Getting it Together Because...

I originally started blogging to de-stress and to journal our lives, and since that journey began, I have found a new purpose for my blogging. I am a business woman and wife to a wonderful, hard working school teacher, with the aspiration to one day be a stay at home mom. With that goal in mind, I know that I need to be able to provide my family with supplemental income when we decide to have a family - so here we go. I am hoping to start a book/blog series about the different stages of life as we live them - of course I hope to write these over the course of our lives as we experience each new chapter. Here is the plan...

Book/Blog Series Part 1:

Getting it Together Because... We're Getting Married!

A look into the world of a OCP (Obsessive Compulsive Planner) bride-to-be

Book/Blog Series Part 2:

Getting it Together Because... I'm a Wife!

A look at molding myself into the Christian wife I have always hoped to be

Book/Blog Series Part 3:

Getting it Together Because... We're Having a Baby! (Don't worry mom and dad, this one won't be written for a few years or so!)

A look into the world of an OCP (Obsessive Compulsive Planner) mom-to-be

Book/Blog Series Part 4:

Getting it Together Because... We'r e Buying a House!

A look into the world of an OCP (Obsessive Compulsive Planner) homeowner-to-be

Book/Blog Series Part 5:

Getting it Together Because... We're Retiring!

A look into the world of an OCP (Obsessive Compulsive Planner) retiree-to-be

Oh Beautiful Day

I'm baaack! After a lifetime of waiting, 2 years together, and 9 months of planning, our beautiful day has come and gone! Andrew and I are married, and what a beautiful day it was! I have a few pictures so far and I will share them below. Now that we are all moved in, settled into our apartment and back to work after 3 days of marriage, I'm ready to begin my book/blog series some time this week! Enjoy a peek from our wedding day!

Whole Heartedly Honest

Today's Date: September 15th, 2013
Days Until Our Wedding: 6
Today's Overall Mood: Positive
Today, I am nervous about: Leaving my parents
Today, I'm looking forward to: Our Wedding Day

Today, my parents and I went to church for the last time before I'm married and I move away. In fact, I think this week will be full of lasts before our big day. After church we ate and then mom and I went on a shopping adventure for the first part of the day. We came home exhausted and embarked upon a much needed nap. We woke to snuggle on the couch and watch some TV. 

We are 6 days from my wedding and it has never felt farther away. Now that all of the planning is done and wedding planning hasn't been on my brain at every waking minute, I find myself not thinking about the wedding at all, which I think might be scaring me the most. I'm trying so hard to soak up every last with my parents and being in our home, the way we are. It pains me to think about all the exciting things before me, and all of the wonderful things I'm leaving behind. That timeless lump in my throat emerges just thinking about not being here, in this place; in this shelter. I'm reminded of all the things I will be missing out on, most of all, precious time with my parents, and all that they will be missing out on in my new life. You never know when God will call one of His children home, and my greatest fear is losing those that I love. Unfortunately, this is not a new experience for me. I have lost two wonderful grandparents who became pivotal people in my life as they came to the close of theirs. I fear, now more than ever, that living away from my parents, no matter the distance, will create a gap in our relationship that can never be bridged or mended. It will be a changing of the guard; a hand-off from my former life as a child, their baby, into womanhood and wifehood. My coming of age ceremony will officially brand me, in my parents' eyes, as a grown up. But does getting married really change all that much? When I come home, I'm still fully prepared to snuggle with my momma and get into deep discussions with my dad. The changes that will occur are: living 2.5 hours away, integrating a new handsome man into our family, and my last name being different from the one I was given at birth. That's no big deal, right?

Don't get me wrong, I'm so very excited to marry my Andrew, it just hasn't hit me yet...at all! Perhaps it will feel closer once my parents, family, friends and I all arrive in Columbus. We are heading down on Thursday morning and then just a few days later, I will be walking down the aisle into his arms. Then the next day I will officially move and then two days later, start a new job. If you just grasped what I said, you're thinking we're insane. I will be getting married, moving, and starting a new job in less than 5 days...maybe we are insane! 

Photo taken last year on an autumn walk

Everything You Own In A Box To The Left...

Today's Date: September 14th, 2013
Days Until Our Wedding: 7!
Today's Overall Mood: Tired
Today, I am nervous about: Everything coming together on the wedding day
Today, I'm looking forward to: The end of planning! 


Yesterday was my last day working until after the wedding. I will miss all of the wonderful people I worked with, but I'm excited to see what God has in store for my future. So since I had off today, my wonderful mother and MOH helped me hash out last minute details. We also boxed all of the items that we can't forget to bring to the wedding. 

I labeled each box for each location. This was so important because if we didn't do this, all of our stuff would be sprawled all over our car and we would be searching for the different things we need and important items would be forgotten! This is also a great idea because once we get to the rehearsal dinner, we can just pop the trunk and pull the box that says "dinner" and then we're set. Everything we need for the rehearsal dinner is in there and there is no stress!

 We also picked up our finished flowers today. I opted to use artificial flowers to not only save money, but because they won't die or wilt. They are flowers that I can keep forever, and those in our family can keep if they choose to. We found a local floral shop and I brought her pictures of what I wanted all of my different flowers to look like. She did a fabulous job and even labeled each piece so we could easily find what we needed.

Here are all of our flowers! On the left is the box of our lantern rings, in the center you'll see all of the bouquets and on the right you'll see all of the boutineers and wrist corsages. 

Two Hands

On the anniversary of September 11th, I find myself compelled to talk about what I am thankful for, and there are so many things at that. I am thankful that God gave me life, that He gave me to my parents and that He equally gave them back to me. I'm thankful for having a wonderful brother who is so close in age (15 months older than me) and who has successfully worked hard enough to get into medical school. I am thankful for the country I live in and for the freedoms our citizenship encompasses. I am thankful for my health and the health of my family. I am thankful for my ever growing family, now that I'm getting married I mean, and I am thankful for my education. I am thankful for being gifted and talented and for being able to recognize those gifts. I am thankful for the opportunities God has shown me and for where His future opportunities will take me. I am thankful for my Andrew and for all he has helped me to become in such a short amount of time. He has been such a blessing in my life and I greatly look forward to our future together. 

Today's post is entitled two hands because we are two hands, or 10 fingers, away from getting married! It's also about how I hope to find a career where I can use the gifts and talents God has given me to help others less fortunate than I am. As hard as it is, I hope to become better at trusting in God and His timing and His plan for me and my life. It is a life long journey, but I'm willing to work at it until the end of my life. I want so badly to have a wonderful relationship with God, and in His timing, I trust that He will reveal Himself to me in a way that I can understand. 

Today's Date: September 11th, 2013
Days Until Our Wedding: 10
Today's Overall Mood: Staying busy
Today, I am nervous about: Finding a good job to help support my family
Today, I'm looking forward to: Walking down the aisle to my love

Preparing For That New Beginning

Now that I'm all caught up with the past nine months of wedding planning and life happenings, I can finally start to touch on my feelings as we inch in towards our wedding day. The coolest/ weirdest thing right now is being able to say "I'm getting married next week"...OMG! I'm getting married NEXT WEEK! Crazy exciting and we are definitely so blessed.

Today's Date: September 10th, 2013
Days Until Our Wedding: 11
Today's Overall Mood: Excited/ In disbelief that it's finally almost here!
Today, I am nervous about: Starting a new job so soon after our wedding
Today, I'm looking forward to: Finally ending our long distance relationship and seeing him every day, AND starting to get settled; making new friends, participating in church events, etc.

I'm so excited to start blogging about my life as I live it! I got some great advice from my cousin who is a published blogger/ebook writer. She said to start blogging first about my topics, but not to put all of the information on my blog, or there will be no need to have a book or ebook for my readers to purchase. That's going to be hard since I am so excited to tell you all everything as I live it! I also am anxious to start writing about my planning-OCD wedding preparation tips once the wedding has come and gone!

Ultimate Update

I have the largest updating to do. I started blogging right after Andrew & I got engaged, 9 months ago! You can't even believe how much has happened since then and I don't even know where to start..I sure hope I don't forget anything!

Since Christmas, 2012 we celebrated our one year anniversary together on December 30th, 2012. Andrew came and stayed with my family to being in the new year, the year we would get married, and I and although I was sick, we still kissed when the ball dropped in time square. I was still working at the Chicago Tribune and Andrew had just graduated from Concordia University Chicago. The call process for his Lutheran teaching job was slowly beginning and the uncertainty of where we would get called was beginning to come into immediate thought processes. For those of you that are unfamiliar with the Lutheran Call process, teachers that are certified to teach in the Lutheran schools complete paperwork that gets sent to Lutheran schools looking to hire new teachers. Once the school is interested in the potential teacher, they conduct a multitude of interviews. After prayerful consideration from the school and the teaching candidate, a call can be extended and then accepted. This is probably the most simple synopsis of the call process, but for the purposes of understanding the struggle of not knowing where God may take you, sometimes even across the country, this description should do. But I'm jumping ahead of myself a bit with the call process.

In February, 2013, I found a position with a local advertising firm and left The Chicago Tribune. After a week with that position, I felt that it was not as good of a fit as I intended so I left the company to work even closer to my parents home, at Party City. I filled the position as the Inscribe Invitation Specialist, providing customer service and design input on invitations.

At this point, we had been wedding planning like crazy - taking engagement pictures, booking the caterer, the venue and photographer, getting my dress and ordering the tuxes, we hit the first month of engagement hard and covered lots of ground. Towards the end of March, Andrew and I went to Chad and Emily's wedding (Andrew's cousins). It was a lovely day and we had lots of fun. We also finished our call process and after much prayerful consideration, we were called to Springfield, IL. The congregation was overwhelmingly welcoming - a true blessing for soon-to-be newly weds moving to a new town.

Andrew and I on Easter Morning.
He is risen, He is risen indeed!


In April, my mom and I planned our Chicago bridal shower/ bachelorette weekend. We cleaned the house and prepared for the event for at least a month. All of my college girlfriends, Look's, Andrew's Mom, Rick and Megan came in for the weekend events! The shower was beautiful but by the time the bachelorette party happened the night of the shower, I was tired! We got so many wonderful gifts, we are truly blessed!

Maid of Honor! Eryn

My Flower Girl

My Bridesmaids

My Groom <3

My ladies and I for the bachelorette party!

May was a busy month! We had Eryn's birthday (one of my bestfriends), Ashley's birthday (my other bestfriend), Andrew's birthday, and my brother Bob's birthday! Whew! On top of the full birthday month, we celebrated Greta & Larry's 50th wedding anniversary by having a giant Patberg family photo shoot with my fabulous wedding photographer, Kate Kerr!

Andrew & I

The Patberg's!

Julie, Rick, Ryan, Megan, Sydney, Kelsey, Andrew & I

June came and went faster than you can ever imagine! We spent the first weekend of the month in our pre-marital class at St. Peter's Lutheran Church in Columbus, IN, where we will be saying "I Do" in 13 days! The following weekend we helped celebrate Ben and Kristen Daily by attending their wedding and the last weekend of the month was filled with loading our UHaul because we got our first apartment in Springfield! We moved Andrew and our stuff into our new apartment the first weekend in July, before Andrew and his family went on their final family vacation before our wedding.

The rest of July was spent beginning the interview process to find a job down in Springfield and we had TWO wedding showers thrown for us in Columbus. Mom, Dad and I ventured to Columbus for the two gorgeous showers. Aunt Chris, Katie and Jennifer threw us a shower for Julie's side of the family, and Nana threw us a shower for Mike's side of the family. We were spoiled and got a tremendous amount of awesome gifts!

In August I had my first dress fitting, Andrew, Mom, Dad and I attended my oldest friend, Tayler's wedding. In the middle of the month I headed to Columbus, without Andrew, for his cousin Audrey's wedding shower. SHe is getting married to Andrew's cousin Cole almost a month after our wedding. On August 19th, Andrew had his first day teaching 6th, 7th and 8th grade at Our Savior's Lutheran Church and School, and on the 25th Mom, Dad and I traveled to Springfield, along with Rick, Julie, Mike and Becky to watch Andrew get welcomed into the congregation at Our Savior's.

Ahhh September, the month that we are getting married is finally here! I kicked off the month being sick over Labor Day weekend and then had my final dress fitting. This coming week is my final week at Party City in Mokena, and I'm planning to take the week before my wedding off to enjoy time with my parents and then the current plan is to transfer to the Party City in Springfield. Working at Party City is extremely far from living the dream, but I'm still applying and I feel blessed just to have a job. We are going to financially struggle the first few years of our marriage, but with prayer and faith, I believe that we will make it.

It's hard to believe all that we have gone through, enjoyed and accomplished the last nine months.In 13 days from today I get to marry the love of my life. I'm excited. Right now, I'm not nervous to marry Andrew and I'm not nervous to get married at this point in my life. Getting married is very bittersweet. I am so excited to start my new life with Andrew, but I am also very sad to be leaving the shelter and safety of my parent's nest. It may be a hard transition, but I'm sure that over time it will become second nature. I'm so excited to marry my Andrew!

13 Days. <3