Birthdays, Bracelets, and a little Bitching....

First on the agenda this evening is to give a birthday shout out to my 2nd born nephew, Travis. Today he turns 9. The family will be celebrating this weekend. I can't believe how fast these kids are growing up.... it's ridiculous.

Happy Birthday, Lil' Travis!

Next up is my new PanDora bracelet. What I love about this thing is the sentimental stuff that goes along with each charm. They all have a special meaning, or remind you of someone, or bring back a special memory. I've gotten a few requests to see what I got so here it is. Let's take a closer look at what I have so far. The pineapple was a birthday gift from Sea Star. I never would've thought to get myself a pineapple. But I love it cuz it's the perfect representation of her and all things Florida. It'll forever bring back memories of our last crazy pre-referral girl's weekend spent together. Well, pre-referral for her and her, I mean. I still have eternity to go until mine.
The penguin should be self explanatory, right? If you know me, it should. The clock has a two fold meaning. First, because I'm always late. Always. Those of you who know me are aware of how that part of my brain is hard wired wrong and no amount of work will fix it. I've tried, believe me. But Pug Mama also suggested that it stands for all the "time" I've been waiting for that little Chinese girl .... who by the way is represented by that next bead. She looks Chinese, doesn't she? LOL! I'm totally addicted and already have scoped out more future bead purchases. But I must be patient so I don't break the bank. In due time....

So can I just bitch a little about how disappointed I am with this rumor of getting thru March 6th? I mean, in my head I expected it. But I couldn't help but feel that spark of hope in my heart that my homegirls would see their babies sooner.... rather than later. Or maybe even in the same batch. Which is still possible, I know.... but unlikely since March 7th is said to be such a HUGE day. Many are predicting the next batch will just cover this one day.

At least we know for sure that Sea Star is NEXT!!! And Pug Mama is either NEXT or NEXT NEXT!!! I can not wait to see these baby girl's photos. That's part of what's helping me to float through this year as I continue to wait. Seeing my friends bring home their babies helps me hang on to the hope that some day it will be my turn. Some day..... sigh.

Speaking of which.... PIPO is in China!! Right at this very moment. Just a few more days until she has her little Claire. So stay tuned to her blog. This weekend can't come fast enough..... just to see that dream finally come true for her. Exciting times are ahead......

Things I Learned This Weekend

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

• You can ALL be right by Del-ta.... but they're still lost and can't find you.
• Giant dog beds are less expensive in Florida than in Georgia.
• But everything else costs more unless you have a Cost-co in the neighborhood.
• No amount of folding, squishing or duct taping that dog bed will make it fit in your carry on.
• No matter how hard you tried in the store to convince yourself it would.
• It's not as warm in paradise as one might think.
• Video taping your friend's snot secretions is really funny when you're a little liquored up.
• And posting the video online seems like a really good idea after a few more cocktails.
• But even with over 200 people watching it only a handful are brave enough to comment.
• So maybe it wasn't that funny after all.
• Yes... we checked the sitemeter.
• Lugie hocking is NOT sexy... no matter who you are. I'm just sayin'....
• Apparently, you can get "all nervous" when being watched using a neti-pot and have to start over.
  
• Some people can handle all types of bodily functions but when you mention mucus they dry heave. And it's hysterical to those who don't.
• Others have the same reaction at the site of someone brushing their teeth.
• You can say you only had one drink if you choose the size of your cup wisely.
• The Real Housewives are very entertaining..... just like a good train wreck.
• Even if you have different beliefs, you should show John Mc-Cain some respect cuz he died serving our country. Wait.... no, he's still alive.
• You can get married to a 4 yr old.
• But the honeymoon is over when your mother-in-law incites a tantrum by making your husband turn off Willy-Wonka and go to bed.
• When you're on the bubble for a referral, you could easily develop a bad case of carpal tunnel from constant checking of RQ on your laptop or cell phone.
• Has it been an hour yet? Maybe we should look again....
• Apparently, I was the only person on the planet NOT on Face-book.
• My friends took care of that..... but I'm still very confused by it all.
• Apple pie is a healthy breakfast because it has fruit in it.
• In paradise, you can buy liquor at a Wal-greens. 24 hours a day. 365 days a year. That's awesome!
• It's possible to lose a tampon. After it's been inserted.
  
• Kids lunch bags can be multi-functional when used as a cocktail cooler.
• The sign at the beach had a picture of a martini glass with a line through it.
• Which means a rum and Coke is okay.
• Pand-ora bracelets are a contagious illness. If you touch one, you get it.
• Kissing palm trees is only a reminder of how much we missed her on this trip.
• How many times can one person talk about doing laundry? Seriously?
• Sea Star makes you work for your room and board by cleaning the clubhouse.
• But she is damn talented with her drunken no directions and no tools needed vacuum assembly skills.
• Are those sunglasses real?
• There are no oil marks on the road in Sea Star's neighborhood. Or are there?
• Can you airbrush my ass a little smaller and remove the guy in the background please?
• We tried to convince her to shave those legs, BD. We know how much you missed her. No.. I mean we REALLY know.
  
• Your "online" friends ARE your real friends! In spite of what some snarky teen thinks.
• The flight attendant can be quite snippy when you're the last two people to board the plane.
• But the other flight attendant might of been Harvey Fire-stein who was quite comical with the jokes in a strange grovely voiced southern accent.
• Choo choo.....

Be Back Next Week

In the morning I'll be on my way to the sunshine state to enjoy many margaritas with a few of my favorite people. See ya on the flip side.

Weekend Wrap Up

Thanks for all the birthday wishes!! In spite of the fact that it fell on Friday the 13th this year, it was a good one. Not that I'm superstitious or anything. LOL!

A good friend took me out for Mexican food and margaritas on Thursday as a little pre-birthday celebration. I'm realizing with every passing year that it gets harder and harder to party like a rock star as I woke up on Friday with cotton mouth, a slight headache and that shaky hangover feeling that stayed with me for a few hours. But I'm still not ready to give up my margarita(s)......... plural. :P

Friday I got stuck in court for a couple hours in the morning. Even though I technically had the day off. That sucked. Except for the fact that I got paid double overtime for my effort. Well, actually I got paid for 7 hours at straight pay. It's part of our contract that we get that much when being forced to come to court on a regular day off. Even if we only stay for 2 minutes. Pretty sweet, eh?

Then my BFF joined me for lunch. We had a nice long leisurely session of catch up chat. That was nice. And she got me jelly beans for my birthday dessert. I'm dieting again (as usual) so she thought they were a good choice since they're fat free. LOL! Although I think they were crushed by the calories and fat content in the blue cheese dressing I chose on my salad. But hell.... it was my birthday, dammit.

Saturday I spent the day shopping with my sister. We went to the local outlet mall where I preceded to spend my court overtime. Not all of it. But I put a nice dent in it. Just trying to do my part to support the struggling economy. That evening I met my brother for dinner.

Since it was my birthday dinner, I got to choose the restaurant. Coincidentally, I picked the same one he'd eaten at the night before with his fiancee. But he was a good sport and let me have my choice anyway. He was then slightly embarassed to find we had the same waitress, too. He felt the need to offer her explanation that he was there the night before with his fiancee but I was his sister who he was treating for her birthday. Because he "didn't want her to think he was a two timer." LOL! Due to the mention of the word "birthday" I was offered a sundae to complete my meal. My brother insisted the staff sing me the stupid birthday song in spite of my objections. I told the waitress "no thanks". He then reminded her he was paying the bill. So you can guess where that went, right? I got the loud, clapping wait staff sing-a-long. Don't ya love how they do the dumb little cadence now? Like it's birthday boot camp or something.

All in all, it was a great weekend. But I doubt the scale will agree with me on that when I step on tomorrow. But who cares really?! It was all worth it.

Today is also my oldest nephew's 12th birthday. Not yet a teen but not really a kid. Thank goodness someone came up with the 'tween terminology. LOL!

Happy Birthday Tanner!

Cause For Celebration

Yep... I'm 30-something.

Tomorrow months closer to my baby girl!

Also a day early but here's hoping y'all have a .....

TV Talk

I need to get the va-jay-jay video down the page a bit. So I need a new topic. LOL! How about just some mindless chit chat. I have a question for all you mothers-of-small-children out there. Do you still get to watch TV? Cuz I may have to re-think this adoption if I have to give up my favorite shows.

Y'all know I'm just kidding, right?

I have a DVR. So I'm sure I'll figure out a way to multitask the motherhood thing while still satisfying my addiction to the boob tube. Let's hope anyway. Since I have so much free time on my hands at the present .... ya know, since I'm still waiting on a kid 32 months later and all...... there's no reason to feel guilt over my TV habits just yet.

Two of my most favorite-est shows start up again this week. First up is Survivor*, with a new season debuting tomorrow night. Can-Not-Wait! I love this show. And a new season of The Amazing*Race starts Sunday night. So excited!! Is it pathetic that after age 35 my idea of a great night is curling up on the couch in my jammies with my fave TV shows?

Anyhoo. Anybody watching *AI*? And if you don't know the show by it's initials only nickname then you just lost major cool points. Warning.... spoilers ahead. I just watched tonight's episode. So if you have it DVR'd ... turn back now cuz I'm about to ruin it for ya.

My favorite is Danny. The one who lost his wife. That story pulled at my heart strings. He has a beautiful voice and a great cool vibe kind of stage presence. I dig him. He's my early predictor for the season winner. We shall see. Anyone else think he has a resemblance to Robert Downey, Jr? Or is it just me? Maybe it's those glasses? I was really really sad to see his BFF go tonight. I think he deserved a spot. Especially after they let in some of the other more mediocre talent. Norman-Gentle.... or whoever he is? I'm just saying....

I also like the dueling piano player that did "Georgia" last night. Sorry, guy. I don't know your name yet. But I like ya. And the oil rigger. He has a surprisingly soulful voice. Anoop... another that I like.

I think the boys have the most talent this year. I see no real stand outs with the females yet. Except maybe my fave girl, Lil Rounds. Fabulous. Amazing. She reminds me of Fantasia.

My not favorite chick is the hyena laughing, overly dramatic, uber annoying Tatiana. She's like fingernails on a chalkboard for me. I sense some mental health issues under the surface on this one. But that drama makes for good TV. Apparently, the judges think so cuz they actually put her through. So now America gets to vote on her. She'll never win. Her personality completely overshadows her talent.

It'll be interesting to see how this season plays out. Just remember....
I called Danny-Gokey. :)

Just A Normal Work Day.....

if you work in some type of parallel universe like I do. This is exactly what I said to a co-worker last week after a particularly odd encounter. And it's true. My work life can be pretty outrageous and hysterical on occasion. If all my friends with normal lives could go to work with me for a couple days, it would totally blow their minds. Sometimes I feel like I'm trapped in the middle of some crazy cartoon. Because I can't even begin to explain some of the unusual things I see in my job. Weird people. Doing weird things. In weird situations. Just plain weird stuff.

I don't think there's any way to properly explain this particular incident so that you'd be able to visualize exactly what happened. But I'm gonna try. Just cuz I walked out of this guy's house scratching my head saying "Did I really just experience that? Or did somebody sneak some funny mushrooms on to my pizza? I wish my friends could just get a little glimpse into the crazy that I just saw."

To set the stage, myself and another female detective go out to a guy's house to question him about a burglary. I wasn't quite sure if he was a suspect or a witness at this point. But we were gonna approach it like he was a witness just to see what he had to say and to see what kind of read we got on him.

He answers the door, after several minutes of knocking, without a shirt on and zipping his pants. Okay... whatever. Not so strange yet. But you have to try to picture him. He has this wild and crazy hair that just sticks up all over the place. Kind of like this photo. But he didn't style it that way purposely. It's just because there's no telling how long it's been since he washed or combed it.
After about 20 seconds of conversation, we realize this guy is a nut. Total and complete loon. And to make it an even better scenario he's a crack_head on top of that. But he says he's been clean for 3 days..... which only means he's geeking and really in need of a fix. So he's all over the place.

Because most of you don't have experience with crack_heads (let's hope) it's like this.... their eyes are usually all bugged out, they're fidgety, can't sit still, changing positions in the chair constantly, very extreme with the body movements. You know how some people talk with their hands? Well, they tend to talk with their whole arms. And sometimes throw the shoulders in there, too. LOL!

So picture that.... crazy wild hair guy, constant movement, eyes bugging out. That alone was interesting enough. But still a fairly normal day's work for me.

Then as we're talking to him, he suddenly starts wiping his mouth like he has BBQ sauce all over it or something. He covers his mouth with his hand and says "Oh sorry. Oh excuse me. Sorry about that. But I guess it's just natural." The other detective said later she was thinking in that moment that maybe he meant his breath was offensive. I didn't really think anything of it cuz I guess I'm so used to crazy talk it just doesn't faze me anymore. But in the next second as he's still wiping and apologizing, he points to the bedroom door and says "When you knocked I was....."

Now here's where I can't even begin to explain what he did. The only thing to do is demonstrate. But since I'm on the other side of the computer screen I can't. So I did the next best thing. I went to U-tube and searched for a video. You have no idea what kind of things I found in this search.... but that's a story for another day. LOL!

Anyway .... you gotta picture it. Wild crazy haired guy, no shirt, eyes bugging out, fidgeting all over the place, wiping his mouth off and he says "when you knocked I was...." and he does the same thing these drunk girls in the video are doing. Sound effects and all.

(Be warned if you're easily offended you probably shouldn't click on a video that has the caption "va-gina".)


I just stood there with a glazed over look on my face. Trying really hard not to laugh. The other detective couldn't control herself and just blurted out "OMG!" in a very disgusted tone. The rest of the conversation went about as well as it began. There was talk of "clown shoes" that someone left in his house. But only one.... not both of them. He showed it to us. I was expecting something interesting... but it was just a small man's shoe. Damn. Then he demonstrated to us how the motion sensor on the wall is actually a recording device planted there to spy on him. When the red light comes on it means someone is listening. Seriously. This truly was our conversation.

Then his wife finally made an appearance from the bedroom. You know, the one he was.... uh... doing "you know what" to a few minutes ago. And she was not at all what we expected. She was about 300 lbs and at least 65 years old. With no bra on and a very thin white tee shirt. Yikes... that was scary in and of itself. Crazy guy was about 40. He must like older gals.

After we were thoroughly amused and slightly disgusted, the other detective and I bid farewell and walked out to the car. Where we both looked at each other in disbelief and said "Did that really just happen?" which opened up this big conversation about how our normal friends would never ever be able to relate to the things we deal with in this parallel universe we work in.

So how did work go today for you? LOL!

Awards and Stuff

I'm a little late in acknowledging it but Debz at Sugar & Spice & A Little Rice graced me with this "Fabulous Blog Award". She's one of my June '06 LID buddies who is also trapped in this endless wait for our babies. Thanks for thinking of me, Deb. Hang in there. We have to be on the downhill of this thing by now. We just have to be.

I also got the "I Heart Your Blog" award from Barbara at Our Journey of Love. I started following her blog quite awhile ago. Way before she even had her referral. Seems we have several things in common. We used the same agency, both named our daughter Mia, and her husband is a retired police officer. Thanks for showing the love, Barbara. Oh and here's a shout out to Barbara's mom.... who reads here, too. Hey mom!
The rules are the same for both of these awards.... so I'm totally gonna cheat and only do this once. I have to pass it on to 5 fabulous blogs, including the one that gave it to me (and link them). Well, I've already linked to Debz and Barbara above. So that's one down. And they both know I think their blogs are "Fabulous" and that "I Heart Them". So that means I only gotta do 3 more blogs, right? LOL!

And I'm totally gonna take the easy way out on this one and choose Sea Star at Our Unforgotten Daughter, Maryellen at A Beautiful Mess and Pug Mama at No Mo' Drama For Pug Mama. Only because I "heart" all of these "fabulous" women. Oh and because I'll be drinking a margarita with them all in 16 days. LOL!

Sorry. I suck at the whole bloggy awards thing. If it just wasn't for that whole nominating other people part. :P

On to other news. Some of you were worried that my "mommy" doll was naked from the waist down. Well, here's proof that she is indeed wearing pants. Check out the feet area. See? They're apparently just super skin tight. Which is exactly how I'd wear my pants if I were that skinny with those nice perky boobs. Oh who am I kidding..... I'd be naked from the waist down if I were that skinny and perky. And maybe the waist up, too. LOL!
And remember how I said our plastic miniature family would be complete with the addition of a representation of Griffey. Bingo! They really do sell EVERYTHING on E*bay. Including plastic miniature Pomeranians.
For my sister who has really poor observation skills, your daughter's dollhouse is YELLOW. Go up and check her room. No wait.... here. I'll make it easy for you. See? Y-e-l-l-o-w. I guess when you have a house full of kids, a full time job and papers to write it's easy to forget some things.
In spite of my shopping compulsion lately, I really don't have as much for Mia as I thought I did. I went through and sorted through her clothes so that I can start painting the room next month. I only filled 2 storage containers. Well, it'd probably be more like 2 and a half if you count the stuff hanging in the closet. But that includes all different sized clothes from 12 mths to size 5. Even got a few 9 mth outfits thrown in just in case she's a peanut. So I don't think I'm doing too bad.

I haven't shopped for her for a looooooong time. But it feels nice to again. I think it helps me connect to her on some level. It makes her seem real, ya know. Like some day there really will be a little girl that wears these clothes, sleeps in this crib, reads these books, and plays with these toys. Instead of the imaginary one I've lived with for the past 3 years.

Oh and for anyone who might worry about my budget. It's all good. I've worked 2 jobs and countless hours of overtime for over 3 years to pay for this adoption. I already have all the money set aside for the rest of my fees, my travel expenses for two people, my souvenir shopping money, the added orphanage fee, my renewal for another I-171H and homestudy update and to cover the 6 weeks unpaid leave I'm taking. And I'll continue to work both of these jobs until I go to China so that I can continue to build that fund. A small blessing in this wait. Plenty of time to save the money.

I think a little spending splurge is well deserved, no? I wonder if there are any good sales this week..... ;)