What a weekend.

This weekend we hosted the lastest waiting family monthly party, and the whole weekend was geared around it. Friday and Saturday were prep. Saturday night..the big event. And Sunday...recovery.

I signed us up to host in January hoping that would force Jeff and I to wrap up this home improvement thing we've had going on. I thought the fear of having house guests would be the motivator we need to get cranked up again and fininsh! And we did.....mostly.

Jeff was still laying flooring the morning of the party (I included a pic of him cutting quarter round that morning!) I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared.

In the end, my first grown up party turned out really well. The weather was wonderful, so people could hang out on the patio. We got to visit with people who we've met along this long adoption wait and who's company we truly enjoy. We also met some new people who I hope we'll get to know as well as this long adoption wait continues.

Today we've been super lazy slugs as we try to recoup from the past 2 days of flurried activity. Tomorrow is back to normal.

Lessons learned:
I need to get together with friends more often.
I really like hosting people at my house.
Next time....more beer.

My First YouTube

I love this dog. She snores regularly, and I laugh every time. Also, she has recently suffered home grooming, so be kind. She doesn't know how rough she looks. Sweet Baby.


**UPDATE: I see that YouTube takes some time before it process the video. Lesson learned. Check back later, please.

Sick day

I called in sick today. hee hee. The wierd thing is, I'm really sick, but the PO has me so conditioned I feel guilty staying home when i really am sick.

I used to drag myself to work no matter how sick, but now that i have over 9 weeks of built up sick leave and have been told I won't be able to use any of it when Zoe comes! I don't feel quite as bad staying home as I used to.

Yesterday, I spent the day coughing and sneezing all over everyone's mail. And I'm not the only sickie at the PO right now. I'm sure half the zip code could be infected soon. So....word to the wise, wash your hands after reading your mail. It's icky.

I said I wasn't going to blog about it, but .... I mean .... c'mon! 2days?!! We waited until almost mid-month to get 2 days worth of referrals? I'm not sure what to think.

Either the CCAA has DRAMATICALLY cut down on the number of referrals they normally issue each month, or those 2 days were humongous! And I mean big. There's talk around the internet that the next couple of batches could be for equally small numbers of days. I believe that could be true. Although my agency doesn't share any information on how many dossiers the send, they do say how many referrals they received. And they haven't had any in the past two batches. I believe my agency handles more chinese adoptions than any other and they didn't get ANY in the past two months (except expedited) I think we are in for a doozy of a batch next time. All of those people who should have been spread out over the month of October were clumped together at the end.

I know no one outside the community understands all that, so let me break it down for you. Remember how I thought I'd get a referral in September at the latest? Well, October is looking more likely. November is a strong contender, and rotten stinking December is an actual possiblity. To summarize: I have no idea when I will see Zoe for the first time. If it's really that bad, she may still not even be born yet. I don't see how it could possibly be any later than December, but I've said that too many times to count.

Also, there's other weirdness in the Chinese adoption world. Someone on RQ mentioned a family who requested a girl as young as possible, and they were referred a 4.5 year old. Also, in every batch I hear of more and more boys going to familes who requested girls. Overall, it's still extremely rare, but it does make this pink-nursery-decorating-future-Mommy nervous.

I'm sure it's just the shock of the 2 days, but I have less faith in the program lately. For the first time, I question whether it will actually happen, whether we made the right decision. With almost any other choice we would have had a baby by now. We could still switch to some countries, start all over and be done before we see Zoe.

This is by far the hardest thing I have ever done.

How can I possibly kill the next 7-9 months?

Skimming over the bad news...

We all know the referral news is horrible this month. I'm not blogging about it, because it is just. that. bad! I've had my cry, I'll probably have more, but I'm choosing to focus on the positive, and we do have some good news...

Our Fish are Healthy!!!



The poor little guys have been looking peakish lately. One especially, was looking as if he was not much longer for this world. We didn't think too much of it, because we've had them for some time, and my sister had them before that, and how long can goldfish live, right? So while I was at work the other day, Jeff looked it up, and goldfish can live for 15+ years!!! Who knew! He also found out what was wrong with our little Nemo and Ariel.

Turns out (and I'm embarassed to say) we weren't keeping the tank properly. Not cleaning it enough. Feeding them too much. (Excess food leads to excess poop) And we didn't have enough gravel in there. We've added the gravel, the appropriate chemicals, an extra light to warm them up, and even a lovely bonsai type tree thing. Jeff refuses to have a sunken ship or treasure chest, but he did let me have some sparkly gravel to sprinkle on top the of normal gravel. We also got some live plant pods that we hope will grow soon.

It was really incredible how quickly they perked up, and we're so happy. I know they're only fish, but it's nice to have them there.