Two months in.

So the big day is two months gone by, we're moved into our first home and I'm starting to enjoy watching people squirm under the pressure of having to spell my new last name. 

Suddenly all of this free time has fallen into my lap. For a long time up until this point I can only ever remember feeling busy or tired. It started with working six day weeks alongside church service. Then I had a four month process of uprooting, saying goodbye to all of my family and friends, leaving my job, church and beautiful homeland. Next came moving to the new home, new church, adjusting to city life, job hunting and planning a wedding.

Then came the wedding day.

My favourite day.

A new era of 'we' and 'us' began. We had a week together in the Lake District, came back and fairly quickly and seamlessly started to settle into work and living together.

But now there are empty pages in my diary. Whole evenings with nothing planned to do. Its been lovely- but also a brilliant opportunity for a challenge at the same time. 

I've started to realise that when left to my own devices with no agenda planned in for me, my default is laziness. Unfinished projects and to do lists have sat untouched while I've wasted whole evenings in front of the TV or on the internet, looking to be entertained. I can't lie and say that I haven't enjoyed the late night binges on courtroom dramas and mystery thrillers with Mr Pumba, but I've started to feel my brain and my spirit go to mush while I've been feeding my head with mental junk food. It just doesn't satisfy. 

So this Thursday night I felt the need for a change, and after watching my brother-in-law bake five loaves of bread last Saturday, I was in a kneading mood. Mixing bowls and flour and yeast all came out of the cupboard, and I started to feel the satisfaction of baking something for fun, and not just because we needed dinner. I made pizza dough and an easy tomato sauce base. Leftover sauce went into a jar ready for next time, and then I started on a round loaf. 

It tasted less anaemic than it looks.

I presented it to Mr Pumba with pride and he got the honour of knocking on the bottom of the loaf. 

Even just knowing that I'd spent an evening away from screens lifted my mood. 

Then today I went shopping, and finally bought fabric to cover a book that I'd sewn up over two years ago. Two years!! How could I have left a project unfinished for so long? I got home and added a card front, back and spine and covered it in the new fabric. I'll be using it to record shopping lists, meal plans and keep receipts from our big shops so that I can track what works and what doesn't. I saw a lovely idea online - a lady kept a diary of dinner parties over the years, including who her guests were, what she cooked and what they chatted about. She had recorded fairly normal evenings, but they were years worth of meals shared, friendships built and chats that turned into key moments. I have a tendency to get nostalgic easily, so I love that idea. 

I'm realising that I was so used to being busy that I've completely forgotten how to enjoy hobbies. So when all this free time suddenly arrived, I didn't even know what to do with it anymore.  I don't know what I like doing for fun. I've forgotten what I'm good at. With little and big things. Passions that I started to cultivate on Impact Training in 2010 have been deserted, and now I need to pick up where I left off. 

 So I'm pledging to try and create something each week or month just for the pure enjoyment of it. Even if it looks rubbish or doesn't work out, I'll try not to get disappointed and frustrated at the money I spent on ingredients or paper or whatever supplies are needed. And looking past just me and my own little life, I can start to use this time to learn more about my new husband's hobbies, and the things that I can do to help and love others outside of my comfortable life. A big challenge for just a small town girl (living in a lonely world). But with the help of the Holy Spirit, what an adventure with Jesus. 

Any suggestions for projects that you've enjoyed will be more than welcome!

 

Bridezilla

In just under 40 days I will be marrying Pelumi, starting a whole new family and losing my last name (Sure as Bolorunduro won't really work, I may have to think of something else). Now that its getting closer I'm so excited - I feel like I'm caught up in that cloud nine feeling I felt for the first few weeks after we got engaged. And I think that blissful feeling would have returned sooner if it wasn't for one slightly sad but very true fact.

I hate wedding planning.

I hate the horrible realisation that you actually can't invite and include everyone, and the guilt that comes with it. It makes me angry that you are forced into spending money to make an important commitment to eachother, however low-key you choose to go. I get so frustrated by the fact that everyone tells you to do what you want and to stop trying to please everyone, but the minute you do, you're met with replies like: 'Well that won't work' or ' You can't do it like that."

When will there ever be another time where I have to pretend to be an expert on colour co-ordination, event planning, floristry and bridal fashion and accessories? I'm realising even as I'm writing that so much of the pressure (and definitely the stress) is an unnecessary weight that I tend to burden myself with, and in reality the expectations of other people aren't really what I think they are. But it still feels like there is a very real pressure to have it all up to 'wedding standard'.

I'm just so thankful to God for amazing breakthroughs and blessings, like having an amazingly talented and creative sister-in-law to be who has helped with almost everything, having a best friend in Cornwall to keep me organised and sane, bridesmaids who have been completely anti-diva, finding a wedding dress and seamstress that make my purse happy, and so many other things.

I can't wait to be married, and I know on the day I will be on cloud nine again. All of this pressure really is nothing compared to the happiness of our wedding day. Two and a half years of long distance were gruelling. After so much impatient waiting, knowing that we're almost at the finish line (although its really arriving at a new starting line) feels good.

But this particular 'season' is hard, so to see you through, here is some advice:

So many people tell you: 'It's your day, you're the bride, do everything how you want.' Truthfully, I don't think that actually works in practice. Not only does it mean you exclude your families from sharing the joy, anyone who is about to get married can use an opportunity to learn to give and take and put others before yourself.  Of course you need to make big decisions together on your own, but don't underestimate the massive help other people can be to you.

Plan early and start with planning your money. I have been genuinely disgusted with the way magazines sell you these images of a wedding day where the light is perfect and the theme is more original and funny than anything else you've seen before. If you appreciate things that are beautiful and well put together like me, it can be so disappointing when you find out that it costs thousands to put a day like that together. I had to decide that I wasn't going to let the beautiful pictures steal my happiness, because starting off the first year of our marriage without debt is more important than having a beautiful day. (And if you live under a rock and haven't heard of Pinterest, as addictive as it is, it has hundreds of cheap DIYs).

Talk about how you want to do everything at length. Don't get halfway into your plans and realise there was a simpler/cheaper way of doing it. Do your research, once you start booking things its not easy to change your plans.

Remember to be in love. I am so blessed to be marrying someone who will still make me laugh and hold my hand, even at times when it feels more like we're business partners planning a corporate event than best friends who are in love. As a good friend keeps reminding me: "Keep the main thing the main thing." (And thanks to the wonderful couple who gave them that advice a year ago.)

See you again, probably as Mrs Bolorunduro. (Eek!)