Rested Up and Stressed Out

I got back from my vacation on Sunday. Ahhh.. exactly what the doctor ordered. We spent a great portion of the trip just hanging out in the house doing precisely nothing. Reading, playing gameboy, listening to audio books, watching Columbo, and just chillaxing. We also did some lovely sight-seeing, picked wild blueberries and went to a few concerts of sorts, so I deem it an all-around successful vacation.

We have 42 days left until the wedding now, and my stress level is unfortunately fairly astronomical, but as they say, this too shall pass.

It's becoming more manageable with each day, really. I talked to my manager and my work schedule will get cut down some from about a week from now up until the wedding. That will help significantly, even if the decreased hours/pay hurts my pocketbook a little bit. I also finished several craft projects with my mom today, and that's a load off my mind.

If I was just dealing with wedding projects, plans, and errands, I think I'd be alright. However, there's been an inordinate number of crises in my family lately. My grandfather suffered a stroke, and while he's made great improvements, he' still has a long way to come toward recovery. My brother-in-law was injured while serving in Afghanistan. My great uncle's Alzheimer's has taken a turn for the worse. My mother had surgery. Opie's stepmother's father passed away this week. Various other family members are facing health issues I won't splash about on the internet, but their troubles weigh on my mind too. I'm training for the promotion I received at work. Opie's workload is pretty ridiculous. Outwardly, I handle stress pretty darn well, but all of my health conditions that are stress-aggravated (um.. I guess that's basically all of them) act up, which in a vicious cycle, stresses me out even more. Having my acne, psoriasis, reflux and IBS start misbehaving a month before my wedding doesn't exactly excite me.

With all of this going on, executing a perfect, absolutely beautiful wedding isn't exactly the highest on my priority list. Sure, getting married in 42 days is right up there at the top of the list, but if I run out of time to finish every last craft project, I'll live. We'll live. There are many things that take precedence over programs, place settings and tablescapes right now. I'm certainly trying to get everything done, but I refuse to stress myself out further about accomplishing every last thing, unless it's of dire importance.

Invitations, Ahoy

They're all designed, printed, addressed, stamped, and sealed, waiting for me to drop them off at the post office on my way to work in the morning.

That's really all I have time to update with at the moment, since I'm doing approximately a million other things right now, but.. hooray! Invitations are finished!

Another Anniversary

Today was the 1st anniversary of the closing on our first house.

House hunting. This wound up being *the one*.

I know a lot of folks disapprove of living together before marriage, but I have absolutely no regrets about our living arrangement. [Mom, skip this next sentence, or pretend like you did, por favor.] I started staying with Opie at his (our) apartment during the week quite a bit my second semester of my freshman year, and commuting to school, although I was *supposed* to be living in my dorm room. Then when school ended that April, I moved into our apartment full time. We closed on our house on July 31st. It's been a fun and hectic ride full of home improvement project after home improvement project ever since.

In the year and a half or so that we've lived together, we've learned so much about each other. We've learned how to happily coexist (and this occurred quite smoothly, I might add), and we know there won't be any sort of nasty surprises we never learned about prior to tying the knot. He knows I leave socks and shoes scattered all over the house. I know he can easily spend 2 full minutes making sure the towels line up perfectly evenly on the towel rack. He knows I procrastinate and have terrible anxiety about placing phone calls. I know he could happily exist on just field peas, edamame, frozen cauliflower, canned chicken and nectarines if I let him. I also know he's an excellent cook. He knows it drives me bonkers when he tries to help me improve my mediocre cooking. We also know we both have very particular (conflicting) ways we like to organize the dishwasher. And yes, we both know we're the one that's right about this matter.

I also know that he's an incredibly devoted, talented hard worker who's very good at what he does for a living, and I know the (predominate) ups and (minimal) downs of his working from home. I know that he's responsible and determined to preserve and increase our financial well-being. I know that our decorating styles mesh together very well (though I do still really want to girlify our guest bedroom a little more. Please?). I know that I can belch with the best of the frat boys, and he'll applaud my efforts while saying, "Damn, baby. Good job!", rather than being grossed out. I know he's completely supportive of my entrepreneurial ideas, as I am of his.

We know we're different in many ways, but in ways that help us keep each other sane. We balance each other. He encourages me to be more organized (err.. just don't open my desk drawers or look in my "craft closet", mkay?) and to put my myriad belongings away. I razz him when he's carefully arranging the items on the coffee table so that they line up just so, and help him lay off the OCD a bit. :) He's the problem solver. The engineer. I'm the artist. The go-to gal for questions of aesthetics, design, spelling, and wording. He rocks at Chess. I kick butt at Scrabble (hush, sister. I beat you sometimes). I happily browse the internet or putter around on The Sims, laughing maniacally at one thing or another. He's over there killing the undead, or submarines, or guerrilla fighers, or wolves or something. I don't know. He pushes me to pursue my goals despite my fears of failure, and I push him to take a break and get some well-earned sleep.

Our latest project, though we paid someone else to do this 'un.

I suppose this largely seems irrelevant to the anniversary of our closing. Suffice it to say that we've come a long way in this last year. We've made ourselves a home, and brought ourselves together even closer in so doing.