Matrimony Monday: Wait, I'm Engaged?

The last nine months have been quite the whirlwind. 

At the end of October/ beginning of November, the long term relationship I'd been in ended suddenly and not through my choice- I was blindsided and thoroughly devastated. 

Thanks to some amazingly kind friends in New Jersey and supportive friends and family across the country, I got through the worst of it. I didn't make any big Facebook announcements or put out a press release, because I figured the people who needed to know, knew.

Spoiler alert: Martin and I are now friends. We hang out (sometimes with my fiancé), and share snaps and videos of the dogs, depending on which one of us they're with. He sends me local sour beer tip offs when he's at a brewery and I let him know when I feel like throwing axes at a wall, since that's his side gig.
I get that it seems weird to a lot of people, but a friend summed it up nicely this way: "You're an awesome person and Martin's an awesome person. It makes sense."

But anyway... in the last five years I've gotten pretty good at reassembling my life after it implodes, and by the middle of December I felt ready to gingerly dip my toes back in the dating pool as the last phase of moving on.

After a few dates/interactions (some incredibly boring, some surprisingly interesting, none life changing or truly awful) one morning I swiped right on a cop with an Ivy League degree in Linguistics, whose political leanings lined up with mine, and who advertised himself as having "one dog and two cats, one of whom has zero respect for personal space".

By that evening, we were spending three hours in a car together to get pizza, by the end of that week it was clear this was the start of something big, and by the end of the 2017 my life had done a complete 180. Again. 

Look, within an hour of matching he was sharing interesting facts about the history of the Marsh Arabs with me and we were discussing Calvinism twenty minutes into our first date- how could I do anything but fall in love with him? 

"Well sure, Caroline," I can hear you thinking, "It's fine to fall head over heels, but why on EARTH did you have to agree to MARRY a guy you barely know?"

As frustrating and obnoxious as this answer is, when you know, you just know. 

To be blunt, I've been divorced once. I know what that special type of hell is like, and I'm not excited about the idea of repeating it, but I am SO sure about this man that I'm willing to be open to that possibility.
Yeah, it's scary.

When it became clear that this was going to be a SERIOUS thing so quickly, I turned to my friend Shannon over at Generation grannY  for advice because I knew she'd been through this whirlwind thing with her own husband. Pageant friends are the BEST, you guys, especially when they're brilliant. She's so great. Read her blog.

I could sit here and list a hundred reasons Joel is a phenomenal human being (AND the person I'm excited to be stuck with) but that still wouldn't explain all the ways in which this is sickeningly perfect.
The twinkley schmoop is strong over here, I tell ya.
It's gross.

A few anecdotes:

When he comes home from work he brings me flowers and the groceries he noticed we were almost out of.
This morning he started singing "Give My Regards To Broadway" as he headed out the door to work. (Oh, did I mention he can sing, play a couple of instruments passably, AND JUGGLE?)
No one can leave our house without being given something. Wine, a stack of paper plates, some cheese from Vermont- going to Joel's house is like going to the doctor's office as a kid: you know you're leaving with a prize.

Those are just a few tiny examples, but anyone who's been married knows that the little things truly are the big things. 

(And we're on the same page about the big things too, so that's good.)

So now we're planning a wedding and a couple of wedding celebrations, I have a shiny pink ring, and we're working together to map out our shared future.
For me, part of getting engaged was about being honest with the people in our lives about what we were planning. Sure, we could have waited longer for other people to get used to the idea that we were dating before announcing wedding plans, but that would have been lying by omission.


So that's the deal.
Now I have a new fun fact for every ice breaker game.
"I got engaged to a guy I met on the internet after knowing him for four months."
We have a pretty hilarious website.
We now have a house full of three dogs and two cats.
(We're like the animal Brady Bunch over here.)
We're tying the knot on June 1, 2019 and celebrating in Philly before we head up to Vermont for another party June 22. Invitees get to choose whichever event works best for their schedules - more on THAT decision making process later.
He's a gem.

“Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.” 📷: @jenrice261 😍😆: @ricej259

A post shared by Caroline Bright (@carolinebright) on Jul 17, 2018 at 6:32am PDT

I Am So Into It

The last six months have been aggressive. 

I went on a solo trip to Australia.

I met a great guy and said yes when he asked me to marry him.

We went to Scotland. 

Family members had health crises. 

I visited Cuba for 45 minutes.

I held a line for the first time in three years of flying and got to buddy bid with one of my besties.

I judged Miss Delaware and coordinated the judging for Miss Vermont.
I turned 28.

In the midst of all of this, I've also been falling in love with a handful of products that I've been raving about to people on Facebook and in person. 

So here they are, all in one place:

1. Rothy's Flats

I waited forever to try these flats before pulling the trigger in January and ordering them. Seriously one of the best decisions I've made all year. 

If you've been on the fence about trying them, the link above will give you $20 off (which you should use to buy extra insoles) and you can thank me later. 

Beyond being ridiculously comfortable, the biggest thing for me about these shoes is that they are MACHINE WASHABLE.
I'm not a super germ fearing person, but airplane floors are gross, guys. #itsneverwater
Being able to toss these in the wash and set them out to dry has been a game changer. The insoles are also machine washable, which is great if you're a sock hater like me. 

I now own them in black, light blue, and hot pink. 

Of course I ordered the pink the day it dropped, have you even met me?

2. Ritual Vitamins

Another product I waited forever to try, thinking that anything so hyped in my social media feeds couldn't possibly live up to its claims. Then what really sold me was my girl, Allie Curtis, saying she'd been using them.
Allie is basically a goddess so I gave them a shot.
Have they changed my world? Not yet- but I'm definitely into how pretty they are, how minty they are, that they don't bother my stomach, and since I'm 28 now my doctor thinks a multivitamin is a good idea sooooo.... I'm sticking with them.

3. I accidentally got all into essential oils.

That same doctor who was all "be an adult, vitamins!" also worked out a new plan to manage my seasonal allergies that aren't seasonal because I'm a flight attendant.
 I started diffusing a sinus clearing essential oil blend recently and I've had to grudgingly admit that in addition to smelling pretty, it's been easier to breathe.
It's bad enough that I enjoy patchouli scented things, but now I'm apparently an essential oils person and I'm learning to live with that.

4. Beautycounter Overnight Resurfacing Peel

Look, the ingredients in so many skin care and cosmetic products are absolutely horrifying. In the US, we haven't had a major regulatory overhaul on ingredient standards since the 1930's which means that there's essentially no accountability for the safety of what we put on our body's largest organ everyday.
(Your skin, people.)
Beautycounter is leading the charge to get safer beauty product standards written into law in the United States, which is a big reason that I signed up to be a consultant with the company.
The majority of personal care products are purchased and used by women, which makes the potentially harmful consequences of the questionable ingredients a women's health issue. 
They have an extensive list of ingredients that will never be in Beautycounter products because of the harm that they cause- they call it "The Never List"- and even when I purchase non-Beautycounter personal care products I try to cross reference the ingredients list with The Never List to make informed choices about what I'm putting on, and therefore in, my body.

The biggest reason I hopped on board the Beautycounter train is that the products actually WORK. They're safer, but most importantly to me, they're effective and they do what they say they will.

I was so excited when this peel dropped because now that I'm aging (HELLO AGAIN, LATE TWENTIES), I've been looking for something that would simultaneously get rid of dead skin AND moisturize but that didn't have scary ingredients in it.
My general policy is that if a skincare product isn't safe for a pregnant mom, I should try to avoid it as I would someday like to attempt to be a pregnant mom and it's not easy to get that bad stuff completely out of your system.
I follow the peel with this moisturizer and this eye cream.
Countermatch is a skincare line of miracles. 

5. I started wearing SPF (on more than just my face) every single day.

I am an extremely pale person. There's just no way around it.
My skin color could best be described as "paper" or "blindingly white".


Actual footage of Selena from when we met. 
(JK, but this is what it actually would look like.)

When we lived in Indonesia, my mom basically dipped us in a tub of sunscreen every day and we still managed to burn.
Now that I'm an adult, I've been wearing products with SPF on my face every day for years and I've recently noticed there's a difference in the texture of the skin on my face (that I've paid attention to) and the skin on my neck (which I've ignored).

Accurate depiction of my reaction to my own stupidity.

I realized it was time to wear sunscreen on the skin that I expose consistently to the sun- my neck, chest, the back of my neck, my hands, and arms. 

So far so good this summer- I've been burn free- but only time will tell if this extra effort pays off in the long run. 

Unsurprisingly, I've turned to Beautycounter once again for a daily sunscreen that works, smells good, doesn't make me even whiter, and doesn't hurt the environment. 

Oh, it also comes in a convenient travel size. 

Dry February: 2018

Last year I attempted Dry February and failed delightfully. 

This year, I'm going to give it another shot. 

Heh. Shot.

I've spent essentially the entire month of January without my full voice, sometimes more sick, sometimes less, but after four weeks of this I am SO sick of being sick. 

I finally went in to see the doctor at our company health clinic earlier this week and during the check in process the nurse asked the normal questions before taking my vitals. I gave my standard answers.

"Do you drink coffee or tea?"

Yes, I'm a Flight Attendant. 

"Do you smoke?"

No.

"Do you drink alcohol?"

Yes, I'm a Flight Attendant. 

I often joke about the...intense...relationship that Flight Attendants typically have with alcohol. 

In our industry it's just a known fact that flight crews drink, sometimes to excess. 

I've never really had an unhealthy relationship with alcohol, probably because I consistently evaluate my habits when it comes to drinking. I try to be aware of what I'm doing because at the end of the day, alcohol is essentially poison.

Fun, socially acceptable poison, but still. Bad for ya.




At the conclusion of the appointment, the doctor had diagnosed me with "extreme extreme" congestion due to chronic allergies (WHAT?! I've never been a person with allergies in my life. WHO AM I?) and chronic dehydration due to my job ("All of you are dehydrated. All of you.").

While I was relieved to not have a sinus infection that would require antibiotics, I was mildly annoyed to be diagnosed with stuff that will require actual lifestyle changes to remedy.
You mean I have to, like... take care of myself?
And so, Dry February seemed like a thing worth trying again because alcohol is dehydrating and stuff.
Ugh.




I've decided that it's going to be easier this year than it was last year- my life looks very different in February 2018 than it did in February 2017.
98% of those differences are excellent.
2017 ended with some HUGE and painful changes, then suddenly (and possibly miraculously), things got really fantastic just in time for a new year to begin.

This year, I have a real reason to not drink (and no, I AM NOT PREGNANT. Seriously. The weirdest part of being in your late 20's is everyone thinking you're pregnant every time you turn down an alcoholic beverage or gain five pounds.) which is better than last year's vague motivation of "I just want to see if I can."
I'm hopeful that will make the next 28 days easier. Breaking a habit is hard, guys.
Not hard like things that are actually difficult, but not super fun either.

So here we go!