I want to thank Melissa who nominated me for The Smile Award. I haven't been that great of a blogger for the past several months and I really haven;t been in the smiling mood too much lately. But here are the rules for this award.

Characteristics for the Smile Award:

1. Must display a cheerful attitude.

2. Must love one another.

3. Must make mistakes.

4. Must learn from others.

5. Must be a positive contributor to blog world.

6. Must love life.

7. Must love kids.

These are the rules for The Smile Award:

1. The recipient must link back the the award’s creator

2. You must post these rules if you receive the award.

3. You must chose 5 people to receive the award after receiving it yourself

4. You must fit the characteristics of the recipient of the award, as posted by Mere

5. You must post the characteristics of a recipient.

6. You must create a post sharing your win with others.

7. You must thank your giver.

Now, I have to pass this award on to 5 other bloggers. This has been going on around awhile now, so I may be naming some one who has already been nominated, but oh well...

#1 Melanie - She has been on this journey to her Kaylee longer than most people and is still waiting to find her. In all this, she has always kept positive and is now going to find Kaylee in Taiwan. Her great love of God is what has helped to keep her sane and positive in the past 24+ months.

#2 Tara - he is the 1st person I met at the local FCVN Tet Party in 2007. At the time, she and her husband just received their referral of their son. I have been following their journey ever since.

#3 Megan - Another CHI blogger pal and one I expect I'll be meeting in person. We just recently "met", but she has especially been helpful and supportive in the past couple weeks as we go through all the changes with our agency. We'll hopefully be adopting from Ethiopia about the same time.

#4 Amber - She was my first internet friend, that I met when I went to her son's 1st birthday. She has the cutest little boy and girl and one on the way.I may not keep in touch the way I should, but I really enjoy following the adventures of Payton and Ashleigh.

Now I have to decide who to put as #5; there's so many whom I enjoy following and help cheer me up on a less than sunny day and there have been many of those lately. #5 for The Smile Award goes to Jess. I can't post the link to her blog, since it is semi private, but I met her through Amber #4 and love watching as Caleb grows.

Depressing Thought

Our local radio station has a segment called "The Impossible Question of the Day" and earlier the question was this:

Q: According to recent figures the average person experiences this for the first time when they are 47.

A: Become a Grandparent

How depressing is that for those of either over 40 or nearing it. My parents are 74 and 80 and they have yet to be grandparents and if we get a child in the next year, we won't see ourselves as being grandparents until we are in our 60's or 70's.

Major Changes Again!

More news and changes have been announced and this time it was from our agency. Friday, I got an e-mail from our social worker - SW that it was urgent that she talk to me. So, I e-mailed and left a voice mail message with the best phone number to call me at. She called me back on my cell and of course, I just happened to be outside at the moment, so I told her I'd call her back in 15 minutes, so I could take notes on what she said. I called her back again and was told that CHI was closing the branch offices and only the main office in St. Louis would stay open as a placement agency. What this means is that since they will no longer have a Chicago office, they will be unable to do our home study update for Ethiopia as well as any of our post-placement reports. So we would have to find a home study agency, they had spoken to 2 local agencies and they offered to accept CHI clients. I ended up calling and leaving voice mail messages at both of these agencies; one called me back a couple hours later and the other called me back that evening. We finally decided which agency after some feedback and just a general feeling and things we knew had occurred lately with one of the agencies.

Now after all of this happened, we also all found out that all of CHI Yahoo groups have been closed. For those who aren't familiar with Yahoo groups;. they are like mailing lists, a kind of chat group exclusively for CHI clients. We all feel a great sense of community and offer each other a great deal of support. We are there for each other in good times and bad. Thank goodness a couple people received the news that the Yahoo groups were closing ahead of the time they were actually closed and were able to create their own Yahoo groups for CHI families and then were able to post the group, just before the group was closed and one was no longer able to post. So, I have joined both the general and Ethiopia groups and hopefully we will get back most everyone, who was in the specific groups.

Happy New Year!!

In Ethiopia that is!

September 11th is Ethiopia's New Year, the new year is 2001 (Enkutatash.)Ethiopia still retains the Julian calendar, in which the year is divided into 12 months of 30 days each and a 13th month of 5 days and 6 days inleap year. The Ethiopian calendar is 8 years behind the Gregorian calendar from January to September and 7 years behind between September11 and January 8.

The Amharic word for New Year's Day is "Enkutatash" which means the gift of jewels. History tells us, when the Queen of Sheba returned from her jaunt to visit King Solomon in Jerusalem, her chiefs welcomed her by replenishing her treasury with "inku" or jewels.

The Enkutatash spring festival has been celebrated since the Queen's historic return. As the rainy season comes to its abrupt end, dancing and singing can beheard at every village in the verdent green countryside. Meskerem (the first month of the year) is seen as a month of transition from the old year to the new. Like many Ethiopian holidays, Enkutatash is not exclusively a religious holiday. Modern Enkutatash is also the season for exchanging formal new year greetings and cards among the urban sophisticated - in lieu of the traditional bouquet of flowers (which is now seen as a more rural custom.) It is a time to express hopes and dreams for the future.

Back and in a better place

I'm back and doing much better than I have been in quite awhile. These past few months have been really rough, but I feel as if I'm now ready to get on with my life. Back at the beginning of August I sent in for the renewal of our 171-H and on the 29th, we finally were able to get fingerprinted. Hopefully, it won't take too much longer until we get our renewal in the mail. Last week, I sent for Kevin's birth certificate; it's suppose to take 3 or 4 weeks, since they send it to get state certified also. Actually, I think that it shouldn't really take that long. Last time I got my birth certificate, I took only an hour or less and then when I went to get all my documents state certified, it only took an hour. I'm waiting to hear from my agency's social worker, but next week we should get our home study updated to get ready for when we will be able to formally switch to Ethiopia. Hopefully, things won't take too long.

Frustrated, but it's not what you think

No, not with the adoption, but with clothes shopping. This evening, I went to buy new black dress pants for work. I must have tried at least 6 different styles in 2 different sizes each and I left Kohl's with absolutely nothing, except a feeling of being frustrated. What the heck ever happened with normal trouser dress pants with a high-cut waist. Now, I can't be the only one who does not want low cut hip huggers. Maybe 15 or 20 years ago, I would have worn them, but I no longer have the 20-something body that I used to have; now that I'm quickly approaching 40 later this year. I always have great luck at Kohl's, which is what made tonight even more frustrating then ever.