Editor's Note

A post from Sunday said that the author of this blog would be going to yoga Sunday night. That did not happen. Nor did it happen on Monday, thereby contradicting a resolution posted here the take advantage of a deal on yoga classes that expired on Monday. The author apologizes for the error, and promises to not post about going to yoga again, because, as she put it, "let's face it: me and yoga are never going to happen."

Happy Half Year!

I'm a big believer in new year's resolutions. Okay, that's a total lie. I, like most humans, make resolutions at the start of every year but have very rarely, if ever, kept them. This year, however, I actively decided to take my resolution-making seriously. Why this year, you ask? Well, I have been reading "The Happiness Project" -- a book that every single person should read (think "Eat, Pray, Love" but for real people) -- and it's all about how the author set different goals for herself each month on her journey to happiness. So, being inspired by said book, I decided to make a BUNCH of resolutions for the year.

I split them up into categories (I'm a planner, and thereby a list maker so of course I split them up into categories), some timely resolutions for the short term, specific tasks I want(ed) to achieve, and some year-long resolutions for general goals for the year, philosophies to live by, etc. Sidebar: I have found that people respond better to specifics: specific questions, specific tasks, i.e. "Go to the store and get me some shredded sharp cheddar cheese" opposed to "Go get me some cheese." So, with that in mind, I created a list of resolutions that varied from the very specific to the not specific at all and set about 2012 with the goal of achieving all 26 items on the list. (Yes, 26.)

...

Fast forward and now it's July. Whooooo hoooo. Looking at my list of resolutions now (which I am literally doing because I taped it up on my wall by my desk), I could probably cross off about five of them, which, while something to be celebrated, leaves a lot to be done. Now that we're midway through the year, I figure now is a great time to evaluate my resolutions, pat myself on the back for the ones that I've achieved, all while making some new ones for the rest of the year. So, without further ado, here are my half-year resolutions, with some of my new year resolutions from January sprinkled in. :)

1. Create a personal budget.
• I've always been fairly good with money, but now that adulthood has suddenly crept up on me and I have real adult bills and expenses, it's probably a good time to get really good with money and create a legitimate budget for myself, and find ways to spend my money wisely.  That's not to say I don't have a budget that I live by, but I live in New Jersey which means that I spend every waking moment I can at a mall. (And no, I'm sadly not exaggerating.)
2. Get healthy.
• Isn't this on everyone's list in some form or another? For me, this means going to the doctor and just taking better care of myself. If you read my post about the drama of my contacts, you'll find that I only went to the eye doctor after my sister MADE the appointment for me. Even my failing vision - something I need to survive - couldn't force me to make my own appointment. Do I have a fear of doctors or needles and all that crap? Not in the slightest. I just get caught up in the day-to-day madness of life, and before you know it, it's July and you haven't been to a doctor in... years.
3. Read more.
• To my credit, I have a read a lot this year, but there's always something more to read. Someone once told me the more you read, the better writer you become, and as I venture into taking this blog more seriously, I could probably afford to be a better writer, which leads me to...
4. Blog more!
• I created this thing for a whole slew of reasons which still hold true, so I want to take it more "seriously" (because this blog is just oh-soooo serious) and write in it more.
5. Learn more.
• It's funny that when you're a kid, your sole job in life is to go to school and learn and it's the absolute last thing you want to do, but as an adult you pay crazy amounts of money to spend your FREE TIME learning... While graduate school isn't something on my immediate horizon, I would like to take some classes or take part in fun events that I could learn from. Plus, great sites LivingSocial and Groupon tend to offer majorly discounted tickets to classes/fun events, so to me, this is a way to "spend my money wisely." Classes that could include...
• A NOOK class: I have had my NOOK for more than a year, and while it's tons o fun and I have a good handle on it (except for that one time I dropped it and cracked the frame), it wouldn't hurt to take a quick class in how to actually use it so that I can use it to its full potential.
• A photography class: I'm a big picture taker (and scrapbooker with said photos) and as great as my photography skills are now, there's always room for improvement.
• A cooking class: I, like, don't know to cook. At all. If it involves a microwave or a coffee pot: I'm your gal. But even then, I set the microwave on fire last year and I broke our Keurig coffee pot earlier this year so there's that. (How you break a Keurig is beyond me, but if you need one broken: I'm your gal.) But, as I can't survive on frozen food for the rest of my life and I will eventually have to cook for myself as an adult, there's no time like the present to learn how to boil some water and get cooking.
6. Actually do the things - i.e. take the classes you sign up for - you pay for.
• It's all fine and great that I want to take all these classes and learn more and everything, and it's even better when, as noted earlier, things like LivingSocial and Groupon have cheapo offers to classes that match my interests, but it's NOT good when I buy those things, and then let them sit around and collect dust, and don't actually use them. I've actually had two of those damn things expire on me. And, yes, while they're inexpensive, that's money that's NOT being well spent.
• Case in point: In April, I bought an offer for an unlimited month of hot yoga. The offer expires tomorrow. I'm going to my first class tonight.
7. Travel.
• I feel like this one is on everyone's list, and it's never been a huge deal to me to travel, but one of my goals as a kid was to go to all 50 states. As I'm growing up and have control over my time and money, I figure now is the time to jump on the traveling train (pun totally intended) and see the world.
• I've already partially accomplished this for this year, as my friends and I went to Mardi Gras in New Orleans, LA in February (I. Know.) and I just came back from a fun trip to the Outerbanks in North Carolina. While I don't have any other set travel plans for the rest of the year, who knows what will come up and it's always good to have something to work toward. (For the record, I've been to 14 of the 50 states. Not too shabby...)
8. Start to develop a 5 year plan.
• You'd think as a planner that I'd already have this one down... but no. This is actually my least favorite one. While I like to think I have control over the present, and I always say "you're the master of your own fate," creating a 5 year plan has always made me nervous because no one really has control over the future. But now that I'm getting older, finding my legs in  my career, and getting myself set up financially (hello, personal budget!) I feel like I can actually tackle this, even if it just turns out to be a series of ideas instead of specific plans.

Looking at this list, I'm finding that it's a complete contradiction to my "people respond better to specifics" theory, but I actually think that these are things that I could achieve by year's end, so here's to it! Happy half-year!

Don't Call It a Comeback

So... this blog still exists. I know what you're saying to yourself, "Thank the Lord! I have been standing left and walking right for months, and now that this blog is back up, I so clearly know how to exist in life!" Right. Despite the lack of activity in the past two and a half months, this blog is still here, and the truth is I never left you..... While I clearly can't make any guarantees that I'll be posting regularly, I am going to try harder to post things up here, if it's only ever going to be me reading them. One post that'll be coming next week is my half-year resolutions [which should've been done in June, but hey, time flies and omg it's already July. Whaaaaat..], and one of said resolutions is to post here more often, so let's see me try to keep that one! Regardless of my hopes and dreams to keep this blog up, there is a reason as to why I am posting today, so here it goes...

An Ode to Mary Liz and Steve

Today marks the 1 year anniversary of my sister Mary-Liz and her husband Steve, so here's my most sincerest congratulations to you two! What better way is there to say congrats than via an essay in the interwebs?

I'll try to keep this short because it seems as though whenever I try to write about you two I start hysterically crying for reasons unknown and it takes me, like, years to finish a single sentence [more on that later.] I cannot believe it's been a year since your wedding, let alone that you've been together for 7 years. I am noting that because ML gets annoyed that all of those years of dating get forgotten once you get married and your anniversaries are only marked by years of marriage, not years of togetherness, so now everyone knows how long Steve has put up with you. :)



Post-toe breaking.

Being a part of your wedding was and will forever be one of the most incredible experiences of my life. I can't even begin to describe what the almost two years leading up to it was like, but they're filled with memories I'll always treasure and constantly look back on and smile. For example, whenever I hear Pitbull's "Give Me Everything," I flashback to us dancing around our hotel room at the bachelorette party and Mary-Liz tripping on a pair of flip-flops and breaking her toe. I still stand by the fact that you know you threw a good bachelorette party when your sister breaks a limb. 



I always smile thinking about how much fun our brother Johnny had at Steve's bachelor party, how he felt so included and part of the group, and couldn't wait to tell us all [which turned out to be practically nothing because they made some pact not to tell anyone what actually happened] about it. I remember spending hours making bows for every possible thing that could ever need a bow... burning off my fingerprints hot-gluing flowers to the unity candle... drinking wine and margaritas after every dress fitting to cope with the hell that is a dress fitting... making the invitations... and tying hundreds of little tags around the bottles of wine that served as favors, wine which I will be drinking today.



Those damn buttons.

Serving as a maid of honor was just that: an honor. Yes, there were moments that were rough and I wanted to pull all of my hair out: but those aren't what I remember. I remember getting to share in your special day, helping you get ready, buttoning every button on your dress [with the exception of the last one because I start shaking and the videographer needed to do that one, yes that happened] standing at the top of the church, watching Dad walk you down the aisle -- cue me crying right now -- looking at Steve, and me starting to cry (for the record, I think I cried more than the two of you) and just truly being so joyful for the two of you. It's a rare feeling when you feel that kind of happiness for someone else other than yourself, and it was a moment that I'll clearly never forget.

Something else I'll never forget (and no one else better forget it either) is the toast/speech I made at the wedding. I remember waiting to the absolute last minute, like the night before the wedding after the rehearsal dinner last minute, to write it because while I do work well under pressure, I found myself starting to cry every time I sat down to write it. I had made a playlist on my iTunes of all wedding-ish songs that I had planned on playing in the house the day of the wedding to set the mood, and I would start to play it whenever I started to write the speech and would just get sooooo emotional. Like, seriously Niagara Falls style crying. I think Johnny walked in on me writing it one night, in the middle of a major tearfest, and he just slowly backed out of the room. Thankfully, my computer kicked the bucket shortly after that so I lost the playlist and am not listening to it right now or else I'd be a REAL mess.

Anyway, I actually enjoy public speaking (shocking, I know) so I wasn't at all nervous for the delivery, but I knew the speech needed to be perfect. I'm a perfectionist so there's that, but I also knew that Mary-Liz and Steve only deserved perfection. Now, I know what you're saying: "But Lisa, NOTHING'S perfect." And yes, you're right. I may have had one too many glasses of champagne prior to the toast, so I kept on saying Steve as Shteve, something I was reminded of when I recently watched the video of the speech with my sister and dad on Father's Day, talk about a crying-fest. But the sentiment was perfect.

So, in honor of your one year anniversary, Mary-Liz and Shteve, I present to you and all of the internet the text of my toast. Written one year ago yesterday, June 30, 2011, the words and feelings still ring true today - and will forever be true to me. I am so lucky to have you both in my life and I love you both so much.

The Speech

A note to put things into context: I gave ML and Steve small gifts with each of my "wedding wishes."

First of all, let me introduce myself. I’m Lisa, also known as Lizard to many of you, Mary-Liz’s younger sister. I’d like to take a moment to say a few words about our happy couple….
I’d first like to thank Mary Liz for asking me to be your maid of honor and to thank both of you for wanting me to be a part of this wonderful occasion.  Despite the wedding nightmares I myself have had over the past two years, the broken toes and toenails, and now all the paper cuts I currently have: this have been an unbelievable experience that I am truly so grateful to have been a part of it.

As Mary-Liz’s younger sister, I’ve spent my entire life looking up to her.  Some of my earliest memories are of me following her around, trying to do whatever I could to be just like her. She was—and still is—the coolest girl I knew, so I had to do whatever I could to make myself just like her, which most days meant stealing her clothes and using all of her makeup, which we all know she has plenty of to spare.

Now that we’re adults, it’s safe to say some things never change. While I’m not stealing her clothes anymore—which is only due to the fact that she lives half an hour away now—I still find myself watching her every move, mimicking her style and class, only hoping to be as graceful as she is every day.

One of the ways in which I can only hope to be like her is her relationship with Steve. It’s very easy for me to say that Steve is the best thing that ever happened to Mary-Liz, that ever happened to us. From the moment they started dating in fall of 2006, Steve has become the big brother I never had—never necessarily wanted, but clearly, always needed. I credit him for singlehandedly changing our dynamic and fostering the amazing friendship I now have with Mary-Liz, who I can easily call my very best friend. Steve is truly one of the best men I have ever had the honor of knowing, and I am so happy to now call him my brother in law. I can only hope to be so lucky to find a guy like Steve, who loves me and cares for me as much as he so clearly loves and cares for our Mary-Liz. 

Now, in honor of this joyful occasion, I’d like to present you all with Lizard’s seven wedding wishes for Mary-Liz and Steve.

First: a set of hand towels with the monogram “W’ on them. A wish for a happy life as the newest Mr. and Mrs. Wren.

Second: a clock. A wish for more time in a world where time is always fleeting, and a reminder to take time out of each day just to be with each other.

Third: a two-sided mirror. A wish that you always remember to see each other in yourselves.

Fourth: red wine stain remover. A wish that you’ll always have the help you need to clean up the messes life throws your way.

Fifth: a bathroom organizer, we all know how badly you need that. A wish that you work to keep the clutter out of the way so that you have more time for the things that really matter.

Sixth: a picture of yours truly, a wish for a life with lots of Lizard in it.

And finally. My last wish for you is love. A life full of love. Most people only dream of the love that you two share, so be sure to cherish it and honor it. So here’s two wine glasses to add to your endless collection… May your love be like a good wine. Only grow stronger as it grows older.

To Mary-Liz and Steve…

With tons of love,
Lizard