The House Wins Again!

When I bought my townhouse 6 years ago, my Dad told me some of the truest words I have ever heard. "Shannon, from now on, it's you against the house, and the House always wins!" Geez was he right. From the moment I moved in, it was like, what is going to break, need repaired, or replaceing next? I spent the ENTIRE WEEKEND cleaning my house, something I admit, I hate, hate, hate to do. Not that I'm a slob, but dusting doesn't give me a warm fuzzy inside. I cleaned out the refrigerated, I windexed windows, I got down on my hands and knees and scrubbed the kitchen floor. I bought stuff, like matching placemats and ceramic plant holders and window boxes for flowers. WHY am I doing all this? So that my house looks like something from Better Homes & Gardens when my social worker comes to inspect me. *sigh* I feel like my house put up a really good fight this weekend, and I'm worn out from the battle! I own too much stuff on which dust can collect. ugh.

I have to admit the pressure of getting all this done and the paperwork and the invasiveness of this adoption process is getting to me. I know it will be worth it in the end, but SHEESH. I've broken out in the worst acne I've had since I was 14 and I KNOW it's from stress!!! That's okay though. I mean, if I was having a baby the regular way, all sorts of other things would be happening right? Like the wicked leg cramps my sister is having (so bad she kicked her husband in the head the other night, by accident of course) I mean, what's a little acne, right? RIGHT?!?!?! AHHHHHHHHHH!!!

OK...enough venting. I'm using my lunch break today to, you guessed it, clean the house some more. Tonight I have an appoinment with my social worker, and we will make the plans for the official walk through of my house. I'm thinking within the next 2 weeks that will be done. The visit tonight should be fine. In any case, I'm out of energy to stress about it! LOL which can only be a good thing, right?

Homeland Security

I checked the mail at lunch today. I received a receipt today from Homeland Security saying that they received my application (the I-600A) and I’m in the system and will be handled in chronological order. They said I should get a notice here soon with my appointment to be fingerprinted. So that’s good. I was doing the happy dance at the mailbox! (the happy dance consists of me shaking my butt and singing la la la)

I think this weekend I'm going to try and plant some flowers in my little bity yard. Hopefully the weather will stay nice.

Tag I'm it!

Oh I’m so proud of myself! I figured it out!

Instructions: Press each letter in the address bar of your browser and list what the auto-complete function jumps to first!

A – ABC (more specifically Alias on ABC)

B –Bank of America

C- Calypte one of my more crummy vendors

D – Do they have Salsa in China? One of my favorite blogs to read about adopting from China

E- Ebay

F- http://www.familylabels.com/ Too cute personalized labels. You can even put your DOG on one!

G -Google

H – Hallmark.com (I think I sent a birthday card to someone)

I – well I didn’t have anything for I

J –Journey to Gwen…another favorite blog about adopting from China

K – Kids Today Online, I think I was shopping for cribs and baby furniture

L – Live Journal…a listing of china adoption blogs (anyone sensing a THEME??)

M – maps at yahoo

N - http://www.nathansonadopt.com/ My home study agency

O - Our Journey to Baby Shanahan…other fave blog about guess what? Adopting from China!

P – Pan China Café my new favorite Chinese take out place. Good egg rolls, yum!

Q – Quotations Page

R Red Thread stories http://www.redthreadstories.com/ Karen made me a stalker to this site. If you watch these videos and don’t bawl your eyes out, check your pulse. You might need a heart transplant!

S – SPAFA Adoptive parent support group here in Charlotte

T – The Hunger Site http://www.thehungersite.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/CTDSites Click every day and give food to hungry people! Plus, you can donate just by clicking to help kids get medicine, learn to read, fight breast cancer AND save the rainforest! It’s a powersite! I click every single day!

U – Us Airways. I think I was trying to see how many frequent flier miles I had saved up. It isn’t anywhere near enough to get me to China, let me tell you that!

V – some video on msn. I don’t remember what

W – weather.com

X - http://www.xjdesign.co.uk/agfcshop/eshop/en-gb/front.html A gift from china site (which I wouldn’t have thought started with an X, but there ya go)

Y- yahoo

Z - http://zhongguojourney.blogspot.com/ One last favorite blog about adopting from China. They just got their referral today. Yippee!

(I only put the address to that site because it doesn’t have their real names anyway)

Anyway, apparently I have adoption on the brain! I’m not tagging anyone, this was fun, but it took too long to do.

Criminal Back Ground Check

Well I finally figured out where to go to get a criminal back ground check done. I’m going to go downtown Sat morning and get it over with. Strike that, it’s race week here. UGH. I guess I will wait until next week and go when all the drunk rednecks are out of town. Lucky it’s only $5.00. So far that’s the cheapest thing I’ve had to pay for during this whole adoption!! Anyway, it’s kind of weird to have a background check run on myself, I mean I KNOW I’m not a criminal! But still, I guess they don’t want to give these kids to whackadoos, so I understand. So far, a lot of this process I think should be mandatory for EVERY person who has a child, biological or adopted. You hear too many stories on the news of horrible people who beat their kids or lock them in closets or don’t feed them or something. I’m a big believer of adding some chlorine to the gene pool, but that’s just me.

Anyway, I should be getting an appointment any day now to be fingerprinted for my I-600A. More chances to prove I’m not a crook. Ha ha ha

That’s what is going on this week. That and I’m working on my official letter “petition to adopt”; which is proving to be a lot harder to write than you would think. I’m usually a pretty good writer, but this is just hard. You have to put in all these specific phrases and it just isn’t flowing well for me. Oh well. I’ll take another crack at it tonight and maybe it will just flow right out of my hand this time!

One last thing…I’m supposed to be “tagged” from my friend Erica’s blog. I’m not sure how this works, but so Erica doesn’t think I’m a total dork, I’m working on it!! I think I’m supposed to answer some questions or something. Let me review and I’ll do a whole other post when I figure it out. LOL

Happiness is delivered flowers!

I GOT FLOWERS!!! I GOT FLOWERS!!

Okay, I know this has nothing to do with my adoption process, but my good friend Sara sent me flowers at work today and it totally made my whole day. :-) I mentioned in passing that I had never had flowers sent to me at work before (or anywhere else for that matter) and she sent me some! It was totally unexpected and I've been smiling so much my face hurts!!
It's so nice to be loved!

My friend V (college roomie!) is getting married tomorrow, so I have wedding festivities on the agenda for this weekend. Hope everyone has a good weekend.

I'm still smiling!

Interview #2 CHECK!

My second home study visit was yesterday. It went really well. Great even!!  I really like my social worker, she is so nice, and her daughter came to them from Romania, so she has totally been in my shoes before. And not that long ago either. We talked about discipline and parenting techniques and china support groups. She said I was very prepared, which was really nice to hear. She also wanted to know if I’ve written a will yet, which sounds kind of morbid, but really is just being practical.  So, my next interview is scheduled for May 31.  YAY, I’m halfway done with the homestudy! WOO HOO!

 

In other good news, thanks to the wonders of the internet, I can see that my I-600A form was delivered yesterday May 18.  YIPPEEE!!!

 

 

 

 

What is a Home Study?

People have been asking me what is a Home Study? I think that the name is kind of confusing, because if you never heard of it before you would think it would be someone to come study your home (like your house) right?   So I stole this from my home study agency’s web page. I thought it would be nice for you guys to see what exactly I’m doing here. 

A home study is a report prepared by a social worker, which is based on a series of meetings that take place between the social worker and the prospective adoptive parents. There will be approximately three meetings with the social worker, one of which will be in your home. It also includes a review of required documents, and interviews with all members of the household.  Before the State of North Carolina or CIS can approve an adoption, they want assurances that the prospective adoptive couple will be good parents who will appropriately care for their child. The State of North Carolina licenses certain agencies, and authorizes their social workers to conduct investigations about the couple. The State then recognizes the report prepared by these social workers regarding the acceptability of the prospective parents. Nathanson Adoption Services is a licensed agency in North Carolina for both domestic and international adoptions.

A home study enables the social worker to provide a description of you as potential parents. The home study process helps to prepare you for adoption and gives you an opportunity to raise any issues or concerns you may have towards adoption or parenting.

During the home study interviews, the following information will be collected by the social worker:

·       General information and description of you and your family including names, dates of birth, occupation, as well as background information of you and your family.

·       If you are married, a description of your marriage.
·       You will also discuss your parenting philosophy, feelings about children and adoption, interests and activities, home and community, religion, plans for discipline, financial resources, medical history, criminal records, and the type and age of child you wish to adopt.

·       The social worker will provide you with information and education on various types of adoption, including domestic and international adoption and the different requirements for both.

·       Verification of all documents (see documents section for a complete list) and your letters of reference.

If you have a crazy burning desire to know more, you can check out the whole website here: http://www.nathansonadopt.com/homestudy.php

Anyway, Now you know, and knowing is half the battle. (GI JOE!  Come on, you know you were singing it too!)

 

Post Office GRRRRRRRR!

So, I went today to the post office to mail in my I-600A form. (YAY ME!) I waited in line forever, because of course the policy at the post office is why have more than one person working at a time, when our customers can wait? (grrr) When I finally get up the guy who is working, I explain that I would like this particular piece mailed with a receipt required. He said, well I bet I can talk you out of that. WHAT??? Why would a post office person try to talk me OUT OF spending MORE MONEY at the post office? In any case I said to him “I bet you can’t!” Since this is probably one of the most important pieces of mail that I have ever and will ever send, I’m fairly certain that when I say, I would like a receipt, I MEAN IT! He spent like 5 mins telling me how dumb it was to request this piece of information and he kept asking me over and over are you sure? Really SURE you need to have this? YES moron, I’m sure. That is why I ASKED FOR IT! Sheesh. He finally gave me the form to fill out, which took all of a minute. But apparently that was too long to wait, so he LEFT and I had to sit around and wait for someone new to come over and help me! GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!

The good news is that I got it mailed, and I have my handy dandy tracking number and I should get a receipt back in a few days. I will be stalking the mailbox starting on Thursday. J

The other good news is that I have my second homestudy visit scheduled tomorrow. So that is good. I feel well into this now. I’m making copies left and right of pieces of paper, but that’s okay. I spoke with my home study agency last week on the phone, as they had advised me to go over my I-600A with them before I mailed it in. I spoke with the head woman, Helene, and she asked if I liked my social worker and how it was going. I said how great she was, and how comfortable I was with her (all true by the way) and that I had been nervous for nothing. Helene thought that was great and now I’m going up on their website with the quote “I was nervous for nothing” HA HA HA. Isn’t that funny? Who knew I was quotable?

Anyway, that is it for now. I’ll post more tomorrow after my appointment.

My Favorite Quote

You must be the change you want to see in the world.

Mahatma Gandhi
Indian ascetic & nationalist leader (1869 - 1948)

 

 

I like the implied responsibility of this quote. I can’t change the world, but I can do my bit, right? I have this up in my office, on a little card right in front of my computer, so I can see it every day.  I think it’s a good reminder for everyone.  Stop complaining and DO SOMETHING!   To tell the truth, this quote helped seal my decision to get Emily. (it’s been a favorite of mine for some time)   It breaks my heart to think of anyone growing up without someone to love them.  So, in my own small way, I’m doing something about it.  Wouldn’t it be cool if everyone took this message to heart?  Think what a happier place the world would be then!  J 

 

Just in case you were wondering, this is me! It's not a very good picture, but then again, I hate all pictures of me! Somehow I never quite look like the supermodel in my head. HA HA HA!

LOSING MY MIND!

Apparently doing this whole paper chase thing has caused me to LOSE my MIND. I have become the most forgetful person ever. I’m seriously considering getting myself tested for the early signs of alzheimers. I went to visit my folks this weekend and managed to forget to bring my purse with me. MY PURSE! Which means not only did I drive all the way to Winston with no license on me, I also forgot to bring any money, my debit card, my insurance card. I didn’t even have a lipstick! Sheesh. Then I came home last night and around 10:30 I realized I left my cell phone charger at my mothers!!! This morning I got up, got ready for work, washed all these strawberries and put them in a baggie to bring to work for a healthy snack and I left the bag at home. WHAT THE HECK!?! I thought losing your mind didn’t come until AFTER the baby showed up!!! I’m not prepared to become the most forgetful person. I remember EVERYTHING. My friends have told me many times before that I have an amazing memory, that I remember all the little stuff about the things we did in high school and everything. *sigh* I know that I should cut myself some slack, I DO have a lot on my brain right now. But the truth is this is making me nervous. I have this horrible feeling that I will turn into one of those idiots that leaves their kid in the car seat all day and walks into work thinking they took the kid to day care! OMG!
In other news, I did get my first ever Mother’s Day Card yesterday. J Which…now that I think about, I forgot and left at my parent’s house.
I’m going to get some coffee. This is depressing!

Emily's First Outfit!

I’m buying this cutie outfit for Emily. My friend K found a place that will special make this little outfit for us, and really anyone else that might want it. I thought it was particularly appropriate though for my Emily. J If you want to check out the site it’s http://www.thegoclub.com. The stuff is pretty cute, and definitely different from the norm. YAY!!!

Interview One, CHECK!

My first home study appointment went really well. Stephanie, my social worker was just as nice as she sounded on the phone. It only took about 45 mins with her, and she asked me really basic stuff like "tell me about you" so it was pretty painless. My next appointment is in 2 weeks, again at her office. More interview questions at that one, and she will help me go over the documents I'm gathering up, make sure I'm getting it all done.
The next "homework" project I have is to fill out the I600A form. This goes to Uncle Sam, basically asking permission to bring an adopted child into the country. Apparently in takes a few months to get this paperwork approved here in NC, so the sooner you turn it in, the better. They can't complete it until my home study is DONE, which won't be until like July or Aug. but they can start the process as soon as you send it in. SOOOO...I have yet more paperwork to fill out, and then I get to get fingerprinted (OOOOHH AHHHH, I know you're jealous) and then it's just wait for the home study report. That's about all to report at this time.
Happy Mother's Day to everyone!

Single Moms

My single mom's dinner last Friday was FUN! The women I met were great, adn the daughters I met too cute! Everyone who said they were coming, showed up and everything. They seem like a nice bunch, and they told me not to sweat my home study. They had lots of advice to give out too, but not in a pushy kind of way. We already have our next dinner planned, and one of the ladies said we should have a cook-out at her house. I think its all good. It gives me faith that if these women can be a single mom, so can I!
ON THE OTHER HAND (warning, moaning and groaning to follow) I had dinner with a friend last night (not a good friend) and he went on and on about how stupid it was for me to adopt, how I would be giving up my life and every decision I ever made from here on out would involve my daughter. It took all my strength of character not to strangle them! I mean DUH, having a kid changes your life. You think I don't know that? DUH! I've only been thinking about this for like 18 MONTHS. But no, feel free to give me little pearls of wisdom, like don't tell her she's adopted. WHAT?! You think she won't notice that she is Chinese and I'm NOT?!?!? DUH!
Let me just tell you, that will be the last anything with that so-called friend for many moons. It should not be against the law to smack people who are stupid. Then again, I would spend half my life smacking people, because there are just too many stupid people out there for me to handle! GRRRRR

On a happier note, I have my first meeting with my social worker tomorrow. Hopefully she will tell me that adoption is, as I truly believe, one of the most wonderful things I will ever do. :-)