Have you guys seen the movie, 28 days?

from wiki
Gwen Cummings borrows the limo at her sister's wedding after ruining the reception with her drunken antics. She crashes the limo while she is on her cell phone trying to find a cake to replace the one she destroyed. She is given a choice between jail or 28 days in a rehab center. She chooses rehab. However, she is extremely resistant to taking part in any of the treatment programs they have to offer, refusing to admit that she is an alcoholic.
After getting to know some of the other patients, Gwen gradually begins to re-examine her life and see that she does, in fact, have a serious problem. Her sincere desire to get well complicates her relationship with long-time, live-in boyfriend Jasper. She befriends Andrea, a 17-year-old recovering heroin addict who occasionally harms herself. All of the other patients help her see herself in a different light while she tries to get sober and come to terms with her alcoholism/addiction to prescription medications. The path to recovery will not be easy and success will not be guaranteed or even likely, but she is now willing to give it a try.
I saw it when it came out in 2000 and liked it back then. Noticed it's on Netflix so added it to my watch list. but this is not the 28 days I'm here to talk about.
I'm getting married in 28 days... Yup, that's right... Go ahead and freak out now, that's what I'm doing this weekend! In a good way.

These past few months have been really hard with everything except for one thing, my partnership with JP. He has been the most supportive and caring companion I could ever ask for, making me laugh when i want to cry, holding me tight when i know for a fact he doesn't want to be touched, making sure I eat and drink when all I've wanted to do is sleep. For the sake of a little coherence, this blog will be separated into themed sections.

Work
I've been working for a little over 4 months now. It feels great to be working and to be able to provide for us. Everyone at the office has been a treat to work with, we have a good time collaborating and so far I haven't made any big mistakes so that's good. I've also brought in a new set of tools to the office which has been greatly appreciated.
On the other hand, the rhythm at which things go here is so fast and the work load is so large that I'm constantly exhausted and barely functioning besides work. I knew it would be an adjustment, especially that i also have to learn how things are done in the US not only in a new office environment, but its really trying and tiring. In short, very thankful for a 3 day weekend!

Home
Because of the above, i've been a slacker at home. All the house work and even cooking is left for the weekend because i'm so spent during the week and I hate it. Our house is gross. It doesn't help that all three of us are very lazy so the kitchen ends up being a hazard zone and the more chaotic it gets the less i have the courage to take care of it. JP thankfully was my savior a couple of weeks ago and took care of it during the week so by the weekend it was less of a war zone and so far i've been able to maintain that. This living in your own place and working full time thing is new to me and it's taking more than i can give right now to make my house look decent. Oh well, today i totally took a nap and did not care because i needed it!

Flatmate
Out flatmate Soo has just spent the worst 2 weeks of her life. She's been in the US for the past 8 years, studying here. She moved to LA last July for work on OPT, same as my current status, and her work has applied for an H1B visa for her back in April (work visa). For the longest time there was no update on her case then finally two weeks ago she gets a call from HR that there were so many applications this year that the lottery system was used and her application was not retained. She had a week left before her work permit expires and then has 60 days to leave the country. Many tears were shed and we're trying to help her out as much as we can during this transition. Going back home breaks her heart and spirit and is very scary as she's grown fully accustomed to being here and identifies a lot more with the way of life here than in her home country.. We now have a little over a month to find a new flatmate and need to figure out all the legal stuff too with our landlord and it's going to be fun!

Money
It's almost been a year since we moved into this apartment. The move itself with everything it entailed set us back a very significant amount. Things got to the point that we were broke in February and Soo paid our part of the rent for March before i could pay her back with my first couple of paychecks. Jp's work situation is disastrous but it's not something I'd like to get into here. So for the past four months it's been a slow climb up. last month we finally ended the month with $1000 left in our account and it's slowly growing from there. I hate how expensive everything is in LA and it's not like we're living like kings. But thankfully we're making it. And it feels awesome to be able to contribute. Jp was the one supporting us both for the past year, and i felt really bad that my contributions were limited to $200 a month. Unfortunately, he now feels guilty and inadequate with me being the breadwinner and no matter how i try to put it it doesn't make him feel better. We had some good talks about it and finances in general, and at least I understand where it's all coming from for him and respect his views so I'm finding ways to trick him into feeling good about it and then being sneaky; like putting some bills in his pockets before putting his pants in the washing machine Writing this down i realized i've turned into a "woman" *head desk*

Business
Because of the paragraph above, we have been exploring many avenues for
starting a home business. Jp is a jack of all trades and that has been more of a dsetback than anything as we can't seem to decide which way to go and every couple of weeks there's a different direction. So i took the reigns on this one and we're starting with one of my projects. At the moment I'll only say it's food related. We have started our sample batches and sent out some to close friends for honest review. We had a timeline for this summer but it seems likely that it will move more towards the holiday season unless we really put a spring in it this august. If you feel like helping out, we are in need of a couple of native English speakers to help out with the selection of a name from a list of our top choices. Hit me up a message and I'll email you.

Family
I miss my family so so much it's getting difficult. We don't know when we'll be able to get away and go for a visit or when we'll be moving back. With work being so difficult for me I'm not able to Skype my grandmom every morning like i used to, only speak on the weekends when the connection is horrible. You might think it's lame that a 30 year old wants to hang out with her grandma so much, but i've lived with her for the past 14 years, realize I'm lucky to have her in my life and want to make the most of the time we can have together. I really miss her a lot and it hurts to hear in her voice how much she misses me and feels alone especially that Igor is now gone. We lost our family dog a few weeks ago and that has been tough on everyone too.
Discussing our plans for the future has been so difficult for me. On one hand, I don't want to go back home before having put aside enough to be able to start over in Lebanon, and on the other hand I want to go back as soon as possible because all the time I'm spending here is time I won't get back with my family... Here's a song i used to love that I can't listen to anymore because it makes me cry every time.

Lyrics in English in the spoiler not to take up too much bloggage space.


Spoiler:

Tell me, when will you return?

How many nights, How many days.
They are so, so long and you're far, far away,
You promised this trip would be the last.
No more heart's torn sails on a shipwrecked mast
In spring, we will be together again,
And spring is for love whispering under the moon,
And together we'll smell fresh flowers in bloom,
As we stroll arm in arm down Paris streets soon.

Tell me, when will you return?
Tell me, at the least don't you know
That all these moments passing
Will hardly ever remain.
That all these moments lost
Will never come again

Spring has long since fled almost ready to return.
Dry leaves they crackle, the wood fires they burn.
Paris in autumn is so beautiful and serene
But here I am listless, shivering as if in a dream
Reeling and stomach heaving just like love's old refain
Now going now coming feet heavy as lead
And I'm so so love sick, and I'm so sick of you,
Your image it still haunts me, 'n I speak like one dead,

Tell me, when will you return?
Tell me, at the least don't you know
That all these moments passing
Will hardly ever remain.
That all these moments lost
Will never come again

Whether I love you now, whether I love you in arrears
Whether it's you I love in love, whether I love you only,
If you don't see that you must return to me
Then we two 'll be one of love's souvenirs.
And I 'll be on my way where the world's wonders are
And I'll hitch my poor heart to another bright star,
I am not one of those sorts who die of untold grief
And the virtue of sailor's wives has never been my brief.

Tell me, when will you return?
Tell me, at the least don't you know
That all these moments passing
Will hardly ever remain.
That all these moments lost
Will never come again


Wedding
And all this brings us to here. Last week we went to get legal advice on my situation and our different options for me continuing to work here after January. Our best option is to file for an adjustment of status after JP is naturalized. We decided we weren't going to wait to get married, since there is no way we'll be able to go home and do it with our families and it's not like we need time to think about it as we've been together for 9 years, engaged for 7 and living together under one roof for one and a half.
We had been toying with the idea of a vacation this summer in Iowa to visit Rach and her SO and then go to NY to visit my uncle and his wife as i get two weeks vacation time.
As it turns out I can only take as much vacation time as i've accrued while working, so it only adds up to three days, and I have to request it about a month ahead of time. So we decided to take a vacation in Iowa and have an intimate ceremony where my uncle will marry us at the end of the month. These past 10 days have been filled with emotion. Letting my parents know was stressing me so much that i couldn't sleep or eat for two days. I really needed to talk to them about it and let them know what our plans were, all the while knowing they would be happy for us but very sad they would not be able to share the celebration with us. Add to that the stress and guilt of not knowing when i'm seeing them next i was a mess. It was an emotional talk with them, and then telling all my siblings one by one was a lot of fun. They were so excited for us every single on eof them started shouting They were all in different places so it's not like it was planned or anything, and it was really late at night by the time I spoke to them. Their excitement was contagious JP and Rach were both sources of lots of support for which I'm very grateful <3

For all you wedding planning blog lovers (I'm guilty as charged) I'm sorry to announce there won't be much coming your way... We're keeping things VERY simple and just going with the flow. Well there probably will be a sneak peak of my "day of" look once things align but that's about it. It's a lot more of an elopement than a wedding, but it will be fun and it will be ours

Also very excited that we're going to meet Nicole for a cup of coffee on our way to Iowa as we have a layover in Denver!


And so this concludes this blog.

tl;dr: We're getting married, I'm surrounded by loving people and very thankful to have them close.

As a treat to you for reading all this, here are a few 70's and 80's french songs . The either make me laugh like crazy or just bring back nice childhood memories.

-Edit: Only allowed to embed one video, so here are the other ones in links.

Ella elle l'a

Nuit de folie


Mélissa


Le Sud

Voyage Voyage