Nailed It

This weekend Dr. Light and I were running some errands at the mall when we stumbled across the MAC Wonder Woman makeup line. Have you seen this? It's retro and cute and AHHHH! In other words: I love it. I ended up buying the blue nail polish.

As I was purchasing it, I realized that I had given very little thought with what to do with my nails on that day. I'm not really a regular nail-painter, but nail polish helps me overcome one fault that plagues me all the time.

I am a horrendous cuticle picker. It's an outward reflection of my anxiety, and I've been doing it for as along as I can remember. It bugs me and I think it bugs Dr. Light too, as last night when I was discussing nail ideas with him, he pointed to my thumb and basically told me that I should make an effort to have my hands look nice for our wedding day photos. I couldn't agree more. (And I really don't want to post a picture of my cuticles here. It's just embarrassing.)

The layer of polish on my nails makes me aware that if I start to pick at my cuticles, I will probably wear the polish down a little - so it really helps keep me honest, so to speak. I've decided that in order to break this habit, I'm going to try and keep my nails nicely painted until after the wedding. It will also give me a chance to try out various colors that I may want to wear with the dress!


H49 & B56
I'll do my best to try a group of soft pinks and reds, nothing too outlandish. A lot of salons carry OPI, so I'll purchase some "starter" polish from that line and find some shades I like.

Does anyone have any good recommendations for polish that isn't too expensive, but is a reliable brand?

Anxiety

Friday of last week was a really tough day. It was just like any other Friday, except for the fact that I had decided to taper off my anti-anxiety medication, and I was feeling it a LOT. I think it accounted for the somewhat scattered "OHMYGOD bridesmaid dresses!" post, and quite a few frantic tweets.

A little history. I've been a very anxious person all my life. I'm not someone who can just take a deep breath and calm down - I wish it were that simple! Instead, I spent my life feeling tightness in my hands and not being able to really get perspective on how to handle the day-to-day crises life sometimes tosses our way.

In 2006 I elected to start taking Lexapro, a medication that targets anxiety rather than depression. It worked wonders for me. My boss at the time, my ex-boyfriend - they all commented on how much BETTER I was handling things - so I figured Lexapro was going to be my buddy for the foreseeable future.

Five years down the road, the Lexapro was still working great, but I started to feel like I was getting too few highs and lows. It was hard to get really ramped up and exuberant for things, and I missed it. I was also afraid that I would miss that excitement that should happen for the wedding and honeymoon.

So I'm taking it back. I saw my doctor last Monday and we decided to taper me off the Lexapro. She prescribed Wellbutrin for me, but I haven't started taking it yet. Wellbutrin is a different class of drug, so it shouldn't affect me the same way the Lexapro does. However, I wanted to see what life was like off the Lexapro; I wanted to remind myself how the highs and lows felt.

I admit, the thought of not being on anti-anxiety medication scares me a bit. I know I have the option of going back on it if I want to, and if the wedding planning starts really affecting my ability to sleep, I will. Until then, I'm going to try life drug-free and see if spontaneous giggles happen a lot more often.

I'm still tapering off the Lexapro, and probably will for at least another week. I hope there aren't any more really bad days (I don't even know how to describe the feeling, but it was weird!). So bear with me. And tell me YOUR stories if you've chosen to try and do the same.

Are you handling your wedding drug-free (if you've used SSRI type drugs in the past)? How does your pre-wedding anxiety treat you?

Eek!

What do you do when you're sitting at your desk at work and you have that sneaking suspicion that you need to take your wedding a lot less seriously, drop the idea of matchy-matchy bridesmaid dresses, and just go tell your girls to find their favorite season-appropriate purple dress?


Both from Modcloth
Or, or - what if it would make more sense to make the bridesmaid dresses? There are some great patterns out there!

Vogue
Someone talk me off this ledge. Help, help, I need an adult!

What do you do when you suddenly start rethinking your choices?

Unrelated, yet inspired

Over time, I've been saving pictures from blog weddings. They're photos that inspire me, photos that I think I'll show our photographer to give her an idea of memories I'd like to have. I don't have sources for these, as they've been saved over the last six or so months, so I will state right now: these aren't mine and I'm not claiming ownership. So there.

Also, most of these have nothing to do with our wedding style or theme. They are just...awesome.

Do you save photos that excite you for your own wedding, even if the subject of the photo is unrelated? What unrelated items inspire your wedding ideas the most?

Oh, chet!

About the time Dr. Light and I got engaged, DIY ideas blossomed in my head. I wanted to learn everything, DO everything. And I will still get about 90% of it done. However, one item that I wanted to DIM (do it myself) was our cake toppers.

We all know that Etsy can provide some of the most amazing toppers ANYWHERE. For example:

Source

Source

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So. Adorable.

However, my desire to make our own cake toppers took form in the idea of little crocheted figures of our favorite animals. For Dr. Light, a squirrel. For me, a cow or a poodle.

Pictures like this were my inspiration:

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Source
They were so dainty and fun, and as a sew-a-holic, I love anything made from fabric or yarn.

So, I decided to teach myself to crochet. I bought some books. I had my mom work with me because I kept doing my loops the wrong way. I bought some big, thick yarn so I could see what I was doing and practice practice practice.

Do you know what I'm going to admit? I still don't know how to crochet. It's 8 months to the wedding, and I've realized that crochet is a skill that I'm not going to have time to pick up and perfect before the cake toppers need to be done. I never practiced, and my crochet books are sitting by the bed, oh-so-lonely.

This weekend, my pal Beverly and I hit up JoAnn Fabrics while we were waiting to get massages (oooh, heavenly!), and we sat down to look at patterns. I was flipping through a Simplicity book when I came across these:

I'm not sure why I didn't think of this before. I sew. That's my strength. The sewing machine and I could rule the world if we tried hard enough. So why aren't I SEWING the cake toppers?

My favorite pattern is the top one with the cow, pig, and horse. It would be really easy to turn one of the designs into a squirrel for Dr. Light, and if the stuffed animals are too big, I can take the pattern to a copy machine and re-size it. These, I can do. As soon as Simplicity has another pattern sale (or I get antsy and buckle down to buy it normal price), I'm picking up all the tools to sew us some adorable cake toppers.

Has anyone else had to re-evaluate a skill you wanted to learn for the wedding? Have you had to identify a strength you have and change a project to match it to get a task completed?