The clock starts tickin' today!!!!!!

Well - it's finally in the mail!!! I had to let go of the packet to give it to the lady behind the counter, but it's now out of our hands and winging its way to the US Government!!!

Wow - what an incredibly emotional thing this is. I've been in a panic, I've been sad, I've been excited, anxious, angry, frustrated - you name it, I've been it. But today I am nothing but happy and hopeful!!

Just a little over two months and my sweet Brit will be with me for Christmas. Now that the petition is in the mail I can concentrate on getting the house together and planning his visit.

Today, I am a very, very happy girl!!

~Liza

Just a little update for ya...

Well, just when we thought the petition was going to go in the mail, I had my shoes on ready to walk out the door.....I wanted to check one final thing.

-----sigh-----

Looks like it's not a good idea to send in government forms with blank spots in them, or white out. So, my poor, patient Simon had to completely fill out four pages of crap all over again. Now these aren't four pages of different information. It's four pages, all the same. Just fill one out and make copies, you say? Remember who we are dealing with here, this is the US Government!! We can't do things the easy way!! What would THAT do? No, we have to fill out four documents with all the same information, just because they have tiny little notations on the bottom of which copy goes to which government agency. Unbelievable.

So he finished them last night and will post them to me tomorrow. Hopefully that will mean we can FINALLY get the petition in the mail and start the roller coaster ride of waiting on the Government to do --- whatever it is they do, with all the information.

In the mean time, I finally have a high speed connection at home and we are able to spend tons of time on Skype which is the most amazing invention in the world!!! We can talk for hours for free. www.skype.com check it out, they are the coolest.

It's been a crazy busy week for me this week. The project I'm working on at work is coming to an end this weekend so it's been insane these two weeks. On Saturday the 24th is the charity auction for the place I go on my retreat every year. I'll be all dressed up for this black tie dinner/auction/dance - and so sad that Simon can't be there with me. Next year though, I'll have him right by my side, all spiffed up in a tuxedo and looking as sexy as ever.

Anyway, that's the latest with us. Playing the waiting game, but we have done that since the day we met, so we are very good at it!

Counting the days till he will be here at Christmas - it won't come soon enough for me.

~Liza

Old dreams...

I was digging through our old email and letters and stuff to copy things for the visa petition and ran across this. I sent this to Simon on August 17th of last year. It was a dream I had that was so vivid I woke in the middle of the night drenched with sweat. A year later, I think the thing coming down the stairs at us may have been immigration with its laws and rules, keeping two people apart who only want to be together. The dream makes more sense to me now that it did then. I dreamt this before we had met in person...

We were to be married, but it was illegal to do so, so we had to run to a hiding place to make it so. We ran through the dark street of an ancient deserted city. Down into a dark under ground room, lit with a single yellowing beeswax candle in the corner on a low table. I could smell the wax and soot. It lit the room enough to see the flat cut stone walls and arched door ways, the color of a doves breast. Three little monks waited there, all dressed in brown and not saying word, probably as scared as we. I was wearing a long cloak with a hood over my head, it was a deep burgundy velvet. And the priest – a BEAUTIFUL Italian priest dressed in red robes – was he a Bishop? We all joined our hands together, someone handed me a familiar rosary that I have not seen yet. He started to pray the words, but we heard feet on the stairs, slowly coming into the dark room. We crouched behind the loyal pillars of the monks, the priest with his arms around me from behind like a great red bird, shielding and protecting me. You in front of me with your back to the stairs. Our six hands held tight together, waiting for a blade to meet the backs of our necks, and as the feet followed the steps further into the room I clenched our hands more tightly and prayed, “Hail Mary! Full of Grace, the Lord is with Thee –“ I looked up to see what came down the steps and I gasped…. And then I woke up.

~Liza