No Ordinary Family

Ok I am not looking forward to the tasks I must complete this weekend.  Hence, I am blogging about them to procrastinate a little more.  What are these daunting, unwanted, tasks you may ask.  Well, I have to do our taxes and our financial statement for the adoption.  I mean as if not having kids is not already depressing enough you are forced to put down on paper how much money you don't have.  Yea US!! We have debt, not something usually celebrated.  Thank you adoption world, I already know that, I don't need to be forced to spell it out and calculate it all, to see it. Actually the first time we did this task it was interesting but this is the 4th time in the last 3 years and it is getting to be a little annoying.   I mean really does our agency like to torture us with the fact that because we have paid them a ton of money or more in the last 3 years our net worth has taken a nose dive.  I think the answer is YES. I think they also like to t...

So living in the world of Chinese adoption you come to learn a set of acronyms.  They include things like LID, DTC, PA, LOA, LOI, and TA.  There are a ton more and if you are on any adoption forum you will see these kind of things listed all of the time with dates indicating when each step is complete.  For as long as the China is taking I can say this; it is orderly.  The Chinese know what they want and when they want it.  They have specific letters and formats for each event.  They have clear and  mostly easy to understand procedures.  Honestly it was one of the reasons that we choose the program it was predictable and stable.  It still is; it is just very very very very slow.  So it has been a hard adjustment to a new, unpredictable, program. There are no LID's or DTC's or PA's or anything specific like that in Burundi.  In the Burundi program there are not time lines and the nice comfortable consistencies, that ...

I have said this so many times and I will say it a more in the future I am sure, I am truly amazed by the wonderful people that I have meet online through the blog and yahoo adoption groups.  Before the Internet there is no way I would have been able to connect with these people that I am proud to call friends. First off is Jody , we have actually had the good fortune to meet in person, I blogged about it here .  She is such a sweet, caring friend and mother. She and her family are in the process of adopting one of the cutest little boys in China.  They like many others prepared to adopt a girl from China so she has been saving up her older daughter's clothing and collecting a few things for a little girl.  But in the way life always likes to surprise you they are turning everything pink to blue :0).  So she is auctioning off some wonderful little girls clothing and all proceeds go to bringing home Jon Jon.  Go check it out (...

So I mentioned in one of my other posts that we are really trying to save money this month. We have been doing really good with not going out and not buying anything extra.  However, how come when you are trying to save money the most the world seems to conspire to rid you of it? Our eletricity bill seems to have hit an all time high, I think that the people at the elecric company are probably all getting giant bonuses because of my love for a warm house.  I put on sweaters and blankets and I still like it warm, I can't help it, it's my weakness (that and chocolate).  Funny thing is I love snow and winter, I guess I don't mind if it is cold outside as long as I am warm inside. Then we take the car in for an oil change and of course even though the oil change was part of the deal when we bought the car, the air filters were not.  So $70 later we have new air filters, oh the joys of being an adult.  There are so many better ways I can think to spend $70. ...

This is what I need, the completely horrible blogging award.  I just have not been feeling it.  Work has been completely crazy and I tend to come home and zone out.  Nothing has happened on the adoption side of our lives.  I am sure that if I have any readers left they are tired of hearing about nothing happening.  I am tired of hearing about it.  I am really tired of talking about it.  I am getting to the point where I just want to move on.  I am so sick of living our lives on hold.  I still want to be a mom but that is just not the next step I thought it would be in my life.  Now I just need to figure out which direction to go and what I really want vs. what I really need.  That may take some time. So this weekend is going to be filled to the brim.  Saturday, Emily and I are having a baby shower for Molly at our mom's house.  It will be brunch with a small crowd and I hope that Molly enjoys it.  I am exc...

Ok I need a blog change.  So I am going to be playing around with it a bit in the next few days or weeks, so if it looks a little odd, bare with me, it will be back to looking like my blog in no time, my new blog that is.

Toby has this monkey, I found it on clearance at Petco for $3, it has 2 squeakers so it is ultra squeaky, they must be made of Teflon since Toby has not been able to disable them yet. He has had the Monkey for a couple months, which is longer than a lot of Toby's toys survive. So about 6:30 last night I was paying bills (YUCK) and Toby started getting unsettled. I thought it was because he could not get on my lap as I was at the kitchen table, so I ignored him for a while until Jim noticed he was looking for something. Then we realized that we had not seen or heard the monkey for a while. Jim helped him look and could not find it so I decided to join in the effort. Usually all we have to do is say to Toby "Where's your Monkey?" and he will go dig it out of where ever he left it and we here squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak for a good 15 minutes or more, not this time. He was obviously frantically looking. We looked under the beds and under the covers (yes we have fou...

I have been following Christie and her family at Bushel and a Peck since, well, before it was Bushel and a Peck , a couple years I guess. They are truly on the final stage before traveling to meet their daughter in like a week (or really really soon)! and are in a final push in their fundraiser only needing $2000 before reaching their goal. So if you get a chance stop by and check out the fundraising blog here and if you can, buy a really cool adoption shirt or visit their half.com store or donate a couple bucks or just give a little encouragement after all we could all use a little encouragement.

Hi and welcome to 2010. Yep, it is a new decade and although I have had 10 years to prepare, I am not prepared. Although, I am happy for the change of year, I am not sure what this year or this decade will bring. Toby did not have any issues seeing out 2009 with a lovely run in the snow. I have decided to not to make any goals, except to do the best I can at what ever I do. I hope that 2010 will find us to be parents but I am not making any promises at this point. Our New Years Eve was pretty uneventful, in fact I was in bed at 10, I just could not keep my eyes open. I woke up again right before midnight when the neighbors decided that a firework display was the best way to celebrate. Friday I went with my sisters and mom to help Molly register for the baby. It is only about a month until her due date. I am so excited to meet my little niece or nephew, for the record I think it is a boy. I guess I'm just going against the grain there are a lot of people that think it is a girl...