I have always said that getting married would not really change anything except my name. But the truth is, it is a little different. I had this conversation with hubby the other day and he told me that he feels more "grown up'. I think he means to say mature. I definitely feel like I have grown into more of an adult through the process of getting married. I also feel like my love for him has matured. I can't put it into words but its like there is a much deeper connection between us now than there was before. He said to me today "You're smiling again. I haven't seen you smile in a long time." I am just at peace again. It is lovely to know that this big chapter in our lives is done and closed and we can actually move on to the enjoying our marriage part.

On a more awesome note-

I got my name changed! it is now super official!

I am Mrs. Haley Dawn Tufts <3

it was bliss!

I am now officially Mrs. Tufts!

It was just a beautiful day. the weather was perfect, the gardens were perfect, my HUSBAND was perfect. I can't even put into words how it made me feel. It was like watching a movie of myself. It still doesn't feel like it happened it was just that amazing!

and now some eyecandy for my lovelies :)

wow

I have been away for a really long time. Life got busy and the wedding planning started kicking into high gear. But now, I think I will be back in full force!

The wedding is 2 days away! Everything has come together beautifully! I am as cool as a cucumber and I have zero to worry about :)

I am just ecstatic to finally be marrying the man of my dreams! 

Its coming!

My wedding is in 3.5 months!!!! This is a very scary thought, just so you know. I have so much to do.. I can't even wrap my head around

I have my first fitting for my dress on Thursday. I will be talking to my mom and making a list of everything that will need to be done from here out. I hope I don't forget anything.

I did It!

I am jumping in! I am going to nursing school! I got my acceptance and let me tell you, I was registered and fees paid first thing this morning. I think I'm the first one to register! I am such a nerd.

At first, when I opened my letter, I was not excited. I was still weary about actually becoming an RN. but I thought, and I cried, and did more thinking and I said- This is what I need to do. I have worked my little butt off to get here and I am going to freaking do it! I can get over the sticking people with needles. I can manage my stress and anxiety with lots of meditation and chocolate. I walk away from this I will never get the opportunity again.

now I need these:

both in pink of course!

Decisions

I have a huge decision to potentially make in the near future.

weather to become a nurse or not.

I know I know, I have been talking about becoming a nurse for like 2 years now. And now that I might be getting an acceptance letter in the mail I should be so excited and ready to take on the challenge. Well... I'm not. Through some recent soul searching I have been thinking that maybe nursing is not for me. I know that I hate needles. I know that I do not cope well with stress. I know that I am a very emotional person and that sometimes my heart takes over. How am I supposed to separate those things when in nursing school? I don't want to be in a constant state of anxiety while in clinical or on the job. I don't want to have to wonder if I was the reason that person didn't recover. I don't want to walk out to my car every night after a shift and have to cry for 20 minutes so that I can decompress and make it home safely. I love the subject matter. I love learning about the human body and I love taking care of people. I am just not sure if that is enough to make it through nursing school in one piece.

I still have some soul searching to do. If I get a rejection letter, I guess my decision is made for me, however my life never works that way.

Doggie fun

Easter was so much fun!
I took the Penny dog out with me all day. First I went to my FMIL's house for brunch. My neice, nephew, FSIL, Auntie Cindy, Uncle Bobby, Alicia, Brianna, and Nick were all there. The kids had a blast with Penny and Penny seemed to have a good time as well. Next Chris, Penny and I went to my aunts house for dinner. My aunt has a jack russell named Abbie. The 2 doggies had so much fun running around outside and hanging out in the sun. Penny doesn't get to run free like that too often so it was definitely a treat for her.

the doggies hanging out :)

EASTER!

Thanks Jamie!!

Jamie gave me this Virtual Easter basket!

Hershey's is partnering with bloggers to donate $5,000 to the Children's Miracle Network! They are hosting a blog hop and for each blog entry, Hershey's will donate $10 to the Children's Miracle Network.

Hershey’s Better Basket Blog Hop Rules

1. Copy and paste these rules to your blog post.

2. Create a blog post giving a virtual Easter Basket to another blogger — you can give as many Virtual Baskets as you want!

3. Link back to the person who gave you an Easter Basket.
4. Let each person you are giving a Virtual Basket know you have given them a Basket.

5. Leave your link at BetterBasket.info/BlogHop in the comment section. You can also find the official rules of this #betterbasket blog hop and more information about Better Basket with Hershey’s there.
6. Hershey’s is donating $10 per blog participating in the Better Basket Blog Hop to Children’s Miracle Network (up to a total of $5000 by blog posts written by April 4, 2010).

7. Please note that only one blog post per blog url will count towards the donation.


I will send some easter cheer to:

Sara F.
Broedoms Bounty 
LiLu  
Amy
Meg

The things I am not

Inspired by Amy

I am not shy. I will willingly tell the world whatever they want to hear. I do not always think before I speak, I oftentimes find myself putting my foot in my mouth. I am not a patient person. I do not like having to wait for results or answers. I totally understand why my generation is often referred to the as the generation that needs instant gratification. I am not good at calling a lot of people back. Please don't leave me voice mails if you want a response a text or e-mail would be much better.

I am not a "Pretty girl". I love my jeans and t-shirts. I am NOT a lover of all things beauty. I don't even know how to put foundation on. I don't spend time pampering myself, because  frankly, I just don't have time to. I am not "skinny", I know this. I am trying to love my size and shape every day the way Christopher does. That being said, I am not lacking in the confidence department. I know that I am good at a whole lot of other things and I try not to let my body image get in the way of that.

I am most certainly not an advocate of PETA but I love my animals more than I love my people some times. I am not an alcoholic. I am not a party girl. I am not a hermit. I like to have a good time but I really do love just staying home and knowing that i can sleep in my own bed. I am not domestic, crafty, or really creative. I am afraid that I will be a bad wife because of that. I can't cook and I hate cleaning, I better start working on that hehe. I am not afraid to take risks and just jump and any opportunity that comes my way. They always seem to work out in my favor

Time

I need more time for me.

I don't get to spend a lot of time and take care of myself and do the things that I want to do for myself. I spend so much time taking care of everyone and everything else, while working and going to school, that I tend to come last a lot of times. I want to really get healthy, I want to cook healthy meals, but how am I or anyone else supposed to do that when they leave the house at 845 am and get home for the day at 10 pm. Hell I am lucky if I can have a dinner at home (cooked or ordered) once a week. I need to do some soul searching when it comes to my career path too. I am so busy that I don't ever get to have a clear head to think about it and what really makes me happy.

today was a prime example. I was so concerned that Christopher had the copies of his Demo CD to give to people today that I totally forgot that I wanted to bring save the dates with me to give to people. I am so concerned with him that the things I need to do are forgotten :(

I just feel so lost in this world today. I need some inspiration on what to post. I have totally been at a loss.
I blame it on my lack of funness in my life :(

Words for thought

Develop the maturity to stop trying to prove something. Learn to be content with what you are.

— Marjorie Pay Hinckley

Give away announcement!

Jamie is having a lovely give away!

We all work hard during the week ladies and it is time that we give something back to ourselves!
Enter her de-stressing giveaway and have a nice strong drink and relax!

Under Construction

I am redoing the colors and layout so please bare w/ me. I think I am going to go with the lighter scheme, but I am not quite done yet.


Tell me what you think!

Something that really bugs me

I hate when people walk into my store 2 minutes before it is closed and proceed to shop as if no one is trying to go home. Like, I am ALL about customer service. I do everything I can to make sure my customers are happy. But really, its 9:58 and we close at 10.. what is SOOOO important that you need NOW that you cant get at 7am? I want to go home at 10 not 10:05 and so does the rest of the people I work with.

In other news:
1. The Penny has been doing AWESOME with training. even after the first day there was a huge difference in her behavior. I now enjoy walking her because there is not constant pulling. I can't wait to bring her back on Friday and teach her something new :)

2. I am considering a career path change. When I was in middle school I really loved computers. I wanted to go to school for computer science. I am not thinking that maybe I will get a degree in IT w/ a focus on web design/ development. I am going to start teaching myself HTML and maybe putting a test website together to see if it something that I enjoy still. I like design elements and I think I know what looks good and what doesn't. I guess the really thing is; is there money/ jobs in the field? I certainly do not want to work for myself. I am not into running my own business, but I would love to work on a team for a company. Who knows, everything really depends on what happens w/ Chris and if i get into the nursing program or not. Food for thought. If anyone has any info that would be awesome!

my Penny PooPoos

I am LOVING this beautiful weather! The sun just makes me all happy on the inside :)
I also love it because we can take Penny out to play in the baseball field so that she can actually have space to run run run. I took her out this morning and it was so much fun! I wish I brought my camera so I could have snapped some pictures of her rolling around in the grass. Oh well, next time I will. Watching her run free is rewarding for me. I know it makes her so so happy. There are currently one  or two dog parks on Cape and they are pretty far away from us. BUT I just learned that Hot Diggity, a local pet boutique, is working to build the Mashpee Dog Park! This is much needed because there are very very few places for our pups to run free and once summer comes, dogs are not allowed to be anywhere :(     

We also start our much needed training sessions tomorrow! We really need someone to teach us how to train her effectivly because up until now, she has been a bit unruly! I can't wait to have a well behaved, listening dog!

 these are old, i needs new ones

things

ok ok... so I may be a blond again! (I am LOVING it by the way!) but this person could not have been serious:

I went to starbucks yesterday with my sweetie for some sinful treats. I was looking and I got excited that they have light frappacinos! I was concerned thought because I really try to avoid artificial sweetners at all costs. So I asked the guy behind the counter, "What makes them light?" I was assuming I would get a "well, it has light cream in it" or "oh we use some type of artificial sweetener"  no no... this is the answer I got:

me: "What makes the frappacino light"
boy: "Well its our light mix and it has 1/3 less calories"

UM DUH! I CAN read that on the sign. I was just like... really? you don't know WHY its light?

eventually I got the answer and was told that it is artificial... so I ordered a regular
I tried I guess
 That must be how people feel when they ask me where the ice cream is and i politely tell them "The aisle with the freezers"

I have been inspired

There are a few things that have inspired me to actually feel like the beautiful sexy woman the my loving FH tells me I am.. Part of it is the weather. I love the sunshine and the warm air. It brings one a sense of renewal and rebirth in my life. It motivates me to really start taking care of myself and taking time for myself. In the winter and fall I usually just throw my hair in a pony tail and run out the door. Lately I have really been enjoying actually trying to put myself together so to speak.

my other inspiration is this beautiful woman

image from here

Her name is Crystal Renn and she is a beautiful, curvy size 12. She models for high end designers like D&G and Jean Paul Gaultier. Seeing her being so mainstream and having beautiful curves, makes me feel beautiful too. It is so depressing only seeing stick thin waifs of women on the covers or magazines or walking down the runway. I want to know that my size 12 figure can be thought of like that too.

Ok well that's it for me. I just wanted to tell the work how happy I feel lately :)

Statistics :(

I am not a fan of math, AT ALL!

For whatever reason, I got it into my crazy head this semester that I would take statistics. I figured that I would need to take it for a bachelors so I might as well get it over with now. I wish I hadn't. The test we just took was a nightmare! The multiple choice did not reflect much of anything that we had done in class. I am think about auditing this class because I don't want the grade to reflect on my GPA. I don't actually need the class, I was just trying to fill my time with something that I thought would be useful.

you live and learn I suppose.

ramblings about my job

As most of you may know (or maybe not) I tutor anatomy and physiology mt the college I attend. I really love what I do. I get to help students grasp concepts and information in a subject that I love yet, is quite a challenge.

This semester I have met a new challenge when it comes to tutoring. I have been seeing a lady almost 4 hours a week for tutoring. Her main set back- she is Russian. The language barrier is HUGE!. She speaks English quite well but with a heavy accent. The issue is not her intelligence, because believe me, she is really quite smart. The issue is that she cannot just pick up the book and read the words and understand that is being said. Hell, for many of the students that don't have a language issues, that is hard to do!It has made me realize how difficult our language is. It has really taught me to think about what I am saying and how I am saying it. I may need to define a word 3 or 4 different ways before she understands its meaning. She is a riot and has a great sense of humor. we kinds of joke about everything as we are going along w/ the session. She has also taught me to have a lot of patience and how to work with someone that English is a second language. Just because they can speak it does not mean they truly have an understanding.

New blog to read :)

Amy at Travel Nurse Aim contacted me and asked if I would link her blog. I LOVE reading nursing blogs so of course I said yes! I started poking around and became really fascinated with what she does. She is a traveling nurse (as you can tell by her blog title). this means she works for an agency that sends her all over the place to work at different hospitals. She essentially fills open spots that need to be filled stat.She talks about all the ins and our of travel nurisng like the BIG questions that need to be asked. She is very informative and what she deals with day to day seems to be quite interesting! She just switched to wordpress so if you want more you can find her here as well!

Enjoy! I know I will!

big changes... possibly

A lot has been going on lately, and its kinda crazy.

Chris is working on getting a demo tape together that he can send to Robins Air Force base in Georgia. Yes, a demo tape to the military. There is an opening in the regional band for a tenor/ baritone and they want a tape by March 31. It is actually really exciting. He would be singing for the military and that would be an awesome job. The money is good and the job security is excellent. If they like the tape they will have him come down to GA for a real audition. If they like him there, hes in!
what does this all mean?

he will be gone for at most 100 days out of the year, and that is not all at once, it is spread out over the whole year and every 18-20 months we will be gone for up to 60 days over seas. BUT that is only if his unit is called, so he may not necessarily be called.

We will have to move. Exciting and scary at the same time. He will have 8 days after BMT to find a house, whether that is a rental or we buy. I would love to buy because the houses are CHEAP (at least compared to what I am used to)! I just don't know how we will find a place so fast. I guess I would have to be looking around while he is away or we would have to buy before he goes.

I will be living in Georgia... 200 miles from the ocean.... does not make me happy! but it will be warm all the time!

this is all so overwhelming... I really hope this all works out though! I think it will be a lot of fun!

Officiant

We met with our officiant yesterday! She was lovely and everything I could have ever asked for. She is easy to get in touch with, she is calm, cool and really loves what she is doing! We showed up are her house and she answered the door in her Ed Hardy t-shirt and sweat pants, at the moment I knew she was the one! We picked out our vows and I may send her some stuff to make changed but i really love what we picked. It short, simple and a little different that the standard. One more thing to check off the list!

I have an Idea

While I brows through my long list of blogs written by some really amazing women, I notice that quite a few of us are working towards becoming healthier. I Though maybe we should band together as some kind of support network so that we can continue to encourage and help each other along the way.

let me know if this some something interesting.

I feel good

I have been really down lately. I just haven't been feeling "sexy". FH tells me all the time how beautiful and sexy I am but I just don't believe him. So i made a promise to myself the other day. I promised myself that I would wake up at 630 Tuesday, Thursday and Friday to go to the gym. Today was day 1 of keeping my promise and I feel sooo good. It was really tough waking up in the morning (I really love my sleep). But it was well worth it. I really just want to look as sexy and I am supposed to feel (and I do feel it some times). I also really want to look good for my wedding (and wedding night).

I sometimes watch exercise video infomercials and I am intrigued by them. Maybe when I have some extra cash I will pick one up and see how it works.

Day one feels great and hopefully I can continue this. for 15 pounds :)

We got a puppy a few weeks ago. We love her so so much and she is really quite good. The problem is... she hates our cat. Every time she sees the cat she want to eat him. It is really not fair to him at all. I mean his is our first baby and he does get preference. We probably could deal with a crazy hyper puppy, but I dont know that we can handle a puppy that wants to attack our beloved cat. We are considering selling her. It makes me really sad bit I am really not sure is this is going to work for us. She really is sweet and very smart.

*sigh*

I just don't know what to do

The dress Debauchle

My dress.. has been something that was quite stressful up until now.

After Chris and I got engaged I went and did a little dress shopping. I just wanted to see what I liked and didn't like. Well my mom, sister and I headed over to Davids Bridal and my awesome consultant had me try on like 20 dresses. NO JOKE. By the end of the day I found the dress that I THOUGHT I loved. I thought i looke beautiful in it and I was so excited. We bought the dress. That was 1.5 years ago. Since then I would try my dress on every time I went to my aunts house and every time i saw myself in it. i love my dress but not the way I looked in it. So finally over Christmas, my aunt said, let me call and see if they can get you one in a bigger size because that will alleviate a lot of the issues I had with the way it was fitting. Surprisingly they said to bring it on it so they could take a look at it and they would order me a size up no problem.

I was a blonde then too hehe

So I walk into the store and I start trying on my old dress so that my consultant can see it on me and I see a dress hanging on a mannequin that I just thought was super cute. I asked to try it on and she said sure. I put it on and fell in love. it is so much more flattering and It totally fits my personality and the feel of the wedding so much better! It is just really crazy that I could try on 20 dresses and think that i found then one and then see a single dress hanging up and put it on and leave with it as my wedding dress. It was never my intention to but a new dress. But when I put it on all I could think of was wow!

Now I am really excited to be getting married and I am so excited to actually start planning. i don't have to worry about losing those last 100000000 pounds to fit into my dress and I can just relax and enjoy myself!

Christopher and I really cleaned the house yesterday. It felt really good to have clean floors and see that most of the stuff in the house was where it belonged. For me, when I actually do it, cleaning feels like a new beginning. It makes me feel like I can start the day fresh and new. Yesterday was an awesome day actually. We got all of our bills paid, purchased some necessary items from the grocery store and *drum roll please*.. Ordered our Save the Dates! This is the first little thing that we have purchased for the wedding. All deposited have been paid, dress has been purchased (and since exchanged for a new one... more on that later), money has been saved and now it is time to spend it! Yesterday really was a fresh start it felt like. I have also since realized that I will be Mrs. T in 7.5 months! I cant wait!

some of the colors are a little different. What I loved about them is that they are magnets! I akways hate giving people things that I know will end up in the trash. With these I am sure they will hang on everyone's fridge forever! Its like a little keepsake :)

one more goal

get organized! The house is a mess and Chris leaves things everywhere! I really need to start cleaning and organizing wayyy more

Happy new year!

Welcome to 2010 everyone! This is going to be a pretty crazy year. I am planning a wedding, praying that I get into nursing school, and many more things that I am sure will come up. One of the scariest things I realized was that 2009 just FLEW by. I keep thinking "What the hell did I do with myself this year"... apparently not to much hehe.

Resolutions:
1. Continue going to the gym and getting healthy
2. Save a little more money
3. enjoy every moment of every day