The wedding that wasn't

Mark and I got invited to a wedding of a former co-worker of his.  It was to be held at a house of a family friend in south Austin.  Outside.

We arrived about 15 minutes before said wedding , scheduled for 4 p.m.  The groom was outside, in the middle of busy road, directing a trailer full of tables and chairs that had just arrived.  The bride was in the house - never saw her.  People were milling about awkwardly.  We found a seat in the yard to wait.

We've had some fairly historic rain lately.  Spoiler:  If you plan an outdoor wedding you automatically include everything that occurs, and lives, outdoors.  {Ex.:  rain, bugs}  So don't use that as your excuse to have your guests wait outside while you cry about rain.  It wasn't even raining!

We sat and talked to another former co-worker.  Just the three of us.

She did provide a place for her guests to sit. (and the mother of the bride informed us that they were for sale after the wedding, which is not tacky at all, right?)  The rough hewn benches looked nice.  Would have been better had they been nailed together, but perhaps I was feeling picky at this point. 

It was almost 5 p.m..

WHERE IS THE BRIDE LET'S GET THIS DOG AND PONY SHOW GOING.

Wait...did they ever even unload that trailer?  No?

I see sunlight.  Trees.  But also, several kids running through the yard, torturing a frog out of sheer boredom, including one cute little man dressed in a tux.

For this I painted my toenails?  Rushed to HEB to buy a VISA gift card after spending the morning in Seguin buying an RV?  (I'll fill you in on that later)  Skipped lunch because dinner and drinks were supposed to be included?  Drove through traffic to get to south Austin and back, wasting at least two hours on the road and one hour just sitting in the bug-y yard on my Saturday off?  Oh, no she didn't.

Well, yes she did.  The bride.  She sent one of her family members out to tell us that she, the bride, "just wasn't feeling it" today.  Turns out, she and her baby daddy had an on again/off again thing anyway. 

I don't get it.

Why bother buying invites, food, and wine and inviting people to something you aren't even sure you want?  Why not spend more time and effort planning your day if you do want it?  Like getting an Easy Up if you thought it might rain.  Why not come outside and speak to the guests directly?  Admittedly, a lot of things didn't go as planned.  But isn't that a metaphor for married life?  

**Expect the best, plan for the worst, stick together**

But if you decide to go ahead and get married, go to City Hall next time.  

That wedding ship has sailed.

 

The Plan for moving forward!

We spent a recent weekend taking a break from our regularly scheduled life and spent a lot of time thinking about changes we want to make regarding where we live.   We did a lot of driving around, a lot of hashing and re-hashing, made a couple of calls to realtors that didn't pan out (but gave us good info), and then came to the realization of a plan.

Now we just have to begin working The Plan.

hello weekend breakfast at our favorite place

The plan:

*refinance Highland's land, while interest rates are still low and BEFORE the note balloons

*See about getting internet service out at Highlands to be sure Hubby could work from there

*Gina begin CT training

*Investigate selling the two small lake lots at Highlands and pay off the refinanced land

*Buy the travel van, transfer truck to Grayson or Dylan

*Work on emptying Rustown and getting it ready to sell

STOP HERE and reevaluate

******

We have agreed to review this list on the first of each month to make sure we stay on track.  Once we are ready to list, we estimate we will have a buyer within a week's time (or less) and we will need to figure out our living arrangements in Burnet.  One step at a time, but we have to start somewhere.