More weekend work

Jeff worked hard again last weekend! We focused on Zoe's room and the guestroom. We finished the flooring, put the furniture back and switched closet doors between the rooms. (Don't ask why. Just trust me, it's better.) And we added a few touches to Zoe's room (curtains, rug, light fixture)

Jeff and I marvel that the finished product doesn't really look like we put all that much work into them. But we did.

Here's the pics.


Guest room.


More guest room.


Jeff's great flooring job.


Zoe's room. Pretty much an Ikea advertisemtent.

It's Official

Copied from the CCAA website:

"The CCAA has finished the review of the adoption application documents registered with our office in June 2005.
The CCAA has finished the placement of children for the families whose adoption application documents were registered with our office before May 25, 2005."

So the rumor was kind of right. There are referrals on the way. But it doesn't go anywhere near the middle of June. It's another 2 week (almost) set. The happy couples getting their referrals next week will have waited 9 months. I could handle 9 months. That means September for us. That's okay.

But if 2 week sets continue until we get a referral, it will be APRIL 2007!! So we could get our referral anywhere between September 2006 and April 2007???

I'm going to have an ulcer before I have a baby!

Dang, it.

Wild Swans

What a great day! I laid around until Jeff came home from work. I mean, I did laundry too. But that's about it. I snacked and read and napped. Dang, I love days like today.

I'm reading Wild Swans. I'm sure it must be on Chinese adoption reading lists, but I don't remember seeing it before. I stumbled across it at the book store. It's the true story of 3 generations of women in China. And so far, its very interesting. Right now I'm learning about the beginnings of Communism in China and the Kumintang (sp?) It's modern history I know nothing about.

I think about how the middle and youngest women are my grandmother's and mother's generation. What totally different worlds they lived in. Arranged marriages, concubines, foot binding, unimaginable poverty, and war.

A pretty deep read for such a lazy day.

2 Months Logged In

As of yesterday, we have been logged in for 2 months. In the anticipated 10 month wait, we are 20% of the way there!! Here's a progress report on the goals we've set to accomplish before we get Zoe:

Get Healthy Okay, the exercise is more off than on. And even though we're not actually eating them, we do now have vegetables in the fridge. :-)

Nursery Decorations We are way ahead of where we need to be. Yippee!

Parenthood preparation I'm not sure how to proceed with this one. Parenting classes? Our social worker recommended them. She also recommended getting the book What to Expect the First Year and following along with where we suspect our daughter might be. We'll see..

Learn about China We watched the Chinese New Year marathon of the show Mega Structures. (I think it was Mega Structures) We learned about the Great Wall, the preparations in Beijing for the 2008 Olympics, and the Three Gorges Dam. Amazing. There was also a good episode of Globe Trekker.

Clearly, we have a long way to go. But we're getting there...

Long time, no post

Geez, anyone who might have checked my blog regularly has probably quit trying to find something new here. We've been very busy. Really, we have. Jeff's been working late...something about servers and broken drives. Blah, blah blah. I listen, but I have no idea what he's talking about. I only know it's serious because he's usually home by 4, but didn't get home till 7 or later some days last week.

Not the case with me. There's been no mail. Whooppeeee! I've been home by 2. Okay, so I was more lazy than busy.

But this weekend was a whirlwind of activity. Friday we started on the guest room. I painted trim and vented closet doors. I worked Saturday (again), while Jeff went to home depot on his own to pick a color for the guest room. I must admit, I was worried. Needlessly so, it turns out. He came home and put on the first coat of "distant mountain"

As you can see. He did a good job. I think it will match the bedding very well. Sorry about the crummy picture, but it does let you see how we had to shuffle furniture around and that on Sunday we also got halfway thru laying the flooring.

Saturday night we went to a party with a group of other bloggers in the area. This kind of thing is tough for a shy Jeff and I, but we really wanted to meet other people doing this adoption thing. It was nice to talk to other people going thru the same thing. Thanks for inviting us, Lisa. It was also great to meet Cindy and Brent. (same age, first baby, similar timeline, also suffering thru home improvement)

Sunday night we kind of hung out in the hot tub and recovered.

And today? But it's Monday, Georgia. What are you talking about?

It's President's day, Y'all. As a gov't employee, I must stay home and celebrate the Presidents. Jeff just left for work, poor thing. And I'm going back to bed. I truly need to enjoy today because it's the last in the busy federal holiday season. There's Labor day, Columbus day, Veteran's day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, MLK, and Presidents all lined up before a very dry season until Memorial day. I must make every moment count!!! Back to BED!

Referral Rumors

I have now found 4 adoption blogs predicting another batch of referrals by the end of the month. Oh please be true. They also say the referrals cover a whole month of LID"s. Can it be??? How do they know?

They usually say the rumor starts on the Spanish boards. Since I've been following this (which hasn't been very long) everytime a batch of referrals came out, I heard someone predict it based on what the Spanish boards say. But how do they follow the Spanish boards? And how do we know it wasn't just one person jumping the gun and everyone else jumping on board.

Someone may be searching blogs right now with keywords, "LID, referral, rumor, Spanish" and end up looking at my blog. They may then go to another board saying there's 4 people predicting referrals soon. Multiply that by the gajillion adoption blogs, umteen boards and forums and you've got lots of rumors.

I hope I don't spend the next 8-10 months getting all jumpy like this. I was just congratulating myself for being so calm lately and occupying my mind with other things. Now I'm going to check e-mail lists first thing in the morning...at lunch...when I get home...before bed....


If this rumor is true....that's a big IF. And if the referrals continue at month intervals, that would give us an August referral. SOONER THAN WE THOUGHT!!

If someone made this up, it's just mean.

I'm so awesome

You know what? If you have a bad day (see previous post), just give it some time. It always gets better. Yesterday and today have been great. Sunny weather. Short work days. And lots of progress on the homefront.

Over the past two days I have removed the carpet in our guestroom ALL BY MYSELF. I peeled up the carpet, yanked the carpet pad, and with knee pads, safety glasses and a pry bar, I worked up all the tack strips and staples. Then carried it all out and shop vac'd. Also, we have furniture in there and we've run out of places to take it, so I had to scoot those around as I worked. (Ok, Jeff helped with that part.)

I'm so awesome.

Bummer of a Day

What a bummer of a day. To start off with, it's Monday. Then after many many short-sleeve wearing days this winter, it's actually feeling like winter. My feet got cold. I hate cold feet. AND, it's been raining all day. Actually, not all day. For a little while this morning we had big fluffy snowflakes. It lasted all of 10 minutes.

I know I don't really have a right to complain about the weather. If you're going to be a mailman anywhere in the world, this is the place to do it. It's not Florida-hot and it's not Minnesota-cold. Most of the year, it's just fine. I wouldn't have even minded so much, but I had such a bad day on my mail route.

A customer left me a nasty note. This happens from time to time to even the best mail carriers. There are weird people out there who will complain about anything. But this lady's not like that. We talk from time to time and she's very reasonable and nice. That's what shook me. She used words like "dissatisfied" "paying customer" "happens regularly".

I won't bore you with her problem, but I assure you, it most certainly does not happen regularly. In fact, it never has on my watch. Maybe on my day off, but I can't control that. After 10 years at the post office, I know that the phrase "happens regularly" is something everyone throws in because it's so much more effective than "twice in the past 5 years."

I spent the rest of my route going back and forth between angry and sad and composing a response in my head that was properly apologetic, but also set the record straight. I gave her letter to my boss to straighten out and it turns out she even came to the post office looking for me while I was on the street. Geez.

Side note: I remember my first complaint ever. I had just started and the receptionist at a business complained that I "refused" to take her outgoing mail. In actuality, it was hidden under stuff on her desk and she wasn't there when I delivered. What I don't get is that she must have seen me at some point. The complaint mentioned me specifically as the young girl with short curly brown hair, in denim shorts, with a sleeveless blue gingham shirt, driving vehicle ####. I felt like she was gunning for me. I cried so hard at the time. It seems silly now. (And my hair is closer to blonde, thank you very much.)

Second side note: I know there's lots of bad carriers out there. Everyone has a crappy mail man story. But I work really hard at making my people like me. I have a disease that makes me need to be liked. I also possess an obnoxiously strong moral character that forces me to do good when I'd rather do bad. I can't handle guilt.

Hot Tubbin'

I know we're trying to save money. This adoption thing is pricey. But we decided to spoil ourselves and splurge on a hot tub. We figured with all our home improvements and my renewed interest in running, it's a great way to relax at the end of a day/run.

Since we are saving money, we certainly didn't get the mack-daddy with the neck-jets, waterfall, or the pop up TV. I joke with Jeff that we bought a deep, heated, kiddie-pool. (He doesn't like this) But it's perfect for us. It's in our sun room which is just off the master bath, so I can dash straight from the tub to the shower without going outside!! I'll get a picture of it soon.

The only problem we had is getting the chemicals right. We thought we did everything right and then this green stuff started showing up on the sides. We assumed it was algae and kept throwing in more algaecide. The problem kept getting worse, so we threw in more chemicals. It was only after we called the spa place that we learned it's not algae. It's copper. And guess what, algaecide (the stuff we kept poring in to kill the algae) is Copper!! Now we have to drain the thing, scrub the sides, and start again. Oh well. Well worth it.

Another weekend update

My blog is turning into just a weekend update! I think of things I want to post all the time and then get home, get comfy, and spend my online time reading everyone else's blog! I swear I'll try to get better.

As it is, here's our weekend up date... We bought a new rug for the living room, polished up the old loveseat and it looks so good (I think so, anyway) we decided not to buy something new.


Most of our weekend was spent on the nursery. Jeff did another super job on the flooring in Zoe's room and then we moved the bed and changing table to the new room. Next up...CRIB!

Running

Once upon a time, I could run.

3 miles? Let me get my shoes.
5 miles? Let me get my walkman.
10 miles? Let me get a snack (gummi bears work great)

I haven't done a road race in probably 5 years, but I'm proud to say I did one last Saturday with my friend and old running buddy. We like our waddling kind of pace and don't mind getting passed by power walkers. That and the fact neither of us wants to be the first to quit makes us good partners.

This race was the Polar Bear 5K (1500 runners, joggers, walkers, strollers, and dogs) and was held at a church nearby. At the start, the pastor said a few words about every comeback first requiring a set back. I liked it. I like to think my huge 5 year set back is over and I'm on the verge of a comeback.

I have Zoe fantasies of taking her to races in a baby jogger, then letting her do tot trots, and eventually running together. I know, I know, I can't make her like anything, and by then I may be in another huge set back, but I like to think about it.

The problem with the early phase of comeback is that you start to get grandeous ideas. We hadn't left the parking lot before we'd started planning our next race. And the next day we were tossing around the idea of half marathon in the fall. Hmmmmm.... I think I can. I think I can.

Serious yard work

Jeff and I LOVE our yard for about a month in the spring. The rest of the time, it's just too much to handle.




So the other day we hired my friend and his bobcat to take out our nasty shed and all the beds in the back yard. Here you can see him taking down the shed.




What we didn't know was that our shed was home to this little guy.


After the first wave of demolition, he came scurrying out, but didn't leave the rubble. It was very scary. I was afraid we'd find possum parts. But soon we saw him up a nearby tree where he stayed all day and watched us take his house down. Poor little fella.

We spent the next day laying seed and straw. And this morning we had a nice rain, so hopefully we'll soon have a nice low maintainance lawn.

1 month update

Okay. We have been logged in for 1 month. Our agency says to count on a 10 month wait. So we're 10% of the way there. That's not so bad.

Have we done 10% of the things we need to do before Zoe? uhhhhhh.....no. As I read blogs, I see most people are killing time until referral, but truthfully, I'm not sure how we're going to get everything done. The nursery and shopping I could knock out in a couple really good weekends, but there's other stuff we need to do. Are we going to parenting classes? If not, how many books can I read before then. We'd like to learn more about Chinese culture and attachment issues. I need to learn how to be a Mom of a non-newborn. I'd love to knit something for her. It's been a long time since I've knitted anything, so I might need to practice first. The home improvement stuff will never end, but there are certain things we have to do. On top of that, there's baby-proofing, researching child care options, and getting ready to travel. We have a family wedding in April. Are we going to squeeze in another really good vacation, or hunker down and save money? Jeff has a project car and I just started running again. I won't work overtime after Zoe gets here, so the more time we have to earn extra cash is a good thing.

Of course, I want my daughter as soon as possible, I'm just saying the wait isn't so bad. We expected a wait of six months when we first started. I KNOW there's no way we'd be ready by then. (June) This way, we'll be travelling in the winter. And if the wait isn't much more than 10 months I'll get my Zoe in time for Christmas. Plus the added bonus is that I won't have to work over Christmas!! No packages to deliver! And, we'll have time to spend with family over the holidays. How wonderful is that?

Another productive weekend

Our weekend started slow. I had to work Satuday and I didn't get up for the day today until noon or so. But once we got going, we really cranked it out!!

First, we decided to move the nursery to another room. The original one was constantly cold. We thought it was just because we always kept it closed off, but on closer inspection, we found out the duct work to that room is screwy. It will always be a cold room unless we fix the ducts. (And that ain't happenin' anytime soon) So we moved rooms.


The problem??? The new room was a nasty avacado kind of green. I swear it looked so much worse in person than in this photo. Jeff spent Saturday ripping out the carpet and then once I got moving we moved the furniture, shop-vac'd, Kilzed, and rolled the first coat of paint.



Here's the new color (pastel sage) and Jeff holding up the new nursery bedding. We decided the red floral one was just too hard to match with baby stuff. The new one is also from IKEA, but definately more "kiddie." And there's crib bedding to match. Now the whole thing is going to be green walls , pink bedding, and white furniture. I'm so excited to get finished with the nursery.


And! We even shaved the dog. Our poor dog is the victim of our cost cutting measures and now must suffer home grooming. I once took her to a groomer after one of my gooming efforts and, no kidding, she laughed. Very embarassing, but we did just save $50.

Ho Hum....

Things are pretty boring here. There's just nothing new going on.

So, I thought I'd liven up the blog with a picture of my Big Boy

5-spot

Goody Goody! I've been tagged!

I have a few blogs I frequent daily and the rest I catch up on from time to time as I go blog surfing. I saw that people were tagging each other and now I've been tagged, too. I feel so popular. Thanks, Johnny.

What were you doing 10 years ago?

I had just returned from Korea where I spent a few months teaching English. I was suppose to stay for a year, but couldn't handle it. Partly, this was due to my school's director who showed up at our apartment and demanded my roommate and I go out with him and some of his business friends. They drove, they were drunk, and the whole thing was scary. I could have handled him, but mostly, I was homesick something fierce. So I came home and started working at the post office until I found out what I really wanted to do with my life. Well.....if you've perused my blog at all you will know I'm still with the post office. I discovered that blue collar government work suits me fine. You can't beat the security and the benefits. I'll blog about the job some time soon. So many stories.....

What were you doing 1 year ago?

I was trying my darndest to get pregnant. Any given day I could tell you my temperature and every other fertility indicator. We were just starting infertility testing and had just begun to talk serious about adoption. I wish, I wish, I wish we had just moved straight to adoption. I'd have a LID in April and have my referral now. :-( Oh well.

Five snacks I enjoy
-poppycock
-cheese puffs
-chips with salsa and that restaurant white cheese
-hot Krispy Kremes
-Cadbury Creme Eggs

Five songs to which I know all the lyrics
-Anything by John Denver
-Gettin' Jiggy with It - Will Smith
-Baby got Back - SirMixaLot (sorry Mom)
-One Week - Barenaked Ladies
-Cowboy - Kid Rock
(please don't ask me to explain my musical taste, I'm embarrassed enough already)

Five things I would do if I were a millionaire
-quit my job
-hire a contractor
-travel
-plan Zoe's education in private school
-donate half to charity (I have a deal with God for when I when the lottery)


Five bad habits
-eat too much
-make fun of people
-salty language
-get lazy from time to time
-get fussy with Jeff

Five things I like doing
-reading
-napping
-going on dates with Jeff
-watching Jeff do home improvement
-jogging (this one comes and goes)

Five things I would never wear, buy or get new again
-thong
-real fur coat
-body piercing or tattoo
-Precious Moments
-Hummer

Five favorite toys
-shuffle (I'm not cool enough for the whole IPOD)
-treadmill
-digital camera
-dyson vacuum cleaner
-DVR

So here's the deal: Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot.

a la carter
afrindiemum
An Elephant's Gestation
So, it's come down to this
waiting for Zoe

Then select five people to tag:

unfortunately, the only regular readers I know I have are my family and friends. I don't presume other adoption bloggers frequent my humble home. Therefore, I'm only tagging

my sister - Deanna's Diary
and
my nephew - Brian's Blog

It's Really Happening!

Although we talk about Zoe daily, it still doesn't seem real most of the time. It's like when we first got married and it felt more like we were playing house. That's how this is. We're playing.

I think about how we will deal with issues like daycare, racism, and explaining her adoption. I think about how our lives will change. How will we possibly squeeze a baby into our lives? (Although my sister rightfully said it's more like squeezing the rest of your life around your baby.) But it still isn't real.

Now, however, I'm getting more and more moments of reality. It hits me.....I'm going to be a Mom...Me...A Mom. How can that possibly be? The other day it happened when Jeff told me his Mom has started buying Zoe clothes. My first thought was, "Wow, she really thinks we're going thru with this." What kind of thought is that? Of course we're going thru with it. And other people are preparing, too.

It's really happening.

And Zoe already has a pink jogging suit waiting for her in Florida.

Oh, crap.

Apparently, you DO get pregnant after adopting!

I'll never hear the end of it.

Hip Hip Hooray!

WE HAVE A LOG IN DATE!!!!

12/20/05

For those outside the adoption community, a log in date (LID) is the date your dossier gets logged into the Chinese system. It is essentially your place in line for a baby (as weird as that sounds). Currently, everyone with a LID before April 25, 2005 has been matched with a baby already. The last group waited 8.5 months for their match. If that time frame continues, Jeff and I will have a picture of Zoe in early September. Although our agency told us to expect a 9 to 10 month wait, I remain hopeful.

The dining room is finally complete.

The floors, walls, and electrical are all finally finished in the dining room. We loaded 5 boxes of crystal and dishes into the china cabinet yesterday. They had been in boxes for over a year... Progress...