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).

Quick Little Update

It's been awhile! Wedding is still on, yes. Just don't have internet unless I'm at my parent's house, and lately every second I'm at my parent's house I'm outside and have not a moment to spend on the internerd. I love it that way. I've been busy first taking down a friend's old fence and then bringing it to my parent's land, and then taking down their old fence and putting up our 'new' one in its place. All of this for the cutest little black piggie! I probably shouldn't find her so adorable because in a few months time we're butchering her and roasting her for the wedding, but there's nothing wrong with showing my appreciation to this animal for the nourishment it will provide for us and our guests come July 14th.

Speaking of July 14th, we've got a tad over three months to go until our wedding. SHIT.

We have so much to do. I don't even know where to start. Eloping would have been loads better, it really would have.

ALSO: yes, we are doing a potluck wedding. Even if we were bajillionaires we would still have a potluck wedding. When we decided we would get married in front of people (and we reeeeeeeeeally didn't want to) we decided on doing it our own way, in the most low-key (but still pretty) way possible. Potluck, family and friends coming together, good music, camping...yep, that's what we wanted right from the start and that's how we're doing it. So bugger off you naysayers.

Aaaaand just about two months until 'Roo 2012. Heck yes. I don't know what I'm more excited for...getting married or this magical bliss. Justine and Morgan? You both reading this? TWO MONTHS.

photos! yeahhh photos!

tonight i was looking through old photographs because i'm in the process of making a gift for the family i work for. i came across some of will and me, and because going through old photos is a favorite thing to do, i thought i'd post some.

burlington nights.

the knudsey wedding

 this photo made me remember all of the nights in burlington we would sneak away to watch the sunset, or walk on the lake or just sit on a bench and talk. i miss burlington so much.

we had a lot of crap moments after i returned from france...but i remember this day as a really good day.

party at nate's not that long after we first started dating.

camel's hump

this photo reminds me of camping that weekend, and how i convinced will we should go canoeing even though there were huge waves and the wind knocked us in crazy directions. he was so in love with me that weekend. hah. 

before a concert. this concert was so.so.so awesome. i never wanna forget it. also, i know he looks so drunk but he hadn't even had a drop to drink. he just does weird shit with his eyes to mess with me.

will's baby brother lived with us for like a year. the cute boy on the left is him...and the only person that is going to stand up with us when we get married. besides will, my favorite part of will is cameron. always has been that way. i really, really love him.

back in college when we would only see each other once a month or so. some really sweet memories from this time.

CALIFORNIA! ROAD TRIP! BEST TIME EVER!

right before i left for france. this was such a good, good weekend.

le sigh. i love love love looking through photographs. also i need to get better at doing it, because lately i don't take ANY and i have nothing from the past year except random and useless photos that go on instagram. cripes. 

last of beantown

i have five days left. FIVE. my last day of work is friday, but because it's st patrick's day weekend (and i believe the best place to be if you can't be in ireland on st. patrick's day is, of course, boston) i'm having one last hurrah before heading the heck out of here. this weekend and yesterday and today were absolute shit. i can't even begin to explain the whole situation, so i won't. but let me just tell you that I CANNOT WAIT TO GET OUT OF HERE. 


oh and i just realized that i get to experience two spring seasons this year. that makes me so happy. 

wedding budget

the average cost of an american wedding is just about 27k. 

holy balls.

just some of the ways in which we are cutting that number way down:

--growing/raising our own food

--borrowing tables

--haybales for seating (farmers in the family=free)

--thrift stores for tablecloths, plates, etc.

--making our gifts

--wedding and reception on family land

--picking wildflowers for flowers

--made our own save the dates, invites and thank-you notes

--ipod and speakers and one great wedding mix (this might sound terrible to some, but it'll be great. i promise.)

note: in the link above, you don't see the insane amount of money that others spend. having once spent over five hundred dollars on a wedding myself, the average cost should be much, much higher. a friend once told me she spent well over a thousand on a friend's wedding. yup. 

one of the ways in which will and i are working to off-set that cost: we've decided against a wedding party. we will honor our friends in a special way during the ceremony, but we are not requiring anything extra from them. the travel time and cost as well as the days off from work? way too much as it is. 

so there you go. budget stuff. 

enjoy yourself this weekend!

being awesome

Willy P came down this weekend to Boston. It was alright. We mostly just hung out in my bedroom and watched movies and ate healthy food and made out a lot. I've been sick for the past month and Will decided enough was enough and made me eat kale by the bowlful and sweet potato and grapefruit and basically just made me sleep ridiculous hours and guess what? I think it actually worked! I feel so much better. Thank God. 


Anyyyway. 


I've got a pal who had a wee babe six months ago. The fact that she had a baby has nothing to do with what I'm about to write about, I just like the kid a whole lot. Anyway, she was recently talking about how she wants to live more in the right now and how it's easy to become caught up in what we dream of and wish for without looking at and appreciating how awesome the present is (well, hopefully how awesome it is). This is a pretty easy cycle to get caught up in...constantly looking forward to what's next instead of what we have right in front of us. It's definitely something I thought a lot about this past year living in Boston. Turns out I'm not even a teeny tiny bit a city girl. I wanted to discover this for myself, of course, but you probably knew that if you know me. I love love love visiting, but living in one is an entirely different thing. So yeah, this past year I was constantly looking forward to getting the heck out of here. It would have been so much better if we had just focused on the process instead of the eventual. So a few weeks ago, I decided that I was going to make a list of things I wanted to do this year, to focus on what makes me happy and what I want to do. I know that it might seem that making such a list would cause me to look forward more to the future instead of the present, but nope! instead I've been totally motivated to just start enjoying every single day because life is so freaking awesome!! 

All of this from this teeny tiny little silly crafty project I decided to make one day and put on my wall. Huh. 


And no, this is not from Pinterest. Haha :)


-->the photos are kinda bad and i'm not finished with it all because i'm constantly thinking of something new. but there you go christinus! put it on your wall in a place you can see and then every day you'll be reminded to get yo bum out there and live a whole a$$ life. xo!