T-minus 10

Yesterday, there were 10 days left until the wedding. 10.

Holy cow! 10 days!

If you had asked me last week how wedding plans were going, I would have said everything was fine and in order. Now, I'm thinking, "Not so much."

Things are probably in order, but there are several items that need to get done. Just finalizing things. It feels as though there are so many things that life is getting blurred. Maybe that's because I'm also leaving the office and the work checklist is just as big as the one for the wedding.

A sampling of outstanding work stuff: Monthly reports for the unions and workers comp, instructions for how to do payroll, update pay information for the newly incorporated wage rates for some union employees, payment applications to the school district, notices to the subcontractors. The practical side of me is trying to remind the stress-case side of me that I have coworkers that are completely capable of handling my workload while I'm gone. The emotional people pleasing side of me doesn't want to leave such a load for my coworkers. At least a list of notes will help, but what if my notes are unclear? Would it be kosher to take along my cell phone and check in to the office? Am I so egotistical that I really think the office can't run without me? Maybe.

John has been moving into our place these past few days. I have to keep saying our place because I need the reminder that it's not just mine anymore. Which is weird since I'm not there right now. So, is it his place? Sharing food, time, the TV, and bank accounts are all things that I can mentally adjust to with married life, I'm sure. Sharing closet space is a whole other story!

I have tremendous bedroom closet space in my - OUR - house, but we both have a lot of stuff. Me - clothes and shoes. Him - stuff. I don't know what it is, but he's got things that take up space. Egads! Where will we put everything?!? Right now, there's a lot in the garage. I suspect that the next few days will be spent going through everything and determining what needs to go to charity. The issue is that we need to decide as a team what is quality, what has an emotional pull, and whether there is any purpose in keeping the item(s). When we get back from the honeymoon, we'll need to tackle that and open up the garage for the car. Not the most exciting thing to have on our list when we get home, but it's definitely a necessity.

BTW: Does anyone know of a good place where we could donate our old household goods? With all these fires, I'm sure that someone could be helped.

I have two more fittings, packing, some last minute wedding day items to buy, and then I can actually spend some time with my family that will be coming into town in the next few days. It will be hectic, it's supposed to be fun, but I'm not sure I have the fun hat on right now.

With this ring (or that one?)

I am convinced that the lady at the courthouse called the first jeweler's shop and told them to act nonchalant when the newly licensed couple entered their doors because the reception we received was pretty cool. If we were younger, I would understand, but I thought we looked like serious buyers.

I had always assumed that this shop would be where we got our rings: a locally owned store where service and quality are undoubtedly present in this longstanding shop. It was here that John bought me the birthday earrings I never take off. A great salesperson, I am convinced, would have noticed the familiar aquamarine gems perched on my lobes. Apparently not. We were treated like every other walk-in.

A cordial hello, a question quickly answered, a quote, and a send-off. It was so quick that I was convinced that we had come just moments before they closed. Nope. We left with the style numbers and approximate costs for the rings we saw online with an hour to spare before they closed their doors for the day. There was no discussion about other options we could look at or anything of the sort. It felt like they couldn't care less about our business.

We left that shop and went searching for another one we had heard about. This store's owner had sold his chain jeweler shop in town and opened up his own. He was attentive, but his enthusiasm clouded his helpfulness and he couldn't get past "lifetime warranty" when we asked about durability and the company's history. We left the second shop knowing that we probably wouldn't have matching bands but were definitely not buying from that shop. The hard sell didn't win us over. The idea of carbon fiber inlay - sporty, different, strong - was something that intrigued John.

That weekend, we went up to Sharif's Jewelers (http://www.sharifsjewelers.net/) in Folsom; a shop that was recommended to us by our friend, Mark. As soon as we walked in, we received a warm greeting. One of the salesladies offered to get us their special Turkish coffee and apologized that they didn't have someone to meet with us immediately to go over their wedding band options.

While we waited, we perused the other cases. The lights caught every facet of the gems and the sparkling items made me wonder if I truly was a jewelry person. I searched the cases for some perfect pearl item to wear on our wedding day, but I didn't find anything that wouldn't overpower the lines of the dress or my desire to buy something I could wear again. John's practicality is rubbing off on me, can you tell?!?

We soon met with Tom, who sat us down in front of the ring options and carefully explained the benefits of each metal. All of the warmness I had been looking for from the other shops and the experienced knowledge that we both desired was wrapped up in one place - Sharif's.

I felt like we had walked into the shop of a friend: completely comfortable and relaxed. A surprising feeling since we were picking a piece of jewelry that would be worn every day for the rest of our lives (no pressure!). John told Tom about the carbon fiber inlay rings he saw while Tom explained the durability of each metal type and how each should be cared for. Before pointing us to specific bands, he asked us about the type of work we did and how active we were. Softer metals would scratch, he explained, and need to be polished more often while hard metals can't be resized.

In about an hour, we ordered our rings and were all atwitter with excitement (no, seriously, this time it's not literary license). We had our rings! Well, ordered. Tom said that he would call us when they arrived and that it could take as much as six weeks to arrive. EEK! I think the concern on our faces showed, but Tom assured us that was not something that he expected. That timeline was too narrow for John's comfort, but I figured that if they didn't arrive, we could borrow something for the ceremony. I could see that didn't assuage John, but he didn't bring it up again.

About a week after our visit, the rings had arrived! I had such a busy week that I didn't know when we could go to pick them up together. John had some time, though, and brought them back to my place. A beautiful gold bag housed the black velvet boxes. I opened up each one and stared at my ring. It gleamed and looked so tempting.

"Is it wrong to play with your own ring?" I asked myself. I convinced myself that I was only trying it on to make sure it fit. I sat there and gleefully looked at the future state of my hand. John was in the living room, so there was no danger in being caught as I played dress-up (oh man! I couldn't even convince myself that I wasn't playing). I awoke from my little day dream with John's voice asking "Are you trying your ring on?"

Busted!

I sheepishly walked into the living room, still wearing my new band, and said, "I couldn't help it!" To which he replied, "Yeah, me either."

We played with our rings off and on that evening, getting more and more excited about our future state as husband and wife. As he left, we agreed he should take the bag home to keep us (well, me) from playing with the rings. Since then, I've spent my time convinced that they were at his place in a safe and well-hidden location.

The other day, I found out that they are in a safe and well-hidden location, but in my house! I haven't found them, though, but I've been assured that they're here. We'll see them again on our wedding day.

Until then, I will just dream about our bands.

Making a List, Checking it Twice

There are so many little tasks to do when planning a wedding. Although the wedding website I'm using to track our guest list (http://www.theknot.com/) has a To Do checklist, it has so many items that don't apply to our planned event and was so overwhelming that I opted to not rely on it.

The problem was that letting all the To Do items roam around in my head was stressing me out and I wasn't sharing the "fun" with John or others.John encouraged me to write down all of the items that were running around in my head. What we realized is that some of the items that I felt we needed to get done were items we could do after the wedding - things that would get John settled into my place and make it OURS. A glaring item to get done was the wedding license.

A few days later, John picked me up from work and we drove down to our county's courthouse. We were both pretty excited. Well, John is Mr. Stoic, but I could tell he was all a twitter inside. Or, that's just me taking some freedom with my memory.

We arrived in the office and the woman who worked the counter was so dispassionate that it really ruined the mood for me. Our application had been filled out in advance and I happily handed it over to her. She handed it back to us with a slight grimace like we were supposed to know what to do and that we apply marriage licenses all the time. Do I look like Liz Taylor?!?

And without a word, she pointed to some computers to our left. We entered in all of the information - again - and returned to her desk two feet away. I swear she looked at us like we had just arrived and didn't know how to process us.

Totally. Killing. The mood.

In an almost robotic tone, she instructed us to go over our license application and confirm that the information was correct. Everything looked good, so we paid the fee and she printed out the license. She also handed over a booklet about health and other medical issues that might arise in our marriage. She apologized that it was so simplistic and half-heartedly wished us well. "Congratulations" in a ho-hum way. Again, total mood killer.

As we were driving away from the court house, my mother called me to let me know she was heading out of town. During our conversation, she asked me "Did you get your marriage license yet?" I was so happy to be able to say a simple "Yes" and not look like the slacker bride I've been. Goodness, if she had called just an hour earlier, it would have been a whole different story.

Going with our productive state, John and I traveled back to town to visit a jeweler and test a restaurant that we were considering for the rehearsal dinner. It would have been too perfect if everything had gone "as planned" and we would have ended the day with a restaurant finalized and our rings ordered. Um, no.

The restaurant we visited had delicious fancy food. It was elegant and formal, but the waitstaff had a snobby air about them and it didn't feel comfortable. John and I really want to enjoy ourselves at our rehearsal dinner and not have to worry since the next day will be busy and hectic. Another day of dressing up was not on John's To Do List so we easily agreed that this restaurant was not an option.

Just as soon as I got frustrated with the things that we didn't get done, John quickly reminded me that we had one thing we could cross off our list and had better direction for the upcoming weeks. He's so great.

A taste of things to come

CAKE TASTING!

After dress shopping, this was the one next most anticipated wedding planning task for me. I could not wait to pick up the cakes and get a slice of everything. Cake, filling, frosting - we had a variety sitting in pink boxes waiting to be tasted.

Baker's Delight has a small shop, but a varied menu of cake options. John and I were overwhelmed with choices when we did our initial visit, so Mary Anne helped us narrow them down and find a way to try different flavor combinations in one cake. It was such a simple solution, that it was almost crazy: treat it like a pizza with two different sauces; each cake half had a different filling.

So, on Saturday June 21, John and I picked up six different cake combinations in the form of three cakes. Three small pink boxes to share with other discerning taste buds. We hauled them up to my parents' house and shared them with my parents and my aunt, Juanin, who was visiting from Puerto Rico.

Juanin had just arrived the night before and was surprisingly well rested after such a long flight, but I had work for her to do. And work it was. It's not easy to eat cake and have to pick a hands down favorite. John would disagree because in his estimation, the cake world begins and ends with the Costco chocolate cake. Gooey chocolaty perfection. There is a wonderfulness about the Costco cake, but it's richness can be overwhelming.

Cake tasting was made into an event. Mom brought out her china and good silverware and we used the fancy cake server (practice for the wedding day?) and sliced up the cakes. I decided to serve each person three cake slices up front and and then do a second round of the remaining flavors.

Five adults, six combinations, no consensus. Well, there was one consensus, the chocolate wasn't rich enough. John liked the sweeter frosting and the rest of us liked the softer frosting. Dad liked the lemon with raspberry mousse. Mom couldn't decide. Juanin was getting sick from the sweets.

Little did she know that her entire visit would revolve around sweets - trips to the Jelly Belly Factory, Ghiradelli square, and candy shoppes in Old Town San Diego. Not to mention the daily desserts of ice cream and the neighbor's amazing pound cake. If she gained 10 pounds during her visit, I wouldn't be surprised.

It's been almost a month since tasting the cakes and I still am hesitant to make a choice. We have to get the cake ordered and that requires a decision and consensus between John and me. Like baby names, it will be revealed in due time.