Sorry for the delay

I know a few of you are interested in seeing the dress. I did get it and it's perfect: right color, right size (well, slightly too big and too long). I tried taking pictures of it when I got it with my camera's auto-timer but they didn't come out the best. It's really hard to press the shutter button then run twelve feet away and try to pose when you are wearing an enormous dress. I'm not meeting my seamstress until May 15th (yes, she assures me it will be completed by June 12th at the latest) so I'll try to drag a friend over to take some pictures or try the auto-timer thing again in the meanwhile.

And actually, I have a confession to make. The reason that the wedding blog posts have been few and far between is that I've been really, really stressed out. I finally got the OK from my boss yesterday to defend my thesis on June 11th. Until yesterday, I was in PhD limbo. Do I have to keep doing more experiments? Would I graduate before my wedding? If not, what am I going to do about my job start date? And what about moving to Colorado??

Coupled to that stress, I've had a string of recent disappointments in my grad school career. I'm having a lot of trouble trying to get a paper published on my project that was my pride and joy. I did a ton of work on another project and there's been drama on where I would end up on that paper's author list. I caught my boss on an extremely bad day and he sent me a scathing e-mail that highlighted his disappointment in my research accomplishments.

Bryan has tried to be supportive but he has been given a lot more responsibility at work and has been extremely busy. Now that I've been given permission to finish up in June, I feel that a huge weight has been lifted. But there's so much work to be done. Half of my thesis still needs to be written (~75 more pages) and proofread by the end of May. I have to run around campus and get various people to sign a bunch of paperwork. I have to prepare an hour long seminar on my thesis and be prepared for the tough questions. And on top of that, I have the wedding and moving stuff. Dress fittings, hair appointments, dentist appointments, finalizing menus and cake design, two more dance lessons, printing wedding programs, packing all of our crap, filling out forms for my new job. I feel like I'm at the end of a looong rollercoaster ride going down the biggest hill of my life.

Anyway, sorry for the long rant. I ordered a veil this morning and once it comes in, I will try to take pictures of the whole ensemble. Thanks for reading and thanks to those who have been so supportive!