15 Days until the Ortega/Gaurkee Wedding

The wedding is almost here. Everyone always says it sneaks up on you and they weren't kidding. With the day in sight, February fleeting by, there are a ton of details to still work out: seating charts, name plates, last payments, and I still haven't decided on wedding jewelry. As much as the wedding will be a grand day to remember I am thankful already for it being just one day. In many other traditions weddings can be an entire week event and I am not sure that even with my mad spidy planning skills I would be able to remain sane.

I must say after watching several different shows on weddings: Bridezilla, Rich Bride Poor Bride, Elegant Weddings, and Master Weddings. I have had a handful of moments of stress but have managed to stay relatively level headed. I remind myself that the parts of the wedding are truly momentary in comparison to the everlasting union of marriage. If parts of the party are missing, our ceremony and commitment will still be. To me that is comforting. I remain infinitely more excited about the marriage than about the wedding.

That all being said, it's crunch time and with a hefty to-do list I must cease this blog entry and get back on track.

Count Down has begun!

24 days until the Wedding! Everything is steady. Thanks to a history of party planning and coordinating major events I have maintain a fairly level-headed perspective on things. Now it's crunch time.

In moments of stress I have always had a natural ability to be calm. Resilient. Sturdy. Though I do not believe I was a horse galloping through fields in my last life, it has always been my way. And when times have been tough or overwhelming...I sleep. Escapism I believe is what the professionals call it. I hide. I am not a fighter; I am a flier. Take flight into dreamland the moment the opportunity appears. This weekend I managed to sleep 28 hours in two days, not consecutively. I squeezed it in on Saturday and Sunday for most of the daylight hours. Mind you that I needed the rest as I fought off the last inklings of a cold and an exhausting school week, but that is clearly more than the surgeon general would recommend.

Sunday night I recognized my sleep as my personal coping system in times of stress and realized that the pre-wedding bride stress had finally set in, at least unconsciously. After obsessing over seating arrangements and to-do lists, I went to bed and sprung up on Monday. I managed to check off a fairly extensive list of accomplishments in a very short amount of time. I also began organizing items in boxes labeled: rehearsal dinner, wedding, and reception.

I am feeling pretty good about things again, until there is 23 days until the wedding, of course.

Teaching and other things

I am excited to report that I am in fact feeling a lot better. Now that my senses are no longer compromised I noticed a few things, one being the plethora of errors in my last post. For all those natural editors out there I apologize. I stopped combing over posts some where along the way. I believe it was a few summers ago in the middle of Spain in a tiny internet cafe that barely keep a connection, so writing quickly was of the essence and all grammatical and spelling errors would need to be forgiven. Today, these words find you from the very comfortable and steady internet savvy and stable Tampa, Florida.

A full day of students have restored my love for teaching. Sometimes the minutia of administrative responsibilities becomes so overwhelming that I forget how much I love my job. The actual job that I have been hired to do: teach high school students about religion and philosophy. Watching their eyes follow me as I pace in front of the room and preach the wisdom of Plato or have their eyes light up when they connect Hindu ancient ideas with modern film or force them to open their eyes to the implicit Christian doctrine reflected in our popular American culture. I truly feel rejuvenated. Restored. Resurrected.

Eva Claire Rohrs has joined the world and her big brother Eli is doing a great job of helping his mommy! In anticipation of her arrival I was inspired by my friend Vanessa Fernandez Greene. On her blog she has been posting tons of cute onezies that she has been appliqueing. I wanted to make a couple to welcome Eva. I made 3 and here are just the top halves of two. I am just staring out but it's really fun!

The wedding is coming up! Just over 30 days to go. Almost all the details are set and we surely are ready. The day will be great. The party will be a blast, but honestly I am really looking forward to our marriage more than just the wedding. Honeymoon here we come!

Sicky

Sniffling, sneezing, shivering causes only stuffy noses, sweaty palms, and balls of somewhat used kleenex piles to manifest on my desk, causing my desk to be a haven for a rockin' germ party. Soon an unsuspecting student will come drop off a note and the jock germs will latch themselves on to their shirt cuffs for a real wild ride. They will be transported to such exotic locations like bathroom stall doors and lockers. Jock germs become Anthony Bourdain germs! From there the world is open! All these pesky little germs need to do is catch a ride onto any LL Bean backpack! The varius new cuisine and adventures comeing there way. Just think, if they made it here they can make it anywhere: soccer fields, locker rooms, library...if they play their cards right they can make it to the our biggest basketball rivals and began to tear them down piece by piece. REVOLUTION! Enemies being defeated by infections. Bourdain becomes the Conquistadors! The strong destroy the weak!

I have class now.