Delicia

I always knew that illegal immigration was expensive, but I never thought about this.

Wow, thats a lot of trash and a lot of cash to clean it up.

It's updated!

Congratulations!

I am still waiting for that elusive NOA-2.

Day 187! Hubby is on the plane heading back to Toronto as I type, makes me feel almost ill that we are still living in this purgatory and we spend so much time in airports.

It was a nice (although seemed to fly by) week. He helped me get a manageable diet/exercise program together and trained my dog to run with the bike and now the dog actually walks good on a leash too. (He watches way too much Dog Whisperer, but whatever he does, it works!) Now, I have to start preparing for the kid to move down right after school gets out in Toronto.

I'm glad you had a great week Delicia! When does your Son get our of school? Will be nice for you to have him there

Kid has his exams in late June in Toronto and school starts here in AZ in August. We are thinking the weekend over July 4 would be a good time to fly up and get him and bring him back. I can't wait... I miss that monkey.

how did he train the dog to run with the bike??

and how did he get your dog to walk proper???

Is it just the changing direction thing when you're walking with your pup??

He is very patient and strict when it comes to dog's behaviors. For walking, we just started using a very short leash (2 ft) and correct the dog when it starts to get ahead by stopping and putting her back into position by pushing her back by her chest. Then she has to stand there and not walk forward until the human starts to walk. For her, using a choke chain and making sure you swing the arm (somewhat exaggeratedly) that is holding her leash seems to help her pace herself correctly.

For the bike, after she got the walk down (just took a couple days) the bike followed naturally. Since there is a pretty fast paced forward only motion, she stays focused on moving forward. We just tied a leash (6 ft) around the cross bar as close to the handle bars as possible and wrapped it around a few times so she really has only about 3-4 ft of leash available. She walks and bikes on the left side, so left turns can be a little tricky and have to be taken pretty slow. We also have a lot of rabbits around which cause problems both walking and biking and if she starts focusing on them, we have to stop completely and make her sit until she is refocused on the walker/biker. She has had a couple 'incidents' where she was out of focus and tried to either get too close to the bike or tried to get ahead of the bike, but one little bump on her side with the bike tire seemed to cure her of that.

One note on dog walking: retractable leashes are silly. I never understood the point. You have no control over the dog whatsoever and they don't learn to walk next to you. They just learn to walk as far ahead of you as they possibly can and stop and sniff whatever whenever.

Day 187! Hubby is on the plane heading back to Toronto as I type, makes me feel almost ill that we are still living in this purgatory and we spend so much time in airports.

It was a nice (although seemed to fly by) week. He helped me get a manageable diet/exercise program together and trained my dog to run with the bike and now the dog actually walks good on a leash too. (He watches way too much Dog Whisperer, but whatever he does, it works!) Now, I have to start preparing for the kid to move down right after school gets out in Toronto.

It's updated for the week. Congratulations on all the recent approvals.

I contacted my Senator regarding my case last week. I was just informed by the Senator's office that they had made the inquiry with USCIS and since my NOA-1 is dated February, I will have to wait until August 2008 (6 months from NOA-1) before I can inquire again. That's 10 months since I originally filed. 107 days passed between filing and NOA-1 issuance and I have no options right now. Completely frustrating.

Wait... I have one trick I forgot about. Perhaps we will get lucky and they will draw my husband in the DV lottery. Those notices are sent out in May sometime.

I have no tricks. My super power is rather lame. It only gives me power to rant (but I always secretly habored that power).

Day 185 (not that I am counting).

Senator was no help, the office actually made me feel worse and told me to wait until August 2008.

I submitted a letter to my senator today (Jon Kyl) asking for his assistance with my petition in light of the I-130 processing dates going backwards at CSC. I submitted (along with other documents that his office requested from me) a copy of my spreadsheet as proof that the USCIS posted processing dates are bogus. I see several I-130s approved with original filing dates of December 2007 as well as the vast majority of November 2007 filers having received adjudication. There, on the face of it, seems to be no logic to USCIS posting that they were processing through Sept 5, 2007 in March 2008 and now in April 2008, advising they are processing through August 19, 2007. I figure if I wait long enough and disregard the year, they will backed up into October in no time! There really is nothing more I can do about my silly situation other than this.

If the Senator decides my case is not worth pursuing at this time, so be it. If he does, cool. In the meantime, I definitely need a break from this forum and everything else immigration related, because, I am just burned out and have become numb.

Day: 176

GRRRR I am so angry!

The Senator's office called and left a detailed voice mail on my home phone. The aide advised that they had received a response from USCIS has received my file and its receipt date is Feb 13, 2008 (which is actually the NOA-1 date) and they expect to adjudicate it by August 2008. Ummm... 10 months after I filed???? Can't wait to get that aide on the phone tomorrow. Good thing I wasn't home to take the call because I would of killed the messenger.

The worst thing is that I set up my email to send an alert to my cell phone when I get a new message, just waiting for USCIS to send an update email.

Earlier in the presidential election campaign, I emailed all of the candidates (back when Edwards, Huckabee, Richardson, etc where still in the race) about my suggestions for immigration reform, and now I am on the email list from hell: Obama. His campaign sends at least 2 emails to my account a day and I have always gone into the link provided to remove me, but still the emails keep coming. So, when my phone signals me that there is a new email and I log into my email account, I am always supremely disappointed that it is just Obama wanting money or something. I am so not voting for that man because of his spam techniques. Unfortunately, I can't vote for McCain either because he is my Senator and his office has yet to respond to my requests for assistance with my immigration case. Let's hope Hill gets the nomination because I have not missed voting in a presidential election since Reagan's second term (yes, yes, I am older than dirt).

I am now the not-so-proud owner of the oldest CR1/IR1 case at CSC (VJ members).

#######?!?!?!?

I feel like whining too... but what's the point?

Gemilina: I understand your feelings completely. Pretty much the same thing happened to me and my husband when I tried to immigrate to Canada... 2 years later and no progress from CIC, we gave up and now live apart while trying our luck with USCIS.

Regarding the Senator: I received a letter from mine yesterday just advising that he was going to make in inquiry to USCIS and would let me know when he had received a response. It's been less than 1 week after I submitted my letter, so I am not complaining about how long it took him to respond and send an inquiry to USCIS. He obviously accepted my argument that the posted USCIS dates were garbage. Jon Kyl's office seems to be very efficient. Too bad McCain's office completely blew off all my communication with his office as did my House Rep.

Hmmm, link to the sheet doesn't work for some reason, but you can always access the sheet by hitting the link to my blog (in my signature) and it is posted near the top right of the page.

Its updated and actually, I see lots of approvals this week. Finally!

I probably won't be updated much this upcoming week. My husband is in for a week long visit and we are going to ignore this immigration ####### and pretend we are a 'real' married couple who actually *gasp* lives together...

Have a good week everyone.

Hubby is booked to come see me and he will be here day after tomorrow. It is an unplanned visit of sorts and only initiated because all my labs came back bad earlier this week. Nothing life threatening, but all I can do is giggle and think: see what prolonged immigration will get ya? I am now borderline diabetic, got a hyper-something thyroid, blood pressure has almost tripled, horrible cholesterol levels and a brand new diagnosis of asthma to top it off. I haven't slept more that 4 hours a day in months and I seriously miss sleeping. The only thing working right seems to be my liver. Even my skin disorder is going nuts and now I have 'special soap' and lotion. Doc wrote me a pad full of scripts for this that and the other thing and I really don't want to start down that path. I will start the thyroid stuff, but am going to try hard to manage the other issues with diet/exercise changes first before I become a pill-popping fanatic.

Hubby has always been reluctant to brave both Canadian and U.S. Border Patrol and both hassle him equally so he was planning on not coming to the U.S. until the U.S. Congress deemed him 'acceptable' and sprinkled water on him and waved smoke around him while dancing in their tribal suits and ties. His work sites are pretty much closed to him due to a bad winter in Toronto all the new construction is behind schedule, so he is not working this week or next, so why not spend that time with me? He is coming down armed to the teeth with my new diet/exercise plan and willing to help train my somewhat disobedient dog (doggy boot camp of sorts) while I still have to go to work.

I am tired of life and the daily battle to stay sane and there never seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel, except of course, for that on coming train. Perhaps by the time I come back next week to look at who's been approved and who hasn't, I will have moved up a spot or two on the list. For now, I think that elusive approval just isn't ever going to happen and he and I will be living in our own level of hell reserved for the foolish and hopeful idiots like us.

it's updated!

I submitted a letter to my senator today (Jon Kyl) asking for his assistance with my petition in light of the I-130 processing dates going backwards at CSC. I submitted (along with other documents that his office requested from me) a copy of my spreadsheet as proof that the USCIS posted processing dates are bogus. I see several I-130s approved with original filing dates of December 2007 as well as the vast majority of November 2007 filers having received adjudication. There, on the face of it, seems to be no logic to USCIS posting that they were processing through Sept 5, 2007 in March 2008 and now in April 2008, advising they are processing through August 19, 2007. I figure if I wait long enough and disregard the year, they will backed up into October in no time! There really is nothing more I can do about my silly situation other than this.

If the Senator decides my case is not worth pursuing at this time, so be it. If he does, cool. In the meantime, I definitely need a break from this forum and everything else immigration related, because, I am just burned out and have become numb.

Day: 176

TSC doesn't process I-130s, only VSC and CSC do. I think the states are pretty much divided up east/west and assigned to either of those Service Centers appropriately.

I don't see any updates, still showing the same dates for the I-130s for both service centers from March 15. Perhaps they are updating it now and it is being goofy until all the pages are loaded.

Well, if thats the case, then VSC didn't move and CSC went backwards, they were previously reporting Sept 5, 2007.

Day 175!