Green, Fit, and Frugal Wedding Planning Challenges

Being of green, fit, and frugal mind, I am in the process of trying to plan a wedding with these factors playing a major role. Is it working? You be the judge.

As far as the fit part goes…well, let’s just say that the holidays and my wedding planning demands are currently very much in the way of me being in top shape for this grand event. However, I have five months, and I have never had more of a reason to act on some New Year’s Resolutions. (Perhaps I’ll do a post on this later…)

For the other two, I am having even more difficulty being both green and frugal.

In the wedding world, there is no such thing as “budget”. You might hear this term muttered by parents shelling out their life savings or brides and grooms forking over paycheck after paycheck, but I am starting to wonder how many brides actually stay within the budget they started out with. I sure haven’t. And guess what comes into play next? Sacrifice. Oh, and the green part.

I had every intention of making this an environmentally-conscious event. I wanted to use paper products that are all recycled/biodegradable materials with soy-based inks, use natural (if not living) items as favors, and choose organic and minimal carbon-footprint menu items. Guess what? Those are the things that drive up the cost of this whole thing.

How do I justify another $800 for special ink printing versus printing on my laser jet at home? Or another $3 per invitation for special recycled paper that only comes in white, off-white, and brown? I did contemplate using the seeded papers so everyone could plant flowers once the piece completed it’s role in my wedding…but you can’t read anything printed ON it so it still needed a blank piece of paper to accompany it in order for people to know who is getting married.

Mini-trees and seed packets for favors? It’s a nice idea, but not if 70% of your guests are from out of town and will need to lug those things on the plane. Assuming they even take it with them and it doesn’t get left on the table to be thrown out by the venue staff during cleanup.

And the menu – have you tried finding a location you are in love with that doesn’t require you to choose “menu option A, B, or C” that does not include anything locally grown or organic, let alone vegetarian? (“It comes with vegetables on the side, doesn’t that count?” No, it doesn’t.)

So far the FRUGAL is dominating my GREEN and FIT, and at this point I think I am doing a great job with several do-it-yourself type projects for centerpieces, invitations, etc.

Have you found any easy solutions to reach goals in any (or all!) of these categories? Suggestions welcome!

This is subject to change. Stay tuned!

Time Management Goes Awry

I hope I am not the only one.

I can’t be.

Have any of the rest of you let life get in the way of your best blog posts? …I am guilty of this. I have been away from my posts for a whopping two months. I know. Let me have it. For all I know, you have been wandering the streets aimlessly drinking out of styrofoam cups, choking down Twix bars, and paying <gasp> retail prices.

I could give you my excuses – the new job, the marriage proposal, and most relevant: the crashing of my laptop. But I won’t. I’ll just do my best to get back into the swing of things, and hope that you’ll be there to pick up some tips along the way!

Help A Planet Out

It should seem obvious that it would be very challenging for you to have great personal health if the environment around you is not in the same state. You are also probably excessively familiar with the millions of “Save the Earth” type of campaigns that have swept through society for as long as any breathing human can remember. These two occurrences are tied together – it is in our personal interest to do what we can to preserve what we have now in hopes for a better tomorrow.

This is not an informercial. Or a rally to support a special cause. This is a call to that place inside each of us that inspires you to do good. Depending on your situation, that may be done through financial donations to causes that are important to you. Others will do this through environmental behavior changes, such as recycling, to help preserve the health of the physical world.

Another option is through volunteering. Volunteering gives every capable human an opportunity to make a difference by helping someone or something in need. The best part about this option is all that is required is your time, so anyone can do this. The most rewarding part of this type of donation is getting the opportunity to see the immediate results from your time. My sister has a big heart for infants so her personal favorite is always volunteering to rock the newborns in her local hospital. I have a lot of love for all types of animals, so I have taken many an afternoon to walk dogs at shelters, help clean living conditions at zoos and shelters, and pick up trash along beaches to prevent damage to ocean life. I have several friends who have been able to continue their love for a sport through coaching and teaching children to cultivate their own talents.

The point is to find a cause you are passionate about and find a way to get involved with that cause. Please do not talk yourself out of volunteering by telling yourself you have no time. You do. Take an hour once a week – a month even – to walk dogs at a shelter near your office during your lunch hour. Ask your local community theater if they need volunteer ushers during shows. Knock on the door of your aging neighbor to see if they need anything on your trip to the grocery store. (You do know your neighbors, don’t you?) Visit websites like Volunteer Match to search by your area of professional expertise and find an organization that will be ecstatic for an hour of your time, saving them money they do not have to hire and train an employee.

The goal with volunteering is to pay it forward. Everyone needs someone else’s help at some point in life. Tomorrow it could be you. Help someone else today, and start generating some karma.

No More Excuses

I spent today making cakes. Lots of ‘em. I volunteered my amateur expertise – there’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one – to help out a local organization that is hosting a barbecue this weekend. Did I expect this task to be a workout? Not in the least, and yet, rolling that fondant just about kicked my butt.

The “I’ve got no time to workout” excuse just isn’t going to cut it anymore. It’s surprising how much exercise you can get without even trying. You don’t need a gym membership or fancy workout clothes. You don’t need two hours. You just need to get rid of that lazy attitude.

Do you drive around the parking lot for 15 minutes trying to find that spot closest to the front? I’ve seen people do this at my gym – and that, my friends, is pathetic. Park in the spot at the back of the lot and stretch your legs a little – it might take all of one minute of extra time.

Can’t get to the gym because you don’t have anyone to watch your kids? Though most gyms offer childcare, you don’t need to ditch your offspring to burn some calories. Take them out to the backyard for a game of tag, walk the dog, hook up the Wii – whatever gets the blood pumping…and this one even includes quality family time.

Cooking, laundry, baking, cleaning, yard work – all manual labor that we hate, but it can be good for your health (and your sanity). Hell, let’s take it a step further – the mall is the power walking headquarters for every senior walking club in town – and there’s a reason for that. I just hate to waste a good trip to the mall without a little retail therapy.

For now I will revel in my finished cake products (and the fact that throughout this process I consumed minimal amounts of frosting) and make a mental note to avoid an intense arm workout the day before I next need to repeat this process.

Sleeping Beauty

There are some understandable favorites that qualify for the top of my “Best Things in Life” list, such as food, love, chocolate (yes, chocolate is technically food, but I believe it spawns in me a specifically unique and untouchable desire that justifies it having its own exclusive ranking on my list) and many others. These are hankerings that are able to single-handedly save the day. When I’m at my lowest, they have the power to bring me to my highest; when I feel like reveling in a personal accomplishment, these items regularly come along for the ride.

What is funny to me though is when I think about this imaginary list, I wonder how it is that I have such a different relationship with one of my Top Five: sleep. For those of you new to the planet, sleep is that irreplaceable state of relaxation where your body unwinds, recovers, and lets you escape the chaos known as everyday life. And yet I’m pretty sure that I have spent my entire existence kicking and screaming (sometimes literally) to keep from having to go there.

Think about it: As kids we were constantly begging Mom and Dad for one more hour – pretty please! – so that we might be let in on all that secret partying the grownups do once we are put to bed. In college we DID all that partying half the week to block out the all-night study fests pulled during the other half. I am positive I shrieked the phrase, “You can sleep when you’re dead!” anytime one of my friends was the first to suggest we cut out of a band party before the entertainment had gone home for the night. And now as a full-fledged adult (when did that happen, by the way?) I find myself closing my eyes later and later each night as I try to fit in one more email or one more chapter into an already jam-packed day. Let’s not even mention all those nights I still lie there in the dark with my thoughts racing about all the things I forgot to do that day that must be knocked out tomorrow.

I’m betting from a medical perspective, this kind of life is just plain terrible (as common is I’m guessing it is among all of us). The fact is, sleep is more than just a want – it’s a flat out need for survival. The National Sleep Foundation reports that the typical adult person needs seven to nine hours of sleep per night. When was the last time you slept that much? You probably already realize from experience that anything less than six hours results in a sharp decline in any cognitive performance expected of you the next day. I also just read that not getting enough sleep can more than double the risk of death from cardiovascular disease (incidentally, this occurs with too much sleep too – go figure). According to Professor Francesco Cappuccio (which is a great name, by the way) of the University of Warwick in London , “Short sleep has been shown to be a risk factor for weight gain, hypertension, and Type 2 diabetes, sometimes leading to mortality; but in contrast to the short sleep-mortality association, it appears that no potential mechanisms by which long sleep could be associated with increased mortality have yet been investigated. Some candidate causes for this include depression, low socioeconomic status, and cancer-related fatigue. …In terms of prevention, our findings indicate that consistently sleeping around seven hours per night is optimal for health, and a sustained reduction may predispose to ill health.” Or you could skip reading all that and be back to: get 7 hours a night. Period.

My boyfriend is now pointing out to me as I write this that he is getting his full allotment of sleep by what I have nicknamed “binge sleeping” when he can be frequently found in bed past noon on the weekends versus the five hours a night he gets during the week. Although dozens of cultures in warm climates follow large meals with regular “siestas” in the middle of the day – I do not think this is the same thing as sleeping UNTIL the middle of the day. However, this is known as sleep deprivation, which will lead to “sleep debt” – and that ups the chances of you falling asleep in a meeting at work. Not good.

And besides, when you slow down enough to admit it, sleep is a wonderful, comforting thing. A rainy Sunday afternoon is the perfect time to crawl into bed with a book, fully aware that the sounds outside your window will soon lull you off to sleep. I love how refreshed I feel when I wake up without an alarm clock, knowing my system got exactly the amount of slumber it needed.

Now if I can just quiet those reminder alarms going off in my head that are demanding I be more productive.

Check It

I am a planner. I am obsessed with checklists. I have even been known to add things to a To Do list that I have already completed – just to feel the satisfaction of checking it off. Strange? Maybe, but it gives me a sense of accomplishment and motivates me to take care of those annoying little errands or chores that I otherwise might ignore. Going by the post office to finally send that book I had promised to a friend feels a lot more satisfying when I can correlate the trip to me being productive.

So you can understand the frustration I will feel when a wrench is thrown into my plan for list completion. Today’s wrench is the fact that I spent all of last night pointlessly trying to talk my body out of rejecting its stomach lining and subsequently am confined to a sick bed today until I can at the very least swallow something other than Jello. Work out – no check. Plan and cook a healthy dinner – no check. Leave the house for anything whatsoever – no check, no check, no check. This one’s not actually on the list, but Shower – no check.

I still haven’t the faintest idea what has made me this ill – but I could probably attribute it to either an out of the ordinary meal I decided to enjoy throughout this past holiday weekend or a germ-infested surface area from a restaurant, store, or bar. Either way, today I have been struggling with the mental part of me that wants to at least check my email and the physical part of me that wants to curl into a ball and whimper quietly. So I am currently trying to do both – thank God for laptops!

I know getting sick is the body’s way of saying it needs a break – and there’s not much you can do about it. Sure, there were those times when I forced myself to suck it up for a meeting I couldn’t miss or an exam I would not be able to reschedule. But sometimes that doesn’t work. Sometimes you need to spend a day in your ugliest but softest pajamas and not go anywhere near a hairbrush. It helps, I swear. My checklist will be there tomorrow. Right now, though, I have a date with some grape Jello.

My Love-Hate Relationship

For me, working out is very psychological. Everything has to fall into place perfectly or I will end up talking myself out of completing the workout I had planned for that day, if not avoiding the workout entirely. Any level of excuse can be enough to cut my cardio short, skip one of the weight machines, or ignore that stop altogether on my way home. My ipod dies in the middle of my hour on the elliptical? Maybe 40 minutes is enough for today. Forgot my workout gloves? Perhaps I’ll just do ab exercises this time. Have to be somewhere at 6pm? Since it’s 4pm now that’s not nearly enough time to get in a decent workout and a shower – I’ll go tomorrow. I can be my own worst enemy when it comes to my fitness routine.

I have read enough articles in my exercise magazines to know that I am not alone in this. I always remember a print ad (it might have been for Reebok?) that showed a woman in her car at a stop sign watching runners pass her car with the tagline something like, “Why is everyone a runner on the days I skip my run?” I might not remember the exact advertisement, or even the product – but the message is clear in my mind: there is a lot of guilt out there related to not working out.

So what do we do about this? I have seen advice such as, “make your workout the first thing you do in your day” or, “schedule your gym time like you would a meeting.” My thought is this: you can read all the tips you want, but the bottom line is that you need to know yourself. You are the only one who will recognize those warning signs that can destroy the best of intentions and prohibit your from reaching your fitness goals. Personally, I know I need to make sure I have my workout essentials to keep my subconscious at bay. To do this I make a point to keep all my gym-necessities within easy reach of each other – and then keep them near my car keys so I don’t forget anything. This includes my gym ID, charged ipod, bpa-free water bottle (preferably stuffed with ice and water), a book/magazine for my cardio time, and a hand towel. I know myself enough to recognize that if any one of these things is missing, it might be enough to eat away at my conscience and talk me out of my workout plan.

So find out what it is that helps you have the perfect workout. Maybe it is a certain time of the day, a particular brand of workout clothes, or after eating a fresh piece of fruit. Just don’t let it be a certain type of weather – that we can’t control.

What keeps you on track with your workouts?