On Becoming a MOH

Last week, this showed up on my Facebook newsfeed and I was pretty dang excited. :)

One of my best friends in the whole wide world, Jessica, is getting married this summer and asked me to be her Matron of Honor (aka, MOH). I've been in several weddings, but always as a standard bridesmaid. So I figured, why not document this occasion and add it to my wedding ramblings on this blog? I figured I'd be learning some great new things that I could pass along to other future "honors." So get ready! :)

In the mean time, let me just tell you a little about Jessica. Jess and I met back in our college days once, but were never really in the same friend circle. (Which actually is really sad because the two of us together is the right combo of crazy and fun and what friend circle wouldn't want that?!) Then one summer we both moved out to Colorado to live closer to guys we were dating and decided to meet up one day. That kicked off our awesome friendship, and for a while our lives followed a really similar path. That is, until I moved back to Iowa. :/

It's been hard to have a long-distance friendship because we're both face-to-face quality time-type people, but we always make it a point to chat on Google or Skype or Facebook or text. This has helped us stay close even while miles apart. And I've learned that if you put in the effort, you can still have a great relationship even if you can't hang out in person as much as you want. I'm so thankful that Jessica is the type of friend who will put in that effort right back. She and I both know we can text the other one whenever to talk about whatever (sometimes that meant guy drama, or job stuff, or moving, or family craziness, or just regular old mundane stuff). Having someone who is always there for you is the biggest blessing, and I have been so blessed by knowing Jessica.

Over the past few years we've been able to see each other about once a year, visiting either in Colorado or Chicago/Iowa. Last year, Jessica was a bridesmaid in my wedding and helped throw me a fantastic bachelorette party and pretty much made sure everyone was having fun the whole weekend. We haven't seen each other since then, but I'm so glad we'll be together for her big day!

I'm a big sucker for weddings, so I'm super excited for everything that will be going on. I'm also excited to document the process and will be sharing all the important details here. Until I get back to post again, I would really appreciate any tips/advice you have for being a matron of honor, from a MOH's perspective as well as a bride's, because I think both are important. I want to make sure I remember all the important stuff (like writing an aww-worthy speech and throwing an epic bachelorette party) as well as all the essential little things. So comment away and check back soon! :)

Snapshot of My Life

Oh hey, almost-over month of April. I'm sorry I haven't been around as much. Life has gotten... sort of busy, mostly to the extent that I haven't been able to sit and just write. Sometimes I feel like I shouldn't write here unless I have something really great to share. But let's be real, who regularly has something really great to share, say once a week? Sometimes you just need to write about regular old life.

Nick and me at church on Easter Sunday.

My April has looked something like this...

My hours at work have been picking up. Sometimes this is a mixed blessing. More money is always good, but more nights/weekends spent away from Nick, not so good. I enjoy most things about my job, my coworkers, our clients, the cute clothes, the constant activity, the discount. But I struggle to focus on the good when the schedule reads that I'll be sitting at home while Nick's at work, then going to work when he's at home. (Hate that.)

I got to thinking the other day that the childhood me would be in love with my job, especially the part that involves using the register to ring up purchases. I always loved things like cash registers and adding machines as a kid. Something about pushing the buttons was like crack to my kid brain. One of the best gifts I got as a kid was a decommissioned adding machine. Boy was that the coolest thing ever. I could push buttons and pretend to run a shop to my heart's content. So the childhood me has a little party in the back corner of my brain every time I start a transaction.

The start of April also brought back the Whole30 into our house, or I should say, a modified Whole30. We decided not to be quite as strict this time, allowing things like beans, a little corn, some peanuts, and possibly some chocolate. But otherwise, no dairy, no grains/breads, no sweets, and definitely no soft drinks (though I had cut those out months ago). The biggest hurdle for me is the no grains rule. I love me some bread. Bagels, toast, rolls, crackers, homemade biscuits... mmm mmm! But because I love bread so much, I know I lack the self control to moderate my intake. Most nights when I would get off work, on my drive home I'd start thinking about food and all I'd want to make was cinnamon and sugar toast, slathered in butter. Bad news.

The good news is, I've already been achieving some weight loss, thanks to the diet and my very active job. I realized that it's mostly the job contributing to the weight loss because how else would I be able to walk for four to six hours a day with a desk job? Add to that less crap in my system and I've already been feeling healthier, happier, and slimmer. One of my coworkers noticed the other day, which prompted me to pull out the Wii and weigh myself. Back in January I had set a weight loss goal for myself and last week when I stepped on the Wii Fit board, I was happy to discover that I had met the goal. (A little late, but met nonetheless.) I set a new goal and plan to keep up with this modified Whole30 diet.

On the family side of things, April brought Nick's and my nine month anniversary! (I think that's the one where you say "Happy nine months!" and throw confetti.) Being married has been awesome. It really just feels like hanging out with my best friend and tackling life's challenges together. Some days bring difficult circumstances while other days bring nothing at all, but we always enjoy doing whatever it is together. The main project we're tackling currently is clearing the last few moving boxes out of the spare bedroom so it actually looks like a bedroom and not a storage closet. In the process we've been unearthing some interesting things (mostly my things), like notes from friends in college and old art projects. It's kind of like an archaeological dig into my past.

Also, we had my family over for Easter, which was really fun. We started off by exchanging Easter presents (my mom was so thoughtful and gave us non-edible gifts since we're avoiding sugar), then we had an Easter egg hunt around the condo. I had hidden all the eggs, so I had the pleasure of watching everyone scramble (ha!) around to find the most. I think hiding eggs can almost be as much fun as searching for them. After that, we sat down to a late lunch of ham steaks, potatoes and rolls for those non-Whole30ers, cauliflower puree, green beans, and apple sauce. Nick did most of the cooking, and everything was delicious. We talked for a while, then took a walk down to our local cupcakery (again, for the benefit of those not on a diet). We finished the day with a movie before my parents and brother headed back home.

Besides all that, life has been pretty normal. I'm still working on building up my freelance portfolio, ELM Creative, by writing guest blog posts and book reviews, and doing the occasional blog re-design. I haven't been aggressively pursuing opportunities just yet because I'm enjoying where I'm at currently and I want to build up a collection of work samples first. I love that it gives me a creative outlet and place to start up new projects and partnerships.

I hope that you're having a fantastic April and start to this lovely spring we've been so ready for! :)

Book Review: Captive Trail

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher for the purpose of this review.

"Captive Trail" is the second book in the "Texas Trails" series, following "Lone Star Trail." In "Lone Star Trail" readers are introduced to the Morgan family, which was robbed of its youngest member--a little girl named Billie--by a band of Comanche Indians. "Captive Trail" tells her story.

Billie becomes Taabe Waipu as she is forced to forget her name, language, and culture over 12 years in captivity. We are given a glimpse of her first days with the Comanche, but do not meet her again until she escapes to try to find her family that she barely remembers.

During her escape, Taabe is injured and discovered by a stagecoach driver and a group of nuns on their way to start a mission and school in central Texas. The nuns take Taabe in to care for her and teach her English while the stagecoach driver, Ned, tries to uncover her real identity with the hope of reuniting her with her family. Meanwhile, the Comanche have other ideas, hoping to bring Taabe back to their tribe.

I was excited to read "Captive Trail" because of my interest in and love of Native American history and culture. I was a little disappointed that the book didn't focus more on Billie's time with the Comanche, but it did provide a heart-warming, engrossing story with moments of love, sacrifice, and excitement. In that way, it did not disappoint. I would recommend "Captive Trail" to anyone who enjoys historical fiction, Texas history, Christian fiction, or romance.

A New Home for ELM Creative

If you're a regular on this blog, you may have noticed this thing called ELM Creative. ELM Creative is a home for all of my freelance offerings, a collection point where I can showcase my work--what I've done and what I offer.

ELM Creative evolved out of two prior projects I had, my photography "freelance business" (Elise Loyola Photography, which started in 2008) and The Fix, a one-stop shop for writing and editing offerings that I and a friend created back in 2010. Unfortunately, The Fix never really took off, but I always liked the idea of offering creative services to businesses/organizations that just needed a professional edge to their written content.

In the summer of 2013, I decided that Elise Loyola Photography needed to expand because the truth was, I loved more than just photography. I wanted to increase my freelance offerings and showcase my work in other areas like writing, blogging, social media management, and marketing/public relations. This change was really only manifested on Facebook as I changed the Elise Loyola Photography page to ELM Creative--a reflection of the change in my name as I got married and the expansion of my offerings.

Since then, ELM Creative has been slowly gaining speed as my life and work-life have been changing. The biggest difference is now that I'm working a part time job, I have more time to dedicate to freelance work. It's so important to be to be able to have the time I need to make my offerings the best that they can be.

ELM Creative is driven by my professional experience in journalism--writing, editing, photography--and social media management/PR--managing the digital presence of newspapers and also the marketing for a healthcare office. It's also driven by my personal work--writing for school assignments and personal reasons, teaching writing classes, practicing my photography, and keeping this blog and other websites over the years. With all that behind me, I know I bring a lot of varied experience and insight to the table and can offer fresh content and perspectives to those who seek out my services.

Now I'm excited to finally showcase my first projects under ELM Creative, and have decided to create a separate site on which to do that. The goal in making a new site was to simply make it easier to navigate the information. I previously had everything written out on one page on my blog and it became a lot to scroll through. The new site has everything broken down by tabs and individual pages so the content is sorted and streamlined.

I'd love it if you checked out the new site, and recommended it to anyone you know who may be interested in or looking for freelance work. (You can also direct people to ELM Creative on Facebook and Twitter.) I appreciate all the support I've gotten over the years, for this and other projects I've undertaken. I couldn't do it without the encouraging words, shares, comments, and feedback. So thank you!

P.S. I had a conversation with my author friend, Ben, yesterday about whether the name ELM Creative is pronounced "elm" like the tree or "e-l-m" like my initials. I most often think of it as "elm" and so that's the pronunciation I'm going for, but it does stand for my initials. :)