prime.

Took a half day yesterday to get stuff done for the wedding and i'm pretty well caught up now... feeling good.

Working like crazy this morning to get everything ready for the public meeting tonight.

Mom and Dad and Alex are flying in today! Uncle Skip and Aunt Peg are driving in today! I know other people are traveling but those are the ones i'm getting updates from!!! SO EXCITED!!!

the plan.

Wednesday: write checks, pack for weekend, pack for honeymoon, finish up centerpieces, work on pomanders, finalize weekend schedule, gather set up/clean up crew.
Thursday: public meeting all evening in Montrose, PA (north of Scranton!) assemble programs in the car.
Friday: rehearsal, rehearsal dinner, bachelorette party.
Saturday: finish pomanders and any other last minute stuff, bridge bust in Columbia.
Sunday: GET MARRIED!!!

^^ as of yesterday, this was the plan. i have already changed it at least four times, and it will probably change a few more times in the next four days. the encouraging thing is that the end result is the same, no matter how i get there or how many of the little details that are stressing me out right now are actually done when i get there. God is good, all the time.

up high, down low, too slow!

in my head i feel like i still have a lot of time... and then i say out loud that i'm getting married in five days and my first thought is just 'whoah.'

the final countdown.

this weekend, i changed the guest list and the seating chart about a million times. i finished ALL the flowers. i started crossing things off the last of the lists. i lost my fantasy football matchup. miserably. i went to a baby shower. i got my bangs trimmed. i only had one minor freak out when i checked the finally final seating chart against the final guest list - and they didnt match up. i fixed it. i accomplished a lot. i feel pretty good today. my to do list is still pretty long, but i promised that i would do my best to not be uber stressed this week and try to relax and enjoy the process a little. i am really looking forward to a vacation next week.

best news of the day:
ZERO PERCENT CHANCE OF RAIN NEXT WEEKEND!!!

one week?!!!

this is just unreal. is it ever going to hit me that i'm planning way more than just a great party?

musical musings.

Steven Curtis Chapman could be the soundtrack of my life:

"its time for letting go all of our if-onlys, cuz we dont have a time machine. and even if we did, would we really want to use it, would we really want to go change everything... there's a wonder in the here and now, its right there in front of you. I dont want you to miss the miracle of the moment"

"i'm just a well dressed wreck, i'm just a made up mess, working hard trying to keep everybody impressed, all the while i'm falling apart on the inside...we're all broken, and we all need a Savior"

"its crazy when love gets a hold of you, and its crazy things that love will make you do. its crazy but its true, you really dont know love at all until its making you do something crazy."

"so i will hold on to the hand of my Savior. I will hold on with all my might. I will hold loosely to things that are fleeting, and hold on to Jesus for life."

"there's a song being sung over you - you are being loved, right now at this very moment."

"...just one week away, and i need to practice my dancing. So i will dance with Cinderella, while she is here is my arms... all too soon the clock will strike midnight, and she'll be gone."

single digits!

part of me wants to whine today about lists and schedules and my general scatterbrained-ness and the crappy consequences of not having my life in any sort of order. part of me wants to express joy and thanks for all the people who are excited for me and with me and praying for me. part of me wants to crawl back in bed and just start this whole week over. all of me definately does not want to be at work today. if its 5:00 somewhere, does that mean i can go home now?

weekandahalf!

tonight, after dinner with our bible study group, i will be crafty beyond your wildest dreams. i have a scrapbook to update, a cake topper to make, and table numbers to cut and frame. Question for you: should i leave the frames black, or make the effort to spray paint them silver?

double ones.

Yesterday was my one year anniversary at work. To celebrate, i stayed 2 hrs late to use the copier and nice paper cutter to print and cut all of my programs. Today i plan on using my lunch hour to finish up the seating chart and table numbers. i love crossing things off my list.

thats it?

todays count is itty-bitty, cuz i'm just not sure i want to keep reminding myself of just how few days are left... dont get me wrong i'm still uber excited and getting lots of wedding related things accomplished, but i think i might be slightly slipping back into the denial stage...

apollo.

is the number of things i worked on, but did not cross off my to do lists.
is the number of things i added to my to do lists this weekend.
is the number of days i have to wait before i get to be married.

translation: thirteen is too much.

is how many days i have to accomplish all the things on my to do lists. 
is the combined number of hours of sleep i got on saturday and sunday.

translation: thirteen is not enough.

two weeks!

the sad thing about my organizational system for wedding planning is that as soon as i cross everything off of one to-do list, there is a fresh list waiting for me.

saturday already.

Flower day! the plan is to spend the day crafting boquets, corsages, and boutennieres. we will play with wire and ribbon and fabric and hot glue either until we have a masterpiece or until our fingers fall off!

sweet!

I cant hardly believe that its Friday already. This week flew by, but i managed to cross pretty much everything off of my to-do list for this week! just a few more things to wrap up, and then i get a brand new list next week...

...tells me that you're in love.

i had completely forgotten about Seventeen Magazine until i typed 'seventeen' into Google and that's all that came up.

This week has been an exciting week for mail. I got a letter from my niece, some magazines to help me with my fantasy football team from my sister, OUR WEDDING JARS!, a new NetFlix movie, and a curtain for the guest room that matches the ones i got from Target last year that have since been discontinued. i love getting real mail.

twice nine.

today i am going on a road trip to a jobsite to set up some automatic traffic counters. i am hoping that i will be able to use at least a couple of the eight hours i will be spending in the car to maybe make some more tissue paper flowers... think it'll fly?

into the teens!

fun fact about me: i rode the bus up through my senior year of high school.

score.

Mark spent the majority of yesterday afternoon sitting at the dining room table with me and his mom making tissue paper flowers and listening to violin music. but to his credit, we were also watching every football game that we possibly could.  

three weeks!

the thought of this makes my stomach feel kinda funny... and i cant tell if its excitement or nerves or a happy little mix of both...

patriots day and Colleens birthday.

the plan for today is to make a lot of final lists, (to do, music, pictures, etc) figure out a game plan, possibly make some tissue paper flowers, and have the trial run for my hair! i'm excited!!!!

license to wed.

checking off the list today: getting our marriage license!!!

tick, tock. tick, tock.

(I should have known that this is what would come up when i googled '24.')

I have decided that i definately do not need a twitter account. While yes, i do have moments in my life when i would like an instant blogger to immediately record the thought or experience that i am having at that very second, but most of the time the desire to share the mundane details or minor epiphanies of my day-to-day life is satisfied with an email or text message to one or two people who i know will appreciate it most. I have no real need to make public knowledge the play-by-play details of my day. cuz really, are there that many people in the world who would be interested enough to follow me? would i even update it enough to make it worthwhile? or would it become like just another facebook status which gets changed about once a week (if i'm really keeping up with it that is)
i think i'll stick with my current method. i hope that works for you.

five squared.

i dropped my waterbottle this morning as i was getting into the car, simultaneously scratching the bottle and denting part of the car. the post office was not open when it said it would be. i got stuck behind the garbage truck. my ipod is dead. and i am letting a sidewalk stress me out. my bank won't let me access my online account cuz they made me change my password last week and now i cant remember it. i keep remembering how much i have to do and how much time i dont have to do it.
i get my flu shot today. i have my consultation with the people at the Farm about the details of the wedding. i have time this afternoon to order the cake and do some other wedding planning stuffs. i might even get to go to the library and use their internets for a little bit. i might buy paint for our bathroom. i might finish the cupboards in the kitchen so i can finally really start unpackign stuff. i am no longer sleeping in the basement.
life isnt all that bad today.
**edit**
the wind banged my car door into a beater car in the walmart parking lot, incurring a minor scratch and denting it again. crickets have found a way into my house. my tissue paper project has the potential to take up the rest of my wedding planning time. BUT i found all the glassware for my centerpieces for less than $1 per piece, i killed two crickets and chased one back outside, and the tissue paper project is turning out amazingly well. still, life isnt all that bad.

my favorite.

i did a very grown-up thing this weekend. i got my own phone plan. i was kind of forced into it by the fact that my old phone stopped making noise. as in it would no longer ring, and i could not hear anyone who i called or who tried to call me. this would have made my last four weeks of wedding planning very difficult. i was not able to ask my parents about this, because they were incommunicado this weekend. i hope they're ok with this plan. i might call them this afternoon to give them my new number and make sure they made it back safely out of the wilderness.

the day for laboring.

one year ago today, i climbed a mountain with my mom. i will miss her (and the rest of the church from Dodge City) this year at the campout 'up on the mountain'. maybe next year i'll make it back... those breakfasts were totally worth it. not to mention the great fun and fellowship around the fire and the chance to play JUNGLE BOCCE (read in your best booming announcer-voice). only in Wyoming...

four weeks!!!!

i have been a single woman for 1,219 Sundays. counting today, there are only four more. if we would have pushed the wedding back to December 19, my grand total could have been 1,234 weeks of being single. thats a much easier number to remember... if only i had been thinking about all the implications of my decision back in April... i would still have plenty of time to plan this shindig.

picture day.

the number in my countdown starts with a 2. there are no more months left to count. i am trying very hard not to let this freak me out. my sister is here to visit this weekend and take our engagement pictures. we are hoping to be very productive and hopefully put my mind a little more at ease with regards to the wedding planning side of my stress.

!!one month!! and (still) counting...

during my senior year of college, i lost my bible. it was really cute, all gray and pink with a fun pattern on the front. i looked everywhere for it, i accused Mark of hiding it, and i eventually came to terms with the fact that it was gone forever, and i should just buy a new bible that didnt have special pages in it about how to make good friends in high school. i bought a new bible that was green and blue and just as awesome. a week later, i found my old bible in Gretchen's glove compartment.

(i'm still convinced that Mark hid it there)

remember how i lost my camera's battery charger a while back? (can you see where this is going?) a few weekends ago i went to the post office to mail a package and buy more stamps. yesterday i found i had need for the stamps and went and got them from where i had stashed them in Sophie's glove compartment. this morning i got in my car to find my glove compartment hanging open, and lo and behold sitting right on top of where the stamps used to be is my battery charger! too bad i already bought a replacement...

carpet day!

only spending four hours at work today, then going to the house to wait for the carpet guys to show up (sometime between noon and four) to put carpet in the rooms!!!! then all thats left in those rooms is a little touch up paint, putting the ceiling fans back up, and turning the electricity on again. so as long as we can avoid any more oh-crap-i-just-stepped-in-a-bucket-of-paint moments, we should be good to go in no time!

ten stages.

1. Excited: congratulations! you just got engaged! your man just went out and found the absolute perfect ring and planned a huge surprise and got down on one knee and you are still trying to catch the breath that he took away. you get a lot of hugs, and smile a lot, and talk in very vague terms about all the exciting things you are going to accomplish in the next X number of months and how very excited you are to be marrying the man of your dreams.

2. Motivated: there is so much to do, and you are a machine. you bought a wedding book and are following it to the tee: you are setting a budget, and contacting vendors, and setting up site visits, and setting a date, and picking your color scheme, and choosing your bridal party, and finalizing your venue, and picking a menu, and making rain plans, and figuring out how to save money, and planning DIY projects, and scheduling dress appointments, and picking an officiant, and looking at rings, and using every waking hour (and some non-waking) to its fullest potential. you've so got this.

3. Overwhelmed: oh wait! there is so much to do!!! you still haven't thought about cake, or invitations, or flowers, or programs, or decorations, or if anyone will show up, or wedding showers, and oye vey... you need to sit down.

4. Panic!: but there is no time to sit down cuz there is so much to do and there is no way you are going to be able to pull off this wedding cuz there will be no cake and the best man will not be dressed and you will look fat in all your pictures because you stopped working out and eating well and its probably going to rain! and your wedding will be no fun and none of your pictures will be worth hanging on the wall and there's a million things to forget so whyevenputyourselfthroughthetortureofplanningitall!?!? *break down into tears*

5. Denial: you deserve a break. you've been working too hard. you dont really need to be stressing about all this wedding planning stuff. you should take this weekend off from thinking about wedding stuff. just pretend its not there. its good for you to just relax and pretend that the wedding isnt really coming up as quickly as it is.

(steps 3, 4, and 5 may be repeated multiple times, as many as desired. typically there are shorter cycles and more repetitions with shorter engagements, while the opposite is true for longer ones)

6. Jealousy: you hate anyone who is, or has ever gotten married and has posted their entire wedding online. (or even pictures on facebook for that matter) how dare they flaunt the picture-perfection of their wedding in your face like that? their homemade dress is way cuter than yours, their color scheme is way easier to work within, their DIY projects look way classier than yours, they spent way less, and their organizational skills are way beyond yours. or any other human being. i mean really, who actually has the time to be working full time, planning a wedding AND posting about it all online?!? you wish you had their life.

7. Frenzy: enough with the pity party, its time to get down to business. you are making lists and decisions left and right. you spend a couple weekends shopping. your brain and closet are stuffed with wedding things. you enlist the help of as many people as you can find to twist wire and tie bows and print programs and decorate and pull it all together. it is amazing how much you cram into the last month.

(the final three stages i have only heard rumor of on wedding boards and blogs. i am looking forward to experiencing them... if they do in fact exist)

8. Calm: its all good. everything is either taken care of, or is in very capable hands. now is the time to sit back, relax, and fully enjoy being the bride!

9. Excited: um hello!!! you're getting MARRIED!!! waiting for you at the other end of that aisle is going to be that gorgeous man we mentioned way back in stage 1 who loves you in spite of all the craziness of the past few months and he wants to spend the rest of his life with you!!! eeeek!!!!
*squeal and jump up and down and smile til your face hurts!*

10. Oblivious: the bridesmaids were wearing the wrong dresses. the getaway car broke down. your cousin passed out. your mother in law was late. your friends got lost and missed the ceremony. the candles in the centerpieces blew out. and your flowergirls fought and cried the whole way down the aisle... but wasn't the day just PERFECT?