Thoughts from a week out - March 13, 2009

A week from today, I will be in south Alabama for my wedding rehearsal. That's pretty weird.

Yesterday was my first real, big freak out day. I guess everything added up and felt like it was collapsing on me. I was majorly stressed to the point where my boss told me to take today off. I ended up going to lunch with Bobby, and he did a great job of making me laugh and forget about all my worries and the things that needed to be done. Definitely affirmed a lot of the reasons I want to marry the guy. He's pretty great.

And after that, everything just didn't seem so bad. I'm not really even sure why I got so stressed out, except maybe nerves and just feeling a little overwhelmed. Having today off helps, too, because we're cleaning my apartment in preparation for the bachelorette party tomorrow night and going to the courthouse to get our marriage license.

I can't remember if I posted this before, but we also bid on a house and will find out Monday if we are actually going to get it or not. Not knowing the outcome of that has sort of added some stress, too, and if we get it, we have to fill out a bunch of paperwork next week. And if we don't, well, we're going to be pretty disappointed. But, as Bobby pointed out, something better for us will come along if we don't get this one.

I'm looking forward to my bachelorette party, too. Ashley's hosting it at my apartment, and we're just going to have a PJ party with ice cream and movies and pizza. I like all of these things. And I'm excited about some time with the girls. I feel like I haven't gotten enough of that lately. Lauren's coming into town early to hang out, so that'll be fun. Bobby's going to cook lunch for us.

Then on Monday my office is holding a small get-together for us, too. We're going out for drinks at the Cypress Inn. Should be nice.

The rest of next week will be dedicated to getting together all the little, last-minute stuff, packing for the wedding, packing for France. I've done a little shopping for France to get a few new clothing items and hope to do some more!

OK, now I really need to stop putting off cleaning. I'm so excited that the wedding is (finally) almost here!

Quick house update - Feb. 28, 2009

So the house we wanted sold a couple of days before we were planning to start paperwork on it.

This was a disappointment, but we're looking on the bright side. It means there has to be something better out there for us that may not even be on the market yet. We looked at some houses Thursday with Tricia. I liked a couple of them pretty well, but Bobby said he wasn't overly impressed. Afterward, we decided that we're putting the house hunt on hold until after the wedding. I think this is a very wise decision for us, because we're stressed enough without adding that to the mix!

So the hunt will continue, just not this month! But Tricia says a lot of houses usually come onto the market in spring, so I feel pretty optimistic!

No house - Feb. 19

The house we had decided on sold earlier this week. Bugger. Well, back to square one.

The countdown total has moved to weeks!

So we're at less than five weeks to the wedding at this point, and I think we're both sort of at the point where we're excited but also ready for it to be over with!

I've gotten almost all of our invitations out, which was a huge victory for me, since I made all of them with some help from my matron of honor. I've still got a few to mail and some to hand deliver at work. I actually need to make about three or four more, which I'll hopefully get done this week.

The big stress of the past week or two has been that we didn't have a pastor! We started our premarital counseling sessions with the pastor at our church here in Tuscaloosa, and I guess we both sort of thought he would also do the wedding. Except that when we finally asked him, it turned out he couldn't because he'll be in Jamaica! So the second person we asked also couldn't do it, then plans to ask the pastor at the church where we're getting married weren't working out great either. But today was the breakthrough ... an old friend of mine who's a pastor at a church outside of Dothan said he can do it! He may not be able to make it to the rehearsal, but I figure getting a stand-in won't be a problem. We're driving down to meet with him Saturday to discuss the ceremony.

The most fun news of late, I suppose, is that my family threw us a shower a couple of weekends ago. My oldest sister, Amy, put it together and did a fantastic job. She hosted it at the Shorter Mansion in Eufaula, had the food catered in. It was all very, very nice, even though we were a little out of our element. We got a lot of really awesome wedding gifts!

Our other exciting news is that I think we may have decided on a house! We're hoping to meet with our Realtor Thursday to discuss the details and timing. We're planning to try to close near the beginning of May, which would give us almost two full months to move in. The house is in a good neighborhood, and it's really cute. It has a workshop out back that Bobby's planning to turn into an office and a really big master bedroom. Really hoping it works out, because I think we probably like it best out of everything we've seen, with the possible exception of one house someone else bought. And with the new federal economic stimulus package, we will be able to get an $8,000 tax credit next year for purchasing a house this calendar year.

All right, that's all I've got for now, I think. I've seriously got to go to bed!