Oh. My. Goodness.
Since when did life get so crazy? Has it always been like this? Or is it the fact that the wedding is 18 days away and therefore makes everything else just completely insane?
I feel pretty bad about neglecting to write even the smallest update over the last few weeks. It has been hard enough to find time to make it upstairs to my office to find my credit card bill, let alone sit down and form coherent blog!thoughts. So here’s a couple brief recaps.
My new job: I really love my new job at the bank. The hours are great, the stress is virtually nil, and at the end of the day I get to come home and cook dinner for Better Half. The people are nice and helpful and I actually came back from our recent mini vacation wanting to go back to work.
Mumford & Sons at Red Rocks: Have you seen the music video for M&S’s new song “I Will Wait?” Yep, I’m in that, somewhere. My brother and I got to go to Red Rocks and see them live which was a blast. I am so excited for the new album to come out.
My Manuscript and The Agent: Still nothing back from the agent who is perusing my manuscript. I’m inside the window now, which means I panic every time I open my email. Hoping it will be this week.
Longs Peak Scottish-Irish Highland Festival: The crowning festival of the summer season here in Estes Park. I believe it’s the largest Scot/Irish Fest in the country. For an entire weekend hundreds (if not thousands) of Scots and Scot/Irish enthusiasts flock to Estes to celebrate. Which is awesome for me, because I happen to love a man in a kilt. I’m also Scottish on my mother’s side and will be by marriage, so it’s pretty cool to have a bit of my own cultural heritage right here in my town. There’s a massive parade with pipe bands and clans and dogs and dancing girls and it’s just a lot of fun. I even got Better Half to wear his kilt. At the end of the festival I was pretty sunburnt, but I did have a good time.
Trip to NYC: Last weekend we got to go on a trip to New York. Unfortunately, the reason we went is because we had to go to Better Half’s mother’s funeral. She passed in March but several of his family members were in Europe during the spring and summer so this was the first opportunity the family had to all be there together. However, we did get to spend two nights in New York City, where I had never been despite living in Syracuse when I was a kid. That was pretty exciting. Better Half’s cousin took us out to the Seaport and we got to see the harbor and the Freedom Tower. We also got to scoot north to western Massachusetts and see some family of mine that I haven’t seen in years (and most of whom are not able to come to the wedding), so that was really nice. We spent the rest of the time in Wurtsboro which is near Monticello, and is where Better Half grew up. The funeral was there and afterward we had a get together with all his family (most of whom are also not coming to the wedding) so it was nice to be able to meet his other side of the family. It’s really beautiful country up there and sometimes I miss it, but I was definitely eager to get back to my mountains. The pace of the city is crazy! Give me my mountain quiet any day.
The wedding: Oh, right. The wedding. Is there a term for the bride who is the opposite of the bridezilla? Apathetic Bride? Not quite the same ring, is it. Anyway, I am definitely feeling the wedding stress. At this point I’m willing to just crawl under a rock until the day comes because it seems like every day there is something else that needs to be fixed or changed or figured out. A couple of weeks ago we received the estimate for the cost of the reception rentals (tent, tables, chairs, the lot) and it along with the food doubled our budget. My parents are gracefully paying for this thing and I was not willing to let them do that, so back to the drawing board it was. We had planned to have the reception on the ranch right after the ceremony, thinking it would save money by not having to rent a venue, but we were dead wrong. So we eventually found a place that happens to be right down the road from the ceremony site that is way cheaper. On top of all that I feel like there’s a huge laundry list of things that still need to be done–probably bigger in my head I know–but in the end I’m just ready for this day to be here and have it over with. A lot of times I think it might have been easier to just elope or go to the courthouse. I love Better Half and I know that nothing is going to change once we get married so there’s no real sense in being this stressed out about a single day in our lives. But, ah well. I know it will be great once it gets here. Everyone keeps asking me if I’m excited yet and I don’t actually feel excited. I just hope it’ll hit soon because I want to be excited.
In any case, that’s about it for now. This weekend I’m going to Santa Fe for a rensaissance festival, which I’m really stoked for. I’ve missed the last 2 years of this wonderful event so I’m really glad my schedule worked out for it this year. It’ll be nice to have a chance to blow off some wedding steam for the weekend.
Till then!
Two Lattes and One Bean 