"What will your new last name be?"

Drum roll please......dadadadadadadadadadadadada....

Christ.

Yep that's right. This girl ain't changing her name. The next question is always , "Why not?"
And I think, why SHOULDN'T I keep my name?

It's the name given to me almost 29 years to the day when I was born.

It's the name I have used professionally all over the country for the past 6 years. Changing it throws a wrench in my networking capabilities.

It has fewer letters than Dickson, and comes earlier in the alphabet so I'm always first. he he he.

I literally happen to be J Christ. How cool is that? Save for my mom, my brother, and my sister in law, not many people can claim that title.

I'm lazy. Changing it involves too much paperwork. I hate paperwork. DMV, SSA, multiple PT licenses, bank accounts, credit cards, 401k. It makes my head spin thinking about it.

I happen to be very independent and the thought of giving up my name to take someone else's seems so demoralizing. I mean why did the name change take place in the first place? As a sign of ownership. Yes ladies, we were once "owned" by our fathers. And given to a man to marry, not necessarily for love, forced to assume his last name. Now I know that in our society, this is no longer the norm, but the feminist side of me always remembers the history of it.

So when you ask me, "What will your new last name be?" Don't be shocked when I answer, "Christ." It's who I am. It's not for you or anyone to judge why I made this decision. I don't think it really warrants an explanation but I've tried to give you one here. A common last name does not make a family...remember that.

Sincerely,
The VERY soon to be MRS. Judi Christ

5 days...

Until the wedding! Holy Crap! It is SO surreal to think these are my last few days as a single woman. Am I sad? No. I can't think of anything more exciting than walking down the aisle to James' waiting arms and finally becoming his wife.

Mom and I are in full swing of finishing up the wedding planning and getting the house ready for the rehearsal dinner. Thankfully, Friday was my last day of work until August 4th! Yep, I have the whole month of July off. What will I do with all my time off you ask?? Well, let's see.

July 1-3: Tidy up the last minute stuff.
July 4: Get married.
July 5-18: Honeymoon in FIJI.
July 19-20: Pack
July 21-26: Drive from Cleveland to Oregon with Mom to move all my stuff out there. (and celebrate my 29th birthday on July 23)
July 27: Say goodbye to Mom as she flies back to Cleveland
July 28-31: I think I might actually get to do nothing.
August 1-3: Move in to our new apartment
August 4: Start work.

I'm booked solid. :) But I can't wait.

I can't believe it's June!

And I'm getting married NEXT MONTH. Where does the time go?? It's hard to believe that in 4 1/2 weeks I finally get to marry James and see him EVERY day (well except if he has to go out of town for work). It's all so surreal. I've been waiting for the day to come for almost 15 months now and it is fast approaching.

This past weekend I got some wedding stuff done. I've started the seating chart though I still have another week until my RSVP deadline so I won't be finalizing anything on that quite yet. I went and ordered my cake design and paid in full. Can't wait to see the final product! I met with the church to finally discuss the ceremony and I'm hoping to meet with the pastor that is marrying us this next week. James, my mom and I have been working on our wedding program quite a bit and have finally made some good progress. And last but not least, I've begun filling out the music list my DJ has asked for. It's all starting to come together but I know there is so much more to do! I have one more dress fitting scheduled then it will really feel real!

So you wanna get married??

James was in town this weekend. We did lots of wedding stuff including buying all the booze (except the beer). Let me just say this, we are STOCKED, so those of you coming to the wedding, be prepared to drink yourselves silly. :) We also had our engagement pictures taken with our wedding photographers, Ted and Rachel Linczak. Can I just say how much I love working with them? They are two wonderful people with an amazing eye behind the lens. The engagement session really got me excited for the wedding day that is fast approaching. I took Monday off of work and James and I headed downtown to get our marriage license!! There was no line and within 15 minutes we had that little slip of paper in our hands. So I turned to James and said, "Well are you sure you don't want to get married right now? I mean we are at the courthouse!" He wisely talked me out of it, considering we have already sent out our invitations and have lots of RSVPs already. But for one fleeting moment, it felt like it would be SO good to just FINALLY get to marry him and leave the stress of wedding planning behind. But alas, I have to wait 44 more days. I.cant.wait.

SCUBA survival

A while back I posted about my thoughts on possibly getting SCUBA certified. James and I both decided to go through with it. Unfortunately, we would have to take the classes separately but are able to take the open water dive certification together in June. I signed up for the e-learning class all done on a computer module with slideshows, videos, and quizzes. This past weekend I had to go to 2 days of in water training at a local pool.

My biggest fear was the whole attempt to breathe underwater with a regulator in my mouth. That actually didn't phase me as I am normally a mouth breather so the adjustment was nil. We started off with some basic skills on how to make yourself float, sink, hover in the water. We also had to do a 200 yard swim and tread water for 10 minutes. On Saturday we had one certified master diver and one who was training to be one instructing us. They were both great and there were only 2 of us in the class. I was doing great, until the moment came to attempt to clear the mask when water got into it. First of all, I wear contacts. Which means NO OPENING YOUR EYES underwater. The thought of filling my mask with water and keeping my eyes closed and then trying to clear it freaked me out and I clawed myself to the surface blindly on several occasions. I was finally able to do it with a different mask that had a purge valve which basically allowed me to position my head down rather than up. In order to clear the mask, you must exhale through your nose and lift the bottom of the mask slightly. Do you remember what I said earlier? Yep, I'm a mouth breather. Breathing through my nose is NOT NATURAL to me. Couple that with the fact that I'm trying to exhale through my nose and my mask is flooded with water it is definitely a scary experience. The next step of the skill involved completely taking off our mask and leaving it off for 60 seconds then replacing it and clearing the water. The other guy in my class went first and I was underwater watching him and with every second that ticked by, I became more and more anxious. I finally signaled to the master diver in training that I needed to get to the surface. I was SO anxious I could feel my voice waver and the tears start to form. He was great though, and walked me step by step through the mask clearing again but keeping my head just below the surface. The instructor that was to grade my skill then came up to the surface and told me she'd be right next to me the whole time. Again, the whole eyes closed thing just totally freaked me out. So down I went trembling, close to tears. I took the mask off, closed my eyes, held tight to my instructor's hand, and patiently counted the seconds off to get to the minute. She then tapped me on the shoulder, I replaced my mask, and exhaled. Nothing. Did it again. Nothing. I kept exhaling through my mouth! Starting to panic I took a deep breath and exhaled again....and this time I did it right! I was so proud of myself! It's definitely a skill I will need to practice...I just pray my mask never fills with water. :) I definitely had fun learning the skills and getting over my fears of the sport. I'm so thankful that James will be flying out here in June to complete the open water certification with me. If he's by my side, I know I can do it. And then it's off to Fiji in July to enjoy some of the best diving in the world.

Moving again.

Yep, hard to believe my job here in TN is OVER. Where does the time go? I'm heading back home to Cleveland for the next 3 months to work at the Cleveland Clinic. In fact 3 months from today is the wedding! I'm really looking forward to this next job. The clinic is an amazing place to work, one of the best in the country. I think I'm really going to like it.

So for all you Cleveland folks, hope to see you soon!

Happy Birthday James!!

Today is James' 29th Birthday!

Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday to James!
Happy Birthday to you!

I wish I could spend your last birthday of your 20's and your last as a "single guy" with you! Can't wait to get out to Portland for good and spend all our birthdays together!