I'm boring.

This page is my proof.

Stress

Stress:
6. a. A mentally or emotionally disruptive or upsetting condition occurring in response to adverse external influences and capable of affecting physical health, usually characterized by increased heart rate, a rise in blood pressure, muscular tension, irritability, and depression.

Well, lately, I feel extremely metally disrupted. It's crazy. I was telling Carol on Monday that I could actually FEEL my blood pressure was high. So, after a couple of days of that, I ended up with total & utter exhaustion. This, of course, came just in time for my dear mother's visit for the Thanksgiving holiday. Nothing like great timing.

Speaking of Mom.... now there'sa woman who's had her share of stress. She's finally getting over a really nasty bout of shingles. After all she's been through, I could probably stand to learn a few coping techniques from her.

Let me back up a bit to explain why I'm so stressed. The obvious answer is the new condo & the wedding. The more detailed answer has to do with certain aspects of each.

The condo is easy to explain: the builders have been giving us the run around about a closing date. First they said Nov. 22. When Nov. came around, we took a look at the project & said to ourselves, "there is NO WAY that place will be complete on time." However the builders, who like to live in this blissful world of denial refused to fess up to this dire situation. So, at our urging, we got them to agree to at least move the closing back to Dec. 9. Why waste a day's vacation when you know it's not gonna happen, right? So, just as we are finally done with all the back & forth on setting that date & working on a walk-thru date.... we get a letter from them that says, hey, guess what? We're not ready & we have to move everyone's close dates (AGAIN). So now we're scheduled for Jan. 2. I have to think this is a much more realistic date. However, with all the run around we've gotten from them, I simply can't get myself to feel at ease about this whole thing. Now this wouldn't normally cause me so much stress, except for the following: I saved all of my 2005 vacation for this moment. Plan is, we'd close & I'd paint & decorate. Now, Dec. 9 was pushing it, but still allowed me to take those 3 weeks I have. Now that we're closing in 2006, this put a whole new twist into the equation. Now I have to negotiate with my boss to carry over all or part of my vacation into 2006. Why not just take the 3 weeks now &then use some of my 2006 vacation, you might ask? Well, because I'll need all of that for (that's right, you guessed it), the wedding!

Speaking of which... here's source #2 of my Stress:

1. We had our tasting last week. Results were not good. Now this is one of (if not THE) highest rated restaurants in Westchester county. So the fact that the food wasn't good completely hit me from left field. I know they say there's always something that goes wrong with every wedding. But this was certainly not one that I was planning on. Nor am I willing to accept. Heck b/w Alec & me, half of our family is Italian. The food MUST be good!!! And there must be lots of it!! I met with my contact at the restaurant yesterday & made it clear to her that I am not happy with the situation. We made several revisions to the menu. Alec & I will have a second tasting next Wednesday night. Fingers crossed.
2. It's possible that we'll have too many guests for the space. I refuse to even think about this.
3. As must be with all things. $$$$$$ I'm having a really hard time managing the budget on this baby. I don't think I'm being extravagant in anything that I'm doing. The problem is that I failed to keep the guest list down in the beginning. That and the fact that this in NY. I'm a KY girl living in a NY expensed world. The dollar figures on everything are horrendous. I think I'm just going to have to figure out a way to live with the fact that things cost a lot more up here. I can't figure out how to cut costs any lower than what I've already got. Believe me, I've looked around. Ugh.

Hey, on the subject of money... Did I mention we're buying a new condo? Oh, and we're going to need to furnish it. Oh and the holidays are coming.