Whirlwind

Wow! What a whirlwind couple of days! On Monday, I dropped the kids off with my sister & I have been sorting & packing like a maniac! I can't believe how much I have gotten done, but how much there is left to do. No wonder my head has been banging all week. I think instead of needing a UHaul truck to move our things to Michigan, we need a UHaul truck to get rid of the things we're not taking! Tomorrow I am going to take some pageant things to a friend to see if she wants to purchase anything. Let's hope she'll take the whole lot. I don't want to have to deal with any of it any more & I certainly need the money. I'm also dropping off a load of stuff to my sister & picking the kids up. They are not going to know what to think when they walk into the house! LOL It is going to be a big headache trying to keep Alex out of everything! I don't think there is one room left in the house where he won't have tons of stuff to get into trouble with. :( But I can't wait to get my little monsters back. I miss them so much! Dad is supposed to arrive tomorrow night. Let's hope he doesn't shot me because of all the stuff left to do in the house, but I did think I had another week to get everything done.

Friday morning A & I are supposed to go to my attorney's office to sign the divorce & custody papers. I'm praying that everything goes smoothly. After we sign the papers, we're going to an indoor play place so he can have some time with the kids before we leave. I know it's going to be hard for everyone. We also have to pick up the UHaul truck sometime on Friday & drop my car off with Mom.

On Saturday we start packing the truck. Dad had wanted to get on the road Saturday, but I just don't see how that is going to be possible. I don't think we'll be able to leave until Sunday morning & with the kids, I think the drive will have to be split up into two days. I am so dreading it. But I will be so relieved when it's done! Then we will be on to the next step in this crazy adventure. Right now I think I need to take some headache tablets & a nice bath before I head off to try to get some sleep. But more than likely, I will just end up doing more packing until I finally just drop into my bed...

Manic Monday Indeed

I can do this. I can get through this. Please, someone tell me I can get through this!

Dad called me this morning & informed me that he will be arriving this Thursday to load the rental truck and move us to Michigan. Yes, this Thursday, not a week from Thursday as he had originally said. OMG! I still have so much to do! I have so little packed. I still have a million loose ends to tie up! I have major appliances that I have to get rid of. After an hour or so of having a near meltdown & thinking WTF?? I managed to get myself together & continue on to the appointment with the divorce attorney.

The good news is that the attorney can have the papers ready to sign before I leave town on Friday. The not so good news is the fee. Ouch! But, since I don't have time to consult with anyone else, I guess I have to suck it up. The really crap news is that I have to convince A to go in on Friday & sign the papers. If he doesn't go in on Friday and sign, everything gets infinitely more complicated and expensive. We will have to go through parenting classes and mediation. Then if the mediation doesn't work, we have to go to court with the lawyers. Time & money that I don't have. UGH But I am still hoping that he will agree to go in on Friday and sign.

I just spent two hours on the phone with him trying to get it through his head that if we don't do it now, it will be a lot more complicated and expensive. He is insisting that he has to see if his lawyer will be able to go in on Friday with him to sign the papers. Uh. Ok. So how does a man who doesn't even keep auto insurance coverage or file his taxes suddenly come up with a lawyer and the money to pay one? I don't know whether to call the lawyer and ask her to go ahead and draw up the papers or not. I do not want to throw out that kind of money if A is just going to jerk me around.

So the first hour was spent trying to explain to him why it would be easier to just go ahead and get it done the easy way. The next hour was spent listening to him whine about how tough his life is (oh cry me a river!) and how much he misses me. He has changed and sees the error of his ways, blah blah blah!!! I just sat there and let him run his mouth & interjected the occasional "mmm yeah", "whatever," as I looked at bridal gowns online. Is that a little wicked?

Speaking of bridal gowns, hoping to pick my spirits up a little, I decided to go into a bridal shop and take a look at some of the gowns. The first one I tired one was OMG!!! Mom, Abbie & Alex all loved it too. I felt gorgeous in it. Mom didn't think I even needed to try any more on. I was in love, but I thought I should try more on. I mean who knows, it could have been a case of just falling in love with the first bridal gown I've ever worn. So, I tried three or four more on, but none of them could even come close to the first one. I put the first one back on & yeah, it is THE dress. I love it. It was the simplest and least expensive one that I tried on, but it looked so good and made me feel great. I will have that gown. :) When I get settled in Michigan, I will find it at another bridal shop & it will be mine.

I miss the kids immensely. Since I only have basically two days to clean and pack the entire house, my sister is keeping the kids for me. Alex is great at unpacking the boxes faster than I can pack them. LOL So, Sis is keeping them for a couple of days so I can get everything sorted out. I miss them so much though! I miss the noise & their sweet voices and hugs & kisses. Man! I wonder if I can possibly get the whole house packed in one day so I can go get them a day earlier. :)

Today has definitely been a roller coaster ride. Thankfully, I think that once I get past Friday, I will be able to breathe a little. Whatever happens with the divorce papers, after Friday, it will be out of my hands for a little while and maybe I will be able to take a quick breath before tackling the next dragon - getting us settled in with school, work & daycare. *sigh* I'm trying not to think about the whole legions of dragons waiting in line. When does this test end? I'm tired already.

Difficult Week

This has been such a hard week. David has been away at an air show & staying at his friend's house. We have only been able to talk a half hour to one hour at the most each day. I really lost it on him this evening when he sent me an IM saying that he had fallen asleep & it was now too late for a phone call because he has to get up early in the morning. I was extremely upset, but we ended up talking on the phone anyway. I guess it bothered me more than normal because of all the stress I have been under. Just when I think I have things under control, one tiny thing goes and knocks me totally off balance.

I have a lot on my plate right now. I am trying to pack the house for the move to Michigan in two weeks, while keeping in mind that hopefully we will be moving to England in December, so I really need to get rid of a lot of stuff. It's incredibly difficult to try to sort & pack a house with a 16 month-old toddling around, getting into everything. I'm also stressing about getting Abbie enrolled in school and finding a job for myself and daycare for Alex. Is isn't going to be easy to find a teaching job or even an assistant job when I will be leaving in December. I just hope that I can get lucky enough to get someones maternity leave. Otherwise, I am going to just take any kind of job that I can get as long as it pays Alex's daycare and leaves me a little money left over.

My biggest stress right now is getting through the divorce. I talked to an attorney's office this week. The secretary told me that I can't even sign the papers until we have been separated for one year and one day. Great! So much for getting the papers prepared before I move to Michigan. She also quoted me an insane price. I almost cried, just hearing how much they charge. I am going in on Monday anyway to talk to the attorney & find out what she has to say. I have an appointment on Thursday to talk to another attorney who gave me a quote half the price the other one is charging. I'm not real excited about the second one. He is just a small town lawyer, but I will talk to both lawyers and see what feels right.

I am really stressed about the divorce. It has to be airtight in regard to the custody, otherwise I won't be able to take the kids to England. A is being a total jerk. He is saying that he won't even sign the divorce papers. I just hope that he continues his usual irresponsible, lazy ways and just ignores the papers. Once they are served he has thirty days to respond. He can sign them & the divorce will go through right away or he can just ignore them & it will go through in 30 days without his signature. Or, my worst fear, he can contest it. Like I said, I just hope he continues the same stupid path that has kept him from filing his taxes or maintaining auto insurance, among other things.

Once the divorce goes through, I have to apply for the kids' passports and my replacement passport with the name change. Once I get those back, we can apply for our visas. All of this costs so much money & is so stressful. I think that once I can get the divorce finalized, I will be ok.

On top of all that stress, I am supposed to be planning a wedding too. I did talk to David & we've decided that it would be better to try to get married in January rather than December. Both of our birthdays are in December, along with Christmas. That is a lot to contend with. I also have to live in Nottingham for 22 days before we can get married, so I think January would be a better time to aim for.

I guess with all of this, it's no wonder that a small thing like not being able to talk to David for one day seems like the end of the world. These next few months are not going to be easy. I am sure that I will have several little break downs, but we will get through it, and I know it will all be worth it in the end.

Now back to trying to sort, pack & clean, with Alex running around wreaking havoc. *sigh*

Super Busy Month

Ok. So I totally suck at this. I write one post & then wait almost an entire month to write anything else. ehhh So sue me! :P It has been a really busy month.

David came over for two weeks last month & we did a lot of traveling that short space of time & made some great memories. We drove to Alabama, where the kids & I had never been and spent a few days there. OMG was it ever hot & humid. We timed it perfectly with a heat wave, as if it isn't hot enough normally! We had a really nice time though visiting old family friends of David & he got to take lots & lots of photos of planes & helicopters at Fort Rucker.

After a couple of days at home to do laundry & re-pack the bags we headed to Charleston, SC. It had been years since I had been there. It is gorgeous! David fell in love with Charleston too. From the USS Yorktown, Fort Sumter & all the other military displays to visit to the gorgeous, romantic old town with Rainbow Row & the Battery, we were both mesmerized. David couldn't wait to tell his family that they just have to visit Charleston next Spring! We will plan to go back with them too. :)

We left Charleston and headed north to Myrtle Beach. I figured David just had to see the US version of Skeggy. LOL Needless to say, he wasn't too impressed with the neon lights & cheap touristy junk shops along the strand. But we had a great time anyway. David got some great photos of the kids on the beach too. :)

We came home from Myrtle Beach in time for my dad to arrive from Michigan for a visit so he could meet David. They really hit it off. I knew they would. They are scarily similar in a lot of ways. LOL Once Dad arrived, we headed to the mountains of NC for a couple of day trips. We visited a wolf sanctuary where David and Abbie petted a real Arctic wolf. She was beautiful. The lady at the sanctuary said that she usually doesn't like men, but she really seemed to like David. Smart wolf! ;) After the wolves, we headed to the Blue Ridge Parkway for a drive & picnic. We stopped at a few overlooks on the way before stopping in Linville Falls for our picnic. David was appropriately impressed by the beauty of the natural surroundings that nurtured me as I grew up.

No visit to NC could be complete without a visit to Grandfather Mountain and the Mile High Swinging Bridge. David did great on the swinging bridge, despite his normal fear of heights. He was so comfortable that half-way across the bridge, got out his GPS and declared that the bridge is in fact a couple hundred feet under a mile high. LOL No matter where I go in the world, I am always impressed & left breathless by the beauty of my NC mountains & Grandfather Mountain is a wonderful display of that beauty. David loved it too.

Sadly, July 1, marked the departure of two of the three most important guys in my life (thankfully Alex will be with me for a long time to come :) ). Dad left that morning to head back to Michigan. Then that afternoon my heart broke all over again as I had to tell David goodbye once again at the airport. It never gets any easier. In fact, I'm pretty sure it only gets more difficult each time.

Apparently the trip and time with me and the kids really left an impression on David as well. The man who had always questioned why I was in such a hurry to get married, decided that instead of getting married here in the US in May, as we had been talking about, that we should go ahead and get married in the UK when the children and I come over for Christmas! He decided this the day he arrived back in England! I asked him what caused him to change his mind and he told me that he just couldn't stand missing me and the kids any more. All the traveling together and the memories we made sealed the deal for him and made him realize that he does love us and can't imagine his life without us any more. :)

So for the past couple of weeks, we have been researching immigration and wedding details, looking at millions of wedding gowns together online and just generally getting totally overwhelmed and excited together. David had originally planned to propose to me on my birthday in December when we were over for Christmas. Obviously that isn't going to work now since we want to get married during that time. I doubt the UK immigration would be very happy for me to apply for a fiance visa and tell them that we were actually going to get engaged AFTER I arrived in the UK. LOL

David had planned on surprising me by coming over for a few days and asking my dads permission to marry me and doing the whole traditional on one knee proposal, but after looking at the expense of visas for me and the two kids, along with all the expense of getting us & all of our stuff there and then throw in a wedding, it just didn't seem like a good idea to spend the money on airfare for a two or three day trip to propose. So with all that in mind, David actually proposed to me this morning at about 2:30 AM eastern time! Of course I said yes. There was never any doubt of that! Unfortunately, I will have to wait until December to get my engagement ring. We can't figure out a safe way for David to send it to me & he says he wants to put it on my finger himself anyway. So in the meantime, I have started wearing one of my old birthstone rings on that finger. I don't normally wear rings, so before I even opened my eyes this morning, I realized there was a ring on my finger & instantly remembered that I am a fiancee now! :) So before I even opened my eyes, I had a smile on my face.

So now begins the next several hectic, long, short months! The move to Michigan is really going to help with sorting through our belongings. I had a moving sale yesterday and got rid of a lot of stuff and made a few bucks at the same time. I still have soooo much stuff to sort through and have another moving sale in two weeks. I have found a great forum for Americans living in the UK. It is full of great information on everything from immigration to things that I should and should not bring with me when we move. It inspired me to go ahead and sort through my clothes today - no small job. I am very proud of myself! I went through all my clothes and have pulled out all the stuff that I really don't wear too much so I can give it away. I have all of my autumn and winter clothes packed up and ready to move. Next will be Abbie and Alex's clothes. YIKES! There is so much to do here before we can even make the move to Michigan! Dad will be back the last week of the month to get us moved up there, so I am trying to get a bit knocked out every day. The biggest challenge is keeping Alex out of things while I try to sort through and then of course once I take things out of the closets, they are fair game for him.

Along with paring down our possessions, I have to get passports for the kids and get my passport re-issued in my maiden name so I don't have to apply for my visa and marry David with my ex's surname. I also have to get Abbie enrolled in school, look for a job so I can actually make some money and contribute to this expensive process and find childcare for Alex. Then comes the whole visa process for the three of us, which is a daunting task in itself!

God help me! I don't know how on earth I am supposed to plan a wedding in under five months on the other side of the Atlantic! Thankfully, I think David's mum & sister will be helpful. David is also proving to be surprisingly open and willing to try to get things accomplished for the wedding. I would be just as happy to marry him in a registry office, but he insists that we should have a proper wedding and reception. :) Bless him! He really is an amazing man. I really found my Prince Charming this time.

Whew! Am I finished yet? I think I have definitely written enough for tonight! LOL Hopefully, I will be better about writing a little more often, but with all this going on, I may be a bit busy. I'm off now to see what else I can sort through and actually feel productive. :)

In The Beginning...

hmmm So who am I & why have I started a blog? I'm really not that interesting. I'm a teacher, Southern Belle, single mom of two, hopeless optimist & romantic. I'm also crazy in love with a nutty Brit. I guess I am starting this blog simply as a journal, an outlet. I usually keep a traditional paper & ink journal, but I figured as much time as I spend at the keyboard, this really makes more sense. If anyone decides to take a peek into the pages of this journal, there is no telling what randomness they may find or just how absolutely dull it may be. LOL But this is for me. I don't care who else may read it, but above all, it's just for my amusement & self-therapy - just my random chuntering...