Showers forecasted all August

Apparently this is the rainiest August on record in these parts. It seems fitting that my bridal ninja threw me a shower this same month.

It was awesome. She cleverly decided to hold it at a tea shop. it was nice and compact, 12 of the 15 guests were able to come. It was not too long, about 2.5 hours. For once this month it wasn't pouring all day. And since the shop cleaned, baked, and decorated we just planned favor bags and shopped for new tops beforehand. We didn't play any games

Some of my family were able to fly in, something that I never expected. Some friends who live far away decided they wanted to help shower me and sent stuff.

It was so uplifting to feel the love and support from everyone. Showers have always seemed very gift focused to me, but I found my shower really about community and love. Gifts were fun to look at afterwards and appreciate but at the time the women were the focus. It was nice for my closest friends to meet some of my family. It was lovely to look out into the room from my corner and see people that I really cared about all there to wish me well [and eat treats].

I was afraid I would cry and cursed that I didn't have waterproof mascara but I was just happy the whole time. if I didn't hate the word I would call it 'perfect'. It was certainly perfectly wonderful.

August showers are better than I ever thought they could be. Bring them on!

vacated and invited

I know it is a cliche but where did the first 17 days of August go?! Time whizzed by.

Quite a bit of time was spent on vacation in the middle of the MI woods without phones, or computers or anything. It was pretty blissful. The only thing that would have made it better was if wedding elves had completed everything while we were gone but no such luck. But we are so lucky in our house-sitters I can't really complain, they were super.

We came home to a huge to do list and the number one priority was getting the map inserts done for the invitations and getting them in the mail. Getting the inserts printed took a surprisingly long time due to people melting down at the print shop at work. Not from my job I hasten to add, my job was just 1 double sided color page copied 10 times and cut apart. Pretty small as copy jobs go. But my timing must have been bad because it took a full 2 weeks to communicate enough to get them finally done. I almost gave up and went to Kinkos until I found out how much they would have charged for the same small job [about 6x more] so I just kept pitching and it got done. The majority of invites have already been mailed and it feels great. My dh just has to gather a few more addresses and that will be it.

What I have been noticing the most is how this huge list of stuff can over ride feelings and reactions and authenticity. I can see that I could get so involved in details or trying to remember things that I could forget to enjoy the process and enjoy the last part of my engagement. Hopefully just having this awareness will help me remember to be thankful and to feel joy and wistfulness and love that is pouring in from all around. It is truly something.