Hello Everyone,
So it is a Thursday night, my hubby to be is at cricket and i am home alone feeling, well, lonely lol. Iv had a rather strange week at work, it has been a roller coaster of emotions, lots of meetings, then meetings about them meetings, and further meetings about the other meetings we had about the first meeting. To cut a long story short, i have been told that our company is expanding massively, which in this economic climate, is a breath of fresh air. At the beginning of the week, i was convinced the opposite and that i wouldst have a job in three months..... I'm full of paranoia as you will learn. I was told by my manager that within the next two years, if i play my cards right, i could be living in Australia Dubai or South Africa as that is where the plan, will hopefully be taking us. We have just set offices up in Malaysia and Pakistan but there isn't a need for us to be over there as we have other staff memberships dealing with that. The prospect is amazing and Craig and i have always dreamed of moving abroad, but for some reason, this makes me sad.
Craig and I have always talked about moving overseas at some point in the future, but if i am honest i always thought it would be based around Craig's job and not mine. We had a sit down, serious conversation last night about our future and agreed to hold off on the breeding front for a few years as my career seems to be taking off and a baby now could change things completely. Don't get me wrong,i do not want people thinking Craig is pushing this and forcing this decision on me, we both discussed it, pros and cons and came to the decision that if i had a baby shortly after the wedding, then have to turn down the change to move abroad or, i get overlooked because i have been off on maternity leave, that would mean my progression would be seriously hampered. I know deep down, that this is the best thing to do, but i am very broody and although i am 24 and have another 6 years to be able to have a baby (as i want one before im 30) i do worry that if we put everything on hold then things don't turn out the away we are envisaging and i do not end up moving over sea;s at all, then all of this is in vain and i could have had my baby earlier.
We have two dogs, a black Labrador and jack Russel. The black Labrador is 4 and the Jack Russell is 18 months. We discussed having to leave them here, maybe with my mother, or friends, and the thought of that kills me as well. My dogs are my babies un till a little human comes along, but it would cost close to £5k to get them abroad when the time comes and i doubt very much the company will cover this, and we certainly will not be able to afford it.
I really do not know why i am letting it get to me so much, surely, when your told you have the potential to climb the career ladder and move abroad, you should be jumping for joy? I have at least 18 months before anything would even be seriously discussed and i am acting like it is a decision that needs to be made now. Maybe i am just thinking that i do not want to live my life around potentially moving abroad in case something happens and it doesn't take place but shouldn't i be thinking of my career now and taking advantage of this opportunity?
I'd love to hear your thoughts and whether anybody else has had this dilemma before. I think i am just being emotional and over reacting. It is good to vent though. Thanks for listening.
Thursday 14 July 2011
Sunday 10 July 2011
Second thoughts and Wedding Day Doubts.
Before i begin, i think the title of this blog may be slightly misleading but i was not entirely sure what else i could call it that would summarize my feelings of late.
I am not having second thoughts on getting married, i am 100% that Craig is my soul mate and that i will be spending the rest of my life with him. When i say seconds thoughts, i mean it more in terms of the structure of the weddings, decorations, choices e t c. I have put deposits down on a lot of things, including my dress and as i was lieing in bed, alone, on Friday night as Craig has been at Silverstone for the F1 all weekend, a million thoughts regarding the biggest day of my life began to run through my head.
I have three major doubts and the first one is the dress. Let me try to explain where this has all come from. As i have written in previous blogs, Craig and I are paying for our wedding ourselves on a £10,000 budget. Craigs family is very religious, Craig not so much and although i am not religious, i always imagine myself getting married in our local church, with a lovely lace dress and huge wedding cars. Unfortunately, our budget does not allow this luxery as our local church and surrounding churches charge over £700 to get married plus an additional £350 minimum would be required for wedding cars. So we decided to keep the costs down and to have a civil ceremony. That way, as Craigs family are from Liverpool, it means they do not have to do any unnecessary traveling as everything is in one place, and we do not need wedding cars.
We fell in love with Lumley Castle as soon as we viewed it, but it was well out of our budget, So we viewed several other venues that offered civil ceremonies. Anyway to cut along story short, we managed to get Lumley Castle within our budget so we put the deposit down and began organizing.
Going back to the dress part. I originally wanted something lacey, quite simple not very voluptuous, a bit like this.
I have booked in next week to get measured for my dress which i fell in love with as soon as i tried it on, and let me add, i did try on 30+ dresses before and after and it has stayed my favorite. It is nothing like the above dress, in fact i was dead against going for any kind of princess style dress but it is so beautiful, i new it was the one. Please see dress below:
So this really is my dream dress, but as i was lieing in bed on Friday night, all i could think was, it this dress suitable for a civil ceremony? Is this not a dress for a Church Wedding? Will it look too much? Should i not be going for something a bit less dramatic and more conservative? As i have been viewing wedding blogs on a daily basis, i have noticed a lot of women choosing, these slimline, vintage style dresses.
My favorite blogs are www.lovemydress.net and www.bridesupnorth.com they have daily real weddings and i have not seen anything like the dress i have chosen. Does this matter? Is it each to their own? Or will people be thinking that i have not chosen the right dress for the venue? Also, why have i suddenly started thinking like this?
My second major doubt is the time of the ceremony. We have chosen to have the ceremony at half 1 in the afternoon, so it gives people a chance to get ready, have a few drinks and not feel rushed. Mainly for Craig, me and the Bridal Party. I worked out, on Friday night, as i was attempting to count sheeo, that that would mean the wedding breakfast would be 3pm at the earliest, possibly 4. Then it dawned on me, we are going to be paying £2000 for people to eat a buffet at 8pm, when 50% of them people will have eaten 4 hours earlier. Now i am worried that we should be moving the ceremony forward, but i know i cannot do this as the registra is booked on the morning of the wedding. Has anybody else had this problem? Did people eat on the evening as well? Does it really matter what time the ceremony takes and what time people eat?........ WHY AM I BEING SO PEDANTIC?
So finally my other issue is research. I am starting to feel that i am not researching things properly and making rash decisions, even though i make sure it is exactly what i want.... at the time of booking :( This particular issue has come from a wedding fair that i went to at Sunderland Glass Museum. I got free bridal magazine, which is pretty standard at these things, but this one is aimed toward North East Brides. In the magazines is had a small article on a place called Lambton Castle www.lambtoncastle.co.uk, which apparently is just 1 mile from my house....... this is news to me. As it turns out, it is a bit of a hidden gem, set back into countryside, not a lot of people know that is exists as it is actually still lived in. So the owners have decided to start allowing people to have their wedding at their home. Clearly they couldn't have made this decision 9 months ago when we booked our venue. I do not want people thinking i want the best of both worlds, the castle is beautiful, but not as beautiful as Lumley castle, see below for comparisons:
Anyway, the main difference with Lambton Castle and Lumley Castle is that Lambton Castle has a separate Chapel inside its ground, so we could have had the religious ceremony, with the castle receptions. I do not know how much it costs, and i am trying, with great difficulty, to not order a brochure with price lists. If i do, and it is cheaper than Lumley Castle i might cry. Maybe i am just looking for something to complain about right? I have a beautiful venue, a beautiful dress, we are keeping within our budget and i am very happy with the decisions i have made. So far...... Perhaps i just need to remember that i cannot have everything....... i cannot have my cake and eat it. Or maybe i need stop getting so worked up about things and remind myself that i am marrying the love of my life, and whether i am in a £10 primark dress saying our vows in the middle of the street, it shouldn't matter what decisions i have made, because to get to this point, i made the most important decision that ever needed to be made and that is to devote my life, to the man that makes me happy.
Have any other brides had this experience? I cannot be the first? Can i?
Id love to hear your thoughts on this. Am i just a number one case of BrideZilla?
I am not having second thoughts on getting married, i am 100% that Craig is my soul mate and that i will be spending the rest of my life with him. When i say seconds thoughts, i mean it more in terms of the structure of the weddings, decorations, choices e t c. I have put deposits down on a lot of things, including my dress and as i was lieing in bed, alone, on Friday night as Craig has been at Silverstone for the F1 all weekend, a million thoughts regarding the biggest day of my life began to run through my head.
I have three major doubts and the first one is the dress. Let me try to explain where this has all come from. As i have written in previous blogs, Craig and I are paying for our wedding ourselves on a £10,000 budget. Craigs family is very religious, Craig not so much and although i am not religious, i always imagine myself getting married in our local church, with a lovely lace dress and huge wedding cars. Unfortunately, our budget does not allow this luxery as our local church and surrounding churches charge over £700 to get married plus an additional £350 minimum would be required for wedding cars. So we decided to keep the costs down and to have a civil ceremony. That way, as Craigs family are from Liverpool, it means they do not have to do any unnecessary traveling as everything is in one place, and we do not need wedding cars.
We fell in love with Lumley Castle as soon as we viewed it, but it was well out of our budget, So we viewed several other venues that offered civil ceremonies. Anyway to cut along story short, we managed to get Lumley Castle within our budget so we put the deposit down and began organizing.
Going back to the dress part. I originally wanted something lacey, quite simple not very voluptuous, a bit like this.
I have booked in next week to get measured for my dress which i fell in love with as soon as i tried it on, and let me add, i did try on 30+ dresses before and after and it has stayed my favorite. It is nothing like the above dress, in fact i was dead against going for any kind of princess style dress but it is so beautiful, i new it was the one. Please see dress below:
So this really is my dream dress, but as i was lieing in bed on Friday night, all i could think was, it this dress suitable for a civil ceremony? Is this not a dress for a Church Wedding? Will it look too much? Should i not be going for something a bit less dramatic and more conservative? As i have been viewing wedding blogs on a daily basis, i have noticed a lot of women choosing, these slimline, vintage style dresses.
My favorite blogs are www.lovemydress.net and www.bridesupnorth.com they have daily real weddings and i have not seen anything like the dress i have chosen. Does this matter? Is it each to their own? Or will people be thinking that i have not chosen the right dress for the venue? Also, why have i suddenly started thinking like this?
My second major doubt is the time of the ceremony. We have chosen to have the ceremony at half 1 in the afternoon, so it gives people a chance to get ready, have a few drinks and not feel rushed. Mainly for Craig, me and the Bridal Party. I worked out, on Friday night, as i was attempting to count sheeo, that that would mean the wedding breakfast would be 3pm at the earliest, possibly 4. Then it dawned on me, we are going to be paying £2000 for people to eat a buffet at 8pm, when 50% of them people will have eaten 4 hours earlier. Now i am worried that we should be moving the ceremony forward, but i know i cannot do this as the registra is booked on the morning of the wedding. Has anybody else had this problem? Did people eat on the evening as well? Does it really matter what time the ceremony takes and what time people eat?........ WHY AM I BEING SO PEDANTIC?
So finally my other issue is research. I am starting to feel that i am not researching things properly and making rash decisions, even though i make sure it is exactly what i want.... at the time of booking :( This particular issue has come from a wedding fair that i went to at Sunderland Glass Museum. I got free bridal magazine, which is pretty standard at these things, but this one is aimed toward North East Brides. In the magazines is had a small article on a place called Lambton Castle www.lambtoncastle.co.uk, which apparently is just 1 mile from my house....... this is news to me. As it turns out, it is a bit of a hidden gem, set back into countryside, not a lot of people know that is exists as it is actually still lived in. So the owners have decided to start allowing people to have their wedding at their home. Clearly they couldn't have made this decision 9 months ago when we booked our venue. I do not want people thinking i want the best of both worlds, the castle is beautiful, but not as beautiful as Lumley castle, see below for comparisons:
Anyway, the main difference with Lambton Castle and Lumley Castle is that Lambton Castle has a separate Chapel inside its ground, so we could have had the religious ceremony, with the castle receptions. I do not know how much it costs, and i am trying, with great difficulty, to not order a brochure with price lists. If i do, and it is cheaper than Lumley Castle i might cry. Maybe i am just looking for something to complain about right? I have a beautiful venue, a beautiful dress, we are keeping within our budget and i am very happy with the decisions i have made. So far...... Perhaps i just need to remember that i cannot have everything....... i cannot have my cake and eat it. Or maybe i need stop getting so worked up about things and remind myself that i am marrying the love of my life, and whether i am in a £10 primark dress saying our vows in the middle of the street, it shouldn't matter what decisions i have made, because to get to this point, i made the most important decision that ever needed to be made and that is to devote my life, to the man that makes me happy.
Have any other brides had this experience? I cannot be the first? Can i?
Id love to hear your thoughts on this. Am i just a number one case of BrideZilla?
Wednesday 6 July 2011
Being married, 40 years on.....
Hi All,
Apologies for the not blogging for a couple of weeks, i have been super busy with one thing or another, business trips to London, client meeting here there and everywhere, hyperactive dogs that chew my house to pieces..... im sure you;v e all been there. Anyway i was browsing my wedding blogs this evening and came across this lovely post that i wanted to share with you all.....
REFLECTIONS ON 40 YEARS OF WEDDED BLISS (?) - http://granspeak.blogspot.com/2011/07/reflections-on-40-years-of-wedded-bliss.html#comment-form
Today, July 3, 2011, this 65-year old granny and her nearly 70-year old hubby celebrate 40 years of wedded ... er ... bliss? Is that the right word? It'd be lovely to say it's all been bliss, but come on. Let's get real: sometimes it's been a damn nightmare and sometimes it's been hilarious. But bliss? Save that for greeting cards!
Speaking of cards, this morning we shared one of those hilarious moments: now they say when you've been married for ages, you start looking like each other, a bit like we supposedly also pick pets that look like us (I don't look at all like Duffy ... !)
But back to this morning. I'm sitting on the puter (as usual). Hubby comes downstairs, doesn't look at me but heads straight into his office. I see his reflection in the glass doors and I know what he's doing: getting my card. So before he comes out with it tucked behind his back, I grab mine and tuck it behind my back. Grinning at each other, we meet in the foyer, do our usual perfunctory kiss and hand each other the cards we both knew we had. Uh-oh! His envelope is the same color and size as mine! Don't tell me ... ! Yes, we got each other the exact same card from the same shop. We open them up and burst out laughing again: though we didn't use the same words, we both said the same thing ie. will we live long enough to make 50 years of wedded "bliss". Talk about being alike. We may not look alike but we sure think alike ... well sometimes.
Had we thought alike over all those years, maybe it would have been wedded bliss ie. no arguments, fights, wondering why we were still together when all our friends had called it quits years before. But then, there's another word that starts with "B" that would have described that scenario: BORING! Could you just imagine a marriage where you both always agreed on everything?
40 years is a long time for anything: jewelry breaks; cars rust out; houses fall into disrepair; teeth decay; knees and backs ache; hearing grows dim; patience wears thin. The only thing that's grown over those years is, in my case, my waistline! That reasonably slim bride (me) in the video above has gained 25 - 30 pounds over those 40 years; annoyingly, hubby's weight is much the same give or take 10 pounds. (How's that work. No fair!) And even today, when we see folks we haven't seen in years, they always say to him "Gees John, except for the gray hairs, you haven't changed at all!" To me, they usually don't say anything at all about my current looks. They wouldn't dare! I'm a woman and they know they'll be damned if they do and damned if they don't say the right thing.
But thick or thin, good and bad, we've stuck it out. We've survived two trans-continent moves: Canada to Australia and back to Canada again (If you need something to really test your marriage, try that!) We've survived giving birth to our own kids when I was past my prime for child-bearing (mid-30's) and becoming almost full-time parents to our grand-daughter in our mid 60's (when we are now both well past our prime)! Like everyone, the rest would fill a book but I doubt I'll live long enough to write it.
Health-wise, will we last another 10 years? Will we get to celebrate 50 years of marriage as today we celebrate 40? And if we do, we will still see each other clearly, hear what each other is saying, remember what we told each other 2 seconds ago and still be able to laugh when we burp, fart or spring a leak as we run for the toilet? Let's hope so. And let's hope, as the saying goes, "The best is yet to come."
I found this so lovely and i hope that I am writing blogs like this about Craig and I in 40 years time.
Apologies for the not blogging for a couple of weeks, i have been super busy with one thing or another, business trips to London, client meeting here there and everywhere, hyperactive dogs that chew my house to pieces..... im sure you;v e all been there. Anyway i was browsing my wedding blogs this evening and came across this lovely post that i wanted to share with you all.....
REFLECTIONS ON 40 YEARS OF WEDDED BLISS (?) - http://granspeak.blogspot.com/2011/07/reflections-on-40-years-of-wedded-bliss.html#comment-form
Today, July 3, 2011, this 65-year old granny and her nearly 70-year old hubby celebrate 40 years of wedded ... er ... bliss? Is that the right word? It'd be lovely to say it's all been bliss, but come on. Let's get real: sometimes it's been a damn nightmare and sometimes it's been hilarious. But bliss? Save that for greeting cards!
Speaking of cards, this morning we shared one of those hilarious moments: now they say when you've been married for ages, you start looking like each other, a bit like we supposedly also pick pets that look like us (I don't look at all like Duffy ... !)
But back to this morning. I'm sitting on the puter (as usual). Hubby comes downstairs, doesn't look at me but heads straight into his office. I see his reflection in the glass doors and I know what he's doing: getting my card. So before he comes out with it tucked behind his back, I grab mine and tuck it behind my back. Grinning at each other, we meet in the foyer, do our usual perfunctory kiss and hand each other the cards we both knew we had. Uh-oh! His envelope is the same color and size as mine! Don't tell me ... ! Yes, we got each other the exact same card from the same shop. We open them up and burst out laughing again: though we didn't use the same words, we both said the same thing ie. will we live long enough to make 50 years of wedded "bliss". Talk about being alike. We may not look alike but we sure think alike ... well sometimes.
Had we thought alike over all those years, maybe it would have been wedded bliss ie. no arguments, fights, wondering why we were still together when all our friends had called it quits years before. But then, there's another word that starts with "B" that would have described that scenario: BORING! Could you just imagine a marriage where you both always agreed on everything?
40 years is a long time for anything: jewelry breaks; cars rust out; houses fall into disrepair; teeth decay; knees and backs ache; hearing grows dim; patience wears thin. The only thing that's grown over those years is, in my case, my waistline! That reasonably slim bride (me) in the video above has gained 25 - 30 pounds over those 40 years; annoyingly, hubby's weight is much the same give or take 10 pounds. (How's that work. No fair!) And even today, when we see folks we haven't seen in years, they always say to him "Gees John, except for the gray hairs, you haven't changed at all!" To me, they usually don't say anything at all about my current looks. They wouldn't dare! I'm a woman and they know they'll be damned if they do and damned if they don't say the right thing.
But thick or thin, good and bad, we've stuck it out. We've survived two trans-continent moves: Canada to Australia and back to Canada again (If you need something to really test your marriage, try that!) We've survived giving birth to our own kids when I was past my prime for child-bearing (mid-30's) and becoming almost full-time parents to our grand-daughter in our mid 60's (when we are now both well past our prime)! Like everyone, the rest would fill a book but I doubt I'll live long enough to write it.
Health-wise, will we last another 10 years? Will we get to celebrate 50 years of marriage as today we celebrate 40? And if we do, we will still see each other clearly, hear what each other is saying, remember what we told each other 2 seconds ago and still be able to laugh when we burp, fart or spring a leak as we run for the toilet? Let's hope so. And let's hope, as the saying goes, "The best is yet to come."
I found this so lovely and i hope that I am writing blogs like this about Craig and I in 40 years time.
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