Okay. Sorry for the absence people but there was some freakish storm in NH on Thursday night and we lost power. And when I say lost power, I mean lost power. Not like in the UK, where it goes and comes back in a few hours or minutes. I am talking everything. Gone. At one point Patrick told me some statistic from the power company's website, saying that over 50% of the STATE had lost power. 86% of of the town we live in had lost power. We were one of them. The weird thing is, that there was no prediction of it, apart from some strong winds. Well they were strong and they took out a lot of trees, one of which on the other side of the road came crashing down and smooshed another tree in our yard and was balancing on the power lines and blocking the road. Friday morning we came downstairs and wondered if we had dreamt it all. The power went out at 11.30om so we went to bed, and it was so noisy outside, and then suddenly it stopped. It was like we were in the eye of the storm, but it wasn't actually a hurricane or anything like that. So odd.
Well, because we live off the grid so to speak, losing power means we also lose water too. Because the power pumps the well. I haven't ever been in a black out like they get here, so didn't know what to do. When it started snowing I did start to panic a little as well. Thankfully Patrick's dad came home and got the new big generator going and after turning our kitchen into the matrix (with all the wires) we had the fridge and some lights wired up, and the furnace and well sorted. By Friday night it was like indoor camping. We watched a movie on my laptop, which I had thankfully charged, and went to bed early. Patrick and I had a shower together by teatree light which would have been rather romantic had it not been for the noise of the generator going at full pelt outside on the deck. They declared a state of emergency in NH and had to call in teams from other states to help get everyone's power back. Thankfully they got to our tree problem on Saturday, thanks to a nice team from Pennsylvania (the side of their trucks said ASPLUNDR or something like that. Ass plunder? Really?) but we still have no phone, internet or tv (the problem with cable is that the three are connected) but right now we are house sitting for a friend so we have all mod cons here.
Anywhoo. To bring you up to speed very quickly.... Interview on Monday at 8.40am... APPROVED! On the spot! No stamp or anything though.
They were very professional but polite and friendly. Didn't look over anything we had prepared, but took the photocopy of our daughters birth certificate. They kept us waiting for about 40 mins, even though there was no one else in front of us. When we got in the IO seemed to have alrealdy made his mind up about approving us, I think that they were spying on us in the waiting room before hand. The IO also had a teeny little tv monitor by his desk too... Hmmmm. And also when we came out, everyone that worked in the office came over and was cooing over/talking to our daughter (we had to bring her with us and she was actually behaving pretty well)
Got home and saw that they had opened the road that we live on (after spending all weekend chopping the tree to pieces that had crushed our fence and power lines) and when were finally able to get the post, my EAD had arrived, as had my daughters US passport. I just saw as well that I got a bunch of emails from the USCIS as well which is good.
The IO said that we can file for our 10 year greencard by post and to make sure we provide a load if information so that we don't have to have a face to face one, as currently the waiting lists locally are LONG.
Hoorah! Dead easy, asked for my AP back and my EAD, which I didn't have at the time... so he understood that we had no joint accounts as yet, but was happy with the phone bill, credit card etc and just took our word for it. I think he saw my giant pack though that helped. I had a few questions about the possibility of my husband working abroad whilst I still had my provisional greencard, and he was dead helpful answering them
Yesterday went and applied for my social security number finally! YAY! Gotta catch up on all these blogs now...
Well, because we live off the grid so to speak, losing power means we also lose water too. Because the power pumps the well. I haven't ever been in a black out like they get here, so didn't know what to do. When it started snowing I did start to panic a little as well. Thankfully Patrick's dad came home and got the new big generator going and after turning our kitchen into the matrix (with all the wires) we had the fridge and some lights wired up, and the furnace and well sorted. By Friday night it was like indoor camping. We watched a movie on my laptop, which I had thankfully charged, and went to bed early. Patrick and I had a shower together by teatree light which would have been rather romantic had it not been for the noise of the generator going at full pelt outside on the deck. They declared a state of emergency in NH and had to call in teams from other states to help get everyone's power back. Thankfully they got to our tree problem on Saturday, thanks to a nice team from Pennsylvania (the side of their trucks said ASPLUNDR or something like that. Ass plunder? Really?) but we still have no phone, internet or tv (the problem with cable is that the three are connected) but right now we are house sitting for a friend so we have all mod cons here.
Anywhoo. To bring you up to speed very quickly.... Interview on Monday at 8.40am... APPROVED! On the spot! No stamp or anything though.
They were very professional but polite and friendly. Didn't look over anything we had prepared, but took the photocopy of our daughters birth certificate. They kept us waiting for about 40 mins, even though there was no one else in front of us. When we got in the IO seemed to have alrealdy made his mind up about approving us, I think that they were spying on us in the waiting room before hand. The IO also had a teeny little tv monitor by his desk too... Hmmmm. And also when we came out, everyone that worked in the office came over and was cooing over/talking to our daughter (we had to bring her with us and she was actually behaving pretty well)
Got home and saw that they had opened the road that we live on (after spending all weekend chopping the tree to pieces that had crushed our fence and power lines) and when were finally able to get the post, my EAD had arrived, as had my daughters US passport. I just saw as well that I got a bunch of emails from the USCIS as well which is good.
The IO said that we can file for our 10 year greencard by post and to make sure we provide a load if information so that we don't have to have a face to face one, as currently the waiting lists locally are LONG.
Hoorah! Dead easy, asked for my AP back and my EAD, which I didn't have at the time... so he understood that we had no joint accounts as yet, but was happy with the phone bill, credit card etc and just took our word for it. I think he saw my giant pack though that helped. I had a few questions about the possibility of my husband working abroad whilst I still had my provisional greencard, and he was dead helpful answering them
Yesterday went and applied for my social security number finally! YAY! Gotta catch up on all these blogs now...
6 comments:
That's crazy, but what a happy ending too, hooray for everything being okay with the immigration peeps, I wonder if they make a "Congratulations on your emmigration" card?!
Scary power cut, I kind of love that though but I'm a bit rustic. Such good news on the other stuff though, so happy for you lovely xx
Wow the power cut seems crazy but the other news is awesome. Big wooooo!
x
P.s. If you get a minute, I'm having a little giveaway so pop over if you can :)
Power cut / crazy weather stuff = scary nuts. When I'm tired my brain loves thinking we live in an OTT America-saves-the-world film. Like I just talked about on my blog... wow apparently when I'm tired I also repeat myself all over the internet.
But yay for immigration stuff going through, so pleased for you guys. So where would you want to go with Patrick to work then?
more good news
I'm so glad you're ok! I swear I left a long comment on this?? I think that I probably forgot about the captcha and just closed out. Anyways, I wondered where the heck you were! Do you have any crazy power outage gossip??
Post a Comment