Our First Trees

Owning a home is really fun! (Expensive, but fun).  This weekend has been chore-central at our house.  Not only are we in crunch-time for all of the wedding stuff, we also have to find time to pack for our honeymoon, and finish with all of our "to-do's" for the house. 

We planted our first trees this weekend, and I am so excited to watch them grow!  They are Mexican Fan Trees.  Supposedly they will produce medjool dates when they get older - I'd love that!

When we get back home from our trip, hopefully we'll be able to plant a few other things.  We'd like to get a garden started soon!

Other than these two trees, our backyard is still quite bare.  I don't know why the previous owners never planted any trees.  We do have two huge oak trees in the front yard, at least.

And now, I present to you the newest addition to our backyard:

Moved In

We're finally all moved into our new house, with only a few miscellaneous boxes that aren't unpacked yet.  It is a lot of work, but definitely worth it.  We love our neighborhood.  Dozer loves the huge yard, although he still always wants wherever he can't be.

We have squirrels in the front yard.  Therefore, Dozer does not approve of being locked in the backyard.

It's crazy how much money a house costs in the beginning (and forever after that).  We've been to Lowe's four times in the past week and a half, and spent hundreds of dollars.  On tiny little stuff that you would never guess you'd have to buy.  Austin's been loving working outside in the yard and fixing up the garage.  Of course he wants to go buy a bunch of tools but, um, those aren't on the "need" list right now.

Aside from moving in, I've been putting together our wedding day timeline, checklist, emergency phone numbers, etc.  I'll probably be way over-prepared, but that's what happens when you're suddenly unemployed three weeks before your wedding.

The emotional side of it is what gets me.  In the past two months, my maid of honor suddenly dropped out of the wedding and quit talking to me altogether, and I lost my job - neither of which I had any control over.  To the outside world, I'm sure other people think "Oh sure, it wasn't your fault at all, right..." But seriously.  I have been in situations where I was at least partly responsible for the consequences, and in those times, I recognized that I was at fault.  And in both of these situations, there was absolutely no warning or chance for me to change their decisions.  It's really hard to face, because I'm the type of person who always wants to fix it.   If I do something wrong, I always come back around and apologize.  I can't stand for someone I care about to be upset with me.

These aren't exactly the emotions I wanted to be feeling 9 days before our wedding.  But I'm not in control of the circumstances, and I just have to trust that there is a reason for this.  I truly cannot wait for next week to be here so I can be surrounded by my friends and family in a giant celebration.  I just hope that all the happiness around me doesn't cause me to spin into an emotional breakdown.

In brighter news, the 10-day weather forecast is here for Saturday, and it's supposed to be sunny and 86 degrees.  Perfect weather for an outdoor wedding :)

The Unexpected

I wrote before about all of the wedding planning bloopers that have come up during our 9 month engagement.  Well, there've been more, but they're all inconsequential if you really think about it.  Not all of them are directly wedding-related, but it's sh*t you don't expect when you're trying to plan "one of the happiest days of your life".

Two weeks ago, I was let go from my job.  It's still sinking in and all of the emotions start swirling around in my head every night as I try to fall asleep.  It was unfair, unwarranted, and completely unexpected.  They did it on Monday morning of the week we were supposed to close on our new house.  Which, if you've ever bought a house before, is not a good thing.  It ended up working out okay, but we did have to extend our mortgage term, thus increasing the interest rate.  But, we still qualified and that's what's important.

So, we bought a house last week!  And it proved to be a pretty good distraction to keep me from thinking about being unemployed.  This weekend, Austin's mom came to visit and I hardly even thought about being jobless.  But now she's gone, and Austin's back at work, and it's easy to start feeling awful again, wondering what I'm going to do with my future.

Of course, luckily, I have one other small distraction, the wedding and our honeymoon!  I'm just worried that I'm not going to be able to fully enjoy it all because I'll be freaking out about all the money we're spending in just a few short days!

I've always struggled with looking at things in a positive light.  It's something I'm working on, though.  Perhaps God just wanted to give me a little break.  I'll admit, it's nice having a bit of time to get unpacked and settled in our new house.  Also, now I'll be able to go to my parent's house a few days early and straighten out all of the last-minute wedding details.

Everything always works out for the best, and I know this to be true.  Sometimes my mind likes to play tricks on me and convince me that I'm just a huge failure and always making a mistake.  I'm not.  I try my best every single day to be successful, and I'm going to make it.  And my future husband?  He'll be right there beside me.