Random Act of Doodling.

I am a doodle-er. I doodle on everything: work memos, my phone call list, post-its while on the phone, newspapers (on the rare occasion that a read one), the notebook I use to balance my checkbook (the ledger that the bank gives you is really to small to keep track of anything)... the list goes on. The feel of a new roller-gel ink pen tip gliding across the surface of crisp new paper is just so... satisfying. I have started keeping copier paper under the computer keyboard so that while I'm surfing my Go To list of wedding blogs, I have something to write on if I want to make notes on great findings, or just doodle while I'm waiting for a page of pictures to load (waiting for pictures to load? yes, we need a new computer; though right now we need to pay the florist). I love to draw little circles, all lined up in rows. I also love to write my first name: all caps, script, flourishes, extra lines. Call me vain, but I love to see my name in writing.

Last summer, before we got engaged, I used to write my my first name followed by Ryan's last name. I'd write what might be my new last name someday, over and over, until it felt almost natural. When we did get engaged that September, I would doodle what would be my new name all over everything, but it still seemed like forever until I'd actually be able to write it and mean it; until I really was Mrs. Katie Hagen.

This morning I sat down at my computer and while waiting for it to load and update and do whatever it is computers do while "waking up", I pulled out a piece of paper and doodled some circles. The circles progressed to lines, the lines progressed to my first name, and all of a sudden, as I wrote Kathryn Lee Hagen, it hit me. In five months, that name on the paper will be me.

I always knew that I'd take my husband's last name, and the realization that it is actually happening is almost too much to bear. When the party is over and the dress is carefully tucked away in a huge white box (most likely with a see-through pane of clear film) somewhere, I will be someone's wife. I will be Ryan's wife; Mrs. Kathryn Lee Hagen. Today, five months from our wedding day, this wedding has become real. At first it seemed so far away: "When we get married" implied "Sometime, in the future, when we're both adults". Now, the meaning is much closer to "In five months when the world will finally recognize us as our own little family".

After months of planning and crunching numbers and worrying about the style of bridesmaids dresses, it finally feels real. There is still much planning to be done, many DIY projects to complete, but now it seems as if we're in the home stretch. And as I sit here, I can't help but to think how lucky I am to be marrying him. After all of the milestones we hit during the engagement - when we sent out the save the dates, we thought "OK, this makes it real now!", and when we had the food tasting, we thought "OK, this makes it real now!"... but the thing that hit me the hardest? Doodling my soon-to-be new name. And it was a wonderful feeling.

When was your first "wow, this is really happening" moment?