Off to the Beach!

We are headed for Myrtle Beach, South Carolina this morning!

I am super excited, since this will be mine and Mike's first real vacation together...which I think is great. I know we didn't really do things the "traditional" way, as in we lived together before we got married, etc. but I think this is a great way to start things.

Mike's never been to the ocean but he loves to swim, so I think I'm incredibly lucky to be with him when he discovers the beach. I just know he'll love it!

That's one of my big goals for our life together...I want to keep things exciting, see each other's dreams come true, and truly LIVE life.

My goal for the week is to be the stress-free, fun, laughing, easygoing, crazy Carrie that I know Mike wants me to be. No worrying about work, no freaking out if things don't go as planned. Which shouldn't be a problem since we literally have no plans. None!

The airport should be interesting...I've only flown once and Mike never has, so I'll have to wait and see how that goes.

And everyone has been telling us to "take lots of pictures!" I'm SO bad at remembering to take pictures!

I DID start a Flickr account. Not sure what to do with it yet, but I'll figure it out.

I hope everyone has an amazing week! I am sure I will!!! ;)
Hey, we work hard, so I think we deserve it!

The Hangover

Married!!

Aside from the beginning of the ceremony getting completely screwed up, my wedding was better than I could have ever expected.

It was amazing spending time with my friends Hannah, (who made my hair absolutely beautiful. OMG I looooved my hair!) Sabra, (who was so much help it's not even funny and now my mom wants to adopt her) Allison, (who helped me decorate and kept me from being too mean to Mike while we decorated) Jasmine, Shannon, and Heather kept me laughing and calm!

I also loved spending time with Mike's friends and with people from work I don't get to see often enough. Our wedding was exactly what I wanted it to be...an amazing rock n roll party with all of our favorite people.

And now it's over. I cried when Mike read me the vows he wrote last night...but I've cried 4 or 5 times today! I had SO much fun last night, I felt so loved, and honestly, proud that we pulled it off. I was overwhelmed that so many of our friends pitched in to help, even though we didn't give anyone a title of "bridesmaid" or "groomsdude."

Anyway, I really feel sad that this night we worked so hard to make happen is just a memory. It was over too fast.

I'll feel better tomorrow...when we leave for Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I am just having a kid-after-Christmas moment. I really and truly am looking forward to spending my life with Mike.

Now that we aren't practicing our first dance and I'm not stalking wedding websites like a crazy lady, I will hopefully get back to blogging more!

I will share how thrilled I am that I heard the best thing any of our guests could have said so many times: "I love the music!" We worked so hard on the playlist and it made my WEEK that people enjoyed it! (There was, like, 6 hours of music that didn't even get played!)

I feel the tears coming again, so I'm going to watch TV on the couch with my...husband!!!

--Carrie Anne Schroeder Winchel

Heard it in a Love Song...

So happy to report progress on the wedding front.

We are writing our own ceremony, and after a few waaaaay to cheesy attempts, I think we've got a short ceremony that is different, fun, rock 'n roll and "us." Oh, and multimedia...and hopefully hilarious.

The only thing left to do for that is I want to come up with some great things for us to promise during the ring exchange. By great I mean funny, and maybe slightly inappropriate.

I am also working on our play list today, which we are doing ourselves with our own music. We are hiring a DJ to monitor, play and operate things. I am SO glad we can make our own play list. I feel bad because a lot of the music Mike likes wouldn't really work for a wedding situation...at all. (he's aware of this and not offended.)

Anyway, I used to work for a wedding DJ company and I know they basically use the same music for any wedding and I don't want that. At all. Ugh.

So I have pretty much perfected the pre-ceremony tracks...to set the mood. We know what will be playing during the ceremony; and my dinner play list...a.k.a "ambiance for an elegant meal" a.k.a. "let's watch while the bride tries not to spill spaghetti or wine on herself" needs some more songs, and I plan on raiding my mom's pretty solid music collection this week for those.

The main list, "Dance Play List" will be tricky, but I can do it:

I have to figure out how to flow...and flow back again between: outlaw/underground county, '80's hair rock, '90's hard rock and pop, classic rock, regular country, love songs...deep breath* Oh, and I an desperately trying to find a way to work in the Stephen Colbert/Jimmy Fallon/Taylor Hicks version of Rebecca Black's "Friday." I would love a flash mob choreographed dance.

It'll work. I just hope people have FUN. I hope people aren't "too cool" to dance and get crazy with us. That's what I want more than anything.

Okay, I'm done. Thanks for reading. Occasionally I feel the need to vomit out all of my ideas so my head doesn't explode...which is why a decoration post is probably coming soon.

Garland made out of Bud Light cans that happen to be my Wedding Royal Blue? Maaaaybe!

WEDDING UPDATE: What No Bride-to-be Wants to Hear

"It doesn't fit."

Whhhhaaaaat?

Yep, that's what the adorable little alterations gal at Davids Bridal told me Saturday at my fitting.

Here is my dress. Keep in mind I'm not a waify wedding dress model who's being paid to look angelic and virginal and full of wonder.

Anyway...I bought the dress a year ago, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. But, yeah, the zipper only went about halfway up my back, and I spent all my boob job money on the honeymoon, so that's not the problem.

My mom said it's probably because I have been working out and spending lots of time with p90X Tony, so I am just more muscly.

Muscly and brawny. Like Xena: Warrior Princess.

BUT my story does have a happy ending. The lady in charge of my alterations suggested we make my dress have a corset back!

So that makes my dress a) one of a kind and b) sexier.

And you lucky people will get to look at something like this:





I kid...

I'm hoping for something more like that.

Here's to drinking a Guinness at 10 am on St. Patrick's Day!

Sweet 27

Exactly 1 year ago today, my handsome Mike asked me to marry him. Just a year before that, I had proclaimed I didn't want to get married again until at least 30...

27 is close enough, right? Wait a minute...

I don't like getting older.

I know I'm not old at all, but I feel like it today. My hope is that I can keep working out, eating healthy, and having fun so I can stay as "young" as possible for as long as possible.

I am enjoying my birthday, though! I had to fast for 12 hours for an insurance screening at work, which I handled better than I thought. (No food generally equals grumpy Carrie.) But my pretty Natalie brought me delicious cake pop company cupcakes to make me smile.

Then I embarrassed myself by burying my head in Mike's shoulder while the wellness people took my blood. For the record, getting blood dug out of your finger is way worse than getting a tattoo!

And then I got to go to Olive Garden. I love Olive Garden! And Mike talked me into getting this for dessert...



If you do a Google search for "Olive Garden Chocolate Strata Cake," the first thing that pops up is nutrition info. I didn't want to know how many calories were in that thing!

The sweetest part of my birthday? A 4 day weekend. I need it! These last 2 weeks have been pretty stressful.

I plan on watching evening TV I usually miss when I'm sleeping and getting some wedding stuff done. And yoga...lots of yoga.

Love and hugs!
Carrie

Regret

I know regret is a pretty useless feeling. We can't change the past.

The only thing I can do is make myself better now. But what to do when that just makes me feel worse?

The point? There are people who used to be a big part of my life, who I haven't seen or talked to in years, that didn't get the best me.

Am I the best me now? I certainly hope not. I wish I was calmer, more caring, less selfish, I wish I could learn to let go and live in the moment instead of worrying all the time. I never want to be done growing and changing.

But when I look back, I was...frankly...kind of a bitch all through college.

I had a really good friend in school. I thought we'd be old ladies together, but I haven't seen her for 4 years. I didn't agree with a lot of the decisions she made with her life, and she was hard to deal with sometimes...but who's perfect? Not me. I blew her off a few times when she needed me and just wasn't a very good friend.

And, of course, there's the big oops of my life. The reason I over analyze everything I do. I made a huge decision because parents, church, society...my dumb 21-year-old brain made me think getting married was a good idea.

It wasn't, but not because the guy was a bad guy. Quite the opposite.

Who did what and who's family took over our lives and who did or didn't treat our marriage like it mattered...doesn't matter.

Because no matter what happened, I didn't handle it right.

I was mean. SO mean. I stopped trying very early. No reasonable circumstance should have made me react like that. It wasn't the ideal situation, but I rebelled like a stubborn teenager.

And now I feel like I don't deserve to be where I am now. I wanted to leave him because his family told us I could never get a job anywhere else. Now I have a great job in Springfield and don't really want to leave. I didn't like feeling trapped in a marriage and now I'm 3 months away from walking down the aisle again.

I can't make anything right. But I want to...there's no way to. The only thing I can wish is that these things never happened, and Apple doesn't make time machines yet.

Is this normal? Is this life?

Springtime! Kinda...

WOW!

The weather is amazing! It's windy...but the sun is shining and it's in the 70's. It's like God giving us a present after 2 weeks of snow and cold and stressful newscasts.

I'm not sure I'm ready for that "spring feeling" yet. I'm sure we haven't seen the last of winter...this is the Ozarks, after all.

Since I just enjoyed the weather with a jog and I look more like a bum than usual, here's a picture of my favorite little bear:

Cash is so happy the snow is gone. He just wasn't sure what to think of it. Plus, it's nice to be able to take him on walks. (or "W's" as we call them when we don't actually want to take him on one)

Isn't his haircut hideous? If my poochie were a child, he'd be the kid with a chunk cut out of his bangs on school picture day.
Cocker Spaniels are so...very...hairy! So Mike and I have been cutting his hair ourselves with a pair of my dad's old hair clippers.

We try to tell Cash it's a spa day.

This last time, Spa Le Winchel didn't produce a happy customer and we all ended up getting irritated with each other.

The 3 of us have a very complicated family dynamic.

So it's probably off to the groomer's soon. I'm kind of embarrassed to take that hot mess in there. Yesterday I spent too much time telling Cash he's cuter than the Cocker Spaniel who won his group at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. That's not weird is it?

I'm so glad tomorrow is Friday! This weekend, we are headed to the Sertoma Chili Cookoff and to see Machine Gun Symphony. They're an 80's rock cover band. They literally sing 75% of my favorite songs at every concert.

I will try to take pictures! That's another reason I fell out of my blog habit. I'm so bad at remembering to take pictures.

Hope everyone has a chance to enjoy this awesome weather!