Summer Reception?

Now that things seem to be clearer about A's job with his company, we're deciding to finally have the wedding reception.

Thing is, when we had the first one, it was supposed to be extremely small but then we found out that during the month of October we (meaning my family, basically) had many relatives visiting from many different countries. So, though trying to keep the guestlist extremely short, we ended up hosting more than 70 people... seriously, I think we all lost count.

But alhamdulillah (thank to Allah) everything turned out beautifully, in a way.

Of course, there were some things that I wasn't too thrilled about during the first official part of my marriage... well pretty much the fact that I had no control over anything. Everyone was freaking out... and me and my raging hormonal self (terrified to be taking such a major life-changing leap of faith) could not get a word in edge-wise.

So, yeah, I basically watched things as a spectator... hardly felt like my wedding :(
LOL.

I guess from that it must be clear now that this time round, I'm wanting to do things in a better more organized way... which involves my hubby and I.

Well, I guess I asked for it... so I got it. Problem is, everyone's like, "Oh, we planned the first event, so you're on ur own for this one... we've done our part."
That firstly makes me feel isolated... apart from scaring the daylights out of me.

I'm 21 yrs old (going on to 22) and haven't lived in my home country (the US) for that long. Plus, I've never really attended a wedding here... so do I know what planning a wedding entails? Nope.

But... I'm trying. And, things aren't exactly running smoothly, I'll say. I'm still determined to stay positive... yes, it's hard. I hate when you feel like you're running around in circles! lol.

Anyhow, so yeah, we got my husband's reception outfit today. It came in from Pakistan :D And, I pretty much love it, alhamdulillah.

It's cream, or more as what I would describe as camel colored :P LOL. That's my 'having been brought up in Arabia' side talking, I guess!

Anyhow, yeah, I love it :DDD

Ok, where was I?

Oh yeah, so we both have our reception outfits... HOORAY! But, we have no venue... because we have no venue, we can't finalize the reception date. We know that we want it in the first week of Aug... either Aug 1st or 8th! Still, we can't finalize it unless we know if we have a place to hold it!

Since we don't know where to hold it nor do we have a fixed date, we can't print cards... if we can't print cards, we can't have people RSVP. If people don't RSVP, then if the hall isn't big enough, we'll have another issue at hand!

Wedding planning is CRAZAAAY! haha. But, I think I love craziness :P

I'm still excited, nervous and scared as hell. But, I have ultimate faith in Allah (God) that things are going to work out beautifully insha'Allah (if Allah wills).

We find out March 13th...

Yeah, Friday the 13th! Watever! I'm not the least bit superstitious.

Anyhow, yeah, so apparently my husband's company has laid off around 8,000 employees and now they're going from employee-to-employee informing them whether they have been laid off, or not.

My husband will find out on March 13 :(

And if he is informed of being laid off, March 26th could be his last working day!

This is pretty crazy but thankfully we've filed on time, but yeah, he might have to move-in with my family and I.

Which would be nice because I like my state better than his! haha

But, at the same time, I don't know if I would be ok with the family dynamics being set that way :S

We've only been married 5 months and haven't lived together and so we really need time on our own to get to connect on another level.

Not to mention, some private time.

My house only has 3 bedrooms-- a master bedroom for my parents, then my sister and I both have our own rooms.

So yeah, it'll be weird for sure!

But hopefully things'll happen for the best and I'm not that worried.

I'm a strong believer in the power of Allah (God) and so yeah, though I am concerned, I'm hardly worried at all.

Been almost 5 months...

Wow time flies!

Alhamdulillah (All praise be to Allah) that I have had an amazing 5 months of marriage :)

And, my hubby continues to be the most patient person that I have EVER come across, in my life! I gotta say... wow...haha.

Anyhow, yeah, haha... a thought on the word 'patience', I am more of the impatient type! LOL... well i mean i guess it depends.

Okie dokie, too much yapping...

So... what's going on in our life?

Well, my husband is on an h1 visa and with the way the economy is going, who's to say how long anyone will have their job?

For that reason, my hubby and I are currently filling in a crazy number of forms to file for his immigration.

With an h1 visa status, the problem is that if you lose your job then you have 60 days to find another one that'll PAY for another h1 visa so that you can work for them and stay in the country... OR ASTA LA BYE BYE :(

It's hard enough being in a different state than 'A', there's nooo way in hell that I'm letting them kick him out of the country! :(

Hopefully things'll go well... though the whole "filling in a gazillion forms" drama was like beginning to drive me up the wall, but hopefully we are now done and can submit them and be over with it for now.

Also, since we're long distance, we had to keep mailing forms back and forth so that I could sign them... not to mention the times that we made mistakes on the form and so we had to re-mail them to each other with corrections!

Pure madness, i tellya!

But, hey :) The price of being happily married ;)

We (mom n i) went to SC to see hubby

Top: The view of the shoreline from the airplane
Middle: Charleston, SC. USS Yorktown Aircraft Carrier
Bottom: On board the aircraft carrier's airplane hangar

On long distance relationships...

Long distance relationships can be really tough :(

My husband and I have been married for 3 months, almost, and so it hasn't been much of a relationship but it's difficult that he lives in a state that is an 11 hr drive from here and so we can't easily see each other.

School is the reason why I am still living at home with the parents... but sometimes balancing everything gets very difficult... especially when you have this deep longing to be with the person you love.

It's really tough some days, but especially due to the fact that he has absolutely NO ONE where he lives... he has no friends or anyone in that place :(

There aren't even any other muslims that he can befriend... and so when he gets home from work, it's basically him and his walls that eat, talk and sleep together.

A's visit here... Nov 26-- Dec 1st

We had an awesome time... he finally had the chance to sit with my family and relatives in a more relaxed environment.

Also, him and I had been married over a month and so we were pretty much at ease on his trip here... thankfully!

The night before he came, I had been soooo nervous because school had kept me bz and i had hardly had any time to properly clean up the room that he was to stay in, or anything!

So, I ended up skipping a day of school and finished cleaning up within seconds of him walking through the front door.

I was actually putting the final touches on some lentil soup when my dad knocked on the door (my dad had gone to pick him from the airport).

The trip was amazing, but too short... we were running around going from one party to another... plus, the weather was kinda icky and i caught a fever :(

But overall things went well... and though we had to cancel our own dinner plans, initially, to accommodate another dinner party, that ended up getting canceled because the hosts (my uncle's wife & her niece that's staying with them) got strep throat... so, eventually, my hubby, A, and I ended up going back to our original plan and had a fun night :)

We just celebrated one month, alhamdulillah!

Time truly flies... I'm still in disbelief about being married... sort of, at least!

And wow... it's like it's already been a month.

The wedding went absolutely smoothly, even though so many things kept coming up last second... but really, alhamdulillah (All Praise to God) everything went perfectly.

And since everybody had basically come for the weekend, we didn't have to stress to clean everything up in a hurry... people came, attended and left pretty much the next day and so we had the chance to take things slowly one at a time and then tidy up.

A lot of other unfortunate events happened the week after the wedding but we've been able to handle them and pull through alright :D

There's sooo many things that I'm grateful to God for... alhamdulillah... really, we have all been blessed in sooo many ways.