Hello, friends. Or should I say, “hello, mom and Megan” – aka – my only two fans.
I know, I’ve been MIA. I wish I could treat life like I treat this blog… when I don’t have the time or when I’m not in the mood to pour out my heart, I wish I could just put life on hold and come back to it when I’m ready. But I guess if life truly could work that way I would sadly only have two fans and let’s face it, I need more than just two fans in my life.
But I digress… at the end of the day, my blog has been neglected as wedding plans, mixed with a little bit of work, monopolize my day, my thoughts and my creativity.
However, today my morning cup of Splenda and cream with a splash of coffee and some delicious slices of raspberry kringle inspired me to capitalize on my sugar high and beckon Stejamoe out from her hiding spot.
So with wedding on the mind and artificial sweetner pumping through my veins, I proudly present yet another top ten list: the top ten things I learned about myself while planning my wedding.
10 – My health greatly benefits from my commitment to vanity. Before I got engaged I would ignore a strange looking mole and I would put off going to doctor for some aches and pains. Now I realize that a strange mole is not only dangerous to my health, but detrimental to the wedding pictures it may show up in. The dull pain in my side that I normally can suffer through could impact my ability to suck it my stomach all night in my wedding dress and impede on my bridal hotness. My solution? Go to the doctor and improve my health AND my look for the big day.
9 – I apparently make friends based on their willingness to kill for me. I have a wide variety of friends, with different personalities and from different parts of my life. During this entire planning process, one common thing has surfaced among them all: their willingness and eagerness to cause harm to those who harm me. Okay, would any of my gorgeous, proper, intelligent friends really risk jail time to ensure my happiness? Probably not. But they have given me an insane amount of support as I battle some difficult people who are forgetting that they aren’t the bride, and even my most passive friends respond with a “put em’ up” attitude. I never thought inappropriate aggression would touch my heart.
8 – I believe that the quicker you respond, the more you love me. I can’t help it. I’m organized and somehow believe everyone else should be too. As I wait for my wedding invitation responses I have taken on the mindset that each day you wait to let me know you “accept with pleasure,” you’re really just telling me that you “accept with disdain.” Harsh and irrational, I know, but if you don’t share your immediate excitement with me, I immediately think you don’t care. Love me, people!
7 – I think Chipotle burritos are part of a well balanced diet. I really want to look beautiful on my wedding day and by “beautiful,” I mean, I want people to marvel at how thin and skinny I look. But as I continue my mission to be as thin as I can be, I continue to indulge in my beloved fajita burrito. If you look up “Chipotle” in the thesaurus you’ll find “fat”… I guess I better start doing lunges and butt clenches in the office.
6 – I’m attached to my name. Who cares what your last name is? Apparently I do. Even though my fiancé doesn’t think this, my issue with changing my last name has NOTHING to do with him. It may seem irrational, but I connect my maiden name to everything that I am and I’m having a bit of a hard time knowing that I’ll be officially “someone else” come October. I’ll get over it and I’ll eventually come to terms with the fact that I went from having the easiest last name possible to having a last name that can be mispronounced and misspelled 50 different ways.
5 – I will never stop worrying. I’m sensitive. It’s a fact. I’ve gotten tougher over the years, but I will never be able to “get over” things easily when I’m hurt. And nothing is more personal than a wedding, so the slightest jab turns into a blow. The same issue that surfaced when I got engaged almost a year and a half ago is the same issue that keeps me up at night.
4 – I’m strangely good at “counting down.” Once we hit 100 days until the wedding, I have been able to keep track of the amount of days left before the big day regardless of distractions. A week could go by without anyone asking or me even thinking about the exact amount of time left before I walk down the aisle, but if a colleague randomly inquires, I can tell them the exact amount of time until the hour without skipping a beat. 54 days to go, by the way.
3 – Home improvement projects keep me sane. Unlike other brides, I prefer to have a lot going on outside wedding planning to keep me grounded. For example, while making appointments with wedding vendors, I thought it only made sense to consider replacing our aging windows and get a few at-home estimates sprinkled into our already hectic schedules. The outcome will result in us having all of our windows replaced a month before the wedding and the thought of having a major renovation done is as soothing to me as a day at the spa.
2 – I am obsessed with kitchen gadgets that I’ll never use. It wasn’t until we registered did I discover my love for really unnecessary kitchen tools. Why use your fingers when you can pull toast from a toaster with hand crafted toast tongs? I also can spend hours caressing our new, over priced mix master and there is not one darn thing I can think of that would need mixing any time soon – it DOES make my kitchen counter look legit, like someone actually cooks in there.
1 – I love my fiancé more than I ever thought I could. Of course I love the boy. I’m not the kind of girl who settles just so I can get hitched and I was madly in love with him before we got engaged. But wedding planning drama has brought out a side of my soon-to-be hubby that tells me he’s in to win it. Random cry fests over botched wedding envelopes haven’t scared him away and family drama has resulted in him showing me that at the end of the day, I’m the family that comes first. You can have perfect invitations and cooperative family members, but having a man you love is a lot more important.
I’ve learned a lot about myself during this whole process and I’m more ready than ever to get married. If you’ve learned anything, you would learn to just back off and let me be happy and if you can’t seem to do that, I will be forced to connect you with you one of my friends… trust me, it’s not going to be pretty.