Happy New Year: It Could Have Been Worse

Time to say goodbye to the year.
It wasn't as bad as it could have been...it could have been worse.
We were going to really write in more detail, but it's all in the blog already.
2013 was fairly decent to us...
We moved out of mother's house after a year in her basement and bought a house. James got a job, and then a better job. Went to Tweetups (in Minneapolis and London, Ontario, Canada) and met amazing people. Planted and grew our first garden. Got a great (seasonal) job that we're welcome back to in the New Year. Went to the Iowa State Fair. Had some amazing house guests. Returned to University to work on finishing a degree we started 10 years ago. Wrote some great things. Painted some cool paintings. Got wonderful grades.

For the rest of the world...well...it could have been worse (it can always be worse)...but there was a lot of bad shit in 2013. And stupid shit.
And some weird shit...



and finally...we made a little New Year's playlist, just for you...

Immigration Stand Still

We haven't written about it yet, mostly because we've been trying to ignore it, push it away, so we're not anxious about it...but it's just hanging there, waiting.

Saturday we went and picked up the mail from The Mother's house, we haven't changed the address on everything yet, it being merely a month since we moved out, and we actually don't have a mailbox - and the USPS, in some cases, doesn't actually recognize our house address as existing... something about town street name changes not being properly recorded with city hall or something. We'll get it fixed.

Anyway, we picked up them mail and low-and-behold James FINALLY had gotten a letter from immigration about his interview. Or so we thought...

The letter was in our name so we opened it excitedly, and before our eyes could reach the second sentence we saw the word...

"Denied"...hands shaking, we read it over and over. Turned the page over, read the second page. WHAT?! His petition was DENIED?! Tears welled up in our eyes. This means he has to go back to the UK. We just bought a house together, we share bank accounts, we own vehicles together, we have a life together, he's working (we are still applying for every reasonable paying job we can find) and they denied him?!

He was surprisingly calm as he took the papers from our hand. He scanned the letters flipping them back and forth in his hands, confused. We snatched one back from him and took a closer look, really paying attention to ALL the words this time...focusing.

He had allegedly missed his interview date in November. They said they had sent the letter out in October, and they were just now, the last days of March, telling him he had missed it.

He had just had a meeting with his lawyer the day before, who had figured they lost his paperwork, because she said his interview should have happened by now, and he had been checking the online status every other week since October, and it never indicated an upcoming meeting, or anything pending. So right away we knew something had went wrong.

He e-mailed his lawyer immediately, and we waited.

Yesterday she replied that she contacted them immediately because she was supposed to have gotten the letter about the interview too, and she hadn't. She had gotten the Petition Denial letter on Saturday  and copies of all the other correspondences since the applications had been submitted. She also said she had heard about this happening before, and that the case should be re-opened with no problem. There is a 30 day appeal deadline. So, there is still hope.

The biggest concern is if they try to charge us more money for their mistake. We've already spent nearly $6000.00 dollars in application fees and lawyer fees...and we really don't deserve to have to pay for something that is not our fault in the very least.

Anyway, immigration. It's not easy, it's full of loop-holes, and traps, and costs a lot of money. It's not really surprising that people try to get around it; but if you ever do it, the cost of the immigration lawyer is ABSOLUTELY worth it.

In the meantime, we wait...some more. July will be one year since he filed the paperwork. The biggest deal was that his dad was sick in December, and he would have loved to fly home to see him, and his brother got married this past weekend, and he would have loved to be there; but until his petition is approved he is not allowed to leave the country. After he gets approved he gets to stay for two years before another interview and is free to leave the country, but until then...he's at a standstill.

Untitled Friday

Stupid headache and a bad mood.
One of THOSE kinds of headaches, (no, not PMS-type) and a feeling of...being scrambled.
Simple as that.

The weekend is upon us. More painting walls, as we decided to paint the dining room after all.
Soon we will have pictures for you.
Dad (The Father) had said he was coming for the weekend, but there is a storm brewing and it might make it difficult, so he won't be coming.

It's officially two weeks since the house sale was finalized and we moved out of The Mother's basement, and  into our own place. It's been pretty great despite all the stress, arguing, frustration, and bleeding of money from our savings account. James is definitely better for it; he's much more happy and content, on average.

It's been hard to get into the studio to start painting (on canvas, no walls). The house actually has small closets and rooms, so our clothes are in the studio closet, and some in the guest room closet, where the dresser also resides because it won't fit into the "master bedroom". James' clothes are in the master bedroom closet and he may have to put some in the guest room too. There's no real fix for that, so it's just the way it will have to be. In the meantime there are stacks of clothes waiting to be shoved in the closet (which is stuffed already) and books and odds and ends with no particular place to go sitting all over the place. It makes us irritated just thinking about it. Meh. We'll live. We'll just have to throw some more crap out, or spend more money on "storage solutions".

Meanwhile, pass us an ice pick for our head.

Settling In

It's official, we're moved in.

It's taking some getting used to, the bathroom needs to be updated, needs a mirror, needs a shower we can turn around in, needs better water pressure and temperature controls; but it's lovely, being on our own again. Mentally we're so much better, despite the stress of moving and some arguments with James.

A day of packing on Thursday, a day of unpacking, some lost days (just don't remember them), and now the painting. There are of course a few things sitting around waiting to find a home.

In the process of starting to paint the living room yesterday we discovered knob and tube wiring in the living room, where we did not expect it. We knew the house had some, but thought it was mostly on the second floor.

Knob and tube wiring is not good in a heavily electronic age (it's actually a big fire hazard); and we're big on electronics too.

So after the living room is painted we're holding off on the dining room, because you guessed it: We're gutting the main floor for a re-wire within the next 6 months. Not only because of the electrical work, but because the plaster and lath walls have buckled a bit below the windows in the both the living room and the dining room. So that means the floors won't be refinished until summer either. .

There are a few things we and James ended up overlooking that are now being discovered - but nothing we can't handle considering what we were going to be willing to do in the Weeping Willow property, had we gotten that back in October.
The radiators that run the length of many of the rooms are old, and the fins that surround the pipes are bent and warped, and some missing, which not only makes them inefficient, but also causes all sorts of unholy noises in the middle of the night.
Plus they are an eye-sore, so when the gutting happens, we'll be replacing them with something better.

Suddenly there are a lot of things that need to be done before we start University classes at the end of August.

The new sofa was delivered today, as well as our new elliptical exercise machine, and the cable and internet were installed (thankfully!). Tomorrow we get the new washer and dryer, and then we can start figuring out when to order the other appliances (upgrading to a gas stove, a new fridge and dishwasher). Every appliance in the house is easily 30 years old and sucks energy.

The house, in it's 103 year old glory, has character, it's gorgeous (though it needs a major facelift), it's comfortable. Soon we'll have a bunch of pictures to show you.

It's home.

We're finally home.

'Twas The Night Before Moving Day...

Tomorrow is moving day!

We won't have reliable internet access until Tuesday morning, though we'll have a bit from our smartphone data plan to get by...it doesn't much matter anyway...

Went to a home building store today to look at back-splash tiles and kitchen counter-tops..and eight gallons of paint later, we're ready to spend the weekend in the new living room and dining room covered in liquid colour while James goes to work.

It's "we can taste it" real now.

Onward, and upward...and on to the real relationship fun...like arguing for nearly two hours about kitchen back-splash tiles...

Oh, btw...this is our new house:

And the rooms we're be painting...