Good Life (frances dunnery)

So, I will admit that I have been more wedding-centric than usual lately. If you ask me, the fact that it's two months before the wedding and I'm just now starting to get a tad obsessed with things, well, that's just plain impressive. In my humble opinion, anyway. Others might disagree. I can say however, that up until this point I have made a pretty concerted effort not to be that annoying bride who can only talk about the wedding (unless people ask. Then I feel that's kind of a free pass to talk about boring things like dresses and centerpieces. So, the moral of the story is, if you're not really interested in wedding details, don't ask the bride about them, not even to be polite). On the other hand, with all of the pre-wedding things going on, it's kind of hard not to be focused on the wedding.

#1. My first dress fitting last week was nothing short of awesome. It's been a good 4 or 5 months since I'd seen the dress and I'll admit that I've had a few "oh my god, did I really buy the right one?" moments. Any doubts I had faded as soon as I put that sucker on. I was giddy as a girl with a high school crush. Actually, it reminded me of a Friday afternoon not long after the fiance and I started dating, when I was considerably distracted from my actual work. I was so ridiculously happy that it was Friday and that as soon as the final bell rang I was bolting out to the parking lot to drive an hour down the beltway to spend the weekend with the fiance, I had some of my students wondering what the hell was wrong with me. In fact, one student asked me what in the world I was doing that weekend that had me so happy and all I could do was grin that silly grin people get when they're newly in love. That's how I looked standing in my dress while the seamstress pinned and fussed around with the hem. Seriously, I cannot wait to wear that thing.

#2. The invitations will be printed next weekend. And then hopefully, they'll be mailed the next Monday. Yay.

#3. This weekend the finace's family threw me a shower. I've been a little nervous about joining the fiance's family. Not because they're not great people; they are. But because he is the youngest of five. And he was born a good six years after his next-oldest sibling, so he's really the baby. And he's one of only two boys. So it's a little intimidating (the fiance will tell me, and he's probably right, that this is more a product of my own imagination more than anything else). But they've always been more than welcoming and really, I know that I am really just doing my normal thing of slowly adjusting to new people. It's always taken me a while to get comfortable with people, and it's still true now, whether it's future family or not.

The pictures are of one of my favorite presents so far--his and hers coffee mugs. So cute! It's a little hard to read, but the inside of the mug says, "...and they loved happily ever after." Two of the really fun things about joining the fiance's family is that a.) I get three big sisters and a big brother. As the oldest in my family, I have always harbored a secret wish that I could have big brothers and sisters. And b.) I get 10 nieces and nephews! This weekend one of the fiance's nephews gave me a big hug, asked if he could start calling me 'aunt Catherine' and then told me he just knew I was going to be his favorite aunt. I don't care how petty it is, I will admsit without guilt that that just made me so happy. Ok, ok, so I'm 95% sure he has a little bit of a crush on me, but hey, I'll take whatever I can get to get in good with this family.

The Final Countdown....

Seriously, that's a song. Ten bucks to anyone who can name that band!

I bought shoes for my wedding dress. I was going to either find a picture of them online or take a picture of them and post them here, mostly because I love that they're sparkly and I kind of want to show them off, but I can't remember what brand they are, nor do I want to brave the cold and go out to my car to get them (I left them in there so I wouldn't forget to bring them to my first fitting on Thursday). I hate winter.

Tonight the fiance and I had a meeting with the catering director at the hotel where we're having our wedding. We picked the menu, talked about decorations, saw a rough idea of what the layout of the reception will look like. And while all of that is very fun and pretty exciting, I'm also starting to panic a little bit. See, all of the things we had been not stressing we just hadn't been doing. Mostly because they didn't need to be done yet. Ok, and we actually cut a lot of stuff out (i.e., favors) which has saved us a lot of hassle, but now we're to the point where we really can't avoid things anymore. The invitations HAVE to go out within the next 2 weeks. I really do HAVE to decide what I want for our centerpieces. The fiance really does HAVE to go figure out what he and the groomsmen are wearing.

I'm also starting to freak out about little things, like how I'm going to look in my dress. Ok, so I haven't exactly been the most dedicated gym-goer (and in my defense, up until mid-December, things were just too crazy to make it a habit. After that it's been pure laziness), but all of a sudden, I'm super-worried about my arm fat or the lack of definition in my shoulders. Most people know that for the most part, I've always been fine with my weight and the way I look. Sure, I can't fit into my favorite pair of jeans from college, but I certainly don't think I look bad. I just think I'll look bad in my wedding dress. See? Crazy is finally starting to set in. And I thought I might actually be luckly enough to be the only bride to escape such nonsense.

(I am being just a tad over-dramatic here, by the way)

All things considered though, I am super excited that the wedding is coming together. I've tried not to let the whole planning thing consume my life because I've heard lots of other brides talk about how depressed they get when it's all over and they suddenly have lots of free time and nothing to do with it, but I can already tell that I'll be a little sad when it's over. I've been looking forward to it for so long, and while I'm ecstatic to finally be married to the most wonderful guy in the world (cue cheesy music), I'm afriad it'll go by so fast I won't really get to enjoy it. Planning it has kind of been like my extra time to savor it, you know?

I'm off to have a glass of wine and cuddle up to the fiance for warmth. Just when I was starting to enjoy spring in January.....damn winter.

We got to hold on to what we got......

Because I'm not very good at witty titles, I've decided to start all of my posts with song lyrics for a while. Call it a 2007 goal, if you will.

Highlights of the Christmas vacation that never really was:

1. After the fiance rushed me out of the house on Christmas Eve, which I found pretty darn strange because usually I'm the one trying to get him to leave when we say we will, I realized why when I walked into my parents' house and found a surprise bridal shower waiting for me! Yay. I was highly impressed all involved actually kept it a secret. :) It was fun, and a nice reunion with the women who have been a part of my life for well, practically my entire life. I was wondering why the gifts on the registry were going so quickly!

2. We spent 2 1/2 days at my parents', including one very long, very wine-filled x-mas day with more food than I could take in at one time. It was nice to see everyone again and from what we heard, it sounds like almost everyone, with the exception of maybe one cousin waay out in Kalamazoo, will be coming to the wedding.

3. We hightailed it home to pack up our house because....drumroll please.....we bought a condo! Wohoo! As exciting as this is, we had very little time to pack up and move. We settled on the 29th (did you know you get champange when you settle? Maybe it's just our settlement company, but man, we got the star treatment when we were there. I was impressed until the fiance reminded me that somewhere in all of the financial papers we signed that day, we more than paid for the bubbly). Anyway, so 99% of our stuff is in the new place and today we'll finish cleaning out the old one. Most of my stuff has been packed up since I moved in with the fiance last March, so going through the boxes and unpacking has been a little like Christmas all over again.:) These are shots of our living room and our patio. I really am super excited to finally be settled for a few years. Not only that, it really is a huge step for me and the fiance. Sure, getting married is a big deal, but now we have equity, too! It's like we're real adults! :)

4. Between moving and packing, we had time to make it into DC to visit with the fiance's best friend, his girlfriend, and a few other people we've met via the best friend. These visits are always pretty significant for me because his best friend is half the reason the fiance and I met, so I will probably always regard him as one of the best people in my life. And we went out for sushi, which I've only had one other time in my life and now I'm craving it pretty much daily.

5. And finally, as if a bridal shower, x-mas with the family, packing, moving, and galavanting around the nation's capitol wasn't enough, we headed up to NYC to celebrate New Year's Eve with K and her boyfriend. It's never been much of a secret how much I miss my girls, so despite being exhausted from the week's activities, I was super-excited to spend a few days getting in some much-needed girl time. And it was New Year's Eve in New York, and not the crowded Times Square deal, so how can you beat that? We went to Central Park where K ran a 4 mile race at midnight while the rest of us looked uber-touristy in our 2007 hats. This is the only picture that didn't have one of us in it. K got us on "the list" for a party a friend of hers was throwing at the Empire State Building. It was pretty much over by the time we got there, but I don't think we really cared. How many people can say they've been in the Empire State Building at 2:00 AM?

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I'm not really one to make resolutions, but 2007 has a lot of big things coming up: the wedding, my last semester of grad school, (hopefully) a new job, and then things will probably settle down quite a bit into what I hope will be a more relaxed pace of life for a while.