Posted on

Home Study – Part Two

The home study went fine today. I was actually much more relaxed than I thought I would be, I did start to get nervous an hour or so before, but not overly nervous. I had everything done that I had wanted to get done and was happy with how the house looked. We even let her see the samples of green paint on the bathroom wall that we have yet to paint over with the one we chose, she agreed with us on the color, we will make sure we paint it before her next visit. She asked us questions from how we met to how we plan to raise our children. She is coming back for our second visit November 30 and after that will write up a report to submit to the court here in Pinal County.

For those of you wondering how Tank did, he was an angel for Tank standards, seriously I prayed all day long for that boy to be good and he was. He did his happy bark for her not his scared bark. We have been working with him a lot lately and he is doing a lot better, but still a little neurotic.

We also got word that our second letter of introduction was good, so we are done with that too. Thanks honey for doing such an awesome job on it. We have our classes this weekend and we have a booklet we have to finish before our next home visit, plus the 10 hours of dvds, so we are busy for a while.

Posted on

Home Study (EEK!)

We got the word last night that our first home study appointment is this Friday afternoon. Now I was fully expecting this to happen after Thanksgiving, and let’s just say there was some stuff I planned to get done around the house next weekend. I know I have enough time to make my house presentable, but there is that part of me that wants it to be perfect, I clearly do not have time to make that happen. I think I am okay with that, I have to be. We didn’t have time to do anything last night after we got the call, because we already had plans, and we have plans again tonight. Seriously, we never have plans two nights in a row except for the one week we have our home study. We have our appointments at the doctor this morning, hopefully that doesn’t suck two hours out of our day like usual.

By the way unusual happening this morning. It is raining!

Posted on

Adoption Paperwork Update

We have been working diligently, albeit slowly, on our all our paperwork and have sent the bulk of what is needed to our home study agency, and we received confirmation yesterday that they had received it. We see the doctor Thursday to get letters from her stating she found us to be in “good mental and physical health,” and we also are still waiting on our police clearance letters from Pinal County. After we get those to our agency we will officially start the home study process.

This weekend we have International Adoption Preparation Classes from 8 am to 4 pm both days. It looks like we will be learning a lot of helpful information. We also get to meet other people adopting internationally, some of which I have already been talking to online.

Matt wrote our letter of introduction (I was told the most important document in our dossier to Ethiopia) last night and I thought sent it to our agency coordinator to get her opinion, but just got an email from her that I sent the wrong attachment, so I just sent it off. I had already written one, but it was no quite up to par. So, I turned it over to Matt since he is a much better writer in the creative aspect of it, and after rereading this blog post like five times and still finding mistakes I am beginning to wonder if he is also better at the grammar aspect.

Next week we plan on starting our 10 hour dvd course. I think that is it for now.

Posted on

Wow I missed a lot

If you are thinking this right now and you just happened to remember to check our blog, you must not subscribe.

I know of two ways to subscribe to a blog (there are probably more, but I only know of two so that is the info you are getting).

The first is to subscribe through our blog to get emails of updates.

But if you don’t want a bunch of emails filling up your inbox or you have several blogs you read, google reader is a great way to go. I now use google reader, I will say I was hesitant at first when Matt introduced it to me, but it is relatively easy to use and helps keep me in the loop. Of course, if you use google reader you actually have to remember to go to google reader to check for updates.

Please feel free to share other ways to subscribe to blogs.

Posted on

You Dropped This

I love this commercial by Honda. I am tempted to make one and put it in our community roundabout with a big sign saying, “You dropped this Acacia Crossings clean up your act.” Of course, I won’t actually do it as I have better things to do with my time that make a tree out of the trash I pick up.

Posted on

Get Well Soon

My Uncle Rick is having major surgery today. Please say a prayer for him that all goes well and that he has a speedy recovery.

Matt’s mom, Cindy, also had surgery yesterday. Please keep her in your prayers for a speedy recovery.

Our thoughts and prayers are with you guys. We love you!

Posted on

Carter!!!

That’s the name we have been saying loudly, frequently around here lately. Why is such a cute, little ball of black fur such a trouble maker? He has a serious addiction to cables/cords of all kind. We cannot figure out how he is still alive from all the electrical cords he has eaten. We have tried several kinds of bad tasting sprays which only seem to slow him down for a bit. We try hiding the cords behind furniture, but he is one determined kitty when he wants to eat something he is not supposed to. We even shut the doors to rooms he is not supposed to be in, but believe it or not the little bugger has figured out how to open doors, and yes even closet doors (he also eats wool, fleece, and leather). When we were leaving last Thursday morning and Matt was closing his office door, for reasons mentioned, I said shouldn’t we lock that, and he decided not to, because why would Carter want in there. Why? Of course, to eat cables and hide from everyone who was coming over to feed him and spend time with him, and because he gets mad at us when we leave.

But don’t worry all is forgiven each and every night when he cuddles with me so sweetly like he has never done anything wrong.

Carter in one of his less mischievous moments.
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Anyone have any other suggestions to try? Don’t suggest getting rid of him, because that is not going to happen.

Posted on

More Time Part 2

Thank you for the comments and ideas on getting things done. I should have been more specific about our issue. We technically have enough time, we just don’t think we were making the wisest use of our time, yes we are time wasters. That is why we chose a tv fast. Have you ever noticed how you can just turn into a zombie when the tv is on? I promise myself I can clean and watch football, but usually just the watching football happens. We are also fully aware that once we have small children we won’t be watching much tv so we decided to work on our addiction now, yep we were addicted to our tv.

I will use the stay up late method only if I absolutely need to get something done by the next day and I have no other time to complete the task. I believe strongly in at least attempting to get enough sleep every night (Anyone think I am in for a big shock when we have kids?). I know some people can get by on 4-5 hours of sleep, but trust me you won’t want to be around me.

Bill thanks for bringing up Getting Things Done. We totally own that book and I have never even looked at it. I guess I should read it.

On a positive note, we both finally finished our autobiographies last night. I am proof reading them today and hopefully we can get our packet in the mail tomorrow. We are still waiting to see the doctor next week to get all our paperwork done for the home study, but we have our part done for now. We also started our series of shots that we need to have for travel purposes yesterday.

Posted on

Wanting More Time

Matt and I have recently finding ourselves wanting more time to get stuff done, and have been unable to find time to do everything we want to get done. We have a bunch of stuff we want to get done around the house (plus plenty of reading to do) before the social worker comes over for our home study (seriously our guest bedroom has turned into piles of stuff). Thanks to a friend’s recent blog post I had a wake up call about getting stuff done now instead of at the last minute. What would I do if I only had a day to get ready? Pretty much freak out and think it was the end of the world.

What are we doing to get more time in our days? We are going on a modified TV fast. I say modified because it is football season and there are games I want to watch (Go Cowboys!) and we will still watch the ten o’clock news since we don’t get the paper and like to know what’s going on in our local area. So, for November we are going to give this our all and we will let you know how it is going.

What are things you have done in your life to find more time in your day?

Posted on

Daylight Saving Time

I experienced a first today. I had to fall back, I have never actually experience a daylight saving time (dst) change. I lived in Arizona my whole life and hadn’t managed to be out of state for the change until today. I personally think dst is a silly thing. If you like your sunlight extended at the end of your day instead of the morning just change it permanently, then you won’t have to worry about changing all your clocks and adjusting your sleep schedule. Standard Time is getting shorter because Congress keeps extending dst, they say it saves money on energy bills, and apparently it is slightly less effective in the winter, thus the change back to Standard Time. I also heard on the news the other night that pedestrians are more likely to get hit by vehicles after the switch back to Standard Time, they said drivers had trouble adjusting to the darker evenings. At any rate I am glad I live in Arizona and do not have to mess with this silly system.

Posted on

Pelicans

I spent the afternoon at the beach watching the pelicans dive for their food and one finally came semi-close enough for me to get on video. Sorry, it is not the best video, but I got it. You see the pelican dive in the water and he doesn’t come up for 40 seconds. Maybe he surfaced before that but I didn’t see him until he took off. At any rate I think it is pretty cool.