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Friday Update – 12/05/08

Adoption Update:

Well we have made it to 39 weeks of waiting! I am getting to the point where I just really want to see their faces and know them. Most days I am fine, but today not so much. 🙁 Please pray for some more referrals, and for court dates to start going more smoothly. A lot of court days have been rescheduled lately and my heart breaks for the families who didn’t pass recently.

Gardening:

My little garden is really starting to take off. The turnips and snow peas look great and I have some lettuce ready for eating.

Life:

Matt and I have been keeping busy decorating for Christmas and I have been cleaning out closets and cabinets like a mad woman! Business is staying strong which is an answer to prayers during the current economic situation. We are truly happy and thankful for all that we have.

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Friday Update – 11.07.08

Adoption Update: Today marks eight months or 35 weeks of waiting for our referral. I cannot believe it has been that long, time is flying by. There was finally a much anticipated sibling group referral this week, the couple waited just shy of 12 months, 4 year old girl and 18 month old boy. A six month old girl was also referred this week. Congratulations to the happy families!

Work-Outs: Let’s just say I took the week off! I was so lazy this week and I blame it all on Matt, had he not spoiled me so much for my birthday weekend I would not have been so lazy. It was really hard to get back to normal life! Matt woke up early and rode his road bike all week, he loves riding early in the morning, while I am content to be in bed.

Gardening: Things are sprouting away. It is so nice to see some green out there. We are having a little sunshine problem, with the sun being low in the horizon and our acacia trees getting so big, little is making it through to the garden. I am going to come up with some sort of reflectors out of used political signs to get a little more light on the garden. Thankfully this is only a problem for about four months out of the year.

Random Stuff: It finally is feeling like fall! I am so excited, the weather is absolutely gorgeous. I can keep the windows open all day and enjoy the fresh air. We were finally able to turn off the A/C for the year. I hope to keep it off until May again.

Cabinet Matt hung for me on my birthday, complete with kitty shelf.

Carter’s new favorite napping spot

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Wonderful Birthday

I had a wonderful day yesterday with my hubby.  He took most of the day off just to spoil me.  This is a big change for him, in the past he was not so good at taking time off for himself or anyone else.  It made me feel really special to have him to myself yesterday.  🙂  He started the day by making me breakfast and doing the dishes which also included unloading the dishwasher.  Then we went mountain biking, lucky for me he is pretty patient, it had been a while since I had been on the mountain, things were a little slow, and a little whiney at one point, but I did end up having fun.  Then in the afternoon I got to take a hot bath, get a back massage, and take a little nap.  He even did some house projects for me yesterday.  We hung an antique cabinet in the kitchen, moved the table, and rearranged a few things.  We capped off the day with pizza and going over our sample ballots to figure out how we were voting today.  It was a very nice, relaxing birthday.  Thanks to my wonderful, amazing husband!  (He actually spoiled me all weekend long.)

My family celebrated with me on Saturday night with good food, games, ridiculously impossible candles (thanks mom), and lots of presents.  I now have a nice apple corer and peeler for all those apple recipes and a pressure canner which I cannot wait to use.  Thanks guys!

Thanks to everyone’s birthday wishes this weekend.  I loved reading comments and getting emails.

 

BTW if you haven’t already done so, quit reading blogs and go VOTE.

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Friday Update – 10/17/08

Adoption Update: No referrals this week, but several families received their court dates. We also decided this week to expand the ages we were requesting. We are now waiting for two siblings 0-42 months with one being under 18 months.

Life: Matt’s Grandpa found out this week he has cancer. Please keep him in your prayers.

Running and Push-ups: Yep still doing those, being consistent, but not progressing super fast.

Gardening: I finally transplanted my little seedlings and they are going through some major transplant shock. Maybe it is because they want from a nice humid little house to the dry desert air. I hope they perk back up soon.

Random: I finally have decided what I want for Christmas. Solar Panels! Our local utility is finally offering a rebate for the purchase of them (up to $15,000). A system for our house would run around $33,000. With the Federal and State credits we only need about $15,000 more. Now if my money tree would start producing I would be set!

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Friday Update 10/10/08

Adoption Update:  Three referrals this week, two infant girls and one infant boys.  Congratulations to the happy families!  Please pray for the sibling line to get some movement.  I heard that the couple at the top of the line has been waiting since mid-November last year, they must be going nuts.  I hope they get their referral soon.  The wait is hard not only because you are waiting for the joy of getting to bring your children home, but also because as an adoptive parent you know there is two sides of this child’s story and on one side there is heartbreak.  Missy did a great post on this subject this week, please take time to check it out.

Running Update:  I ran again this week!  Hurray for some consistency.

Push-ups:  I am definitely being more consistent with these.  I am going to be buff by the time we get to travel.

I actually did not have a very exciting week so not much else to get you caught up on.  It was cool, then hot, now it is supposed to cool down again.  At any rate the mornings have been absolutely fabulous.  Almost beginning to feel like fall!  I was able to ride my bike around town again to run errands and it was so nice.  I missed it this summer.

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It was a Tom and Jerry weekend

On Friday night we went over to my parents’ house to make a scrapbook for Tom and Jerry of their family, pets, and home, so that when Matt and I travel to Ethiopia we have this to show them so they can get familiar with the people, animals, and places in their lives.  (My mom thought of this great idea.)  I know we could just have taken some snapshots, but this was also a fun family activity that got everyone involved and hopefully made them feel a part of the process.  (Side note: before we travel we are allowed to send a soft photo album filled with pictures of just Matt and me so Tom and Jerry get to know our faces)

Matt and I holding up the cats’ page

My mom clearly trying to explain something to us (She was the only one who had scrap-booked before)

Jason and Michelle working away on their pages (which were awesome, we also did some pages for Baby A, I am pretty sure she will make her appearance before T&J)

My dad even got in on the action, he was our official circle cutter

We still have to do the pages for the nursery (that needs finished first), Matt’s sister, and me and Matt’s (yeah we forgot to take pics of ourselves).

 

On Saturday morning we got up bright and early to go garage sale shopping, there was a community garage sale, so we had high hopes.  There were several garage sales, but most were extremely small and not much to choose from, we still managed to score some fun stuff. 

A soft touch fire truck 

Tiger xylophone 

12 Pooh books for $1

Jackson getting concerned with why we keep coming home with toys

Matt playing with his hot wheels (yes we know that T&J could both be girls, but this boy wanted some hot wheels and I played with them as a child)  Jackson was totally cool with the hot wheels until someone almost nailed him in the head with a flying car.

We also scored a gender neutral, tiny kid’s bike and I already caught Matt working on it

 

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Friday Update – 10/03/08

Adoption Update:  Five referrals this week, four infant girls and one infant boys.  Congratulations to the lucky families!

Running Update:  I ran one day this week!  I was also going to run today, but woke up with a headache and I am not dedicated enough to run with a headache.  I did walk every day this week.

Push-ups:  I completed the last column of week 2 this week and will be finally moving on to week 3.  The sets are getting harder and harder for me, and instead of advancing a week at a time I have decided to advance a column at a time.  I don’t really care about getting it done in six weeks (obviously, it has already been more than that) so I will take it slowly.  I am sure I will get to 100 before Tom and Jerry get here.

Gardening:  My seedlings are doing great,  I will probably be able to plant most of them in the garden this weekend.  It is still fairly warm, but I think they will survive.

Jackson noticed the water droplets in the seedling starter boxes and attacked, it was pretty funny until he tried to bite through the plastic

Random Stuff:  There are two more tractor tires in the field behind my house along with several smaller ones, I plan on rescuing some of the smaller ones in the future to make a potato container in the spring.  If anyone is interested in rescuing tires just let me know.

A solution to the obesity epidemic in America.

I also learned about the Phoenix Permaculture Guild this week.  They have some interesting classes and a good tree buying program.

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Friday Update – 9/19/08 (late edition)

Adoption Update: No referrals this week. I am really needing to see some siblings referred so I can feel some movement.

Push-ups: We started back on our push-up program this week! We had to start over at week two, but I don’t care, I am just glad we did them.

Running: I did not run this week, but I did start walking again and the weather was much more tolerable.

Gardening:

I started some of my seeds early this week:

Matt and I started working on the new garden beds today:

It was getting a little warm out so we had to come in and cool off for a while and we’ll head back out this evening to hopefully get some more work done.

A big thanks to my cute hubby! You have done so much hard work for me this week and it is very much appreciated.

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Friday Update – 9/12/08

 

Adoption Update: Our agency had five referrals this week, four infant boys and one infant girl, a sibling group of a girl and a boy ages 5 and 7 was also placed off of the waiting children’s list.  Congratulations to all the happy families!  The families waiting the longest right now are the ones waiting on referrals of young sibling sets.  Overall I am still doing fairly well with the wait and fully expect to be waiting into the new year.  In fact, I have always had a very specific date in my mind for our referral date ever since we sent our dossier to Ethiopia, but I didn’t even pick it in our Guess the Referral game because I wanted my referral sooner.  The date that has always been in my mind is February 23, 2009.  So if anyone wants in on the referral game and trusts my instinct, have at it!

I also met a fellow Inskeep this week through the blogging world who is also adopting through CHI.  They are still in the paper-chase phase, hopefully soon to be in the waiting stage.

In the meantime I have been doing some shopping for Tom and Jerry, mostly on etsy.com.  I love that place!  (side note, my friend Sandi just started her very own etsy store, so go check it out)  Here are some of my more recent buys:

 

Clock for the nursery:

Some embroidered diapers:

For some reason this one is my favorite, it makes me smile every time:

Running and Push-Up Updates:  Yep still not much happening in the exercise department, but Matt and I did discuss why we thought neither of us felt like working out.  It is HOT and we are sick of the heat!  For those of you who don’t know Arizona summers can be a little long and wearing, like long winters are to some of you.  This end of this week we finally started seeing temps in the 70s again!  Albeit only in the early mornings, but hey it is a start.  So I think exercising will pick back up, even though I am sure September has one more heat wave for us, it always does.

Gardening:  My little garden is still going strong and there is okra galore!  I need to do some more pickling.  I am also starting to get a few more tomatoes and it looks like I will have some jalapenos before long.

 

This week also marked the seventh anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.  My dad participated in the memorial held here in Maricopa.  (he is the one in the front of the group of bagpipers) 

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Friday Update 8/22/08

Adoption Update: Our agency didn’t have any referrals this week, it has been since the week of 7/11/08 since the last set of referrals. 🙁


Highchair I scored off of Craigslist for Tom or Jerry (of course, Jackson gave it a test run for us)

Running Update: I didn’t run at all this week. I still have been staying up too late watching the Olympics to bother with getting up early to run, but I have been riding the exercise bike this week. It is so much nicer to exercise in air conditioned comfort.

Push-up Update: We did them this week, well I still have one more set to do, but we did them! We did repeat week 2, so we are a little behind, but I thought it would take more than six weeks anyway.

Matt got a new-to-him toy this week:

Jackson was excited about the box

Carter was excited about the foam (he loves to eat foam)

Matt was excited for the new toy and that his wife let him put it together in the house because it was so hot in the garage

Random stuff from the web:

I was looking for something to do with old magazines and might have to give this a try.

All I have to say on this story is, “Seriously!?”

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Friday Update 8/15/08

Adoption Update:  Our agency didn’t have any referrals this week, it has been since the week of 7/11/08 since the last set of referrals.  So, they have to be coming soon, right?  This isn’t all that unusual with international adoption.  I do like it better when the line is moving, but I am not very stressed about the wait at this time.

Running Update:  I ran once this week.  🙁  Let’s just say someone stayed up too late every night to watch the Olympics and refused to get up early before the heat set in and run.

Push-ups:  We didn’t do them, don’t know what happened we just forgot.  I am pretty sure we are now going to have to just repeat week 2.  

Gardening:  Most of my plants are still alive, they made it through the hottest part of the season!

Taffi helping weed (Just ignore the photographer’s shadow, she doesn’t think these things through)

My peppers (they were feeling left out of the last post on gardening)

A bee doing his job (I hadn’t seen a lot of bees this summer, but they finally showed up!)

Scary Spider (I let them live in the garden because they eat the bugs that eat my plants, but there are several of them and I have a tiny fear of spiders)

 

What an exciting week, ehh? 

 

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Colorado Photos

So i finished uploading, sorting and editing the photos. I took a lot. I mean a lot, like 500+. I bought myself a new (to me) digital camera a few weeks ago. A Canon Rebel XT Digital SLR. I have been enjoying getting back into the habit of using the full manual mode and exploring film speeds, shutter speed, and artistic photography. 

So blah blah blah, on with the pics. 

I added 28 or so to the photos page, found here.

If you want to see even more pics I uploaded a lot to my flicker account

Garden of the Gods

Old town Pueblo (I like old buildings for some reason).

 

Also, Side note I forgot something on my trip highlights post. The Vibe got 40mpg. Yep. 40. I normally only get about 30 around the valley. I have peaked at 34 in the past. But we averaged 38 on the trip overall, and for one whole tank, 40. I was pretty excited.