T.G.I.F.

Finally Friday. I made it! Been a busy week. I worked 3 nights this week at my 2nd job so my arse is dragging.

The FCC Waiting Families meeting on Tuesday was good. I met some new people including Sam & Kieren. She's a beauty! I've been reading their blog for awhile so it was nice to finally connect. This organization will be a valuable resource for me and Mia. For those of you not familair with Chinese adoption, FCC stands for Families with Children from China.

Tomorrow I'm going to my first Chinese New Year event with FCC. Looking forward to it. I'm really excited that most of my family is going, too. I want them to be a part of Mia's culture so they can help her celebrate it. I can't wait to see my niece and nephews reaction to all the fun.

Congratulations to all the families that just got referrals!! The CCAA has matched everyone logged in up to October 13, 2005. The wait is still at about 16 months. You can check out some of the new babies by clicking here.

Happy Friday Everybody!

Something Weird! **Update

My good friend, Connie, threw out a dare to find something weird in your house so I decided to play along. Here's mine. And just to prove that this really isn't some new clothes hanger contraption, notice the can of paint on the dresser in the background and that golden color on the ceiling. See I really did start out using this ladder for it's intended purpose. I'm doing a little makeover in my bedroom. It started before the holidays but I got busy and didn't move beyond the ceiling. I plan to finish this project in February. Hopefully. That's the plan anyway.

Oh yeah. I was just trying the color out. This was not an accident. I hope these colors work. We'll see when the project is finally complete. I've got all new bedding, new curtains, new accessories, a new trunk and a new chair. I plan on adding a new ceiling fan, lamps, and carpet (when the budget allows). Remember that thing I said about being a procrastinator? I bought the bedding over a year ago. Yeah.... whatever.
Oh and so far Tuesday isn't as bad as Monday. Although my partner called in sick, which means I get to do twice as much work for the next couple of days. But I'm going to my first FCC Waiting Families Group meeting tonight so that might be cool and definitely ups the point value on whether this will be a good day at the end of it. And I had a funny phone conversation earlier with my niece. She cracks me up so that improved my mood, too. For a laugh at the expense of a four year old click here.

*Update: Since half of my commenters said they couldn't see the pics, I re-loaded them. Can you see me now?

Today Sucked!

Warning: Major vent just ahead!

I hate Mondays in general but this one was particularly bad. First, I started off with a Motion to Suppress at 8:30am. I don't generally talk about my job much here but today I'm making an exception. A Motion to Suppress is a hearing where the defense tries to prove that the evidence in a case was not legally obtained. If the judge rules in their favor, the evidence is no longer admissible in court which generally screws the whole case. You need evidence to convict the bad guy. These kind of hearings piss me off. Today especially. This was a perfectly solid case. The bad guy broke into two different houses on two different dates during the night while the families were home inside sleeping. He was linked to both houses through his fingerprints. When I interviewed him he confessed to both, thanks to my skilled interrogation techniques :) And of course I advised him of his rights! What am I... an amateur for chrissake?! I don't think so. But they were trying to get my confessions thrown out nonetheless.

I'm not a morning person at all. So to have to get raked over the coals on the stand by some sorry ass defense attorney before I was even fully awake was no fun. (Apologies to any defense attorneys out there... but I strongly dislike your profession.) Needless to say, I won. The bad guy realized he was sunk so he plead guilty right then and there. He'll be sentenced in 4 weeks. Score one for the good guys...

So then I have a busy day at work trying to catch up since I wasted the whole morning in court for that crap. Miss lunch and rush home after to meet the cable guys. Seems I got talked into switching my internet and phone to one of these bundles where they put everything together.... phone, internet, and cable. It was supposed to save me $40 bucks or more a month. Good deal, right? I double and triple checked with the salesman that this was an easy no hassle switch. Cuz I'm a creature of habit. I don't like to be inconvenienced when it comes to things like this and I'm very much not a technology genius. He reasurred me that it was.

Well, of course it was NOT an easy switch. First, the phone technician shows up and when I show him where the cable and phone hook-ups are, his response is "Oh man. This isn't good." Then the cable guy shows up. Why there are two different guys when this is all the same company is beyond me. He repeats the "Uh-oh. This isn't good." Seems they need to drill holes in my house, run things through the basement, install boxes, etc. All things they can't do cuz they're not the guys that do that. WTF!? So I tell them fine. Re-schedule this and we'll leave it as is until then. Well, seems the phone guy already ported my phone number to their company which means that he has to install the phone or I won't have phone service. But if that happens, my internet is gone since it runs through my old phone line. I end up calling the sales guy who luckily is in the area so he stops by.

Now I have three men standing in my computer room trying to figure this out. All I knew was that somebody better be coming up with a solution and quickly cuz I was not amused. So everybody gets on the phone with their supervisors and they rig me up somehow. But not before they drilled a couple of holes in my house and ran a wire up the outside. Yeah it's pretty. But I got 2 free months of service for my trouble.

Wait. The story is not over. Just over an hour after the techs leave, my mother calls me ON MY CELL PHONE to ask why my phone is out of order. WTF!!!?? Are you kidding me? Sure enough... no dial tone. So I call the cable company ...on my cell since now I have no phone service....and 35 minutes and 3 different people later somebody pushes some buttons on their big computer screen and it's back on.

I am not in a good mood right now.

Another Full Circle Moment

Yesterday was the big annual adoption fair in our city. It was very surreal for me to be there this year. I went last January 28th with the intention of getting some info on how long the singles waiting lists for China had gotten. I was turning 34 in February and had decided that I needed to start moving forward with my plans for motherhood. But as a result of this adoption fair, my conversations with 2 women I met at different agency booths, and an adoption seminar the following weekend... my life and my plans changed drastically. I don't want to repeat the whole story again so click here and read that to understand why this event was so significant in my life and click here if you want to read about all the signs to point me in the right direction that followed.

I found both of the women that I spoke to last year and filled them in on the happenings over the past 12 months. They were both thrilled! These two women represented the only two agencies that I tried to work with. The first one I got on a waiting list with and the second provided me with my singles spot immediately and became my agency. All of the people I spoke to last year at the other booths were not very welcoming. They all tried to steer me away from China adoption because of the long waiting lists for singles. Not only were these two women very supportive and extremely personable, but I remember opening up and talking to both of them about my plans. Plan A and Plan B. I felt the need to stress over and over to them that I wasn't ready to move towards adoption but that I was going to try to get pregnant first. They both listened with no judgement. Complete strangers. I ended up talking to both of these women individually for about 45 minutes each. So to find them again, tell them how much I appreciated that, and deliver the good news was so meaningful to me and will be a part of this journey that I'll never forget.

This day was even more surreal to me in the fact that I participated in the fair this year! Our "Single Adoptive Moms Group" had a booth to recruit others. Last February, I met Kati and Kim in our parent education classes which were required as part of our homestudy. We immediately bonded as the only singles there. We formed friendships that started with just the 3 of us hanging out, talking, going to dinner. We realized how valuable this resource was for us. The support, the connection, the shared experiences of other single women who are going through the same thing. So we sought out a formal organization only to find out that our city didn't have one. Surrounding big cities did .... but not ours. We decided to start it ourselves and the "Single Adoptive Moms of Dayton" support group was born! Here's me and Kati at our booth.

We have moms represented from China, Vietnam and Guatemala so far. Some are home with their children, others of us are waiting still. Yesterday we recruited a Kaz mom, a few paperchasers representing these same 3 countries and even a few thinkers. We had a representative from our local children's services agency ask if she could put our group info in their newsletter because they have single moms who've adopted domestically or through foster to adopt. The more the merrier! So we should start to see some new faces amongst us soon. How exciting!
This is Kim. She had her own booth representing the organization that gave her a financial grant to assist in the adoption of her 7 yr old son from Guatemala. She was required to promote the organization as a part of the agreement with accepting the grant. Our booths were right next to each other so we got to hang out all day. Several of our other moms came by throughout the morning, too, so we had an impromptu get together right there at the fair. I always enjoy spending time with these women. They're all remarkable in their own right and I truly feel comfortable amongst them. We all "get it" and never have to offer explanation or listen to criticism about our single mom status. If those of you out there don't have this kind of support, whether you're a single mom or an adopter or whatever it is you need to feel connected, go find it or start your own group. It is a priceless treasure.

So this was a very full circle moment kind of day for me. To be standing in the place that literally changed my life, to be there with 3 very good friends that I wouldn't have known otherwise, to have a booth there with them and to now be so engrossed in this adoption community was an amazing feeling. Just goes to show you how much can change in a year's time.

Double Cuteness

Some folks in bloggerville have issued a dare to post old pics of yourself. Well, it started with kindergarden pics and then went on to prom pics. I have no prom pics and don't feel like digging the other ones out from storage. So this will have to do. My grandmother sent this pic the other day. She'd made these dresses for me and my sister when we were babies. She included a piece of this fabric for Mia's quilt. Can you believe she still had this fabric over 30 years later?! My sister and I are two years apart in age so I'm guessing from the looks of her, I'm not quite 3 in this one. Which means it was probably 1974 or 75. There's no denying that my sister is a natural redhead after seeing this pic. Are we not just the cutest little things in our matching dresses?!

Favorite Foto Friday

I really have nothing spectacular to blog about so I thought I'd share a photo of Percy the Penguin x 4. I'm taking Percy #1 to China with me. He'll be Mia's first toy. He's perfect for the job... just the right size to both fit in a suitcase or be carried by a baby, very soft and fluffy, sits up by himself and oh so huggable. Of course it had to be a penguin. Are you kidding me?

I was told by an experienced mom, Amy from Ruby In Her Own Time, (but sorry... they're password protected now) to have multiples and to rotate them. If you keep an extra in case the original gets lost, it doesn't work. Cuz you can't give your kid a brand new one when she knows all the spots and stains and wear marks on her favorite. She won't be fooled. So rotate them around so they all wear evenly. Of course, you have to be sneaky about it. Slip it out from under her arm at naptime or maybe try the "Hey what's that over there?" and pull a switcheroo when she looks away. And never let on that there is actually more than one.

Percy #4 went to Massachusetts to live with Ruby on her 2nd birthday. So now there is only Percy #1 thru 3 sitting on that shelf patiently waiting for Mia. And they said they'll wait as long as it takes.

PS. Thanks for all the advice. I'll be purchasing the hot pink 4GB Ipod for myself as a birthday present next month. I'm making myself wait cuz I spent a bit too much money in January. I found some Pottery Barn baskets on sale that I was planning to buy for a bookcase that will be in Mia's room. Since they were on sale I went ahead and got them now even though I don't plan to start that project until March. I'm re-doing my bedroom in February and found a chair and trunk on sale at Pier-One so I bought that, too. This was all money that was budgeted for these projects but I just bought them early since they were on sale. Hey, I saved a bunch of money that way! I love being a savvy shopper! Happy Friday my friends!