Life By Lindsey Rae

February 1st is my two year anniversary of when I became a permanent resident in the US. For anyone who has never been through the immigration process, let me tell you: it is not the most simple of things you can do. There is a lot of paperwork. A lot of fees. When I filed, I had to fill out 7 different forms, get a medical exam from the worst doctor on the planet who had the WORST, incapable nurses in the universe. (I'm surprised I didn't get a disease from the TB test they attempted to give me)and get full biometric information done. (Fingerprints, mug shot...enough to make you feel like a criminal). And pay nearly about $935 to file and make several trips to Memphis to the immigration office to get assistance and interviewed.
It's a difficult process, because there are a lot of little things they don't tell you that are very important. For example, with the fees, in that total $935 there are actually six smaller fees for each specific forms. But, if you were to write a check for the whole thing, your application would not get processed. You have to write seperate checks for each fee. But, nobody ever tells you that. So, these little things can mess a person up. Fortunately, everything went smoothly for me, and I think it took only about 8 months to process.

The craziest thing is that a few months after I filed, a lot of the fees nearly tripled and now it costs nearly $2090 to file!

So, since it was coming upon my two year anniversary, I had to remember that sometime within 90 days prior to this date, I had to file another form to extend my residency. Basically, this is to remove the conditions on my permanent residency: they want to make sure you didn't get married to an American just to get a green card. So, we had to gather a LOT of evidence to prove this. Since I am a Canadian citizen, it's probably not such a big deal for me as it would be for some coming from other countries that they might have more reason to question their motives, but it's not worth it to take the risk and get denied. So, we gathered nearly everything they suggested. This includes anything showing joint assets, any insurance policies you have together...and a lot of copies of various statements throughout the time you are married to show consistency, pictures of you together through the time period, evidence you are living in the same household, copies of wills, affidavits from people who know you saying they know that you have a good marriage, joint tax returns, etc, etc, etc. I had been gathering evidence for the past few months, but the day before we mailed it, I ended up staying up ALL night compiling it into chronological order and highlighting and labeling and writing explanations for everything. It's a big job, but immigration is really not something to mess around with...you want to do it right the first time or it can get complicated really fast.

This form...one form....cost $545 to file! That's a lot of money for one form! Good thing my husband loves me...

I got my letter back from them acknowledging that they received our payment and that my residency has been extended for one year. I have to wait for them to send me another letter telling me when I will go for more biometrics (more fingerprints and another mugshot) and then after that, they will continue to process things and then I am eligible for my 10-year residency. Meaning, I won't have to worry about anymore immigration stuff for another 10 years, unless I apply for naturalization, which I can do after February 2010. I'm not positive if I will do that yet. I think I may, just because I can still retain my Canadian citizenship. I figure if I can be a duo citizen that will pretty much just give me the best of both worlds.

I've heard some people say they don't want to get American citizenship because when you do, you have to swear allegiance only to the US, so it makes it seem like you are giving up allegiance to Canada. But, you don't ever have to give up your Canadian citizenship. So, I'm not exactly sure how that works. I will have to investigate it further. Once the conditions on your permanent residency are lifted (or you get your 10 year extension) you pretty much have the same privileges as if you were American...only you don't get to vote and you always are supposed to carry around your Alien Residency Card (green card) wherever you go. Not such a big deal. Just like carrying your license, I guess.

Until I get my new green card, I have to carry around a letter with my old green card saying my status adjustment is in process. This is a bit more inconvienent. Only because my wallet is a bit full. Which is ok, if it's full with cash...but mine happens to be mostly receipts and coupons.

Overall, it was a pretty uneventful holiday. We didn't really do any big dinner thing. We hadn't really planned anything and didn't get any invitations to anyone's house this year, which has been the case for me in all the years I have previously lived here. Although, we did go over to Reco's in the evening so Jerrod could help him set up some stereo stuff that he is selling to him and ate some of their leftovers.
Speaking of Thanksgiving, I did not realize that Americans took the holiday so seriously until I moved here. Of course we have Thanksgiving too, but in some ways I think that they made a bigger deal out of it than they do Christmas. At school, people would ask me if I was going home for Thanksgiving and when I would say no, that I was not planning on going all the way to Canada for a one day holiday, (which by the way happed more than a month ago in my country) they would be absolutely shocked.
Earlier in the day we went over to Providence and saw our house. Amazingly enough, it has been painted! Well, partially. The first layer. The trim has been put up and painted also. I think that next week the cabinets are supposed to be put in. Jerrod talked to the builder last week and he said they are still attempting to close in December.
It's so crazy to me, because every time I think about moving, I can't even imagine it. I feel like I have lived at this place forever and the idea of moving in less than a month is just really unfathomable. There is (almost literally) a million things to do before then. All the packing and organizing. I am hoping to downsize my stuff and go through and get rid of what I am not using, which will definitely be a project. Then there are all the art things and the daily music stuff, recording, etc., to keep up with. It's overwhelming to think of it. A person needs to pick and choose their battles, but it's hard to choose when they all seem necessary.


On Friday, I did get up and go do the Black Friday shopping thing. I didn't buy much of anything, but I got to the mall early enough to get a free $10 mall gift card. Actually, the stores were pretty dead, all things considering. Looked like a kind of normal day at first. However, I think the real evil is when you go to places like Best Buy and people are trying to snatch all those limited quantity big-ticket electronic items. Some of the other stores really don't do any better on their "biggest" sale than any other sale, in my opinion. I really wish everyone would just rebel against this whole early morning thing too. I mean, why can't they have a sale that starts at 10 am rather than 4 am? Wouldn't it just be better for us all?

Today we went on a drive down to Birmingham to pick up an eBay auction that Jerrod won last week. It's some high-end audio that was being sold on behalf of someone by SnappyAuctions and they had somewhat mislabeled it and were charging a huge shipping fee for it, so Jerrod ended up finding it and winning it for really cheap. He has some of the stuff already and is going to re-sell it. Since they wanted so much to ship it, we went to pick it up. It's about a 3 hour drive. We pretty much went there and then turned around and came home. We did stop in Franklin and did a little shopping and looking around in Cool Springs on the way home. Not that we can't do that anytime; it's only 30-40 minutes away, but we don't go over there a whole lot because it's normally out of the way for us. But, it wasn't coming back from Alabama.

Until I moved to the U.S., I don't think I realized that Remembrance Day isn't celebrated here. I know they have Veteran's Day on November 11th, but it's not really as big of a deal as you would think it would be; they being so patriotic and all. They don't even get the day off. I guess I was just surprised when I realized this, because it is a more important holiday in Canada and we are not as military oriented as they. I mentioned something about a poppy last night and Jerrod had never heard of such a thing. So I started explaining about how we wear the little plastic flowers and saying the In Flanders Field poem (which of course, every Canadian hears yearly, from the time they are in elementary school) and he had never even hear of it.
Speaking of Remembrance Day and thinking of war veterans, one thing that I often wish is that my Grandpa Suddaby would record his life history. He spent 5 years fighting in the war and I'm sure there are lots of things that he could tell about, but I know that he doesn't like the talk about those things, because they are bad memories for him. However, I also think it would be a shame if those things about his life were lost when he died. No one will know about them and all that history will be gone. There has been a few times in the past where he has said a couple of things when I asked him, but never too much and I think think these things need to be written down or recorded to be preserved. Maybe I can get him a little recorder for Christmas. I wonder if he'd use it. I will have to check out eBay and see how much I can get one for.

So, in our class in church this Sunday, we were talking about how Jesus loves everyone the same all over the world and how The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is exactly the same every place in the world. We were asking the kids if they had been to church in any other places and if they saw how it was the same as in Nashville. Of course, they all said yes and we went around the room with each telling us where they had been to church in other places: The answers were, "Utah...Arizona....Georgia..." etc. When it was Jerrod's turn he mentioned that he had been to church in Canada. "What?! Really?" they said.
Now, I'm not so sure why this was so shocking as I have said many times that I am from Canada and my mom just sent stuff for them from home a few weeks ago. But I reminded them, "Yes, I'm from Canada. And we got married in the Temple there, too."
And the next comment was...
"Really? Was it made of ice?"
I just have to shake my head. Only in America.