Birthdays and Stress.

On the first of this month it was my Mother's birthday and my nephew's 1st birthday. It was fun celebrating both lives and simply spending some time as a family for once.

This is how my brother wrapped his present. In one of his Cosby sweaters.

Peaches the Dog does not seem too thrilled at the idea of a cat clock.

He would not get messy! Come on little baby, have fun with cake!

My mom got three cakes because she was complaining that she always bakes cake for everyone else's birthday but no one ever makes any for hers.

Finally, he got a little messy, still not as epic as it could have been.

I love birthdays. I love how different the celebrations are in India than here. In India it's more like a wedding I guess. If it's your birthday you get a cake (Indian cakes do NOT taste good in my opinion) and you blow out your candles and sing happy birthday, BUT when you're done singing and blowing out candles the birthday person cuts the first piece of the cake and then someone else takes that piece and feeds it to the birthday person. Then the birthday person feeds the person who fed them. So, quite similar to the wedding ritual we have here.

Then, suddenly the next day, I let the dog outside and saw something floating in the pool. Upon closer examination I found this squirrel who had drowned. Poor little guy or girl.

I dyed my hair yet again, darker. I plan to keep it quite dark when I go back to India so that it keeps the staring to a minimum, although even if I wear their clothes and have black hair like them, they still know I'm not Indian for some reason. Must be because I have the whitest skin known to mankind.

Lastly, I recently found this picture online and it just makes me squeal with happiness every time I look at it, so I thought I'd share it with you to brighten your day!

Now I wish to present to you with the best news ever (and the source of all my stress lately)! Romel and I have discussed and prayed about when and where to get married and have finally decided vague destinations and dates!

 Drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrummmmmmmmmm rollllllllllllllllllllllllllllll.....

We will be getting married in March in India! Then we hope to get a Spousal visa which could take up to 10 months after our wedding to get, but once we get it he'll come to the US with me and start the citizenship process! We're not doing this so that we can both live in the US, we're doing this so that it's easier actually for both of us to live in India and always be able to come to the US on short notice or for as long or as little as we like. Plus this way we'll never have to be stuck away from each other because of immigration stuff or visa stuff or anything.

On that topic, we need $1,600 dollars almost immediately to hire a lawyer to help us get this visa with the greatest of ease. It certainly is much easier having someone who knows all the laws and how to get things done quickly. If you would like to know in more detail the cost and process which spreads out over the next year or longer just e-mail me and I will tell you all you want to know!

In the spirit of our love and finally a wedding on the horizon, here is one of my favorite love songs from a great Bollywood movie called "ISHQ" which means "love" I just love it so so so much! Please enjoy! It has my favorite Bollywood actor Aamir Khan. Ahhhhh.