Mental blocks

Last week, after over a month of trying, I finally managed to write the words that I will say to Torsten during our wedding ceremony. I showed them to a couple friends, who approved, and I read them out loud to myself a few times. I still don't know if I will cry during our wedding or not, but it was a very emotional experience just reading the words out loud to myself while sitting on our couch, so let's just say that I will definitely be applying waterproof mascara on the day of.

I told Torsten that I had written mine and that he might want to work on writing his, and I showed him a couple wedding magazine articles with pointers on writing ceremonies and vows. I also gave him the word count and general structure of what I had written. After he had gotten the requiste jokes about inappropriate comments and sharing highly personal information out of the way, he sat down at his computer, opened up a blank document... and hit a wall. Just like I did for a month. I knew the feeling, very well. It was very frustrating that I couldn't help. But it has to be a surprise.

Of course, there may have been a few threats from me that if he quoted a psalm to me instead of something he'd written himself, I would not say "I do" when it came time for the vows. And an announcement from him that he was not in a romantic mood and needed a beer before he could start writing. All part of the creative process, right?

I'm glad mine are written, because that ends the creative--and therefore agonizing--part of the wedding planning process for me. Now it's all about seating charts, making signs, tying ribbon, etc. So while Torsten stared at that blank page and Googled wedding vows, I labeled purple flip flops by size, made seating cards for people who have already RSVPed, and tied purple ribbons around our favors. I have to say that I prefer my situation to his. Plus, he's not very good at tying pretty bows.

Also this weekend, we cooked a birthday dinner for my sister and received our wedding gifts from her (purple kitchen appliances! Did you even know that purple crockpots existed? Because I didn't, but I was glad to find out). And we went to Macy's, armed with tons of coupons, with the goal of buying all the new clothes we would need for this fall and winter so that we can now stop spending money and start aggressively saving for a down payment. We richly succeeded, and now my only wish is for the 90-degree weather to go away so that I can start wearing my new sweaters.

All in all, it was a very productive weekend. I am seriously chomping at the bit, waiting for the wedding to get closer so that I can do more stuff. And yet it's only seven weeks away, and that's not very many weeks at all.