Five Truths and a Lie
This is Mandi.
Thanks to the sweetest mother-daughter blogger duo, InionNMathair, I’ve been introduced to some awesome new bloggers via their post, The Sisterwives. One of these amazing women is Mandi of the fabulously named blog – Cellulite Looks Better Tan.
I’ll have to take your word on that, Mandi!
*stretches toes into ray of sunlight* Sizzle *withdraws immediately*
For now, this redhead is still sun-combustible. And my cellulite looks like a marshmallow.
Then again, Mandi prides herself on being a good liar. Perhaps this is true about sun-baked cellulite. I can’t be sure.
What I am sure of is that Mandi is a really funny gal. And she just shared five truths and a lie in her blog post, True Story…, for readers to figure out which thing on her list is the lie. Interested yet? You should be. After all she includes tuna, stitches, and dead people! What more could you want?!
Inspired to play along, I’m sharing five truths and a lie for all of YOU to guess which one is the lie about me.
Have at it!
1. I once won a year’s worth of chicken wings.
2. My first boyfriend collected horse figurines.
3. I quit smoking by drinking tea.
4. My parents’ backyard once kept 7 toilets, 1 urinal, a washing machine, a keyboard, and a caution – slow down – crosswalk person inside it.
5. I love to cartwheel.
6. I whistle by breathing in instead of out.
So, whatd’ya think?
Which one is the lie?
You Are What You Eat, And That’s Why I’m An Oompa Loompa
The past year has been a transitional one for me. I quit my job of six years, I was unemployed and financially broke for months, I wrote a full draft of my book, and I got a new job that I love!
It seems the winds of change weren’t done for me after just one year. I took on the task of planning an international wedding. I continued working on my book. I had a secret civil ceremony abroad. And then my family and I laid my brother-in-law to rest. Four days later, Joe and I had our stateside wedding ceremony and revealed our big surprise.
It doesn’t seem possible that I’ve undergone so many emotional extremes – some of which in one week’s time. I know I lived it. But I can’t believe it. I just knew it was time that I start taking care of myself. Mentally and physically.
The big push to get started came after reading Arianna Huffington’s book, Thrive. It’s amazing and well-researched. And I had the pleasure of meeting her at BlogHer14. In her book, she discusses the strengths and increased productivity from exercising meditation, getting enough sleep at night, and separating ourselves from technology for awhile.
I started practicing a few of her tips, like not checking social media an hour before bedtime – and going to bed earlier!
About a month ago, my best friend asked me if I wanted to do the 21 Day Fix challenge with her. It’s a daily workout and meal plan. I was in the midst of the wedding and decided not to, but when it came up again this month, I said yes.
And that brings me to all the green food I’ve eaten.
I’m eating a lot of green food.
Cucumbers
Avocado on top of my Chicken
Spinach and Kale
Kiwi
Everything I’m eating is GREEN!
In addition, I also ate peas, green beans, and asparagus.
I started worrying that if I continued to eat so many green foods, I would eventually turn GREEN!
And then I’d look like an Oompa Loompa!!!
But I still crave junk food sometimes.
I’m done with week one. And good news, I’ve gone grocery shopping and bought vegetables of other colors. For now, my pigment is sage safe.
I’m liking how I feel so far. Taking care of ourselves is a luxury most of us don’t honor. But I’m glad I timed myself out and did this. My brain and body feel energized and are able to start processing the events of this past year.
What are you doing for yourself this week?
Thoughts On Selling My Oldest Niece, or Why Grammar Is Important
I was in Madison this past weekend visiting family when I drove by a rather peculiar sign on a highly trafficked street corner.
My immediate thoughts were, “Someone alert the authorities! They’re selling above average sized children on their lot!”
But then I thought, “Where can I find some large kidlets to sell? I could use some extra cash.”
And that’s when I looked schemingly at my niece and nephew. *rubs hands together*
My niece, who is 12, is only about 1 inch shorter than me, if that. She has taken on, with great gusto might I add, the goal of growing taller than several members of our family. I am the next name on her list.
Yes, she has a list.
When I arrived earlier that day at my brother’s house, I learned I was going to be sharing a room with my niece for the night. While carrying my backpack to the guest mattress they had laid out, she noticed a pair of shoes sticking out of my bag.
Niece: “Oh good, you brought the shoes I like!”
Me: “I like them too. That’s why I STILL WEAR them.”
Suffice it to say, after we arrived back to their house, having seen the sign for the “HUGE KIDS SALE,” my mind was full of ideas.
Ideas that raised my eyebrows when I saw my niece walk across the living room wearing my shoes – that fit her – on her 12 year old feet. I am almost 29.
And then when I saw her proceed to gulp down a glass of lemonade and eat several slices of banana bread smeared in butter, I may have uttered in a kind of creepy voice, “Good, good. Eat up, my pretty. I’ll make more at the market in the morning.” *followed by more hand rubbing*
My niece giggled at me and put my shoes back in my bag.
Now how come my brother has never asked me to babysit?
My Big Fat Secret Greek Wedding
Well the cat’s out of the bag now and we revealed our big surprise to our wedding guests and you that we’ve secretly been married for a month now.
Surprise!!! *throws rice confetti and releases the doves*
Here’s what people are saying about it:
“It was the best wedding I’ve never been to!”
“Most fun we’ve had at a wedding in a long time!”
“It’s so romantic and beautiful.”
“How did you keep it a secret so well? We loved it!”
We are eternally grateful that everyone supported our actions and thought what we did was romantic and dreamlike. It really was.
I mean, look where we were! Can you blame us?
Our wedding day in Santorini was relaxing. Since our wedding wasn’t until sunset, we actually lounged the whole morning, swimming and hanging out in our private jacuzzi with glasses of Assyrtiko wine.
I’ve heard that every wedding day has its minor glitches and mine involved my flat iron.
While we had planned ahead and purchased an international adapter plug, Joe had warned me about voltage conversion issues. So far, things had worked out when it came to charging our camera and my laptop. While getting ready for the big event, I plugged my flat iron in to use it to smooth my bangs down and planned to curl the rest of my hair.
Yes, I know that sounds weird. I use my FLAT iron to CURL my hair. Just trust me it works, and I like how the curls turn out better than with a curling iron.
I had recently just purchased a new flat iron as well. It was so beautiful, a shiny new red handle and it worked really well.
I was straightening my bangs when I heard this little sizzling noise. And about 5 seconds later I dropped the flat iron to the floor because that sizzle I heard was the inside of the HANDLE burning up and scalding my palm. VOLTAGE CONVERSION ISSUE!!!
This day is not about my hair. This day is not about my hair. This day is not about my hair.
Those are the words I repeated to myself in the mirror as I stared at my straight hair. They were followed by gratitude to the gods for the fact that I had smoothed my bangs and NOT begun curling my hair or else I’d have ended up with some half-headed poodle-ized catastrophe.
And my new straightener…ended up in the trash. 😦
In the end it worked out.
Joe also played a trick on me on our wedding day. We’d been talking the week before we left about our wedding vows and all he’d tell me about his were that he “had a good idea” of what he was going to say and he didn’t need to write them down because he didn’t want them “to sound rehearsed.”
Okay, fine. But know that I had stepped up my game when it came to writing wedding vows. When Joe and I first started dating, I was still in college and wrote a lot of spoken word poems. Some even, for Joe. It’d been years since I’d written one. As a meaningful gesture, I wrote my vows in a spoken word poem for him.
The morning of our wedding, we both had to rewrite our vows nicely on fresh paper because we’d only packed the rough drafts. So I wrote mine out on one end of our room, and he wrote his on the other. I finished rewriting mine, meanwhile Joe is still sitting there – slightly staring into the abyss, periodically writing something down.
That worm! Is he just writing his vows NOW?!!
So our wedding time came and I was unsure what Joe’s vows would be. I was half preparing for a bulleted list of nonsense.
His vows were perfect. They were heartfelt, meaningful to us, and touched on the things we both love and find important.
So what the heck had he been twiddling with for so freaking long?
My twerp of a husband was messing with me. That whole time he was sitting there pretending to struggle with his vows, he was scribbling Bruno Mars song lyrics on the back of the paper!
I’ll get you for this, my pretty!
Everyone we worked with from our Grecian wedding planner’s company was wonderful. We had so much fun laughing with them, enjoying our happy moment of foreverness, taking in as much beauty as our eyes would let us, and sharing cake and champagne with them as well as our hotel staff, who felt like our long distance Greek family members while we stayed there.
Makin’ it legal.
Say Aaaaaah!
Something blue.
Cheers to our Big Fat Secret Greek Wedding!
Thank you to everyone who supported us and our big surprise!
We so enjoy sharing our 2 special weddings with you all.
Have you ever kept a big secret from your closest loved ones?
How did it go over when you finally told them?
Jess Witkins' Happiness Project 