The story of the next chapter of our life

(O good, Blogger is working. It was down a couple of days ago and people were concerned about the death of Blogger. Whew!)

In my last post I alluded to big changes in our life. If you follow me on Twitter, you will know that my husband got a job at a brewery in North Carolina. He as dual citizenship with the United States & Canada, so crossing the border for work will be no problem for him. He'll leave sometime in the last week of May.

I, however, do not have dual citizenship. I am 100% Canadian, so there is paperwork to do and processes to go through. The plan as it stands right now, is that Dan will get the paperwork for my immigration started as soon as he gets there. The fellow at the Consulate told him that the process should take about two months, give or take.

In this process, I have to go to Vancouver to have an interview with the immigration people. I have to have a medical check performed by the approved people at Vancouver General Hospital, which will include a chest X-ray and blood work. I will have to get a lot of vaccinations... Well, thanks to the organization I work for, I will be getting some of these next week for my New Employee Health Check. Also, I had Measles, the Mumps, and Rubella when I was a child, so I already have the antibodies for those. A simple blood test will prove that I don't need these immunizations. For the rest of them, I don't know how much it will cost, but I'm expecting it to be a few hundred dollars.

I have told my coworkers at the hospital and they are happy and sad for me at the same time. Happy that we are having this great adventure, that things are finally moving for us in a positive direction. Sad, because I have only been there 3 1/2 months and I have completely transformed my department from utter chaos to having a streamlined system that is organized and functional. I would like to claim this is 'Process Engineering' except that I have no background in PE.

I told my manager about the situation, let her know that she has me until the end of July. That will give her time to post my position and find another casual (to fill in for holidays and sick days) for me to train up before I go.

In the mean time, Dan will leave soon, I will be here in this house for two months. A friend might move in and take over the house when we leave, so I could potentially have a room mate for two months. That would be ideal; I sure don't want to live by myself in this big house. But that part is up in the air.

Also, since most of the stuff we own is hand-me-downs or things we found for free on the side of the road, we are giving it ALL away. A few sets of friends will get to have dibbs on our stuff, then it might just be a free-for-all on our front lawn. I'm not going to bother with a garage sale - it's way too much work to arrange, clean, price, and set up for stuff that will mostly end up at the thrift store anyway. All we will be taking is whatever will fit into our two trucks - the one Dan is taking this month, and the red truck that I will drive down.

So what happens at the end of July? Well, if my paperwork has gone through, I will probably spend a few days or a week in Victoria visiting everyone, saying farewells, and eating/drinking too much (you know how celebrations go). The approval might come sooner, in which case I have six months to get the the US. If it does come sooner, I'll play it by ear as to what happens. If it hasn't come by the end of July, I have a couple of options for places to stay to wait until the approval comes.

And then there is the cat to consider. She will have to get her rabies shot (she's due anyway) and a certificate of health no more than 30 days prior to crossing the border. Not a big deal, I've done that before. Driving across the continent will be another story. Sam hates driving. On the trip from East Sooke to Ucluelet, she MEOWed four of the five hours of driving it took to get here. At this point I am undecided about whether to put her in a kennel in the back of the truck, or to have her in the cab with me. I suspect it will be a combination of both things, depending on her behaviour and my tolerance.

I will be really missing Dan after being apart for so long, but I am planning to take my time when I drive across the continent. I'll stop in Kelowna to see some relatives. I'll get to Alberta to visit my family there. My mum might come with me for part of my journey, if she can get time off work. She would love to cross the border and take a road trip with me. If that works out, she'll probably drive with me for a few days and I'll drop her off at an airport, like Denver or Albuquerque or something. Dan also suggested that I make the journey with his mom. That would be great too, she is a US citizen and is familiar with lots of these places on the way. By the time I go through, she might already be in Missoula or New Mexico. So many details to sort out.

I had another idea too - for in the event that I do have to travel by myself, I wonder how hard it would be to find knitters to stay with along the way. Kind people who would put me and my skittish cat up for a night or two.