Hello friend! Guess what? More Halloween awesomeness is happening today on the blog! I’ll think about cooling it with Halloween…once I make every Halloween recipe and decoration I see on Pinterest.
October Goals
Happy October 1st! I’m doing another round of Monthly Goals to help me stay on task for the month of October. First, let’s see how I did on my first month of goal planning in September. I achieved all three goals under family! With the occasional later bedtime while traveling or the weekend, we’ve got Soph on a more regular bedtime routine! Jeffrey and I went to see Mike Birbiglia and Soph and I went to every Babies Loves Books except the Monday she was visiting her Grandparents. My Life goals were not as successful! I did not complete ANY of them! We stopped Whole 30 a week early just because. There really was no reason. We are going to continue to eat those foods with an occasional treat until we reach our goals. We both lost a lot (24 lb for me) but still have a ways to go. I can’t figure out how to get my darn Lumo Lift to stay on my body, so until I get that figured out, it sits on my desk. I didn’t even attempt Me Before You because I read reviews on how terribly sad it was and couldn’t put myself through that! I got half way through Daring Greatly and am really enjoying that book! I did nothing with Project Life or my closet building plans. I saw that it was going to cost $890 for new wood hangers and decided the closet reno will have to be for another time. I did pretty terrible on my Blog goals as well. I still have not completed Blog Life and I only revamped one old post. I did, however, repin like a mad woman. I also got asked by Anna to be a co-host for a big Pinning Party this Saturday for Boogie Wipes! I’m OK with the things I didn’t get accomplished because I got a lot of non-goal items accomplished!
Family
- To be present this month. There is a ridiculous amount going on this month and I want to be sure to be present for my family rather than going through the motions and checking events off my to-do list.
- Continue Babies Love Books every Monday
- Take a family walk 3 times/week
- Find a date-night sitter for Soph
Life
- Swim 2 times/week
- Read Eleanor & Park
- No laundry on the weekends
Blog
- Complete Blog Life (for realz)
- Revamp 2 old posts
- Make 2 new pins for 2 top re-pinned pins
PS. is this not the cutest? What are your goals for October? How’d September turn out for you? I fear October, November and December are going to be tough to accomplish all my goals but I’m up for trying!
The Secret Killer
Shame is a hard thing to overcome. One can not even feel vulnerable unless they get past shame. Brene Brown wrote the quote ‘the secret killer of innovation is shame’ in Daring Greatly in regards to people never putting themselves out there for fear of what others think. My heart aches for the people who don’t share their music, art, writings or newest invention because they are worried about criticism. They see their work as a representation of their whole self and if someone doesn’t like something they create, they must not like them. Imagine where the world would be if everyone was afraid of what others thought about what they create. Be brave. Overcome shame.
Our Wedding
Hello lovers! Happy Fall! I know, my mind is supposed to be all things apple cider, pumpkin cookies, sweaters and colorful leaves but I’m feeling very nostalgic for my family. Not sure if it’s Sophie’s birthday coming up or our drawn out anniversary celebration but I am beyond thankful for the family that I get to spend my life with. I’ve been thinking about our beautiful wedding day where we were surrounded by all of our favorite people. Weddings are strange, there’s this feeling of stress for the bride to make sure everything is perfect, perhaps a bit of a grudge for the guests coming to spend their time and money and a touch of forced happiness for the big event that is supposed to be the happiest day of your life. I’ve felt all of these emotions regarding my wedding day and others weddings I’ve attended, but in the end, weddings rock and are a beautiful tradition that I’m grateful to experience.
The day of my wedding started out strange. I was alone in our wedding suite for the morning while my friends and family went to get ready with their families. I was receiving phone calls of Uncles being rushed to the hospital, cousins missing flights and flowers being locked in the refrigerators. Wondering if all of my decorations were being laid out correctly, welcome bags being put in the correct rooms and whether my cake had arrived yet. This huge event that we had planned, prepped and paid big bucks for had finally come and I was alone in a hotel room worrying about it ALL.
As the day went on, my bridesmaids and Mom got to the hotel room and started getting me primped for our photo shoot. Now I could relax and have fun! All my worries went away and I was beyond excited! My sister did my hair and I did my makeup so we weren’t worrying about dealing with any extra hands. We were extremely lucky to have teamed up with a great photographer and had a ton of great shots from our friends and family throughout the day.
We wanted to do the ‘first look’ moment out on The Circle so that every time we visit we’ll remember the butterflies of anticipation. I’m a true Hoosier and love Indy so I’m so glad we got to spend our special day there.
We got the normal ‘sweet family’ photos as well as the ‘ok, now be crazy’ photos before the 3,000 bikers swarmed our photo sesh!
There was a motorcycle rally on the circle that made our day really fun! We felt like celebrities as bikers were honking, taking our photos, asking for us to pose with their bikes and giving us money! It was awesome.
Jessika did an amazing job of letting us do what we wanted and captured the exact feelings that we were having. She’d promp us on where to stand but let us do what we wanted for our photos, which I loved.
A lot of people have asked me about this photo from my About Me page. We were hungry and were missing out on the cocktail hour because of the shoot. Jeffrey works at the corporate headquarters for JJ and we’re big fans so we got JJ for our wedding party.
The foyer of the reception had a baby grand piano that I had made a little vignette with wedding albums and framed wedding photos from our families. It was very special for our grandparents and family members to see their wedding photos.
We bought our flowers in bulk through a local florist and divided them into all the vases I’d collected. The hotel let us store the flowers in the refrigerator for safe keeping (this might not happen at all hotels, I used to work at the Hilton where we got married.) The table centerpieces were made up of stacked white books to represent Jeffrey’s love of reading. We had Babies Breath as well as yellow and white Daisies in honor of my parent’s wedding flowers. My sister painted signs for our ceremony and reception to help guests not crash the wrong wedding. My cousin wrote the ‘photos’ poster last minute for our photo booth because I’d forgotten to write one! My family took all the vases and books and arranged them on all the tables for me while I was at the photo shoot. I had all the vases and books numbered and a photo of each arrangement as a guide. I didn’t care if they looked exactly like that but thought it would make it easier for them in the short amount of time they had to decorate. 
I wrote out all the name cards in different fonts and printed them on card stock to match our color theme. I’d also printed the drinks banner and table numbers from a Martha Stewart template I’d found. I ordered a few props from Etsy for the photo booth which seemed to be a big hit according to the insane amount of photos we got from the booth!
Our ceremony was literally 5 minutes long; honest, meaningful and to the point!
After the ceremony we had cocktail hour for our guests while we went outside to shoot a few more photos as a married couple. The photo above describes our relationship perfectly!
Our Dads and wedding party all had awesome speeches and we gave a speech to thank everyone for sharing our special day with us. Our cake was yellow cake with fudge chocolate icing because that’s Jeffrey’s favorite cake combo. It was the best wedding cake I’ve ever had (and I’ve had at least 100 wedding cakes through working catering.)
The evening wrapped up with hours of dancing, drinking and lots of inappropriateness in the photo booth. We only stopped dancing when they turned the lights on and started cleaning up. I’m so happy for the memories I have from our wedding day. I am forever grateful that all of our friends and family came to spend the day with us to make it absolutely perfect. I’d love to have another party without the pressure of a wedding but full of drinks, dancing and cake! What did you love about your wedding? Did you diy any part of your wedding? Anyone have 3,000 bikers to help celebrate their happy day? I’m going to go watch the video my Dad made for our wedding!
All photos were taken by Jessika Feltz Photography other than the last photo booth photo.
Dust Yourself Off
Like my girl Aaliyah used to say, ‘If at first you don’t succeed, dust yourself off and try again.’ I think this is a great reminder to all people, of every age, everywhere. My niece just learned how to ride her bike with no training wheels and she is an amazing example of someone who bounces right back up after falling. She’s an inspiration. Sometimes it might take a little encouragement from a friend or loved one to help dust yourself off, but it’s always worth it in the end.