Tomorrow

Tomorrow morning, we are leaving. We are embarking on one of our biggest adventures of our lives.

I ran errands almost all day today; I'm packing right now, or finishing. I got the people on the airline to agree to hang and store my dress for free, and still allow me another carry-on (it required two phone calls, the second put through to a much nicer operator). I thanked her profusely and told her she made my day. I'm hoping we might get a free upgrade tomorrow, but she said she couldn't say one way or the other, but that the airline does do that for people. Hope for me!

I finalized everything with the wedding planner. Flowers are being planned; guitarist is hired with songs to practice. Plans for the night before, getting ready, underway. Our first days in Hawaii are so close we can nearly smell the plumeria in the air. I had my ring cleaned today so it's nice and sparkly.

I have paperwork, directions, folders, wedding accoutrements of all kinds in my carryon. Nothing that goes to the wedding goes in the suitcase. I hope my carryon fits the dimensions...I will practice my "i'm getting married" pout and smile.

We are drinking red wine and watching tv and packing and this will be our last night in our little loft as a "dating" couple. Our last night of two last names in one residence.

It was a beautiful day in Minnesota today--sunny and warm and blooms exploding everywhere. Yet I'm not sad to leave a stretch of decent weather for Hawaii, for the wedding, it is happening, it is here, it is upon me, and I can hardly believe it.

Tears, happy ones, have tracked down my face several times today. I'm starting to feel the emotional and physical load of all this, facing marriage, the rest of my life with my honey.

I was completely overwhelmed and felt so loved by all the people who called me today and wished me congratulations and early happy marriage and safe travels, all the blog comments and emails and facebook messages on my wall. Who said they just had me in their thoughts. Happy messages that kept my stress level down, that made me feel so loved by everyone. Thank you.

Tonight William said to me, "When we get old and it is snowing and I hold your hand to help you cross the street, you'll feel warm when you think of this night, the night before we leave for Hawaii." Then he leaned over and kissed me, and all I could do was cry.

The next time you hear from me, I'll be a married woman. I can't promise photos or entries while I'm gone but I will try.

One Week

In one week, I will be wed to the love of my life.

I will be in Hawaii in two days.

I laid off coffee, and pop, even though I want my caffeine drip so badly I can taste it (and have the headaches to prove the withdrawal). But this non-sleep thing has to go. Last night I slept pretty well, and the night before. I will take your advice on the Simply Sleep though, ladies! Thanks!

Tonight we booked our inter-island flights, our rental cars, and generally got a little freaked about money. We pulled out our suitcases and started putting our stuff in them. Tomorrow I will finish packing, saving for the things that I am going to need the morning of. I have a few errands to run, too, tomorrow.

Then it's the Idol finale and resting up before our big flight.

Just saying that releases a storm of butterflies in my stomach. A storm. we're renting cars, booking lodging, we are packing, we are leaving, we are goinggoinggone to Hawaii on Thursday morning.

Just like that. Paradise for multiple reasons.

I am one week from being a Mrs. Two days from Hawaii. Completely broke but completely excited for the adventure ahead.

I can hardly keep my mind on anything else.

8 Days

Sunday morning, 7 a.m. My usual M.O. would be to sleep another three or so hours, maybe lounge around with coffee and the Sunday paper (read: the Target ad), and maybe shower around 1 or 2, with some light cleaning in between. No need to get ambitious on a Sunday, in my mind.

But let me tell you something: I was up at 7:54 this morning. I find this utterly obscene. Just illegal.

I am so tired. I don't know how to drive that point home. My eyes burn, my stomach hurts, my limbs feel like lead many times throughout the day. Then I lie down in bed, and. . . nothing. Eyes wide open. Sometimes I fall asleep right away and as I am sinking, sinking, sinking (ahhhh yes, sweet sleep), I think to myself "Tonight's the night. Full night's rest, dude." And then around, oh, 2 a.m., there I am, wide awake. And then again, maybe around 5 a.m. And then, up for good around 8.

I have tried all manner of things; wearing myself out physically, thinking about sleep, all my usual tricks that usually lull me to slumber every night have failed. Yesterday we went to Art-a-Whirl, typically one of my favorite things to do each year, and I was SO TIRED. I barely spoke the whole day (although I enjoyed it). My brain is simply too deprived to talk about art. (Example: I thought a painting of a tornado was a photograph of a closeup of a grapefruit. After that, no talky-talky.)

I don't know what is going on with me, but I just might go crazy if I don't get some shut-eye soon. For reals.

This morning, William is driving his parents to the airport. The AIRPORT. We are getting to this point now. People are going, they are leaving on the airplane to take their Hawaiian vacation. We leave in FOUR DAYS. In eight, we will be married.

I guess I am like that kid in the Disneyland commercial: I'm too excited to sleep!

That's about all I can figure.

Superstition

More posts later, but I"m on deadline for a story tomorrow.

I just have to say.

Happy Birthday, Stevie Wonder!

Let's give a little love to the legendary genius. I can listen to Stevie in any kind of mood, and instantly feel better. A lot of people get caught up in his '80s "I Just Called to Say I Love You", but come on. To the man who wrote Signed, Sealed, Delivered, Master Blaster, Higher Ground, and my personal favorite—Superstition.

If you don't believe the man was the funk masta, or even if you do, you have to check out his rocking appearance on Sesame Street. No, I am not kidding, and get ready to groove. It's my favorite. Dance with me, now.

Knock, Knock

WeeMo, let me in!

Mommy

My mom:

waves goodbye out the window each time I drive away from the house.

loves true crime books and mobster movies/shows.

makes the best spaghetti sauce you will ever eat—truly, I have never had better.

taught me I'm supposed to iron the collar and cuffs on a shirt first. (and that everything i own needs a better pressing. she's a first-rate ironer).

cries when young kids win olympic gold medals.

loves babies and children and has a knack for communicating with even the most difficult ones. When we go to Target, I know when her students are there because they get the same wide-eyed stare I'd give Madonna if I saw her buying toilet paper.

gave me her: exact color of eyes (blue-gray), pale skin, chiclet teeth, thank-god-its-fast metabolism. Even my knees look like my mom's. I am practically a clone of my mom, although my nose is different and my feet look just like my dad's.

worries more than she should.

has started to call Mo her granddoggie, a day I thought I'd never see!

has always said all we kids had to do was our best. If that wasn't an A or first place or taking the obvious path to our goals, that didn't matter. As long as it was our best.

walks quickly, in shorter strides. Her mom said she ran first.

is usually hurrying, but always has time to talk. ALWAYS.

completes, or nearly completes, the New York Times crossword puzzle.

loves flowers and gardening and hates lima beans.

has been right about just about everything that she warned me she was right about.

including one of her common phrases: this too shall pass.

now I use it all the time, too.

still signs her emails to me "love mommy." even though I don't always call her that out loud anymore.

is still my mommy. Always.

never compared her children to each other. Always made us feel loved equally (although we tease her about Chris being her favorite). I think that's a pretty amazing feat.

understands both sides of stories most of the time. She's a true middle child.

is an adventurous eater and taught me to be one, too. (Although I still hate bananas and melon.) we like to go out to eat together.

loves to be included in new adventures, travel, restaurants, or hearing a new CD. Life is learning.

once cut out a photo of George Michael (this was the '80's after all) in his Faith days, and hung it on the inside of a cabinet door in our kitchen. She liked him.

and Cher, and Bon Jovi. And I can remember dancing around to Bruce Springsteen's album Born in the USA in our living room with her.

puts everyone else first.

wears Calyx perfume.

always made us the dinner of our choice on our birthdays. Also, we were allowed to choose a cake, and she made it at home.

didn't go to college, but I'd hazard a guess and say she would have majored in architecture or interior design if she had.

is incredibly intelligent. She's a voracious reader and puzzle do-er. She 'gets' people, too.

read to me every night when I was little. Even as the books got longer, we would just read a chapter or two aloud every night. one of our favorites was Island of the Blue Dolphins.

enjoys setting a table. Maybe she wouldn't think so, but the effort she puts in shows. She loves getting the right napkins and cute salad plates and even covers the chairs. She makes events more special because of it.

has completely rocked at being a mom. It's just her nature. She has connected with her children and grandchildren and their significant others and just about everyone around her because she is a good listener, fast with a laugh, and kind. She's engaging and charming and beautiful, too.

As I get older, I realize what a sacrifice being a mother is. On how many days it is a completely thankless job. I realize how not everyone is meant to be a mom. How selfless and giving you'd have to be to become a successful one. How much love you have to give. How lucky I am to have gotten such an amazing mom, who is my friend and mom. Who I respect and adore. I am not even a mom yet, but I feel like I get what she has done for us as a mom, sent us out into the world prepared as well as a mom can, continuing to send us home with leftovers and sometimes calling to make sure we got home safely.

Thank you, Mommy, for the sacrifices you have made for your three kids. I realize now how difficult some of them might have been, but you never making us feel like they were. Thanks for always being proud of my "best." For supporting my decisions and my emotions, and for even telling me when I was completely crazy in a nice way. Thank you for being enthusiastic about all my successes and telling me my failures were just learning experiences. thank you for telling me when I feel down and out that "Mom still loves you, Dad still loves you, Susie and Chris still love you, William still loves you" and on and on until I smile at all the people who love me and realize my troubles aren't so bad. I hope someday, I can repay you. Perhaps one day I will show up at your door with my coat pressed, after all. I love you so much.

Two Weeks

Two weeks from now, I will be in Hawaii, and four days from my wedding. We will officially, legally, be a "we," although we have been a "we" since about July 25, 2005. Our first date was July 8, and I can honestly say I was in love with William on our second date. I didn't tell him that until much later, but I was.

I remember what he wore. It was a hot, hot, fry-eggs-on-the-sidewalk July afternoon. He had on this baby blue t-shirt and khaki cargo shorts, and I can remember thinking, as my hair whipped around my face while driving down the freeway with him that he was the most beautiful boy I had ever seen in my whole life, and he had been in front of my face for years. It was our second "date," although we were just hanging out, and I think it was a Sunday afternoon.

We beat the heat by going to the mall for a while, but neither of us really wanted to shop. So we went into Barnes and Noble, and we sat on the floor and looked at art books together. As if that wasn't enough to capture my heart, we went home, and he wanted to play me a song on his iPod. We listened to it togther, one earphone for each of us, sitting so close I was sure he could hear my heart beating.

I get butterflies just thinking of that moment.

The chemicals in our brains don't really allow us to return to those fleeting first moments of dating, where, at the time, it feels like agony, but later, you sometimes wish you could recapture. but when I think about him, tan and handsome in his light blue shirt, twinkling hazel eyes (oh, his eyes) and offering me an earphone, I get all twitterpated and giggle.

I am more in love than I could have ever imagined a person can be. Maybe that's totally sickening. But it's completely true. william makes me laugh like....forty times a day. He treats me with respect and kindness. He goes shopping with me. We have funny conversations, we have serious conversations, and sometimes we just sit silent in front of the tv, or he paints and I write. We usually disagree what music to listen to, but we like the same kinds.

I have a true partner in William. In every sense of the word. I feel so lucky. So, so, so lucky. There is no doubt in my mind that he is the person I want to be with for the rest of my life, and that is fulfilling in a way that I cannot even describe. It's overfilling, more than fulfilling.

William came home from work yesterday and says to me: I was planning to go on this bike ride, but now it has to get moved. And when they changed the date, I just automatically said yes, since I wanted to go. Then I realized it was two weeks from now, a nd we'll be in Hawaii! We're at the point where people are making plans in advance, that are not so in advance, and we won't be here.

The excitement on his face showed. I started to laugh.

William says: We are leaving in TWO WEEKS.

I say: I know!

And we just sort of stare at each other, like . . . this is it!

This. Is. It.

I have dreams every night about all the things that can go wrong (and do), but oddly, I don't think about those during the day. it's been an overwhelming almost-two-months during this layoff. Tumultuous does not even begin to describe the peaks and valleys of the last 50 days. I feel like I'm at that point on a rollercoaster where you look down before the first drop and think, We are not going any higher than this. This is already way too high.

I know we have a few more chik-chik-chiks before we reach the top and I can look down with certainty that this is it, the top, are we ready? And then my stomach will be two stories above my body, where suddenly the chain lets go and I hear almost nothing at all except the sharp intake of breath I'm saving for the most exciting moment.