Spring Cleaning

As I'm sure everyone with kids can understand, we're in purging mode. Thank goodness for garage sales, because it's spring cleaning!

There's something cathartic about getting rid of things, and I have a hard time believing that so much of this stuff fit in our house. Even beyond that, in light of the things that we'll be needing- and babies need a LOT of stuff- I'm in awe of what we thought we needed, what has made it with us from house to house.

Many of you know we had a garage sale two weekends ago- and it was extremely successful. For a last minute venture, we were thrilled to make over $1200! Thank you SO SO SO much to everyone for the donations and patronage- it made such an enormous difference. A special thanks to Tim and Kiersten, Courtney, Brennon, Jimmie, Rob, Jenessa, Katie (and Jorie), and Adnan for their efforts selling our things- they were pricing masters and helped to set up and cleanup so the process went smoothly.

All that said, we still have many things, and we are having another sale on May 3rd! Any additional donations of your goods are welcome and appreciated- we are happy to take your junk! We will keep having sales until everything's gone, so we expect to be professionals by summer. New stuff keeps coming in, so keep checking back. We'll also be trying to post what we have on Craigslist and Ebay in one easy to view format, but we're working on it. And by we, I mean Paul- he's the greatest.

So, visit us again for another Saturday sale- May 3rd at 8 am. Thanks for your support!


Updates!
On THURSDAY, we have our (hopefully) last meeting with our social worker- three cheers! She is lovely, but I am happy to move past this- it's an awkward phase. She'll be doing the home inspection during this visit, so we have spent a LOT of time cleaning. We've also begun baby proofing, and ironically, we've had to make an evacuation plan since the state requires that we have one posted. Yes, even for a baby. (If you were one of the people we told that we'd be meeting at the beginning of May- surprise! We got bumped up. Yay?)

After our last meeting with our social worker, she will write up our home study, which may have to go through revisions; that could take several weeks, but it will be sent to our placing agency in Minnesota, and then we'll move on to the next step, which should be getting things ready to submit to the US government and the Marshallese government.

Another good thing about being close to done with the home study is that we will be able to start applying for grants! This, hopefully, is where we'll get some more funding, and we haven't been able to apply because our home study isn't complete. I've been stressing about this because generally, the waiting is done AFTER the home study- waiting for your referral, then waiting to travel, then waiting to travel again… but in our program, it looks like the waiting will be significantly shorter. (I like to think it's because we waited so long to join the program in the first place.) We will probably still feel like waiting even a week to meet our baby is excruciating, but this also means that we'll need to work on funding pronto- we can't move on to certain steps of the process if we haven't paid for the steps we've already taken. Urg.

Another plug for Just Love Coffee, which we have been thoroughly enjoying. Our favorite has been the Costa Rican blend, but we've been trying something new each time we order. Thanks for your support!

I'll try to do a follow-up post soon, after we finish our meetings. Until then- thank you for your support and love! We love you!

Out of Control

I never thought that I was a controlling person, but apparently I was wrong- and the last few weeks have proved it.

As the teacher of 75 walking hormone fiascos, I thought I was used to accepting that I couldn't control other people, or circumstances. I also thought that I had "figured it out" a really long time ago- or at the very least, when we decided to adopt. Once my body started to go haywire, I realized that there were things out of my control, and I was done learning the lesson, right? Oh brother.

That gem is me, at approximately 2 years old, pretending I was pregnant. My mom was pregnant with my sister, and I went around with a baby in the front of my dress (or stuck in a nightgown, as pictured). I knew I wanted to be MY mom (obviously, because she's awesome), but I also knew that I wanted to be A mom. I never remember a single moment in my life when I didn't want to be a mom- I even broke up with a guy in high school because I thought he'd be a terrible dad. That was an awkward conversation, let me tell you. In all of those moments, the idea that we wouldn't be able to get pregnant never, ever, ever occurred to me. Talk about something you can't control.

Time to make some adoptive parents laugh- I somehow thought adoption would be easier in the sense that we'd have more control! I jinxed us big time.  Not only did we give so much of our control to people we don't necessarily know (our home study agency, our placing agency, social workers and lawyers in RMI, people writing our referrals, people conducting background checks, and so on), but we also have had to trust the timelines of other people.

While I was visiting family in California, we had a paperwork snafu and I couldn't do anything about it. I felt utterly helpless. We have a bill due once we are finished meeting with our social worker, and we're still $3k short. We were waiting and waiting for a phone call, only to find out that it had come in to the house line we rarely check and don't usually give the number to. URG! Can't we hurry it up? Can't everything just go smoothly? Can't we just bring our baby home, for Poe's sake?!?

Really, this is the tip of the iceberg, and I still find myself startled by how out of control we feel- shouldn't we be used to this by now? At the same time, it's so good for us in the long run- such a painful, but good, way to grow. But is it a bad sign that I feel out of control before the baby's even home?


Updates/ opportunities to help:
We've been assigned a social worker, huzzah! It's the last major step for our home study. That's our update on that front.

SUPER SHORT NOTICE! We are having a garage sale THIS upcoming Saturday at 8 am at our place- 13350 Sw Village Glenn in Tigard. Be there or be square! This will be the first garage sale of several probably, but we've got some pretty great stuff. ALSO, a friend came up with a great idea- $10 buy-in for a Friday night preview of the goods! Send Paul or I a text if you're interested.

We're still selling Just Love Coffee, and we've been getting it ourself- it's delicious! I absolutely recommend it.

Thank you again for everything- your love, support, excitement, and well wishes all mean SO MUCH.