time to blog

Hello readers, do I have any readers left?

When I wasn't working very much or at all, especially when I was waiting for immigration, I had all kinds of time to write. I remember the days when I had the leisure time to blog about all the different kinds of scissors I owned. Those were the days! Now I barely have time to think about blogging but it doesn't mean I have given up on it entirely. In fact, I have now set myself a weekly reminder in my work calendar to update my blog. Not that I will actually get to it every week, but this is a start.

On the whole, things are going very well for me and Dan. I am just half a year away from finishing this non-thesis Master's degree in Biomedical Informatics and then I will be let loose into the world to find some sort of job. I don't know yet what that will be, there is just so much opportunity out there that I think it will be difficult to decide. We do know we plan to stay put in the Salt Lake valley for  a while - I love it here. This is the best place I have ever lived. So my career options are: University of Utah Health Care (basically where I am now), Veteran's Affairs (I have a partial appointment there), Intermountain Health, and industry. I haven't formally started looking yet, I will do that launch next month at the AMIA Symposium and then really start hustling in 2016.

This symposium is our industry's biggest academic convention. It's in San Francisco this year. I haven't been since 2013 when I saved up my tips from bartending in North Carolina and took the Amtrak to DC, I was determined to get back into the field. I'm going this year because I had a poster accepted and then I won some travel awards to allow me to attend. The poster is about a really interesting project that we had some excellent results with, something I continue to work on with user interface design. Who know I would end up doing user interface design? I'm doing all kinds of things I never thought I would/could and I have to say it's been an excellent experience.

It is sort of funny - I received a Master's from the University of Victoria in 2009 in Health Information Science, and this is essentially the same degree - Biomedical Informatics - but in some ways this program is more robust and I am entrenched in the American health care system. I have had excellent training and mentorship, tons of opportunities and have made a great many friendships.

So 2016 will be a big year for me. On February 4, I will be eligible to apply for US Citizenship (three years!). Six weeks later I will turn 42 on the full moon lunar eclipse, so I will basically know the meaning of life by then, right? Then I will graduate and get an awesome new job and maybe we will find a way to buy a house? Next year holds a lot of promise.

Socially, we have become known as people who know our way around food and the garden. We have built up really a lot of reserves (I grew enough cucumbers so that I won't need to make mustard pickle again until at least 2017) and seeds. People know I'm a gardener and just give me seeds all the time. I can't turn them down. I have also been saving seeds so at this rate I have enough for a field of sunflowers, marigolds and calendula, among other things. I have nurtured kombucha mothers and sourdough starters and have been able to give them away and teach others how to make stuff. These things are coming second nature to me now and this kind of sharing has gone a long way to help build social capital.

I have been able to make and grow a lot of really amazing friendships in the nearly two years since we have been in SLC. A number of those friendships began early on in our time here, and they have been incredibly important for my mental health. We are all busy people but it just seems so easy to get together and do stuff, even if it's just running into the neighbor by chance and having a great conversation. We have gotten to know a lot of our neighbors and it's nice feeling that level of security - we all have each other's back.

I haven't been knitting much since I have been here - between school, work, and gardening/preserving, there really hasn't been time. I accept that it's a part of my life/identity that will always be with me but other things have to take precedence right now.

Sam is doing great. Dan has added ramps to her scratching posts so it's easier for her to get up and down. We have also added steps to the sofas and bed so she doesn't have to claw her way up. She's 13 and has sore hips, so she doesn't jump up like she used to. I took her to the vet for a check up in August and she received a clean bill of health. Not only that, but everyone at the clinic gushed at how beautiful she is. Of course they did!

I have a list of things I plan to write about (and of course I'm willing to take requests) so I won't go into too much detail right now on all our adventures. Just know I am trying, I do plan to keep writing. Someday this may come in handy... 

A 20 mile bike ride along the Jordan River

Dan and I working on getting fit, so we have decided that, weather permitting, we will get out and do something active every weekend. We loaded up our bikes, water, and a picnic and drove down to Utah lake to cycle the Jordan River trail.

Mr. Cupcake rode in my under-the-seat pouch.

The view from the place where we stopped for a picnic.

We got close enough to these wind turbines to hear them swoosh.

My friend Steve once told me that hills (on a bicycle) are good. I didn't believe him at the time (probably because it was a painful endeavour) but on this day we did climb some steep hills and were rewarded with a view of the valley.

On our way back, some horses and a donkey were next to the trail on the other side of the fence. This donkey was lounging.

Sheep! I love seeing so many sheep in this state. In North Carolina we seldom saw livestock - just hog barns. There was an occasional horse corral but mostly it was crop land. Here there seems to be a good growing climate for grazing animals.

Looking south towards Utah lake.

It was quite a pleasant day, really, with an easy 79 degrees Fahrenheit. Despite applying sunscreen however, we did get sunburned and are nursing those burns still.

Doing this made me wish we had one of those "101 Hikes in Utah" books or a book on cycling trails/routes. Not wanting to spend money just now (we're going to Scotland in October), I went instead to the library yesterday and got all kinds of books on hikes, cycling trails, trees, wild flowers, and birds. Birds! While we were on this bike ride, I saw a bird about 12" long, black body, yellow/orange head with a long black beak. I don't know much about birds but I'm starting to take an interest. Dan has the Audubon bird app on his phone and when he looked it up, he figured it's a yellow-headed black bird. I couldn't get close enough to take a picture, they fly away so fast! We also saw a goose couple and their 5-6 so-cute goslings swimming in the river. On the way up the hill at the end of the trail (our turn around point by the wind turbines), I saw a gorgeous lizard I haven't looked up yet. About 8" long with dark stripes along the body - the body was brown/beige and the tail was a sage green.

I love being out in nature. I don't recall if I mentioned it here but when we lived in North Carolina, I felt like that place had no spirit to it. You have to remember I have spent most of my adult life living on the west coast in the rainforest among a culturally-saturated Coast Salish territory where the First Nations People and environmentalists were united in their love for Mother Earth. There was none of that in North Carolina, not where we were. The indigenous populations had been wiped out generations ago, and in a region that grows tobacco, well, yes this will sound judgemental but there was little care for the environment that I could see. Compared to what I was used to, at least. Heck, even Korea 12 years ago was composting food from every apartment building - long before North American cities even thought of it!

We had a friend visit us in North Carolina last September. Someone who we knew from Vancouver Island but who was raised in Virginia. I mentioned to her my thoughts about not feeling any spirit in the land in NC and she knew what I meant. Given the region's history, it's possible that there is just too much blood and suffering in that land (slavery, civil war, continued segregation and systemic racism) and that it has never really recovered or healed. That makes a lot of sense. That was also a big reason for me wanting to return to the west. The west is where my heart is.

It's also far less densely populated, which we like. It hasn't been settled for as long as the east has, so it is relatively young by modern society standards. People here understand the beauty of the place and work hard to preserve it. (I say that, but there are a number of mountaintop-removal sites and a highly productive oil and gas industry in the Uinta basin). Nevertheless, there is a culture here of getting out and being in nature, be it hiking, cycling, skiing, camping, snowshoeing, and everything in between. It's very motivating.

It's also nice to feel safe walking around in this city (I am digressing, I know). I'm sure I mentioned this before. I used to live two blocks from work in Kinston and people would be concerned about me getting home safely if I walked. Having been the victim of a peeping Tom when I lived in Japan, having all the people walking by our house and looking in all the time in Kinston freaked me out, I was always on edge. I never felt safe there, in that house.

I'll awkwardly wrap up here because I do want to end on a positive note. I love it here. In terms of ticking all the boxes, Salt Lake City is the best place I have ever lived. Cowichan Bay is a close second, but the circumstances under which I was there (waiting for immigration, away from Dan) mean it couldn't be first. I do miss living with chickens and having my other best friend to hang out with every day. :-) Salt Lake has given me a launching pad for my career which I had, until last year, all but given up on; I found community in gardening; I have lost 28 pounds since we have been here and it has come of fairly easily, thanks to diet and being more active!; the house we live in is great and comfortable; Dan works more reasonable hours and I get to spend more time with him; financially it is far better for us, my work notwithstanding; and as of Friday, the vodka Dan made for Sugar House Distillery was on sale to the public. They sold 200 bottles the first day. Things are good. 

There are no Cockroaches in Utah

So, we're moving to Utah next month.

I can't really go into details at this point but we're doing it for family.

I have lived in a lot of places and moved around a lot (I know some of my readers can relate) and I cling to the dream of one day staying in one place long enough to settle in and unpack, but unfortunately North Carolina is not that place. It's too far away from family who need us.

I have been here nearly ten months now, if you can believe that. In that time I have worked four jobs (furniture store, live music night club, health food store and art gallery), met hundreds of people, swam in the Atlantic Ocean, seen all three of North Carolina's aquariums (and one in South Carolina), visited our nation's capital three times, found every Asian grocery store in a 150-mile radius, saw sorghum, tobacco and cotton growing for the first time, experienced fire ants, killed dozens of cockroaches in my house, and have learned to love the south and all its charms. I will miss being here.

As a result of my jobs (especially managing the bar) and my relationship to the brewery (i.e. my husband's job), I have managed to build a lot of social capital in a way that was never possible in any of the other places I have lived. There are some really amazing people in this community and I have come to develop some great friendships. I am also pretty sure that I speak differently now - I bet if I go visit my people in Canada now they will notice how differently I pronounce vowels...

I have about four weeks to pack up the house, we will be traveling over Christmas. We have family near Salt Lake City, where we are moving to. I haven't been to SLC since our honeymoon in 2009, but certainly the few times I have been through Utah I have enjoyed it there. It is a beautiful state.

It turns out that Salt Lake City is a hotbed of health informatics research, the field I have not been in since I graduated with my Master of Science in 2009 and to which I hope to return. I have already put out some feelers and with any luck will be gainfully employed with the University of Utah in some capacity by my 40th birthday in March. Dan... well, you know, he can do any number of things well so he is extremely employable.

What about the Mormons, you say? I'm sure they won't hurt us. Just now we are in the land of the Free Will Baptists, and I think the Mormons speak a different language entirely, so we are not concerned. Even if we were at risk of converting I'm sure we wouldn't be eligible because we can't have kids and one wife is all Dan can handle. (Though having a second wife in the house to keep up with the housework would be useful, haha!)

So once again we will be divesting ourselves of the stuff we have accumulated and buy ourselves a trailer for the essentials. Dan has some wood and metal tools that will be coming with us, and hopefully one day soon he will have a shop where he can build stuff for us. But it will be, unfortunately, starting over again. We have very little furniture so will have to buy a dining set and living room furniture when we get there - we will have time for thrift store shopping when I get there I hope.

It's a bittersweet move. Just when I feel settled, we need to uproot, but I am happy to be nearer to family (my sister and mother are ecstatic - cheaper flights for them to come visit). I am also happy to be living in a city again that has things like coffee shops that are open evenings and weekends, bookstores, yarn shops, public transit, orchestra concerts, and access to nature. Also: IKEA! (Our nearest one here is clear across the state and is an entire day trip to get there and back).

I'll be sending out holiday greeting cards in the next week - if I don't have your mailing address, please let me know and I will be sure to send you one!

a few days in

I've been here for four days now and it's still a bit surreal.  The day we arrived, we were invited to a party at the home of the owners of  Chef and The Farmer the next day. There were a number of us going so Dan suggested we drive the brewery bus. There was a PBS film crew there when we arrived, and it would almost have been impressive with this van full of people - except that there were only five of us pouring out of the van.

 This was an Oyster Bake or BBQ or something. I don't even know how to describe it. They washed the oysters, laid them on a bit of tin roof, then placed the tin on an open fire. There were LOTS of oysters. Dan had a few dozen. I had one! That was enough.

 The gal doing the filming had her lens trained on Dan as he expertly shucked oyster after oyster, shuck, add cocktail sauce (what's that?), slurp, flip the shell, repeat. He was also good at commentary so when we had the big pot of fish stew with instructions on how to eat it (make sure you get an egg, have it with bread, etc.), Dan had lots to say about the tastes and sensations of the soup. (I wished I could have given the fish scales to Sam, but she wasn't with us!)

 And if you are going to go to the house of a celebrated chef, you want to know what cookbooks are on their shelf, right? It went like this: Southern, Southern, Southern, Argentinian, Southern, Southern, Jewish, etc. I haven't heard of any of these cookbooks but I am really excited about learning Southern cooking!

So in this photo I am standing on top of the brewery. That blue house is the one we'll be moving into sometime this month. We went by there on Monday and there is still at least a week's worth of work left on it before we can move in, alas. We are, however, doing okay at the farmhouse that Dan has been living in all this time.

It has felt kind of funny though, like moving into my boyfriend's house for the first time, except that I recognize some of the kitchen tools (where are the rest of them?). Dan started packing up the house before he came to get me, so most everything is in boxes. We were sort of expecting to move into the blue house right away but since we are not, we have had to go grocery shopping. That was an interesting experience. There are three options for groceries: Piggly Wiggly, Food Lion, and WalMart. There is an unbelievable amount of packaged food with lots of sugar in them. Is it the same in Canada and it just wasn't on my radar? I don't know. The prices on the whole are significantly cheaper, though some things are comparable to Vancouver Island.

There are no coffee shops in Kinston, I'm sad to say. We'll be taking a trip down to New Bern on Saturday to meet a new friend and do a bit of exploring. I've done my homework: three coffee shops, one yarn shop, an art supply store and three thrift stores. My new friend suggested we check out the farmer's market as well.

The weather here has been interesting, ranging from colder than I'm used to to warm and humid like Asia. I still don't know where all my clothes are (especially my socks!) so I'm really limited in my wardrobe is. I don't want to unpack all my boxes just to pack them up again next week.

At the party on Sunday, there was a fly hovering above the food on the table, and when the woman I was standing next to learned I was from Canada, she asked if we had flies, what with it being so cold and all. I did my best not to be incredulous, but said yes of course, and that right now Kinston is colder than Victoria.

I love languages and can pick up pronunciation very easily. After talking to a few people from around here, I can't help but affect the accent - it is totally unconscious. Two minutes after meeting Dan's boss he said "you're already starting to talk like a Southerner". I don't know quite what to make of this - do I just go with it? That seems to be the easiest thing.

We don't have Internet at the farmhouse, as I mentioned, and the cell phone reception there is terrible, so I have been largely incommunicado. I also haven't figured out how to get my email to show up automatically on my new iPhone - it's a bit complicated transferring accounts from Canada to the US, and I haven't taken the time to sort that out yet.

Hopefully my green card will arrive this week or next, and I don't recall if we were able to apply for a social security card. Without the SoSec card, I can't start work. That's good and bad. I mean, I'm still unsettled being in a temporary location, so starting a job would really complicate things. It also means I get to do a fair amount of knitting and getting in some much-needed relaxation. It also means I'm still without an income, but I trust that everything will happen as it needs to in good time.

Knitting, how I miss you! I haven't been too motivated to knit much these past months, and was hoping to get more done on our trip, but with the driving at night and the kitty roaming around, I only managed to finish one project and put a few rows on another one. Part of it is not having all my knitting kit in one place, so when I finally do unpack I'll be able to see all my yarn in one place. Since I've had a bit of time to relax and catch my breath, I am now chomping at the bit to get knitting and I have lots of ideas. I'll check out the yarn store in New Bern on Saturday and see what they have, but I'm anxious to knit more with locally produced fibers. The Carolina Fiber Festival is just seven weeks away and I'm looking forward to going!

unbounded joy

I have spent much of this morning feeling happy. Not for any particular reason, as in we are still waiting for news of my immigration and I'm still waiting for a big chunk of money to fall into my lap, but I feel good. Jubilant. Full of joy.

I'm on to Day 11 of the Chopra Meditation challenge. I have started reading the works of Doreen Virtue who is the leading expert on angels, who also writes about crystals and chakras. Yesterday I finally encountered Louise Hay, whose book You Can Heal Your Life has passed through my hands hundreds of times when I worked at the library but that I had not encountered until I watched it in DVD form yesterday.

I started working my way through A Course in Miracles earlier this year and have been enjoying the videos of Earl Purdy as a guide to the Course.

My mind is exploding.

The message I'm getting from all of this is that I can change my mind. And once I change my mind, the reality that I am experiencing changes with it. I can look at my present situation as being stuck in Canada without my husband, or I can look at it as a gift of time to heal, recover, rediscover and learn more about myself while I have this time of solitude. And a gift of time it is. Every night when I go to bed, I go through my daily 'gratefuls'. I am grateful for my husband. I am grateful for my cat. I am grateful that I get to spend so much time with my beloved friends in their house. I am grateful for the food in my belly, the roof over my head, a warm bed, clean air, safe drinking water, my awesome truck (I love my truck!), knitting, literacy, for my health, etc. The list can go on and on, depending on how soon I actually want to fall asleep. The point is that I count my blessings to the Universe every night and don't dwell on the lack. If I dwell on the lack, the Universe will manifest further lack.

So.... I am changing the way I think and the way I speak. I am trying to speak only in positives, and eliminate negatives. I would like to be free from saying or thinking 'should', which is not a very helpful or loving word. Also, I am speaking what are called affirmations. One of the messages from the material I encountered yesterday was that if you pray and wish for something, telling the Universe that you want or would like something, then it will perpetuate your want, rather than helping to manifest the thing you want into your present reality. Therefore, I drew some pictures of things that will manifest soon in my life:

This is me and Dan and Sam, driving in my red truck to North Carolina. I normally would have redrawn this picture in ink, but I was just too excited and left it as is, in pencil. So what is not really visible here is me knitting, or how unthrilled Sam looks while we're driving. Also of note: I need to knit some seat belt cosies for the truck!

This is the important one. This is me and Dan and Sam, all together in North Carolina. I think I will actually redraw this one, make it larger, and post it somewhere visible in my current location.

While writing my morning pages this morning, it occurred to me that I could also draw pictures of what it would look like for me to not have any worries about money. What would I be doing with my time here (while waiting for immigration) if I wasn't worried about money? To be honest, I wouldn't really go too crazy with spending, since I want to keep the amount of stuff I move to the US to be minimal - I can buy things when I get there. But what would I buy while I'm still here? I would be able to contribute more to the family food budget here at Backyard Feast. I would buy a few more art supplies. I would buy some exercise clothing and equipment. Really though, I would be just happy to pay off my debts. I would love to cross the border debt-free. Then, when I start earning an income in North Carolina, I can put that money towards buying a house and replenishing my yarn stash and wardrobe. See? These are all things I have to be drawing pictures of. As I am imagining my life in North Carolina, I am going to get really good at drawing the map of the state. That can only be a good thing.

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.