I was hoping for an update from our agency, but nothing yet, the main Vietnam coordinator is back from vacation, but I'm sure she is extremely busy catching up on everything; so maybe we'll receive an update by the end of the week. Not too much has been going on; I have been on vacation this week. I got some gardening done and planted a bunch of annuals and a couple more perennials. I have a few more to plant and I definitely will be glad to be done, I just do not really enjoy all that digging in the dirt and getting dirty, but I do enjoy the pretty flowers later on, so I guess I just have to put up with the dirty work at the beginning.

I finally found a great way to break my Starbuck's addiction. I have discovered McDonald's iced coffee. I can get almost twice as much for nearly half the price. So for a little over $10, I could get one every work day if I wanted.

I just wanted to give a shout out to my bloggy friend, Amanda who is currently in Vietnam with her husband bill picking up there baby girl. You can follow their trip or just see some great pictures of their little girl at Aloha, Baby Moore.

Potpourri

Haven't posted anything in quite a while, but nothing much is happening adoption-related. We did move up a few spots on the waiting list, but that now makes us #156 overall and #93 for those open to a boy. The lady in charge of Vietnam adoptions for our entire agency is on vacation, so we have not received an update and she is off for the rest of the week. If any referral or travel dates, etc. come in they get sent to the designated people, but no updates will be sent until sometime next week.

We also sent in our largest fee so far; we shouldn't have to send another fee in until we actually are told to submit our dossier to Vietnam, which may not be until the end of the year at the soonest. It all depends on how quickly the waiting list moves, so please pray that lots of referrals are received. The fee at time of dossier submission is pretty small, compared to this last one we sent in or those we'll be sending in once we receive a referral and as we wait to travel.

I'll be on vacation from work next week. I'm not going anywhere, but just having some time off will be great. I really need some time; my last week off was right between Christmas and New Year's.

Today was our 1st 90-degree day or close to it. The temperature this spring has been all over the place; just a few days ago, it was near frost conditions over night. Any day now, the 17-year locusts should be hatching and will be visiting for the next month. Some parts of Chicagoland are already seeing them, but most people I know still haven't seen them yet. Hopefully, that month goes by relatively fast and we won't be seeing them again until 2024. At the same time, I don't want to see the warm spring and summer weather go too quickly.

Chicagoland is blessed ... or should I say cursed, with the highest gasoline prices in the entire United States. Some areas of Chicago are in the $3,90's!!! And it is not even summer, yet. Plus with the holiday weekend approaching, I'm sure they will only increase as we get closer to the weekend.

Weirdology

I was tagged by Kelly of Snips & Snails

FOODOLOGY
What is your salad dressing of choice? Italian

What is your favorite fast food restaurant? Steak 'n' Shake

What is your favorite sit-down restaurant? I'd have to afree about Red Lobster!

On average, what size tip do you leave at a restaurant? 15-20% depending on service

What food could you eat every day for two weeks and not get sick of? Chocolate chip cookies from Subway.

What is your favorite type of gum? I'm not a gum person.


TECHNOLOGY
What is your wallpaper on your computer? A picture of A photo of a friend's baby.

How many televisions are in your house? 4, but only 3 work for television shows. The 4th is mainly for Playstation.


BIOLOGY
What’s your best feature? I'm not sure, either my eyes or my hair.

Have you ever had anything removed from your body? My wisdom teeth and a toenail that was ingrown.

Which of your five senses do you think is keenest? Not sure, but maybe taste; I can detect when they have used peanut oil in a recipe, and I hate peanuts.

When was the last time you had a cavity? several years ago.

What is the heaviest item you lifted last? Last weekend, Kevin and I tried to lift some landscaping timbers, but we ended rolling them to where we wanted them.

Haveyou ever been knocked unconscious? Nope.


BULLOLOGY

If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die? Definitely not!

Is love for real? Weird question!!

If you could change your first name, what would you change it to? I've had this name for 38 years, so I am keeping at this point.

What color do you think looks best on you? Purple or red.

Have you ever swallowed a non-food item by mistake? I'm sure I have, but can't think of anything at the moment.

Have you ever saved someone’s life?Not that I know of.

Has someone ever saved yours? , I guess, the doctors and medical staff at Loyola when I had viral encephalitis at 13.


DAREOLOGY

Would you walk naked for a half mile down a public street for $100,000? I highly doubt it!

Would you kiss a member of the same sex for $100? Well, you're not saying on the lips or anything like that, so sure, a peck on the cheek wouldn't hurt.

Would you allow one of your little fingers to be cut off for $200,000? I kind of am fond of all ten of my fingers, as well as any other body parts.

Would you never blog again for $50,000? Well, I could still read blogs and post comments.

Would you pose nude in a magazine for $250,000? No!

Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1,000? No.

Would you, without fear of punishment, take a human life for $1,000,000? Now what kind of sicko would say yes to this! Definitely not!

Would you give up watching television for a year for $25,000? Does watching Netflix on the computer count?

Give up MySpace forever for $30,000? No problem,; I don't like Mypace.

DUMBOLOGY:

What is in your left pocket? Nothing, maybe fuzz.

Is Napoleon Dynamite actually a good movie? Never watched it.

Do you have hardwood or carpet in your house? Both

Do you sit or stand in the shower? That's kind of personal, but stand of course!

Could you live with roommates? Other than living with my own family, no more roommates.

How many pairs of flip-flops do you own? None.

Last time you had a run-in with the cop? The only time I can think of iswhen we got fingerprinted.

What do you want to be when you grow up? A mom

Last friend you talked to? Does my husband Kevin count?

Last person you called? Kevin

RANDOMOLOGY

First place you went this morning? I went out to thebackyard.

What can you not wait to do? Go to Vietnam to get our child.

What’s the last movie you saw? Blow out on DVD last Saturday, which was apretty bad movie. At the show, we saw Night at the Museum about 2 weeks ago.

Are you a friendly person? I try to be, yes.

Now, I need to tag 3 people, so I tag, Stacy of Our Ethiopian Adoption Journey, Jess of Our Golden Child, and Amanda of Aloha Baby Moore

Lucas Needs Your Prayers!!

I recently became aware of this blog http://burakaeyae.blogspot.com about Lucas, a little boy who was burned last week. His mom & dad both have blogs about their family (they recently brought home their two Ethiopian children and have two biological children) where you can read more about it. I have been following his mom's blog, but have been having computer problems whenever I try to view his dad's. His mother's blog is great, so much faith; a real inspiration.

Televison Fun

I saw the following game on someone's blog and thought it looked. I am to go to www.imdb.com and choose 10 shows that I've watched, past and present. You are supposed to guess what shows it is from the key words listed and I'll post the answers in a few days. Here goes:

1. Cat, Space, Family
2. Rich Kid, Graduation, Brother Sister Relationship
3. Competition, Voting, Betrayal
4. Cellmate, Murder, Brother
5. Roomate, Elderly Dating
6. Advertising, Deception, Manipulation
7. Jock, Nerd, High School
8. Hospital, Doctor, Chicago
9. Teacher, Student, Race Relations
10. Terrorism, Federal Agent, Conspiracy

This was harder to do than I thought and I was a TV Junkie until recently. Have fun guessing!

Impossible Question Answer

The question was:

The average American uses 4200 of these in their lifetime.

All of these were great answers! Actually, I can't actually give credit to anyone in particular, but anonymous answered correctly with rolls of toilet paper.

A Mother's Day Vignette

This is a submission to a contest (Favorite Mother’s Day Moment) from a viewer of The Ellen Show:

So, we had this great 10 year old cat named Jack who just recently died. Jack was a great cat and the kids would carry him around and sit on him and nothing ever bothered him. He used to hang out and nap all day long on this mat in our bathroom.

Well, we have 3 kids and at the time of this story they were 4 years old, 3 years old and 1 year old. The middle one is Eli. Eli really loves chapstick. LOVES IT. He kept asking to use my chapstick and then losing it. So finally one day I showed him where in the bathroom I keep my chapstick and how he could use it whenever he wanted to but he needed to put it right back in the drawer when he was done.

Last year on Mother's Day, we were having the typical rush around and try to get ready for Church with everyone crying and carrying on. My two boys are fighting over the toy in the cereal box. I am trying to nurse my little one at the same time I am putting on my make-up. Everything is a mess and everyone has long forgotten that this is a wonderful day to honor me and the amazing job that is motherhood.

We finally have the older one and the baby loaded in the car and I am looking for Eli. I have searched everywhere and I finally round the corner to go into the bathroom. And there was Eli. He was applying my chapstick very carefully to Jack's . . . rear end. Eli looked right into my eyes and said "chapped." Now if you have a cat, you know that he is right--their little butts do look pretty chapped. And, frankly, Jack didn't seem to mind. And the only question to really ask at that point was whether it was the FIRST time Eli had done that to the cat's behind or the hundredth?

And THAT is my favorite Mother's Day moment ever because it reminds us that no matter how hard we try to civilize these glorious little creatures, there will always be that day when you realize they've been using your chapstick on the cat's butt.

This reminds me of a story my mother told me. Before my parents had children, they had a little fur baby (dog). One day my mother found the dog eating of all things, rabbit turds, Well, she gently scolded the dog telling her not to eat those yucky things. Well as my mom squatted down over her, the dog leaped up and gave my mom a kiss, not even quite on the lips, but more on the tongue; my mom ran inside, making funny noises while keeping her mouth open and trying not to swallow. She brushed her teeth , tongue and mouth forever trying to get rid of all the germs from our dog who had just eaten rabbit poop. Gross!

Of course, there was the time when I pooped in her hand when she was changing me and the time my brother squirted her right between the eyes and no, it wasn't with water!

Just Adorable Bedding!

I would love to do a farm theme for the nursery and this crib set is the cutest, I have seen!

Impossible Question

The average American will use 4,200 of these in their lifetime. What is it?

I will post the answer this coming week. Please post your guesses.

We're Officially on the Waiting List!

We have been added to the long waiting list with our agency. Overall on the list, we are about #159; but for those requesting either a boy only or a boy or girl, compared to those requesting a girl only, we are #95, approximately. The number looks undauntingly large. If I am understanding the numbers correctly, than only about 64 families a head of us on the list, are requesting a girl only. This may mean we stand a chance of possibly getting a girl, but usually more boys are available than girls, but there is always a chance, so we most likely won't have an idea until the moment we get our referral. Once our agency feels we are much closer to getting our referral, we will be told that we can work on gathering our dossier, which will be sent to Vietnam.

Approval is Finally Here!!!

In today's mail, we found an envelope from United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. I had expected a much bigger envelope, but once we neatly opened it, I read the printed words that "It has been determined that you are able to furnish proper care to an orphan or orphans ..." Of course, we knew we would be able to furnish the proper care, but we needed the government to let us know that they deemed us as capable in their eyes. And this little paper officially declares this. We can now be added to our agency's long waiting list and do what else, but wait for a referral. As far as I know, we will have to wait 12-15 months from when we are added to the list until we receive what they call a referral. We will get a few pictures of the child, his birthdate, and some medical information.

Just yesterday, we received an update from our agency that they had received a healthy infant boy referral, who was currently 2 months. They are also expecting more referrals shortly.

My First Purchase

I finally decided to make an adoption-related purchase. Knowing it is early in the waiting process, I decided to purchase a shirt for me from www.adoptionmama.com.

In case it is hard to read, it says "Pregnant with Love for My Child from Vietnam". I believe it should be here early next week. Hopefully that immigration approval will be here so,on so we can get on the waiting list!! I am waiting not so patiently anymore!