the girl who doesn't blog - an update, and an awkward bathroom story.

Hi, it's me. Back again. Sorry about the lack of blogging. Where did we leave off, anyway? OH, right! Talking about who'd walk me down the aisle, and we decided on John, and we got a new cat, Brian. 

SO here's the deal. We're canceling the wedding. I mean, not canceling get married, just canceling the whole she-bang. Don't me wrong, I could have loved it. 

A couple things happened that made me take a step back, think, talk to John, think more, talk to my friends, cry (a lot) and make a decision. Mostly, the thought of my (and John's) entire savings being gone for *one day* killed me. Now, I LOVE spending money. Love it! But to save our asses off for the next 9 months, and then BAM it's gone? I know we'd have something to show for it, a beautiful time, memories, blah blah blah.... but we had to talk about what was important to us. And the amount we were looking at saving was a big amount. And funding this wedding 100% by ourselves, we had to make a choice about what we wanted. John is great because he pretty much left the decision up to me. He listened to me a lot and said he'd do whatever I wanted and he'd love anything we do as long we can be cat lovers forever (aww). 

At the end of the day, I want to be married to the man I love more than in this entire world. I want to be his wife. I don't care about the other stuff. I don't want the big dress, and the fancy pictures, and the perfect reception. I want John. And I don't want to spend $5,000+ of my personal savings on it. And don't get me wrong, I LOVE that stuff. We went to 5 weddings over the course of 7 months and got to see people's love celebrated in different ways. I loved every minute of my friends' big days and I am SO glad I got to be part of it. 

But, there was another factor in the decision. We want a house. I've never been the kinda girl to want a house. But I want one. I want a house, in the suburbs (maybe in the city if we find the right now). With John. And our cats. It's weird how it's happened, how your dreams and goals can change. The money we'd be spending on our wedding could go for a house. We could get married this summer and buy a house in 2015, but can we live in our apartment until 2015? Probably not. 2 adults and 3 cats in a 1 br/1 bath apartment is kinda tight quarters.

What's next? What happens? The only thing we've done is reserve the space, so we will lose our deposit if they can't rent it that day. It's almost 9 months away, if we cancel the contract tomorrow, maybe someone who gets engaged over the holidays will take it. If not, we're out $600. That's better than $10,000. 

Since we don't know what we want when it comes to the wedding, we are just going to let it be for a while. We may either elope at a bed and breakfast somewhere with like 10 people, or get married by a judge and have a BBQ party at a park the same afternoon. It gives me anxiety trying to think about it and plan it and blah blah blah. I think it's coupled with the holiday time of year that I'm just on emotion overload. Also, John's had some family things going on with his older brother so that's kind of halted our things. We don't want to concern his family with our issue when the other issue is a lot bigger. 

In other news, we bought and put our tree up tonight! 

Our little tree

I've always hated the holidays. Growing up, my mom hated Christmas. I'd cry and cry until I could finally just go to Grandma's. Mom and I would fight all the time. I found my journal from when I was 12 recently and on Christmas eve I wrote something about hating Christmas, hating my mom and wanting to die (true story). My mom is an interesting one and she ruined a lot of things for me. But it is nice being my own person, and making my own, new traditions. So we put up our tree, and drank hot cocoa, and then I made cookies. And we listened to Christmas music. John sang along with the music, and told me he loved our life. It made my grinch heart swell three times bigger than normal. And I can't wait to have our house, and host the holidays, and realize that it isn't about the stuff, the gifts, the everything. It's about remembering and being happy for the things we have - each other, cats, love, warmth - and not about the years of crying on Christmas morning with my mom because she hated Christmas so we didn't have a tree, or presents. 

And then there's Jack. He loves boxes, so he's happy as a clam. 

Oh also something really awkward happened tonight. We went to the mall to do some cell phone business. Then we stopped into the jewelry store to look at wedding bands for John and me. The woman had my ring, she was cleaning it, and finding a matching band, when something started rumbling in my stomach. I looked to John and said, OHMYGOD. I asked the woman where the restroom was. She asked someone else (who doesn't know where the restroom is?) and I headed there. I started running. There were 4 people in line. And two stalls. The smallest bathroom ever. I started telling to woman in front of me that my stomach hurt really bad and I needed to get into the bathroom. They all let me go ahead of them. I won't go into details, but I felt awkward but I didn't care. Then I had to walk of shame out of the restroom, back to the jewelry store, only to find John picked out the cutest wedding band for me. Then he told the woman that I could pick out his ring because "she makes all the decisions". Oh, John. I love you.