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!