Patience

Patience... A virtue that I have not yet conquered.

I have been hearing for months that good things take time and while I understand that, sometimes you just want it to happen and you want it to happen NOW. Sometimes you want to be selfish and you want to have that horseshoe up your ass and know that the one thing you want is happening at that very moment. And sometimes you just need to bitch it out when its not happening! 

I like to think of myself as positive about 90% of the time, then theres that 10% that gets you all worked up and pissed off because seriously what the hell is taking so long. 

It's okay to be impatient sometimes, it's okay to be frustrated and it's okay to want to bitch it out. I know things will turn around, I know that I will get what I want but sometimes the process just sucks! Does anyone else feel this way? Do you ever get so frustrated and mad that you just want to give up? 

But I will never give up, mark my words, I will keep fighting for my goals and will keep working hard to achieve the things I want to achieve! Sometimes I think its okay to feel a little defeated and to just want to throw your hands up and say "well, I tried!" but I'm not going to let that feeling overwhelm me. I am bigger than it. Maybe its the Monday blues or the fact that the weather is so gloomy and rainy. But I will continue to make my way, do what I can and just trust in the process. 

Good things do take time and I just need to learn to be patient.  

It' a sad day

Another day, another failed marriage in Hollywood.

I don’t know about you but the fact that Brangelina are over is seriously disheartening. The other day Brent and I went for a drive and he had mentioned that he saw a tabloid that Brad & Angelina were divorcing, I literally scoffed and said “Hell no! There’s no way!”

When I asked him what tabloid he read that on, he told me it was InTouch which further confirmed that there was no way in hell. I mean how trustworthy is InTouch really?  I being the hopeless romantic that I am defended the couple and pointed out how they were a true iconic Hollywood couple, respectable actors who help those less fortunate in more ways than one, so obviously they have to have the perfect marriage, right? WRONG. According to my sister who read this on TMZ it’s a real thing and we should all mourn this tragic loss.

They were together for 10 years and married for two… Where did it all go wrong? Apparently he cheated (surprise, surprise?) That would for sure be a reason to leave a man. Damn Brad, why you gotta do that?!

Since I am a newlywed, I will stay optimistic on marriage. Brent and I have been together for almost 7 years and have been married for 2 months. I get asked quite frequently how “married life” is and my honest to god response is, exactly the same as dating and being engaged.

Other than my name changing everything is exactly the same and I like it that way, thank you very much. I enjoy being comfortable with Brent and having a life partner. We don’t call each other best friends because I read a huge article talking about how that shouldn’t be a thing and I agree with it 100%. You can read it HERE. But he is the love of my life.

I think that our relationship didn’t change drastically or anything because that happened to us 2.5 years ago, when we moved in together. Talk about changing the dynamics of your relationship! As someone who never lived outside of home when I moved in with Brent it was so different, I had to adjust to being the one doing the laundry (yes, I’m aware I was spoiled… thanks mom!), making dinner every night and maintaining a clean house. It was stressful at times but once we fell into sync there was no holding us back.

Do I know what will happen in 20 years? No. But do I believe that I found my forever person, hell yes. Divorce rates are so alarmingly high and I don’t get it. Unless you are 150%  certain about marrying someone don’t do it and if it starts going to shit, you work on it. We live in a time where people take the easy way out and if you’re getting abused mentally or physically obviously don’t stay in a relationship that’s harmful. I’m just saying that if you’re in a normal relationship there will be ups and there will be downs but you’re a team, you work together, you fight for your relationship. 

Unless he cheats, then you can most certainly tell him to screw off. 

RIP Brangelina. 

xo

Bridal showers

Heyyooooo! It's Friyay!

I know this is pretty late to post but I don't really care and I want to write about it :) 

I am totally spoiled, let me tell you why!

 My mother-in-law and my Mom threw me two bridal showers and they were both so beautiful! They were both differently themed (very much my personality, go moms!) and stunningly decorated, I am so fortunate to have such an amazing mom and mother-in-law. 

My mother-in-law threw me a Portugal & Wine themed bridal shower. Anyone who knows me, knows how much I love Portugal and how much I loovee wine. There were grapes and pretty vines everywhere and Portuguese wine bottles with our faces on them. It was a really fun day just hanging out with the ladies, we ate some delicious food and played some games! It was so nice, I was so overcome with emotion by the end of it. I married into an amazing family and I am so lucky!

This was the Lisbon themed table. 

The Porto themed table. 

The Sintra table.

Another Porto table. I love the circle butter balls, they always make me feel so fancy! 

The Rose table. Fun Fact: Mateus Rose wine is my absolute favourite wine! I hardly drink it though, it gives me terrible hangovers! :( 

A friend of Brents mom made the sweetest cupcakes! I absolutely loved them!

My mom hosted a garden party themed bridal shower. It was unbelievably pretty, I couldn't believe how they had transformed our backyard! It literally looked like the pinterest team showed up and decorated it, Go Philipa and Go Natalie! There were teacups and teapots everywhere and it was amazing (especially since I got to keep all the new ones that they had bought!) My mom cooked a lot of the food and but there was a bunch of the food bought from several Portuguese BBQ places so obviously the food was phenomenal, I noticed I didn't take any pictures of the food and that's so sad because seriously it was the BEST part. 

Cutest welcome sign! 

Sign reads "Kathy and Brent 2016"

I couldn't get over how amazing all the little centre pieces were! So gorgeous :) 

Both of my bridal showers were so beautifully decorated and done. I am so grateful for all of the hard work that so many friends and family put into both. I will forever cherish these memories and I am so lucky to have married such an amazing guy!

Have a lovely weekend!
xo

Mrs. Swance

All photos were taken by my photographer Crestina. She does amazing work! 

You can see her website HERE.

Hey friends! 

So, I wanted to get on the topic of changing your name when you get married. I honestly believe that out of this whole marriage process what I found the most daunting was changing my name. I mean think of ALL of the paperwork and places I would need to call to make these changes!

 I was more than excited to sign my life over to Brent (haha I obviously had SOME nerves!) but changing my name was definitely what stressed me out the most. It's not that I wasn't excited to change my name and officially become Mrs. Swance, I had been dreaming about it since the day Brent and I said "I love you" for the first time but changing your name is such a personal thing, I mean we're literally changing our identity here! 

I am not one of those feminist women who needs to keep her maiden name to feel whole and if you are one thats awesome, power to women!! But regardless of my name change I still feel and know in my heart that I am and always will be Kathy Paulo. That will never change but being called Mrs. Swance sounds so adult, so official, so new. It has made me want to recreate myself in a way... I'm a wife now and one day I'll be a mother so being Kathy Swance is a new life adventure. 

My friends and I joke about how elegant (and kind of old) Kathy Swance sounds, I feel like in 50 years I'll be the type of granny that wears full out pastel suits and maybe one of those fancy British hats! 

Funny story and totally off topic but did you know that those funny hats are called Fascinators? When I was shopping for a mother of the bride dress with my mom we ended up in this really fancy section of the Bay that carried a British designers dresses and Fascinators. When we were paying for her dress at the cash register, the cashier (who was British) told me the name of the hats and I being the silly woman that I am just couldn't help but throw a pun and say "Wow, thats fascinating!!" haha the cashier, my mom and I had quite the giggle over that!

Although, it was the scariest part of the process it is actually the most fulfilling to me. It connects me on another level with Brent, we have officially become a family of two. It's Mr. & Mrs. Swance over here, we are legally and spiritually one and you know what, I love it. Being his Swance is so special to me.

Have you changed your name or decided to keep your maiden name? I'd love to hear your story!

xo

Getting healthy again

Good morning friends! 

It's Monday and instead of looking at it with disdain, I'm looking at it with a positive attitude. It's a new week, a fresh start and time to hustle. 

I've taken a good two month break from working out and eating healthy, my body has been making changes and I'm beginning to grow uncomfortable. I became super busy after the wedding and then my excuses began to grow and just like that I started to eat unhealthy and say fuck it to working out. It's funny how quickly you can fall off, it takes so much time and effort to achieve the goals I had achieved (fitness wise) and within a matter of weeks it all derailed. I'm not upset about it though life happens and thats okay!

A few weeks ago, when I did decide to start back up I decided to do it slowly and ease my way into it. Brent and I had decided to go on a run together and once we got back I was in major pain. I don't know what I did or how I did it but my knee was messed up, I couldn't walk down stairs (or up) without causing extreme pain and I had developed a cute little limp too. I finally feel like I'm on the mend and am so excited to work out again. I'm starting up BBG again and hopefully my knee can handle it. I

 will be taking it easy but I need to start moving my body it's seriously begging for it! 

If you're starting out your journey please let me know! I would love to follow along! 

Have a great week 

xo

That one time I saw a spaceship

Okay, so. I have wanted to write about this for a while but then I took my obvious break from the blog and then quite honestly forgot about it haha. The title may sound silly but I promise you, I don't wear a tin foil hat on the weekends and I certainly don't go alien hunting. But I do have a story about something I saw and it's totally up for discussion as to what it really was.

Well let us begin! 

Last year a friend and I decided to have a girls night outside, the fire pit was going and we had blankets laid out and a ton of food. We were slightly intoxicated but lets not let that little tid bit derail our story because believe it or not I have never hallucinated or seen "something" that wasn't actually there while intoxicated. 

So, as the night went on we were laying on the blankets looking at the stars and seeing faces in the clouds that passed by, as you can imagine it was a super zen feeling. I mean how can laying on some blankets and staring at the stars not be relaxing? 

We started talking about life and getting into really deep conversations, we talked about our futures, our beliefs and about alien life. We got into a big discussion over the fact of whether we are controlled by aliens (lol) and how silly it is to believe that we're the only living beings in this ginormous universe. We talked about how cool it would be to see aliens and you can just imagine how much more alien talk there was, here's a hint: a lot. 

I would say it was around 11:30pm- midnight when we saw this thing hovering over us. It was a good 50-100 meters above my house, it moved very slowly and was a large rounded rectangle shaped thing. I'm not going to sit here and tell you it WAS a spaceship (but like, maybe it was?) but it was very very weird and shaped like something I have never seen before. Maybe it was a helicopter or a drone? I don't know. All I know is that it got a little too close for comfort and scared the living daylights out of both of us. 

I remember laying there and hearing, "do you see that?" and I could only squeak out a "yes". As soon as it left (which was almost five minutes later), we breathed a sigh of relief and I immediately grabbed my phone and went on social media to figure out if it was some sort of plane that was looking for something (or someone) or if anything weird was going on in my small town. I didn't find anything. 

So, did I or did I not see a spaceship? I'm going to go with a yes, I totally did! Do you want to know why? Because that story is so much more fun! I would rather let my imagination go wild and have fun with it than sticking with the realistic story that it could've been a very large drone or helicopter (that made NO NOISE?!).

The hilariousness of that night and how fun it really was is something I'll cherish forever. 

And not knowing what we saw makes it that much better.

10 things

Hello Friends and happy September!

I can't believe we're already here... School has started, pumpkin spice everything has begun and soon enough it'll be cool outside and the trees with begin to start changing colours! It's crazy how fast this whole year has gone by... It feels like it has been a whirlwind. I've decided to do a 10 things about me, in case you're new around here ;) So, enjoy and leave me a comment with a few things about you! I'd love to hear them. 

1. I'm probably the biggest procrastinator in the world. I do most things very last minute. I think I enjoy the thrill of being stressed out and knowing I waited too long but most times I find that thats when I get the most creative. I just work really well under pressure. 

2. I like lists. I write lists all the time, grocery lists, to do lists, what I like most lists. I write them on a million scraps of papers, then I lose them and completely forget about them. It's a never ending cycle. 

3. I am trying keyword is TRYING to get back on the blog wagon but I find that it's been tough. I love chronicling my life and having a place to look back and see all of the things I have done in the past but for some reason I find it hard to really stick to it. Maybe blogging is a bit overrate but it's something I really enjoy doing! That being said I am going try to get back into it but do it differently, stay true to myself, have fun with it and say screw you to the pressure of being "perfect". 

4. I'm in the process of "self-discovery" that sounds SO lame but it's true! Hear me out! I feel like for a long time I haven't been myself, a lot of things have happened this year with the business, getting married and dealing with life's curveballs that sometimes you get so caught up in all of it. So I want to start writing down how I'm feeling, the steps I'm taking to discover who I am, what I truly want and what brings me happiness.  

5. I have anxiety. Even though it has been a good 3 months since my last serious anxiety attack, it is still something that I live with every day. I have gotten a lot better at controlling myself  and thankfully I have such a strong support system that whenever I start acting up my mom, Brent and my friends are so quick to be there for me and to bring me down to Earth. It's been a long learning process but I'm starting to finally feel "normal" again. 

6. I own a candle business and I love it so much. It took me a good year to find my love for my business again especially after such a tough first year. But in the last month I have found myself looking forward to working on it again, there's a lot of exciting projects coming up and I can't wait until I get to share them! 

7. I'm a creative type. I love arts and crafts (which is probably why I opened up a candle business), I love making videos and having fun and really allowing my artistic self to come out. For some weird reason, I had tucked away Ms. Krafty Kathy for a little while but I'm starting to bring her out again and it has been pretty fun! 

8. I am super frugal. If there is one aspect of my life that is extremely important its being frugal. I am your sales girl. I do not buy anything unless it is discounted or under $20. The year before I moved in with Brent I began buying all the stuff that I thought I would need for our home, you know dishes, curtains, decor etc. at that time Target was still a thing in Canada (RIP Target, I will always love you) and every single thing that I bought was found in the clearance section. I think it's super important to remember that you can have nice things on a budget or for cheap, so long as you look for it! ;) 

9. I love to read. I read all kinds of books from fiction, self-help books to biographies. I'll read any and all of it. 

10. I have one tattoo, it's my brothers birthday in roman numerals and I have about two more that I would like to get. I keep saying I want them but I always chicken out but this November I'm gonna do it! Hold me to it people! 

Have a great Tuesday!

xo