the way, and sat down to laugh about it all. Talk about a random way of ending the day! I'm so thankful that Kirby was there; it tells you a lot about a person, if they're willing to shuttle their friend AND their cat halfway across town of an evening.
Moral of the story? Wear shoes, always. Keep an eye on your naughty feline. And always, always unlock the door's dead-bolts before opening it - just in case.
Somehow there are only sixty days left before the wedding...
WOW.
Don't ask me how we got here so fast - I can't answer that. It feels like just yesterday I was getting excited over double digits, and now we're almost there. Two months. That will no doubt go by in a flash.
The invitations have been sent out. The responses have begun to slowly trickle in. The pre-wedding-gown-alteration diet has begun. The wedding transportation has been booked. The menu has been chosen. The engagement shoot has been done. Jason has a wedding band. After a drama with a groomsman backing out, we're all set with a new (& better!) one. It's all coming together.
This coming Saturday and Sunday, we'll be busy the entire weekend - we've booked in for our mandatory pre-wedding counselling experience. I'm looking forward to having some us time, where we're not just doing our usual routines of coming home, chatting, geeking out online and doing what we do. This will be quality time to get into the nitty gritty, and while I doubt there'll be any big surprises or bombshells (heck, it's been almost nine years now, I think we know each other pretty well!) I'm still interested to see how it pans out.
I renewed my driving licence yesterday, and was told by the woman at the RTA that in just a few months, I'll be needing to come back and adjust my details with my new married name. It sort of hit me then: I'll be someone new. The same person, but with a whole new name and a whole new label. I won't be 'Miss S'. I'll be 'Mrs D'. My name, this name I've had for 26 years, won't be mine. Or it will, but not formally. I wonder how long it takes to get used to a change like that?
Somehow there are only sixty days left before the wedding...
Today's blog entry, while somewhat ironic and amusing, may frighten some readers. Fair warning: it's a post about spiders. Big. Freaking. Spiders.
Yep, my little guy is THREE today.
So. Much. Happening.
(& so little time to blog it all!)
Wedding plans are coming along beautifully. We recently had an engagement session with our photographer, Andrew from Follan Photography, we've sent out our invitations & the RSVP's have begun trickling in already, enjoyed a kitchen tea shower thrown for me this past weekend, and are booked in for an upcoming pre-wedding counselling weekend. It's been full on, but it's great. Bring it on!
My weight has stalled spectacularly. I'm so frustrated, since trying on my wedding dress recently wasn't fun, and was more than a little snug. Imagine a fairly epic meltdown, which led to my newest decision: to try the Lite & Easy meals programme. I'm aiming for 10kg in 10 weeks. Yes, I'm that serious.
School is chugging along. There are one & a half weeks left of this term, and I am hanging out for the holidays. My class are lovely, but it's been such a stressful term - we're still in a temporary classroom, we're still getting by with hardly any resources, but we're getting there. Lately every afternoon has been filled with counselling sessions, learning support meetings, community service updates & training - I have some kids from very challenging backgrounds, as well as several with Asperger's, so I'm doing everything I can to make sure they're being looked after both socially and academically. To anyone who talks about teachers having easy days and leaving work at 3pm every day, I say PAH and also HAHAHA.
Oy, the colds. I've had two in the last eight weeks, and they're kicking my hiney. This past one has been particularly nasty - I feel mostly pretty good, with the exception of this awful chesty cough. I've had it for over a week now, and I still hock up a lung every couple of minutes. I'm hoping I'm on the tail end of it now, but I've stocked up on the multi-vitamins just in case.
I've been continuing to blog over at Weddingbee - come on over & check me out if you haven't already!
I think that's it? I am seriously exhausted, and really hoping that the next few weeks speed on by so I can have some recovery time and get ready for the next term. It's scary to think that next term is the last term I'll be called 'Miss S' - it'll be 'Mrs D' after that, which is incredibly weird. (But also, awesome.)
What's been happening in your life lately?
Yesterday, I had my hair & make-up done.
I must say, being made up is one of the most exciting aspects of wedding planning so far. I found our stylist, Jenny of Le Fabulous, a few months back & had a trial do then, but since we were having engagement pictures taken by Andrew of Follan Photography fame, I decided to splurge and have it done again.
The first time around, we went for natural and glowing coverage as well as a loose up-do. This time around? I wanted something different. Jenny gave me awesome curls & gorgeous smoky eyes - it was super dramatic. I went to pick Jase up from the station all dolled up, and he got into the car looking impressed with it, so that was a good sign!
The pre-wedding photo-shoot went well. We drove out to Galston and took pictures in this beautiful park, with a few different backdrops - and despite feeling incredibly awkward at the start, we started feeling more comfortable as time went on. The hair and make-up meant I felt okay from the shoulders up, but I'm still feeling super self conscious about my body and my weight. You see, the weight I had lost last year? Well, that is still fantastic - but I've been stuck at a huge plateau for the last few months and it hasn't budged since.
So, beautiful hair, make-up and talented photographer withstanding, I'm still terrified. I'm terrified of seeing the images and not liking what I see. I'm terrified that Jase won't like the pictures, that I won't look the way that I want to look, and worse: that I'll be too fixated on what size I look in the images to appreciate what the session was really for - time to spend with my love, enjoying each other's company in the lead-up to our wedding day. I really hope these nerves go away soon, especially before the wedding.
I'll be waiting nervously for the engagement pictures for the next few weeks, but in the meantime, here's a blurry, badly lit camera phone picture of us after the shoot. I love my little family.
I've always been a bit on the fence when it comes to whooga boots.
Having lived in London for three years, I'm no stranger to seeing them out and about on the streets - sometimes paired with interesting clothing choices in the dead of winter. As for me, well, as much as I loved the look of them, I never bought into the whole thing - particularly spending hundreds of pounds (or more, in Aussie dollars) for a pair of original Uggs. To be honest, I always thought that they were just a phase.
It seems like I was wrong though, because they're still here... & it looks like they're here to stay! Recently I was contacted by the lovely folks at Whooga Boots, to check out a pair of their newest designs.
I was sent a pair of Classic Tall Black Uggs that arrived in a gorgeous big box. To be fair while writing about my experience with the boots, I have clomped around in them for the past few days - despite it being 31 degrees in Sydney, again. (Where is this Autumn that's supposed to be here?) Suffice it to say that a few days later, I'm in love with them, and I may just be won over. While I'm still not sure about wearing them out in public, I thought the black colour would be less conspicuous than the usual chestnut colour.
They are so, so comfortable. I can't even describe how soft the special 'Thermofleece' lining is - it's so puffy! And, while I'm wearing them in warmer weather, my feet haven't had that nasty sweaty feeling that I've had from my old ones in the past. Apparently, this is due to the lining circulating air & also avoids smelly wafts coming from your feet at the end of the day. Best of all, they're stylish, well made, and rival nearly any boot I've seen for sale in stores.
My only gripe over the boots is one that I have with ANY calf-related footwear: and that is, they are very snug. I don't have giant calves, but they don't leave a lot of room for movement - I'm hoping that this is something that will stretch over time, because I'd love to wear them over jeans. As they are now, I'll struggle to get them on over leggings! That being said, I'm determined to break them in by winter.
The folks over at Whooga Boots have even been so kind as to offer a discount code for anyone interested in nabbing themselves a pair. Just enter the following code at the check-out to take advantage: 1592POSEAND
Happy ugg-ing & here's hoping the cold weather sets in soon so I can make more use of these puppies.
If you'd like a product to be trialled & reviewed on Breathe Gently, feel free to drop me a line: blog[at]breathegently.com
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