Best wedding ever.

This morning, I came across a YouTube video that made me laugh and smile. I thought I'd pass it along to others, and I hope it puts a smile on your face as well!

To me, this video represents TRUE friendship to the very core. This bridal party loved the bride and groom so much, that they were willing to act foolish in order to give them the wedding they wanted. ; - )

If I ever get married - I hope it's at least even half as fun as this!

You go Jill and Kevin,

Bridget Marie

I know what's wrong with Esther.

I have never been one for horror stories with kids in them. I mean yeah, Sixth Sense was alright - but otherwise, I generally stay away. Just because I stay away though, doesn't mean that curiosity doesn't kill me enough to look up the spoilers online. The way I see it, they post the spoiler so you don't HAVE to go torture yourself through a suspenseful, psychotic, bloody horror flick. The Orphan, for example, is one such film.

For those of you like me who don't need to watch the movie - you just want to know the TRUTH about Esther, here is the SPOILER:
Apparently, she is not a orphan at all. I know, SHOCKER, right? Apparently, she's not even a child. She's actually a 30-something year old crazy case who was born with "proportional dwarfism" which makes her look child-like. Here is the sick part: she is a former prostitute who had pedophiles for clients (does this really happen?). I'm told there is even a point in the film when she comes on to her adopted father. Lastly, it is said that she wears something around her neck to hide her straitjacket-burn (an indication of when she was in an insane asylum and struggled so much in the jacket it left her neck mutilated with scars).

SO, for those who were sleeping restlessly at night because you were so anxious to know what was wrong with Esther, now you know. She wasn't a ghost the whole time, she's not even the devil, just a straight up case.

I can attest first hand to the fact that there is nothing scarier, not even ghosts or demons, than a 100% human real-life NUT JOB. If anything, Esther has taught us one very important lesson here. You can stake a vampire. You can vanquish a demon. But you can't kill a crazy person. Plus, the crazy cases always seem to have like, nine lives. Just when you think they're gone...they're not. No doubt there'll be a few sequels to look forward to: The Orphan, RETURNED; The Orphan, Night of TERROR; The Orphan, Strikes BACK; The Orphan, REBORN; The Orphan, UNLEASHED; The Orphan, Revenge of the Needy Child; and last but not least, the box office hit - The Orphan, Rise of the Nut-Bat.

You never really see the last of a crazy.

Sweet dreams this weekend,
Bridget Marie

(Some of the made up Orphan sequel titles listed in this post are for entertainment purposes only and are credited to my good friend and counterpart soulmate, Mike Casalena. I encourage you to view more of his work at system.squarespace.com.)

For love of the game

It’s tough having a relationship with something you know could never love you back. I’ve been in a relationship with such a thing going on nine years now. I’ve given my body, heart and soul into it. I’ve won some fights, but I’ve lost even more. I learn every day from it. I give, and it takes. Years of bloody knees, broken shoulders, elbow scrapes and nose bleeds…mind games, strategy matches, and crying…lots of crying. It’s the kind of relationship where you go all day thinking about it, and then when 5 o’clock rolls around and you’re so tired, hungry and depleted, you still go back for more…every time. It’s getting up at the crack of dawn on a Saturday morning. It’s the kind where you could have so many blisters on your feet that you can barely stand…but you never walk away. For me, IT is volleyball.

I fell in love with volleyball long ago, but only recently did it break. my. heart. After playing four seasons of college volleyball, I finally called it quits in the later part of my senior season. Hopelessly in love – you can imagine what it took to pry me away from my beloved. Yes, I am embarrassed to say, it was a coach. Call it his fault, call it my fault, call it what you want – God knows a million guesses have been made by others – but in the end he drove me away from it…simply because he loved it more.

After the break up, I completely retreated and for almost two years never picked up a ball. The thought of even touching a volleyball or being near a court just made all the old memories resurface. I was on the rebound. I hated that a coach was the thing that tore us apart. He’d made me the thing I worked 21 years not to be…a quitter.

When you go through a breakup like that, it just takes time for your heart to heal. You never really fully recover. It’s been almost two years volleyball-free for me…that’s two years of heartache…two years too long. I know you’re never supposed to look back after something like that breaks your heart, but I missed it. Recently, I came crawling back. The first thing it told me was, “I told you so. I knew you’d be back…” Still, the trust is shattered. It must be built back up. Enter: the Baltimore Sports and Social Club (BSSC).
The BSSC is basically a league for 20-somethings who want to rally around and play a sport (really non-competitively) and then an hour later go out to the bar and get hammered with your teammates. I wasn’t ready to be exclusive yet, so it was the perfect re-introduction for me back into this often-abusive relationship. I joined a random team with a bunch of strangers. I missed every single serve for about three games in a row: evidence of my avoidance of it for the past two years. We’d play volleyball (really horribly, for the most part) for about 45 minutes, and then we’d all walk over to the bar and play shuffleboard with bottomless cups for about three hours. All-in-all a great time. Not to mention, I made some great friends in the process…
Playing with the BSSC definitely raised my confidence back up. After eight games…I think I’m finally ready to take the relationship to the next step: competitive sixes. I recently entered a REAL volleyball league to play competitively on Sunday nights. Slowly, but surely – building the trust.

I mean, what did I think would happen after college? Volleyball and I would just stay together?? People change, we wanted different things – I get that. But I think there should be something like a Halfway House for competitive collegiate athletes transitioning into the real world after college. It may give players like me a more realistic adaptation of what the future holds for serious relationships.

It’s like they say, I guess: Don’t hate the game, hate the player.

Bridget Marie

A little lost, a little gained

I know many of you have been wondering about how my Boot Camp experience ended and my final evaluation thereafter. Well, I just got the numbers back today! Reese recorded my body fat at the beginning of Boot Camp and again at the very end. The first week, I dropped about six pounds like a sack of flour off the Empire State building, mostly due to the fact that I had changed my diet and exercise routine simultaneously in such a drastic way. Well, then I gained muscle. In the end though - it looks like I am about the same as when I started!

Note: This is not my actual body photographed, though this is what measuring body fat looks like!

Reese measured my body fat in each area of my body and then combined the numbers in a special calculation to find my overall body fat percentage.

Beginning Body Fat:
tricep 8
waist 12
thigh 18
Total 16.8%

Ending Body Fat:
tricep 7
waist 11
thigh 16
Total 15.6%

Measurements (inches)Beginning:
waist 25.75"
Hips 37"
calf 13.25"
arm 9"
Thigh 19.25

Measurements (inches) Ending:
waist 24.50"
Hips 36.75"
calf 13.5"
arm 8.75"
Thigh 19.5

Beginning weight: 128lbs
Ending weight: 125lbs

Reese says: "This shows you gained lean muscle and lost bodyfat and inches. esp in your legs and waist. Overall a very good job considering you had a very low body fat % to begin with."

All in all, I had a blast doing this and it really made me realize what it takes to stay in shape. I had so much fun, and I would definitely do it again. But lets face it - I won't lie to you - it was painful. Every. Day. Was. Pain.

Thanks for reading along my journey!!
xo,
Bridget Marie

Ah…the joys of travel

I did a lot of traveling this past year...and summer time is the vacation season. Christmas in Hot Springs, Arkansas, company trip to Austin, Texas in January, work trips to Palm Beach, Florida and Washington DC, and even Ocean City for the Fourth of July. Needless to say, I’m grateful for Southwest Rapid Rewards points.

I love traveling. Planes don’t bother me much (except when they’re floating around in the Hudson), I love hotel rooms and amenities, and exploring new cities and nightlife. Still, traveling is not fool-proof or for the faint of heart. Here are some things I learned about traveling from my recent journeys. Each is listed in the form of a sound piece of advice.

A. Never make a list in advance of what you will need while you’re there. Lists can be so binding. You’re much more likely to pack things you don’t really need without one. Plus, isn’t it more fun to realize upon arriving at your destination that you’ve forgotten your hair dryer, toothbrush, curling iron, toothpaste and bathing suit for the hotel hot tub? You needed a new toothbrush anyway…

B. Always wait until the morning of your flight to pack your suitcase. Your half-awakened, eyes-half-open, stumbling-around state makes for great remembering-of-what-you-need. If you’re lucky, you’ll trip on your suitcase, fall face first into the door frame, but then catch yourself with your big toe. The sobering thud will send you screaming into the next room, but not to worry, you’ve now woken up all those pre-packers at an ungodly hour; they’ll come to assist you. The throbbing phalanx will have you limping for the next two days, but at least you’ll have a great conversation starter while on vacation!

C. When you come to a security checkpoint, make sure you take off your shoes, coat, and carryon bags and put them all in separate plastic bins to be passed through the detection device. Whatever you do, don’t proceed to walk ahead through the metal detector without pushing your bins through the conveyor belt first. If you do, you’ll look like an idiot staring longingly at your belongings from the other side of the checkpoint as they sit there idly stagnant on the other side. You’ll look like an even bigger idiot when you shout across the checkpoint to a fellow passenger to kindly push your bins onto the conveyor belt so you can be reunited with them.

D. Pack your coat in your suitcase when you’re going somewhere cold. You don’t want to carry it around in the airport and take up valuable space on the airplane. Once you get there, you’ll survive the 45 minutes in the freezing cold, top-five-arctic-blasts-in-the-history-of-the-world weather in the time it takes to get a rental car. Stick your hands by the heater when you get in the car to regain feeling in your fingertips.

E. (Learned while traveling to Palm Beach) Wear your coat, hoodie, scarf, snow boots and thermal on the plane when you’re headed somewhere hot. Yeah, you’ll be in the sun soon, but it’s negative five degrees in Baltimore now, and your timbers are shivering. You’ll probably be suffocating from the 103-degree humidity when you get off the plane, and look like a wide-eyed desperate cocaine addict in withdrawal waiting for your suitcase to come around the baggage claim so you can get to that pair of shorts and flip-flops you packed, but at least you were maintaining a healthy body temperature in your home city. It may be a good idea to have a medic standing by in case you faint.

F. Make sure you pack all those pesky liquids in your suitcase. Security checkpoints will be a breeze. Except for the pepper spray you forgot to take off your keychain…oops. How were you supposed to know the United States Secretary of Education was on your flight, too? Secret service: “Ma’am, what had you planned on using this for?” Me: “Umm…fend off bad guys?” Sorry Margaret.

G. Know who you’re sitting next to on the plane. Secret Service to the right, check. Secret Service to the back, alrighty. But try not to have a whole conversation about why Secret Service is on the plane, while the person they’re protecting is sitting right in front of you listening to every stupid thing you say.

Person A: “If they’re so important, why aren’t they flying on their own personal jet?”
Me: “Well, just because they’re important, doesn’t mean they’re rich!!”
Person A: “OMG, what if they’re sitting right in front of us!?”
Me: “They’re NOT sitting in front of us…”
Me: “Do you think that guy is Secret Service? How about that guy? Ooo, that one! He’s definitely Secret Service." *Whispering to Person A while slumping down into my seat* "OMG that one just pointed at me and whispered into his watch…”

H. When standing by the baggage claim after de-planing to get your bag, don’t stand directly in front of the bag dispenser. If you’re like me, you probably want to be the first one to get your bag and then run so you don’t have to wait five minutes for the conveyor belt to circle your bag around to where you are standing. What you probably didn’t count on was the five-year-old diva who packed an 80 pound pink luggage trunk to transport her Barbies (and probably a dead body) in. When normal suitcases come waddling down out of the dispenser, they stop at the edge of the baggage claim moat. When an 80-pound trunk comes flying out of the dispenser, it barrel rolls down the ramp, picks up speed when hitting the edge of the moat (which also puts a nice little spin on it’s projected path), and scrupulously takes out anyone who is standing directly nearby. As for the bruise the trunk left on your knees and the side of your head, I would tell people you fell down some stairs and save yourself the embarrassment…I know I did.

I. When you’re in a strange city, ALWAYS carry singles with you. You never know when a “street musician” is going to want to serenade you at the bus stop. When he asks if you liked it and you say yes, he’ll say “was it worth a dollar?” If all you have is a $20 bill that you’re not willing to let go of, you might be dubbed “cheap” by the English-accented “street musician.” Nobody wants that…

J. Remember where you parked your car at the airport. It can be tough trying to find it when you get back from a long trip. After spending 45 minutes walking around aimlessly trying to remember where you left it, emotions quickly run from happy-to-be-home to where-the-f***-is-my-damn-car in a matter of minutes. Furthermore, if you’re with your family trying to find the car together, don’t follow your dad three lots over when he guarantees he remembers where he parked it. He doesn’t.

Heed these words and I hope that everyone has safe and happy travels this season.
If I learn any other important traveling lessons, I’ll be sure to pass them along,

Bridget Marie

What are you wearing?

Nudity. Everyone struggles with it. And in this day and age, people are stripping online, especially, left and right. Stripping their layers. Stripping their walls. When all the layers are peeled away and all the walls torn down – only a person is left standing. Standing with no protection. Letting it all hang out. Their real selves. The self they may never really show even their best friends. The self they were afraid their family wouldn’t accept. The self they have to hide at work every single day. The self that could be opinionated, cynical, honest, funny….human. Blogging lets a person be conservative and clandestine by day, and outspoken and emphatically forthright by night.

I am a pretty honest blogger, myself. As people have told me time and again, I write exactly how I speak – and that’s why people can relate to what I’m saying. I don’t hide my name, my life, the names of the people I love. I always know my blog is out there; it is public. Though I never thought that anyone would ever try to use my own words against me – or use the content in my blog to try to hurt the people I love or me.

My whole life is on the Internet. I’ve blogged about almost every major life event that’s happened to me in the past year – a new puppy, a new apartment, vacations, a new house. It’s out there. I guess that would make me a nudist? It wouldn’t be hard for a stranger to learn about my life after a quick glance at my blog…

Still, without risk, there is no reward. My reward is making my family laugh day after day with my own words, my own stories. That’s me they’re smiling at. I’m making them happy. If I can make at least one person in my family smile even once while reading my blog, then all this is for a reason. That’s one smile that they may not have had that day. And let’s face it, people could use to smile a little more in this world. Plus – it’s the gift that keeps on giving.

I hope that you smile today,
Bridget Marie