Sorry

I haven't posted in a while, I know. There are a couple of reasons for this, some happy and some I could do without. I think I'll deal with the not-so-happy ones first. I am sick of the really negative and frankly rude comments I get on here. I have been accused of sleeping with my fiance's best friend, being an attention-seeker, being a gold-digger, drinking too much, getting addicted to pills... and the list goes on. And on. And on. And it has started seeping over on to VJ, where I can't even ask a question any more without getting attacked. And when I had an issue with Blogger -- which I have complained about in the past, with comments getting turned OFF and blocked beyond my control -- I got accused of turning anonymous comments back on. I left all your hurtful comments up there so you can see how ridiculous you sound. I won't even comment on the people who were saying borderline-stalker things.

So here is the deal with comments. I know you are all DYING to comment on my blog since you seem to like doing it so much. I am turning comments back ON but I will approve them all. If you are registered, your comment will be approved and I will post it. If you leave a name, I will probably post it. If you do not leave a name, and the comment is not attacking me, I will post it. Those are the rules. I'm not doing this because I'm an attention whore. I actually liked reading people's opinions, and I feel like the current system isn't working.

That's over. Phew. Back to real life. Well, we got our NOA2 last week, and now our case is at the National Visa Center (NVC). It got there on Monday, so I'm really hoping it will get sent to the London Embassy tomorrow or Friday. After it gets to the Embassy, everything really starts happening! Going by timelines, I think Julian should be getting his interview in October. It's a real pain, because I wanted to have an outdoor reception at my parents' house, but I don't think that is going to happen now. Assuming he gets his visa in mid-October, he still wants to wrap a lot of things up before he leaves. Which means that he will probably want to wait until Christmas to come over here, unless I can convince him otherwise. I told him that he should start wrapping things up NOW but he said he wants to wait until he has the visa.

But in the meantime, he has his LND number (his case number at London), which he needed to book his medical. He has one in about 3 weeks time. He also has been getting together all the other things he needs, like his birth certificate and his ACPO police certificate. He is also getting his "jabs" as he calls them updated so he won't need to do them at the medical. One of the VJ ladies (Jill) posted some GREAT info on how to speed up the process a little, and Julian has now downloaded all the forms he needs to send off when the Embassy contacts him to tell him to send his "Packet 3" back. We're all ready, we just need that P3!

Everything is going along well with the house. We're closing next week, but I will probably not move in completely until the end of the month so Rachel and I can start decorating. Rachel has been a little bit of a pain recently about the house. She promised months ago she would help me with the decoration and she seemed so excited. But now she says she doesn't have time for it, that her screenplay needs to be rewritten and she doesn't know how she can possibly be expected to do what is a favor to me when she is so busy. Busy? Ha! I know exactly what she is up to because she is so sloppy. I know for a fact that she is seeing a married man now, and I think he has something to do with her screenplay because I checked out his Facebook profile and he is in the business. It was soooo easy to figure out what was going on. All of a sudden, this older guy appears in her friends list, and she starts commenting on all of his posts, really flattering him. And he leaves cryptic little notes on her photos. It is so gross. If my parents knew, they would FREAK. But I will not say anything for the sake of family unity.

Oh god, and then Rachel was asking me about Alex! She saw a picture of him and Julian and me AGES ago when I emailed her one from Bristol, and she kept saying how hot he was, and did he have a castle or something. God, talk about gold diggers! I told her that Alex's family had a country house, yes, but they lost a lot of their money ages ago, and I bet they would want him to marry a nice rich American girl. Which she wasn't then (she was struggling to finish senior year) and isn't now (bartender). But since she's my friend on FB, and Alex is back on my FB list, she can see his pictures and she sent me an email about him with the subject line "Yum." She asked if it was really true he was going to be the best man, and was he single because she said she would totally do him. I said that that was completely believable, because there was hardly a guy out there she WOULDN'T do. She didn't talk to me for a couple of days after that. And of course I told Alex, who thought it was all really funny. I need to keep an eye on them during the wedding; I don't put it past my sister to try to sleep with him.

Hmmm. What else? Not much at the moment. Jenn and I are trying to see each other more and get over some of our issues. We had dinner the other night over at her place and it was pretty great, and she even managed to seem happier that Julian and I are getting married. Work is going all right; now it's August, all of Europe is on vacation so it's pretty quiet. I spend a lot of time thinking about what to do about my wedding. I made a couple of calls to local venues to see what I might be able to get around Christmas. There was an opening at a venue I really like on the 18th of December; Julian told me to reserve it just in case so I have today. He said to start doing the real planning now, getting back in touch with all the vendors I have already spoken to and put down deposits. I don't like the idea of December 18th though, but the next Saturday is Christmas Day and I don't want that either. Just stuck. But I suppose I will just get used to it.

So that means this weekend I'll be rethinking colors. AGAIN. If it's Christmas, I want something richer in color, maybe plum or dark green, with cream. Blah. But once I do, I have got to get everything going with the florist, and the bakery and everyone else. The invitations have been ready to go for ages and since they're just black engraved on white card I don't have to worry about colors. I just have to commit to a date. I guess I better make up my mind.

So...um....hello!

What a way to get me to blog! There was a funny thing that happened this morning... I'm on a little online forum for people who are British but live in the US, or American who live in the UK, or are married/engaged to one of those two (confused yet?) and I linked to a blog I happened across where the blogger was talking about how much she missed grape jelly, and it was almost EXACTLY what we had been talking about on my forum just recently. Well, it turns out the poor lady we linked to had a stalker, and she thought all the extra traffic from our little forum linking through to her blog was the stalker, and we got her really, really worried!

Good news is we got it all sorted out in the end and now she knows we aren't any harm. But it got me thinking... I write a lot in my regular diary, one of the old-fashioned kind with a lock and key (I know it's sooooooo cheesy but it's what I like!) so why not do this online as well? There are so many changes coming in my life in the next few months and I would like to have a chance to share them with, um, I guess whoever reads this!!!

So hi! I'm Melissa (duh, pretty much everyone reading this is going to be one of my friends) and I live in Pasadena but I grew up in Burbank, CA where my parents still live. I'm engaged to Julian, who lives all the way over in London, England. His family are in Southwold, which is in the county of Suffolk on the east coast of England.

We met when I was doing a year abroad at the University of Bristol and we just clicked at a party. I didn't plan to go out there and fall in love but you know how it is... I had to go back to my senior year at college and Julian moved to London because what was my junior year was his final year (the English only do three years at university, not like us Americans!), but he was lucky enough to have a job. I visited him about 6 more times in my senior year, sometimes just for a few days. Every time it got harder to leave, so after I graduated in 2008 I spent 6 months with him in London and had the most GLORIOUS time! My parents were not so crazy about the whole "living in sin" thing but believe me, it was worth it! I got to experience one of the greatest cities in the whole world through the eyes of someone who actually lived there... I became an expert on riding the "Tube" and going to the supermarket... I loved Waitrose best. I also got to sharpen my housewifely (is that a word? ) skills because I couldn't work. I know how to make excellent roast beef and Yorkshire pudding now, and I took up scrapbooking which I absolutely LOVE.

So... about two weeks before I was due to leave England it was Christmas. My parents weren't so crazy about me being away but there is nothing like an English Christmas, especially for an Anglophile like me! Julian and I went to his family's house for the holidays and I was in for a big surprise. Not from "Father Christmas" but when Julian proposed... in front of his whole family on Christmas Day! I was so surprised and I jumped up and down and nearly knocked the tree over!

So we talked and talked and decided that we wanted to live in California. I love England, but I can't do the winters. I'm a SoCal girl, what can I say? So we had to start figuring out how to do this. Luckily my dad is a lawyer and he was able to get me an appointment with a great immigration attorney. He told me that I had two choices: I could either get married and have Julian come over on a spouse visa (the CR1) or he could come over as a fiance and we then get married over here (K1). The K1 is faster so I said, let's do that! We gathered up all the forms to be ready to file May 1st 2009, but then all sorts of crazy stuff started to happen... but that is for my next post.