Memorial Day

I have today off. It's been nice the way I've come back from the wedding and honeymoon, because last week I worked only 2 1/2 days (because of jury duty) and this week I'll work 4. It's like I'm easing gently back into the work schedule.

Here's a few more pictures from the wedding and honeymoon. Amy gave us the "official" wedding pictures this weekend, so I'll be going through them and posting some of them this week, but here are the "unofficial" ones taken by friends and family.




And pictures we took on the honeymoon. Our ship was the NCL Dawn, and it was HUGE.



We spent last week cleaning, arguing over where to put various pieces of furniture and throwing away all sorts of things. Matt and I have very different ideas about what merits keeping and what should be thrown away. I tend to keep things, in case I or someone I know might need them in the future. Sometimes this is a good thing, and I can come up with useful things pretty handily, but a lot of the time it just means I have too much stuff. I'm sure if I went to a psychologist and they analyzed me, they would say that I keep things out of a need for security, to be sure that I am not ever found wanting or unable to provide for myself. What if there comes a time when I need a particular thing... say... D batteries which I currently only use in the air pump for the air mattress? What if I need D batteries at some point in the future for some other thing, and I cannot afford D batteries? So what if I don't have a particular storage place for those batteries? Shouldn't I keep them against the future the way a squirrel hoards acorns?

Matt doesn't see things this way. The way he sees things, if there isn't a use for that thing right now, or a particular place to store that thing, then why are we keeping it? So he will throw things away that I never would. Like old towels which are stringy and stained and worn out. He came into the room I was in last week and held out three such towels and said he was going to the throw them away. "Well, we could rip them up and use them for rags," I said, even though I have plenty of cleaning rags already. This is how we think differently. I think, "Don't throw things away until you're sure you don't and won't ever need them." While Matt thinks, "Don't keep things unless you're sure you have a use for them right now."

So while he's working today, I'm going to try to make myself go through my closet and my desk drawers and sort everything into "keep" "toss" and "give away" piles. Hopefully I'll make some room and get rid of things I haven't used in years. Wish me luck!

A few honeymoon pictures

One of the coves near Horseshoe Beach we discovered while exploring the coastline.

Sigh. I want to go back. But instead I have jury duty today. I'm actually hoping they will accept me, because I've never done it before and I'd like to see the process in action. There's another part of me that is hoping I don't get picked and I get some time today to do things like get my name changed, do some cleaning and organizing, and begin organizing all the pictures we took on the honeymoon into a web album. Tomorrow we are going to be visiting Amy and Joe to pick up the wedding pictures from them. I can't wait!

If I wind up not being picked for a jury, I'll post more this afternoon.

Back to life, back to reality

So yesterday we went back to work. It was the first time Matt and I have been apart (except for the bathroom) since the wedding! Setting aside the fact that we had to work again, it wasn't such a bad day. At my work it turned out to be a quarterly team-building day, so it was a lot of fun and games and not much in the way of business stuff. When I got home, Matt and I did some more unpacking and cleaning and then went to Walmart to return some gifts we'd received and drop off the disposable film camera for development. Then we went home, made dinner, and watched TV and played video games for a little while before bed.

One of the things that was so great about the week leading up to the wedding was that Sandra was here. Sandra is my best friend from college, and aside from Matt is the person who best understands me. It really completely sucks that we live so far apart, but we are fortunate that this is one of those rare friendships that can withstand long periods of no contact without causing hurt feelings or just drifting apart. We try not to take that for granted, but it's nice that neither of us feel like we have to call or write out of obligation. It's also nice to know that whenever I see her name on my caller ID, it's because she wants to talk to me or has news to share, and it's never "just to check in."
Sandra got in on Saturday, during Matt's Bachelor Party. Mike threw the party, and while I teased Mike about not allowing me to go when many other women in Matt's family were crashing it, it actually worked out well because it gave Sandra and I time to hang out and talk just the two of us, and for her to get settled in.

I should also note here that we learned that I am so totally not the one to get someone to a surprise party. I had told Mike I would be able to take care of it, but with the stress and the number of things I needed to get done, I totally screwed it up. Matt had told me earlier in the week that he thought it would be on Saturday, and every time he mentioned it, I changed the subject because I am such a bad liar I knew I wouldn't be able to contradict him. Then I told him that I'd told Tanya that I would bring dinner by for them because she was having morning sickness again. So here comes Saturday and we're cleaning the apartment and getting things ready and I completely forget to actually make something to bring for dinner. We went to confession at 3, and when we got in the car, Matt asked me where to next. I replied "Mike and Tanya's." He then pointed out that I have nothing to bring them for dinner. Crap. Crap crap crap crap crap. Of course he laughed at me and said that he knew it anyway because I never directly answered him when he said it would be on Saturday.

After I dropped him off I went back home where my mom and Rain helped me finish getting the apartment cleaned up and ready for the week. We got some subs for dinner, and Sandra got in around 6. We hung out for a little while and then headed over to Mike and Tanya's where the party was winding down. Everyone was in the backyard, sitting around talking. We joined them and spent the rest of the evening joking, talking, and eating pancakes which Mike made because Tanya was craving them. I love pregnant woman cravings.

On Sunday Sandra sang with the music group at mass. One of the things I love about her is that she's talented enough to pick things up and fake it even when she doesn't know the songs. We haven't sung together in a group since college and the Collegium, so it was nice to do it again, even just for a day. Monday she drove me to work since my car was in the shop, and then she picked me up in the evening and brought me to pick up the car which was finally repaired. Then we went home, where she made amazing gourmet pork chops, asparagus, and rosemary potatoes, which we drank with a very good red wine. She had spent the day trying to get the programs to print, but the printer was simply not cooperating and after weighing various options we decided to send it to be printed at Staples. This was frustrating because we'd spent money printer ink and cardstock, but it turned out to be a good choice because they were beautiful and it was far less of a headache.

Tuesday was a day of organizing and getting details finished. Kim and Aaron were kind enough to let us use their house to have a centerpiece setting up/favor boxes filling/program folding party. We got Chinese food and Therese, Kim, Kelsey, Allison, Hipp, and Matt's parents came to help with all these final details, and all of their work made things go quickly. Sandra was a blessing, too, because people quickly learned to ask her what they should do about a certain detail because she pretty much knew what I would said. That took a huge burden of decision making off my shoulders and helped me relax a bit.

More later. I'm gonna be late for work.

We did it

So we are back from the honeymoon. It will probably take a little time for me to blog about the weeks leading up to the wedding and the honeymoon, but I want to try to get everything down before it becomes fuzzy and I forget details about what happened and how. So, when we last left our heroine, she was freaking out about the fact that there was only two weeks left until the wedding. There were dresses to tailor and an apartment to clean and many other details to worry about. So many things happened leading up to the wedding that I am not sure exactly what I want to start with, but I guess I'll start with the phone.

About two months ago, I managed to drop my phone in water. More specifically, a toilet bowl filled with water. I was going to the bathroom at Ste. Marie's, phone in hand and in a rush, and failed to notice that they had replaced the toilet in the upstairs bathroom. The old toilet was pretty basic -- plain white, kind of boxy, and (most importantly) the lid to the tank was completely flat. The new toilet is still white, but it's more curvy in its lines and (most importantly) the lid to the tank slopes gracefully down toward the bowl. The lid also has a high gloss, nearly frictionless finish unmarred by years of use. Almost as if it's designed specifically to hurl things into the bowl. So when I slapped my phone down onto the tank to free up my hands to pull down my pants, that thing took off like it had been launched and didn't even flip or spin before it plopped smoothly into the dead center of the bowl.

I cursed loudly and snatched it out of the bowl, took it apart and dried it off as well as I could, but it wouldn't turn on. When I told Matt and some of the kids from youth group, they were full of helpful suggestions such as using a hairdryer on it or placing it inside a bowl filled with rice. We tried all of these things and the next day the phone worked fine, the only after-effects seeming to be that fractured pieces of rice seemed to have gotten stuck under the keypad and occasionally a key wouldn't work when it was pressed. But I would shake the phone, dislodge the rice, and it would work fine again.

Fast forward to about 2 1/2 weeks ago. Matt and I were at the mall and my phone's front and inside screens suddenly stopped working. It was simply showing a bunch of snow and broken lines on the outside, and the inside screen showed nothing at all. So we brought it to the Verizon store, and they replaced the phone with a new one. I have a backup assistant feature on my phone, so I was able to save all my contacts, and life went on. Then a week and a half before the wedding, the speaker phone on the new one inexplicably died. Since the ring for the phone comes through the speakers, this meant that I couldn't hear the phone ring anymore. So I went back to the Verizon store and they replaced it again. I should mention here that in that same week, my car suddenly started overheating, and I was without a car for several days while VIP got the right part in from New York. Fortunately my best friend from college, Sandra, came in to town on Saturday so she was able to give me a ride to work, but it was frustrating to no have a car to be able to run errands and get things done. Especially with the phone acting hinky.

Of course, we recognized that sometimes accidents happen and are simply accidents, but sometimes things happen as obstacles that are thrown in our path by evil spirits to distract us and discourage us. My friend Nicole commented that when you recognize this, you can just laugh it off, because there really is nothing that the devil can do to truly hurt us and in the grand scheme of things, it really is just problems with a cell phone. Therese put it another way: "Pffft... like something like that is going to stop you." And in a very perverse way, it was easy to see this all as a good thing -- if the devil was worried enough about our upcoming marriage to bother to make the weeks leading up to it so difficult, then that must mean that God has great plans for our marriage. It helps us to understand how the apostles could offer up praise and thanksgiving for their sufferings, and to appreciate how small our difficulties are.

But the straw that broke the camel's back for me was on Friday night, the day before the wedding. We were getting ready to leave Kim and Aaron's house after the rehearsal dinner, and I bent over to get a soda or two out of the cooler for myself and for Sandra's husband Mitch. My purse was over my shoulder, and when I bent over, the purse fell forward, the phone dropped out of the front pocket and plopped into the water and ice in the cooler. I cried out "Nonononononono!" and snatched the phone out of the water, but it had already been fully submerged. And I immediately began berating myself in my head, for being so careless to bend over with the purse on my should, for not putting the phone in the inside pocket, for just being so clumsy and awkward and stupid in so many many many ways... I couldn't laugh along with everyone else, because it was all my fault and I was so dumb and I began to cry and hate myself for crying even as I did.

Mitch grabbed the phone from me and began taking it apart, drying off the pieces with his shirt. Matt took my by the shoulders, looked me in the eye and said, "You know what this is," before pulling me into a hug and holding me while I regained my composure. They were like magic words, because they instantly dispelled every reprimanding, self-criticizing thought in my head. They snapped me back and reminded me that giving in to those thoughts was exactly what would make the devil happiest, and remembering that diffused the power that they had over me. Mitch handed the phone back to me and it worked perfectly right away. "All better," he said, and the phone's worked fine ever since.

More installments to come.

Almost there

Holy. Freaking. Cow. Less than two weeks left now to the wedding day. And I expect that the next 13 days will be as busy if not busier than the past week an a half or so, between organizing the apartment and putting the finishing touches on all the ceremony and reception details. This past week has been a lot about the dresses. My sisters and Alli have picked up their dresses, and there are some alterations to be made, because the tops are too small on Alli and Chris. It frustrates me so much, because they paid a lot of money for these dresses, and neither one of them have gained weight since they were measured. If anything, they've lost weight, so it really makes no sense that the tops are too small. Seriously, if this manufacturer runs small, I would have thought that the people at the dress shop would have known that and made better recommendations.

We also picked up our rings this week, and they are beautiful. Matt's is a little snug, and he's worried about it being too small in hot weather, but the rings are absolutely gorgeous, and we are really pleased with the jeweler, Ashton Christopher. The owner, Wayne, has been awesome and the rings were very reasonably priced. Can't wait to wear them.

Yesterday Allison moved out. It's strange to be in the apartment and not have to be quiet when I get up in the morning because I don't want to wake her. I can play music, or sing, or whatever... It's so strange! After Hippert, Matt, and I helped her get all of her things to her new place, Matt and I went shopping for a new washer and dryer. I had spent all week reviewing brands and models on Consumer Reports, and after visiting Barron's, Sears, and Best Buy, we wound up going with GE for our washer and dryer, and we bought them from Best Buy. The links I posted are in red. We got the white ones which were priced far less than the red ones, but the white ones weren't on their web site. I had originally thought I wanted the LG's, because they got the best scores in Consumer Reports, but the GE's had the second best score and every salesperson we talked to said that the GE ones are belt driven and easier to repair if something wears out. We wound up buying from Best Buy because their service plan was the same as Sears for half the cost, and while it was a LOT of money, we are pretty happy about our choice.

Last Sunday was Divine Mercy Sunday, and I've been meaning to post about that all week and just haven't had time. I sang for the Boston Catholic Women's conference this past Sunday, and while I was listening to one of the speakers, she said something which struck me: "If you are not willing to do the ridiculous, God cannot do the miraculous." That's what Divine Mercy is all about; saying "Jesus, I trust in You," and doing what would not make sense at all if God were not in it. It is very easy to simply say "Jesus, I trust in You." It another thing to act as if I actually do trust Him and am willing to turn my life over to Him.

I have been both successful and failed miserably at times in doing this, often about the same thing over and over again. When I decided on a complete career change which had nothing to do with my education and experience, I did it because I believed that God was guiding me to this. But I remember driving home from the shelter one night, before I gave my notice there. It might have been the same day I was offered the job, or maybe it was the day I interviewed. Either way, while I was driving, I was thinking about how they told me that if I didn't pass the licensing exam, I couldn't be employed by them. At the time, working for the shelter, I was barely making enough money to make ends meet and I was living in my parents' basement, but I understood my job and I did it well. Thinking about giving up the safe, secure job I had to take the chance on this thing that I really didn't know much about made my stomach turn and my heart race. I remember thinking "God, if this doesn't work out, then you'd better have a backup plan, because I will be totally screwed if I am out of a job."

I also remember last spring, when I was coming to terms with being in love with Matt. I had prayed for nearly 6 months for God to change my heart or to change the situation. I prayed that if it was not God's will that he take Matt out of the picture and help me to let that go. When Matt told me he wasn't going back to seminary after the Christmas break, I had that same stomach dropping, heart racing moment. I prayed to God that He protect me through whatever was going to happen with my relationship with Matt, because I didn't know how I would survive the heartbreak if it wasn't God's plan. But I tried very hard to trust that if it was heartbreak that God wanted me to go through, that He would save me and hold me up and show me that He loves me. Even when Matt told me he loved me, it was hard to trust and believe that this was something that he had thought through and I was so afraid then that he would tell me that he had gone to adoration or talked to his father or read a passage in the bible and realized that while he loves me, God was calling him to something else. So the whole beginning part of our relationship I was praying nearly constantly, "I know You know what You're doing... I know You love me... I know if I listen to You it will all work out for my good and Your glory..."

It is kind of ridiculous, our story. The difference in age, the way it came about, our lives leading up to it all seems both improbable and unsteady. All I know is that I am most secure when I think of spending the rest of my life with Matt as my partner, roommate, friend, lover, confidant, protector, the parent of our children, brother to my siblings and son to my mom and dad. My life has never been so full or free before. I am filled up with so much gratitude and I praise God, and I will remember these things when I am challenged to trust in the Lord.

TGIF

3 more weekends left to get things done and I am beginning to think it's just not enough time.

Tomorrow, Matt and I are helping Amy and Joe move into their awesome new house. I am really looking forward to hanging out with them in their backyard this summer, grilling, swimming, and just spending time relaxing with them. Sunday, I am singing with Martin Doman and Alicia Hernon at the Boston Catholic Women's Conference all day, and when I get home I have an appointment with my sister's friend, Lindsay, to do a trial run on my hair for the wedding day. This is kind of what I'm thinking of:

Which means I need to get the veil finished before then. Which means I'll need to work on it tomorrow night. And I'm looking at my nails as I type this and I am realizing that they are simply not going have enough time to grow to a beautiful length before the wedding. I need to color my hair. I need to get the apartment cleaned up and reorganized. I need to figure out what I'm bringing to Bermuda and get laundry done and write out the place cards and sort out the centerpieces...

It's funny, the fantasies we have a hard time letting go of. I never believed in any kind of daydreams about the knight in shining armor or anything like that. But there was always some part of me that expected that I would be able to prepare for my wedding in a measured, relaxed, "I've got everything together" kind of way. I expected to have time to groom. I expected to have gotten myself in better physical shape. I imagined time before my wedding to spend time with friends and my family. I pictured myself more... prepared. And I am having a really hard time to let go of those expectations.

So right now I'm prioritizing. First things first, Matt and I are spending time every night praying. Right now we're doing a novena to the Holy Spirit, and when we finish the novena we'll pray a rosary every night. Then comes the things that are necessary to the wedding and reception - place cards, programs, getting the veil finished, etc. Then the time with family and friends, things like helping Amy and Joe, helping Alli move next weekend, etc. Finally, the grooming, the coloring of the hair and the manicuring and facials and obsessing about all the physical imperfections I wish I had time to fix but I need to let go. That's the plan.

Tax Season is Over! Hurray!

This week at work's been crazy because of tax season. If I post anything more about it, I'll have to report my whole blog for compliance reasons, so I guess that's enough said. I'm glad tax season's over, and I am really looking forward to this summer.

Last night I went to Joe and Amy's to help with packing, and then once Matt was out of work we tackled the table assignment project. This is not as simple a task as you might think. I worked on my family's side and got them all fairly well arranged into tables before he came, because the guy relieving him at work was really late coming in. I knew we had tables of 10 and tables of 12, so I was putting them all into the 12-seaters. It it was actually working out beautifully. My sisters and brother and some of our cousins all fit neatly into 2 tables. My aunts and uncles took 2 more. SMYAM, people from the music group, and assorted Ste. Marie's friends occupied 3, etc.

Then when Matt came, I pulled out the room layout and realized that all the 12-seaters are in the center of the room and the 10-seaters are along the edges. Which meant I had put all my family and friends in the center, leaving Matt's side for the edges of the room. Crap. Also, I had envisioned putting all the younger kids in a certain section (further away from the candy bar), but that was a section with 10 seaters, and the 12 seaters were much closer to the candy bar. CRAP.

The good news is that I had a pretty good method for assigning tables. I had printed out the guestlist and then cut it into strips, keeping couples and families togther. Then I used Post-It picture paper (which by the way is really cool) cut into 2 x 5 pieces, sticking the strips to their assigned "table." The Post-It stickiness is perfect - it allowed me to move names over and over again, and there was space on the front to label the table with what group is sitting there.

So we still have some playing around to do. I am waiting still on about 14 people who haven't RSVP'd yet, so I know I can't keep this set in stone until we have final names and numbers.

And we're T-minus 23 days. Or maybe that should be W-minus. M-minus? With as busy as we are, Matt and I are very testy with each other lately. And I have this personality thing which drives him crazy. I don't know if it's just how i was made, or if it comes from growing up in an alcoholic family, but I will apologize for the stupidest things. I will apologize to him for things that I have no control over and that are completely not my fault. And in that moment I will be genuinely sorry, and I will feel like I should be able to do something to make things better. So it goes something like this: He will tell me he's annoyed with something, and I will take it personally, feeling like it's my fault he's annoyed, which drives him crazy and annoys him more... and we're in a viscious cycle where I get defensive because I take on responsibility for things I have no control over and he gets upset because he can't tell me when he's frustrated by things without feeling like it's going to lead to me telling him "sorry" over and over again.

This has been happening more lately because we're so prickly around each other. We never really bicker or take umbrage with each other over small things, but in the past week we have been. And I know it's because we're impatient and I'll put it frankly: Waiting for marriage is really hard. I had thought that once we got to a few weeks away, it would get easier because the goal would be in sight, but that was totally off. Right now we're so irritable with each other, it's ridiculous. Some of that is the stress of getting everything done, and some of that is feeling like we can't truly relax in each other's presence because then we get too snuggly and tempted. So we snap at each other. It's hard, and gets harder the closer we get. So we keep praying together, we keep trying to focus on being prepared for marriage, and we're trying to keep busy as well. Thank God it's only for 3 more weeks!