Quick Update and Holiday Wishes

Well the seasons are changing since I last posted, I have been around but I really haven’t had much to report. Our fingerprints never surfaced and no one from the RCMP called me back...so we are going to have to redo them and all the other documents (police clearance, medical reports ect.) and finish the homestudy. We are waiting until the new year as with the holidays and I changed jobs it’s been a little too stressful...

That’s right I changed jobs...I successfully competed and won a promotion to a different federal department and I started last Monday...so that has been a huge adjustment. This position is a managerial position with staff reporting to me ...eeek! I’m sure it will be great once I get used to the role.

Christmas is coming next week, so we are leaving for my parent’s this week for a short visit.(finger’s crossed for good weather). I’m nowhere near ready for Christmas...there will be some last minute shopping in N.C... hoping the deals are good. Also spending some time with my parents as they were unable to come up this year as orginally planned.

We got a major dump of snow here yesterday...at home I received more than 50 cm of snow (yup that’s 5-0! Or half a metre!!!) Last night we drove home from spending the afternoon with my sister only to find that our "snow guy" never showed and we subsequently got stuck at the end of or drive way! He’s so fired!!! we did get the number of another guy who promptly arrived half and hour after we called and dug us out...we also inquired about hiring his services for the rest of the year...he gave us a price and we are considering it, but my DH wants to speak with our snow guy to find out why he didn’t do the snow, in case he has a reason... not holding my breath though cause when my DH called him as we were stuck at the end of the driveway...his wife advised my DH that he was sleeping!!!!
Anyways...wishing you and yours a safe and warm holiday season and peace for the coming year!.....Cheers!

An Eeyore kind of day...ho hum and kinda gloomy

No, not the weather, more like me....

Okay…..so I’ve been away for a while, well not really I’ve been checking out the blogs I follow almost every day…it’s just that I have no news….fingerprints are still nowhere to be found….I’ve been waiting for them for over 4 months and I’m beginning to fell they got lost…although I’m not entirely sure how as they were taken electronically and emailed directly to the RCMP (the company who does it in my city offers this service at no extra charge)….I did it this was explicitly so they wouldn’t get lost….but now I’m really concerned. I’m going to have to see if they can be tracked down next week…all my other docs are expiring and I’m still waiting for the blasted fingerprints!!!!!!!!

I’m feeling really discouraged about this process right now…I feel like as much work as I put into it I am worried at the end I will be told there is no child for me……

Summer Reading List...

I got this from Sebrina over at 4 Little Birdies and since we are in the dog days of summer, I thought I would look at the list to see how much of it I've read...not bad but I have a few to read.

Bold the ones you’ve read. Italicize the ones you want to read. Leave blank the ones that you aren’t interested in. Movies don’t count.

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon) - Tried and hated it.
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban(Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25 . Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt) An all time favorite.
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne Du Maurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams) - Hated it!I couldn't get into talking animals!
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

If only someone could get my fingerprints moving!

Well things have come to a standstill. We are waiting for our fingerprints from the RCMP and we have been since they were sent electronically on June 1st. I keep telling my self the will come soon, but there is a part of me that starts to panic, wondering if they got lost in the mail…I really hope they arrive soon, ‘cause we can really finish up until they arrive.

We did however, last weekend go and pick up the nursery furniture from out good friend L. The one mentioned in previous posts with the two boys from VN and Korea. They are moving into there new beautiful home ahs she had offered us the furniture. To our surprise there were 4 garbage bags of toys and she said there are more once they empty out the storage facility. She also offered us all the boys snow suits and some of the really good quality clothes (even though we are going for a girl, not everything has to be pink or girly). Her offerings will save us so much money!

Our short vacation has become a distant memory, but I got really annoyed because my Director, he got annoyed that I took time of and was sarcastically questioning when else I would be off this summer. I of course looked at him and said I was only gone for 4 days and that was the only time I was taking off this summer…grrrr!

My sister had her baby on Monday. It’s a girl, so that makes 2 girls for my sister T. She named her after me. I am really honoured….She’s beautiful…


So far the week isn’t too bad, but I just wish the finger prints would come in…then I can breath again!

As the world turns...

Well we have one more “office” homestudy appointment and the “home” homestudy visit. We have done our medicals, had our fingerprints taken. (we are awaiting them from the RCMP) We have provided names for our references. Everything apprears o be coming together, so we decided to go for a holiday…okay we are going to visit my parents for a few days next week. My dh wanted a real holiday, but I really didn’t want to spend too much money so down to my parents it is (him grumbling all the way). When we come back, hopefully our fingerprints will be in and we can finish up the homestudy….stay tuned…

Ten Childhood Memories…..

Ten Childhood Memories…..as tagged by Kate

1. Thinking my 4 year old kindergarten French teacher was a monster…And when she’d talk to me, I’d yell “Monster! Monster! Monster!!!! “ (Who’d a thunk I’d be fluently bilingual today!)

2. Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa. My family and my Aunt’s family would all go over and open presents and have a BIG Turkey dinner. Grandma would have put together huge “care packages” for the four grandkids to open…I always remember the gum...and the ugly matching dresses for me and my sister.

3. The Christmas (1986?) we had a bad ice storm overnight; my dad went outside and cooked breakfast in our trailer. I remember how beautiful the trees looked encased in ice.

4. Carp Fair with my sister and my mother. We went on the spinning teacup ride and my mother puked all the way home.

5. Going up to Grandma and Grandpa’s trailer, during the summer. I remember the time I fell in the lake (pond?) and my dad had o rush in to rescue me.

6. The time my sister and a friend of ours decided to climb the pine tree in the back yard. I was the only one who was smart enough to put my hood up. I remember my mom trying to get pine gum out of my sister’s hair.

7. Moving out west the summer after grade 6. I was sad to say goodbye to all my friends, but we had a great road trip driving there. Wall Drug South Dakota was a particularly good time.

8. Spending summer with all the neighbourhood kids, our house became the central location

9. Moving back from out west, three years later, we were in a bad car accident, not a good memory, but an important one, I became an incomplete paraplegic.

10. Going to summer camp, all the friends I would make and having fun doing the arts and crafts, leading sing-alongs and performing skits.

Things are moving along…

As the title indicates, things are moving along…Tommorrow we have our third homestudy visit. We’ve done our police checks and I’ve completed my autobiography. We still have to do my dh’s autobiography (notice I said “we”, I’ve been after him for weeks, but he’s passing the buck saying I’m a better writer…he’ll feed me details and I’ll do the creative writing), we are going to do our fingerprints tomorrow afternoon and I have an appointment with our doctor the week of the 4th to discuss the medical reports.

The last homestudy visit was exhausting…it honestly felt like two hours of picking on me. Not fun. I’m hoping this weeks is better.

A week that was bad but yet was also good

Last week was rough, we had to put down our wonderful, dear, Mika. Mika was an eight year old blue weimaraner. She had many rough days in her short life, but she was the best. We “rescued” her when her original owners posted her on a board about 6 years ago. (They were having a baby and wanted rid of her!) Up until then she lead a very sad life (in a laundry room). She survived kidney failure and went on to live a happy normal life. She was a wonderful girl who was patient, loving and clever. She was my “baby”, but unfortunately she developed lymphoma, about a month ago and nothing could be done to save her. She was so special to us my husband always said that if anything ever happened to us there would be a battle as to who would take care of her as she was loved by many. We miss her terribly.

On a happier note, we started our homestudy on Friday! We had our first meeting with a different SW. She seems great, very reassuring and she seems to be a good fit with what we expect from the process. We have already scheduled our next meeting for 2 weeks from last Friday! Now we are trying to figure out all the paper work we’ll need to gather.

If April showers bring May flowers…then what do April snow storms bring? Oh and a rant about the SW I called!

I know, I know, I live in Canada, but come on! This was just a little too much yesterday. I woke up at 5 AM to find about 6 inches of snow out there and by the time it was finished there was almost a foot of snow. (Keep in mind the last of the major snow fell in early March and everything had melted and the tulips had started to come up). Needless to say many cars were in the ditch, but not mine…after my shower I looked out side again and decided to go back to bed and call in to work. It should all be melted by the end of the week.

So we are looking for a social worker and so far not much success. We had decided to try the SW that friends of ours used a few years ago as the have nothing but praise for her, but I contacted her and she advised me she was no longer providing home study services…UGH!!!

So yesterday I contacted one of the two that she recommended. Being home I had some time to start calling people. Much to my surprise, the SW said that she would not encourage us to seek a child over the age of one. Her reason was that “the longer a child is self reliant in an orphanage environment, the less likely they are to bond”! I am so frustrated with her response, for one, a child can be adopted at only a few months old and have problems with attachment. Our friends with the two boys are dealing with problems with attachment and their boys came home at 5 months and 3 months respectively. Age is not the deciding factor as to whether or not a child will have attachment issues. It took everything I had to simply thank her for time and ask her to send me her package…although, I seriously doubt we will go wither her but I figured for a comparison.

Needless to say we are having difficulty locating a SW. I’m going to try a few more today, but there are only a handful approved by the provincial government.

Spring is just around the corner...

Alright with spring coming I wanted to change the look of my blog…unfortunately nothing really jumped out at me but this design will have to do…

We are moving forward at a snail’s pace and I truly hope things speed up soon.

We are looking at SWs and we think we have narrowed it down to the one that our friends used for their Korean and Vietnamese adoptions a few years ago (their boys are now 7 and 5).

We had a good weekend, we visited with the same friends mentioned above and L. and I went through some of their documents and she went over the list of documents for the file. It was great to talk to someone who has been through the process and understands. L and her husband actually offered to give us their crib, dresser and armoire and we graciously accepted. (We’re all about accepting baby things that are free!!!)

We hope to get things going soon, we are waiting for the sale of our property to be completed before we start and I really hope that will be soon. (we are subdividing our lot and friends of ours are buying it) Once that happens we cans start moving full steam ahead!!!
…I am so anxious to get started I can hardly wait!!!!!

Just a quick update....

About 2 weeks ago we received an email advising us that the first agency we had planned to go with would not be taking any applications between January 31st and July 31st. This was quiet startling, although we had started to consider the other agency as we were concerned they hadn’t received any referrals...So we took the plunge and sent in the application and initial registration fee to the second agency…So we finally committed to an Agency and the process!

Winter in Canada….

Well I really shouldn’t complain, as winters go, this one hasn’t been too bad. We only got snow about 2 weeks ago and December was much warmer than normal. But…I HATE WINTER. I’m not a skier or a skater so the concept of “fluffy" white snow really doesn’t happen for me. The fluffy white snow quickly turns into crunchy icy snow, treacherous roads and snowploughs….Its the type of weather that makes you want to stay in bed and drink hot chocolate! It weather like this that always make me question why my ancestors settled here and confirm why my parents moved to warmer weather in the Southern US.

Okay enough about the nasty weather….

We are still moving towards starting the adopting in the late spring/early summer. We have decided we will definitely be requesting a toddler girl. We are however investigating a different agency as my husband would like to look at other options as he doesn’t get a warm and fuzzy feeling from the one here in town. It turns out there is one that is just an hour away and so far I have found them warm and they didn't seem ver pushy. (Which was my DH's complaint about the other agency) They have worked as a charity in Vietnam for over 30 years and their charitable work is a primary focus of the organization. They were involved in adoptions before the moratorium and for some reasons their costs appear to be a smidge cheaper.

In other news, my sister is pregnant and is expecting in July (her second). Her daughter will only be 19 months old when her brother or sister is born…
Christmas was good. I was great just spending time with my parents…oh and I hit some killer sales! (Let’s just say I had to buy an extra suitcase!) New Year’s Eve my DH and I celebrated our 1st Anniversary. It wasn’t very exciting. Both of us had brought back a nasty sinus cold for down south and I more than him was miserable! We kept it simple and spent it with friends.

Other than that, not much else is going on….