Say what?

I have taken up running.

All right. Let's give a second for all my reader friends that can remember my permed hair so not waving in the breeze as I refused to even run so much as .0008 of a mile during those pesky Presidential Fitness Tests in grade school, to get up from the chairs they just fell off of laughing, and catch their breath.

Kind of like I have to do every 10 seconds when I run. Or jog. Or feebly hobble along. However you see it. Since I can't see it, I'll just pretend it's at least a jog.

But let's face it. This girl does not jog. And yes. I am this girl.

Friday night, I realized the ridiculousness of this new pastime as I jogged/hobbled around the park near our apartment five times.

And for the record, I was not running all five of those times. Except for when some redneck gave out a "Whoop!" of encouragement while driving by. I'm not sure if it was to shock me into a sprint or indicate that I really need to purchase a more supportive - and confining- sports bra.

I have never been a runner. Speed walker? Yes. Take a trip with me to Target and I'll whip you into shape in no time as you try to keep up with me somewhere between the toilet paper and hair care aisles. Runner? No. I'm pretty sure a turtle lapped me in the park Friday night.

Which is why I really can't explain what has brought me to this method of torture, the madness that actually surpasses mini golf in my varying levels of hell. I'm not worried about fitting into my wedding dress. Certainly don't have an itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini waiting for me in my closet. Yellow was never my color anyway. And I sure as hell did not invest in the regimen of diet pills and cellulite creams they were selling at the Brookfield Bridal Expo.

Although I am loving those new gummi vitamins.

As a senior in high school, in a desperate ploy to magically turn my ex-boyfriend/prom date into my boyfriend/prom date I became obsessed with dropping as much weight as possible. Which translated into a no carbs, high in pickles, tuna, beef jerky and insane amounts of water diet. Oh. And don't forget the exercise. Two weeks = -10 pounds. I gained it all back after a bowl of Cocoa Pebbles on the big day.

And I actually got locked out of the house because Dad wasn't expecting me to come home so early. Ouch.

That's me in the middle. Yes. I know. Aside from dropping a ridiculous amount of weight I also tried to stage my first wedding and become the poster girl for why teenagers should not be allowed to go tanning.

But let the record show - even then - I didn't run. Maybe overdose on the circuit at Curves with my mom. But run? Never.

So why am I sitting here - tennis shoes on and hair pulled into a 'do that would rival Pebbles?

Beats me.

Hindsight is 20/20

I made the mistake of driving by my old apartment Friday evening.

Mistake as in the east side was flooded with out-of-towners trying to get to Summerfest. (Cue the non-ladylike profanity. Must get rid of that before I become a Southern Belle).

And mistake as in it reminded me of different - not necessarily better - days.

While I still had the taste of excitement for post-grad life - before health insurance became a phrase I used often, and while I still had the title "intern" tacked on after my name, there was the promise and glory of life living downtown Milwaukee. It may have momentarily become a distant second behind my first love - New York - but let's face it, it's not really a high achieving life goal to marry an Irish bartender and reproduce as much as possible living in a tiny efficiency on Long Island.

Not that that wasn't an option. The job was there. But the HR contact's comment of, "You can get a waitressing job," was not so consoling. Here's hoping Martin the Bartender isn't still holding out for me. But I trust that he keeps my picture close to his heart, as he probably does for all the other college co-eds that happened upon his bar over spring break and fell in love with the idea of marrying their own Boondock Saint.

And so, there was Milwaukee. And even though there were drunk homeless men digging through my garbage, a colony of ants that declared war on my toothbrush (make that new toothbrush every other day), no air conditioning, and ridiculously non-Amy friendly parking situations, that little overpriced apartment and the surrounding neighborhood will always hold a special place in my heart.

It's the place I got to call 911 for the first time. Damn elevator. The place I was when the first African American was elected President of the United States. The place I discovered that even the brightest of Marquette grads can lose their cell phone in their mailbox after a night of too much whiskey. The place Seth and I shared our first kiss and our first "I love you." The place Lauren and I sat for eight hours straight reading the last Harry Potter book. And the place I eventually outgrew when I knew that my life wasn't just for one - but two.

It's kind of like all my old clothes that are too big for me now. They were glorious - quite tasty days - but as my body seems to have shrunk, my dreams and my life are bigger than I could ever imagine. Helps to have the best guardian angel around. :)

And just to be fair to Seth the Southern Charmer, any photo of me and another man must be balanced with a photo of me and MY man. I love you honey!

Friday Favorite: A.G. Phone Boy

** Amy's note: In this great journey to the altar, Fridays will be a time to reblog my favorite memories from meeting and falling in love with my Southern Charmer. And so I give you, the first phone call.

I was up to my eyeballs in bubbles. At 7:15 p.m. I had already downed not one, but two glasses of White Zinfandel.

And not like wine glass size either. Like regular glass size.

By all accounts, it wasn’t a very classy bubble bath. Not like the ones you see in movies.

I blame it on my rubber ducky shower curtain and the fact that my tub isn’t even long enough for me to extend my legs while sitting. That and I was drinking wine out of a Jimmy John’s plastic cup.

Still, I was totally trying to have one of those wine and bubble bath movie moments.

Then it happened. The Marquette Fight Song, “Ring Out Ahoya” ringing from my cell phone. It was time. I had a gentleman caller.

Not quite. It was just my best friend Lauren seeing if she could spook me into thinking the moment of my phone date had finally arrived. Figures.

I’m not the type of girl to wait by the phone for a guy to call. The last time I can honestly say I did it the phone call didn’t arrive until around 2:30 a.m. and all my friends declared him a piece of “couch material” upon hearing my reenactment of the phone conversation.

If there’s anything you don’t want, you don’t want my friends to call you couch material. It’s not good.

Monday night I found myself back in the waiting by the phone saddle again. Only this time I’d never had that stammering, heart pounding, “Oh my goodness I’m going to pass out” with this guy in person. Just emails and a couple of photos spread out in the world of online Catholic dating.

From the Catholic Herald to the Y to the bottle of wine to the bathtub, the questions would not stop hounding me…

Will he laugh like Urkel?

Will he put words together like Ozzy Osbourne or more like Anderson Cooper?

Will his accent be so thick I can’t understand him—ala Sean Connery?

Will our conversation be so painful I’ll constantly be doing the awkward turtle?

Thankfully the date fell on the same night of the State of the Union address. Five minutes of that in my mom’s old recliner and I was out like a light. All phone date worries aside.

Until 9:18. When my phone was ringing out ahoya yet again.

It was either fight or flight. And I chose fight.

Or rather. To answer.

On the other end, a delightful, yet slight southern drawl greeted me. Which for any woman I think would put her at ease. And with that 56 minutes ticked by. No Ozzy Osbourne sentences. No Urkel laughs. No awkward turtles. Just a guy and girl. Trying to get to know one another.

Getting to the guts of the guest list

There they were. In the midst of the Wisconsin heat (that definitely rivaled Alabama's this week), leaning against the apartment door, begging to be opened.

My heart skipped a beat. The Jaws theme began playing in my head. And my right hand started to cramp.

Our Save the Dates had arrived.  

82 of them to be exact. 82 for the guests that had made it through the first round cuts, and the second round cuts, and the third round cuts. They were going to the finals. And they were guaranteed first prize. 

Since becoming a bride-to-be, I've taken up running. Started weight lifting. Cut back on the soda and started to drown myself in at least eight glasses of water a day. I adhere to a strict sleep schedule and attempt to find joy in washing the dishes and other housewifely duties.

I even think twice before I pop open a bottle of wine for "just a sip."

But nothing in this pre-wedding conditioning routine has come anywhere close (not even the running... yuck!) to slicing and dicing the guest list.

In my own little perfect world, I had 300 guests alone on my list. That was before I remembered my groom had friends and family too. And certainly before I realized each guest came with a rather steep price tag. (And that our reception hall can only fit 200). 

So began the slicing. And the dicing. College friends. Work colleagues. Hometown buds that remember the mullet but missed the whole time period of gaining the freshman 15 to losing the cancer 15. Distant family members that probably wouldn't even recognize me if I ran into them in the mall. 

And Jesuits. Off went the Jesuits. They wouldn't have even brought dates. 

If I wasn't spending a lot of time in purgatory before, I sure am now.  

The Tuesday Tantrum

There comes a time in every relationship, when all you want to do is scream.

And so, the Monday bliss gave way to the Tuesday tantrum.

Which by today will hopefully have given way to a case of the Wednesday "Wow I love my fiance THIS much."

Relationship frustrations drive me nuts. Not only because I prefer perfect harmony in life (henceforth why I never parallel park) but because they don't always get resolved on my timeline. Seth and I have a fight? Boom. I want it over now, forgiveness and everything, so I can check it off my list and get back to my regularly scheduled programming.

There is no time for stewing in my world. When a Guckeen starts something, we don't stop until we finish it. Unfortunately not all parties involved always feel that way about squabbles. Which leaves me in a huff in my cubicle, because the one thing I really want to get crossed off my to do list is just not cooperating.

And there's nothing I hate more than an uncooperative to do list. Cue the screams.

I'm aware that fighting is healthy. I'm aware that disagreements are good. I'm even more aware that discussing disagreements are really good. Nearly all my arguments with Seth have amounted to really good things, save one or two instances when I was, in typical Amy fashion, overreacting. And all have resulted in, for some crazy reason, me loving my fiance that much more.

That doesn't save those little in between moments however, when all I want to do, especially in this heat, is holler.

Somewhere in the sky...

I was on cloud nine.

That's the only way to describe my mood Monday afternoon at work. It was hot. It was humid. I was force feeding myself a Lean Cuisine (all part of the year long bridal slim down). And all I wanted was a chocolate milkshake from Culver's.

But I could not be happier to be alive. Or engaged for that matter. 

Love makes you do crazy things, and as I'm discovering in the countdown to June 12, 2010, being engaged makes you do even crazier things. Like reprimanding your fiance for not calling you at exactly 9:30 p.m. because you don't just need a week of beauty sleep leading up to the Big Day, you need a whole dang year.

Just as pregnancy has morning sickness and heartburn and all sorts of other things I don't even want to consider for a good five years, I'm finding that being engaged comes with quite the timeline as well. And I'm not talking about how many months before you're supposed to buy your dress or mail those invitations.

Stage one: Weeping

As many people know, on the fateful night my Southern Charmer laid the rock on my finger it was freezing and raining. Luckily, that's not the first thing that comes to mind when I think of that moment. It's more less how I was blubbering like Baby Beluga - in public no less.

I've never been one for being a pretty crier. Ask anyone that's ever had to drop me off at an airport. I get red, I get splotchy, I wail and of course mutter - correction - blabber on about incoherent things. Multiply this times 20 if I manage to spot myself in a mirror mid-cry.

Mid-spiel about all the things he loves about me and his insanity for wanting to spend the rest of his life with me, I went into the ugly cry. Some brides likely wept. Not me. But at least I can say they were tears of ultimate joy. 

Stage two: Obsessive phone calling

The next stage of engagement begins immediately after, or sometimes during, the said proposal weeping. Mine began in the parking garage when my mom couldn't possibly understand why I was asking her to go wedding dress shopping with me. And continued straight down the Guckeen line into best friends territory. As luck would  have it, half of them didn't answer. 

Stage three: Shock (or perhaps, terror)

There is a point, in becoming a bride, when sheer terror sets in. I can remember the exact wall I was staring at in John & Erin's house during our engagement celebration when it hit. Oh my god. I'm a bride.

As a child, teenager, and who am I kidding, at times college student, I had a secret notebook of wedding plans that I tried my best, and as far as I remember, secretly kept hidden from the rest of the world. No one needed to know my 14-year-old plans of having 12 bridesmaids that eventually got pared down to six during college, and axed to five when it was time to actually pop the question. 

Except now everyone did. Everyone needed to know my wedding plans. Everyone wanted to know my wedding plans. And as the bride, I actually had to make them. (With my groom of course). 

Stage four: Awe

Who am I kidding? If I had to give a dollar away to starving children in Africa for every time I stole a glance at my diamond I'd have solved world hunger by now. I know the exact location where I can get the best light to make that baby shine (in our church... usually during the homily) and when it's safe to stare at it for more than five seconds at a time (when everyone is out to lunch). I've gone entire flights making the passengers around me squirm because they're positive I'm destined for the loony bin - or whatever place you go when you can't stop staring at your ring finger. 

Stage five: Insanity

You would think the staring at the ring finger for obscene amounts of time would fit into the insanity category. But that little quirk looks like nothing compared to the whirlwind I have become when it comes to wedding planning. (Note: I said whirlwind. Not bridezilla). 

I never pictured myself as a June bride, but due to constrained budgets, my fall 2009 wedding was out, and due to impatience, a fall 2010 wedding was wayyyy out. Which somehow booked me a wedding in the most wedding crazed month of the year. And gave me the creeping suspicion that every person engaged or even relatively close to engagement was going to steal my church, reception venue, DJ, florist and god knows what else.

Stage six: Bliss

The church is booked. The reception hall contract signed. The photographer set to go. The check off to the DJ. And somewhere, little mice are sewing my wedding dress. Aside from that sticky little bit about my fiance being in Alabama and me in Wisconsin. Life could not be more perfect.

At least until the Save the Dates arrive this week and need addressing. 

Monday, Monday

My Dad used to blare Ed Ames while cleaning. If there's one way to drive a teenage girl nuts, that's the ticket.

But for some reason good ol' Ed's version of "Monday, Monday" blasts through my head every time the dreaded day comes around.

Another day, another dollar I guess.

While submerged in bubbles last night, Dad and I had a little talk, as we so often do these days. It's the benefit of having him in heaven. There's no call waiting, no busy signal cause he's on the internet.

The topic of conversation last night? My career. I was asking for a few strings that only heaven can pull in the Huntsville area, seeing as we're officially a year away from W-Day and Alabama residency is imminent. And Dad (or my conscience, whichever you prefer) wanted to know why I had given up writing so easily in the past few months.

Hmm. Valid point. Now that my job title is "assistant editor" rather than "reporter" my workload has inevitably been more tearing other people's writing apart than penning my own. And since I did just kind of win first place from the Catholic Press Association for my online dating story, it isn't just a valid point - it's a valid concern. I've been writing since I was five. Why stop now?

Especially when there's vendettas against David's Bridal to be written.

Are you there blog readers? It's me Amy...

If there was one guaranteed way to *frustrate* my Dad, I sure knew the magic secret.

Only hours after he meticulously Ajax'd and Spic n' Span'd the bathroom, he'd hearing the bath water running.

Didn't it only make sense to take a bubble bath when the bathroom was Jim Guckeen spotless?

Somewhere in the back of my head, I was expecting my first Father's Day without Dad to be a bit more difficult like this. I had the Door Peninsula Strawberry Wine in the fridge. The oreos in the pantry. The Kleenex primped and ready to go.

But for some reason, the tears only managed to come when I was cleaning the bathroom. Figures.

Hours after Ajax'ing and Spic n' Span'ing my own domain, indulging in - what else - a bubble bath, the reason I haven't spent my day sucking on a wine bottle and going through insane amounts of Kleenex hit me.

There dads out there who aren't dads - at least not in the way we honor them today. Dads who beat their kids. Dads who are alcoholics or drug addicts or whatever other destructive vices that are out there. Dads who wish their kids were someone or something else. Dads who don't see their kids, don't know or care to know their kids exist. Dads who never say "I love you." Dads who never give a hug or a kiss or just call to say "Hi." And for those kids, who may never know whether or not their father loves them, today is a much harder day than it is for me.

Because I'm just a kid - a kid whose father always said "I love you," who never felt her father wished she was something else. There were always hugs. I always knew he was proud of me, no matter how small the task I had just accomplished. Looking back on my 24 years of life, I can't think of a single moment with my dad when he was, what some may call, a "bad" dad.

And I can't think of a single moment when there might have been any doubt in my mind, whether or not he loved me.

Happy Father's Day Dad. Hope you're enjoying a cold one in heaven with Grandpa.