Man, it feels like a lot longer than two months since I last did any blogging. Despite my best intentions, I just haven’t had the time or inclination to blog nearly as much this year as I did last year. I probably sound like a broken record at this point, but planning a wedding is both an exciting and exhausting affair and has forced me to cut back on a truly ridiculous number of activities because of energy or money-related reasons. So much for keeping it simple, I guess.
But because I’ve missed blogging, or at least wanting to blog, here’s a quick update of what I’ve been doing these past couple months.
Loving
The meme to the left, which proved to be startlingly accurate. We had maybe two weeks of spring this year before summer took over, and after how cold and disgusting and LONG this last winter was, I couldn’t even bring myself to care. Throwing open our windows and stripping the flannel sheets off our bed are momentous occasions for me, and being able to sit on the couch in a t-shirt and shorts and read without freezing to death is my idea of paradise.
Warmer weather aside, I’m also loving Talenti gelato, which I’ve been devouring by the pint since it’s been on sale at my local grocery store, and my wedding dress. I had my first real fitting a couple of weeks ago and got totally starry-eyed at how different it looks now that a) the bodice more or less fits and b) I don’t have to hold it up with both hands to keep it from falling off. I can’t wait to see how it looks after my tailor has put in a few more weeks of work.
Reading
After going through a small book slump in March and April, I am back on track and reading a lot. I finished up the last of Miranda Kenneally’s Hundred Oaks books, which made me pretty nostalgic. I think I started that series in high school, but I still enjoy it just as much now as I did then.
I also recently finished Emergency Contact by Mary Choi, which was a delightfully awkward story about a friendship that exists primarily over text until the main characters begin to fall for each other, and I enjoyed that a lot. My current reads are God’s War by Kameron Hurley and The Hating Game by Sally Thorne, both of which I’ve been meaning to read for approximately two years now. They’re very different books and I’m not very far along with either of them, but I’m intrigued by what I’ve read so far.
Listening To
A lot of podcasts, to be honest. I’ve been binge-listening through the final 4-5 episodes of Disney Princess Death Match, which is a hilarious examination of which Disney Princess is the best based on a list of five attributes. I’ve also been listening through the last couple episodes of the KidLit Drink Night Podcast, and catching up on Shipping and Handling, which is an excellent podcast about publishing and books run by a pair of literary agents.
Music-wise, I’ve mostly been combing my own music collection for the purposes of making wedding playlists, although I did check out a handful of new CDs from the library that I’ve been slowly listening through as well.
Working On
My answer has been rewriting and wedding planning since February, and it hasn’t changed yet. I’d initially planned to finish my mystery rewrite by the end of this month, but since there’s no way in hell that’s going to happen I’m aiming to finish by the end of August instead. That’s going to require some serious buckling down, but now that I’m through the beginning of the story and I have a better handle on it, I’m hopeful I can make that happen.
Otherwise, I’m in the process of finagling the smaller wedding details like centerpieces and the ceremony and our honeymoon now that the bigger stuff has been taken care of. I feel good about the progress we’ve made and the work that we’ve done, but I also know that we’re nowhere near finished getting everything ready and that’s pretty anxiety-inducing to say the least. I’ll be glad when the prep is behind us and all that’s left to do is celebrate.
Thinking About
This might be a little too honest of an answer, but lately I’ve been thinking a lot about money and about my finances. Without getting into the nitty gritty details of my salary or our wedding expenses, I’ve been feeling a lot more strapped for cash in the last four months or so than I have in years, and I’m not happy about it at all. We’ve done our level best to keep things simple and keep our costs down, but I still under-estimated how much money we’d be spending and over-estimated my ability to afford the additional expenses.
Don’t get me wrong – we are in the extraordinarily privileged position of receiving some financial help with the wedding, having family and friends who are eager to pitch in and help us for free, and being financially stable enough that our wedding costs aren’t quite the kick in the pants that they could’ve been. But it still sucks to rein in my for-fun spending, which was already pretty minimal to start with, and to stress about money and paying for things all the time.
Anticipating
June is a month filled with festivals in the town where I live, and I’m really looking forward to those. There’s a giant arts festival happening this weekend that my fiancee and I always go to, and it’s the one place where we tend to splurge on more decorative pieces for our apartment. I don’t think it’s likely that I’ll buy anything this year, but I still love having the opportunity to admire the work of local artists–from painters to sculptors to potters.
Our local Pride festival is two weeks after that, and I’m as excited to celebrate alongside my LGBTQIA friends as I am about performing along with my dance studio myself. Last year’s Pride festival was my first public dance performance, and this year’s looks to be bigger and better and even more awesome. Plus, I get to re-create the costume on the right that I wore at a spring performance, and I’m looking forward to that immensely.
Wishing
That I didn’t have to wait until September to take a vacation. As excited as I am about my wedding, I’m even more excited about the honeymoon and the prospect of jetting off to Italy with my soon-to-be spouse for ten days. I’ve never been to Italy before, and I can’t wait to explore Trieste and Venice, eat my weight in gelato and pasta, sleep in, and relax.
Three more months . . .
If you’ve done your own currently update, or you’d like to let me know what you’re up to, drop me a link in the comments.