319 Days

All those years I was so excited about planning a wedding. I couldn't wait to meet the guy of my dreams. Then I met John Hoyt and I dared to hope that one day he would ask me to marry him. A little over 3 and a half years later, he gave me the honor of asking me to be his wife and all of my dreams came true. Now, after all those years of anxious anticipation about planning this wedding, I am realizing how much stress goes into one day. Last week was a really rough, emotional, hard week full of tears and anxiety. I felt so overwhelmed with not only the wedding but what all has to be done before the wedding that has nothing to do with it. In the next 10 and a half months, I have to complete my undergraduate degree, apply for graduate schools, buy a house or find a place to live, decorate a house, move out of my apartment, deal with all the legal stuff, and plan a wedding. It's a lot and last week I wasn't very happy about everything that was going on. I had so much on my mind and it was weighing me down and turning me into someone that I'm not. We finally reached the weekend and Thursday night I sat on ooVoo with John Hoyt, talking about the wedding and I broke down. He told me that I needed to stop stressing so much and to just enjoy this time. He told me that it wasn't necessary to try to get everything done at once and that I needed to just calm down and do one thing at a time. We had an amazing weekend in Washington D.C. with Jackie and my parents. Taylor was in the July 4th parade there with his marching band, so it was a lot of fun. It was so good to relax and talk about other stuff besides the wedding. My mom and I talked a little about a few small things and John Hoyt and I made some small decisions, but it was nice to just talk about other stuff. This weekend made me decide to stop stressing so much and to just do one thing at a time. I keep forgetting that I have more than 10 months to get this done and that even if I do want to do as much as possible this summer that I don't have to do everything this summer. I know there will be times when I will get stressed and I will have a very busy year, but all of the stuff that is keeping me busy is all really great changes that I'm ready for. The most important thing is that in 319 days, I will be Mrs. John Hoyt Richardson and we will finally live in the same town after 4 years and we even get to live in the same house :). I can't wait until that day, but until then, I have a lot of fun stuff to keep me busy and to make it all fly by.