Great News!

Our Homestudy is done!
We have submitted the photo of us to be in our file and will recieve the release form in the mail in a few days to be able to be placed on the State Adoption site!!!! I am so excited! I guess that it worked to contact our old SWs boss AGAIN! We recieved a call on Monday morning and by the afternoon we recieved an email from our SW that the homestudy is done!

Watch for updates in the next week. I not able to write alot today, but I wanted to let you know what's happening around here!

It's been raining here since yesterday afternoon and my backyard looks like soup. The good thing about the rain is that it melted a lot of the snow in my front yard and I can now see the grass. It's also melting the ice at the bottom of our driveway that we have been chopping away at for months.
I'm pretty frustrated that there's been something going on with the cable since yesterday. When I try to change the channel it goes back to 1 and I have to go up to the channel I want station by station instead of using the guide.
Since Valentines day is Saturday, I went to Michaels yesterday and got some candy melts to make lollipops for Naz, Tekaija, Jerry, and a few other people. I can't afford to do much, but I still feel like celebrating a bit. Besides, it will give me something to do since my days seem to drag on an on since I don't have work to go to anymore.
Today, I will give my Social Worker a call so that I can see where she's at and what we should expect to happen next. I need to find out who our new worker will be for the matching process etc. It feels to go to be true that we are finally in the homestretch of the pre-process.

Friday came and went with no update from our social worker. I will be giving her a call today. My waiting period is over for unemployment, so I will finally be getting a check this week. On the job front I have sent out like 100 resumes and I have heard nothing from any of them. Damn economy. I have never had this much trouble getting calls on my resume before when I sent them out.

This weekend was great. On Saturday morning Jerry took me to see the movie Push. It was pretty good. After that we went and picked up our niece and nephew to have them over to play and spend the night. They are so easy to have over and they are no troube at all. We painted pictures, made cupcakes which they decorated with redhots and spinkles, danced, took pictures, and made blueberry and chocolate chip pancakes on Sunday morning. I always try to have some project for them to do and I alway let them help me bake. They don't get to do much of it at home. Naz, my nephew especially loves to help me cook. Maybe he'll be a chef someday. That or a professional dancer. He sure does have the moves for it.

My sister-in-law still hasn't had the baby yet and she just looks misserable. Her belly is so big, but it's all baby and I am sure that her belly will be back to normal in no time after she delivers.

Today, the plan is to just hang out, send resume's and hit the post office. We sold 12 more things on e-bay over the weekend. If I found a wholesaler or vendor with some good stuff, I could make that a good living selling things on e-bay.

Ugh, Need to Vent

I don't know what's going on with this lady. A half hour from when I was about to leave to go to our appointment with the social worker, I got an e-mail, not a phone call, but and e-mail to tell me she had to cancel because she was having car problems. This is so unacceptable. Why does she have such a problem following through on commitments, and why does she have such a career where time is sensitive to people? 'nuf said.

Miss Prissy

Miss Prissy, originally uploaded by gemjlo.

This is a drawing of the sweet little kitty that lives in the abandoned store behing my sister-in-laws house. She's taken care of by the her landlord, but for the most part lives outside and seems happy to do so. We have been going down to Missour to visit my sister-in-law every year for maybe 4-5 years now and everytime we pull up in front of thier house we are greeted by little miss Prissy. There have been a few times I have thought that I would love to sneek her into my bag and take her home with me. Over the summer when we were down visiting my inlaws I noticed that she's getting very thin. My sister-in-law said that she's been taken to the vet, and she's alright, but I wonder if she will be around when we go down next year. I hope so, because I have grown attached to her. Whenever I am down there I make it a point to sit in the grass and pet her as much as I can. We have a connextion the two of us. We are like kindred spirits or something.

On a lighter note...Today's the day we have our appointment with the Social Worker. So, we get to answer all the remaining questions that she might have. Then, we leave it up to her again. Ugh. That's the hardest part of this, there's not a lot of contol over the situation really. It's always in someone else's hands.

My husband last night decided to buy a plasma TV. It's ment to go over the fireplace in the house we are building in the spring. His company gave the employees a very good deal then we could pass up. It's a 42" tv. We put it into our den for now, but we aren't down there much because we just finished the painting, and now we need t get carpet, but once that's done, I think we will certianly be using it more.

My little shadow

I must confess that for the amount of pleasure that Tullah, my almost 1 year old puppy, brings me, she also brings me much stress. I spend most of my nights afterwork washing the carpets or floors from her accidents, or picking up the stuffing from some toy she has recently torn to shreads. I can't say that I didn't expect that my time would be spent in this manner for puppies are a lot of work. I just forgot how much. She is a lovable little girl for all her quirks, she loves to snuggle, and much of her day is spent following me around. I am excited with the prospect that she will eventually mellow though, and I am counting the days.

Now for some good news. We have another appointment scheduled with our SW for next Thursday over lunch. I glad that we are seeing progress again, but I am guarded because she has yet to contact Elisabeth and Josh, and she must complete those interviews before our paperwork can go to committee again.

Disappointed yet again

Well, after a call and an e-mail we got an update from the SW. Seems she met with her boss and the homestudy panel and there are yet more interviews to be done with Josh, Elisabeth, Andy, and us again. The questions that she outlined have already been answered once. I don't know if she just didn't write down the answers, but's it frustrating that we must now make time during our lunch hour to go down and meet with her again and answer the same questions over. She wants to meet with Josh and Elisabeth, whom we had custody years ago. She said that it's their policy to talk to adult children of those wanting to adopt. Even though they weren't are children, and all our parenting efforts were thwarted by their mother and other sibs, they still get to give input. Jerry and I still talk and see Josh often. I have no doubts what he might say, but Elisabeth is a different story. We never got close to her, she never let us. She also left under bad circumstances after running away repeatedly and stealling over 5000.00 worth of things from our house. We saw her last week at her grad party, but I have no idea how to get ahold of her. I know that she has no phone, and her mom's in a halfway house again.
So, here we are, still waiting. I am sure that we will be waiting until after the holidays, as our SW works at a glacial pace and they don't place kids around the holidays.

Recently, I have stopped reading adoption blogs as much as I used to. Although there are a few that I read religiously, I have cut out many of them. There are two reasons for this. One reason is that I tend to do a lot of my net surfing at work, and I have been very busy lately. Second, I have been feeling like I will never be one of them. It feels like our adoption process will never get to the matching phase. It’s been a long time since I talked to our SW over the phone or in person, and when we e-mail back and forth there is not much substance to her responses to me. It feels like we floundering.
Doesn’t it seem like this is a common complaint with me?On a lighter note…I will finally be finished with our den tonight. Last night I finished putting up the remaining trim and putting the first and second coat of paint on it. Tonight, I will finish up the painting, and wash the floor again. Then, all we will need is carpet installed. That will have to wait until the bedroom is ready for carpet though. We plan to do the two rooms at the same time. It feels good to be finally getting it done, as the project has dragged on all summer long. Next up, the bedroom, then the bathroom, then we move!

Just an hour to go before our scheduled last homestudy interview, and I am very excited. Jerry and I went through the survey again about the types of children we could parent. Some of the questions that they ask are really hard to answer out of context, like:
Would you be willing to parent a child that's aggressive?
Well, what do you mean by aggressive?
Would you be willing to parent a child that had a low birthweight?
Well, what kind of effect did it have on the child?

What good do they think this survey is going to do? Most of the questions we answered "Would Consider". So, basically, show us everything, we will read the files and decide if we fit with them. The only things we said we didn't want is a child who abuses animals, since we have 4, or a child that sexually abuses other children, as we have many children in our neighborhood and nieces and nephews to protect.

She's Back, and We are Scheduled

Yay! Just talked to our Social Worker and we are scheduled for our last Homestudy visit next Friday morning! That's fabulous. I am very excited and am glad to now have the date to look forward to. If all goes well we will be looking at starting to be matched this summer. That would be great. In the ideal world I would love to have kiddies by fall so that we can do all the fun Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas stuff with them.

Last Thursday night I had dinner with my Auntie B and she mentioned that she read The Secret by Rhonda Byrne and had practiced it in her life with good results. On Monday when I was at the store, I bought the book. I began to read it and so far it says that the universe is governed by the Law of Attraction. Whatever you think about will come to you. That means that if you think happiness and love, the universe will provide you with more happiness and love. It also means that if you worry about not having happiness and love that you will not receive happiness and love.
Now, I have always been a person to think positively when encountering a situation that is described to me by others from their lives, but I have a harder time thinking positively when it comes to my own life. If the book holds true, I will have to stop all the negative self talk and start expecting that good things will happen to me, and believing that they will.
It’s funny because I have heard the same things said by so many people in different ways like the pastor on Sunday, therapists, poets, philosophers, and many others. We’ve all heard the saying, "If you believe, you can achieve." It's supposed to work with everything. I am going to put this to practice creating our family.

Lack of Sleep

This morning I got up with my 5 month old puppy at 3:00AM in the morning. She was locked up in her kennel longer then normal yesterday and I guess it made her not that sleepy. However, I was sleepy and could have used the sleep. Is this the Almighty’s way of letting me experience the lack of sleep that one gets with a newborn since I won’t be experiencing it with an actual human baby of my own? The Lord works in mysterious ways I guess.
I got a chance to call our Social Worker this morning, and got the following message, “This is D***, today is Monday, April 21st and I will be in the office this week, however I will be working part time. I will be back fulltime the week of April 28th…” Can I just tell you that this is torture? Waiting is not something I do well. Errrrr….

Thoughts from this week.

Well, I still haven't heard from the SW to reschedule our last homestudy meeting. I am waiting on pins and needles. I might just end up calling her back by the end of the week.
We finally got our taxes in, and I am hoping next year that we don't have to pay in. I am keeping my fingers crossed that we have a few little deductions next year.
Over the past few weeks I have been mulling over how many kids I actually can handle, over what my heart has chosen as the magic number 3. I think that having 2 kids would work out best for the two of us. That way we won't be outnumbered, and can more easily take care of them. Especially, if they are both young to start out with. This is different then what I had always imagined, and I fear that I am selling out in some way. But, bigger is not always better, and since my children will probably need more attention and affection then if I gave birth to them myself(meaning attachment, social and mental health stuff). So, fewer is probably better. I just think about my friends with only one brother or sister, and they just don't seem as happy as my friends with big families. I am sure that I have got it all wrong, but that's just what I am thinking at the moment.

Today's Rant

I am so disappointed. Jerry and I showed up at what would have been our last Homestudy Meeting with our SW, and were turned away because she's still on medical leave. WHAT? Why weren't we called this time? She missed us on the list... Unacceptable. Every meeting that I have had scheduled with this woman has had to be rescheduled with little or no notice.
I am so upset about this. Even though I have a kind boss, I feel bad having to take all this time off anyway, and when it's for nothing, it's even worse. If I were to miss a meeting without calling the person I was meeting with at my work, I would be in so much trouble. How can she get away with this time and time again? Doesn't she realize how emotionally draining all of this is. It's an emotional process to begin with.
It just sucks. I have the mind to talk to her supervisor. It's a little scary though because I don't want to be reasigned and have to start any of this stuff over, or set a bad example, but I feel like we have been very patient up to this point, and my patience is running LOW at this point.