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!

Christ is Risen! Alleluia!

Happy Easter, everyone.

Today we're going to be doing the family shuffle between my mom's and his aunt's. I don't know how long we'll do both families on holidays, because it really is exhausting to fit it all into one day, but since he's living with Kim now, it's manageable. Also, I don't know how we'll choose. We both have said that it's important to divide our time equally between the two families on holidays. It isn't fair to each other or to our families to just go to one side's house for everything. While I love Matt's family and he loves mine, we both want to see our families also, they want to see us, and I don't want him to feel like he's missing out on spending time with his siblings any more than I want to miss out on spending time with mine. So for now it's the shuffle. It's a pain, but it's worth the occasional difficulty for one day.

I was remembering last Easter season, and how I was just overwhelmed with joy because CHRIST IS RISEN. I know what you're thinking, but this was before Matt, so it wasn't the first flush of loving and being loved back. I know it was truly a fruit (gift?) of the Holy Spirit, the joy which just filled me and overflowed from me last year. I can remember sitting on my bed at night, saying prayers before I went to bed, and the sudden thought "HE IS RISEN" would flash like a thunderbolt through my mind. Then the excitement and wonder and joy would overwhelm me. Cross-legged I would bounce on the bed like a child and supress the giggles which just seemed to be bubbling up through me, because how would I explain to Allison why I was laughing if she heard?

This year is different. This year, I think, I am too distracted by the wedding plans to hear the voice proclaiming he is risen. And knowing that alone is enough for me to know that I need to stop and reset myself. Or rather, I need to let the Spirit reset me, to make sure that there is the space and time and stillness to here that joyful proclamation. There is great joy in preparing for marriage, in the sympathetic play, in the partnering, and in looking toward hopeful goals for our future together, but even that is nothing compared to the joy of knowing the Lord is risen, and that He has plans for me. "For I know well the plans I have in mind for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare, not for woe! plans to give you a future full of hope."

I do not ever want any relationship in my life to come between me and the Lord, and I know myself well enought to know that I can easily allow that to happen. If I cannot hear that voice, it is not because he has stopped proclaiming, but because I am not listening. So I need to reset, to reach out to God and spend time with Him. I want to live in that moment again, in the sudden realization that everything He said He would do has already been done. He has won every victory, overcome every snare of the enemy, and rescued us from all danger. I want to live in the gratitude and confidence that that knowledge brings. Most of all, I want to be able to hear that voice within me, feel the vibration of that voice against every fiber in me and have the joy that the spirit brings.

Easter Tridium

Alter Servers leading the crowd on the procession through the streets of Manchester

Easter at Ste. Marie is a big deal. Every year we follow the same schedule of events, beginning with the Holy Thursday mass, which ends with a procession through the west side of Manchester from Ste. Marie to Sacred Heart. I think of it as a Catholic version of Take Back the Night. Bill and I sit in a truck with speakers and a sound system on the back and sing songs, while the entire church follows us, carrying candles and singing along. The alter boys lead the way with a crucifix and incense. The celebrant walks in the middle of the crowd, carrying the Eucharist. The procession is so large, it requires 3 police cars and 2 mounted police officers to organize traffic around us.

The neighborhoods we process through aren't the best in Manchester, and every year as we go through them, I look at every house and pray for the people inside, praying that as Christ passes by, He might make their lives more holy and that through Him they might be healed of the anger or sorrow or addiction which seems so prevelant on this side of town. There was one anonymous man who screamed "Shut UP!" repeatedly as we passed by, but most people came to their windows or stoops to watch quietly. A few years ago, a woman driving by in a car called out "Bless you, Father Marc," so loudly that she could be heard above everything else. Being in the truck, I'm also keenly aware of how visible I am. Someone I know from work might drive by to see this (to the secular eye) bizarre parade and see me at its head and decide that I'm "one of those" people, a fanatic. So I every year forces me to examine ways in which I am ashamed or embarassed to be a Catholic and reconcile myself to God for these things.

On Good Friday, Bill and I are in the truck again as we lead another procession through Mt. Calvery. The youth group kids present the Living Stations at various points along the way, and the priests pray with the crowd at every stop. This year was the first year in a while in which Easter is late enough for the snow to be gone from the cemetary and it isn't raining. I actually got a little bit of a sunburn, my first of the year.

Tonight is the Vigil, a three hour event with many readings, blessings, the baptism and confirmation of the RCIA candidates, and the celebration of Christ's rising. It starts at 8pm, and Matt and I were planning on going out to dinner with friends afterward. Hope to see you there!

Meet Mr. and Mrs. Cranky Pants

Just so you don't think that it's all hearts and flowers in the soon-to-be Vigneau household, here's how Tuesday night went: I got home from work and dropped off my things. Matt picked me up and we headed to our NFP appointment for 6:30, but we were running late because I was a little pre-occupied with the new toy I bought.

I am the proud new owner of an iPod Touch.

I've been wanting one of these ever since they came out, and when Matt's brother got me a deal on an 8G one for $150, I said yes and picked it up from him on Monday night. I was up until around 1 am that night playing with it, and then I was up again Tuesday at about 5:30 am playing with it some more. I don't have wireless at work, so I wasn't able to play with downloading apps until I got home again.

So after we got back from NFP we had a few projects to work on, the main one being the programs for the wedding. Matt had been working on them for a week, and I'm going to preface this by saying that they turned about beautifully, and I think they're a little funky and very cool. But Matt and I have very different aesthetics when it comes to print design. He likes a lot of rugged, distressed, and more modern fonts. He likes mixing many different font styles on the same page. He doesn't like nearly as much empty space as I do. I like spare and clean design, no more than two fonts, lots of white space and repetition of images or themes.

So when you have two people working on the same desktop publishing item, and those people disagree about the basic elements of style they want to use on said item, you are bound to find them butting heads. Repeatedly. It started off mostly okay. He had chosen a font on the inside which is more classical and less twisty and curly than he usually goes with, and I knew that was for my benefit and in an effort to please me. He had downloaded a background image of blue hydrangeas to go with the flowers the girls would be carrying. And he had used the quote from scripture which I suggested, even though it was one he wasn't thrilled will. But. Since Matt had been the one to do most of the heavy lifting on this project, he was less open to feedback on it than he normally is on things like this. And since I was pre-occupied with the touch, turning to play with it whenever I thought he was going to be working on it for a few minutes, tempers got a little hot and we both got a little snappy.

"Babe. What do you think of this?"

(glancing up from the iPod, my finger still tracing a pattern on the touch screen) "Um, it's good. It's a little close to the edge on the top, isn't it?"

"I don't think so, see how it's all evenly distributed?"

"Yeah, but it's still too close to the top."

A few minutes pass, and then, "I need the list of songs. That's you."

"Yep," I say, and pluck a wrinkled and torn scrap of paper from the drawer in the end table by the couch. "Here you go. I'll get you the songwriters in a minute."

I got to my laptop and begin Googling. "'Hail Mary Gentle Woman' is by Carey Landry. That's C-A-R-E-Y L-A-N-D-R-Y. And 'Sing Alleluia' is for closing. That was written by --"

"--How do you spell 'Alleluia'?"

"A-L-L-E-L-U-L-I-A."

"Spellcheck says that's wrong."

"Spellcheck's stupid. It's A-L-L-E-L-U-L-I-A."

"Are you sure? I don't think that last 'L' is right."

A little testier now, "I'm sure, that's the way it's spelled. The last 'L' is..." Pause as I review in my head what I spelled out loud. Crap. "Oh, wait. That's wrong. You're right, it's A-L-L-E-L-U-I-A. Sorry."

And so it went on all night. I looked up the writer of "Sing Alleluia" and the first couple references I found listed Jennifer Knapp, so I told him to put down her, but then I thought that might be wrong so kept searching and found the correct writers, and their names took up way more room and threw off his design. He asked me if I thought the words along the side could be read, and got annoyed when I said that they couldn't be. I started playing a game that required headphones and didn't hear him when he told me it was ready to test print. When I did print, it was printing very slowly, and he asked in frustration, "Did you print it in black and white?"

"I chose 'draft.'"

Big sigh.

"What? I thought 'draft' was black and white."

Finally at 11 o'clock, it was finished. Well, there are a few picky details still left to fix, like a missed hyphen on one, and I realized yesterday that we didn't include the names of the readers. So maybe it was more like, we were finished. We went into my room, sat down on the bed, and talked. We talked about why we were each so testy, and how we could have handled things differently. We talked about our perception of things, why we reacted to each other the way we did. We talked about what we would do the next time things started falling apart the way we did. And we prayed together for more patience, more consideration, and more gentleness with each other.

Not our first fight as a couple. But our first fight about really stupid things. Is it weird that I feel a sense of accomplishment to get past that marker?

Update on the dress

Last night I went to the bridal shop and met with the store owner about my dress. I am sort of semi-satisfied with the solution. As soon as I got there, she told me that she has already ordered a new dress and is having it rush shipped, and it should be here in two weeks. She ordered it two sizes larger, so that we don't have to worry about the seam allowances being clipped, and I am of course not paying for any of this.

BUT she absolutely didn't take any responsibility for the screw up, and when she measured me she deliberately made the tape measure ridiculously slack around the bust and measured my waist about 2 inches above the natural waist so that she wouldn't have to admit that they screwed up the measurements. I thought about it protesting this, but ultimately it would have come down to me telling her she was measuring wrong and her saying no no, this was right. No good. So while I'm glad the dress will be corrected, I'm not happy with the attitude it was done with.

This weekend Matt and I unexpectedly wound up taking care of my niece and nephew on Sunday night, because my brother and sister-in-law had miscommunicated about each other's schedules. Before Joanne went out, Zack was talking with us about the wedding, and he was so adorable! First he was asking me about wearing a big dress, and then Joanne was saying that he has a special outfit, too. Then he turned to Joanne and said "Mommy, when can I get married?" Joanne said not for a long time, "Not until you're 25."

Then he asked "Who can I marry?" and Joanne said she didn't know, he may not know them yet. That looked like it scared him, and he thought about it some more. "Um, Mommy, you're a girl. I can marry you?"

"Well Zacky," Joanne said, "You don't marry someone who's in your family. You marry someone who is your best friend." Zack thought for a moment and then his face broke into a huge smile. "I can marry Ireland!"

Matt and I were looking at each other and grinning stupid grins. I remember having that conversation with my mom when I was young, about marrying my best friend. When I was a teenager, that seemed kind of boring. My best male friends were definitely strictly platonic - no attraction at all - and the guys I was interested in weren't necessarily ones with whom I could picture just hanging out with on a weekend, playing games, reading books, or watching TV. And while I knew in my head that I should marry someone with whom I was good friends, I couldn't seem to get the two pieces of romance and friendship to line up in anyone I met. Even in college, when things came closer to the mark, it seemed like the dating experiences I had were only glancing blows against this ideal - I might find someone I was attracted to that I could hang out with and play with, but our interests were so divergent that we ran out of things to talk about soon. And I had friendships that I tried to pursuade myself should be something more, but I couldn't seem to find the attraction, that desire to be snuggled up and close that I knew was also necessary.

Now, Matt's company is what I prefer above almost everything. I can't wait to tell him what's going on in my day, good or bad. I want to know what he thinks about everything (well, almost everything). I want to share all kinds of experiences with him, and I really and truly cannot wait for the day when we are in the same house. Coming home to him, waking up and telling him right away about this crazy dream I had before it fades, working together to clean the apartment, going on vacation together, I am looking forward to these things so much. Yes, the desire and romance is part of it, but if one were to weigh that on a scale which measured what I'm looking forward to, more and more it seems that the friendship, the partnership that comes from living in the same house and taking on everything from family crisis to bills to dinnertime as a team is carrying equal or even more of the weight.

32 more days.