I can't believe it

My son is not going on this trip with me. All thanks the Mexican government. Come ya'll let's give them a big round of applause. Here's the deal I call to verify the flights and everything and then the airline tells me that I need a notarized letter from my husband giving me permission to take Aaron into Mexico. Of course I explain that my husband is IN Mexico thanks to Immigration!!!!!!!!! #()$*#E**(@N

There's no way around it. I'm so sad.

Overthinking again......

So I'm less then two weeks away from seeing Eduardo and amazed at how much I have gotten done. My first trip solo with my son and so I've been overpreparing you know. It should be very interesting.

So I got this great packing organizers from eBags.com. (I LOVE that website, makes me wish I traveled more often). This weekend I'm heading to Target to get some of those travel packs so I'm not lugging around huge bottles of shampoo/conditioner, etc.

I still haven't got the organizers, but I can't wait to pack! I'm such a loser! Remember my goal, 1 large suitcase, 1 carry one, 1 car seat, 1 toddler!

Hey it's an actual Immigration update!

So I decided that I wasn't going to check my husband application status online anymore. I said (in prayer), "Lord, I will not check his application online anymore and I'll just wait until You move Immigration". Because Lord knows, only a higher power can get those people to actually work!

Lo and behold today I get a call from my immigration lawyer telling me that INS has sent a notice to her asking for some evidence that Eduardo is really in Mexico. Blah!! So I've called Eduardo and gave him the lowdown on what we have to do.

What I find funny is that Immigration said we had a deadline of December 17th to get everything back to them. :-\ Right... I'm really going to wait until Dec to sent back this information. Let my husband come home, you ................... I'll stop right there.

So I've officially given Eduardo 2 weeks to give me as much information as he can. Two weeks because I'm heading over there to see him again with Aaron. Oh that's another thing. This is the first time I've venturing far into Mexico (Guadalajara), then before.

I've kinda always hung out at the border (El Paso, TX border). Needless to say, I'm doing this by myself with a 2 (almost 3) year old. That's kinda of scary. So I'm thinking of getting one of those bracelets that you would put around his wrist and then you put the other one on my wrist. Shoot! I don't want anyone stealing my kid!

My goal for this trip: 1 large suitcase and 1 backpack. That's it. I'll let you know how it goes!

So It's Sunday.....

Can anyone explain to me WHY malls close early on Sunday? That doesn't make any sense to me. It's still the weekend just they feel they have to close around 5 pm or 6 pm.

So I decided I want to go to H&M at the Woodfield Mall in Schuamberg, IL before I get on the expressway, I ask my sister to call and find out what time they closed. 6:00 pm! Grr!!!

So we ended up going to the HIP and after browsing the mall for like an hour we ended buying something at Target :-/

Oh well we'll give it a shot this coming weekend.

Bridget

Just hanging around ... on meat hooks

Hi! We have nothing better to do but hang on meat hooks.

Can you kids get a life?

Chicago City Sticker

So I don't know how many of you wait until the last minute to get your city sticker, but I hate doing that. First the cost is $75 bucks. $75!!! I can use that money for some much needed chocolate.

Here's me last year, July 15th rolls around and d'oh I forgot to get my city sticker. To be honest I don't remember if I asked Eduardo to get or if I was supposed to get it. Anyway, it's July 15, 2003 and I realize I need to get my City Sticker.

What does that involved?? Me getting out of work, running to a ATM to get $80 out (like I have that money in my pocket, and you can only take out $80 - remember multiples of $20!), then I run to the Curreny Exchange and waiting in the Forever line to get it.

You know what else irks me? Trying to get the old city sticker off my windshield!! I've given up on that. So what's my point? Well this year I wanted to try something different. I get my notice in the mail about renewing the city sticker and I see it....... "order your City Sticker online!".

Ooo that's tempting!! So I bite the bullet and I order my city sticker online. It told me 7-15 days and guess what I STILL haven't gotten it. So I call Brett at the Clerk's office and he tells me that they'll assume responsiblity for the 1st time loss but if I decided to order my city sticker online next year and it gets lost then I have to fork over $75 again to get it. What? that makes no sense!

Byeee, Byee

The 4th of July weekend went well. We had no need to go downtown for the fireworks, had plenty of them right in my own backyard.

It's amazing just how much of those fireworks fall off the truck. :-/ Anyway, I think the absolute best fireworks display, were the ones my sister had. haw! haw! $20 bucks well spent thanks to Target.

Either way my son loved them at first and after while was kinda of bored and said "byee" to all of us and headed inside with his grandpa. What a party pooper! :)

Everyone one my family members vowed to get some those fireworks that fall off the truck. :)

My future sister in law was here visiting from California and that was a lot of fun. No really it was! We get along great! Now as for my other in-laws, eh.

Oooo INS update!

I just got a letter from my wonderful lawyer and it was a confirmation letter from INS stating that they received our application on June 18th AND it takes 14-30 days to process!! Holy smokes! So I believe in the middle of July I can finally know when my hubby is coming home!!

Yay!!!

Plus I have a phone number that I can call to get an update and I can even check on the web!

Picking up girls at the gas station....

bad news but it DOESN'T WORK!!! I have never been so freaked out in my life then I was two days. Here I am with my son at the gas station trying to get air into my exercise ball (ya ya I know NOW it won't work) and some guy pulls up in his car right behind me and trys to make conversation. Then get this, he's telling me how he's seen me around before at this place and that place and I was thinking to myself, OMG do I have a stalker?

Where was my mace when I needed it.....

IMing Vs. Text Messaging...

I thought this was great article to follow-up to my IMing post (see below) Whoa, We Got To Much Time On Our Hands!

Now I can't, for the life of me, text message in less then a minute. Shoot, it takes me 5-7 minutes to text my sister 5 words! I think I'm getting better, I just need more people to text message.

:)

You gotta love IM....

I was just talking to my sister Yoly about IM and how wonderful it is. It's not a like an phone call. It's unique.

For example with IM you ever notice those long delays in either writing to someone or replying to someone?

You see your buddy's online, do you HAVE to talk to him? Nah you don't have to. How about when you are talking to buddy and you have to get up go the bathroom. Does your buddy feel uncomfortable because he hasn't gotten a reply from you? Nah I bet he doesn't. Especially if you told him "brb I gotta go to the bathroom".

Ever tried that on the phone? Now THAT should be on your To Do list. You just can't have the long delayed replies on the phone, because it just gets awkward.

Let's compare:

IM: Buddy comes Online

You have two choices: IM him or just ignore him for now and talk to him later.

Phone: Your buddy calls you.

Do you have two choice? Unless you have caller id, you gotta answer the phone even if you don't want to talk to him right now.

IM: You and your buddy are chatting online and he says something like "Ya so that's what happened man" to which you reply "cool".

10-15 minutes can go by and neither one of you cares that the other hasn't written back to you.

Phone: You and your buddy are talking on the phone and he says something like "Ya so that's what happened man" to which you reply "cool".

Can you have the 10-15 minute delay? No way! I bet you 30 seconds would go by and one of you feels you have to say something!

Ahhh the joys of IM. You just gotta love it!

Ode To My Mac....

As much as I love computers, especially if they are my own, I have no problem fixing it. I mean it's your computer?? And if something's not working correctly, well you want to fix it and continue working it right?

Well that's me at least, but I can't stand working on the computers at work. I only know so much and I really really hate when they go down. When they do, people can't work and that means I can't work and that means nothing gets done. Then I'm getting "yelled" at about not getting my work done.

Grrr!

Why must I fix them, why why why!!

I'll just take some dirt from here...

I have to say Aaron does the cutest things. Yesterday he was determined to help me around the house. He finally understood the concept of a dustpan and nothing was going to stop him from using it.

So here I am sweeping around the house with Aaron running around with the dustpan. I swept around the plant I had and let Aaron pick up the dirt with the dustpan and watch him carefully carry the dustpan to the trash. Bravo!

However, after we were done, I'm plop myself on the sofa to watch tv. After about 6-7 minutes I don't hear a peep from Aaron. It's too quiet. And let me tell you, when a 2.5 year old isn't making SOME KINDA noise, he's up to something.

So I get up off the sofa and find him when I hear *crash* and some little feet scatter. As it turns out the "crash" was Aaron throwing the dust pan to the side because he heard me coming. Nice (note to self, get quieter slippers). While he's running to hide in the bedroom.... I turn the corner and see dirt from my house plant all over ther floor.

Turns out Aaron wanted to continue picking up the dirt with the dustpan.......and found that the plant had more then enough dirt in its pot, so it needed to share. :-|

Do you want me to whip out my third arm?

Man I swear today hasn't not been a good day. I'm just trying not to let things frustrate me. Anyway, I want to look forward to tonight. I'm hanging out with my sister Yoly and I'm really craving a pizza!

On the road again....

I tell you that was probably the best vacation I ever had. Of course I will never drive to Mexico again. Especially not with a 2.5 year old. For the most part it was a lot of fun. I tell ya, you can never get too excited about seeing a rest area! And if it's a clean rest area .... Hot Dog! ..... You just hit the jackpot.

That reminds me, I was dying for 2 hours and I wanted to get my parents (who came along with me) to stop at the next rest area. After finally getting to one, I literally ran out of the car to the toilet. But alas, the door was locked and occupied.

5 - 10 minutes dangnabit what is the deal! Finally a lady comes out and says "it's literally an outhouse in there". Bwah? Then she says there was no toilet paper. Lady, you're killing me. So I run back to car to get toilet paper and back the bathroom and low and behold it was "literally an outhouse". :(

Nahsty.

It's kinda like a port-o-potty but at least you know that eventually those get cleaned. So I thought how the heck do they clean this one. I don't even know how to describe it. I don't think I want to.

Geez, I can't even keep up my blog...

Back again. Just wanted to let know where things stood at this time. So far Eduardo has been in Mexico for a little over 5 months. Things are going well with him and to be honest he looks great. I'm happy to see that, I was afraid he was going to look like he was starving.

I just got back from a nice vacation over there. Two whole weeks, while the trip down there was a half a nightmare. Just like leaving Mexico was half a nightmare. I don't think I've ever been search by INS that many times in my life.

Good thing I had Aaron's birth certificate...more to follow.

Happy Anniversary...

My birthday was probably the best I've ever had! After the lunch and the Atomic Cake, I decided not to have my birthday dinner at Oggi but rather at Perez. It's a great Mexican place where I had a burritto and a shrimp salad.... Nice!

Either way after a really nice dinner we headed off to church and not to much to report there but however after Walo dismissed, he wanted to so happy birthday to me in front of the congregation and on the big screen (where we project the songs) shouts out Happy Birthday Bridget! Then Walo asked that I come up because he wanted to give me something. So I'm walking up to the front (beet red mind you) and he hands me this huge present. It's sweet it's a coat!

Yesterday was our Wedding Anniversary..... 4 good years, we plan on going to dinner on Saturday or Sunday.

Happy Birthday To Me....

Ok ok, I'm not going to type in the Happy Birthday Song, but if given the chance you can bet your buttons I would have done it! At least Aaron sang happy birthday to me this morning. Grandma helped of course... Aaron just sat there with cheesy grin on this face (you can't expect too much from a 2 year old). Today, I'm officially 25....yes I know I'm a geezer. Try not to rub it in.

This birthday is pretty good so far...we'll be cutting some Atomic Cake (I can't even describe this cake to you, it's just heavenly...don't worry I'll have a slice in your honor!). My boss bought me lunch and Walo just called me and said we're going out for dinner and I get to pick the place. Oggi on Grand Ave.

I was kinda of in the mood for Red Lobster *cough, cough*, but it's downtown and valet was 9 bucks so I'll take a pass on that. Plus we have church tonight so I'm trying to pick a place that close by. Oggi it is.... more to come later.

p.s. oh good news, I finally figured out how to you guys can leave comments on here so feel free to.

In the beginning...

I know everyone is questioning what's going on with us. Ok the purpose of my blog is just to let you know our new adventure of living "without" each other. That is Eduardo (my husband) and myself. Although it hasn't officially happened yet here's the story.

For some time now we've been working with the US Immigration to get Eduardo (Walo as I love to call him) papers fixed. Turns out that Walo's past life (gangs, drugs), didn't really help us throughout the process. However, after some time dealing with our lawyer and INS, our motion to appeal his case was denied.

I received a phone call from my lawyer Tuesday evening (25th of November) and she told me what happened. So off we go (Walo, Aaron (my son 2) and I) to see the lawyer. When we get there she repeats what she has learned, motion to appeal denied, and we can chose to appeal again with the Federal courts, but the money was just too much ($5,000). Our only other option was to ship Walo back to Mexico for a year maybe a year and 1/2. It's still going to cost us ($2,000), but least we know that the outcome will be positive.

So DDay is January 10, 2004. I have to purchase his plane ticket tonight. Well I should have done it right now, I just haven't gotten around to it. Ha! I find my wanders a little too much.... like yesterday during the our never-ending staff meeting.

Either way, right now I'm busy packing up my stuff and getting ready to move into my aunt's basement (finished, hallelujah!). However, I think that once Aaron and I move in and Walo is in Mexico, we might have another roommate...Ziggy my aunt's Pomeranian dog. That should be fun, I know Aaron would love it.