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. :)