Friday, April 26, 2013

a few late wedding kiekies

Isn't it the best, when you have a few moments to relive your wedding day?

It's like a little indulgent treat for every now and then.

Life goes on and the best part is that it's as a married person, and that's the real prize.

Remember me talking about having a slight case of the post wedding blues? Well, I'm over that. Actually being married helps with that.
...

I finally received the first half of our wedding photos (that the photographer forgot to send me in the first batch) in the mail yesterday, so to celebrate I'll share one or two or eight...





"look, I got me a good man momma"

the wedding car

all photo's here where taken by Ingrid Marais.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

"spring" but I'm still freezing

Rumor has it that things are looking up this week. By up I mean hot, and by hot I mean the weather not sucking.

So far I am still pretty darn cold. Spokane Spring and Jo'burg Spring is not the same thing, Spokane Winter being pretty different from Jo'burg winter was my main clue here.

Driving by people wearing shorts and sandals confuse me. Turns me into those crazy old ladies that yell at people in public "waar is jou skoene kind! weet jou ma jy's hier?"

Luckily they don't really understand, luckily I don't really do this.

Still, crappy cold weekend or not we had to get out of town, just for a few hours, just to keep telling ourselves 'it's only going to get warmer and better'.

So we drove up to Mt Spokane to say goodbye to the snow and then found a river to go calm down by:






 


I do however have to say, the city of Spokane, even though a little chilly for me, is breathtakingly beautiful so far. Overload of blossom pictures post to follow.

Monday, April 22, 2013

Keep calm and get a green card

Does this ever happen to you?

You get ready to clear customs and suddenly you break out into a unexplainable sweat, wondering if you are in fact a law abiding, passport carrying, visa issued, non-terroristy kind of human being? And you're about to enter YOUR own country?

Just me?

Okay then, well, this does happen to me for no good reason other than my respectful fear of customs officers.

I usually run down the FAQ's of my mind to double check I'm all good.

Passport? Check! In hand, ready? Check!
Not a 'switched at the last second' fake passport? No! You sure...?? Yes.
I am South African? Yes! This is in fact South Africa? uhm... (looks around nervously but not suspiciously) yes!
Are you sure you never accepted a strange gift from a fellow tourist on your travels that may or may not have unknown substances inside? Yes!!!
How confident are you in fact that you won't use the words 'explosives' 'communism' 'smuggle' by accident? Pretty sure if i remain focused.

I don't why... I just do.

It was no different with this grand affair of getting the green card.

Most of you know that it's been a pretty lengthy process. Especially when you throw the Fiance Visa months in there.

It's not really been a traumatic or painful process. It was just slow and filled with paperwork... and little silly fees for everything. (and not so little fees)

Anyway, after a few months the long awaited interview had arrived.

I wasn't worried.  There honestly was no reason to be. I was not doing anything wrong, I'm here in the USA for no other reason than to be united with my beloved... who I like really love, for real. I never lied on any of those forms. I have copies of ALLLLL those forms, and back-up documents, and documents just in case and photo's of our real relationship from the last 3 years! I'm sorted.

However, I still got pretty nervous about the interview on the day of (because, well, see above).

Ben starting off with getting our legal wedding date wrong wasn't a great start either.

Of course it went well over all. Of course the guy hardly looked at any of our extra documents. Of course I got the approval for Permanent Residency!! Got that? Yay!!  

Other than the little wedding date error it was pretty boring, standard, nothing more to tell you. In a way I was anticipating a bit more cross examination. Like in the movies, where they separate the couple and ask them all kinds of questions about bed linen patterns and first date details. None of that. 

I'm expecting my "green card" (that's not green!) in the mail soon. It will officially declare my PERMANENT RESIDENT status.

This new addition in identity kind of freaked me out. I'm mostly over it now. It's just... so ... permanent you know?

Q: Who are you?
A: I'm a permanent resident...

Hey, I'm not complaining here, all of this is a really good thing. An end to months and months of paper work and not being able to make money and floating around in a haze of immigration limbo.


This is a the official and legal start to something new. So yay!

Monday, April 15, 2013

around here today

some mornings look a little something like this.

Excited that my seemingly unsuccessful attempt at growing herbs has literally come to life

Of old beat up things, new shiny (blue) things can come.  In the process of giving this old dresser named 'Bertie' a new life, a new shiny (blue) life. 

Weeks meals planned. Thank you, myself. 

 Planning bedroom color schemes.
 For Bertie, they will be white.


Slowly but surely, our plant stories are becoming success stories.

 I'm making a rug, like this one here. It is taking forever, but I don't mind.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

two bloggers go on a hike...

What was I babbling on about in the last post? I forget... Oh something about what to do with this blog.  I got over thinking about it so deeply, so I'll just go on doing what I'm doing.

I get sentimental every now and then when I scroll through my Vietnam blog Lan In Nam (I know, how clever is that title!) and even though it's a little cheesy here and there my biggest regret is that I didn't blog more. More of the everyday details, shorter posts, more quickies. Alas. 

I also thought about the aspects I enjoy from my favorite blogs(see here to the side), and it's beautiful photography,  a little window into their lives (in a non creepy way), or something that inspires me. What I feel most inspired to do is to keep on keeping on with Lanlettie.

So that's what I'll do.

Speaking of little updates,

My Spokane blogger/instagram friend Amanda invited me for a little mid week hike last week, and what's a blogger supposed to do other than to post about it?


She, of course posted about it too.  She takes more pictures than I do, and they are stunning!! For the first time I understood what Ben must go through living with me and my constant snapping. (snapping of photos that is...)
 
 Can you believe we met on Instagram?  I love that! ...and they say social media is the end of human contact as we know it. ha! what do they know?
 These, I'll have you know, are my new hiking boots.  I feel so NorthWest right now. May they see many many happy trails and breathtaking views and maybe a wolf or a bear... I'll settle for moose.
If these photos seem a little familiar it's because I popped by here just a few weeks ago with Ben, remember? I told you all about it.

Friday, April 5, 2013

Friday: what to do from here?

Well, I feel I owe you a little bit of an update.

I've been very uninspired to write posts these last few weeks but I also can't manage the thought of just closing the blog down and moving on with other projects. why is that?

This weekend I'll take the time to really think about the direction I want Lanlettie to take in the future and go from there.  For me it's been a place of working out my wedding DIY ideas, dealing with leaving South Africa, in a way expressing life as a newly married woman, keeping sane through unemployment and so on.  Most of these things have changed.

I no longer need to DIY my wedding.
I've left South Africa.
Life as a newly married woman keeps on changing on me and it's great, but hard to put into posts.
I now work as an intern and learn about aprons, hard liquor and craft distilling.  So that take care of the unemployment crazy for now.

I have my green card interview coming up in less than two weeks! The end is in sight. Good news right?

Starting this post I thought I was going to tell you all about my mid week hike and our new healthy habits but for now let me take that content and come back when there is more clarity on what it is I do here. 
Any ideas?