This week, Ian was able to get his state ID.   This means that he has his first official piece of US identification and no longer has to rely on his passport and his about-to-expire landing card for ID.  

We managed to locate the USCIS office downtown to show up on time for Ian’s biometrics appointment.   It is an interesting story in itself, involving a car with no working windshield wipers, lots of road splatter from melting snow and the fact that the USCIS office building is SO new, it was not locatable “exactly” by the satnav.   The satnav got us in the general vicinity, but we had to rely on building numbers to figure out if we were supposed to be proceeding east or west… by the airport, where street numbering is a bit opposite of what we are used to.

At one point, the satnav refused to offer up instructions as quickly as needed, especially when I had to choose to either get to the far right lane of the interstate or the far left, because of a horrific accident involving at least one flipped over vehicle. 

It was a mess, but we made it exactly on time.   The people at the biometrics office were nice and also quick, and another tickmark is checked off the “things to do” list to keep Ian in the US.

Wednesday, we managed to obtain the medical form, which USCIS requested  in their “did you send us all the correct paperwork” review.   It was filled out and signed off on by a Civil Surgeon, who is a special doctor appointed by immigration to address medical issues.   You can’t just go to any doctor you like.  

We sent the paperwork back to USCIS the following day, and it arrived Friday.  Soon, we’ll be getting an email saying, “Thanks for the submission.  Your case is being processed again.”

Aside from that… Work was very busy.   I’m putting a new Intranet together using Wordpress at the hubby’s suggestion, which is quite interesting (and works well) .   Lots of other things going on there, as well, but I don’t want to put anyone to sleep. 

It’s the weekend.  Thank God.  

Ian and I visited the Joslyn Art Museum this weekend. We happened to pick a day when the main exhibition had just changed. I’m not sure what the last exhibition was, but the new one was “THE HUMAN TOUCH: Selections from the RBC Wealth Management Art Collection”. It seemed to be about the human form, as you might surmise from the title.

You can see some of The Human Touch Collection here.

I think my favorite things this time were:

The miniature asian sculptures

The Degas ballerina.

I have to admit that some of the art made us laugh… like the big canvas that was painted black and each corner was a squared-off section painted in another color.    It didn’t seem like something anyone would pay a lot of money for. 

So, New Year’s Eve is over. We spent a quiet night at home and had a special dinner consisting of crab legs, steak, mashed potatoes and cheese cake. We dozed off long before midnight, and woke up around half-past. I can’t really remember the last time I stayed up till midnight.. maybe the day Ian flew in around November 1, and only because he arrived at 11:30pm, and driving half-asleep would be bad.

It’s been nice having 2 short weeks in a row. This is normally when it becomes blatantly obvious that work is going to consist of 5 long workdays for quite a long time.

On the immigration front, we received a couple of communications from USCIS. One was a biometrics appointment, set for January 13. The other was an RFE (Request for further evidence). We’re waiting for the letter that identifies what else is needed, we’ll send it in super-speedy, and it will all be fine.

It’s the extra incidence of special mailing that’s annoying, but it’ll be fine.

Other than that, we’ve been buried in snow. Some of the heaps of snow have been stacked up to 8 feet. When they plow the snow, they have to stack it somewhere. The only problem is that it’s difficult to see around an 8 foot pile of snow when you’re trying to see oncoming traffic, so the driving is a bit hazardous, but so far, so good.

Tomorrow is my dad’s birthday. You should stop by and say hello.

Who’s ready for Christmas (or “the holidays”)?   We are!   I’ve done most of my shopping online this year,  which was nice, especially at the end, where shops started offering super-expedited shipping for free if you spend a certain dollar amount.

UPS continues to taunt me, though.   Throughout the Christmas season, they’ve promised to deliver by a certain date, then doing crazy things, like saying “The package was left in a UPS facility. Transferring to the city of destination.”    Whatever that means.

Then there is the “2-day air” shipping that delayed for arrival.   The last bit should arrive by tomorrow, but since half of the shipment is in Lenexa, KS (may arrive) and half is in Pennsylvania (could possibly arrive), it doesn’t seem promising, does it?

I had shipments that sat in the local UPS office for several days, and then they were put on a truck for delivery, normally one package on one day and the next package on another.

Still, it would be interesting to see how many packages transited via UPS over the holiday season.  To their credit, everything’s arrived on time so far, and in perfect condition.

Anyway, complaining aside… it’s going to be a nice Christmas.   It’s our second Christmas together, but our first as a married couple.   It still seems odd (in a good sort of way), this whole “married” thing.  I feel like I’ve been married to Ian for ages, and it just became official 20-some-odd days ago.

I guess that’s how things feel when you’re married to your soulmate.

Happy Holidays!

“He is psycho.”     She says this in an, “I’m so glad he’s so laid back and funny” sort of way to her friend, Gracie, who is eating with us.

We visited TLK at school to have lunch with her.    Lunch included a “hamburger”, chocolate milk, blueberries, iceberg lettuce salad, raw broccoli and orange wedges.     School lunch… always interesting.

We sat at a table by the classrooms, instead of in the cafeteria.

Can you guess who said this?

“Hmm…  This metal hamburger wrapper would make a great hat to stop the alien messages.”

“Psycho, like I said”, she said, laughing.

Rather than completely trash my blog, I managed to upgrade to the latest version on my own (without having to call 911/Ian).   I just had one question… “Is it okay to upgrade my database?  I don’t want to screw anything of yours up.”      It was all fine, and now I can use a template I’ve wanted to use for ages.  (yay!)

I’ve also installed a grammar checker which will allow me to type a page of piffle, hit a button, and have it come out looking all professional … and stuff (see?)

I have to say that I like the upgrade in Wordpress’ dashboard.   It’s much more up-to-date and user-friendly than before.

Cool beans.

And it’s Friday (yay)

Today, the Chicago immigration office will be receiving our Adjustment of Status paperwork.

After arriving in the US with a fiance visa, an immigrant has 90 days to get married to their intended spouse.  They have a right to remain in the US, technically, until their landing card (i-94) runs out.   In order to legally remain, the “adjustment of status” paperwork has to be submitted.

Our filing involves a request to adjust residence status to permanent, authorization to be hired by an American employer and for authorization to travel and return to the US.

It’s a shorter waiting game than the fiance visa was.  We expect everything to be done by the middle of February.

In the meantime, once our paperwork is received and entered, we can start watching it’s progress through the USCIS tracking system.     Hopefully, all the paperwork is what they need and there will be no “requests for information” along the way.

I only know because work is closed (rarely happens) and so is everything else.    It feels like -14F outside (that’s -25c), and we have a foot of snow that’s blown and drifted overnight.    Molly, the little dog, has to be careful about where she goes outside, because the snow is currently taller than her.   Good thing the bouncy Golden Retriever is here to swoosh the snow out of the way!