Hurry up and wait!

Today marks five months until our wedding day!

There are times that I think wedding planning could be a full time job. Okay, okay. I know there are such things as wedding planners. But I mean more so that planning my own wedding could be a full time job.

And then there are blocks of time where it feels like a hurry up and wait game. I was so bent on crossing things off my checklist and making sure something got done every day...and now I've about caught up with myself. I feel like I should be doing more, but then again, what else is there to do right now? We have an appointment to meet up with our officiant this Saturday, and I have my bridal portraits scheduled in the next couple of weeks. Otherwise, I think we've done as much as we can for now.

One of the big things we recently checked off our to-do list was booking the cabin we will be staying in for our honeymoon. I know that I previously said that we would be staying in Saint Maarten, but we have since changed our minds and will be going to Puerto Rico instead. Saint Maarten looked beautiful and luxurious, but Puerto Rico seemed to provide more opportunities for adventure--more our speed. We will be staying on the edge of the rain forest within driving distance of the beach, providing us opportunities to go hiking to waterfalls, kayaking on the bioluminescent bay, horseback riding on the beach--a little of everything. Plus, since I speak decent Spanish, I'll be able to converse with the locals and get some practice in ;)

Five months seems so close and yet also so far away. I am so excited to marry the most wonderful man I know and stand up with some of my favorite women in the world (who it would seem I have neglected to mention so far):

Megan, my maid of honor and sister

Patricia, my best friend and favorite troublemaker

Kaitlin, my soul mate in all things writing and Renaissance

And Courtney, my roommate and loyal scorpion killer

I am so honored that these women are all willing to go through the horrors joy of being my bridesmaids! Thank you, ladies. :)

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Regularly scheduled programming

Due to wedding planning, a lot of other important parts of my life have been put on the back burner. One of these things, unfortunately, is training Rosa. Every day I go out to feed her I feel so guilty that she is just sitting in her paddock, not getting ridden.

But! Yesterday, I made an extreme effort to get baaaaaaack in the saddle again. It was probably the first time in two weeks that she had been ridden. And she. was. so. wonderful! I'm seriously still so impressed with her. Since getting engaged a month and a half ago, I've probably ridden her three or four times total. And yet each time I get on her or longe her, no matter how much time has passed, she's always like oh, okay. I remember this.

An example of this is what happened towards the end of our ride last night. I've been slowly introducing her to the back, and it has been a majorly foreign concept for her. And she hasn't had much work on it since I haven't been riding as much these last few weeks. But last night, I shifted my weight back in preparation to ask her to back, and she immediately started shifting her weight backwards, too. I lifted my hands and pulled slightly back, and she backed. We did it a second time to make sure it wasn't a fluke, and that time she backed even straighter.

This horse. She is so smart and so willing to please. One day, once she has more experience under her belt, I think she might make as good of a horse as Chica (well, as close to Chica as a horse can get). I'm just tickled. For one, this little cowbred horse was not what I wanted in my next horse, but she and I click so well, and I'm having so much fun with her.

For two, when I look at where she was a year ago (I'll have owned her a year on October 20th. How is that possible?), she is such a different horse from when I bought her that it's like someone replaced her in the night. She's gone from being an untrusting, difficult to catch, scared of everything, pain in my butt mistake to being a trusting, affectionate, smart, and willing mount. I know we still have a long road of training ahead of us, but just seeing what she can do in a year's time with inconsistent work is very, very encouraging. I'm excited to see where she will be next October.

Happy anniversary, my little Ponderosa!

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Double the 'C,' and double the 'S,' and you'll always have...

SUCCESS!

We have a venue!

It's an old, gorgeous mansion in Brenham. It has a pretty outdoor setting for the ceremony, and the inside has rooms we can set up tables in for the reception.

I really love it, and so does Philip. It has the look I wanted, and it fits in our budget. I was really doubting we'd find something that met those criteria, but God is good!

So that's a HUGE thing checked off my To Do list. Leaving...let me check...75 things, according to my theknot.com checklist (which has been VERY helpful). The next big things will be booking a caterer and an officiant.

In the meantime, we have our honeymoon booked! Whoop! We will be going to St Maarten. We still have to get a few more details worked out--flights, etc.--but we have the resort reserved, so that's another big relief!

We also have our photographer! Philip is friends with a guy who is a professional photographer, so we got an amazing deal with him. In the next couple of months I'll be booking an appointment with him to go to Austin and get my bridal portraits made...so surreal!

Things are looking brighter as far as wedding planning. There's still so much to do, but between theknot.com and my Mindy Weiss Wedding Planner and Organizer, I'm hoping to stay on top of things so that I don't get too overwhelmed. I am feeling a lot less stressed than I was (although the stress dreams continue--the other night I had a dream that was just people I knew coming up to me and telling me I was fat. Good job, subconscious.)

March 28, 2015, here we come!

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Rethought.

So I had this whole angsty post typed up yesterday about how much I was disliking wedding planning and how not fun it was when you didn't have a bank vault at your disposal. It was long, and it was dark. I felt fully vindicated as I wrote it. And yet, I did not hit "Publish."

Now, I'm glad I didn't. Because since venting, I've started thinking about what the wedding is leading up to: life with a man whom I love, a strong Christian man who has endured my mood swings, tears, and outbursts these last few weeks of planning with patience and understanding.

You see, weddings are expensive. And I mean EXPENSIVE. We have yet to find a venue that doesn't charge everything we've saved for the wedding and then some. And I am so frustrated and stressed out by it.

And yet, I looked beyond the wedding yesterday after pouring my anger into my blog post, and I remembered that it's just a party so that your friends and family get to celebrate with you. It's the start of a new life together. Sure, it's a big event, but it's not so big that it warrants every ounce of my attention every hour of the day. I think I've only ridden my horse once since getting engaged; that's how consumed by this I've let myself become. And the wedding is still 6 months away.

So, I'm not saying that I've relaxed about trying to find a venue. Seeing as the wedding is only six months away, we do need to nail that down pretty soon here to make sure we get our date. But I'm trying to not be my usual control-freak self so I can give it up to God. It seems like a petty request, but he's answered even pettier prayers for me.

It is a rare event when I stop and think before submitting something in anger. Maybe this is a sign that I'm growing and learning how to reign in the beast that is my temper.

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A surprising weekend.

So this weekend brought with it a pretty big surprise. What is it, you might ask? Well, if you know me, you know I like a good story. So let's jump in!

Philip came into town Friday evening, and he took me to dinner at a German restaurant in Bryan--the same restaurant we went to for Valentine's Day. We ate and were merry, as Germans do, then he took me dancing--just like we did on one of our first dates in Dallas.

The next morning, he surprised me with breakfast--delicious coffee cake, the same breakfast he made me for my birthday earlier this year. Is this the surprise, you may ask? Surprise food is always a good choice in my book, but no, the surprise is still coming.

After we finished breakfast, he told me that he was taking me hiking in Huntsville State Park. So I got ready, taking my sweet time, and we drove that way (about 20 minutes later than we were supposed to leave). He seemed to be in a slight hurry, but I didn't think too much of it.

We got into the park, and we were driving along, looking for "the best place to stop and get out of the car." But suddenly, we turned into a stable. Philip had set up a surprise horseback ride for us through the park. He even had snuck my boots into his car when I wasn't looking.

The ride was extra nice because the rest of the participants had cancelled since it was supposed to rain that day, so it was just him, me, and the guide. HSP is beautiful with lots of super tall trees. And it was nice and quiet and relaxing. Also I enjoyed being on a horse that wasn't a green two-year old. My horse was a bay roan gelding named Pinky (poor guy) whom the guide told us was the alpha horse out of the whole ~30 horse herd. Philip: "I'm not at all surprised Kristin got the alpha."

Is this the surprise, you're asking? Yes, it was a surprise, and a good one at that, but no, we're still getting warmed up!

After the ride, we headed out to "walk around the lake"--only when we arrived, he had another surprise: a picnic lunch, just like he did for another of our first dates. There were strawberries, carrots, sandwiches, wine, even my favorite: dark chocolate. We ate a nice meal before the ants found it, while surrounded by trees and the lake.

So was this the big surprise? Not yet, but we're getting close!

After lunch, he pulled out his guitar. He had played it for me during our first picnic lunch date too, so I assumed he was going to do that again. However, he had another surprise for me: he had written a song for me. He began to strum the first notes, and I broke down in tears like SUCH a girl.

The song was beautiful. I always thought it would be super awkward to have someone sing directly to me like that--where do I look? At them? Do I smile? Nod seriously?--but I loved it.

So now you're thinking, ah. That is a nice surprise. Sounds like a good day that was full of surprises. And you'd be correct. But guess what? Even my own song wasn't the grand finale.

After he finished playing, he set his guitar down, as cool and collected as he could be. He started telling me how much he loved me and how he wanted me by his side forever. These are things he tells me all the time, but I'll admit, this thought crossed my mind: If he doesn't propose to me after ALL of this, he's a jerk!

Well, no worries, subconscious. Because right after that he stood, pulled me into a standing position, and kneeled before me. He said, "I have a question for you." And then he asked me to marry him. And I responded in the most stereotypical way every girl in every movie has ever responded that I swore I would NEVER do: hands over my mouth, tears running down my cheeks, etc.

Oh--and I said yes.

I'm pretty smitten with my ring. It's everything I wanted. Apparently he collaborated with my bff (whom I had conveniently shared pictures of rings I liked with along with every detail I wanted mine to have). She amazingly didn't let anything on to me about the weekend in spite of knowing that he was proposing. In fact, quite a few people knew that it was coming--including my very young cousins, whom I've spent a lot of time with lately--and NO one spilled the beans. I'm so impressed with everyone.

I LOVE the detail on the sides!

Even more impressive is that he met up with my parents for dinner in College Station one evening, without me knowing about it, to ask my dad's permission for my hand. Both he and my parents had been at my house that day, but they left at different times, and I had no idea that they had met back up later.

So I'm engaged now, and it feels so weird. Planning my wedding so far has been very surreal. I keep having to remind myself that it's my wedding and not something I'm planning for someone else. It's already overwhelming, but I'm trying to stay calm and cool and not turn into a bridezilla. I've gotten as far as picking my bridesmaids and am looking at venues now. I know what I want, but there are SO many places, and I pretty much still just want to elope in South Africa. But I'm trying to be a good sport about it. So many people are excited about it, and it's helping me to get more and more excited. So prepare for lots of wedding planning posts, as I'm sure that's about to take over my life for the next few months.

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Warning: emotions lay ahead.

I had to make a tough decision the other night.

I went out to ride Rosa but discovered that she had a huge gash inside her leg, I'm assuming from one of the support T-posts that keep my roommate's horse from getting into the 2-year old pen and terrorizing the fillies. So Rosa got her leg cleaned up and the night off instead.

I went out and grabbed Chica and jumped on her bareback with her halter. Everything started off ok; she felt and looked totally sound at the walk and seemed fine at the trot, too. Then I asked her to canter. While she got into the canter and tried to remain there for me, she was so jarring and struggling so much that I asked her to go back down into the trot, which she did, although this time she was limping.

I got off her and bawled my eyes out. For one, I felt bad for making her do something that hurt her, even though I didn't realize it was going to. For two, the last time that I rode her, she was having trouble at the canter, too. So I think it's time to seriously retire her, at least from doing anything more than walking.

It's almost poetic, if you're into dark poetry. For the first couple of years, I couldn't/didn't want to canter Chica for fear that she would buck me off. Now, when Chica canters off beautifully from the word "canter," I don't think I'll get to experience it anymore. Maybe ironic is a better word.

It's so hard to watch her break down like this, even if it is slowly. She's always been such a tough girl who tries her heart out for me. Even the other day when it was causing her pain she tried to keep going. And it makes me so MAD. I see some shitty horses people have who are not worth the feed and time they put into them yet are completely and totally sound, and then there's my girl who is so well trained and such a good horse and there's so much I could still do with her, even at 18 years old, if she wasn't chronically lame.


But I know that's the way of the world. There are lots of good people getting cancer and Parkinson's disease and ALS while bad people continue to do bad things. We live in a fallen world. Life isn't fair. Etc.

So, this isn't goodbye to Chica, obviously. She's still up for walking around the property. She seems to like the attention when I ride her (she's always been jealous of other horses), so as long as she's feeling up to it, she'll still be my #1 ride. But I think the days of carefree cantering through the trees are behind us. So if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go hug my horse and cry some more.

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Chica & Rosa!

Nothing too eventful has happened since I last posted. I'm still waiting to hear back about a job interview I had in July, so fingers crossed there!

Last night I got Rosa out, intending to ride her, however it suddenly dawned on me how exhausted I was as I was getting her out so I ended up just bathing her and working on showmanship instead. I did, however, jump on her bareback and ride her around my yard with just a halter, and she was awesome. Here are a bunch of pictures of clean Rosa!

 

The face that says "My mom won't let me graze on all this nice grass."

 

I love the shine!

I got Chica out a little later, and while I didn't bathe her, she still got to have her picture taken, too! She was so happy about it.

Just a little bit of a grass belly........

 

"A hair dresser my mother will never be."

Poor Chica's forelock. I'm not sure what happened, as usually I can trim it and make it look pretty good, but this time it was a complete fail. I'm not sure I've ever seen it so short! I blame the fact that it was wet when I cut it the first time.

That's all for now! Perhaps I'll have more news on the job front soon.

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