So this is really happening

So my first major accomplishment of the week was writing and mailing 46 thank you notes for all of my shower gifts. I know you technically have four weeks or some arbitrary time frame to send them out. But since I find it difficult to find an absolute acceptable time frame, and have always believed sooner is better than later, I wrote all of them. My hand was sore, but my Cross Morph pen stood up to the task. I should probably buy an ink refill because I'm pretty sure I wrote all of my high school graduation thank yous with this pen, too, and between my graduation party and recent showers, that's a heck of a lot of writing.

My second major accomplishment was finally sending out all our wedding invitations. Leaving them at the post office on Thursday morning felt a little odd. I mean, they had been sitting in the dining room in the hutch/credenza/big piece of furniture from IKEA for awhile and needed to go. But I don't really trust the post office. I left a huge shopping bag full of envelopes with the very tall woman behind the counter. I folded all the liners and glued them in all the envelopes. I numbered the reply cards in case people forget to put their names on them. I printed all the addresses and Al wrote all the inner envelope names. Finally, I carefully aligned the stamps in the top right corner. (A huge deal for me, most of the time they're crooked and hanging off the edge) What if the post office shoves the bag in a corner and they're never seen again? Cross your fingers for me.

And finally, to make it even more real, we ordered my wedding band yesterday. Michael hasn't picked his out yet, but his time will come.

With two months to go until the wedding---actually, eight weeks to the day tomorrow, which is a bit scary--I fear I will forever be stuck in detail mode. Ever since we walked through the country club in April I have been dreading the seating chart. Now that the invitations were (ostensibly) mailed yesterday, the RSVPs are going to start coming in, which means I will have to actually make the damn thing. I'm also worrying about gifts for parents and other important players. What do you give your parents, really? Is there anything that comes close to saying thank you for raising you and seeing you through every milestone in your life, and answering all 842 e-mails you've sent this week about the wedding? AND hosting the big party?! Not really.