Oh my gosh, it’s been so long since I last posted.  I’ve been so freakin’ sick this whole new year!  I had probably three illnesses consequtively since just before Christmas.  I had maybe one week when I didn’t feel like death warmed over, but that’s it.  All the rest was hacking, sniffing and staying in bed.  No fun at all.  I’ve also been so overwhelmed with adoption stuff, house stuff, work stuff, family stuff, church stuff…..just a lot of stuff!  I’m trying to be better at taking one thing at a time so that I don’t get so crazy.  I have a tendency to run away when I get super overwhelmed, so I haven’t been able to make myself sit down and just write!  But I’m here now and it’s better late than never, right?  =)

We’ve been making a lot of movement on the adoption front.  Steve and I had our fingerprinting (digital) done for our I-600A and my mom is getting hers done on Monday.  Steve and I will be going into our social worker’s office tomorrow to have our FBI fingerprinting (ink) done for the home study and I’ll turn in a few pieces of paperwork that we’ve knocked out.  We’ve both finished our potential adoptive parent questionnaires, though I need to check to see if Stephen emailed his to the social worker or if we’re taking a print copy tomorrow.  I still need one thing notarized from my mom (form for CPS check) and I’m not sure if Steve’s given my mom the medical form she needs.  Need to check on that as well.

Next up for us is finishing up the little things that need to be done before the home visit.  Mostly just straightening up, but have to paint the ceiling in N.B.’s room, declutter my office (you can’t see the floor in most places), etc.  Nothing to get excited about, but has to be done!

I’ve signed up and am currently doing Brook Noel’s Extreme Home Makeover: 10 Weeks to the Home You Want online class.  I haven’t been able to keep up with the pace (and I started late), but I’m going through it all slowly and am going to follow the plan.  Just at my own pace, I think!  Like I said, I’m easily overwhelmed and the state of our house has me in a near panic when I try to figure out where exactly to START!  This is helping a lot and I think that over the next couple months, it’s going to allow us to get rid of a lot of clutter and work out a system to keep the house running smoothly.  The idea of getting the house to (mostly) clutter-free and finding a place for all of our stuff to live (so that we can easily clean up) is almost intoxicating.  I want this so much!  I’m really hoping this class will be able to help us get there.

I think the only other news is that I got a hair cut today.  I chopped my almost waist-length hair up to my shoulders.  I think I like it.  It’s only been 2.5 hours, so I’m still getting used to it.  Of course, the real test will be when I try to style it on my own.  =)  The real surprise in all of this is that Eliza’s decided that SHE wants her hair cut shoulder length as well!  If you know Eliza, you know how much she LOVES her long hair.  She calls it “princess hair” (no worries about self-esteem here).  But when I told her I was getting mine cut, she said she wanted hers the same length.  She said she likes it when we have “twin hair”.  =)  So she has an appointment on Saturday to get hers chopped off.  I’m so nervous that she’s going to hate it, but it’s her decision.  Hopefully she makes one that we can ALL live with!

Anyway, I plan to get back on the ball about writing consistently now that I’m finally feeling better.  I’m not really any less stressed or busy, but I really want this blog to be a priority.  For that, I need to be more consistent.  We’ll see how it goes!

Today was pretty productive.  We got all of the out-of-the-house errands done except for Steve’s passport.  We WOULD have gotten that done, but the passport office hours on the USPS website were WRONG.  They closed 30 minutes before we got there, which was 30 minutes earlier than the time given on the website.  Guess they changed the hours.  Boo.  Steve did say that he would go to the one by our house on Monday morning and get it done, though, so that’s good.

While I feel good about getting that stuff done, I otherwise feel like crap.  I’m so tired of being sick.  I got a nasty cold about a week before Christmas, but was feeling much better about a week or two later.  It was a false sense of hope.  I just transitioned from the cold to a nasty sinus thing.  Now my head and face hurt every day, just about all day.  Nothing to promote motivation like feeling like your face is going to fall off.  And kind of hoping that it does.  While we were picking up the family photo and pictures of N.B., we got some sinus meds, so I’m very thankful for that!

Anyway, I think that’s all the adoption news that’s fit to print!  Steve’s hoping to finish his online training tonight (which I didn’t realize he hadn’t finished) and I’m going to finish up the questionnaire from our social worker.  It’s so freakin’ hard!  Questions like, describe your spouse’s personality and describe yours.  What if Steve and I’d descriptions don’t match at all!  Also, things like, describe how you argue and what about?  Uh, I whine and bitch until I get my way?  Oh wait, no, that’s not the right answer.  *sigh*

My goodness, our poor blog has been so neglected!  Part of that is that I work as a web designer and so am on the computer all day.  By the time I get to thinking about posting to the blog, I’m usually over being at my desk and just want to run away from the computer!  We’ve also had a lot going on and have experienced some major and minor setbacks in our process, many of which I’ve written about before.  Writing about them some more would have made them more real and I just didn’t want to think about all of that more than I had to.

Okay, here’s what’s been going on.  We had a bunch of trouble trying to find a time to meet with our social worker for our home study visits.  She was on vacation for a week in November and also had a week of out-of-town training.  Then in December, she was taking the last two weeks off.  Also, she’s only available four days during the week anyway, so trying to nail down a time was a source of great annoyance effort.  Not that it ending up mattering very much because of the storm and the flooding, but still.  We tried to see if we could switch social workers, but they basically said no one would be able to get to us any faster anyway.

The good news is that we’re almost to the point where we can have the house ready for our home visit.  Steve and I both have individual appointments with our social worker next week (1/14!!) and I’m hoping to be able to schedule the home visit for the end of the month at the latest.  It’s my hope that if we can get that done by the end of the month, that the home study will be totally done and that we can send off our completed dossier by the end of February.  This is MUCH later than I had thought back in October, but I’m trying to let go of the things that I can’t control and just work on the things that I can.

We still have a bunch to do around the house, but I’m so looking forward to getting through the home visit.  That’s the only big thing that’s holding up the process.  I’ve made us a schedule (see below) for getting the rest of the home study and dossier documents together and god help the person that tries to hold up my schedule!

Another bit of good news is that we sent in our I-600A (Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition) last month.  It originally was sent back because we didn’t send my mom’s birth certificate with it (didn’t know we had to), but resent it ASAP with said birth certificate.  Obviously we sent it in without the necessary home study.  I’d heard that new changes to the rules might have made doing this a mistake, but today we received our appointments for our FBI fingerprinting!!  Yay!  So as soon as our home study is done, we can send it over and we’ll be way ahead on the process since getting your fingerprint appointment can add 4-6 weeks.

The only thing that’s a bit of a bummer is that they didn’t send over appointment info for my mom.  We called our HS social worker to ask her about it and she said that my mom didn’t need to be fingerprinted.  That didn’t sound right to me, so I called Holt and they confirmed that my mom DOES have to be fingerprinted.  We spent forever trying to navigation the automatic menus of the USCIS and finally got a hold of a real person.  She basically said to just bring my mom to our appointment, but the appointment is smack dab in the middle of my mom’s busiest day at work.  There’s no possible way for her to leave work at that time.  I’m going to see if we can schedule a separate appointment for her, so hopefully that works out!

So!  Good thoughts for quick processes!  Can’t wait to get to our boy!

SATURDAY
* money order for CPS checks from post office
* mail off jewelry orders
* send out state police check forms for Leila and Steve
* send out CPS checks for everyone
* get passport photos of Steve for dossier (already have them for the passport application)
* Steve’s passport application (appointment scheduled)
* talk with Mom about her documents
* finish Potential Adoptive Parent Questionnaire (Leila)
* pick up family photo from Walmart for home study (and proper pictures of N.B. to frame)

MONDAY
* call about Steve’s employment letter (stress need for fast turnaround)
* schedule physical for Steve (try for expedited timeframe)
* get local police clearance letters (Leila)
* get local police clearance letter (Steve)
* send Leila’s questionnaire to social worker

WEDNESDAY
* finish Potential Adoptive Parent Questionnaire (Steve)

THURSDAY
* send Steve’s questionnaire to social worker

FRIDAY
* Steve’s home study appointment
* Leila’s home study appointment

FRIDAY NIGHT
* celebrate progress!