I think that everyone needs to find someone that loves them like this song......i did

Best Of Both Worlds for who?

So i have been married a little over a month n0w and it has been a rough go for me. I never thought that it would be easy but i also never thought that it would be this hard.

I have some great friends that have been spending alot of their time trying to entertain me and keep me not think about the fact that my husband is not with me. And then there are those that keep telling me that i am living the life. " you have the best of both worlds, your married and you husband lives in another country. i wish i could send my husband to another country"

People say that to me thinking that it is going to make me feel better. but you know...it really doesnt.

My husband is my best friend. I tell him everything. he is the person that i want to see on a regular basis more then anyone in my entire life....even when he makes me mad (which isnt often).

I am not saying that i am never going to get annoyed with him or want him to "go away" But when we have only been married a month and were only together for 2 weeks of that month.....i dont want to be away from him. So instead of people telling me about my future and wanting my husband to "go away", maybe they should not say anything and be sensitive to the fact that i am a newlywed that never really got the chance to start being a wife before i had to leave my husband behind. Think before you say things people.

just a thought

Like waiting for santa

I think that the rule should be that once you are packed you should be able to leave.

I was talking to the coolest summer student that i have ever worked with (your welcome christina) and she made the comment that it was like waiting for christmas. the tree is up, the cookies are out......WHERE THE HECK IS SANTA?

And it is so hard to stop doing countdowns because everyone keeps asking me about wedding stuff. I do want to share my info abotu my day because i am sooooooo excited but i almost feel like every time i tell someone about it, it moves farther away.

3 more sleeps as my niece....and my best friend would say......but i want it to be tomorrow

Just A Thought

better things to do with $21,000

i have a confession to make......i am obsessed with watching Say Yes To The Dress. I think that i watch at least one episode a day.....at least.

now i understand that there are people out there that have the money to drop in Klienfeld's, but i saw an episode not to long ago that totally blew my mind. this woman spent $21,000 on a (ugly if i may say so ) wedding dress.......FOR HER SECOND WEDDING.

I actually fell out of my chair, i was in that much disbelief. So i decided that i am going to make a list of more important things you can do with $21,000 other then spending it on one dress:

*put a wicked down payment on a house
*I could get a brand new mini cooper
*I could get 700 boxes of diapers at $30
* I could get 11,730 loaves of wonder bread at $1.79 a loaf
* i could get 13,815 large triple triples at Tim Hortons
*i could get 1400 mosquito nets for people in Africa
*I could get 210 goats for a family in Africa
*I could send 840 Canadian children to school with a new backpack full of school supplies

I will be the first to admit to you that i could be more involved in helping my community and other things. But i could never fathom spending $21,000 on a dress for one day when that money could go such a long way towards helping a needy family for a longer time then just one day

Just a Thought

Already a good wife

now i dont know when it started happening. but I believe that is was a slow progression and then all of a sudden.....bam my buggy is full of mens clothing and i am calling him from the mens wear department to ask if hwe would like a certain colour...........when does this happen?

i was just in zellers to buy myself some last minute things for myself and by the time i got to the check out i had one tank top for myself and 3 shorts, a wallet, a hoodie and some shoes for antonio. i mean i didnt even plan on buying him anything at all because i have already bought him a bunch of things.....sigh

so what i need to know is...does this stop? will i be able to go into a department store and only buy things for myself again? will i be able to walk past a mens specific store and not feel a gravitational pull to go in and at least look around for things that he may look good in? sigh...my shopping life will never be the same once i become a wife will it?

well at least my husband will be well dressed

Just a Thought

weird dreams

So those who know me well enough know that i have problems with sleeping. I am always thinking about so many things that i can never shut my brain off. Well of course with a wedding 26 days away (eeek) this issue has become worse.

I am up most nights until one or two in the morning, spend all night in and hout of sleep and then i am up at 7 am. but when i am alseep is when the crazy wedding dreams start happening.

Some of the first dreams started happening when i was in Trinidad in February and Antonio and i were trying to find venue for the wedding. we had search and searched and i was starting to get discouraged, when we stopped in for a quick visit at one of my uncles houses. so he recommended this place that he said would be great and he could get us a discount and all this stuff. Antonio had been there before and said it would be great and everyone would have somewhere to park and it was right in town. so by that point i was like ok well if you like it then fine. but being the woman that i am, as soon as i left my uncle's, i told Antonio that i need to see this place first.

Because is was a sunday the place wasnt open, so we could only see it from out side the fence. I knew my answer as we got closer to the venue but once we got up to the fence my decision was comfirmed. I tried to keep an open mind but.......ya no. but at that time we didnt have any other prospects so i told him that i would sleep on it and let him know

the next morning i called him before he came to meet me and i said to him "babe i love you but i spent all night having nightmares about that place....we cant get married there". i literally had a dream that while we were in there the place caught fire, then there was a serial killer that came in off the street, then we were all locked in and couldnt leave.....and they just kept getting worse. Needless to say i talked him out of that one.

some of the dreams since then have been anything from wonderful , gross, confusing, fabulous, strange.....i could go on and on. i cant wait until the wedding is over and i go back to my regular sleepless nights and my regular crazy dreams

Just a Thought

the evil green eye

There are some people that you will come across in life that only want to see you fail. they are the kind of people that whenever you have good news they are the first ones to play "devils advocate" and knock you down

I just sucks when it comes from people that are suppose to be like family or really close friends. you always expect these people to forever have your back....but you share good news with them and that eveil green eye comes poking out and all of a sudden your deal with a whole bunch of jealous.

not everyone is suppose to experience all the great things that life is supposed to offer at the same time. so why cant people be happy for others when they get there chance at happiness. I mean of course there are people that are genuinely always happy for you....which is great. there are the people that no matter what news you tell them they are going to say something negative......which you accept. but then there are people that used to be supportive that surprise you all together by becoming negative and you wonder what happened.......jealousy.

so what does one do? you move on and up anyway. because if you let all the people that are jealous of hold you back then you will be stuck on this never ending hamster wheel. sometimes these negative people have to stay as part of your life because they are your "family" but it doesnt mean that you have to stand by and let them spew there negativity on you all the time.

just a thought

whats in a name

My dad and i had a conversation about whether or not i was going to change my name. so when i said what i thought was the obvious answer.....which was yes.....he couldnt understand why.

it made me wonder are women not changing their names now a days? i never gave it a second thought about changing my name to Mrs Lopez. but my dad thought that it was obsurd.

then he suggested that i do the whole Straker-Lopez thing. to which i replied......NO. i already have 2 middle names if i then add on a second last name it is going to take me forever to write my signature.

This is when my mom chimmed into the conversation and stated that she should have kept her last name and then hyponated all of our names. so imagine if they did that then my new last name would be Charles-Straker-Lopez.....that is just crazy.

So i proceed to tell my dad that i thought it was sweet that he wanted me to keep my last name but that it was important to me to change it to be the same as my husband and that he had nothing to worry about and that the Straker name would be carried on with all the man Straker men that we have in our family and that he had nothing to worry about.

Who knew it was that important to him.....

Just A Thought

damned if you do.....

you know what drives me nuts? people that spend all year round complaining about the weather.

In the winter time they are like..."oh my gosh it is so cold. there is to much snow. i wish it was hot out, when is it going to be summer....." blah blah blah.

Then they finally get what they want and it is summer and it is hot and here comes more complaining..."omg it is so hot. it is too hot, oh man it is so gross out....." blah blah blah

i am not saying that i dont complain about weather. but the only time you will hear me complain is when i am putting on 12 layers of clothes to leave the house...but i accept it becuz i know that i live in canada and i know that half the year it is going to be cold. but i get so happy when it is hot out. it makes me think of my guy and Trinidad so i love it.

but if you are going to spend all year round complaining about the weather then maybe you should move some that has the same temp all year round.....like England. but then i am sure that you will complain about all the rain......

Just a thought

Tradition or superstition

One of the first things that all of us girls hear about when we are little and talking about weddings is that on the day of your wedding you must have something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue. So while we are running around getting all of our other things for our wedding we are trying to find all these things as well.

But here is the thing.......i don’t really care about all those things. And the more time I put into thinking about what I can borrow from someone for my wedding day the more I want to just say forget the whole thing I don’t really care. Then I run into a problem. I become scared. Becuz I keep thinking that if I don’t do these things them my marriage will be doomed.

So I decided that I wanted to know where this whole things started so that I can figure out if it is worth it or not. The first thing that I discovered is that for many years people have missed out the end of the tradition. The saying is actually: Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue and a sixpence in her shoe. Now I know that a sixpence hasn’t been in circulation in the UK since 1980. So maybe that is why they dropped that part of it.

Here is a quick run down of what everything stands for.

Something Old: keeps the bride connected to her family. So traditionally her something old would be related to that

Something new: means optimism and hope for the future

Something borrowed: they say if you borrow something from a happily married woman then it is like they are sharing some of their happiness with you.

Something blue: blue apparently represents love, modesty, fidelity, good luck, purity and loyalty.

And a sixpence in her shoe: was suppose to bring financial security to the new couple.

Now that I know all this, I feel like I have to do it becuz if I didn’t it would almost be like I am tempting the fate of my marriage if I didn’t continue with the tradition. The question is, has this become more of a superstition then a tradition?

Just a thought

Good intension was there but......

My future husband is a beyond wonderful man. he tries to go above and beyond to make me happy. and when he proposed it was quite the surprise. I mean, sure we had talked about it. but we had not talk about it happening when it did. which i think was great becuz it is really hard to truly surprise me.

But i think what he did not realize and what i think a lot of men dont realize is that once us ladies say yes, we are in a sprint to get everything that we want to make that day perfect.

so when we initially started talking about our wedding and what we wanted and how things were going to get done, i had said to Antonio "you know you are going to have to do the brunt of the work becuz i cant do it from here". so he was all ready to take charge and do everything....the first day. but as the days went on i can hear all the overwhelming pressure beginning to build and about to bubble over. until finally i got him to admit that he didnt want to do it all.

that is when he finally came to the realization that it is hard being a woman planning a wedding. there are so many little details that men dont think of that go into that day. little details like table cloths, centre pieces, flowers, music, invitations, a minister, dj and......i can go on and on.

but it made me wonder. do men really block all the wedding planning out and just show up that day in a new suit (that most dont even realize that you picked out) and think that all that just magically came together? i mean there are days that i know i call Antonio with a million wedding things that we have to talk about and all he hears out of my voice is the charlie brown teacher voice coming through his end of the phone.

I mean i have given him 3 jobs.....just 3, to do with the wedding and he still has yet to complete them. and they are 3 very important things that we cant do without, the pastor, the dj and the food. our wedding is just over a month away and i still dont have any of those things. and that scares me.....*place awkward laugh here*. I ask him about it almost every day also and he keeps telling me yup i got it under control and all i keep thinking is "is it normal for me to want to choke the person i am suppose to be spending the rest of my life with?"

why is it that i have this feeling that when i get there a week before my.....oops i mean our wedding i am going to turn into bridezilla? i mean he has helped out a bit and he has the good intention to help but.......it is like pulling teeth out of my own mouth sometimes. I guess the saying is true behind ever good man there is a great woman....telling him what to do.

All i know is........Antonio is lucky he is cute ;)

Just A Thought

Trini Style

So if you talk to my best friend she can tell you that even before I met my fiancé I always said that I wanted to get married in Trinidad. So maybe you can call it luck or coincidence that I meet my fiancé in Trinidad so it made my dream that much easier to come to fruition.

The only problem with this decision that I made is that I didn’t take into account the whole Trinidad style thing. So imagine everything that you would plan for your wedding here.....throw it out the window becuz it doesn’t apply to Trinidadians.

One of the first things that my fiancé and i did was sat down and planned our guest list and before we even got started i was told “ you know that no matter what total we come to there are going to be more people than that at our wedding?”. Then next thing i heard when we were talking about our ceremony was “you know that no matter what time the invite says it isn’t going to start at that time, right?”

Every time that i think of an idea i have to think to myself “is this going to work for Trinidadians?” how did this happen? How did i end up planning my wedding becuz Trinis run on island time? Another example, my wedding invitations went out a good 3 months ago. Now it’s bad enough that it took them almost a month to get to my fiancé. But i also had him put the stamps on the response cards and hand deliver them to most of the guests. Yet i am still waiting on a single response card from Trinidad. Not a single one has been returned. This is about the point when my fiancé says to me “you know most people will not respond but they will be coming to the wedding”

Now i am thinking....when i was young i was obviously very naive to dream about getting married in Trinidad. I am about 2 more “babe you know that Trinidadians.....” away from turning into bridezilla and freaking out on everyone. I am almost at the point that i want to say that if i don’t get a response card for you then you aren’t allowed in. I mean that is what they would do here.

So to put my mind at ease, this is what i did. I told my fiancé that on that day, the day of our wedding, he is not to run on island time. He is to be at the ceremony site by no later than 1:15pm. Our ceremony WILL start at 1:30pm and anyone that isn’t there on time. Well they just don’t care enough about us to make it on time. And i have given everyone enough warning. I got my fiancé to tell everyone that must be there that it is actually starting at 1:30pm.

Sigh........so my question to you all is was it naive of me to think that i could pull off an on time wedding in Trinidad and should i develop the island lifestyle as to not drive myself into a straight jacket?

Just a thought

nobody told me

So in 30 days i am heading to Trinidad and Tobago to marry the love of my life. I should be really happy right? and dont get me wrong. i am the happiest that i have ever been in my entire life. but why is it that no one ever tells little girls that are playing wedding that it is a million times hard to plan it then just sticking a towel veil on your head and holding dandelions as flowers.
there are so many things that from flowers, to the dress, to venue and food, decor, to guest list....i could go on and on and on.
I mean i had an idea it was going to be hard, and i have yet to quite turn into bridezilla. but i dont sleep becuz i am having wedding nightmares. i barely eat, becuz i am so worried about so many things.
so i decided to come back to my blog and every day for the next 30 days before i leave i am going to do what gives me some piece of mind.....complain...haha. no i am going to write.

so what i want to know is how many of you would have changed your mind if you knew how much effort went into planning it all?

after everything.....i think i still would..cuz i love him.....and i cant wait to own him.....hahahaha kidding....kinda

Just A Thought

finally got what i wanted

you know as little girls your whole life you are told that you go to school, you get a job you fall in love you get married you have babies and you live happily ever after.

But for me i thought that becuz of the type of guy that i usually liked, i started to set myself up to possible live alone. no honestly i thought ok since i have never gotten the attention that i deserve from those kind of guys then i may as well set myself up to learn to live happy alone.

I have struggled with the way that i look my whole life and it never really became a real issue until i was in high school. that was when i played sports and was in the choir and musicals and involved in alot of other things. while a lot of my friends were dating. But becuz i didnt have the typical look or wasnt a particular weight i just became the buddy. i was the one that all the guys i liked would come to for girl trouble. which broke me every time.

I struggled to change. I still struggle to change. but i decided one day that i wasnt going to settle. i wouldnt settle for anything less then what i deserved. becuz not to toot my own i think i am a catch. so i just put it out in the universe that i wanted to find a man that would love me for me.....all of me. i wanted to find someone that would love me the way that i am now and that if i change and ended up back the way i am now that he would still love me...for me.

.....and i found that......

I found the one that loves my giant butt the way it is. i found the one that will look at all my giggly bits and tell me i look gorgeous. i found the one that has made me learn to love myself as i am. i found the one that looks at me and says i want to spend the rest of my life with you just the way you are.

At least i know that when i walk through the rest of my life with other people looking at me and not thinking am a beautiful i just look down at my hand and know that i have someone that vowed to love me the way that i am.......and that is all i ever wanted.

Just a thought

double standard

so there is a report (and a video) that some eccentric reporter in Italy on some red carpet something or other grabbed David Beckham's "Golden Balls". yup thats right i said it someone in a crowed of people just watlked right up and grabbed the man's junk.

now aside from be totally jealous of her (hahahahaha) it got me thinking about what a double standard it is for men and women. if that had been his wife Posh and some guy had walked up and grabbed her crotch or her chest (i say chest cuz Posh doesnt have boobs) security would have been all over that guy like a dirty shirt and he would have been arrested and charges would have been laid and it would have been all over the press. but becuz it was a guy getting his junk grabbed all that happened was he got ushered away with a bit of a stunned look on his face.

so what i want to know is, why is that ok? why is it that women get away with so many sexually inappropriate gestures towards men but men get the book thrown at them? i dont think that is fair....even though i would love to touch david beckahms.....ok i am stopping

Just a thought

I always knew she was dumb but really.....

so the most irritating "celebrities" on the planet to me are that obnoxious spencer and heidi. you know who i am talking about. i have never met to people that i would like to hit with......i dont know anything.....in my life. i would rather be Paris Hilton's BFF then deal with those 2. and now i have a new beef with them.

so i was noticing that just before Christmas they had fell off the radar a little and i was doing my happy dance. but oh man 2010 and they have opened a whole new can of stupid.

The 23 year old.....23......bubble brain wannabe pop star (that is a blog for another day in itself) Heidi has had some massive work done. and i am talking the works. she has had this shaved, nipped, tucked, enlarged, pinned back and sucked out. now here is my beef......SHE IS 23 YEARS OLD.By the time that she gets to an age that she actually may have need plastic surgery, she is going to look like that cat lady.(look her up if you dont know what i am talking about).

I think that if she was going to get any surgery she should have found out if it was possible to do a brain transplant. or a personality injection....or nipped voice (as in you shouldnt be singing so shut the hell up).

I just....i dont get it. What kind of message is she trying to send to all the stupid blond girls out there that want to be like her (ok i am sorry i am sure there are stupid brunettes that want to be like her too) I actually heard this girl say she wanted her boobs a size H for Heidi.....REALLY.....who thought this girl was smart enough for all that plastic surgery?

Just a thought

these women are crazy

OK so i am going to make an admission here. My name is Alana and i watch the Bachelor.

But like i dont know if ABC is just pushing for good ratings but like did they go to a looney bin to get all these women this season? almost everyone is crazy.

Like are these women stupid or do they not own tvs? its the Bachelor. the whole concept behind the whole show is for him to date a bunch of women so that he can find the one that is right for him. so why is it that this season whenever he goes off with someone one on one these women turn into psychopaths?

but it is like a train wreck i just cant stop watching it. i think i am waiting for the season that one of these women just goes ballistic and starts killing all the other girls.

my fave thing is when they are leaving and they are like i could have any guy i want to. ok so then why are you on a tv show fighting 25 women for 1 guy?

Just a Thought

A case of the fake people

you know what bothers me? those people that are in your life that you arent allowed to get rid of......like family.

so i am planning my guest list for my wedding and man oh man i dont want half these people there. but because they are related to me, i am told that i have to invite them. honestly they dont care about me any other day, so why are they going to care about me today? oh i know why. because there is going to be free food and free booze. so they come and eat it all and drink it all and leave and i never hear from them again. what is that?

or there are those people that are in your life and all they bring is drama from beginning to end but you cant get rid of them because they are family

or there are those people that are in your life and you like them in small.....small doses but they keep trying to worm their way in

so since i cant really get rid of my family like i would like to sometimes i decided that i would post the lyrics to a song that i have had in my head for about 4 days now becuz it applies to my life right now.

Case of the Fake People by TLC
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/tlc/caseofthefakepeople.html

check out the lyrics they are pretty good for this kind of situation

just a thought

New Job Applications

It has been a very long minute since i have written a new blog. there has just been so much going on in life that i haven't had a chance to sit down and write anything. That and the fact that i forgot my password and didn't really care to take the time and find out what it was......hey i am just being honest.

so since that last time that i was on here i have become engaged. that is exciting news right? well maybe not to everyone.....well most people didn't last the fall out of me becoming engaged. isn't that interesting how peoples true colours come out when something life changing happens. the thing is, is that it was good life changing not bad. but still the after effect of me becoming engaged is me finding out who my REAL friends are.

People that i thought would be happy for me and stand by my side no matter what have fallen to the wayside. and people that i thought may have been to young to understand the magnitude of what getting married is all about has stepped up to the plate in a way that has blown my mind and made me love them more.

so i have decided to make some changes. i am going to start re-evaluating the way that i let people become and stay apart of my life. i think that people should have to apply to be my friend. not just mine, i mean people should have to hand out applications. it would be like you meet someone that you think that you can be friends with you give them an application. they fill it out and send it back to you. if you like how it sounds you call them in for an interview. and if all goes as planned they accept the job of becoming your friend. once they accept the position they sign a contract.

the contract says something like this: i ______________ promise to be a kind, trusting, loyal, funny, outgoing, SUPPORTIVE, compassionate, forgiving, honest and loving friend. if i at all break any of these things listed on here and anything else that my apply in being a good friend i will be fired and cut out of your life.

now i realize that a lot of people lie on job applications and that is why you make them sign the contract so that if they break it you can fire them no questions asked.

hmmmm i think this is a good idea. i think i may just print some up....what do you think?

Just a thought