Amen

Just reporting - still alive
Too tired to do anymore writing.
Just wrote our entire wedding-mass.
Never knew there were such beautiful words in the Bible.

Amsterdam, no cars & hot milk

On my programme the past weekend:
- going to a great wedding in Amsterdam with P
- driving back to Brussels in the middle of the night, ignoring the GPS-lady, only to realise that she was right, and that, yes indeed, the entire highway was closed for road works.
- enjoying the car-free day in Brussels. Fresh air! Silence!
- updating our guest list in Excel for more than 2 hours. And P doing all kinds of stuff with pivot-tables. I only understood the part that told us that the “sum” of people who are “80% likely to come” is still too high.
- Creating a wedding-blog with all the details.
- Going to bed really early tonight (even skipping House MD), only to realise that I keep organising the wedding in my head, and that “sleeping” is wishful thinking.
- Getting back up to drink some hot milk, and spilling the entire contents of my mug all over the kitchen (and over my PJs).
- Yawning and thinking I might go back to bed after posting this on my blog.

Girls' night out

We went to the september-fair in Leuven : it's a tradition we started when we became collegues about 5 years ago, and up until today, we managed to keep it alive (allthough we all changed jobs in the meantime).
So, as usual : we screamed our lungs out on some adrenaline-boosting attraction, we ate loads of sugar, we jumped up and down as we finally managed to grab some cuddly bear, and we just walked around, enjoying all the colourfull lights, and all the greasy smells.
Now I'm going to bed with my brand-new Eeyore :-)

To Anonymous

To "anonymous", who sent me this comment today:
"Stop whining and start to communicate. Stop this blog as it is a shame to your fiancé and others."
- if you're someone I know : have the guts to tell me what you think in person.
- if you're someone I don't know : thank god - let's keep it that way!

Stop, in the name of love

If I would have had a camera-team following me this weekend, they’d have enough material for a few episodes of “Bridezilla”.
On Saturday, I started talking about “colour-schemes”, which was already bad enough. But that was nothing compared to what followed on Sunday.
A fight with my future mother-in-law, me walking out with slamming doors, and me being stranded 15 km from Brussels, in some hotel, waiting for a taxi to drive me home. What led to all this?

a. P is working 20 hours a day, on average. He’s energy / time to do something for the wedding is nihil. He’s too tired to show any enthusiasm, and I’m taking this very personal.
b. I’m trying to get everything organized in time, on my own.
c. When I have to do it all on my own, I don’t do well with criticism from people who haven’t done a thing
e. My mom is loosing her hair again, and is crying every day. Scared that she will be bald on my wedding day, or even scared that she will not be able to be there. Of course, she puts on a big smile every time I see her, but my dad tells me the true story.
f. And on top of all that, my mother-in-law dropped the bomb on me last Sunday, by saying that “she feels excluded, wondering if I have a problem with her, if there’s a conflict, and complaining she doesn’t know anything about the wedding”. This while I have invited her to the first fitting of my wedding dress, I’ve called her on Friday to let her in on everything I had done this week, and I’ve asked her on Saturday to help organizing the reception.

I don’t know why I’ve deserved this. I honestly don’t get it.
What do people expect?
Do I have to invite my mother-in-law for every appointment? Even when, let’s say, my own mother is in hospital or too sick to come?
Do I once again have to agree to postpone the wedding, making my mother even more worried & depressed? (not to mention what this would do to my own “emotional well-being)

*Sigh* I really am at the end of my wits here. It’s already not easy with P’s crazy working schedule and with my mom’s illness. We’ve got a very tight deadline, and decisions have to be made fast. There is simply no time to discuss everything with everyone all the time. I’m doing the best I can by keeping my parents and P’s mom up to date. If that’s not enough, well I’m sorry than. I’m not superwoman.
All I want is a fiancé who is as enthusiastic as I am, and people who are focusing on the positive in all of this, instead of searching for opportunities for conflict.

I'm on a roll!

Now that we have a fixed wedding date, nothing can stop me anymore.

Since yesterday afternoon, I have :
- asked my two maids of honour, who were over the moon.
- written the first draft of the wedding invitation
- gone to the travel agency for our honeymoon
- found an excellent photographer who is miraculously still free on our day
- made an appointment in a print shop to look at invitations
- called the venue where we want to have our reception right after the ceremony, and made an appointment for Friday
- found a professional beautician to do my make-up and nails on the big day

Still urgently to do:
- send the “save the date” email (it’s the 5th of December :-)
- make the final decision whether we want to have a religious ceremony or not
- update the guest list, and find everyone’s addresses
- book the DJ
- find someone for the flowers and the decoration in general.

A deadline can do wonders....

Yes we have!

To me, that sounds as powerful as Obama’s “yes we can”.
Because, dear ladies and gentlemen : we have indeed. We finally have. “We have” after all hope was gone. “We have” and we can finally spread the word. Yes we have!
We have a wedding venue and a wedding date!! We have an appointment at the city hall to do the official declaration. We have “a slot” booked at the city hall for the actual wedding. We have a venue smack in the middle of Brussels where we can party until dawn. We even have the honey moon suite booked.
We have it all..... (well, except for the DJ, the photographer, the invitations, everyone’s addresses, the flower arrangements, the live music, the rings, and God knows what more...)

Hidden personality

I told you a few days ago how I had used every ounce of assertiveness in my body in a discussion with my boss. Apparently, I came across quite convincing. Now he thinks I’m the most assertive teacher on his staff. And so he asked *me* today if I could teach a group of male immigrants, who are following a course to become electricians. What it comes down to : I have to develop lesson material, focusing on vocabulary related to electricity and manual work, and I have to stand in front a bunch of guys who require an “assertive” teacher. Challenge, here I come! If you see me running around Brussels in a few weeks with a toolbox full of screwdrivers, lamps, electric wire, drills, etc : I – am - still - teaching. No need to call me if you need help with your burned fuses at home.

Point 2 in what is beginning to look a lot like a personal development program: I had to negotiate our offer for the wedding this afternoon. The word “negotiate” is not in my dictionary. I’m bad at it, I don’t like doing it, and I avoid it whenever possible. However, P was stuck in a meeting, so I had no choice but to face the music and dance. Wonder oh wonder, it went well! The guy even asked if I had a commercial function too, when I tricked him into a discount for the third time. At the end of our meeting, I had reduced the total price by 5000 Euro, and we were still the best friends. I still can’t believe I did this.

So, this week, I’ve made people believe that I’m
a) incredibly assertive
b) a commercial talent

Maybe next week I’ll become an absolute math-genius.

Dreams

As romantic as the title may sound, believe me: it’s anything but. For the past X months, I’ve been taking medicines that increase the amount of REM sleep. I already was a vivid dreamer, but now, due to this medication, I’m having nightmares non-stop. A hairdresser cuts of all my hair, a killer sneaks into my bedroom, evil ghosts try to strangle me, my parents make me marry an ex-boyfriend, I have one week to write my entire thesis at university, my mom is dying, I have to do high school all over again, my wedding dress turns out to be the wrong colour, I appear to be pregnant, only there’s nothing in my belly, my front tooth breaks off over and over again, P becomes someone I don’t know, a wolf attacks me when I try to feed my grandmother’s chickens, and so on, and so on. My God, Freud would have loved me. And would probably have put me in an asylum.

Anyway, all this makes that I’m still very tired by the time the alarm goes off. And that I need the entire morning (or sometimes the whole day) to recover from whatever horrible dream I’ve had. And I’m not the only one suffering. Every so often, I start talking or screaming in my sleep, waking up P (and probably a few neighbours). Even furniture gets damaged in the process. In Mexico, I screamed so hard one night, that P literally jumped on my bed to wake me up. Resulting in us falling through the foresaid bed. (go and try to explain this to your in-law family whom you’re visiting for the first time. “I’m sorry, but I had a nightmare”. Right.)

It’s getting so bad that I’m becoming afraid to go to sleep. The only dream I have now, is to have a dreamless night.