Shut yo MOUTH!!

Oh my gosh, why can't I keep my mouth shut?! Sean accuses me of being a social butterfly, something I don't deny. but man, with this adoption stuff I need to SHUT THE HECK UP!! We got an email from our case worker last week that a case worker in another county wanted us to come for an interview. Never having been through this process before and because we neglected to ask lots more questions, we got REALLY excited. We were thinking that we might be getting kids this weekend. hahahahhaha, uh, no. I feel like the girl who cried "wolf," like every other flippin' day. sigh. I'm so mad at myself. It's like this never ending yoyo thing and oh, maybe we'll get these kids, oh, maybe we won't. ugh. just let me get off this damn ride please. And I tell people. like every time. Just SHUT UP!! but the filter on my mouth isn't working. so I tell people, there might be a possibility, we  MIGHT be getting some kids, we have an interview, etc, etc. And since we have some awesome friends they get excited for us. and then nothing happens. or we get rejected, or we don't hear anything else. Like the kids in Oregon, it's been over 2 weeks. nothing. not a peep, so I guess we didn't make that short list. I guess I should be grateful, since the roller coaster that we will be getting on, once we get off this one will be even more crazy! But it's kinda hard to enjoy anything when you feel like a complete manic-depressant all within one hour. now, the case worker needs to email me back. like, NOW!

Roller Coaster riding

Maybe I should have titled this "Hurdles from Hell." On facebook I posted that adopting children is like running the 400 meters hurdles. I don't think most of my friends on facebook have a clue how hard that race is! They all said, but you're halfway there. (My original post mentioned being on the 4th or 5th hurdle) When you run those or even the 300 hurdles, you hurt at the end. They suck, plain & simple. It's a sprint, but a long one, that has 10 hurdles in it. One time around the track, yeah, it sucks and it's painful. I can't tell you how many times I've hit the last hurdle and crashed, or the third to last hurdle and crashed, or even as early as the second one. I still have the cinders in my knees and legs to prove it. So this adoption "race" is like those hurdles. We had a group in AZ that we looked hard at and the case worker there was looking at us. But the one HUGE hurdle was that the kids are Native American. yep, you guessed it, once it was known that some white people wanted those kids, someone from the tribe stepped up. I just pray that they will be okay and will be happy. And in the 300/400 hurdles that would be like one of the workers forgetting to lower the hurdle in between the girls and the boys heats and you have to jump a REALLY tall hurdle. Yeah, you usually face plant on those. not fun. So we are back at the starting line again. We put our profile out for some kids out west again and have heard from the case worker. We'll see how far we get in this heat (that would be what you call a prelim race you have to win to get into the finals, in case you didn't know ;)) Hopefully we make it to the finals. It's worse than a roller coaster! At least with a roller coaster you know when it will end, and you don't have to do anything, just sit there and take what comes. 

The Doldrums

Yeah, you  know what the doldrums are, don't ya? Officially they are an area near the equator where the wind doesn't blow. Or at least it doesn't blow hard enough to move a ship with sails. And that would be were the phrase, took the wind right out of our sails originates. or maybe it doesn't, but it sure feels like it.It is where the phrase doldrums comes from in relation to going nowhere. And it feels like we are going NOWHERE! Especially after we got an email that doesn't look good yesterday. We are really excited about a sibling group of boys out west and they are part Native American, part Latino. We have no idea where we are on the "list" of prospective parents, but we feel really good about it. And our case worker said we'd be a good match because we really want siblings. pshaw, one kid at a time, who needs that?! we want them all at once! Anyway. So, this group of kids look good for us, then we get an email from our case worker that a Native American woman is interested in the boys. %$^#^@%$#^$& yeah, all those words went through my head and some probably made it out of my mouth. Felt like I had been kicked in the gut, punched in the head, any other little metaphor you want to think of. Needless to say, I feel like the wind has just been taken out of our sails. So we sit. and wait. The tribal case worker has the file, if the woman is a good fit, she gets the kids. I'm have no idea what would make her not a good fit, but who knows. she's native. If my sister could only find the paperwork to prove I am part native american, I'd be bumped to the top of the list. damnit. Sean says he still feels good about those boys and that they will be ours. I'm not as hopeful. But then, I'm the pessimist in this situation.

closer...closer...closer...still waiting

There is nothing new to report. At all. Well maybe some new stuff. We got all the mattresses in, and sheets for everything. We actually found some inexpensive mattresses that weren't awful & they delivered them for free. We got a comforter set for the day bed that makes it look like a couch. It's a great place to read, Sean and I have already tried it out. The sad thing is that we have to keep a layer of plastic over it so the stupid cats, that like to throw up on everything, don't get it all yucky. The girls have even tried it out while they were here. They seem to like it. For them it's a great place to hide from us. At the moment we are waiting for a reply from the case worker in the state were our kids are. Or at least the kids we want are. We are really hoping that we can go get them and bring them home. sigh, but we wait.

Getting ready......to wait

Yesterday Sean and I went to Home Depot and got the plywood for the 2 bunk beds in the "blue room." 1 more thing on our list of stuff that needs done that has been completed. Sean also spent the day putting together the day bed for the girls. That stupid thing takes up half our basement! It is bigger that I planned, but eh, what can we do? We'll make it work. Now I just have to figure out where to put my huge steamer trunk. Might have to go up in the attic for a while, like until we move and get a bigger house. We also did our research on mattresses. sigh, what a pain. We need 4 of them, so we would like to get something inexpensive, but has anyone laid of those cheap mattresses. yikes!! You could get tetanus from the springs poking you. seriously. anyway. We found a couple that were okay and won't break the bank, but we didn't get them, since it was pouring down rain and we will need to transport them ourselves. Still no word on any kids. We've put our profile out there for quite a few groups, but no bites yet. We are hoping that we will get a call this summer. so we are waiting. me, not so patiently :)

in the blink of an eye....

Sean and I went to DC last weekend to celebrate our 8th wedding anniversary. Can't believe it's been 8 years, I feel like we just got married last summer. I guess that is a good thing. Our trip was not as fun & uneventful as we had planned. I booked the hotel online on Hotwire.com a week before we went. We left at 8am, after dropping the dog off at a friends. Then we headed to the temple, no traffic problems, no construction problems, nothing. Got there, did a session, did some sealings, had such a nice peaceful time. Then we went to the hotel. I have this thing with hotels... I don't trust them. Not sure why, might be from when I coached basketball, I NEVER park the car until I know we have a room. Sean doesn't know my rule. Well, he didn't, he does now :) The parking lot of the hotel was a madhouse. I went in and told Sean to stay with the car. He parked it in a parking garage that charges by the minute. grrrrr. I went in to check in, they were overbooked and didn't have a room... grrrrrrrrr. So they said that they would give our money back & give us a voucher to stay in another hotel in the area that was on par with the Hyatt. I'm thinking, ok, whatever, as long as we have a bed. We go back to the car, try to leave and they want 6 bucks for 10 minutes of parking. HA, not gonna happen. I'm driving and Sean is in the passenger seat yell  talking loudly to the guy in the booth. But I have to say, Sean had a point, they didn't have a room, we weren't paying for parking! And if they would have had a room we wouldn't have had to pay for parking anyway. If I would have known he was going to park, I would have talked to the desk so that whole scene could have been avoided. Anyway. We head to the new hotel, check in, and head to our room. yyeeaaaaa. We open the door and both of us just stand there.... it's got a DOUBLE bed. And since Sean and I are such small people at over 6' tall...... And of course my battery died in the camera so I couldn't even take a picture to show the minuteness. There was only enough room on each side of the bed to walk. At the end of the bed, same thing,  there was a space big enough to walk through and then the dresser with the TV on top of it. And then the bathroom. I think the room was maybe 10' x10' and that included the bathroom. So we dropped the bags, headed back to the front desk, told them the problem, and got nowhere. They told us that the Hyatt hadn't called them about what rooms where available and the one that we got is one that they usually give to single business people or to employees that have to stay on site for some reason. fun, I tell ya. The girl at the front desk told us she would call around and see if there was anything available while we went out to dinner with the nieces and nephew. When we got back...nothing. It seems that DC is a super busy place on Memorial Day weekend and rooms are hard to find. Well, now we know!
Another eye opening/blinking moment was a call we got on Friday before we were supposed to leave. Sean and I have been kind of lollygagging in the painting, setting up the rooms department. We've been thinking that we'd get to it eventually, we have time.....blah, blah, blag. Lazy is probably a better word :) So we got a phone call on Friday asking if we wanted to come pick up 2 girls, ages 2 & 6.....like NOW. Needless to say after praying about it, Sean and I felt that those girls were not our children and we didn't go get them. BUT, it opened our eyes to the fact that we could get a call any day and have to come pick up our kids. yikes! We were not prepared. So when we returned on Sunday we put the first coat of paint on the other room and on Monday I put the second coat on. All painted and reset. So now all we need is 4 mattresses to go on the new beds we have. We also have to put up the day/trundle bed, but we can do that some evening, since there aren't any more new shoes until September. We are hoping that by next week we will have all that done. I was able to empty some space out of the closets by getting rid of a bunch of stuff I was hoarding in the garage. I finally got sick enough of it sitting there that I took it to the Goodwill. Then I went to Target and bought metal shelves and 4 Rubbermaid containers. Hmm, I need a photo of that. The garage is now nice & neat and I was able to move stuff from the closets out to the shelf in the garage, mostly the space bags full of winter clothes. I'll need another shelf & more containers, but for now what I have works. Our first priority is some beds, then it's onto my obsessive organizing :) Hopefully this means soon we will have a houseful of kids. We can hope, right?!