Here comes the stress

Now that we are only three-and-a-half months away from our Big Day, the fiance and I are beginning to freak out about how much we have left to do. Well, okay, I'm freaking out. He's a little worried about how his fantasy sports teams are doing, but otherwise fine. But we're both realizing that we can no longer put off the various chores on our to-do list in favor of watching Law and Order reruns we've probably already seen but don't totally remember. Our free time is spoken for.

This weekend we managed to cross at least one big item off the list: the bridesmaids' dresses are settled and set! Or, at least, we're 75% of the way there... Two had to be mail-ordered because the store didn't have the right size in stock, and the one we did buy in the store was based on a "what size will the eight-and-a-half-months-pregnant MOH be wearing three-and-a-half months from now?" gamble. But still, we're moving forward. And after that, we celebrated by attending a super fun wedding and dancing our worries away. Seeing all my relatives eating and drinking and boogying reminded me that this will all be worth it in the end... Whenever I am tempted to call off everything and just run away to Vegas (which is maybe every other day), the image of my aunts and uncles dancing to "Get Ur Freak On" will inspire me to keep going.

One of our first engagement/wedding gifts -- actually, an item from our wedding registry that we bought for ourselves using a gift certificate we got as an engagement present -- is a fancy-schmancy toaster from Crate & Barrel. It has a space-age console with a digital display that allows you to customize your toasting experience -- we've found that level 6 gives just the right amount of crispy brownness to an English muffin, and I love that it has special "defrost" and "bagel" settings. The only feature I'm not so excited about is the "circular countdown display that beeps when toast is ready." The circular display is cute and everything, but actually standing there to watch it count down seems like a major waste of 30-45 seconds. Surely there's a countertop you could be wiping or a dishwasher that needs unloading. Or a blog that needs reading. And we can't figure out why anyone thought it was important for a toaster to "beep when toast is ready." When the toast is ready, the carriage pops up, noisily, just like any other toaster. It's actually quite difficult to miss. And the Pow! of the carriage popping up is much louder than the soft but high-pitched beep, beep, beep that follows. So every time we toast anything, we hear POW! beep, beep, beep... So far we find it terribly amusing to feign confusion -- "Shh, did you hear something?" "I think the toaster is trying to tell us something, but what?" But eventually that will get old, and we'll still have a toaster that beeps shrilly for no reason. It's enough to make you eat your bread cold. Still, we are the joint owners of a toaster we picked out together, and that's pretty cool, I have to admit. Domestic bliss can't be far behind.