One Ocean View

So this show is on. It's kind of an older "Real World" A bunch of gorgeous people sitting around being gorgeous on the beach, in the house, discussing their gorgeousness. I can't believe Jeff is watching this. (Because you know Iiiiii'm not)

I'm sitting here looking up all the new babies online until I hear the word "adopted" from the TV. My head pops up like a prairie dog.

Cute tiny girl says, "I'm adopted."
Sexy sensitive guy says,"Oh, I want to adopt at least three kids."
Hot blonde girl pipes up, "I want to adopt, too!!"

BARF!!!

No crying over spilled milk.

Especially when it happens in the Element!

Years ago I left a shopping bag in my car. It was milk. I kept thinking I smelled something. I thought it was gym clothes, or old fast food. ( I am a serious car-slob.) But it kept getting worse. Finally, I did a search and found nasty curdled milk. It had leaked into the carpet in the trunk of my car. It took FOREVER for the smell to go away.

Today, I notice a smell in my new Element. A quick search once again yeilded leaking week-old milk. The differnce this time it that the floor of my new car is RUBBER. A quick wet rag wipe-down and VOILA! No more mess. No more smell. I love my car.

:-)

Presents for Zoe!

Yesterday I mentioned the onesie from Lisa. Here it is. I wish I could have gotten a better picture, but a professional photographer, I am not.








Here's a detail shot. See the Zoe? Melt my heart! This one will be going to China with us.










And here is my first present from my secret pal. Look! She even addressed it to Zoe. I had it in my mail truck with me all day. I'd take little glances at the envelope and get shivers every time I saw it. (I may be going nuts)





And here is what my pal sent. The theme was "Baby Bathtime" and Zoe got this cutie hooded towel and matching wash cloth. I LOVE the frog. I'm having a frog obsession right now. They're just so darn cute. (If we'd had all the money in the world Zoe's room would be decorated in the "Sir-leaps-a-lot" pattern at BabiesRUs.)

I Love that the little guy on the washcloth has the towel covering his little froggie private-parts.

Running Update

I ran. It hurt. (Although I suspect it will hurt more tomorrow.) And it RAINED!!

The problem with a down-and-back course is that once you get down, you have to come back. I was within sight of my turnaround place when the sky opened up. Oh dang, I was about 2 miles from my car. But all was not lost!

1. The beast is gone, and both Ben and Jerry were spared!
2. I need new running shoes...trail shoes this time!!
3. And I am reminded that Brass Monkey is still a good song to run to.

Emotional Rollercoaster

Don't worry. This isn't a "pity-me" post, but more of an explanation of how crazy this adoption thing can be.

It started with the arrival of a present from Lisa. A darling onsie with my daughter's name on it. I opened it at work and got all mushie because someone was thinking of me and look, there's my daughter's name in writing like she really exists and will one day be with me. This was a happy morning.

At lunch I stopped off home to check e-mail and cool off (it's almost 100 degrees out there!). I checked the Rumor Queen site. (Don't laugh. You know you do it too.) And her site had some bad news out of Australia. The wait may climb to 18 months or more. It wasn't all that shocking. That has us getting our referral in June '07 with travel to China in August '07. To beat that the CCAA would have to issue more than 2 weeks of LID's every month between then and now. At their current pace, that sounds ambitious.

Over the course of our adoption I've had to readjust my brain to the floating timeline. We'll have our daughter in September .... December .... Feb .... June and now August. I can readjust. August sounds fine. I wasnt upset or sad, but instead filled with this kind of resolve. Determination. I thought of all the things I wanted to do before Zoe, but hadn't yet. We'll no more excuses. I've got plenty of time. Life book, quilt, nursery, baby proofing, running, organizing, home imp., etc. No problem. August? OK.

Next day, our stroller arrives and I go shopping for my secret pal. I'm floating on a baby-cloud and the world is good.

Today, as I mail my package I ask the window clerk if our supervisor (who a couple years ago lost his first born at birth) would be trying again. She says, "Don't you know? His wife is due in November." Now, why this would be the trigger for a downward spiral, I'm not sure. I'll just add it to the other babies coming this fall.

August - a boy to my friend who wasn't sure if she wanted a third child, but went off birth control "just to see what happens".
September - a girl to Jeff's coworker
October - a girl to a coworker
November - a boy to a my supervisor and another boy to an old friend
December - a grandson to another co-worker

I'm going to spend the next 5 months being happy for other people's babies. And then when it's over, I'll still have another 8 or so months to wait for Zoe. It's so hard when I think about it that way and made worse when my co-worker says, "So many babies coming and only D's is a girl."

WHAT?? Mine's a girl!! I'm having a girl, too!! What about me?

And Jeff's so cool about the whole thing, which just cooks my goose even more. "Why get upset over things you can't control?" Hogwash.

So now i have an incredible amount of pent up emotion. Something inside me has to get out or I will explode. The beast can be soothed with either enormous amounts of ice cream or beaten into the ground by running until I hurt.

All day I planned on running. I'll go to the park. There are hills. It's hot. It will hurt in a way that feels kind of good. And hopefully the beast will have been beaten into submission and I won't have to yell at my husband for no good reason, or avoid people at work who want to talk about babies.

Oh crap, this is a "pity-me" post, afterall, isn't it?

I gotta go run....and then maybe pick up some icecream.

More flooring!

This weekend was another LAZY weekend. Lots of napping and snacking. We did, however, get one important thing done.

We finished the flooing in the family room. Yeah for us!! We also found a super rug. I think another decoration or two and we'll be able to check this room off, too.


Another angle.



Bonnie's not thrilled with the new floors. Her old doggie bones prefer softer places with better traction. Here she is showing us her preference for the foam underlayment.

Britney....Blugh!!

So, I'm at work today...I'm working thru my magazines. Better Homes. Us. People. And then this scary thing pops out at me. Yikes!!

I work Route 7, and my best friend works Route 8, so we chat it up all morning as we sort the mail.

I scream, "PAM!!, did you see Britney?!" The rest of the office (who works faster than I do) says, "Georgia, we've been talking about it all morning!" Only this picture isn't the one on the actual magazine. The real one has her totally forward facing and you can see her feet. Did you know her feet are tattooed? And she has the ugliest toes ever!

Pam's reaction was, "doesn't anyone love that girl enough to stop her?" It's just so very unnecessary.

Zoe's stroller

Here we have the Quinny Freestyle 4. And we're so excited about it. I like it because it can face forward or backwards. It has a huge basket and folds easily. Jeff likes it because he found a GREAT deal. They've been discontinued in the US and they're liquidating the stock. Also, my ever-stylish man likes that it matches the Element.

Allow me to Clarify...

I have no intention of practicing elimation communication. By the time we get Zoe we will have apparently already missed the prime window for introducing it. I just thought it was fascinating. Besides, Zoe's little world will be totally turned upside down when she comes home. I'm not going to totally freak her out or have any expectations whatsoever.

So no worries, Mom and Deanna, about Zoe letting loose all over your house. We'll have her little bottom wrapped up nice and safe.

Elimination Communication

We will be cloth diapering Zoe.

I'll give you a minute or two to get over the shock.

...........
...........
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Better now?

I'm really not that crazy. I've used them before. Maybe I'm fooling myself, but I think it will be entirely managable and better for us (financially), for Zoe (health-wise), and for the evironment, (duh!) But I know many a mother who thinks I'll try and revert to disposables in no time. Maybe, but those women never tried it themselves. And for day-care and babysitters and outtings, they have such cool diapers as Fuzzi Bunz, Happy Heinys, and Bumkins AIO's....as easy as disposables...sort of.

But as I was searching cloth diaper sites, I came across the idea of "elimination communication." Whoa! Have you heard of this? Parents learn their babies elimination patterns and begin potty training almost from birth. There are babies out there who go diaperless and make it to the toilet, potty chair, sink, or bowl over 80% of the time. Preverbal babies are learning to make sounds like "ssssss" or use hand signals to mean they gotta go.


This explains the Chinese split pants concept.

Our Vacation in Pictures

Before leaving I had a few days home. My major accomplishment was the cleaning of the laundry room. I found it important to mark the moment, because for a short period time every article of clothing was washed, ironed, and put away.
I hope to re-do my laundry room one day. Imagine the cupboards removed (I can't reach them anyway over the machines). The machines stacked on the left side, and the right side filled with floor to ceiling shelves for things like laundry products, linens, or the recycling. I think it's a brilliant use of space!



I'm still not good at taking vacation pictures. Here's the only one I took at Epcot. It's from the car on the way to the parking lot.





Here's a picture of Cape Canaveral. If you look in the distance,( you may have to enlarge) you can see the jut of land where the space center is. We went out the first day the shuttle was suppose to launch. I was excited to see a launch up close. It's old hat to Jeff and Audrey (our niece who came with us) They've seen a bunch of 'em. They used to get out of school for them. Apparently you can see them all up and down the coast. But we made the drive up to Cape Canaveral to get an up-close view. Like I said, I'm all excited. I knew we'd be able to see it from where we were, but someone asked if we'd be able to hear it. A guy turned around and said you'd be able to feel it. Now I'm really excited! I call my Mom! 35 Million Horsepower!! The clock is ticking!! And Then! ....then ...then people start leaving the beach.

Lots of people start leaving the beach quickly. Jeff jumps up, mumbles, "let's go" and starts heading back to the car without looking back. I trot to keep up, still hopeful it might go off. But no... After my huge disappointment we got stuck in a huge traffic jam. bummer.

We later heard about the actual launch on our drive back to Georgia.


Upon arrival back in Georgia, we enjoyed a lovely July 4th feast at Mom's. Lots of yummy stuff. Pigs in a blanket, deviled eggs, delicious cake. And all of it oh-so-patriotic. Mom does know how to do holidays.




Here's another picture of the vehicles we traded in. You can see Jeff seems a bit sad to let the motorcycle go. He never rides it anymore, but I think he liked having it, just in case he wanted to.





I think that pretty much catches everyone up to date on the comings and goings of Jeff and Georgia. I'm not even going to promise to be a better blogger this time. Clearly I can't keep that one. If anything note-worthy happens, I'll be sure to slap it up here, but amazingly, I go days and days without anything exciting happening! Go figure.

The vacation is over....

...but the FUN goes on!!!

We got a new car!!! and I'm still on my new car high. We swore we'd never get another new car. And although we didn't like the truck we had, it didn't make sense to trade it in. (that whole "upside down" ugliness) But while we were on vacation, we visited car lots for fun. (we're dorks like that) While on the honda lot, I saw and fell in love with an Element. You know....the Box. I used to call it a poor-man's hummer. Jeff's family called it a Humdinger. And then we found out we could trade in the truck and motorcycle, too?? Super!!

We weren't home for 3 days before we had one parked in our garage. And might I add, it takes up a lot less room in the garage than that beast of a truck.

Here, enjoy the commercial.....



And if you have a little more time (6 minutes or so) , here's a more thorough tour of our new baby.