May I also mention?

Now I know why people went to bed pretty much at dark back in the old days. WOW. It is NOT fun to have to try and do things in candlelight, really. And this half hour on/half hour off thing is VERY annoying! Not to mention, it's kind of freaking Natalie out especially after dark. Ugh. Fortunately, my younger sister is picking me up and I'm staying with her until I can finally go to Korea (or John comes home, whatever ends up happening, *sigh*). One thing for sure, without power, you sure get a lot of praying done. But that did help a little, I was able to get calmed down but there's NO WAY I could stay here until my sister finally got enough money together to pay her bill, especially since the electric company also wants a $200 deposit now. Ugh. How can people live this way?! I just don't get it. NOTHING one can buy is worth this, seriously. But they all see it as a big adventure! Um, sorry, no, I did that already the summer after our house burned down and I'm not into doing that all again. No way. I don't even camp if I can help it. And of course my sister sees it as an adventure, she works full days seven out of 14 days so she's not home half of the time anyway! Ugh. Why did I sign up for all of this again? Seriously, we should have just not done this if we didn't have the money for the plane tickets for all three of us. *sigh* Because now I really don't know when we're going to go or even IF we're going to go. It's all going to depend on when John finds a new job. The one he has will end February 13th. Why does that almost always happen around Valentine's Day? Ugh. But yeah, I just wish he would come home. I miss him.

As for WHY he lost his job, unfortunately, it doesn't seem to matter over there if you are doing a good job or not, if the parents don't like you, you're out. And the Koreans usually do not follow their contracts so there is nothing protecting you if they decide they don't like you. Though this is more of a problem with the private schools, not as much with the public ones. I'm hoping that that something will come through whether that is a new, better job or we just decide this isn't going to work and try to make it here. I don't know. Obviously, it was time to leave Beaver Dam, we just weren't getting anywhere there. I just don't know where exactly where we're supposed to be. Hopefully the answers will come soon but in the meantime, it looks like it's going to be awhile before we'll be together as a family again and that is the hardest part of it all because I really, REALLY miss my husband.

Not much else going on other than my sister is starting to dilate. She's 31 weeks and she's 1cm already. She has also been told by her OB that if she goes into labor (even now), they will NOT stop it. They are going to take that as a sign that the baby is supposed to be out. But, her OB also wants me in town to help her out because she can't handle the two kids herself AND rest and she really needs to rest. Her husband...I won't go into right now, that's another whole ball of wax in and of itself and if I think about it too much, I'll just get mad. So, that's what's going on in my life right now. Hopefully things will turn around soon.

VERY quick update...

...as I have less than five minutes before the power kicks off. Yeah, here, they have a 30 minutes on/ 30 minutes off thing if you don't pay the bill. Add to that no gas, YET AGAIN, and other issues...ugh. And yet, John is losing his job in Korea as of Feb. 13 so I don't know what to do but this nightmare needs to end NOW!

I am SO sick of this winter!

Between the constant snowing and the now, EXTREMELY bitter cold temperatures, I've pretty much had it with winter in Wisconsin this year. Temperatures last night got all the way down to -23 degrees. It was SO cold this morning, they showed a thing on the news where they threw water out of a glass or something and it FROZE before hitting the ground. It was THAT cold. Schools all over are canceled and tonight, it is supposed to be even colder. Now, when I say how cold it was, I'm not even talking about the windchill. Those are even worse. Last night's temp was the ACTUAL temperature. Windchill, I believe got all the way down to -40 or more. So yeah, not fun.

Monday was snow which made sure to COMPLETELY mess up me getting ANYTHING accomplished in town. I'm still in need of a suitcase and a few other items including jeans for Natalie because she's chunked up being cooped up all winter here. I'm SUPPOSED to be leaving a week from Saturday from Chicago to go to Korea (at 8am too) and I'm nowhere NEAR ready to go. I have SEVERAL items that still have to go to the locker, things to pack, laundry to do and I can't get anything done because I'm CONSTANTLY stranded here. When I finally DO get to town, there's no time to get everything done and getting to town constantly depends on the weather which has been HORRENDOUS this winter.

And I can't even really make plans until I konw what is going on with the flight and John for some reason has not gotten ahold of me in more than 24 hours. I'm getting mighty annoyed with this. He pulled this quite a few times last week too and that's why things got delayed a full week. He could AT LEAST let me know if he has made the attempt to get the tickets or not. I can't call him because I don't have international long distance on the phones here and calling long distance is expensive enough: 10 cents a minute. He obviously hasn't gotten to an internet cafe because he hasn't emailed me and he's yet to call me and let me know what's going on. So I don't know what's going on. I'm EXTREMELY stressed out, almost to the point of just wanting to sleep all the time. I shut down now when I'm stressed out and that's not good when I have NO ONE to help me with things. I don't know. Life really sucks for me right now and I'm getting very frustrated with everything, getting very stressed out, and getting very depressed yet again.

To top the whole load of garbage off is my younger sister and all of her problems that is getting EVERYONE in the family dragged in. She recently found out that her husband is in love with her best friend (read the entry on the huge fight she and I had because I was ticked off at her for getting back with this friend back in October, that's the one). He has been having an affair with this girl for awhile and I guess it started as far back as last year. This woman has been staying with them recently (along with a few other people, in a two bedroom apartment that was already cramped with the four family members) and I guess my brother-in-law's plan was for both of them women and their children to live together so that, I guess, he was never without sex (since one of the big problems with this pregnancy is the sex restrictions that were put in place by the OB). Yeah, that went over REAL well. The stress from finding out all of this plus other problems that cropped up put my sister into the hospital with contractions Sunday night. She's only 30 weeks pregnant. *sigh*

I'm trying VERY hard to stay out of this, going so far as to sit out in my best friends car for what was probably close to, if not more than, an hour while all of the various family members and friends discussed what was going to happen. And nothing I needed to get done got done. And I may or may NOT get to La Crosse on Friday and it would be REALLY nice to get there so that I could MAYBE go to services and be exposed to some NORMAL people for once. You know, people who don't live their lives in a constant soap opera like most people I know do.

I just want to get the things done I need to get done so that I can leave having everything completed that I need to have completed so that I don't have to worry about anything of mine because it will all be where it needs to be. But I don't even know what is going on and I'm dependent on people who really don't care what happens to me, who really haven't seem to grasp the fact that I'm leaving in a little over a week, to a country that is 7000 miles away, not to come back for at least close to two years if not more depending on the state of the economy in this country. And the weather is NOT HELPING! It's just SO FRUSTRATING! And there's not a darn thing I can do about it. Because most of it is completely and totally out of my control and I'm getting SO sick of it. And when you consider that I'm dealing with all of this without the weekly therapy appointments I had back in Beaver Dam, without meds, with very little help with Natalie from anyone else, without being able to get outside, or cook what I want, or have access to hot water everyday I've been here, it is absolutely amazing I have not completely and totally gone off the deep end.

And I haven't even gotten on the airplane yet. My very first flight EVER, which will be international, taking along my three year old, where I will be pretty much going from the time I get up until I get to our apartment in Korea almost (if not more than) 24 hours later...that will be the test. To say I'm not looking forward to it is a bit of an understatement. The question is, who's going to be there to drag ME on the plane?

Okay, let's try this one again...less than two weeks now, hopefully!

We ran into a couple of snafus this week with John trying to get plane tickets. Mainly the problem had to do with the company John decided to go with to get the tickets. It was one of those companies that unfortunately outsources its customer service to another country where the people do not speak English very clearly. For someone like me, with hearing issues, this is not a good thing. The person kept calling and calling needing information to run John's debit card through (a card issued by a bank in Korea) and half the times, I could not understand a word he was saying! Then it was determined that the card could NOT be used at all which added even MORE frustration to the point where I was getting SO stressed out, I couldn't get anything else done because I was dealing with all this. On top of that, I wasn't hearing from John for 24 hours or more at a time so when the guy did call, I had no information or anything, didn't know what was going on which made the conversations VERY aggravating. Even after John called and talked to the guy and told him NOT to call here, he called here again! By then, I was just more than a little annoyed, I was STEAMING! And while they couldn't run the cards through on John's debit card, they were more than happy to charge it $50 just to cancel the hold! ARGH! The reason we were looking to cancel it was because we couldn't pay for the tickets!

So after ALL that trouble, I decided that I'm just NOT ready to leave next Sunday, not to mention John actually wants us to leave on Saturday which was DEFINITELY not going to happen. The total flight time from the time we would leave Chicago to getting to Korea will take about 21 hours. Add 15 hours to that and that will be the time when we get to Korea. The plan is to leave 8am CT Saturday from Chicago and arrive at what will be 7:30pm Korean time SUNDAY. And that's if there are NO delays and NO snafus. John wants to be there when we arrive though and waiting until Sunday to leave here means that would not happen as he would have just barely gotten off of work by the time we arrived and he would still have to get to the airport which I think is about an hour away. He also thinks the airport there will be a little less crowded by the time we get there which will probably be a good thing considering how exhausted will be by then, especially when you consider that it will be 4:30am HERE when we get to Korea. This time change stuff really boggles my mind so it should be really interesting as we fly over various places.

So the plan is to fly from Chicago to San Francisco and then San Francisco to Korea. The airport in San Francisco looks really nice and I guess it's right by the bay/ocean/some body of water anyway. Should be interesting and I'll have to make sure to get lots of pictures. Just so many things to think about and plan and not having ever been on a plane, I'm simply overwhelmed.

This week, I need to go to La Crosse and pick up some things, the big one being more luggage. I want to at least get one more large check-in bag. There's a lot of clothing and stuff we'll be bringing and I want to make sure we have everything we'll need, at least through the winter. I also need to find Natalie some clothes. The little stinker has grown too much and a lot of the 3T items have gotten snug on her. SO frustrating! So, I need to see how some of the 4T items will fit. Then, I could stand to get a few things myself so, just lots to do and not a lot of time to do it in so if I'm not posting very much, that's why.

In other news, my sister was released from the hospital and she is home. She's supposed to be on limited activities and she'll still have to see her OB every week for ultrasounds and things like that, just in general keeping on eye on Keira. Unfortunately, her stress levels are about through the roof because a certain person who shall at the moment remain nameless is selfish and uncaring about the life he was partly responsible for starting. I will say this though, I'm glad my husband does have a higher power to answer to in as far as our marriage goes and will not just run off when the responsibilities start to pile up. But that's all I'm going to say on that.

So that's it for now and hopefully, I'll know more by next week this time.

Just two more weeks...I hope.

We're making final plans now. John has decided he wants to get tickets for the 18 of this month, still hoping for us to fly out of Chicago. It all depends on finding transportation though, the various cars have all been hit hard by the nasty winter and the vans especially have suffered large breakdowns in the form of transmission issues. Ugh, I will be SO glad to not have to worry about cars AGAIN for a couple of years.

The next two weeks are going to be both busy and stressful. I have a lot to do, very little time, and very few resources on hand. Getting myself to town is something that is VERY difficult and the winter weather is not helping. Easy simple tasks like being able to take a shower and wash laundry are being hampered by not having any hot water whatsoever because the LP constantly runs out here. It doesn't help that only so much is gotten at a time, enough to last about a week IF no laundry is done at all as the dryer takes up a lot of gas. If laundry is done, the gas lasts less than that. I'm currently washing Natalie's cloth diapers and underpants in cold water and will then have to hang them to dry. I'd wait on the diapers but one has already been sitting for close to a week and I can't keep asking people here to do anything more than what they are willing to do which, to be honest, is not a whole lot. The humans in this house are just not as important as the animals my sister wishes to collect and therefore, as of now, we have been without LP for close to a week. Again, this means not hot water, no gas for the stove, no gas for the dryer. At least there is heat because that relies on the wood burning stove in the garage but still, to go DAYS without a shower is about to drive me up the wall.

I just don't understand why anyone would want to live this way, I really don't. It also really has me thinking of the future and what would happen to Natalie (or any other children) if anything happened to John and I. I want to know that if anything does happen, Natalie will be with someone who will take care of her and take care of her in the best way possible, ie: making sure she gets good, quality healthy food and not a lot of junk. And that's only the tip of the iceberg. There are a lot of things that we would expect to be taken care of and respected and therefore, it will be very important for us to decide on a family who WILL have some respect for our beliefs as far as that goes. Since many of them do go against the mainstream, that will not be very easy, unfortunately. But it will be necessary.

So, in the meantime, I'm trying to get everything figured out. I'm packing and repacking our bags, trying to go through clothes and decide what we will/will not take with. What gets tricky is that Natalie is at a very odd place as far as clothing sizes go. Some of her 3T stuff fits, some doesn't (mainly because I can't button some of the jeans over her belly!). Some 4T stuff fits, some doesn't. It's confusing and it's hard to plan where she's going to go growth wise. I need to try a couple of 4T jeans on her sometime to see how they fit and then plan accordingly. And then I just need to hope I can find clothes for her once we're over there. There is a Costco's so that's hopeful but otherwise, I may be taking our tax return (whatever that may be) and buying her a wardrobe online.

Other than that, not much going on, just preparing and hoping I'll be out of here soon.