Quick post with thanks and pictures

I am at work, so I have to post a quick blog. No – we haven’t had our appointment yet w/ the adoption consultant, but I wanted to say that I was freaking out b/c we needed a slew of photographs to take to our first appointment and – you know us: we love taking pictures of buildings, but of us and other people?! So, I was nervous.

I asked a few friends for some shots to include (of us and of them) and they CAME THROUGH BEAUTIFULLY!!!! I was so touched when I opened my email to find gobs and gobs of great pictures (and some scary ones – uh, Cindy, I won’t be including that “goth” picture from Halloween a few years ago!) THANK YOU for stepping up to the plate, finding pics, scanning pics, etc. It is so helpful – and is so great to know you are there for us through this!


Todd and I have been filling out the questionnaires / writing the narratives that we’re supposed to be doing. Man – this is a lot of work so far! ; - ) I know it will all be worth it, though!

On a side note, we had dinner last night with Shelli… our neighbor who’s awesome, but is moving to Gulfport. They bought a house and closed on it a few weeks before Katrina hit. It was destroyed, but they’re slowly rebuilding (and living in a FEMA trailer in the meanwhile). The movers came to her house yesterday and she was cleaning it the rest of the afternoon. It was so strange to go in there & see empty rooms. I guess it’s sinking in that our good friend is really leaving! But, we’ll have a great spot to go visit. (Todd designed a new house for them on the existing structure & utilizing the majority of the walls and such… but – Shelli’s husband, Scott, is a contractor and he changed it. TYPICAL!) kidding.


Finally – and I’ll wrap – I also got some photos a neighbor took at Girl’s night at our house last week. I’m only including the costume of Crazy Candace… and some of the goulish foods (Eyeball Salad -- and Eyeball (turkey meatballs in the background. More descriptions of the costumes and food are in the last blog.

Fun time was had by all.

Monday before the first adoption consultation....

It's been awhile since I've posted.

Went out of town again two weeks ago. This time - to Charlotte, NC. I have one more work trip this year (a 3 1/2 day tour of NC) and then that will be it for travelling. I really need to talk to the folks at my office about no more trips after the first of the year. According to people we've talked to about adoption, we could get the call that a birth mother is in labor & we need to get on a plane that night!

I don't think I'll get out of teaching classes, but I will ALWAYS have to have a back-up person in the wings in case we get THE call. I can do project work from home -- I'm not worried about that. It's the out-of-town teaching (especially to places that require non-transferrable airfare) that has me concerned.

I hosted girl's night last Thursday. We had a great time. Several people dressed up (I was a cat -- pretty tame, really). A pregnant neighbor's belly was a pumpkin. Another neighbor was a little devil. But - the most creative costume of the evening -- donned by Crazy Candace. Yes, there's another Candice on the street (she spells her name with an -ace). She was a trashy bride -- wearing a wedding dress, torn up black hose, one of those crimped wigs, and makeup running down her face. She was coming onto Todd & some other guy that he was doing some work with in the home office. It was pretty funny. I made eyeballs (turkey meatballs with olives stuck in them & tomato sauce drizzled over)... someone made eyeball salad (button mushrooms, cheese whiz, and olives set in a bed of lettuce), green potatoes, a witches brew housed inside of a real pumpkin, a beef stew housed in another pumpkin, a spiderweb cheesecake topped with a rubber spider, and my locally-famous witches fingers cookies. (They're sugar cookies dyed green with food coloring, shaped as a finger, an almond for the finger nail, and red decorator gel at the other end (like blood). We had a great time!

Friday, Todd's mom came into town. She's carpooling down to Florida with a friend of hers who has also has a home in Maine. We had a great dinner Friday night, went to the art museum on Saturday & to a Japanese restaurant that night, then went to a play and to another nice dinner on Sunday. We had a pretty serious adoption conversation Sunday night. I downloaded the instructions from our Adoption Consultant... and we have a SLEW of homework to do before our meeting on Thursday!! Luckily, I asked Todd's mom to bring down some photographs -- which she did. I just talked to my mom tonight & have asked her to start going through some, but I doubt that I'll have any of our family in time for the meeting. The consultant wants 30 - 40 pics and a bunch of written stuff. Luckily, I have a bunch of written verbiage already. Maybe we can use some of it? I wish I would've gotten the homework earlier! It was emailed Thursday afternoon. I didn't get it 'til Friday, but wasn't able to download it 'til the weekend. There's about 100 pages of stuff to go through.

I suppose I should go & do some homework. I'll write more after our appointment Thursday.

C

Meeting at DFACS

At our group meeting with the adoption consultant Monday, some people spoke about their orientation at DFACS and said it was pretty horrible. We had an appointment last night... and thankfully, the meeting wasn't as bad as we thought.

It doesn't really sound like that little 2 year old girl that's in foster care will really be a viable option -- after learning about how to go through the process / how to go through foster adoption. The mail thing (if she's available for adoption) is that she's in another county.... and our county DFACS office places children in our county only. They say that they rarely cross counties. So....... we're considering the adoption (but not the foster program). I know me. I can't have a kid in the house then send them back to a home where their original parents were abusive or negligent. There's 21 hours worth of classes that we might be eligible for in January -- but our profile will be pretty narrow on the type and age of child we are looking to adopt, so they may choose to train more flexible foster / adoptive parents. We'll see.

I'm crashing early. We're getting up early to pack & go to an out-of-town wedding.

g'night.

Adoption Consultant

Todd & I went to an "Adoption Consultant" presentation with 7 other couples and a single woman. I was such a skeptic going into the presentation. My attitude going into it: We've already spent so much money on fertility stuff.... how come we'd want to pay this person to consult us -- when she doens't actually work for an agency or place adoptive children?!

She made a pretty good case for why to hire her, though. The way she works... she helps you make a profile book (I think that's what they're called).... these are the books that agencies hold onto & show prospective birth mothers so they can decide to choose you or someone else. We were going to make one up -- so it's probably good to get advice on this. Also, she's got links with all sorts of agencies across the country. She says that her clients are called on more often because they're "informed" adoptive parents and are less trouble than someone without the help of a consultant. And - she walks you through the whole process. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

She had a financial person there too. They explained about ways to pay for adoption... we were about to redo our home equity line of credit after the renovation work to the house. Sounds like we should increase the amount & put it on there. ugh. those payments are already killing us! or - there are loans.... like car loans that you can pay off in 60 installments. or - there are legal ways for parents to make gifts to a child and their spouse. the other thing mentioned: tax credit up to eleven grand back on what you spent which will help some eventually. (can't be claimed on taxes 'til after the adoption is finalized by the courts... about 6 months after you bring the baby home -- the agency who places it has the right & will occassionally check in on you. once they determine the baby is safe, they file the paperwork to transfer full parental rights to the adoptive parents) THEN, you can do the tax stuff to offset a portion of the cost. this part was upsetting (the financial part b/c it seems so unattainable). Susan - we may have to talk more about your financing ideas!!

we figured that it would be good to have someone work with us along the way. she has insight into which agencies are good (not just have good marketing materials). she knows which ones have little to no application fees so you can get in on multiple agencies' radar. she knows which agencies to pair you up with in terms of what type of children or what type of arrangement you want with the birth mother. i guess, all-in-all, there is a benefit to her services. we have a meeting with her november 1st. after the homestudy -- it could happen then... or could go longer. she said that, really, it goes as fast as the adoptive parents want it to happen. 99% of her clients from last year had a baby within 12 months. some had them before the home study was complete (she says she has "ways" to get around that).

guess we're going to go for it.
c

community service, carnival, dinner w/ friends, party, website action, hanging out in the pond...

Did a lot this weekend:

We did our neighborhood street clean. We had a small crew but made a big find. There's an area behind a gas station where homeless people are living - have been for a long time. There was an "urban campsite" where a "tenant" living under a magnolia tree behind a gas station was squatting. There were clothes and a carboard bed, but hanging out from underneath the cardboard were all sorts of papers. Legal papers from a bunch of different people. So - we were trying to figure out if they were the homeless person's or if they were stolen. We asked a cop to check it out. I feel like our cops are so in-tune with what's going on. We described where the site was & he thought he knew who the guy was / he said he'd check it out. Don't know what happened, but I am curious!

After that, Todd worked on a project in the back yard - putting stone under the hammock to clean up the area. I went to a carnival. Another community service event, however, a fun one! I'm involved in a couple of different organizations... one at the city level & one at the community level, but both are affiliates of the Keep Georgia Beautiful program. Our county group held a carnival for the volunteers. There were all sorts of games (a water-gun shooting gallery, a cake walk, a dance contest, a pig run with wind-up pigs, putt putt, bowling, etc). I was in charge of face painting. It was fun.

Later that night, we went to dinner at a friend's house... the couple who we went to Italy with. They made us some marscapone pizza and some pear / gorgonzola pizza. It has been a year since we went to Italy with them. Afterwards, we went to an "intern house" party to see a couple of people off -- people who work at my office & who are moving on to new jobs.

Much of Saturday was play. Sunday was all work. It wasn't so bad, however. I started the day working on a couple of pages of our adoption website. I had tinkered around Saturday morning with it. (I got an "inspiring" email from Todd's friend, Bob, out in San Fran who we went to school with. He studied architecture, too, but has been in graphic design & computer stuff ever since school. I think he read my mind -- I was intimidated to start a website b/c of the media -- I'm unfamiliar with it. SO TRUE!) So, I just dove in and figured out a little bit of stuff. I encounted a glitch in the program / crashed / lost one page... but I have 2 so far. Now, I have to figure out how the heck to link them -- and to actually post it on the site. The website builder is an external program / it will have to be uploaded somehow. (Baby steps!)

After getting tired of tinkering on the computer, I put my efforts to use out doors. We had some of the stone left over from the hammock project (we brought a total of 1 1/2 tons of stone to the house on Saturday thanks to the use of a neighbor, Orie's, trailer!). This stone is a mini split pea gravel. In the pond, we had regular-sized pea gravel along the stream and in the bottom of the pond. I was never that fond of it b/c it didn't look too natural. So...... I placed several hundred pounds of mini pea gravel gently into the stream and pond handful by loving handful (as to not hurt the fish) . UGH. Admittedly, I didn't finish 100% of it before dark. I have about 50 lbs of stone left to do today. Both of us are really pleased with the results, though! It looks way more natural than it did before. (Wonder if the pond guys will be upset with us?)

Todd cleaned out the stream with a wet vac (sucking up all of the scum) last weekend. Sunday, he did the pond. There's so much icky brown water coming out of the bottom... but that stuff is oh-so-good for our plants! We're in a total watering ban right now - so we're saving all of the gray water (or in this case brown water) that we can. Barbara, our neighbor across the street (who is an avid gardner) didn't think we should NOT landscape this fall as originally planned; she encouraged us to use our shower water to keep the plants alive. Ok. I'm the "sustainability" consultant. How come we weren't doing this already?! Duh. Todd & I have been taking showers with a bucket in there so we can capture some of the water (especially that coming out of the spigot when waiting for the water to warm up). Barbara's going to give us a bunch of plants from around her pond later this month or next month, so this is a fabulous suggestion!!!

I should go. I wanted to report on the little bit of progress made on the adoption website. Also, we have an appointment today with an adoption consultant. I'm sure I'll have more to write about after that. -- c

Hi. It's me. Finally!

Been travelling again. Went to Savannah for work. That's one of my favorite places b/c Todd & I met there....went to school there.... lived there.... and got married there. I went for a walk by the place we were supposed to get married (the gazebo in the square) and the place we actually got married (the attic of a beautiful historic house). It rained on our wedding day, and I was certain that it wouldn't so I didn't have a back-up plan. Todd & his groomsmen rearranged the furniture up in the attic of the house & we were married up there. Ahhhh.... great memories!

The classes that I taught with co-worker, Kelly, went great. We had two good crowds and Kelly / I taught well together (even though we hadn't taught together before). We went to a party at a restaurant downtown Wednesday night (it was held in conjunction with the Savannah Music Festival).

On Thursday night after class, I got together with Carla - a former classmate from college. We met at a Greek restaurant in Bluffton (nearby town) and talked for hours and hours... catching up. (Oh yeah - I ordered octopus.... it is quite a bit different than what I'd normally order, but it was so good!) Carla and I hung out in college, but honestly - after our talk last week, I've felt closer to her than I have before. I'm so glad we met up.

On Friday night after class, I went to the Jazz Fest in Forsyth Park and caught up with a girl I used to work with in Atlanta. It was a very social week all-in-all.

Got up early Saturday morning & headed home - while my co-worker Kelly stayed the weekend. I'm actually glad I came home. I was sick all weekend. No place like the comfort of fluffy comfy bed when sick. (Apparently I picked up a bug or something while in Savannah.) But I still LOVE that place.... and look forward to going again soon.

I took adoption stuff with me to read / research / write some more thank you notes for great letters we've gotten... but I didn't have a chance to do that while in the low-country. I'm at home from work today & will tackle some of that and try to catch up. Speaking of which... I'll go for now so I can make some progress.

Later. c