Impatiently waiting

Let's recap the last few months I've been away from the blogosphere!

--I worked full time and love love loved it despite my 60 minute commute each way for a few months

---I left my job in March (so hard!!) to devote my time to planning the important last details of the wedding and getting myself ready to move like downsizing my stuff, putting my car on the market, spending time with friends and family, going over legal and financial paperwork, etc.

--Made a last minute trip to England for a few days to check out the new apartment and finalize some last minute wedding stuff (like approving the suits!!). AMAZING FLAT!! Kieran did a great job finding it. A beautiful seafront flat in Worthing. It's perfect and everything I wanted. AND I got to be there when Kieran passed his driving test! It was a fun but short visit.

(I MISS THIS VIEW ALREADY!!)


--WE GOT MARRIED!!!! APRIL 9TH

What a beautiful day. Unfortunately I'm still waiting for the professional pics but loads of people got some pretty shots like this one with my girls and Kieran's best man

--Kieran went back to England :'( Well, someone's gotta work to pay for that gorgeous flat!

Right now all our supporting documents and my passport are at the British Consulate in New York and are at the mercy of the officers there. It's been a week and a half and all I know is they have it and someone is working on it. Whatever that means. Unfortunately with Easter and the Royal Wedding, the Brits have had A LOT of days off so who knows if anyone's even looked at my case yet. siiiighhh.

As far as the timing of this thing, I have no way of knowing. Some of their stats show that more than 60% of these cases are finished in 10-15 days. The New York office says the average time is 28 days. Worse yet, I talked to a dude at Worldbridge, a company they've contracted with to deal with these visas, who said it could take up to 3 months!! To add insult to injury, I had to pay him $3.00 per minute just to have him tell me this. If I'm paying out the ass for the visa itself and to call and get information you should at least feed me sugary lies to soothe my anxiety!

So basically what that means for me is that I could hear tomorrow that my passport is on its way back with a visa or I might not hear til July. You can imagine how that might make a person crazy. Especially since this person isn't working and doesn't exactly have a whole lot to keep her distracted. AND especially cause this person hasn't seen her husband in two weeks of the three they've been married and thinks this shit is cruel and unusual. All we wanted to do was to do everything legally and have done every single thing by the book and of course we end up getting punished for it.

In the meantime, my bags remain only halfway packed cause I'm still living here but hoping to hear any day. And while I want to be optimistic and put all my bags in the car right now, I have to be realistic and not get my hopes up. Plus I don't wanna have to go out to my car every morning to get my toothpaste.
And my poor husband is living in a halfway furnished flat (AKA lawn furniture and a mattress in the living room) cause he's waiting for me to get there so we can decorate the place together. So both of us are just waiting in limbo and it's just torture on both of us. I wouldn't wish this scenario on my worst enemy.

Well, in the meantime I'm working on my wedding "thank you" notes, helping my parents around the house with spring cleaning, spending time with friends and family, and resting.

Yesterday I went for a really really nice bike ride with my dad. Before I fell off and busted my shoulder (owie), I prayed to God and I thanked Him for this beautiful day and this time with my dad and asked Him to help me find purpose in this crappy situation. Clearly He's trying to give me more time to properly say goodbye to people (especially people who were sick and couldn't come to the wedding) and to give me time to reflect. And probably to do other things I haven't discovered yet. Kieran suggested that I do some volunteering to keep myself busy. So after a week of sulking, crying, and feeling sorry for myself I approached my close friend to see if she needs volunteers at the school where she teaches. So we shall see where that goes...

As Kieran always says, "It could be worse, it could be better." Doing the best we can right now.

More details to come!
Thanks for reading
Amanda <3