Priorities; Stress

24 days till the wedding! And suddenly wedding plans have taken a back seat to other goings-on. I've been wishing and hoping for the last many months that this would not have to happen, but all the wishing and hoping I could manage could not prevent the incredible unending stressfulness that is my life these past few weeks. I got through hump day this week, and there's a long weekend in sight, so I may just survive. I sure hope so because I'm looking forward to returning my focus to the relative fun of wedding planning. And of course, I'm really looking forward to actually being married, going to Hawaii, living with Erich, etc.

I've concluded that I have about three separate posts to make on topics that have taken place recently, so I'll make this first one about moving.

Moving is NOT FUN. Moving is exciting, but I would not call it amusing. It's exciting for Erich and me in this situation because of all it symbolizes. Plus, we both really like our new place. It's a duplex on the north end of town: two bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms, washer/dryer in unit, dishwasher, garbage disposal (praise the Lord!), we have an upstairs AND a basement(!). So suffice it to say we're pretty stoked about the ol' apartment. And in other good news, we signed up for cable internet with a basic TV package (so, nothing at all what you would call a regular cable channel like Discovery or ESPN), but thanks to Comcast's technical limitations we are able to get a whole slew of cable channels including digital network stations, so it looks great on Erich's HDTV and we get a bunch of channels for free because the guy who installed it is nice. Good times.

That's where the good times pretty much end as far as moving goes. As you may recall from a previous post, Erich traveled for four weeks in a row. He was not able to pack very much until the day before the big move, which was this past Saturday. And because the school year started and I got extremely busy with choirs at church and piano scheduling (two other posts), I didn't have a whole lot of time to pack either. But that was okay because we both had a week overlap in our respective leases. We didn't have to be out on moving day. As a result, we FINALLY tonight finished moving Erich out of his apartment in Addison. We should be able to get me out of my place by Friday night. If home is where your stuff is, I'm currently living in three different places (moving out of my flat and into the duplex with Erich, and sleeping at my parents' house).

To give an idea of how stressed I am about moving, here is what I did yesterday: I awoke at 9am having gone to bed around 2am. After breakfast and a shower, I took care of some wedding stuff at my parents' before heading to church to audition some Agape Singers during their recess time. I left there around 1pm after making an eye doctor appointment, emailing a difficult-to-work-with piano student mom, and calling and leaving a message with the lady who I hope will make a few alterations to my reception dress. From church I went to Big Lots to purchase some laundry baskets and other bin-like items to aid the packing up of the rest of my stuff from the flat. I then went to said flat and got as much packed as I could in 20 minutes and then loaded it into my car in the blistering heat. I drove down to Taco Bell for disgustingly unhealthy but cathartically delicious junk food for lunch and went back to church to audition more Agape kids after school and teach six piano lessons in a row. I left there at 7pm and met Erich back at the duplex where I wolfed down some leftover pizza before we headed up to Schaumburg for our 8:15 tango lesson. We left the dance studio around 9:15 and headed back to Addison, where we packed up the rest of Erich's stuff and loaded it into our cars then drove back to Naperville to unload both Erich's things and the stuff I had packed up earlier.

We got back around 11pm and by then I was feeling quite fragile. And, for the umpteenth night in a row, I got to bed after 1pm. Some people choose to live their days like the one described above, but I do not. I haven't been this busy since college and I don't miss it. Plus, at college at least I was busy practicing and rehearsing and learning, partying and socializing. This is just driving and manual labor. Ew. And to top it off, predictably, Erich and I have had some tensions. And when I say "tensions," I mean the worst fights of our entire relationship. Which, to put it back into layman's terms means we've been short with each other from time to time, both being sleep-deprived and stressed out and worried about moving out of our respective apartments. The excitement of what's to come overrides any tension and there is nothing relationship-threatening about this move--and the light at the end of the tunnel is getting much brighter, but we're still anxious to get all of this behind us.

More to come about other major stressors. . .