Photographer Meetings

We are now into meeting with photographers. In the city, that's the next thing one should book since they are very busy.

We met with As I See It Photography last night. They showed us some slideshows with different amounts of coverage (with/without reception) of two entire weddings.  It's one thing to see all the photos online, since those are normally the best ones. It's another to see a wedding from start to finish.  It certainly gave us a jumping off point. A benchmark for the rest of our meetings for sure.

I think one of the biggest things we will find is how well we get along with the photographers and how comfortable we are.  FI and I felt comfortable in our meeting last night. We also had a lot of questions answered. What does the album look like? There were 4 examples for us when we got there. What sorts of prints? Those were there too.

It was great to have everything answered and give us a point where we can start doing comparisons and make a good choice. I'm excited for the rest of our meetings. Four more this month and then I believe we'll be able to make a decision.

Pole Performance

I was discussing the upcoming performances Polejunkies will be doing at a convention here in Calgary next weekend.  Since the best way to promote is to get students to perform, I offered to do the level 6 routine that I am currently learning.

I'm excited and a little nervous. Much less nervous now that I get to use a pre-coreographed dance. I can wing things easily, but I am horrible at putting moves together and having it planned out.  My brain doesn't function well that way. I would need a lot of notice to come up with something to a song and have it made up before going on stage.  You'd think that wouldn't be a problem from all my years of dance training in other genres.

So for the next week, I will be parking myself in my basement and getting this level 6 routine down pat.  There is one move I still cannot do and I've already told my instructor for performance, I will be taking it out and putting something else in. No sense trying to do a move I haven't gotten more than once and risk falling and embarrasing both myself and PJ's.

Great Mail Day

I love email and instant messaging, don't get me wrong. But there is something about getting something in your mailbox that is so exciting.
Yesterday when I got home, my FI had picked up the mail and put it on the counter. I found 3 mail items with my name on them.

First, (and most exciting) was my dvd of photographs. I had done a photo session in September and got the disc last night. I'm excited to get them edited now and put into a photo book. They are an engagement gift to my huney.

Second, more pictures! I ordered a bunch of pictures off Shutterfly for a wall frame and scrapbooking. They look awesome and only cost me $3.50 shipping!

Third, a profile card that I did for Augustana University. I did an email interview and had a photo shoot for it.
Hopefully it will be up on the web soon and people can go and view it.

After all that excitment, I underestimated the time it takes to carve a pumpkin. I thought we'd be able to get 4 done last night. We got all 4 pumpkins cleaned out, but only carved into 2 of them. Tonight we'll do the other two and have them for friends to see on Saturday! My pumpkin will have an outline of a pole dancer on it. I found a picture of me in the scorpio pose, so I'm doing that one.

Venue! and my Pole workout

We picked a venue! That means we have a date and can start looking at things that are date sensitive. Things like the photographer, caterer, the Church, etc.  I'm so excited that we have it picked. Makes things are little easier to look at now.  My little wedding planning book has stuff written in it now. That makes me happy. What's even better is that I crossed some things off my "To-do" list.
Today is sitting down and looking at all the photographers we picked during our first run. We have to decide which ones we want to meet with and which ones we don't feel are worth it. This could be based on price, availability, or style.
I'm waiting for my mom to get back from holidays now so I can tell her the good news and set a weekend to go dress shopping!! I want to take my time and only do a few in day, so there will be multiple trips to the store I imagine before I find that perfect dress.  On a good note, I already know what shoes I want, just have to find them. There is that tradition of "something blue"... you guessed it, blue shoes!! No one sees them anyways, and I think it would be hilarious for photos. Adds a little something.

The second half of the title says Pole Workout. I was a little stressed yesterday and having a rough go, so I came down to pole. Wow do my abs hurt a little today.  I did some conditioning exercises on the pole rather than just come down and dance. I have the equipment and the exercises, I figure I might as well utilize that.  I focused on two areas yesterday, my abs and my upper body.  My abs need to be stronger yet so I can invert easily while in the air, rather than using the floor to hoist myself up. It opens up a lot of moves and different ways to get into things, so that is definately a goal for me.  My upper body needs some work for sure. I have problems with my wrist, and I find the more strength I get in it, the less pain I have. I also worked on inverting on my opposite side. Most pole dancers have a side they like. Their stronger more dominant side. I'm trying to condition my body to use both sides equally. It's hard to get the hang of it and make your mind think differently. Especially upside down!

Low after low after low

I believe that at least once or twice a week, my facebook status involves something with the words "exhausted", "tired", "sleepy" and any other word to describe that feeling. For the last two weeks, I have been tired enough that walking into my dance class the first thing my instructor says is that I look really tired.
My eyes have dark circles under them and the are rimmed red.

I'm to the point now where I want to work out and get back in shape, but just don't have the energy. I don't have the energy because I stopped working out. See the circle there? I need to slowly build up my tolerance to working out more than once a week (dance class).  I managed saturday to go and do my pole workout which was good. Now I have to get my butt down to the basement to do that workout at least twice this week. I should be able to do that...

I feel in a funk again from all this. But I did decide that for my pre-wedding workout (and no it's not to lose weight, it's to gain muscle) I'll do the P90x. The lite version of course because I do intend to keep poling and that will be the main focus. I'll do the P90x to supplement pole. To gain some strength outside of class. At least now I know not to push myself too hard. I'll get better results taking it slow and building up to it then going full force.