Forever and a Day

So now that we have been married for a whole 26 days, everyone asks what married life is like.

My answer is typical..."Its pretty good."

What can you say to people?

• Its nice to not be "living in sin" anymore.
• Its weird that my name is forever changed to Mrs. Mora Pluchino and yet I forget 1/5 times.
• It sucks to get to be a princess for 12 days and then have to go back to the real world of working.
• Its quite endearing to wake up every morning and know the person who grumbles at me (for clumsily stumbling over him in the early morning light) is my husband forever.
• Its not much different since we lived together before.

But anyway, what I've been enjoying about married life is the kinship people seem to feel towards you and your relationship when you tie the knot. Its like a secret clan of people. Your relationship is automatically authentic if your significant other is now your husband. How strange to be taken seriously.

I also just enjoy my husband and being able to call him that. I enjoy the continued team work on things like buying our house, eventhough he has been the project's president while I've been more like the coffee girl/ treasurer ;-) I enjoy our mutual enjoyment of reliving our wedding via media and finding ways to pass this along to our family and friends (although I may be a bit more excited than someone else I know). I enjoy the ability to do nothing together and still be together. I like the planning forward to when we FINALLY move into our house. And I love looking forward to watching our marriage grow from this 26 day old thing into something 60 years old, wrinkly and a little saggy ;-)

The Rest of Ever Part II: You + Me = A Norwegian Walrus?

On May 16th, the weather was still perfect. We woke up, packed up the horrible mess in our room and moved out to have breakfast with the Pluchinos. We then stopped by the Jimenez house to say some goodbyes and drop off paperwork for our marriage license!

We then drove 2 hours to our apartment where we changed, relaxed for a few minutes and then grabbed our honeymoon luggage. Shiv dropped us off at the Airport. Spirit Airlines is one of the most relaxed airlines I have flown with, and after 15 minutes of consciousness on the plane, I fell into a deep sleep and woke up when we were landing in Orlando.

After getting off the plane, we put on out wedding ears and began the honeymoon. 45 minutes later we were checking in at our hotel, only to find they gave us a room with two double beds for our honeymoon. We had to spend the night in that room as no others were available, but the next day they moved us and we got a BIG BED (which I still hogged)!!!

We began our Disney travels with Magic Kingdom. It was hot and sweaty, but other than that we had such a fun time. We went to every park at least once, visiting most twice. We avoided Blizzard beach because I was afraid of the big ski slope ride and needed sleep.

Some pictures to follow when they are working...but I was very sad to come back to the real world.

The Rest of Ever Part I: Making it Official

Our wedding day was more perfect than I could have imagined. I expected things to go wrong. I expected it to be imperfect and I was ok with that. But the set up process went very smoothly. The rehearsal was yummy and fun. And Saturday, May15th, 2010, North Jersey woke to a gently windy, 70 degree, sunny day.

I woke up at 5 am, unable to contain my excitement anymore, and attempted to do my own contacts. This was soon followed by being held down and yelled at by Ellie and Marisa until I finally was able to get them in. The hair and makeup went quickly and smoothly, and even though we were behind on our wedding timeline, we still ended up with plenty of time waiting prior to our ceremony. Brian and I saw each other before the ceremony and did some bride and groom photos, which was nice to have some 1:1 time to get my excitement out.

I like to think it started at 1:15 as planned (but the video time stamp says 1:19.) The lake was stunning, my husband was so sweet, and of course I cried a few tears of happiness. We then proceeded to knock the rest of the photos out, and then were able to have fun and spend time with our family and friends. Our reception went from 1:45pm to about 9:30pm, so by the end, everyone had their share of booze, dancing, and food. We then went back to the hotel to hot tub, relax, and change my name on Facebook. At about 12 am we were finally able to return to our hotel room for some much awaited sleep prior to our honeymoon....

My Little Piece of Cheese

10 years ago I was hurt pretty badly. What does a disfigured 13 year old think? Will I look like this forever? Will it get better? I specifically remember thinking about who would love me now that I was scarred. But people have been kind over the years. I learned to appreciate myself not just in how I looked, but to try to be a pretty person by actions and interactions.

I remember at one point discussing with someone how to cover my burn on my wedding day. How I could "totally wear gloves and no one would see it."

But to be honest I love my scar. It reminds me to be a nice girl. It reminds me that bad days can always be worse. It reminds me to count my blessings. It looks like a heart to me. A little lopsided It changes sometimes, changes colors, textures, bruises. Its like my thermometer, its gets purple when I'm hot or cold. And Brian calls it my piece of cheese, because it looks like plastic cheese to him. So thats pretty much my story.

10 days until I get married to someone who likes cheese. :)

Time Flies

Who knows where the time has gone, but there are 16 days until we get married. Where has the time gone? I am so excited to have a break to spend time with family and friends setting up for our big party followed by Disney! I'm a little scared of post-nuptual depression since wedding planning has been so much fun. But then we'll be newlyweds hopefully moving into our new home where we can live happily for the rest of ever!

Next Month Away

So today is April, which means next month is offically May. Which is the marrying month for Brian and I....YAY!!! 44 days until that exciting day :) I know I have to wait, and I do enjoy the anticipation, but those days could go a bit faster!

<3

Now, Then, Here and Gone

So as I sit here on a rainy night, alone, listening to Pandora I can't help but have a bit of de ja vu. I looked back to my blog from March 30th last year because then I was on this self healing prescription that required me to journal and exercise daily, but its deleted, which means it was so sad or angry I decided to erase it for posterity's sake when my life became this amazing happy place. Still, comparing then to now makes me laugh. I went from counting days I hadn't cried, to counting the days left until we get married. I did it again, because really, its funny to have known my thoughts then and to know how very wrong I was.

I took a large step recently. I got over it. The "it" if which I speak need not be named, as the only person who reads this knows what it means. Needless to say, parts of me, whether I fully realized it or not carried this "it" with me deep inside to break out and torture myself when I was a bit too happy or comfy with how things were going, just to knock myself down a bit. ( I'm a glutton for punishment any day of the week.)

But as I sat mulling over wedding vows and counting down days, I realized I needed to let this go. As my significant other has told me over and over, nothing happened, there was nothing to worry about and it was time to forget it. But stubborn me likes to pick at scabs whenever possible and so I've kept this one from healing. But since I was not allowed to pick in Lent, maybe I was able to let this alone long enough to forgive and move on. So I mended the bridge that I had been pretty adamant about burning. I made the last step in my forgiveness. And I put myself out there....to be trampled on and rejected to also give that "it" a chance at their own portion of closure. And I was quite pleasantly surprised that time does heal all wounds and in the end everything was fine and dandy. So yay for those things.

We have made mistakes in the past. I will probably never be able to say they were of an equal magnitude for the pain and hurt they inflicted but then again I can only feel from my perspective and so I'm not very objective. But what I do know is that the hurt has been erased daily with love, sweetness, kindness, thoughtfulness, silliness, tickling and plans for a happy future. I'm actually thankful for feeling that devastation this time last year, because it makes this year so much better. It was another chance for me to step back and look at myself, my life and evolve into a better, more grown up individual with more to give to others.

And so, even after a heart wrenching day ended by rolling my horribly debilitated patient through a hallway with his in denial wife at our side, like a funeral procession, with holy water and all just to make him smile and give him a change of the scenery in his hospital room, I cannot wait to fall deeper in love with the man I have chosen to spend my life with. I can't wait to love him so much that I cannot give up hope even when it completely opposes logic and reason. I love Brian with everything I have now, but I know love changes (he tells me this and is always right so...). If there is one benefit of working where I work, it is seeing how love matures. How lovers become friends. How spouses remain friends. How back scratching seems to feel like sex when you are 75+. How humor between a husband and wife is what gets you past 20 years of marriage. How holding onto any part of your significant other creates a connection, whether its their hand or toe. I'm so excited that I have someone to share that love with and I hope we are blessed with many more days together.

The end. I know I'm a dork :)