16 Days . . .

Until the wedding is finally done! And both Nick and I can hardly wait. I work really hard to make sure that the stress of buying the house and planning the wedding doesn't fall on Nick too much. In fact, it feels like I just bought a house by myself with his money. I put forms in front of him and he signs them and I take care of everything else, which is fine. Nick makes the money and doesn't make me work so it's fair. But my stress level is brimming over at this point and Nick is taking the brunt of it. We keep saying that we just have to get through the next 3 weeks and then we can breathe. And until then, I will be spending a lot of time apologizing and Nick will be spending a lot of time teasing me for my freak-outs.

Because I'm such a fan of lists, here's one of all the "stuff" that is stressing us out:

House and work-

-Getting the appraisal back so we can get homeowner's insurance and finish our escrow form

-Figure out the furnace situation (we need a new heat exchange or a new furnace altogether)

-New gas hot water heater

-Appliances we need: a fridge, garage freezer, washer and dryer

-I want new bedroom and dining room furniture, but we have to wait until we're in the house before I can buy anything so I've been shopping for a long time . . .

-Money, money, money (buying a house at the top end of your budget is scary!)

-Getting my name changed (I'm going to wait until the first of the year) and all the crap that goes along with that--driver's license, teaching certificate, social security card, etc.

-Getting my fingerprints done so I can start subbing in Puyallup

-Nick's new job on the reservation-getting used to the new schedule (6pm-2am) and my apparently unfounded concern that he will be bored, plus making sure he has enough food in his lunch every day (he needs 2 meals and snacks in his lunchbox-means a lot of cooking)

Wedding:

-Getting a final head count to the caterer and photographer

-Thornewood can only fit 100 people inside and we're right there with a few more people we still need to hear from. This is actually the biggest thing stressing me out right now. Some people added guests to my list who weren't invited and I'm pretty upset about that, but don't want to open that can of worms.

-Cake: we're not doing it, but we are doing cheesecake from Costco, so I need to find a cake stand and pray that Costco has enough cheesecakes when we go to buy them!

-My flowers, the guys' boutonnieres, and moms/aunts corsages-we're making them

-Have my dress steamed

-I need to pick up my veil and go to Laura for a trial run on my hair (not really stressful, just something I need to do)

-Cleaning the downstairs and packing--2 of my aunts are coming in a little early to help out with the last details of the wedding and they are staying downstairs with Nick and I

-Finishing our vows and getting the script over to Dave, our officiant

One thing we took off our list:

Liquor. We aren't getting the liquor license, nor are we buying wine and champagne for the wedding. It's an added expense that we don't need, so people will have to be happy with coffee and sparkling cider. (I love that I got my way on this-I didn't want alcohol from the beginning!)

And finally: does anyone have any suggestions as to how to kick people out of a wedding without causing a scene? Haha, just kidding.