Thankful Thursday: Better Late Than Never

Time for another installment of Thankful Thursday!

I've been a total stresscase at work lately, so taking the time to think of the good things in my life is a welcome distraction. I am so excited that I only have 9 workdays left before I have a week and a half off for the wedding and honeymoon. October, come quickly!

Also, for the record, I know I missed posting this last week but I have a totally legit excuse: my internet was out. I promise 75% of this was written a week ago. Anyways, on with the show.

I'm thankful I am 16 days away from being part of an awesome family. Don't get me wrong, I love my family and miss living in Illinois near many of my family members, but I am so excited to officially join a new family next month! Since moving to Michigan over a year ago, I have spent almost every weekend with Drew and his family (he lives at home right now) and have gotten to know his parents, brothers and sister-in-law really well. And they're awesome.

When Drew and I were still in the beginning stages of wedding planning we worried that our reception would be one of those no-one-dances-and-it's-awkward-and-boring ones. Not a chance. Both of us have extremely outgoing and uninhibited families (and friends) so we know we won't have a problem getting people out on the dance floor.

But we also have fun on regular ol' weekends too, like at the girls' brunch we had two weekends ago while the guys were all at a church event.

Ladies at family brunch.

We enjoyed some delicious food and some wonderful time catching up with each other at our brunch, without any male interruption, which pretty much never happens. I think we'll need to make this a regular event! And I need to look through the family cookbook I received at my wedding shower to recreate the delicious egg casserole and sticky buns we had to eat.

I'm thankful my dress is finally altered. I wasn't exactly on top of things when it came to finding someone to make alterations to my wedding dress. But luckily a woman in my Rotary club is pretty handy with a sewing machine and offered to alter my dress for me (and for significantly less than the boutique where I purchased my dress would have charged). I went to her house last week for a fitting and got a message from her tonight that it's all finished! Woohoo! Knowing my dress isn't going to fall off of me in the middle of the ceremony is definitely a relief.

I'm thankful for coffee. Because I'm overworked and tired. Caffeine is a wonderful thing.

I'm thankful for excellent customer service. Without giving away any spoilers for my bridesmaids' gifts, I'll just say that an online order I placed with Anthropologie a few weeks ago got a little messed up, resulting in me spending nearly 30 minutes on the phone with a customer service rep to fix my order. The woman I spoke to was absolutely wonderful and extremely helpful in making sure the correct items were shipped to me ASAP. Phew!

I'm thankful the wait is almost over. Seriously, can the next 16 days just fly by? I don't know how Drew and I have been so patient with waiting for our wedding day to arrive, because all I want right now is to get married. I feel like a little kid excited for Christmas - the anticipation is almost too much to handle!

I'm thankful our wedding checklist is thisclose to being completed. Our wedding planning checklist  has seriously stressed me out over the past few months, but Drew and I have totally been dominating it in the last couple of weeks. We're pretty much down to the finishing touches, which feels so amazing. Don't let anyone tell you wedding planning is easy, because it's so much work. I'm thankful Drew has been so helpful with planning instead of expecting me to do everything by myself because I wouldn't have been able to handle it all. If we can handle planning a wedding together, then we can handle anything.

I'm thankful fall-scented candles are now seasonally appropriate. Not much smells better than a pumpkin-scented candle in my opinion, and now that fall is officially here I can burn them in my apartment without feeling any shame. I already cheated the scented candle system by burning an apple-scented one all summer long, but I can't break the unwritten candle rules by burning my pumpkin ones early. Since I've already baked pumpkin bread, the only step remaining in my fall pumpkin trifecta is to get a pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks. I think I just figured out my weekend goal!

What are you thankful for this week? Does anyone else have a pumpkin-themed to-do list this fall?