One month down

According to my below par agency, my official log in date is today. Of course, I don’t really KNOW that, because my dumbass agency refuses to contact CCAA and find out exactly when my dossier was logged in, but they are “estimating” that it was one month from my DTC date of Nov 30.   In any case, I can say that my paperwork has been in China one whole Month today, so WOO HOO!  Only 12 months left, plus or minus 2. So its something. I hope the next month goes by just as fast.  

 

 

 

 

BLAME THE NYQUIL

I have a cold, courtesy of my nephew, who has infected the whole family. No big deal, I will live. Last night I took HALF of a dose of Nyquil, packed myself off to bed by 9pm and went to sleep. I had the most horrible dream. I dreamed I got my referral in January. (but you said this was horrible Shannon…hold your horses!)  They referred me a boy. A BOY? But I asked for a girl. Worse still, his nose was on upside down. Like the nostrils were up by the eyes!! He was like a bad Picasso painting. I kept calling my agency and saying I can’t take him, all my stuff is for girl babies! And my agency was TOUGH. Either you take him or you won’t ever ever get a baby. Oh it was horrible. I was freaking out. For some reason the fact that he was a boy was much more upsetting to me than the fact that his NOSE was UPSIDE DOWN, but that is the way it works in dreams, no?  Then my agency told me I had to leave for China TOMORROW, and I was like, you told me it wouldn’t be until next Christmas, I’m NOT READY!!! AHHHHHHHHH. And that is how I woke up.

 

Now I’m shaking off the Nyquil induced coma, and realizing that maybe I do need a whole year more to get ready for Miss Emily. And she WILL be a girl. With her nose on the right way. LOL 

 

 

 

 

My little nephew, in his golf hat. What a cutie pie!  

They're Everywhere!

Now that I am on WAIT MODE for Miss Em, it seems that I see Chinese babies everywhere I go. And not just Chinese babies, but babies with what appear to be Caucasian families. On my birthday, I went to a Chinese buffet here in town, and who was there but one of the single moms from my FCC group with her two daughters? At Mass on Christmas Eve, there was a beautiful Asian girl in a red plaid Christmas dress.   Then last night we went out for pizza, and again, a family with 2 Chinese daughters.  I can feel myself staring at them. It’s horrible. These people just want to eat pizza and be a family and live their lives. But me, I’m greedy for a glimpse of a little girl that MIGHT look like Emily. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not pointing, and I’m certainly not going up and introducing myself and infringing on their time together. But…I kind of want to. I’m sure that in some cases the kids aren’t adopted, it’s just that my own adoption is so foremost in my mind, that I assume all these beautiful children are adopted as well. I don’t want to be an ass and run up and go OH I’m adopting too!!  I mean good grief, you can’t do that!  Can you? No, I don’t think you can. It would be different if we were in a situation where the parents and I were introduced to each other and it “came up” in conversation. But you can’t accost people at restaurants, or the mall or the park or whatever.  I will just have to look on from afar, and wish some of my waiting time away.  As soon as the New Year starts, its time to bust out my project list. Must. Have. Something.To. Do!

 

Christmas in a nutshell

My Christmas was good. I’m very VERY tired today, but it was worth it. Friday I went to Winston to stay with my family over the holiday. Friday night we had a really nice birthday dinner for me and I got a super fabulous DIGITIAL CAMERA!! (thanks Mom & Dad) I’m so excited! I figured out how to take pictures and video in like 2 mins, but I haven’t gotten around to figuring out how to move them from my camera to my computer. Of course, I wasn’t with my computer over the weekend, so I’m sure I will get it figured out here in the next day or two. I’m so excited to be part of the digital age now!

 

Saturday entailed a lot of running around getting things ready for our annual Christmas Eve Party. We also managed to squeeze in going to Mass, which was nice. The party was good, and since I am not a party person, that is really saying something. I did have to answer the “how’s the adoption going” question at least 50 times. But I just said oh next Christmas it should be all done. Which (hopefully) is the truth.  Everyone seems surprised that it takes this long, but it is easy for me to forget that not everyone stalks Chinese Adoption Blogs like I do, or gets emails from an international adoption agency all the time. It’s pretty hammered into my brain that it is a LONG process. But hopefully now that I’ve told them it will be a year, they won’t ask me again for a few months!! (One can hope)

 

Christmas day itself was a lot of fun. We all got up late and opened presents. And we all got a turn holding my nephew, who at 4 months has NO IDEA what Christmas is and what the heck is going on. He was a real champ most of the weekend, even with a little cold. By yesterday he was getting a little cranky, but then again, so were the rest of us!  Christmas day is nice, we open gifts, eat leftover party food (Mary Mia would be jealous, fudge, cookies, and meatballs for breakfast!)  and take big old naps. Then we get up and eat MORE party food and play with all our presents - I got an Ipod Nano, so I spent a lot of time fiddling around with that. It’s soo cool!!!   My sister got me the BEST gift, a calendar with beautiful black and white photos of China. She thought it would remind me of Emily and where she might be and that I could use it to mark down the days until she gets home. It was so thoughtful I burst into tears right then and there and then of course everyone else got teary eyed. Emily might not be here, but she was in all of our thoughts.   It was a really great day.

 

Yesterday we hit Target for some end of season sales. I stocked up on Christmas cards for next year. I love the Target! It was a little crazy in there, but not as bad as I thought it was going to be. I did get almost knocked over by an old woman who was literally CLIMBING THE DISPLAY to get to the top shelf to find another box of Christmas cards. She almost fell on me, the crazy old bat.  I offered to reach up there for her, since I had about a foot on her height wise. That got her down off the shelves, so thank God for my tallness.  I’m all about a deal, but geez Louise! Once you reach 65 or so, you should really take into account hip replacements when going for it!!!

 

Now I’m back at work, trying to focus on getting some stuff done. I really could use one more nap, but I guess I’ll have to save that for later. I hope everyone’s Christmas was as nice as mine!

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Well, I will be out of here for the next few days. I'm going to stay with family and do the Happy Holiday thing. So here's to Christmas Cookies, family dinners, Christmas parties, eggnog and HO HO HO!

I hope all of you bloggy peeps have a fabulous Christmas (or Hannakuh). I wish you good times and fond memories!

I love my nephew! His Mom is pretty cool too. :-)  

Bless Your Heart

I love how in the south we have 2 kinds of "bless your heart" The first kind is the Bless your heart, you or a family member are sick, dying, or insert worst scenario of your life. The SECOND Bless your heart, is Bless your heart, you're dumber than a doornail and it is only by the grace of God you managed to put on your own underwear this morning.   I was trying to explain this to a friend of mine who lives in DC recently. My own family is Yankees, so I didn’t grow up using the Bless Your Heart (either version)  But now that I have lived a considerable amount of time in the South, and of course, I went to Southern Belle U for college, I feel perfectly comfortable using either one of these in every day conversation.  In fact, I find it constantly entertaining to see how other people use this, especially version 2.  Has anyone heard a fabulous version of this they want to share? We could all use the laugh. J 

 

 

Log in and process information

I didn’t think I was getting more info from my agency until after Christmas, but now that the Anti Christ has left, things are improving rapidly.  See below, part of what I got this afternoon. 

 

-----

Hi everyone.  I just wanted to let you know about the members of your Travel Group and what to expect from here on out.  The situation has gotten more complicated as most of you know.  I am going to guess at your referral and travel dates that way things are going today.   This situation could easily change as the months go by.  Reading the biweekly updates that I send out will give you a better idea of the timing of things as your referral gets closer.

Your Dossier-To-China date is 11/30/05.  CCAA has asked us not to call to get specific log in dates.  Instead they have requested that we add one month to the DTC date to get the log-in date.  So, I am going to assume that your official log-in date is 12/30/05.

You’ve now gotten to the next step in the process - WAITING (ugh!!)  At this point, the waiting  time is about 9-10 months.  With the current wait, the timeframe will generally be as follows:

Review documents for updating - August, 2006
Travel Meeting – Early October , 2006

Expected referral – end of October or early November, 2006
Expected travel – December, 2006

Again, CONGRATULATIONS ON GETTING TO THIS POINT IN THE PROCESS!!!

 

So it’s pretty much what I thought it would be. Any further delays in the process could mean that I don’t travel to China until 2007. FABULOUS.  I think I’m getting pregnancy hormones. I want to cry half the day now. Good grief. I don’t think I can take a whole year more of this. They will have to put me on happy pills or something. That or I’ll have to start handing them out to everyone I see daily!!!

 

Favorite song

My new favorite song that I have decided is really about adoption is Phil Collin’s You’ll be in My Heart from Disney’s Tarzan. Check out the video here: Heart

 

If I get an adoption video done, this will be the song I use. I tear up just listening to it.  

 

 

 

Stuff

My weekend was pretty good. First off I got a christmas tree last minute. I wasn’t going to put one up, but then I was at Walmart with my friend Eric and they had trees for $10.00! So I got me a tree. And Eric worked the chainsaw bit and chopped off the branches at the bottom and put it in the stand for me and everything. YAY for Eric! So now it is really like Christmas at my house.  Then my Mom & Dad came down and took me to lunch on Sunday for an early Birthday. We went to this fabulous italian place, Portofinos. If you live in or around Charlotte, email me and I will tell you how to get there. it’s SOO yummy, and not very expensive so you should try it out.  I got all my Christmas shopping done, all my presents wrapped, and I even had time to take a nap. So this weekend was pretty good for me. I did learn my nephew has the croup, which apparently is very icky and causes him to turn into the slime monster. Poor little guy. But he has been to the doc and is doing better. Hopefully he will be feeling much better by Christmas.

 

In other news, YAY for shutterfly!  I ordered prints on Friday and I got them yesterday. I couldn’t believe it only took ONE DAY. I mean, holy cow that was fast. And the prints are great. I got a whole bunch of my nephew and I got a few for Emily’s life book, so that is very cool. I love the internet!  I need more picture frames now. LOL  (Mom, I’m totally going to teach you how to do this at Christmas. You will love me. )

 

I also need to ask you people a question. I see that some of you are part of DTC groups on line. Where do you find those? I’m officially DTC now, so I want to sign up. I need something to participate in. I have 12 long months ahead of me before Emily gets home, so I need some support or something. Or at least some people who understand this particular brand of whining. J So, where do I find these groups? I know you know, so cough it up!

 

All right, that’s it from me for now.  Back to work. *sigh*

 

 

 

 

Bye bye dumb agency woman

I may have mentioned it before, but just in case you missed it, I’m not my adoption agency’s biggest fan. There are many varied reasons for this, but the primary one is that the woman in charge of the China program is evil. Every time I called (which was NOT that often, maybe 6 times in 7 months) she would SIGH with impatience. EVERY FREAKING TIME PEOPLE.  I would be all excited, Hi this is Shannon! How are you?  And I would get this *SIGH* fine. What’s up? Then she would answer my question very rudely, imply that I somehow should have known the answer myself already and that I was wasting her time, or (worse yet) say she has no idea what the answer is and is put out that I’m asking in the first place.    Anyway, the good news came today in an email. She quit!! WOO HOO!!! She’s going to go torture people at another agency! YIPPEEE!!! And the person they are replacing her with is NICE. Like she responds to emails the very same day nice!    I’m doing the happy dance!!!   

 

So that is my news today. I was hoping when I saw the email from my agency they would be telling me my Log In Date, but no such luck. And apparently this is the last notification I’m going to get until January, so there ya go. Anyways, I’m still excited I won’t have to deal with bitchface anymore. And it IS Friday. Plus, my Momma & Dad are coming to visit me this weekend for an early birthday lunch. (Weather permitting) So HAPPY DANCE FOR EVERYONE!!!

 

 

 

December Blues

I have a cold in my nose. I tried to blame it on Shannon, but really she only breathed on me through the phone. LOL  However, half my office has the plague, so I must have got it from one of them. (rats!) I’m feeling better than I sound, but my voice sounds like I ate sandpaper with my wheaties this morning. I think I’ll live, I just really wish I was back in bed, instead of here at work. It’s also raining ICE outside, so it would be such a great day to be hibernating. Oh well.  At least I live in a world that has NyQuil, so how bad can it really get? Hee hee

 

The holidays this year have made me very introspective. I’m kind of like that anyway, but I keep thinking about how this year we have my nephew to love on, and NEXT year, hopefully Emily will be home, or at least I will have a picture of her by then. I miss her. I know she probably isn’t born yet, but still. I think about her all the time. I wonder about what kind of person she is going to be. I wonder what kind of people her birth parents are. Do they laugh a lot? Do they tell silly jokes and dance in the kitchen? I hope so. I do all that stuff; my whole family does all that stuff. We laugh A LOT. We sing songs to each other to wake the lazy one who slept in up (usually its me getting woken up) Mom and I dance the tango in the kitchen. My Dad is always telling jokes.   I’m so excited that I will get to share all of that with Emily. I just hope she has some natural inclination to be silly like that.  I know at some point in her life she is going to look at us and go you people are crazy! But I hope she does it in a light hearted way, while she is giggling. You know what I mean?  I guess I’m a little blue right now. I miss her, I feel kind of crummy, the weather is blech. I want to go to sleep and wake up in the spring.  Boo!

 

 

U2 ROCKS!

U2 is still putting on an awesome show, even with over 20 years together! The concert was so great. I danced, and sang and waved my arms around. I even held up my cell phone, in lieu of a lighter. (I know, I’m a dork, let’s move on shall we?)  The show was at the new Charlotte Arena, which is downtown. It just opened a few months ago and this was my first trip there. Our basketball team plays there, but I’m not much for pro basketball. In any case, it’s a nice place, VERY big, but the seats seemed a little tight. You would have thought in a new place they would have made the aisles bigger or something, but no. And if you were overweight person, you would NOT be able to sit down. Period. These chairs were small they had arm rests. In any case, none of that mattered much to me, one because I fit in the chair (thank goodness) and two because I spent most of the show on my feet anyway! They were GREAT. They played good oldies, like Sunday Bloody Sunday, I still haven’t found what I’m looking for, and With or Without You, possibly one of the best songs of all time! (at least in my book!)  Then of course they played newer stuff like Beautiful Day and Vertigo. The show was great. Bono and the Edge were FABULOUS.  They also added in a whole big thing about Universal Human Rights, and about how we should all promote peace and co-existence. Bono has become quite the political activist. The show was put together in such a way that all the song selections played into this idea of peace and harmony and love your brother. It was a nice message. Since I agree with much of what Bono promotes, it was kind of nice for me to see him using his fame and position as a chance to make many people aware of what is going on in our world. But that is a subject for another post. J

 

As great as the show was, the sound system was a little whacky.  It sounded like one of the speakers blew, and unfortunately my right ear is STILL ringing. I hope it didn’t cause any permanent damage!!  I still feel like I can’t hear properly either. I’m sure it will get better as the day wears on.  Anyway, it was totally worth some discomfort today. What a great way to start my week!!!

 

 

 

Merry Christmas to ME!!

Guess who totally lucked out and got tickets to the U2 show in Charlotte, tonight? ME ME ME ME!!! Someone at work had extra tickets to sell and I snatched those bad boys up. The show here has been sold out for awhile, so I’m THRILLED to be getting these. I’ve been a huge Bono fan since the 8^th grade. I am SO EXCITED. True, I won’t being doing anything else fun for like 2 weeks, but WHO CARES?!?! YAY YAY YAY!!!

 

 

Auntie Shannon, SAVE me from wearing this Santa hat!!  

DREADING the Christmas Party

I usually am a pretty friendly person. I like to laugh, have a good time. SOME people have accused me of being too serious, but they are wrong. J  However, this year, I am dreading Christmas parties. All these people are going to stand around and ask me about Emily and I’m afraid. I’m afraid that I will finally break down and tell one of them to back the F*!@K off and leave me alone. I’m afraid I will burst into tears at the middle of a party because I really want Emily to be home much sooner than the 12 months I’ve been told to expect.  I’m afraid that I will *GASP* Cause a Scene.  I know it’s my fault for telling everyone and their brother that I’m adopting, but I was so excited before. Now I’m just appalled about how some other people act on this information, like somehow this gives them the right to probe into my personal life.  I imagine it is a bit the way pregnant women feel when they go to the supermarket and strangers touch their bellies and give them unsolicited advice.  If I hear one more person say, oh its SO GREAT you’re adopting, I think I’ll have a fit. It isn’t great. I’m not doing this to win a Nobel peace prize. I just want to be a mom.  And you would be surprised how many people tell me this. You would also be surprised how many people think it would be better if I went to a sperm bank. WHAT? How is that better? Baby, Mommy picked out your dad from a book, and he was the BEST ONE. I knew 143756 was the one for me.  Ahhh NO THANKS.

And then there is that contingent of people who just look at me like I’m crazy. Like I said, I’m growing wings out of my back, and I’m going to fly around the world on a moonbeam.  All in all, it just can make me very upset if I let it. Most of the time, I brush it off and get on with my life. But at a party, you’re trapped. There is nowhere to go. I just have to be polite and smile and nod. It kind of creeps me out thinking about it.

 

Any thoughts on what I can tell people at one of these functions? I don’t want to be rude, but I need a pat answer. Something non committal, but polite.  Like yes, hopefully this time next year Emily will be home.  I mean, is that enough of an answer? What about the pushier ones? Ugh. Who has done this before? Anyone??!?! Should I have a list of other topics to discuss, ready and waiting to change the subject immediately? I want to be prepared. I’m big on prepared. It makes me feel better. HELP!

 

A little something to put you in the Christmas Spirit!  

Dossier in China

And now a word from my agency!

 

Hi folks.  I just wanted you to know that your dossiers reached China at the end of November, but we do not have a log in date yet.  As soon as we do, I will let you know and talk about the anticipated wait time for a referral.

If you have any questions, please let me know.

A little slow in letting me know, but this at least is OFFICIAL news, my dossier made it safe & sound to China. YAY!!! The talk about anticipated wait time makes me a little nervous, but I’m set for a 12 month wait, and I’ll keep my fingers crossed it won’t take that long. Wish me luck!

 

 

Girl Scouts Rock

My Brownie Troop is so awesome! These girls continually keep me entertained and amused but last night they really blew my socks off. As part of the “business” part of our meeting we were going over cookie sales. Starting in January its time for the girls to start selling cookies, and of course we reminded them to be safe, go with a parent, not give out their last name, and never EVER go into someone’s house unless your Mom or Dad was with you.  After all that we started thinking about the fun things we could do with the money we earned selling cookies. We set a goal for the troop. (a really ridiculously high goal, but what 7 year old really understands numbers?) After deciding on a party at Chuck E Cheese if they meet their goal, the girls decided that they would rather give their money to people who need it. So they are donating $100.00 of troop money to a family that won’t have any Christmas this year. When I pointed out that they would have to sell 200 boxes of cookies to get $100.00, one of them said immediately, well it will be worth it.  All the other girls agreed, and a few of them offered their own  birthday money up so that they could get more presents for this family. I was totally blown away by the generosity of my girls.  It is so easy to say, especially at this time of year, that kids today are all about materialism and give me, give me, but these girls proved me wrong.  The parents were still at the meeting when all this occurred, so they agreed that if the girls were willing to give up $100.00 of their troop money, the parents would match it. So this Saturday, me, 7 little girls and a couple of great parents are going shopping at Kohls. We have a list, we have $200.00 to spend and we are going to do something nice for a family that needs a little help this year.  I’m so proud of these kids.  I thought when I volunteered with Girl Scouts that it would be cool to teach some girls a few things that I know. I was so wrong. They are teaching me so much more about generosity and compassion and the possibilities of life.  I’m so grateful to be a part of this. Don’t my girls rock? J

 

 

 

Monday Monday

 

Today is yucky. It is cold and raining. It would be a good day to stay in bed, watch tv, and eat grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. Instead, I’m here at work, getting more frustrated by the second. WHY do dumb people work in customer service positions? WHY? Are my standards so high that expecting people to DO THEIR JOBS is just unreasonable? Sheesh.

 

On the upside, I’m only here another hour, and then I get to go home. Tonight I have a meeting with my Brownie Troop which should be fun. We are going to talk about cookie sales coming in January (I’m the Cookie Mom- sigh) and we are going to make christmas stockings with the girls. Next week we are going to visit at a local nursing home and sing christmas carols with the residents and give them the stockings they make tonight. Should be a good experience for our girls. Broaden their horizons a bit. I like my girls, they’re fun and sweet, and very VERY funny. Just thinking about tonight is putting me in a better mood.

OK OK, I'll keep blogging!

I had no idea I had such fans!! LOL  It was really a big warm fuzzy to hear all the encouraging things you guys said. So, I will keep blogging.

 

So here are today’s random thoughts: Do you have a Christmas Wish list? Like what you write to Santa if you were 6? I do! Is it odd that I’m 30 and I still make a list? I’m going with no, its not. It’s very practical and mature. That’s my answer and I’m sticking to it!!  Of course, I don’t actually expect to get any of these, but its nice to WISH, right? So here goes!

1)     an Ipod. I want one of those so bad I can hardly stand it. I could have the music I want to listen to ALL THE TIME. Soo soo cool. Plus, I would look very good wearing one, I’m sure.

2)     A digital camera. I know, I know, its 2005 and I don’t own a digi camera. What is wrong with me?!

3)     A 27 inch tv. I have 19 inch tv in my living room. It works great, but I’ve had it like 8 years, and its time for an upgrade.

4)     Bedroom furniture that matches each other. Frankly I would just settle on a headboard for my bed, and one new dresser, where the drawers all worked.

5)     One of those things that suck up your sweeps with a broom. Do you know what I’m talking about? Erica has one and its super cool. You use a broom, sweep up all the crap on your floor and push it near this thing and WOOOOSH, it sucks it all up!! No more dust pans! Love it!

6)     Apparently, I need a Tide pen. They have magic powers. Check out Shannon’s blog from yesterday!

7)     A personal trainer for 3 months. Preferably a hot, young, straight man. (it’s nice to WISH, right?)  But really, I would settle on anyone who would yell at me enough to get me back in the gym!

8)     A handyman to install shelves in my storage unit. Then I could put more junk out there. He should also be hot, young and straight. And hell, its’ my list, so he shouldn’t be wearing a shirt either.

9)     An email from my agency telling me China has changed its mind, and they are sending me Emily for Christmas.

10)  Peace on Earth. Yes, I’m running for Miss America. Ha ha ha

 

OK…that’s enough don’t you think? What are YOU wishing for? Anything I need to add to my list?