first days of wedded bliss

Keith and I leave bright and early for Nova Scotia tomorrow, and we are just now getting around to packing.This week has been spent sleeping and settling in to our new apartment, and we're both really grateful to have gotten the rest before the honeymoon! Plus it's almost like having two honeymoons: our first week as newlyweds, and our week of travel.

Our professional pictures haven't arrived yet, but Facebook album by Facebook album, pictures are being uploaded to the internet. So before we head out, here is one of my favorite guest photos from the wedding.



God bless. :)

Yarning Excitedly Along

Permit me a moment of exuberance*:

This is my LAST YARN ALONG AS A SINGLE WOMAN!

So it is only fitting that I blocked my wedding shawl last night, just in time for this post.

(In other words, if your name is Keith and you are reading this, I recommend that you stop. Although Keith has confessed that whenever he sees a blog post of mine about yarn or knitting, he doesn't really read it anyway.)

Blocking is the only knitting-related thing I've been doing lately; everything is off the needles. Which is a good thing. It is a cloudy day here, but I managed to enlist my dad to snap a few photos.

I was a little worried about the color, because when I soaked it last night the water turned bright blue. I absolutely loved working with sweetgeorgia yarn, and the colors are delicious, but now you and I know, dear reader--they bleed. (At least, the colorway "Riptide" bleeds.)

However, the yarn itself seems to have retained its vibrant color. It's greener than in these photos, a beautiful rich teal color. Some of the photos on my Ravely page show it better.

(Edited to add: aren't the nupps BEAUTIFUL? I am so glad I did them! Yippee!)

And yes, I will hopefully upload photos of me wearing it in my wedding dress.

I may not post much til then--nor read, nor knit.

I am getting married!!

*I always thought that exuberance ought to be spelled with an 'h' in it, and for a while did so, to the chagrin of Word's spellchecker.

Four.

There was something a little crazy last Wednesday when we were ten days out from the wedding. The last day of double-digits--what?? And ten, while being a nice round number, is also so small, considering the countdown started at over 200.

Even crazier is that tomorrow it will be three days until I'm married. Three. I can't quite fathom it.

Today I finished seaming the flowers for the tables; my wedding shawl is blocking as I type this; tomorrow I will put together favors.

I talked to my cousin yesterday and she remarked on how I didn't sound very stressed. In general, I'm not--not from moment to moment, although I get stressed very easily when stuff happens, like trying to figure out who's driving what car from church to the reception hall as the bridal party rides in the limo.

There are two things I keep repeating to myself as we pull the last details together.

1. I cannot control everything. Or everyone.

On a conscious level, this is perfectly reasonable to me. But somehow I keep finding myself trying to control things, and getting immensely stressed because there's no way I ever can. Especially when it comes to people.

2. I cannot make everyone happy.

This is kind of related to #1, but it needs to stand on its own because I need to remind myself of it often. So many people are asking for things, either outright or in a more subtle way, without realizing how much extra stress it causes. I can either scramble around and try to make everyone happy, or get angry at them, or ... let it go. I can't carry those things around with me.

All that matters, all that will matter at all come Saturday afternoon, is that I am getting married. To Keith.

Pax.

Something Blue (and teal, too!)

Between wedding-planning and not having a camera, it's been a few weeks since I last participated in a yarn-along with Ginny. But that doesn't mean I haven't been knitting or reading.

On Tuesday I started on the final book of Stephen R. Lawhead's Dragon King Trilogy, The Sword and the Flame. As I mentioned before, my Dad read these to me as bedtime stories, and this is the first time I'm reading them on my own. I'm greatly enjoying them, although I'm moving somewhat slowly due to wedding stuff, including the teal flowers and rehearsal shawl that will (hopefully) all be finished by the 14th.

In the meantime, I have yet to block my wedding shawl or the remaining bridesmaid stoles (although that may change tonight). I did finally end up taking pictures of the second stole, including a crappy one of me modeling that does justice to neither the stole nor myself. But I have uploaded it to the Ravelry project page nonetheless.

The green of the bridesmaid yarn is pretty hard to capture without washing it out, but it really is very pretty. And I am quite happy with my choice to go with the teal for myself.

Looking forward to seeing what others are knitting and reading.

Twelve.

1. Happy fourth of July, everyone. Happy last-holiday-as-a-single-woman, self.

2. This is how I count things. In terms of holidays, of tubes of toothpaste, of how many more times a certain day of the week will come and go. (One more Sunday, two more Tuesdays.) I have five multivitamins remaining in the pill bottle. They won't last me into my marriage.

3. This weekend we have created a seating chart; started the ceremony programs; ordered place cards and favors, all of which will hopefully arrive by the end of next week, or the beginning of the next; had a trial-wedding-hair-run, in my case; filled out the paperwork for the marriage license just before the office closed.

4. This week I will pick up the marriage license on Tuesday; stop by the jewelers at some point with Keith to pick up the rings; fetch my wedding dress and veil on Wednesday.

5. Although we've had several minor mishaps, things nonetheless seem to come together. I just have to keep reminding myself that when I get stressed. I would like every moment of stress to become, instead, excitement for the day that's drawing near, so quickly and so slowly.

6. I have been busy knitting--a rehearsal dinner shawl, because I am crazy, and many many teal flowers for the tables at the reception. (See photos!) None of them have been seamed together yet, so they all have loose threads hanging from them. I need to make at least four a day to finish on time, which is about an hour's worth of work, maybe a little more. I also still have to block several shawls. More on this Wednesday.

7. Keith is growing a beard until the day of the wedding, at which point he will shave it off.

8. I just finished Alice von Hildebrand's By Love Refined: Letters to a Young Bride, and may pick up The Temperament God Gave Your Spouse again this week.

9. One of the aforementioned mishaps was that my makeup artist bailed three weeks before the wedding. I don't want to do my makeup myself, and I don't want to place that responsibility on a friend's shoulders either, so there was a mad scramble to find someone else. This is a story unto itself, but in the end I found a lovely Mary Kay lady with a devotion to St. Therese, so I feel that my favorite saint once again has stepped in and sent beautiful gifts my way.

10. Yesterday Keith and I went to dinner with some friends. Since I am currently living with my parents, this was probably the last time I'll see most of them until after the wedding.

11. The schola is, after all, singing at our wedding. Partly in Latin.

12. I've had a story accepted at the wonderful literary journal Dappled Things. And because it's getting printed after the wedding, it will be published under my married name. :)