Planning

The last 4 days have consisted of extreme planning.  As most of you know, I am a planner.  I enjoy: writing things down in my planner calendar, doing things efficiently, not procrastinating, marking things off my to do list, and working before playing.  That's exactly what I've done the past few days.  My goal was to get ahead of the game so I can take it easy with wedding planning once school starts.  We all know how overwhelmed with summer school I was.  I know the fall semester won't be as crazy since I'll take three classes in fifteen weeks instead of four classes in nine weeks, but I still can't imagine planning a wedding in my non-existent spare time.  Here's what I've done so far: book the wedding site and bride's room, booked the reception site, bought my wedding dress, bought my garter, bought the guest book and fancy pen, picked my bridesmaids (Leigha [MoH], Kelsey, Elise, Tiffani, and Tarah), booked a cake baker, determined my colors (dusty blue, khaki, and ivory), insured my ring, bought Robert's wedding band (simple 10k white gold band, 6mm wide), created a wedding website, booked a videographer, decided on a florist (Flower Patch and More) and flower type (blue hydrangeas), set up registry (Bed Bath & Beyond.  We'll register at Roweton's Home Center later, too.), asked Pepaw to be the officiant, booked Michael to play the piano, got Matt to run the sound, got FBC's outdoor sound system, decided on outfits for bridesmaids (dusty blue dresses by Forever Yours in chiffon), decided on guys' outfits (khaki pants, khaki vest, dusty blue shirt, ivory or blue tie, brown shoes, brown belt), ordered invitations, scheduled makeup for bridesmaids and me, and did lots of brainstorming.  Whew!  I need a nap.
Today I got a bad surprise:  I've been going along thinking school starts Thursday, August 25.  Well, apparently I wasn't the only person who thought this because we got an email today basically saying, "School starts August 22, not the 25th.  Sorry for the confusion."  It sure is nice to find out A WEEK IN ADVANCE.  What the heck, Drury?  Glad I'm not out of the country with a return flight August 24 or something.  Can you imagine how stressful that would be?  Holy cow!  So of course I got a pit in my stomach instantly.  With all the happiness of getting engaged I hadn't thought about school the past few days.  It was really nice, but all of a sudden it hit me like a ton of bricks.  Can I get some motivation and inspiration for a new school year, please?  This is me motivating myself: 4 classes down.  5 classes, a "project, and a "capstone" to go.  I'm definitely more than a third of the way done.  Also (since I'm a planner) I've written down the milestones that come along the way between now and THE BIG DAY:

1. August 22 - Drury starts, 4 days til...
2. August 26 - Mom's birthday, 8 days til...
3. September 3 - Bethany gets married, 2 days til...
4. September 5 - Dad's birthday AND Labor Day, 3 days til...
5. September 8 - My birthday, 34 days til...
6. October 12 - Organizational Communication ends, 2 days til...
7. October 14-23 - Fall break, 1 day til...
8. October 24 - Organizational Change starts, 6 days til...
9. October 30 - Saints game in St. Louis, 1 day til...
10. October 31 - Halloween, 22 days til...
11. November 22-26 - Alabama for Thanksgiving break, 18 days til...
12. December 14 - Organizational Change ends, 1 day til...
13. December 15 - Public Relations ends...4 days til
14. December 19 - Winter project begins...25 days til
15. January 13 - Winter project ends...4 days til
16. January 17 - Spring semester starts...59 days til
17. Mary 16-26 - Pennsylvania for spring break...11 days til...
18. April 6 - Good Friday off...1 day til
19. April 7 - Jim's birthday...1 day til
20. April 8 - Easter...29 days til
21. May 7-12 - Finals...3 days til
22. May 10 - Graduation rehearsal...1 day til
23. May 11 - School ends...1 day til
24. May 12 - My graduation...7 days til
25. May 19 - Robert's graduation...1 day til
26. May 20 - Our wedding!

Breaking it into milestones really helps me.  Sure, there will be little meetings, assignments, projects, and other things along the way, but I have these big, good things to look forward to.  Thinking about it in little increments like "11 days til..." really helps me.  We need to work on something fun and good during the 59 days between the spring semester starting and spring break.  I can handle the other increments, but 59 days is a long time!  Sometimes, May seems so far away, but then I try to remember what I was doing nine months ago.  That would have been November - I was going to the Chiefs game in KC with my parents, Robert, and his parents and sister.  I was enjoying Thanksgiving break and getting excited that I was almost finished with the semester.  It seems like that was only yesterday.  That encourages me that the next nine months will continue to fly by.  Sometimes each individual day drags on, but then you reflect, and nine months have flown by.  
On a side note, I'm almost finished with my summer babysitting gigs.  I have one loooong day next week (Thursday) where I'll babysit for a family from 8:00-5:00.  After that, babysitting will be drastically reduced.  In the fall I'll babysit about seven hours a week, and in the spring I'll be babysitting ZERO hours a week!!!  I've decided not earning money during that time frame (January-May) will be worth it.  I can always pick up some random jobs if needed, but I hope to use that extra time to study, plan the wedding, and keep my sanity.  Robert will be working 10-20 hours a week at church in the fall and spring so that will compensate for it.  Thought: Maybe Robert could be the Jan term RA so he could be close to me and work full-time at church in January.  A lot of times I can get very focused on earning money.  It's not so much that I'm have the mindset of "Gimme more money," but I want to feel as though I'm working as hard as possible.  I constantly have to remind myself that God will provide, and He also doesn't want me to take control of the situation.  Such a hard balance - working hard but not becoming controlling.