Currents

Posted on March 7, 2013 by elizabeth

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Can you believe Daylight Savings is this week? I took this photo from the parking deck on Monday as I was leaving work, just to compare with next week’s sun at that time. I am not a creature of winter, and I can’t tell you enough how excited I am to have the sunshine back in just a few days. (Even if it is snowing outside as I type this.)

I have been feeling a little bit lately like I imagined our wedding. Real, everyday life has been so … normal lately, with its normal stresses and our normal weekday routines, and I already don’t notice that it’s weird to be wearing two rings instead of one. (The name thing reminds me, of course.) It was only a little over a month ago, but it seems like ages.

But the awesome thing is that we’re going on a mini honeymoon this weekend, and both Dan and I are very much looking forward to a few days away together. (We are still going on a real honeymoon, but we can’t do that until the middle of June, so this weekend away feels like such a bonus.) So after another hour, I’ll pick up sandwiches and we’ll be on the road, driving away from this weird wintry March weather and toward some history, museums, astronaut ice cream, fresh air, and relaxation. Together.

Project Life: Weeks Four, Five and Six

Posted on March 5, 2013 by elizabeth

The end of January and beginning of February was full of big events and yet almost nothing compared to the first few weeks of 2013. It took me a while to put these pages together, but my method of keeping a notebook with each week’s spread planned, as well as getting the photos printed at home (or at least organized into my week by week folders on my laptop) relatively soon after the week itself, seems to be making it pretty easy to catch up quickly.

Week Four was our first week as a married couple, and it has lots of journaling, which I know I’ll be glad for one day.

I took that picture of Dan in the lobby of the hotel while we were waiting for my family to help us load the car, and it will forever be one of my favorites. His face conveys the blissed-out but completely exhausted feeling of the Day After SO perfectly. I also had to get a shot of our first married dinner of burritos.

The right side featured lots more journaling, of Dan’s sister’s 30th birthday party (an 80s party), dinner with my parents, and more. It was crazy how cold it got, and the frosty windshield picture feels that cold. The quote is a lyric from our first dance song, “Just You & Me”.

Week Five felt a little more normal, a little more routine, even as we still had to get used to living normal lives so soon after such a big day.

I included a few photos I took for my 52 weeks of no color project, and I really like how the black and white balances out the pops of color. Otherwise, a story of Dan’s wedding ring and a busy week at work.

I really loved Ali Edwards’s plan for a Day in the Life once each month in 2013, and jumped on the chance to follow along on the last day of January. I used her 6×12 template to fill in the details of the day. (I think 6×12 inserts might be my favorite ones.)

On the back of the insert, I collaged the photos I took that day with both my phone and my real camera. Notable ones include lunch at the dining hall, the crazy self portrait I took to document how windy it was, and the totally bundled up on the couch shot that Dan took. I set the whole insert up as a 12×12 page in Photoshop Elements, and ordered it from Persnickety Prints. I was so amazed at how quickly the print arrived.

The right side has lots of brightly colored fun bits from a really fun weekend. On Friday night, we went to two back to back laser light shows at the local planetarium, which was AWESOME. Sunday was the Super Bowl, which we watched with Dan’s brother and his girlfriend. And Bluecat and Penny. Who cooperated quite nicely for photos for my book.

Most of what I remember from Week Six was trying to take more photos during the day (hence the top to photos on the left page), and the hullabaloo about this snowstorm that hit our area.

The biggest thing was that some forecasts predicted 20 inches of snow, and others predicted 3-6, and people were going nuts. I was going equally nuts, because we had big events at work during the storm. I’m glad I got the screenshot of the dueling forecasts, for sure. The other big thing was the start of the Name Change Process. It was a big day, and one that had to be documented for posterity. I saved my old license, and love how it looks against the striped paper. (I also have loved that license photo since it was taken when I turned 25, and have been recycling it each time my license renewed since then. I wasn’t allowed to this time, and my new photo is HORRENDOUS.) (See again: why Project Life is so great: a logical and perfectly perfect place to keep my old driver’s license. Because I was keeping it whether I had this scrapbook or not, and I adore the fact that it now has a home.)

Saturday of this week was one of the first lazy, totally free Saturdays we’ve had since last summer. The combination of wedding plans, family stuff, and holidays meant that Dan and I didn’t have one single weekend day that was just for us for months straight. So thanks to the snow (which, okay, we got six inches and it was mostly blown away by the time we were up and about) we stayed in most of the day. Dan played his game (and let me take a photo of him doing so), we got Sonic for dinner, we spotted my dad on TV, I crocheted until I realized how badly I’d messed up… and it was pretty spectacular.

I just adore this project.

Currents

Posted on March 1, 2013 by elizabeth

Happy March, dudes! I love the start of a new month, and let’s just say tearing off 4ft by 3ft calendar page to turn to the new month is pretty emphatic. I took those last two photos of the tree outside our apartment, on the last morning of February and the first morning of March. I know March is supposed to come in like a lion, but the sky has been (mostly) blue, and the weather is (mostly) warmer and after the coldest winter in years, I’ll take all I can get. Bring on spring, bring on daylight savings, bring on sunshine.

Here’s a list of things that have been really awesome in the past few weeks:

how light it is when I leave work
the AMAZING quilt that Eleanor and Liz made for us as a wedding gift. I mean, it’s got tiny old timey baseball dude fabric!
nights when Dan works late and I have living alone flashbacks
the night AFTER Dan’s late nights are over, and I actually get to hang out with him again instead of attempting in vain to stay awake until he gets home at 11:30.
planning and imagining big picture stuff for the next few months

I have been working long(er) hours to tackle an intense project that I haven’t been able to get to since I started this job in September, and it’s really satisfying to be making progress. After a few days of feeling gross, I decided to make some changes in my (awful) eating habits. I make these resolutions every few months and never stick with them, but I’m really tired of feeling this way, so my intention is to mean it this time. My name change is 95% official, which is crazy, and yet each time I sign my new last name, it’s a little easier. We finally made plans for a very-mini-honeymoon next weekend, and we’re both SO excited. I ordered some insanely red sneakers to wear for the days of walking, and Dan’s both horrified by them and sort of resigned to the fact that he did marry the kind of girl who would always choose bright red sneakers with aqua accents over a more standard gray or black.

I’m trying to read more, which was tough there for a little while, because although Cloud Atlas has been on my “to read” list since 2003 when I worked at Borders, and a million people whose opinions I respect LOVED the book, the first two chapters just really didn’t grab me. And when a book doesn’t grab me quickly enough, I just don’t read it. But I don’t pick anything else up, either, because giving up on books is just not something I do lightly. But I stuck it out and am now hooked (but reservedly so; ten years of hype is kind of a lot), so time to read is definitely on my list for the weekend. Also on the list: catching up on Project Life, working on the scarf Dan asked me to make for him (I can’t tell you how much I HATE changing colors when I’m knitting. I know it’s easy but ugh. Or, I should have made the stripes smaller so I could carry the yarn up the side), and hopefully getting to see Dan’s nephew (although I’m realizing that he’s actually our nephew now, isn’t he?).

I leave you with this video of the song I walked down the aisle to, “Specks” by Matt Pond, because his new album came out in early February and I know you mostly tend to love new albums from your favorite band ever ever, but the new album is just SO good. Even if there aren’t any good youtube videos from it yet.

On Name Change

Posted on February 20, 2013 by elizabeth

I always planned to change my name when I got married. It’s what everyone in my family before me has done, and the idea of getting to have an entirely new name at some point in my life seemed exciting. Before I knew who I would marry, I wondered sometimes about what kind of name I’d have, whether it would be long or short, common like my maiden name, or maybe a little more unique. With a last name beginning with T, I often sat in the back of classrooms in school. Not that I’ll ever have a chance to be seated in a large classroom arranged alphabetically, but the idea that I could move to the front or middle of the metaphorical classroom always seemed exciting.

It’s hard to write about this whole business, and I have been hesitant to put it all out there. Whether or not you change your name when you get married is such a personal thing, and all kinds of things have an impact on how people feel about it – how old you are, what your relationship with your parents is, how easy (or difficult) the new or old name is to spell or pronounce, heritage, sense of self…. I know people who have kept their names, changed their names, and hyphenated. I really understand the reasoning behind all of those choices. I’m hoping I can explain how I feel about my choice in a thoughtful way, with the understanding that this is, of course, my choice. The other options (which were all things I really seriously considered) make so much sense to me, too.

I loved my last name growing up. I liked being at the end of the alphabet. I adored people who called me ET. And yes, I was also pretty jazzed to be able to claim “elizabetht” on so many social networks. My maiden name is very common; it’s nearly impossible to google me. I get SO much email that isn’t meant for me, but for other Elizabeth Ts. I’m close with my family. Hell, this has been my name for 31 and a half years. I’m really attached to it. It has been very hard to wrap my head around the idea that Elizabeth T__ won’t be my name. (Even though, of course I’ll always be Elizabeth T__, and ET, and elizabetht. My family is still my family, even if we don’t have the same name.)

But I also love Dan, and if I can say so, his last name is pretty great. And the notion that in getting married, Dan and I are creating our own new baby family is one that is extremely meaningful to me. I love the idea of sharing a name with him, of being the d__ Family, established 2013.

It was never really that I didn’t want to take his name, but more that letting go of my old one made me really sad in a way that surprised me. I very seriously considered the idea of taking my maiden name as my middle name after getting married. (Not that I don’t like my middle name, but you know.) However, research told me that you can’t actually do this in New Jersey without going through the legal name change process, meaning court fees, court appearances, and newspaper ads, separate from the marriage name change process. That isn’t to say that the hassle of the bureaucracy changed my mind… but more that my first-maiden-new last would make for quite a mouthful. And I have never been one to use my middle name or even my middle initial anywhere, so why would I go through all that rigamarole to then… not use it on any documents, forms, resumes, business cards, websites, etc? It just didn’t make sense. And although my mother and grandmother both adopted their maiden names as middle names (which was half of the reason that I wanted to do so as well), their maiden names were lovely short names, not the 8 letter one I was thinking to add to my 9 letter first name and 7 letter new last name. (Yes, I count letters. Are you that surprised?)

So in the end, I decided to take Dan’s last name. I like the idea of the two of us sharing a name, of our future children sharing it as well. I like the idea of not having such a common name, but one that’s extremely pun-inspiring. And I adore it when he refers to me as Mrs. d__. But the night before I planned to go to the Social Security office and the DMV, there I was, crying big, fat tears. “I know who Elizabeth T__ is. I have no idea who Elizabeth d__ is.” It sounds silly, but somehow, the thought of not being ME anymore (who am I if my name isn’t the same) was just too much. Dan, ever kind and understanding, said “but you don’t have to change your name. You’ll always be the Elizabeth I love most, no matter what last name you have.” (Which made me cry more. Which just confused him.)

I suppose I needed to cry a little, to acknowledge the Change. The idea that I’m someone’s wife, and my name shows that. (And okay, I cried again this week as I systematically eliminated traces of Elizabeth T__ at places like the electric company and on my student loan account.)

I’m rambling, as ever… but as much as I love Dan and my new name (and it’s now almost entirely official), it’s quite weird. I like the idea of a fresh start, and something about a new name makes me feel like things are just starting, throw all your bad habits out the window, that was what the old Elizabeth did. But … what do I do with all of these places where I’m elizabetht? (flickr, twitter, listography, you know, EVERYWHERE). (I already checked; shelikesstripes is taken on twitter, jerks. Has anyone out there ever tried to convince someone to relinquish their twitter name? ha) I think too much, that much is clear. But it’s just weird. Exciting and crazy and oh GOD you should see how bad my new driver’s license photo is… and different and new and pretty great despite the tears.

Project Life: Documenting the Wedding

Posted on February 18, 2013 by elizabeth

I wasn’t sure how to approach documenting our wedding in Project Life. I tend to think of Project Life as our whole lives, and there are so many events (like vacations, or ahem, a wedding) that could be (and probably should be) documented more thoroughly with another method. So I guess I’d say that my arbitrary rule about Project Life is to try to avoid overloading it with too much of any one thing. The wedding wasn’t just a weekend away or a fun party (although it was both of those things, really), it’s a Huge Life Event and obviously needed to be treated as such. However, because we had mostly “normal” days before and after, I really like how things came together in the album as a whole – because yes, there’s a lot of wedding, but you turn the page and it’s back to work. And that’s what our actual LIVES were like, so it makes a lot of sense to me.

There were SO MANY things I could have included in Project Life related to the wedding. SO VERY MANY. And they’re all important and noteworthy and worth saving…. but I had to draw the line somewhere. Could I have included other things, like the sign that the brewery put on the door saying that they were closed for a private event (because of course my parents swiped that on his way out!), or the inserts from our gift bags at the hotel, or a picture of those, or pictures of our families…. yes, of course. So many things. But I sort of wanted this to feature the highlights. (The things that didn’t make the cut are happily stored in our wedding box, a big hat box that my mom gave me when we got engaged. So the bundle of cards and rsvp cards and my veil and the official Event Planning Sheet from the brewery and our candles are all stored safely for posterity, don’t worry.)

The other executive decision I made was to include photos taken by our friends and family, rather than the professional photos. For one, we only have about ten preview photos from the professional photographers, and I really didn’t want to wait a few months to get the wedding documented in the album. Two, several friends posted some fantastic photos on facebook and flickr, and my dad took a ton of really great photos (as well as a bunch taken by my uncle using my dad’s camera) – and since these were the first photos that we saw, we’re really sentimental about them. (I’m thinking to make a big, thick bound photo book from shutterfly or blurb or snapfish or somewhere using the professional photos down the line.)

So here we go! (Click through to flickr to see bigger versions of these photos for more detail.)

The first batch of photos – our first look, walking down the aisle, sheer joy just after the ceremony ended, the bridal party, entering the reception (photo stole from Jodi), and me and my amazing Grandmother (I look all weird because I’d just cried like a fool while dancing with my father to Wildflowers by Tom Petty.)

I then used an 8.5×11 insert. The front side included our invitation and reception card, as well as the beloved black and white striped ribbon that was on my bouquet, the boutonnieres, and the centerpieces. We had a very small bit left over and it was such an integral part of the wedding look that I had to include it. The back of this insert included our save the date, a blank rsvp card and stamped rsvp envelope, the outer envelope that the calligrapher (Rachel Carl, who was amazing) addressed to us (yes, we actually mailed an invitation to ourselves. So I could put it in the album, duh.)

Next, I cut down a 6×12 insert (and sealed it with washi tape, because I still don’t have a sewing machine) and slid our wedding ceremony program in. I made these in Photoshop and printed them on cardstock, and was so proud of how they turned out.

This insert is probably my favorite ever. Dan and I wrote our own vows, and it was one of the most meaningful parts of the entire wedding. I was a little skeptical about writing our own vows – would we be able to convey the true importance in our own words? Would I be able to talk at ALL in order to say them? – but Dan was really set on writing our own, and I felt a little bit like (a) I had to see what he would say, since he’s not the kind of guy who gushes about his feelings super often and (b) it forced me just a bit outside my comfort zone, and that’s part of why I love Dan in the first place. We saved our real life wedding day copies of our vows (mine printed on a Project Life 4×6 grid card, his written on a torn out piece of paper from my wedding notebook the night before the wedding). I very carefully taped them together with washi tape and slid them into a landscape 8.5×11 insert, so you could see both sides of each set of vows.

This insert is so simple but probably a tie for my favorite, more because of how glad I’m going to be that I made myself do it in five, ten, fifteen years. In the week or so after the wedding, whenever I had down time, I worked on typing out the story of our wedding day in a Word document. As many details as I could remember. I wanted to write it all out as quickly as I could, before details that were so clear faded into fuzzy glowy happiness. I wanted to do this even more because so many people told us how much of a blur the wedding day was… I know that it won’t always be this clear in my head. I started with when I woke up, and ended with the end of the reception, just after the last song. It was 7 pages, almost 5,400 words total. I shrunk it to 9 point font so it fit onto four pages, and used two 8.5×11 inserts to hold those pages. I know I’m already missing details, and I don’t know what else I’ll do with that massive story other than have it here to read again whenever I need a jolt of happy, but I’m already glad that I wrote it all out.

And finally, the second page of photos from the reception. Featuring a photo of our first dance (stolen from Eleanor & Liz), a photo of the flickr people (using Cynthia’s fisheye, stolen from Summer), a photo of us cheesin’ about our wedding converse, our best man and matron of honor giving their speeches, views of us and the crowd from the balcony (I really, really love that one on the bottom right), and a screenshot after we made our marriage “facebook official”, mostly because of that insanely cheesetastic photo of me in pink plaid making my idiotic face, that seems to haunt me on facebook no matter what I do.

Five inserts is probably a record for any given spread for me so far, especially considering the spread is only for one day, rather than a week but… I am pretty freaking jazzed about it. And this is exactly the kind of thing that will make Project Life that much more worth it later.

Project Life 2013: the beginning

Posted on February 11, 2013 by elizabeth

I got to a bit of a delayed start with Project Life in 2013, although not for a lack of inspiration. I took Studio Calico’s Day by Day class to keep the ideas flowing while I waited impatiently to be able to order the Seafoam core kit and binders. There was also that whole wedding thing that sort of demanded my free time up until the 20th, too. But this past week, I was finally able to start creating the pages for this year so far, and I still love it so much.

A few differences this year: I’m trying to include more photos that weren’t taken with my phone, and for the first part of the year, I’m using Photoshop Elements to add text to create a title card for each week. I stuck with the 3×4 Week in Review cards, despite them being sort of tedious at times, because I like the completeness of being able to add a bullet point about something that may not be documented otherwise. I am also using 3×4 calendar cards each week from Splendid Fiins, which I really love so far. (Although I better keep loving them, because printing the year’s worth on card stock was one of the projects I did before I had the rest of my supplies!) I also decided to start my weeks on Mondays rather than Sundays, to keep the weekends together. I’m aiming to stay as caught up as possible now that the bustle of the wedding is behind us, but we’ll see how that goes as the year progresses.

I kept the cover page simple and I’m really happy with how it turned out. I bought the glittery paper, striped paper, and polka dot paper at Hobby Lobby before I got the seafoam kit, and the badges are all from Ormolu.

The left side of week one. I took a pretty decent number of photos that week, but diving into the Seafoam kit was great, too.

The right side of week one. We did a lot of wedding-related things that week, including a final visit to the brewery to set up table arrangements.

Week two, left side. This side ended up being a lot of almost black and white photos, as well as simple journaling and the text from this blog post.

Week two, right side. The top left slot is an awkwardly-cut down envelope containing the photos from my hair and makeup trial… which by the time I made this page, didn’t need to be kept secret. Oh well. I also included some progress photos from the wedding plans, and the front of one of the cards my sister got customized as thank you notes for my shower.

Week three, left side. This was the week of the wedding, but as you can imagine, there was a LOT to document from Monday through Saturday. I made the decision to keep this spread just for those days, with a new spread and a ton of inserts for the wedding itself. I think it worked out very well. I again included the text from that last pre-wedding blog post, since it really captured how I was feeling that week.

Week three, right side. Would you believe that I don’t have a single photo from our rehearsal dinner? I have no idea how that happened… so I journaled and cut the invitation down for the bottom two 4×6 slots instead.

So that’s the start! Next up: a post to show you all of the wedding inserts I made that I’m so jazzed about, and hopefully getting into a new routine now that life seems to be settling into a new (married!) normal 🙂

Sneak Peek!

Posted on February 1, 2013 by elizabeth

Guys. I am SO excited to share these photos with you. Our wedding photographers were Liesl and Randy from Photo Pink, and they were so amazing to work with. They kept us calm, took the stress out of getting the portraits we wanted, and just made everything so easy. We didn’t have to miss our cocktail hour, we didn’t tie up the bridal party half the day, and if these sneak peeks are any indication, they took some truly fantastic photos. I was so surprised to get some sneak peeks so soon, and I’m so, so jazzed already.

our first look

the whole bridal party – don’t they all look so awesome here?

just married!

outside the brewery

black chucks for him (a surprise – I had no idea he had this planned!) and glitter for me

they handed out tiny beers during the cocktail hour

our first dance, to “Just You & Me” by Chicago 🙂

one of the photos Liesl took along the railing, looking down on our loved ones. One of our favorite moments of the day. (also: bokeh!)

I secretly wanted to use a photo like this for our save the dates, so I’m SO glad Liesl got this one.

seriously. LOVE.

(All photos in this post were taken by Liesl and Randy from Photo Pink.)

Wedding Wednesday: Just Married!!

Posted on January 23, 2013 by elizabeth

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photo by jodi mckee

So um, guys? We’re MARRIED. And I have to say that it was the happiest, most love- and joy-filled day either of us has ever experienced. I don’t know if I’ve ever smiled so big or felt so happy, ever. Everyone said the day would fly by, and that we should remember to breathe and stay in the moment, because we’d forget it all so quickly… but neither Dan nor I felt that way on Sunday. The day felt long and full and slow and so very clear. And everything went so smoothly from start to finish. Maybe that eerie calm I felt leading up to the wedding was my heart’s subconscious way of moderating my bad habit of setting expectations so high that I’ll only end up disappointed… because even though I know I’m sounding gushy, I don’t care, but things went BETTER than I could ever have expected. I mean, we thought the ceremony would be meaningful, and that our vows would be personal, and that a brewery reception would be cool… but the ceremony was like an arrow through our hearts, and our vows made everyone (including ourselves) tear up, and the brewery was AMAZING. I never expected it would be SO GOOD.

I have a million things to say (obviously) but since Dan and I had the same five favorite moments of the day, I thought I’d share those instead:

Our first look. We decided to see each other before the ceremony, and to have the photographers take a picture. It seemed like it would make the day go more smoothly, even if it’s not as traditional, and I am SO GLAD we did this. I think it made us both infinitely more relaxed… and I’ll never, ever forget that nervous, shaky, excited feeling of seeing him for the first time, talking in hushed tones with tears in our eyes, kissing Dan and having him holding my hand, “dude we’re getting married” “you look so beautiful”.
Our vows. We were nervous to write our own vows, to capture that balance between personal, heartfelt, funny, and full of the real promises. We wrote them for each other, of course, but I never could have predicted how many people would tell us afterwards how meaningful they were to them. I read mine without crying, somehow, and hearing Dan’s wonderful-sounding voice say his to me was just one of those once in a lifetime moments.
Looking down from the balcony during cocktail hour. Right after we got to the cocktail hour, we went up to the balcony to take some pictures of the two of us. The brewery has a long balcony that overlooks both bars (and the area they cleared out to make our dance floor). Leaning over that railing with Dan’s arms around me, seeing the brewery we both love filled to the brim with the PEOPLE we love – laughing, talking, music playing, beer flowing, food being passed around – it filled us both with such joy.
The speeches. My sister and Dan’s brother gave AMAZING speeches. Lindsey’s was three pages of awesomeness, and she made me cry and made me laugh… and Dave said his from memory and told stories of the three brothers as kids, and talked about me and Dan from his perspective as Dan’s roommate for much of our relationship. It was so heartfelt and made us both feel so loved, both by the two of them, but to know that others notice how happy we make each other.
The brewhouse photos. The brewery has its own brewhouse, of course, and the vats are behind glass on a raised platform behind the bar. We got to go in there with our photographer for pictures, and it was SUPER fun, not just to get the secret tour, but also to be behind the glass above/behind the bar and wave like fools at all of our friends who were AT the bar.

So yeah. I’m riding this wave of happy like there’s no tomorrow. I knew it’d be awesome, but I honestly had no idea it would feel like this, and for that, I am infinitely, forever grateful.

Wedding Wednesday: The Final Countdown

Posted on January 16, 2013 by elizabeth

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Dudes.

I don’t know what else to say. There are all sorts of things I want to tell you about, like the photos we’ve been taking and printing to have on display at the reception, or how my dress turned out in the end, or how I can’t for the life of me choose a lipstick color, or how we reluctantly ended up completely redoing our placecards….

People keep remarking on how calm I am, how I’m still able to function normally, and mostly I just laugh because I’m shocked that I’m giving off that impression. It’s not like I’m sitting here with an internal monologue like “I’m going to be the bride” on repeat, I couldn’t even tell you what’s in my head. Just that it’s like static in there.

I’ve started saying things to Dan like, “this is your last Wednesday as a single dude!” while thinking “this is my last day of work as Elizabeth T”. Ever.

It’s just all so Big. Everything is going to change, and as crazy as that is, it’s pretty much the best thing. Ever.

So. You know. Hearts and stars exploding out my eyes and ears and stuff. I’ll see you on the other side. 🙂

Currents

Posted on January 11, 2013 by elizabeth

It’s been a week, that’s for sure. I guess the biggest thing about this week is that I haven’t been able to focus on anything at ALL. Friends keep assuring me this is entirely normal, but it’s a strange feeling… edgy and stressed but it’s not like normal stress where I can distract myself… but it’s a sort of vague feeling underlying everything. Antsy but not panicking. Finding myself in strange situations where I can feel meltdowns close by but am able, for perhaps the first time ever, to talk myself out of them successfully.

It’s all just very, very weird.

I got to visit the university library this week, which I enjoyed immensely. We applied for our marriage license and it was easy and so, so quick. I was trying to explain to my brother how I had expected it to be less no muss-no fuss, and he just said, “you mean no fanfare??? no trumpets???” and I laughed, but I guess when you do something as Big as that, you do secretly sort of expect balloons to fall from the metaphorical ceiling. I suppose that the metaphorical balloons fall on the actual wedding day, duh.

I’m having trouble thinking of other things to report, but mostly it comes down to a whole lot of craft projects this weekend, a wedding-related photo project that will probably get me and Dan pretty tipsy (our wedding does have a beer theme, remember), trying to decide if I want to paint my own nails this week… and yes, trying to remember to take deep breaths and to appreciate all of these anticipation-filled moments as much as possible.

The song of the week is an older one that I loved long before it was in Dan in Real Life (which I watched with my own Dan). It was a top contender for our wedding song, but it isn’t our actual wedding song. I’ll always love it, though, because I can still picture dancing with Dan and singing it with him.

Do you have the slightest idea (No, I don’t)
Why the world is bright with you here? (Oh, is that so?)
Stay a while and wait and see (wait and see)
If things go right we’re meant to be