suck it, stress

Will and I do this thing at the end of the day when we're in bed, where we list five things we are really really grateful for that happened on that day. I'm doing a blog-version of that right now to better illustrate how I've chosen happiness instead of stress and the ways in which it has worked out. 


1. The invitations are completely and totally done. Will and I sent them out together on Tuesday evening. We walked to the big blue mailbox at the post office and together we opened it and pushed those ridiculous invitations away. It felt so freaking good. He looked at me with the biggest grin and said "welp, it's happening!" It felt really real. I know that's weird, it's just a sending of the invitations, but I can't tell you how much those stupid things stressed me out and how amazing it felt to just be done with them. Plus we celebrated by sitting out on our porch with a few beers and just talked the rest of the night away--not once about the wedding. It was nice to just forget about it.

assholes.

2. Yesterday we worked on the pig's shed together and made her a dang mansion. I'm just grateful for that because it was fun. No other reason.

Piggles+milk=adorableness.

3. My dad came home! He has been gone since March 8th. My mom looked really pretty last night when we dropped her off to meet him at the restaurant for dinner. Obviously she's happier when he's home, but it was good to see it and it made me happy. 

4. Today my little brother did this:

Dude. I have no words. Ceremony spot!!!!! Part of the reason I've been so stressed is because of the amount of work we have to do on the land, with gardening, with cutting wood and cooking and preparing EVERYTHING. It's just felt totally and completely overwhelming. And so today we walked out there and he just decided to do it all. It looks freaking incredible. I was in tears walking to it realizing that it was all going to come together. IT'S REALLY HAPPENING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

5. I'm really grateful for my girlfriends, and for our friend Cabot, who has been so organized and on top of things. I've been so overwhelmed with everything, but with notes and phone calls and nudges of encouragement from these special, special people I've really been picked right up. I've been realizing how much the wedding ceremony/reception is going to be so amazing just because at the end of it, all of these beautiful people will be celebrating with us and it's going to feel so good. So for that I'm especially grateful.

That's all! More updates coming as it's getting closer and closer and closer...eeeeeeeeeek!!

What a difference a year makes

This time last year I was...wait. Actually that's false. In about a week it'll be a year. But for the sake of this post, I'm just going with it being a year ago.

This time last year, Will and I were living in Boston. I was working/out of the house 60 hours a week. Hating it. Will was miserable...a depressed shell of himself. But other than that, we were enjoying being engaged and NOT planning a wedding. And so I left for a southern road trip with J and M, with a stop-over in Memphis where we sang on stage with some saccharine sweet southern sorority girls we met. We were headed to Gulf Shores where we did what we do. By that I mean: shamelessly move in on someone's camping spot, ride shuttle busses to the Florida border with some really, really crazy people, swim in the ocean and lounge on the beach, go four loco in a parking lot to be served on by the most sarcastic southern man, wait for Justine while she blasts off on a rocket ship, make friends with horrible mothers and then leave them horrible messages for being horrible people, make an entire crowd get down country-swinging style to Old Crow, lose each other, find each other, find Morgan pouring water allover herself in line waiting for the port-a-potty's, and of course, the crazy-twirling-smiling-hippie sand-dances the three of us do best while listening to Paul Simon.

This year? This year I am LOSING MY SHIT.

This year Will and I are living back in Vermont (which is heaven, by the way. That's not part of the stress, that's fo sho!). Will is so, so happy and I am...getting there? Working on it? Something like both. We ARE planning a wedding. Two months from now, we'll be husband and wife. That feels so cool! So cool. But the process I'm not thrilled with. Actually, that's not entirely true. The invitations are getting the best of me, but I know when those are over I'll be a lot less stressed; it's the getting there part that is just driving me over the edge. There's a lot that's going on, and I just feel so overwhelmed. Not just wedding stuff. Life stuff. It's hard right now and instead of talking it out and de-stressing like I normally would, I'm a mess of pissy moods every single day because it's just mounting and I'm doing nothing to let myself just be.

To remedy this, because I'm realizing as I'm writing through this that I'm in serious need of a whole weekend of making myself insanely happy, I'm hoping that the invitations are going to be finished, and because it's supposed to be sunny and gorgeous, I'm going to wake up bright and early on Saturday AND Sunday and go for long, long ride followed by a hike or kayak with Will followed by lots of gardening with my mom followed by a marathon phone session with friends and a good, good bottle of wine. And then I'll take a deep yoga breath and move on from this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad (series of) mood(s).