Half way thru the Weekend

The weekend is half way over. So far much has been accomplished, although nothing worth photographing really. I'm caught up on sleep, for sure. Averaging about 10 hours a night, plus some naps. I should be embarrased, but man, do I love a good nap. (Nap time also includes reading, by the way. I read until I can't hold the book up.) If you have any good reading suggestions, let me know. I'm ready for a new one.

On Friday, Jeff got called in to work. He always seems to get the on-call phone on holidays. This time it involved a crashed server in Connecticut and no back-ups, or something like that. I'm a mail man, so I'm not expected to understand. Most of the rest of the day was spent on laundry. Jeff worked on the floor a little, but mostly we continued with our "008 days of 007" on Spike TV.

Today, we went to the dump! I'm so happy about it, too. We finally figured out where it is and how the process works. You drive across a scale, go to your spot (scrap metal here, construction debris, there. Motor oil in the barrel, etc.) Here's a picture of Jeff at the household debris section. Then you drive across a scale on the way out. The weight difference determines your cost. We're on our way to a clean basement!

After another nappy, we got ready to go to Nana's And here's some pics for Deanna and the kids.
Nana's house.

Jokey-uncle Jeff.

Nana and Aunt Jojo (Honey in the background)
Mama kitty (the outside cat who has decided inside life ain't so bad)
Traditional New Year's Eve dinner of Reuben Sandwich. Yummy. Gotta love weird family traditions.

It's almost midnight. Happy New Year, everyone.

4 Day Weekend!!

Now marks the beginning of Jeff's and my 4 day weekend together. Hopefully, we will do finishing touches to the often talked about living, dining, foyer. It needs a bit more flooring, quarter round, and caulking. Oh, and a bit of touch up paint. If we get just that done to the house, I will be happy. I have more on the list of things I want to do, but it is a holiday, for crying-out-loud. I don't want to be too disappointed in myself if we end up laying around and watching movies. That's important, too, you know.

More Pictures

Here's just a few more pictures I wanted to include. This is our dining room. Notice the symmetrical fruit arrangement and the new light fixture. They would be Jeff's work.


And here are Princess and Nemo again. We are baby-sitting them for my niece and nephew until they come back from Germany in a few years. How long, exactly, do goldfish live? Anyway, I wanted to post it because I liked it. They are great pets. Not much in the way of maintainance. They're always really glad to see us. And they provide endless hours of entertainment for our less brilliant cat, Sydney. The others figured out a long time ago they they couldn't get to them and moved on. Sydney still tries to "catch" them all the time. Silly kitty.

Christmas Wrap-up

Today we woke up in south Georgia and had more time with Jeff's family. We had another quiet Christmas gathering with just his parents and grandmother.









And who racked up best this Christmas?? Zoe, of course! With parents and grandparents who love her already, she had a great Christmas, and she may not even be born yet!
My Mom had a lovey doll embroidered with her name. (It's the blue elephant) And they are now known as wubbies in our family thanks to my nephew Jeffrey who had the first.

And here is the first quilt to be made for Zoe by her grandmother and great-grandmother. They are already planning her second. Everyone in Jeff's mother's family has had a quilt made for them by Louise, the grandmother. I am thrilled that Zoe, the only adopted child in this huge clan is already being so readily accepted and that there is a physical representation of it in the quilt.

Christmas day

On Christmas day we woke up early-ish and headed over to Mom and Dad's.


Mom always makes Christmas breakfast and this year was pork tenderloin, biscuits, and orange danish. Mmmmm.

Mom is just as giddy as I am over presents so it didn't take long to dig in. Mom liked her Chinese Zodiac ornaments. Dad was thrilled with his new hat.

Jeff loved his new corvette books.

And Mom gave me an Asian baby doll so I can play pretend until Zoe gets here.


Normally at Christmas we would hang out all day taking naps, watching TV, playing on the computer, etc. But this year we needed to scoot out around lunch time and get to south Georgia to visit Jeff's family. We spent the rest of Christmas day eating, visiting and eating some more with Jeff's HUGE family. Here is a picture of his grandmother and her 10 children, all of whom make it to the festivities.


There were also grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She has some great-great's, too. I got a chance to visit with her and hear about the old days. How she married at 15 and proceeded to have a baby about every other year for the next 20 years and raise them, for the most part, in a 2 bedroom house!! Oh my!

It was a busy, but wonderful Christmas.

Our Christmas Eve

We had a wonderful Christmas full of Family, Friends, and Fun. On Christmas eve, I had to work, which was a bummer, but I racked up in presents and made overtime. So overall...not so bad.














Jeff stayed home and continued to work on our living room. You can see the wonderful job he did on our shelves. He's so great, he even brought me lunch on my mail route, and vaccuumed the house while I was working.





That evening we went to the traditional Christmas eve dinner with my parents and family friends. Here are some pics.
Afterwords, a very tired Jeff and I packed for our trip the next day and hit the hay!

I've been Re-gifted

As a mail carrier, I love the Christmas season. Everyone is happy to see me and I get presents!! The other day I opened a mailbox and found a present from a family I didn't expect to give me one. Earlier in the year I killed their froglet (more than a tadpole, less than a frog). The box clearly said to leave it in a cool place, but I didn't see it. I put it in the metal mail box on a hot summer day and cooked the little guy.

On a side note, you can mail live creatures thru the mail. Normally, we only see butterflies and ladybugs, but I have seen crickets and baby chicks. I've even heard of fighting cocks, but I don't know how that could be legal.

So back to my story, I was surprised to get something from this house. The man is a UPS delivery guy and I suspected it was something he got from one of his customers. I don't really mind re-gifting when done well and this was a nice little set of a mug and packet of gourmet hot chocolate. When I got home, Jeff looked at the mug and it was stamped 1999 on the bottom. Who care's, it could have been a design from then, but still reasonably new. But later I looked at the hot chocolate. It expired in 2004!! How long does it take for pre-packaged hot chocolate to expire? I don't know, but I suspect it's a long time. I can't believe that this little set has been sitting in their house for 6 years. I can, however, believe that it has been floating around as a token gift to service people since then.

I think they're still mad about the froglet.

Here, kitty kitty.

With 5 cats it's going to happen from time to time....but 2 mornings in a row?!! I get up to let the dog out. I don't turn on any lights so I won't disturb hubby and proceed to step in a pile of cold hair ball. Gross. The only thing worse, really, and I've stepped in that too, is a pile of warm hair ball. Mmmmmm.....yummy.

Adoption does not cure Infertility

I know they mean well. I know they're trying to give me some hope, or something. But the most annoying thing you can say to me right now is something like, "Well, you're going to get pregnant now." or "Now that you're relaxed, you're sure to get pregnant" or "I know someone ...."

Everyone seems to know someone who got pregnant after adopting. I find this amazing since I've never even met someone who adopted before. It seems that relaxing and adopting are all it takes to have a baby of "your own."

Maybe they don't realize that saying this implies my adopted child is second best and not what I REALLY want. They don't realize I don't need to be given hope of having "my own" My adopted daughter WILL BE my own. My own baby girl who didn't happen to come from my body. She is not second best. She will not be loved less. At this point, I believe we were blessed with infertility in order to be graced with the miracle of adoption.

Progress!!

Okay, so we didn't finish. Did you really think we would? But we got close. We ran into some problems. Thank Goodness my Jeff is handy. He replaced part of the subfloor that was water damaged and bowed up. And we bought a table saw today that he had to put together. He even continued working after I quit for nappy-nappy time.

At the end of the day, the dining room is finished. The living room will be finished soon, and we decided to treat the foyer as a completely separate room. It will be easier to use a transition piece than carry the wood across and cut around another door way.

We certainly have imperfection. But it's not bad. And the money we saved......shooowwwweeeeee. I think it's gonna buy us a hot tub. Now there's something that will ease the wait for Zoe.

One Day's Progress

Start of the day.









End of the day












Up close of the floor (Plus Bonnie)

Let the Fun Begin

I am very rarely off work for a whole weekend. I usually volunteer (or get volunteered) to work Saturdays. I don't mind so much because the overtime is nice and adoption (along with everything else) is expensive. But this Saturday, I am off. Jeff and I have a whole weekend together and we choose to work on our house. This is a good thing. An exciting thing. It is my plan to have new flooring in the living/dining/foyer by the end of the weekend.

The only problem is that Jeff and I have very different styles of working. I am slow to get started, but keep going once I do. Jeff is a better starter, but believes in lots of breaks. The only disturbance in our marital bliss comes when we do projects like this together (or when we discuss housework and who does more, but that's a whole other blog) So yes, I'm excited, but also a little nervous. We're saving a ton of money doing it ourselves, but neither of us has done this before. yikes.

So be sure to check back at the end of the weekend for pictures and a progress report. Is our project done? Did we do it right? Is our marriage safe? See you on Sunday.

We are DTC!!

DTC in adoption lingo stands for Dossier to China. Today, my dossier arrived in China and was delivered by my agency's Beijing office to the China Center for Adoption Affairs. We are thrilled that our dossier has successfully made it to China. Our next little hurdle is waiting for our Log In Date (LID). Even though our dossier is where it's suppose to be, our official count down, does not begin until we are logged in to the Chinese system. We are hoping for a LID before Christmas.

Our Nursery so Far

Here is Zoe's big-girl bed and diaper changing table. It may seem early to have a big-girl bed when we don't even have the baby yet, but I loved it so and it was on sale! Besides, it gives me a cozy place to curl up from time to time. Also, I'm pretty sure either Jeff or I will crash with her for awhile, and this is much better than the floor.


The diaper changing table top comes off and can be replaced with book shelves when Zoe is older. Man, oh man, do we love Ikea. Even the little reading light came from Ikea. It has a little spider web thingy over the bulb so littler fingers don't get burned.

Later we plan on adding this crib. Jeff and my Mom loved it, but I kind of think a baby would prefer rails all the way around. We still have a while to wait on this one.

Time to Rake

Our house in the Spring.







Our house in the Fall.

Home Improvement

We knew when there would be lots of work when we bought a 35 year old house. It's funny how nice and romantic fixing up your house seems when you first start out. Then time marches on.... A year later you are nowhere close to where you thought you'd be. Oh well. Some days it really bothers me and I have to DO something. Other days, like yesterday, a nap sounds better. I mean, it's been a whole year anyway, so what can one more weekend hurt.



But I am proud to say, we have real progress going on! We have finished the paint in the living/dining/foyer. Our color choices were Quiet Light, Ivory Silk, and Swiss Coffee. They go with our other colors in the house. (pewter tray, cast shadow) I really want to meet the man that gets to pick the names of the colors. Truly, the only painting we have left to do......for now, is finishing the French doors for the afore mentioned rooms.


Our project for today was to pick up the Laminate flooring. Below you can see Jeff removing the current flooring, which is gross. And what was under that, was even grosser. Some of the carpet in the house actually crunched when walked on. So we found a website that sells quality laminate flooring at a CHEAP price if you're willing to purchase a whole pallet. Then we find out their warehouse for one of our favorite color choices (Rocky Mountain Oak) was only 30 miles away. So this morning we set out to pick up our pallet of laminate flooring. We took the truck and the wagon, loaded up on 2000lbs of flooring and then prayed the tires wouldn't pop on the way home. They didn't. And we're proud to say we saved a $200 delivery charge.




As you can see, after laying it out on the floor, it's not that different from the plywood. We're kind of wishing we could have just polished up the plywood. Hopefully we'll get to laying it down soon. We're hoping for before Christmas.....Nap time permitting.
:-)

For the Kids

Okay, Deanna, if the kids are checking out the blog tomorrow, I'll whip out my funnest fotos!!


Here is one we call, "Weezer on the Wall."

And here's my Eddie. The only cat I know who sits up and comes when called. We think he's really a dog.


And here is our nephew Brian (clearly Jeff's side of the family). He's got good teeth, huh?

Chinese Adoption for Beginners

The basics are really simple. You find and agency, gather lots of documents, mail them to China, and wait to be approved.

We chose to work with CCAI. They wonderfully guided us thru the gathering of 13 documents including birth/marriage certificates, employment letters, police clearance reports, and others. The most time consuming was the 797 (permission from immigration to adopt a foreign born orphan) because that involved waiting for a fingerprinting appointment, a criminal background check, and the completion of our home study.

After all the documents are gathered, they must be notarized, certified at the county of the notary, certified at the state level, and authenticated at the Chinese Consulate. We used 4 different counties, 3 states, and 2 Chinese consulates. My friend who kept up with everything in the process joked that she wouldn't have done all that to keep the children she had. Really, it's not that bad. Just a bunch of baby steps!

Once all our documents were ready, we sent them to our agency. They reviewed them, translated them, and sent them to China.

That is where we currently are. Our documents are on their way to China.

Once there, they will be delivered to the China Center for Adoption Affairs. We will be issued a Log in Date (LID) which is essentially our place in line to receive an abandoned child. We expect to wait about 10 months for the referral of our daughter.

And there you have it. Nothing to it.

Our Timeline

It seems to be a requirement of every adoption blog to include your timeline. Here is ours....the seriously edited version.


8/17/05 - Informational meeting
8/19/05 – Mailed application
8/24/05 – Accepted by agency
9/10/05 – Orientation!!
9/14/05 – Mailed I-600
9/30/05 – Final Home Study visit
10/14/05 - Fingerprinting by USCIS
11/12/05 – RECEIVED 797!!!
11/25/05 – mailed final documents to agency
12/5/05 – Dossier mailed to China!!!

Our Decision to Adopt

Soon after we started dating, Jeff and I knew we would get married and have children. Because we were older than your typical newlyweds we decided to start our family right away. Adoption was part of our discussions from the beginning. As the months went by without a pregnancy, we talked about it more and started preliminary research. After a year and a half we saw doctors and were diagnosed with "unexplained infertility" Huh????? So we're fine, just not pregnant. Our choice was to pursue fertility treatments or adopt. We weren't committed to producing our biological offspring and we weren't out to save an orphan. We just wanted a baby.

We came up with a plan to try a few cycles of IUI and then move to adoption if they failed, but as the time approached to start the IUI's, I realized my heart wasn't in it. Jeff wasn't all that crazy about the process anyway, so when I suggested skipping the treatments and going straight to adoption, he was fine with it. The odds verses the cost just didn't make sense when compared to adoption. That same month we went to our agency's information meeting and sent in our application.

It really wasn't a complicated decision.

We chose China for equally logical reasons. Their costs are lower. Their process is faster and more predictable. And because the government controls the process closely, there is no corruption.

It's amazing, really, how practical we have been about something so emotional.

Introductions

Allow me to introduce our current babies.




Chloe (no moth is safe!!), Sydney (sweet, but stupid), and Poe (Daddy's girl)










Nikkie (loves to be near Mama)












Eddie (aka Big Boy, Fuzzy Monster, or the Ground Pounder)











My sweet Bonnie










Nemo and Princess (although we don't know which is which)

The purpose of this Blog

For a few days now, I've been tossing around the idea of starting a blog with my husband, Jeff. I keep reading other people's blogs and have become addicted to any blog associated with Chinese adoption. I see several advantages of having a blog of our own. It's a way to.....

1. show Zoe how excited we were to have her join our family and record how we spent our time.
2. let family and friends know what we're up to.
3. share our experience with others interested in the adoption process.
4. kill the time (this adoption process is a LOT of waiting)

I'm also learning a lot about my computer, photobucket, flickr, iphoto, etc. Lots of fun.

And I really hope we get in the habit of taking lots of pictures. So far, we've let the past two years of our married life go by mostly unrecorded. When we do have our dear Zoe, I hope we can fix that. I may even look into scrapbooking....who knows?

Sleepy Bonnie

This in one of my all time favorite photos of my baby Bonnie. As she gets older, she sleeps more and I'm frequently greeted by this sweet sleepy face

Pretty Picture

51690391_4c4f068008_b.jpg
Originally uploaded by Georgia628.

Here we are in the first months of dating.

This is me and my husband Jeff.

Here is our dog Bonnie.

TESTING.....first blog here.