Carebear Countdown

(Source)

Well. Today is September 1st. My wedding is in ten days. The last few days have been a bit of a rollercoaster, emotionally, physically, and mentally. I had a to-do list a mile long that I managed to zoom through in a couple of days, and thankfully now there are just a few small things left. I have wonderful family and friends who have been so amazingly helpful, there just aren't enough words to say thank you to them. I'm getting all choked up thinking about it. 

Where to begin. Our fridge broke. It's two years old, top of the line GE Profile. Lovely. Upon inspection, a crack with scorch marks around it was found in the back of the freezer. Sears wasn't very obliging in helping until I had paid $300 to fix the control panel. Next I get to battle with them to replace the whole stupid fire hazard. This wouldn't be such a huge ordeal if I hadn't planned on making my homemade caramel this week which needs to be refrigerated. Thankfully we have a fridge downstairs (which was a dented special and hasn't given me a lick of trouble), but since it's holding all our groceries, I can hardly fill it with caramel jars. You can imagine the calls to Sears in which I tried being nice, I tried being mean, and ultimately ended up bawling my eyes out to some poor customer service lady while repeating "I'm sorry! I don't mean to be emotional, but I have to make 150 jars of caramel and put them in the fridge!!! Please just send the part and the technician!!!!" Talk about embarrassing. In any case, the fridge is fixed and is humming away cooling down and tomorrow I'll be making caramel. 

Thankfully I've been working diligently over the past 14 months getting everything done as early as possible, which means right now I don't have that much to do. Shhhh don't tell!! Even the items I had crossed off mentally as not having enough time for I've managed to get done! Yay! However, since I can now slow down and breathe, my body has been deciding how to react to this. For a few days I just felt sick. Sick sick sick. Couldn't eat. Couldn't sleep. Too hot. Too cold. Ugh. Apparently I'm allergic to relaxing. I seem to have gotten through the worst of it and am now acclimatizing to my new found friend: time.

Another big thing off the list that was totally stressing me out is our Winnebago. Dan and I got engaged at the beginning of a trip to the East coast in which we decided it would be a great idea to drive a 1973 Winnebago to the other side of the country. Vehicles that old that have been ill-maintained don't fare well on a journey that long just to give you a heads up. Right. Read the blog for the full story ;)  In any case, it was an amazing trip for so many reasons and we love our Winnie. We wanted to make sure The Colonel made it to the wedding after so many of our guests both helped us get her ready for the trip and heard all our stories afterward. The Colonel has been parked out in the country in a parking lot since last Fall so we weren't sure how she'd fare when we tried to start her up. 

(Personal Photo - The Colonel alive and kicking! Hooray!!!!)

Thankfully the worst problem was a flat tire which a willing set of hands helped us pump back up. Dan managed to get The Colonel rolling and we got her home! YAY!!!! I'm not going to reveal all the plans for her just yet because I want to save some surprises for you. 

Here's the lesson of the day that I learned from the Winnebago: Take a break, step away from the wedding planning every now and then. The Colonel was parked about an hour and a half from our house. I was really stressed out and I wanted to send Dan alone so I could work on wedding things at home. I felt guilty sending him to do all that work himself, so we loaded into the car and headed out. When we got there, a few classic cars pulled into the same parking lot. Then a few more, and a few more. Soon enough there were probably over 100 gorgeous classic cars in the lot for a car show! A dj set up and started playing some rockin' oldies, a chip truck with pulled pork, fish and chips, and all other sorts of goodies was doling out some awesome food. Oh my gosh it was amazing! I knew Dan still had things to do at home, and goodness knows I did too, but we took about half an hour to grab some food, enjoy the music and chat with some of the car owners before heading home. The entire drive home I had a huge smile on my face. It turned out to be an awesome surprise date afternoon. What I needed more than anything was to just walk away from "The Wedding" for a few hours and hit the reset button, I just didn't know it. It's so easy to get wrapped up in every tiny detail, stress about finding wooden toys for kids boutonnieres or getting silly rattan suitcases from that cool Chinese shop in the city. You know what? If those things aren't there, it doesn't matter. No one will know, only you. And really, there's going to be so much else going on, you're not even going to notice! I got my toys, I got my suitcases, but I also got some quality down time with my fiance and that is worth more than anything else. 

So brides. Take a breath. Close the laptop. Grab your fiance and go for a walk. Get an ice cream cone. Enjoy being together and being engaged. You deserve it.