Slow down!

Ok, so, from ten weeks to ten days in the blink of an eye. Hard to believe the big day is almost here. This blog has been shamefully neglected in the last two months, but so has everything else in my life not related to the wedding. The "to do" list has been lengthy, but it seems to be under control at the moment, and everything is on track for the Best. Wedding. Ever. Gifts and cards have been pouring in, and starting on Saturday the guests will begin to arrive (yay for PetDoc and Noise!).

Things are good. Life is good. We are exceedingly blessed. Watch this space for photos and updates.

Another year older and deeper in debt

Thanks to all who sent birthday wishes in various ways yesterday. They were very much appreciated. I had a fairly low key birthday, which is not surprising given the hoopla surrounding other events this summer. Serdic took me to a lovely restaurant for dinner and we had a fantastic evening, and I was showered with love and good wishes from friends and family. We're heading to Hometown this weekend and will do some celebrating with family then as well.

Speaking of being showered with love and good wishes, we were the grateful and overwhelmed guests of honour at a wedding shower hosted by three of my dearest friends last weekend. It was really great to have so many of our friends gathered together in one place, wanting to celebrate with us, and we received some very beautiful and generous gifts. I know I say this often, but it's something that should be said often and never taken for granted -- we have wonderful friends and they are such a blessing in our lives. This is a very happy time for us, and we are really lucky to have so many people who want to share it and are happy for us.

It's been a fun week, wedding wise, in general, as the response cards are starting to arrive. Every day this week there's been a little treat in the mailbox ... it feels kind of like Christmas, when there are cards in the mail every day instead of the usual junk and bills. It's the little things, sometimes, that really brighten the day.

So the invitations are out and the countdown is really truly on. The next 10 weeks are going to be a whirlwind, but everything is falling into place and it's going to be perfect. Knock on wood.

Where did July go?

A few tidbits for your reading enjoyment:

We did have a lovely weekend in Montreal the weekend before last. We deliberately went with very little planned or on the "must see" list, we mostly just wanted to wander and be "somewhere other than here" for a couple of days. Not that there's anything wrong with "here," of course, but there are too many interesting places out there not to try and explore them all! We did do a couple of tourist-y things, including visit the Biodome and wander the old port. We also took a drive up the mountain for the obligatory photo op. And the nicest part was that we had some of the nicest weather we've had all summer -- very little rain, lots of sun and warm (without being too hot!) temperatures. There are some photos here.

The trip also gave me a chance to play with my birthday gift from Serdic (yes, a month early, but yay for birthday gifts) -- a new lens for my camera (which, you may recall, he gave me last year for my birthday ... I sense a theme). This lens has a much better zoom and is just in general that much sharper and more powerful. I love it, but I continue to be intimidated by this camera in general. I know I can get so much more out of it than I am currently managing. I am hoping to get some practice in over the summer and early fall so that I can take the best pictures on our honeymoon. I'd love to take a photography course at some point, but for obvious reasons that's not going to happen this fall!

Wedding planning continues. I've had a couple of fittings for my dress now, and I am happy to report that it is as beautiful as ever (perhaps even more so now that it actually, you know, fits me!). Both my and Serdic's wedding rings have arrived and are safely tucked away. I am hoping to get the invitations in the mail sometime next week, which will be a big job. I of course had to choose the ones that are "some assembly required," which makes it a little more daunting. Fortunately I have lots of lovely friends who have offered to help me with that task. The pre-wedding festivities are starting, too, with a shower scheduled for next weekend and another for two weeks after that. We are very blessed to have so many people who want to wish us well and be part of this happy time, so I am really looking forward to sharing the next little while with them.

I continue to love my car more than I have ever loved an inanimate object. And the 20 minute commute doesn't hurt, either.

Zoom zoom

So it's been just over a week since we picked up my new baby. I have to say I am absolutely delighted with her. She's a sweet, zippy little car, and a lot of fun. And I have shaved 30-40 minutes off my commute (for a total of over an hour each day), which means more time at home in the evenings and a lot less stress -- just not having to stand on a street corner downtown in the rain and exhaust fumes and crowds and noise for up to 20 minutes at a time, twice a day, is doing wonders for my mental health. It's taking me a little while to adjust my thinking, though -- I still find I tend to try to work out the logistics of stopping to run errands on the way home, or panicking when the clock hits that magic time when I have to leave or risk missing the bus, and I'm still in the middle of something. My brain still runs on bus schedule time a little bit, but I'm sure that will change soon enough.

So I'm zipping around the city in my shiny new car quite a lot these days. Keeping busy, as usual. It's been a nice mix lately of wedding related stuff, time with friends, and the usual day to day errands. Wedding planning continues to occupy most of my thoughts, if not my free time. I'm having a mild panic attack about being nearly three months from the big day (Serdic spent most of Saturday reminding me we have FIFTEEN WEEKS), but honestly it's for the most part under control. The big stuff is all in place, and now we need to buckle down on the smaller details.

And now I have something else to look forward to -- a spur of the moment road trip to Montreal this weekend. Toyota sent me an email survey last week and because I wanted to sing the praises of Hawkesbury Toyota, the dealership where I bought the car, I went ahead and filled it out. And at the end there was this "hey, here's a discount code for 20% off any Delta hotel in Canada!" message. We had been talking about getting out of the city for a couple of nights for awhile, and we recently had to admit that a more major trip we were tossing around for the August long weekend was not going to happen for a variety of reasons, so this is a little treat for ourselves. We got a good deal on a luxury hotel right down in the old part of the city and we're going away for a couple of days of R&R. Can't wait!

Happy Canada Day to all!

A little update on the car buying saga. I mentioned in my previous post that we got a really bad feeling from the first dealership we visited, and they didn't make it better by calling us five times in the last six days -- they never got ahold of me, so I just had a lot of messages on my machine (home and work!) full of really insincere "Just wanted to say hi" nonsense. I suppose I could have called the saleswoman back and put an end to it all, but, frankly, I've had more important things to do and I didn't feel like putting myself out. Also, I had told her we would make a decision "the end of next week" so I resented her being so pushy when I had given her a date when I would call her. But eventually she got ahold of me yesterday afternoon, and I thanked her for her time but said that we had decided to go in a different direction. She berated me for not trying to negotiate with her, and then hung up on me as I was in mid-sentence. So, you know, no second thoughts about going with the dealership we went with.

And on that note, I was approved for the financing, the car is here, and we're picking it up after work on Friday. So, so, so excited.

You never forget your first

I decided this week that I must, despite appearances to the contrary every now and then, finally be a grown up. This realization came as we were heading back into the city, having just signed my life away (or for the next five years, anyway) to a car dealership. And earlier this week, I ordered my wedding band. A car and wedding ring, in the same week? Feels pretty grown up to me!

So, the car. I have been admiring the Toyota Matrix on the roads for a couple of months, and had pretty much decided that unless a test drive revealed major problems, it was what I wanted. Wednesday we went and test drove one at a local dealership, which shall remain nameless. We got a bad feeling about them from the start -- too smarmy -- and while I loved the car I didn't particularly want to buy it from them ... especially when the saleswoman quoted a final price $1000 higher than the figures she was adding up in front of us would indicate. Not sure if she couldn't do math or was deliberately padding the price, but either way, not something to give us great confidence in that dealership. And when I received a phone call from a "customer service representative" from the dealership not 12 hours later, pushing me to make a decision, I knew this wasn't the kind of company I wanted to deal with. Meanwhile, Serdic had been in contact with another dealership about an hour's drive out of the city, and they offered us the same car for $3000 less. We decided the $3000 was worth driving out to see them, and so yesterday morning we did.

I had a better feeling about this place right from the start, and the sales representative we were meeting with seemed to be on the up and up. I thought to myself at one point: "He's going to play fair." I did a second test drive and still loved the car, and so decided to go for it. Gulp. It's not a cheap step to take, but I have a sizable down payment and financing it over five years makes the payments manageable. Of course, now comes all the other expenses that go with owning a car -- parking and gas and insurance and all the rest of it. But this is hardly a decision I made lightly or spontaneously, so I know it'll work out. They didn't have the colour I wanted (electric blue) in stock, but one is expected in on Tuesday so they promised they'd have it ready for me Friday after work. I am SO excited, I can't even tell you. Also a little scared. But mostly excited.

It's weird to be approaching my mid-thirties and buying my first car. It feels like something I should have done by now. The financing guy at the dealership was a little taken aback that I didn't have a previous car loan on my credit report ... is it really that strange? But in a way I'm glad that this will be my first car -- exactly what I want, and something I am finally in a position financially to afford. I think this is the beginning of a long and prosperous friendship, me and my car.

Pictures to follow once the car is actually in my possession. It's going to be a long week!

Not dead yet

I know, I know, I've been a very bad blogger. It's not from a lack of things to talk about ... on the contrary, I don't know where to begin! It's been a very busy few months. Some updates are in order.

Vroom, vroom

First of all, as a follow up to my last post, I have not yet bought a car, although the decision has definitely been made to make the purchase. See above about how busy it's been ... I've been trying to find an evening or Saturday afternoon to go test drive some vehicles, but the days are slipping away from me faster than I can keep track! It's on my "to do" list for June, though.

Wedding plans

Wedding planning continues fast and furious. The dress is here (and it's GORGEOUS) (no, you can't see photos). The invitations are printed, and now need to be assembled and readied to go in the mail. We are starting to come up with a cohesive vision of what the decorations and flowers and colours will look like, although I know I am driving Aunt C crazy with my inability to articulate clearly what I want (i.e. I am being difficult by being TOO agreeable!). But I think we're on the right track now and everything's going to be beautiful.

Perhaps most exciting of all, we booked the main section of our honeymoon last week ... a 7 day Mediterranean cruise. It departs a week following the wedding from Barcelona, so at the moment the plan is to fly out the Monday after the wedding, spend three nights in Paris, then a couple of nights in Barcelona and on to the cruise, returning to Ottawa the following Monday. So we'll be gone two weeks. It's going to be awesome.

Music in the air

I was particularly busy in April and May with concerts and assorted choir stuff. I made a big step towards relieving that stress by getting myself voted off the board of directors of one of my choirs, and refusing to commit to anything for the fall (it's so easy when you have a wedding as an excuse ... all you have to do is say "well, it's going to be a busy fall" and everyone immediately says "oh, of course, you've got the wedding, don't worry about a thing, of course we couldn't expect you to commit to anything" -- give it a try some time!). I do very much enjoy my choirs and the friendships I have made there, but I'm looking forward to the summer break all the same.

Savour the moment

I read a very interesting editoral in the paper recently about the need to stop and savour the moment you are in more often, and I'm really trying to put that into practice in my own life these days. It's so easy to get bogged down in the minutiae of day to day life, and the little stresses and frustrations that crop up every time you turn around. And so often we are in a perfect moment, and we let it pass unnoticed because we're thinking/worrying/stressing about something else. So I am really trying these days to stop, take a breath, and acknowledge the little perfect moments. It's especially true with the wedding planning -- these are supposed to be such happy days, and the anticipation and excitement of planning should be part of the fun. Someday I will look back on these days and remember, for example, the day I put on my dress for the first time, or the way my hand shook a little bit when Serdic put the engagement ring on my finger. And while having those memories is important, I also want to acknowledge those moments as they happen, to fix them in my mind and savour them, and not let them pass too quickly.

And finally ...

Could someone please let Mother Nature know to check her calendar? These little glimpses of spring/summer weather, followed by multiple days of cold and wet and grey are not cutting it. Thanks.

My only hope is that if spring and summer are later getting here this year, the nice weather might hang on a bit longer into the fall? Like, say, maybe until the end of October? Wouldn't that be nice?