Day #2

Topic: "Something you regret not having done last year."

To be honest, I'm kind of drawing a blank on this topic. Last year was the year that I married my soul mate. Chris finally moved here and we got to begin building a real life together. Last year was probably the best of my life! So the only things that come to mind is stuff like "I regret not winning more money in Vegas!" or "I regret not losing weight!"

On the latter topic, I spent some of my day today doing plus-size research. It started when a co-worker told me her cousin wrote a blog about plus-size fashions, so I checked it out. The website linked me to lots of different fashion sites I never knew existed! Yes, all the clothes on these sites are quite more expensive than I normally spend, but they were beautiful! And the women wearing them were beautiful! One of the reasons I want to lose weight is so I can wear more fashionable clothing, but today I started to realize that they actually do make fashionable plus size clothing! I also found an online magazine on that topic. Needless to say, I was feeling all "go big girls!" after that. Sometimes I get in that mindset where I think that I'm happy being a plus size lady, and that I need to embrace the good characteristics that I have, rather than focusing on things that don't fit society's standard. Unfortunately this mood doesn't seem to last for too long. I know certain people who are plus size and proud, and I admire that so much. I am hoping that I can lose weight to the point where I feel more confident about myself, and then just stay where I am comfortable and healthy. I don't want to have to worry about every little thing I eat for the rest of my life. Have you heard the saying "do you eat to live or live to eat?" I definitely live to eat! And I would hate to give that up, just to please others. Chris makes me feel beautiful no matter what size I am, so I really think I'd be happy just getting down to my college weight and settling for that. I wasn't skinny in college (can't really remember EVER being skinny, though I do have photographic proof that I was at one point) but I was at a weight where I could feel confident about myself.

Last thought of the day. My biggest piece of advice that I try to give people now is to ALWAYS follow your instincts! I'm a big believer that you innately know what is best for you. I followed my instincts when I wrote Chris that first email, and that lead to the greatest thing in my entire life. You need to be true to yourself, and I've been striving to do that the past few years. I think that's why I don't have any regrets. If you listen to yourself, you'll choose the right course for you.

30-Day Blog Challenge!

So I've officially decided to do a 30-day blog challenge. I've gotten so bad about posting on here (although I think there are about three people who bother reading it :)) and when I do, I just feel like I'm rambling. I figured if I took this "challenge" it would give me a specific topic to cover each day, as well as a reason to blog on a regular basis.

Topic #1: "Something you're looking forward to this year."

I was looking forward to buying a house with Chris, but as things on that front have to be postponed to next year, we'll look at the other exciting things coming up! I'd have to say what I'm most looking forward to are our upcoming trips. Trip #1 is going to be to New Mexico in June, for my grandfather's 80th birthday. I realized the other week that the last time I was in New Mexico was when I was married to Ryan! Geez! It's been a whole lifetime since then! I'm excited to take Chris down so he can see more of the good ol' U. S. of A. on the drive, as well as being able to meet my extended family who live there. I know he's excited about doing some exploring of Indian ruins near the area. I'm more excited about lounging by my dad's backyard pool with Rikki, while sipping some margaritas! I was able to get a week off of work and really just can't wait for the nice break!

Trip #2 is going to be to...ENGLAND!! For those who don't already know, Chris and I are going to England in September to have a reception/party there on our one year anniversary. His parents were the only ones who were able to come to our wedding, so we've always been planning to do something in England for his family there on our anniversary. We are going to have a big party basically...good food and dancing! You can't beat that. To top it off, his mom (or should I say mum!) is taking care of all of the planning/preparation. As much as I find planning fun, it can get stressful and I get too obsessed with the details, so it's nice to just be able to turn up in September and have things ready to go. I have an awesome mum-in-law! Also along for the ride are going to be my mom, my dad, my stepmom, my grandparents, and hopefully my sister and her boyfriend. It's going to be soooo much fun to show them the joys of England! I'm definitely making them try some of the culinary delights I've discovered there, and this time we WILL be going to a REAL English pub. I've been wanting to do that for ages but it still hasn't happened. My dad and his wife are also thinking of taking a side trip to Paris for a couple of days and Chris and I might get to tag along. We will be there for 2 weeks, which doesn't seem long enough, but I'm still greatly looking forward to it!

And those are my exciting upcoming events...the things I am most looking forward to this year. I will be sure to take pictures and blog about both trips. :)

High School Reunion

So my 10-year high school reunion is coming up at the end of June. I was really going back on forth on whether or not I wanted to attend, but then I asked Chris and he said we should. Apparently high school reunions are a very American thing, so I think he is excited to experience it. Anyway, we have tickets in hand and 2 1/2 months to go...

It's kind of weird to think that it's been 10 years since I graduated. Most of my peers are posting on the school's Facebook page that they "can't believe it!" and that we're "so old!" Frankly I can't believe it's ONLY been 10 years!! I think back to the person I was in high school and it was just so different. I was in a relationship with someone that I was sooooo torn about and was made so dramatic simply because he wasn't Mormon. That just seems weird and stupid to me now...and I feel bad for trying to convert him! Haha! I guess what it mostly comes down to is that I feel like I've aged 10 years since 2009. Through the events of my divorce and separation from the church (officially, by the way...since my mom already knows I can announce I asked for my name to be taken off the church records and that's been done) it just seems like I've grown a lot and changed significantly as a person. I like who I am now much more, and I feel more confident about myself. I'm in a much better place, mentally and emotionally.

The one dark cloud is that I'm also in the worst physical condition of my life. I have 2 1/2 months to slim down, at least a little. Even 20 pounds would make a big difference! So Chris and I are on a diet together...he's my sweet little chef, fixing me wonderful diet meals every night and making sure I follow the rules. :) I'm getting into exercising and I'm hoping that things will start chugging along soon. I have also planned to make the day of the reunion a bit of a pamper day. Mani/pedi, haircut & style, and a professional make-up application. I just want to feel better about my outside for this. I think there's something fundamental about being confronted by the high school environment again that makes you all insecure. It reminds you of how tough high school was and how you felt at that time.

Here's hoping that I can put my best foot forward for it, and show others how much I've improved as the years have passed...like a fine wine. ;) AND that I've landed myself a hunky British husband who moved thousands of miles to be with me. :)

A Bunch of Grapes

A few pictures to start us out...
















I'm a married woman! And now my blog title doesn't make much sense, as I'm officially a Grapes. Oh well! I've been getting lots of mixed reactions to the new last name. A few people at work have checked with me to make sure that's really my new last name and that my co-workers aren't playing a joke on me, yet one of the bosses loves it and always greets me with "Hello Mrs. Grapes".

Anyway, as everyone should know by now (I hope...haven't posted on the blog in forever though) Chris and I got married in Las Vegas on Sept 24th. We made the decision to get married there as we thought it would be fun, and more stress-free...plus it would give his parents the chance to see Vegas while they were here!

After what seemed like forever, Chris arrived in Boise at the end of August. His parents followed a few weeks after and were able to stay with us for about a month. While they were here, they went to San Fransisco, and we all took a trip to Yellowstone together before flying to Vegas.

Vegas was pretty good...for the first few days anyway! We were able to have both sets of parents there, as well as my sister, niece, grandparents, and Chris' good friend Richie. It was a nice, intimate ceremony and the chapel we used was wonderful! It was the Chapel of the Flowers, and every aspect of our time there was great. We loved how the pictures turned out. We also loved that they broadcast the wedding live, so our friends not attending in person could attend virtually. The wedding was also available to watch for two weeks after, which was a good perk. We had a WONDERFUL little dinner/reception afterward at Joe's Stone Crab in Caesar's Palace. Nice toasts, good company, delicious food, and great service! Really the day was just perfect! After the wedding was over and most of our family had left, Vegas got a bit old. It's such an expensive place! And right before we left for it, we found out my car needed a new transmission that wouldn't be covered under warranty, so we didn't have as much extra money to spend as we'd hoped we would. Regardless, it was a fun experience and I'm glad we had the wedding there.

Life since then has settled into a nice pattern. Chris has been taking care of the apartment, and our cats, and making me delicious meals everyday. He's the best husband I could ask for. :) I recently got a new position at CWI too. It's still in the Registrar's office but it's a job that will allow me to use my English degree (for editing the school catalog) and it's salaried, which has many benefits (the best of which was a large raise!) This is going to help a lot as Chris still has at least a couple more months of unemployment ahead. We've decided that starting in January, he's going to take some classes from CWI because I get a great discount on tuition and he doesn't have a degree yet. I think this will be a great thing for him and am excited about it! We are hoping he can go to school full-time and work part-time. Hopefully he can finish his associate's degree in about 16 months, if he goes every semester. And this month he is working on a novel for the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short). What he has so far is great...I'm consistently blown away by the level of talent he has! If you'd like to follow his story, he set up a blog for it at: www.chrisgrapes.co.uk/nano


So all-in-all, life is wonderful! I love my husband. I love my job. I love my life! Sorry it's been so long since I updated. I will try to do better in the future. And you'll just have to forgive the outdated blog title for now. :)

Beauty is only skin deep...

That’s a saying we hear all the time, but do we really believe it? We live in such a superficial society these days. I’ve spent the past couple of nights watching episodes of Nip/Tuck, which has made me ponder on this subject. The lengths that people go to in order to fit the world’s standards of beauty are somewhat disgusting, and very sad.

Pretty much the majority of my life I’ve been overweight. I know what it’s like to feel ugly, trust me. I’ve been stuck in an cycle of feeling bad about myself and then using food to help cover that pain. I’m definitely an emotional eater. I spent almost every single day of my past serious relationship feeling bad about myself because my partner never complimented me, never made me feel wanted. By the time that ended, I was left having periods of time where I just thought no one could ever love me. Not only because of my weight, but also because of my personality, who I was. Even at the start of Chris and I’s relationship, I remember having nights of just crying in bed, telling myself that as soon as he actually meets me or gets to know me better, he’s going to leave me because I don’t deserve love and I didn’t deserve him. That kind of damage is a hard thing to overcome, especially taking into consideration the many, many years before that relationship where I felt unattractive and unwanted.

I’ve wished I could get plastic surgery in the past. The quick fix, you know? If only I was skinnier, things would be so much easier and I’d be happy. I know you are probably wondering why I didn’t just diet and start exercising. The answer is complicated, and not one I’m sure I want to get into as it would probably take a lot of time and psychological explanation to cover.

What I wanted to say though, is that now, with Chris, I feel whole. I don’t want plastic surgery anymore. I don’t feel like I don’t deserve love. I don’t look in the mirror and hate what I see. Chris makes me feel beautiful everyday. He compliments me everyday. He tells me he loves me everyday. He’s helped heal me. Although I still would like to lose weight, it’s not like it was before. I know that Chris loves me at my current weight, and he will love me should I go up or down on the scale by 20 pounds. My wish is that everyone finds somebody who can do that for them in this life, because trying to find happiness and fulfillment by chasing society’s standard of beauty will never make you happy. You have to learn to love yourself, and with Chris’ help, I’ve done that. And I owe him more than I can say.

Mother England

Since I was young I always daydreamed about going on an adventure and moving to Europe. I’m sure that’s not a rare dream, by any means, but what I never really expected was for that dream to become a reality. Now, with my upcoming plans to exchange vows with a pure-bred English gent, I could realistically move there. I could raise kids there, who would call me mum and talk in cute accents. I could take a weekend train up to Scotland and buy all the yummy cheese (for cheap!) that I can handle! It seems like a fantasy, and lately I’ve become more and more enraptured by it. I can’t help imagining what my future would be like if we moved to England. The only real trouble is my family.

They don’t want me to go. Basically everyone has told me that I “can’t”. In fact, it’s almost turned into a kind of game with my mom. Anytime I mention something positive about England, she has to immediately tell me something negative. I’m aware of the negatives, the biggest of which would be leaving my family. However, I’d make it a priority to come and visit hopefully at least once a year. When my kids are older, I’d want to send them to Grandma’s for part of the summer. And we live in the age of Skype! Yes, it’s not as good as face-to-face contact…it can’t be, but it’s better than nothing. The way I see it, either my family or Chris’ is going to be the “away family”. There’s no getting around that. Neither one of them are going to relocate to where the other is. So I want to make the decision based on what is best for both Chris and I, and our future. If that’s England, I hope my family will learn to be as accepting as his has been about him moving here for me.

I’ve had a couple of friends move to the UK for a guy, one to England and one to Scotland. Neither have liked it. One moved back, forcing her husband to return to the US as well and leave his family, after she’d agreed to go there and they’d gone through the whole visa process for her (can you sense my annoyance?). The other is kind of stuck there and isn’t happy about it. I asked the one who moved back here what she didn’t like about Scotland. She told me it was basically just the culture clash. Everything was different, and she didn’t feel welcomed by a couple members of her husband’s family. I’m aware it’s going to be a big culture shock. When I was in England in October and Chris and I went to the grocery store for items to make my lasagne recipe, I was very easily frustrated. They didn’t have the brands I knew, I couldn’t explain to Chris exactly what I needed so he could tell me where it was, and all the measurements were different!! But I know that if I’m prepared for that situation ahead of time, it will hopefully be less of a headache…and I also know that’s something that won’t last forever. Eventually I will get their system down. As for non-welcoming in-laws, I’m not worried about that either. Yes, I’ve only gotten to really be around them for a couple of weeks, but I have no concerns about the family I am inheriting. The way I see it, Chris is my soul mate, which means his family is too.

Mostly I’m not scared about moving to England because I have Chris, plain and simple. I’d follow him anywhere. I know as long as we are together, I can put up with the rest of it. When I get lonely, he’ll be there to comfort me. When I get frustrated with measurements, he’ll be there to figure out conversions. So although we haven’t decided anything yet, and we won’t for another few years, I’m not ruling out moving to England. I just have to hope my family and friends won’t hate me if I do.

NOA2 - One Week Later

(I copy and pasted this entry from Chris and I's shared blog, which will explain at least the first paragraph. :) I don't want to share the address to the new blog with the world at large, so if you want a link to it let me know and I'll email it to you. Thanks!)


Chris and I have spent the past week going back and forth about who needed to write this blog update. I said he did because his posts are much more entertaining than mine; he has more of a flair for words, which is, frankly, kind of annoying since I have a degree in creative writing. ;) His opinion was that I needed to write it, mostly because he’s already written more entries on here than I have. I tried to stand my ground for the past week, but it’s finally become apparent that he won’t give in and write it. So here it goes, my attempt to be as entertaining in an entry as Chris!

One week ago today, we received the news that our petition for a fiance visa was approved by the USCIS! I had spent about an hour that night researching information about the visa, and I had a funny feeling that that day could be the day. When I logged into the USCIS website, I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw the words “post-decision activity” under our status. As Chris and I often do, we had a video chat still going even though Chris had gone to sleep. I tried yelling at him several times, even tried annoying him with the ringing noise from another messenger service, but nothing shook him from his sleep. I was so excited to share the news!! But after a few attempts of annoying him, I gave up and decided to just spread the news to my family and friends via Facebook, text, and email. I called my mom and was bawling (tears of joy, of course), telling her the news. Chris finally woke up a couple of hours later and I was able to tell him. It almost seemed like a dream. It feels like it’s been AGES since we submitted our petition. In reality, it was almost four months to the day since it had been received. But our long unsure wait is over!

According to Chris’ timeline in his very first post on here, we are now at step 3 (shown here as step 1). As a refresher, this is what we still have to do:

1. Once petition is approved, the actual visa application process is started.
2. Wait.
3. Have medical check.
4. Have interview.
5. Get approved (hopefully!)

We should hopefully be getting a date for the interview in the next week or two, which will give us a much more concrete idea of when the visa will be approved. From what we’ve read, it shouldn’t be more than 2-3 months now.

I think that the excitement of this news is lost on some people. When I first started saying the petition had been approved, it was understandably confusing to some. I got comments on Facebook about how they thought that meant Chris would actually be coming here and it was sad that wasn’t the case. Personally I took that as a bit of raining on my parade. Unless you’ve been in this situation, where you’ve been waiting for four very long months just to get word of whether or not your vision of the future has a possibility of happening…well, you just can’t understand the excitement of moving to the next step in that scenario. No, Chris can’t come right now. Yes, we still have a few months ahead of us. But the important thing is it’s moving forward! And we will have more concrete dates to work with now, rather than guessing when something may happen.

All in all, Chris and I couldn’t be happier! We figured late May would be the latest the petition would get approved so we are a month ahead of schedule. We should be able to keep our wedding date (September 23rd) now, and hopefully be able to stick to the plan of having him come out in August.



*Disclaimer: “knock on wood” about this entire blog post and it’s statements regarding dates when things should happen.