We are incredibly busy wrapping up wedding plans and attending to last minute details. It's all I can do to eat relatively decently and not become a total stressball right now. I haven't worked out in a couple weeks, and it's getting to me, but there's no TIME! I had to make a rather spontaneous trip to Texas on the 11th and got back to LA last week. My grandmother is in the hospital and isn't doing very well. I don't think she'll come out. So I went to see her and also went to see my mom and my grandfather. Neither of them are going to be at the wedding, and it was really good to see them. I visited Gramma three times while I was there, and she was hallucinating the first time, unconscious the second, and the third time she was awake and coherent. That last visit was a real blessing - she remembered that I'm getting married, remembered Gordon, and kept asking me what she could get me as a wedding present and about the details of the wedding and reception. It was a great visit.

I won't have time to post again until mid-June, but I promise I will have stories to tell and maybe a link to some wedding photos!

The story in the news this week about Jennifer Wilbanks has been on my mind quite a bit. Jennifer went out for a run and caught a bus to Albuquerque by way of Vegas and was gone for four days, then called 911 claiming she'd been abducted. Then she recanted and said that she had cold feet about getting married. Sheesh.

Part of me completely understands her desire to run. Our society conditions women to think that getting engaged and getting married is nothing but joyous and exciting, and that becoming someone's wife is a painless transition. I tell ya, the process IS joyous and exciting, but it is also filled with anxiety not just for the wedding, but for the marriage - lots of questions come up about how to be a good wife, and the roles of a wife are not so easily defined these days, especially when one considers today's divorce rate. It used to be easy - keep the home and take care of the kids. Now? All too often we maintain our careers AND keep the home and take care of the kids. And it used to be that planning the wedding was simpler, too - the bride's family paid for it, and that was that. Since the bride was still living at home, she and her mother could devote their time to planning it. Nowadays, the wedding can be paid for by the bride's family, the groom's family, or the couple themselves. The bride probably doesn't live at home anymore, has a career, and may not live in the same time zone as her mother. Complicates things a little bit.

The last weeks before the wedding are crazy. There's so much to do, so many details to handle, and so many things that can go wrong. I'm currently stressing because last night one member of the bridal party called to ask if we can find a replacement. We have less than a month until the wedding and you wait until NOW to tell us you might not be able to come? And one of my bridesmaids flaked on me for today to go get her dress altered, then called me back to say that we're on again. And it wouldn't surprise me if she calls back to flake again. Grr.

We have three bridesmaids and three groomsmen - imagine the stress if the above involved not six people, but TWENTY-EIGHT? Yes, Miss Wilbanks has 14 bridesmaids and 14 groomsmen. And SIX HUNDRED guests. We'll have about 150. More than enough stress with that!

As much as I understand Miss Wilbanks desire to flee, logic and reason keeps me rooted safely at home, excitedly awaiting our wedding. Her fight or flight reaction provoked the opposite response, and she apparently bought her bus ticket on April 19th, and waited FIVE DAYS to use it. She left for her run with a fair amount of cash on hand, had a taxi scheduled to pick her up and take her to the bus station, and either had, found, or bought scissors to cut her hair before catching the bus.

I felt compassion for her until I heard that she had planned her escape, and until I heard that she is 32 years old. A younger woman I could more easily understand the desire to flee before her wedding - she may not have the maturity to deal with such stress, or the life skills to know how else to handle it. But by one's late twenties or early thirties, most people have better coping strategies than this, and would think "gee, maybe I should talk with someone about the stress I'm feeling" - her mother or one of her 14 best friends/bridesmaids might have been a good start.

I hope that the city of Duluth, GA does make her pay for the cost of the search to find her, and that she learns from this mistake. Her disappearance terrified her friends and family, and I can't even imagine what her fiancé went through before she was found. And then there were all the people across the country who were hoping she would turn up alive. I'm glad she did, but now lots of people are more than a little upset with her. She seems to have a great deal to learn, and I hope she WAITS to get married.

Last weekend was Passover, which meant eating with Gordon's family Saturday night, and with Anne's family Sunday night. I had decided beforehand that I was going to eat everything I wanted those nights, so I was really careful about what I ate the rest of the weekend. I was still a bit bloated for a couple of days, but I'm already back to where I was before Passover, so no complaints.

I'm in serious workout mode now. A month to go before the wedding, and I want to be as fit as I can be by then! Yesterday I decided to shake it up a little - 5 minutes on the rowing machine, 5 minutes on the stairmaster (which I learned I still hate), and 40 minutes on the elliptical machine.

Food these days (except for my bridal shower and birthday parties) is very strict, but is essentially Dr. D's Healthy Weight Loss plan. A protein shake in the mornings, O-friendly snacks and meals. I do sometimes have 2 protein shakes a day as meal replacements simply because I don't have time to make a full meal. They satisfy me and I don't get hungry for hours. I add harmonia, psyllium, nutritional yeast, and flaxseed oil to my shakes, and drink 'em down (and they don't taste as bad as you might think!).

I won't make my final weight goal before the wedding, but I will be very happy to lose just 5 more pounds in the next month. Easy enough!

Is challenge enough with the blood-type diet. Add low-carbing to that and, unless you bring your own food, you can be up a creek. I was!

Last weekend was Gordon's cousin's birthday party. There is always tons of food at any of our family functions, so I figured that I'd find enough selection to get me through the afternoon. I did get through the afternoon, but not without going off both the low-carb AND the BTD basics! Stuffed mushrooms started off the afternoon, dairy-free, with crab and spinach in them. Turned out there'd been wheat in them, though, to thicken the stuffing up since it was dairy-free. Oops. The only thing that saved me from eating corn chips with guacamole was that the guac was too spicy for me. I did have a couple of corn chips, but did pretty well with that considering the devastation that would have occurred if the guac had been decent. Salmon mousse was next, and it was NOT dairy-free. It was delicious, though, schmeared over come crackers, some of which were wheat, until I found the rice crackers in the same basket. Dinner was pork ribs and chicken (I ate chicken) and coleslaw with peanuts and peanut oil - I ate a bite or two and then passed on it. The baked beans (too sweet, and of unknown variety) were good, but I limited myself to a small serving. I did allow myself a small piece of chocolate birthday cake, figuring that would be my one 'allowed' cheat for the party, but I had hoped that there would be more food that was aceptable for me to eat. Aside from the food options, we both had a good time. Sat in the jacuzzi, hung out with the family and a bunch of 18 year-olds. It was refreshing to spend some time with teens and see how they think these days!

Considering the selection, I did okay - derailed myself slightly for a couple of days, and I'm still holding at 10 pounds lost total, but I can't complain. It has derailed me a little bit since then, too - I've been craving sugar again, so last night I allowed myself to have the rarest of rare treats: CHEESECAKE. I LOVE cheesecake, but usually eat a bite of someone else's rather than subject myself to the misery that follows eating a whole piece. But I was craving it, chose to give in, and Gordon and I traipsed off to the Cheesecake Factory. I did behave in the sense that it was at least low-carb - I had the "6 Carb Cheesecake" that they've been promoting, and it was delicious. With the strawberries and whipped cream they serve it with it was 11 carbs total. Not bad! It also didn't give me the misery that most cheesecake does. Nonetheless, it will be a VERY RARE treat.

Today I'm getting back to my usual low-carb levels, and have been brushing up on the basics of both the BTD and the low-carb lifestyle. I had eggs with ground turkey and herbs for breakfast, as well as three large strawberries. Yum. Lamb will be on the menu for some time today, too - it always makes me feel good and is beneficial for me.

I'm on track to lose the rest of this weight before our wedding! It IS happening! : )

I've been doing really well at sticking to my low-carb version of the BTD. I'm bouncing a little bit between five and 7 pounds lost right now, but I can't say that I'm surprised since I'm more than a little stressed and have been identifying things that affect me adversely. I had sushi the other night with Gordon and his mother and sister, and even though I was really good and had sashimi and two hand rolls and scraped most of the rice off the hand rolls, something in the sushi or in the rice bloats me. Hmmmmm. Rice vinegar? Soy sauce? Unagi? Dunno. But no more sushi until I'm done losing this weight!

I've been eating vegetables every meal, and I put fiber in my smoothies every morning, but things are still moving a little slowly. Exercise usually helps me with that, too, but not so much now. Things are just taking their time.

Gordon has told me repeatedly how proud he is of me that I'm working so hard to get in shape. If getting married won't motivate me, what will?!?! It is very sweet of him to praise me, and I'm glad that he's the kind of man who CAN praise someone's efforts. He also commented last night how proud he is that I've been working so hard to pull this wedding together. We got all the invitations out over the weekend, so it's real now! Or as Gordon said, "It's like a runaway train now!"