Creeky Creek Day!

I had to share this after almost dying of laughter. In regards to my husband's English vocabulary, the past few days have been hilarious!

My husband woke up for work earlier and told me yesterday was creeky creek day.

Our conversation went like this:

"My friend told me yesterday was creeky creek day!" -Husband
"What's that?" -Me (trying to not laugh!!)
"I don't know. Kids come to your house and ask for chocolates?!" -Husband
"Really?" -Me
"Yeah, and if you don't give them chocolates they mess with your house!" -Husband

I continued to act shocked like he knew something that I didn't. It was hilarious! I finally cracked and told him it was Halloween and he meant trick-or-treat, not creeky creek! He was embarrassed.

Another English mishap from the past few days...

Yesterday we went out to eat Mexican. While we were eating my husband decided to talk about taxes (I still need to write a post about our tax situation, so until then this might not be funny!). He said our 2011 taxes won't be such a nightmare because he'll be able to "blame" me. He meant to say claim, not blame! This resulted in me laughing hysterically and him getting upset.

I'm sure karma is going to smack me in the face when I decide to learn Portuguese.

Our Gatinha

When my husband and I started dating he couldn't believe my dog and cat lived inside, let alone slept in my bed! Seriously, he didn't understand this concept. A year later I found myself sobbing on the phone because I didn't feel comfortable moving with him because of my animals. He shivered at the thought of allowing animals inside a house. How in the world would I bring my animals with us considering they were indoor animals?! If I wasn't allowed to bring my animals, I wasn't moving. Simple as that!

I won that battle.

My dog wasn't able to move to our new location until 10 months after we moved, but my cat moved with us right away. A month after living here my husband said, "I can't imagine life without Tigger. He makes this feel more like home." Both of us were homesick. He was missing Brazil and I was missing the midwest. My cat made things less lonely.

(Tigger relaxing outside after we moved into our house)

A few months ago I went with a friend to the sketchiest house I've ever been to. The sketchiest part? My friend was getting a tattoo in this house. I went along because I was seriously worried about her going alone! The tattoo artist also ran a pet shop - inside her house.

The first thing I noticed when I walked in the door was this:

(she slept on my lap like this for hours while my friend got her tattoo)

I was sold. I sent my husband numerous pictures of her. I wanted to rescue her from this sketchy house. The lady's husband told me he was thinking about feeding her to his snake. I know he was joking, but seriously?! I told my husband that and he said, "you have to bring her home!!" So I did. She came home with a mild case of ear mites and fleas. I made her sleep outside in a kennel the first night because I didn't want my cat and dog to get fleas from her. I woke up bright and early and rushed her to the vet for blood work and so on. It took us weeks to name her, but we decided Mima was the best name for our new bundle of joy.

(Mima after a bath!)

The same man who shivered at the thought of animals living inside a house and thought animals as pets was the most ridiculous thing ever is now in love with all of our pets. He claims it's a Brazilian thing. Dogs are guards, cats hunt mice. According to him, animals live outside and never come inside the house. He's a changed man. I swear, the man is more concerned about the animals than me!! He cuddles up to Mima every night and sometimes says, "I can't believe you were almost snake food."

Mima is definitely my husband's cat. They don't spend much time together because he works a lot, but they were meant for each other. They even have the same attitude and temper! They are two peas in a pod.

It took me awhile to convince my rural Brazilian that having pets is a wonderful thing, but I got the job done!

Isn't she a cutie?!

Flight Delay

As I mentioned in my previous post, my husband went home to Brazil for the weekend. His flight was supposed to land in Chicago today at 5:30 a.m. When I got out of class at 5 p.m. I still hadn't heard from him. His family and I were frantic! I figured he lost his cell phone or it was dead. The man has a track record for losing cell phones. Then I realized that wasn't very likely. The drive from Chicago to where we live is only about 4 hours. Regardless of whether or not he lost his cell phone, he should've been home!

His cousin who lives here with us was getting ready to tell my mother-in-law that my husband was here but at work and forgot to tell us! I'm sorry but that isn't right so I decided to investigate. I had been putting off "the investigation" because I was worried something went wrong at customs. After arguing with two different girls, I was finally given information that the flight had been delayed 12 hours in Sao Paulo! It's funny because I talked to my mom before making that phone call and we discussed whether or not the flight being delayed 12 hours was possible. I figured it was impossible. Who was I kidding?! Anything is possible.

Anyway, I'm really upset because he didn't take time to call one single person about the delay! I'm sure I'll get an interesting story when the plane finally arrives and he decides to call.

Weekend Trip

My husband hasn't seen his family in 2 1/2 years! Well, until Friday night.

It's been planned for years that my husband would become his little cousin's godparent. It has also been planned for a year that we would go to Brazil together for this event, but things didn't work out that way. I'm extremely bummed!! In general, life held me back from being able to go- loads of work for school and our lovely tax bill (a story for another rainy day!).

A week before leaving, my husband's friend told him about this awesome thing called magicJack. I don't know the full story behind it, but it enables you to call internationally at a very low cost. I think he bought it for $40 and all calls after that intital cost are free for a year!! So pretty much his family can call our cell phones and we can call them on their new magicJack number. His family has been calling me all weekend speaking in Portuguese. I understand them, but my Portuguese is so terrible I'm afraid to speak! I have a feeling this will force me to learn.

Yesterday morning my husband called me ecstatic to be home with his family. He was eating a fresh peach and told me about how he had been chasing his cattle. I could see the twinkle in his eyes!

I'm so excited for him to finally be home with his family, even if it's just for a weekend.

Brazilian Dog!!

(MY DOG!)

It's been a long time since I've taken the time to write an entry, but this picture inspired me.

Almost a year ago I left my home, college, family, and friends to be with my husband. The past year has been a whirlwind. My husband and I just bought a house so my dad decided to visit us. With him he brought my dog, Jade.

I am so happy to have her with me. My husband works long days so I'm home alone all the time. She makes my lonely nights a million times better! She has adjusted well, but I am still trying! It is so strange to finally have her with me after a year. Pretty sure I have two kids now, my husband and dog!!

The picture above was taken a week ago during a BBQ with my husband's Brazilian friends. They decided she needed to wear a Brazilian flag. They paraded her around so proudly. As you can tell, she was all right with being Brazilian for a few minutes!

Tchau!!!

If we were in Brazil...

So, my husband and I are in the process of buying a house. Everything was going fine until yesterday when we met with the realtor to make an offer. Considering how terrible the housing market is, we decided to offer about 20% less than what the seller is asking. I know that sounds ridiculous but the house has been on the market for 3 months and as I said, the housing market is terrible, especially where we live. Also, we thought this would give us a little room to play. We don't want to offer too much and then end up paying more than what we want to pay, blah blah blah.

Anyway, we met with the realtor yesterday to fill out paperwork and to make an offer. That was quite an experience. On one of the papers we had to check a box that dealt with the mortgage and title. There's a few different boxes you can check depending on your situation. The realtor explained what the different boxes meant and went on to recommend a box for us. Wonderful, right? Well, not so much as my husband became offended. Without explaining the complicated boxes, I will just say that one of them dealt with car insurance. Pretty much if one of us was in an accident and there was an injury, nobody could take us to court and try to take away our house. The realtor said this only applied to me because my husband probably doesn't have a driver's license. He's had a driver's license since like his first week in America 5 years ago!! If he's working and paying taxes, he can obviously drive a darn vehicle and get a driver's license. I don't think my husband was initially insulted by this, but after  the next bit he was...

It came time for the realtor to write down our offer. After my husband explained that he was being honest with how he felt about the house, lot, and so on he told her what our offer was. She set (he says she threw it, but I don't remember that detail) her pen on the table and said, "if that is your offer, I'm not even going to write it down!" I began to explain that this was our starting point, the house has been on the market for 3 months, blah blah blah and she said it was ridiculous to make such an offer because the house is brand new. Too bad. I don't care if the house is brand new. Our offer was our offer and if that's what we wanted to offer how could she stop us?!

Long story short, she told my husband that making such an offer would make the owners angry and my husband shouted, "WELL! You already made me mad so I really don't care about what the owners think! That is my offer and it's the only offer I have at this time! If you can't write it down, we can throw away all these papers and look for a different house!" We ended up offering $4,000 more than what our offer originally was.

By the time we left I thought my husband had cooled down, but I was wrong. We got outside and he said, "really?! Do people think I ride around on your back all day?! Do people think I'm a stupid person because I'm not from here and I don't have my green card? If we were in Brazil...." I'm sure most of you can imagine all the details that completed that sentence.

Moth balls

When we moved into this house it was infested with moth balls. Oh yes, moth balls. My husband's friend lived here before us and he put moth balls in the cabinets, behind the fridge, in the closets, behind the couch, and everywhere else he could possibly think of. I can't diss on him too much because this is sort of HIS house and everything but what the heck?! I think he was trying to scare off an army of mice or something! I'm not too worried about mice so I went around picking up the moth balls and throwing them away. That was the first weekend of November and the scent is still haunting us. The moth ball scent will probably never go away, although it has gone down quite a bit.

We went to my dad's for Christmas and as we started unpacking our clothes all we could smell was moth balls. I had to rewash all of our clothes. Honestly, it's kind of funny. That experience definitely reminded that after you live somewhere for awhile you don't really notice the bad smells and what not.

Last night I was cooking supper. As I reached deep into the spice cabinet I noticed that it even smells like moth balls. GEESH. I'm really worried about when we move out. I'm going to have to deep clean all of our belongings and rewash EVERYTHING to get rid of the smell. Speaking of, we are moving out veryyy soon. More on that later! pssst, we're trying to buy a house!

Anyway, I've been studying all morning and decided to eat lunch. The easiest thing was a chicken pot pie so I opened it, stuck it in the microwave, and then attempted to eat it. The chicken pot pie tasted like freakin' moth balls. What the heck?!?! Please don't get me wrong. I don't know what moth balls taste like, but the taste was moth ball. I had to throw away my chicken pot pie and eat 2 oranges for lunch. Darn.

Our Interview

Our immigration interview was Tuesday, January 18th. We left Monday for the long drive to Chicago. I ended up driving the whole way because my husband was too nervous to concentrate. I found our hotel with ease, talked him into relaxing, and we went out for the night.

Before we left the hotel, I did a google search for malls in Chicago. What I found on google ended up being a downtown Chicago mall. We ended up paying $18.00 to park for 2 hours..yikes! I'm from a relatively small midwest town, not a big city like Chicago. Our downtown traffic was slightly hectic, but nothing in comparison to Chicago. I can't tell you how many times I heard people honking their horns. How rude! Seriously, give me time to get my foot off the freakin' brake and on the gas before you honk!!

Anyway...

We went to the mall, got incredibly lost, and fortunately made it out alive.

Next stop? back to the hotel to drop off the car and head out to Fogo De Chao. http://www.fogodechao.com/ ...we were both dying to eat good food. We avoided paying a ridiculous amount to park by walking.

My husband got a little tipsy drinking caipirinhas, I had a billion pieces of palmito and picanha, and then we walked back to the hotel to organize everything for the interview.

(picanha-YUMMY!)

(mouth-watering palmito)

                               

(my husband's favorite-caipirinha)

(us before the interview)

Here's the point of this entry. Our interview was a complete nightmare and I'm still recovering. I'm sure our interview was handled the same way as they all are, but I was so stressed I thought I was going to have an anxiety attack. My husband had entered and departed the U.S. so many times that the officer kept questioning him. She even questioned me about the times he had entered and departed and I've only been with him since the last time he entered! Thank God for all the long nights we spent talking about our lives when we first started dating. She questioned why he had worked for one guy, then another, then back to the first. Why did we get married when we did? All kinds of random questions. Nothing like, "what color is his toothbrush?!" She kept trying to trick me, which I expected. This officer meant business and she held us for just a few minutes shy of an hour. I still can't remember all the questions she asked. I can barely remember what the building looked like. How sad.

I know the above sounds dramatic, but the interview meant a lot to us.

In the end everything was fine. We were approved, she made some copies of pictures, bills, and bank statements. He already has his work permit so now we're waiting for his green card.

This whole process has been a whirlwind. Everything fell into place after we submitted our paperwork. Everything took about 3 months. Maybe that's a potential blog entry...the papers we submitted, and so on. But only after I swim my way out of the piles of articles, books, and notes for school!!

Oh, the nerves!

On Tuesday, my husband and I have our immigration interview, which determines whether or not he is approved to adjust his status. Holy nerves! We have so much information to take with us. I think I'm nervous mainly because I don't know what to expect. I've read stuff online and talked with our lawyer a million times (which does help A LOT), but I'm still nervous. My husband keeps having nightmares about it and he feels like he's begging the officers to stay in America! hahah, cracks me up.

The emotions finally hit me today. I have class all day, studying to do tonight, I work all day Saturday and Sunday, Monday is a holiday so no class, interview is Tuesday. That means I will spend Monday studying what I will miss Tuesday and preparing all of our documents, then we will head to Chicago.

Neither of us have been to Chicago so we don't know what to expect. I still need to book a hotel!! On a good note, we are eating at a Brazilian restaurant, Fogo De Chao. I'm VERY excited about that! There was a Brazilian restaurant near the university I went to prior to moving. You can only imagine how much money we dropped there! Yum-O!

I'm sure you can imagine what my next few days will consist of. I'm going to be a nervous wreck and my husband is going to be a nervous, crabby, pain in the ***, areyousurewearen'tforgettinganypapersbecauseIwillbepissed!, type of person. Ohh nerves, bring it on.

Brazilian Dentistry

Last year at college was a stressful adventure. I began the fall semester soon after meeting my husband, and at winter break was faced with him possibly having to leave the states thanks to his boss failing to file the appropriate papers for his extension. All worked out in the end, but only after my husband (boyfriend at the time) had to go 500 miles away to work. Oh well, at least he was still within driving distance!

Anyway, the stress from everything being so unpredictable led me to sitting in front of my laptop blasting music, drinking cherry pepsi, and eating all sorts of candy and junk food for hours, which turned into months. When I arrived home for the summer I went to the dentist for a routine cleaning. I was not surprised one single bit when the dentist told me I had 3 cavities that needed to be filled. So, I immediately scheduled an appointment and was back in his office a couple weeks later.

The dentist and his assistant argued the whole time. They argued about how they were going to use their new tools, which methods were best, blah blah blah. I knew that was a terrible sign. The dentist was new and had replaced my old retired dentist. I had a feeling something was going to be wrong...

...as I assumed, something IS wrong. I can't eat anything sweet or chew gum on one side of my mouth. When I do, pain gets shot up through my mouth. How lovely. While home for Christmas I asked my dad what I should do about this problem. He pretty much had no advice so that's when my husband said, "Tuesday, don't pay to get your teeth fixed by another gringo. My friend in my town will do it for you!"

I obviously questioned him. Like, who is this friend? Is he any good? Has he done work on your teeth? Apparently it's one of his "best friends" and he is good..and yes, he's done all the work on my husband's teeth. I have yet to understand how this man is my husband's friend. Probably because he's his dentist and my husband thinks everybody he comes in contact with his friend.

After all this nonsense, I have a question. Has anybody seen a Brazilian dentist? Would you recommend me waiting a few months and having the work done in Brazil? Would it actually be cheaper than me having it done in the states? I'm seriously considering waiting until we are in Brazil to have them fixed. What an adventure that will be! I won't understand half of what the dentist is saying, but heck, if he gets the job done I don't mind!