The Second Most Welcome Sight!

They arrived today around noon. Who are they, you ask? Not who, but what. Our visas!! Finally! Finally! Finally! The Saudi Embassy took exactly a week to process and return them and seeing how that time incorporates a weekend AND a holiday, that part happened pretty quick.

Steven gets into work on Sunday and will request out tickets. Now when they actually book our flights and for what date, well, that's up in they air. We will be asking to fly out on Tuesday, which if they're in agreement leaves us very little time to get everything done! But you know I'll get it done!

Took my car down to a dealership, got it appraised and will sell it tomorrow morning. I just got my one year anniversary of sale in the mail today! This is the second RX I've had to sell quickly and I'm beginning to think this car is a jinx! Lol

So anyways, here's what all the fuss has been over:

The stamp itself is only slightly larger than a postage stamp. How strange that something so physically insignificant can hold so much power over our lives...I've thought of little else since Steven left 14 

July...four and a half months later, voila!  It's the second most beautiful sight. The first?--our flight itinerary. Now that I'll actually kiss! :)

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The Wheels Are In Motion!

After weeks of waiting, we received our letter of authorization today!! I'm beyond thrilled, but now the real work starts! I now can send our visa application packages off to the Embassy in Washington. Once they send them back, (fingers crossed there are NO snags) I email a copy of the visas to Steven's company for them to book our airfare.

So we won't know know for sure the set date we're leaving until we have the confirmed flight itinerary in our hands. Here's what we do know: the flights I plan on requesting only fly out Tuesdays through Fridays, so that slightly shapes when we can leave.

As soon as those visas come back, I have to hit the ground RUNNING. Utilities have to be cut off, my car has to be sold, final bills requested and paid. Another critical eye has to be cast over our clothes and belongings. "Okay Erin, no joke now, what do we REALLY need or can't live without!"

It's strange but I feel very stressed out all of a sudden. More I think than I've felt during these last few weeks of waiting. I almost can't enjoy this small triumph because my stomach is clenched tight again in anticipation of the next stage in the process. I'm already worrying about all that could go wrong to delay us instead of savoring all that has finally gone right to get us to this point.  Time to take a deep breath and a quick step back. I need to decide my next few moves and make lists. Lists are my lifesaver; there's nothing I do in life without lists. It helps me focus, prioritize and relax knowing I don't have to try to hold every bit of critical info in my brain, afraid I'll forget something important. I need to take a lesson from my dog: Stretch out and take a quick nap. It's all going to work out fine:)

Home, Sweet Home (Now With Pictures!)

It's done! After weeks of waiting, Steven was finally issued his family villa! A second floor apartment, it has three bedrooms, maid's quarters, (which we'll use as an office/craft room), two and a half bathrooms and a formal dining room. It's situated across the street from the tennis courts, two pools (including the children's pool) and a playground. Perfect location!

So to say it's fully furnished would technically be correct, but a bit of a stretch design-wise.  The couches are plaid, (hello slip covers!) the chandeliers gold toned and crystal and a bit over the top. (My entire childhood I swore when I got older I'd buy a chandelier to show I'd made it! Lol)

The dining and living furniture is cherry colored. Think of a mid tier hotel in the eighties, mixed with your grandma's house, (China hutch, corner curio cabinet, gold chandeliers,etc.) 

And yet, I'm thrilled beyond words! Decor aside, the villa is quite large. The rooms, spacious. The drapes (thank god!) are a pale silvery blue and provide a nice starting point. Decor is easy to fix. Some nice accessories, a few accent walls, a couple of rugs, voila! My biggest excitement comes from the bidets. I've always wanted bidets! The western concept of toilet paper as a sanitary option has always disgusted me. It's like stepping in dog doo, scuffing your shoe a bit on the pavement and calling your shoe "clean." Ick. Steven's not sold on the bidet concept though. He keeps asking me, "Okay, explain this to me again, you sit where?" Hilarious!:). I already see the baby playing in it...gonna have to keep an eye on both my boys!

So, until we get the authorization paperwork, we're still stuck in the States, but it's just such a morale booster to see our new home "in living color."  And Steven can finally begin the process to begin 

re-furnishing our house, getting it ready for us, decorating it. He's got excellent taste, and an almost dead-on identical design eye to mine. He jumps out of planes AND knows his Navajo White from his Buff Beige? Get back ladies! He's spoken for!:)

(Pictures to come:)

++++++++++++++UPDATE++++++++++++

Promised pictures for your viewing pleasure!:)

My bidet! Yeaaaa!

Deep Breath...

Disappointments are a part of life.  What happens when disappointment becomes a WAY of life? Anger sets in...and it's an anger that can become deep seated, and hard to be rid of.

But let's back up. A few days ago, I drove through the gates of my workplace, conceivably for the last time.  Not that I won't be back to visit, but it won't be the same, I won't be back in uniform. It was with many conflicting emotions that I packed up my office.  How does one get nine years of loose work ends tied up? Nine years of personal items collected into boxes? With a heavy heart, that's how. And yet, it's been luxurious glancing at my alarm clock knowing I don't have to switch the alarm to "on".  In spite of that, I've found myself rushing in the morning when I don't have to, feeling a sense of urgency tugging, pushing at the base of my skull. I've found I have to consciously remind myself I have no early morning deadline, willing myself to slow down and relax. After years of working at a high ops tempo, I'm finding that slowing down may be my biggest hurdle to contentment. It's just going to take time.

Moving on, there was one group of medical paperwork I needed from my doctor to avoid holding the visa process up on my end. I began the paperwork mid-August, and finally received it on Tuesday. I'm not sure I've felt that elated about anything in the last few months. I felt I had scored a victory, a major triumph-- until I realized the paperwork was dated 19 August ( the day the process was begun) and it expires after 90 days. Which gives me until 19 November to submit it to the embassy with my visa application or begin the paperwork again. So submit it already, right?! Wrong!  Before I can submit our visa applications, we must have authorization paperwork from the Saudi Foreign Ministry in hand...and our hands are conspicuously empty.  For five weeks Steven has inquired about the paperwork, requested status checks, demanded updates, progressively becoming angrier and angrier. This is not to say I haven't shared his anger, but you might say mine has over time converted more to a quiet resignation that if this paper is received, it will be when THEY want to provide it--and not a minute sooner.  

And so on to the opening statements of this post.  We have been promised this paperwork so many times that Steven can now estimate the NEW time they predict it will be ready, each time he requests status. "Should be by Sunday or Monday", "Check with us Thursday", "Definitely by Sunday", "For sure by Wednesday".  It goes on and on like this. Empty words going around and around, meaningless.  The one definite? Whatever day he inquires will NEVER be the day it's arrived. And so the frustration and anger builds.

I've come to terms with the fact that this is par for the course in the life of an expat. We are not moving to America. We have become accustomed to a standard of bureaucratic customer care here in the States that can't be matched anywhere else, and yet we still complain.  

But here's the good news: I know the paperwork is coming. I don't know the when, but I know it's in the works.  And I know what my reaction will be...downright, sheer, unadulterated joy. And if you hear some whooping and hollering, wherever you are, just know that it's probably me, and my hands are no longer empty:)