I hope you all have a wonderful day!

We are heading to my in-laws for an Easter egg hunt (my niece and nephew will be hunting not us).  It will likely be indoors this years since it is freezing here today.  I had fun doing an Easter basket for Steve this year.  I found a bunch of candy from our childhood – candy necklaces, pop rocks, sugar daddy, dots on paper, fun dips, those bubblegum hamburgers and hotdogs, necco wafers, etc.  I figured it was the last Easter for awhile where I would be focused on him so I thought I would make it fun.  My Easter gift was a nice dinner prepared by him last night (medallions of pork with an apricot glaze and parmesan potatoes – yummy).

Happy Easter!

I had no idea that I should avoid the mall on Easter weekend.  I thought “It’s Friday afternoon, most people are at work.”  Apparently more people are on off on Good Friday than I calculated.  There were barely any parking spaces – I almost turned around and went home.  I don’t like going to the mall on a good day.  But I was already there.  Teenagers and people with strollers EVERYWHERE.  I wandered around a bit – since I only go to the mall a couple of times a year (now that my DSW is gone) there are always new stores to check out.  There is a Sephora now but there were so many teenage girls hanging out in there texting their friends that I had to skip it.

I ended up in the food court overlooking the Easter bunny photo shoot.  It was so entertaining I sat there for 45 minutes watching.  People were standing in line for at least an hour to have their photo taken with the bunny.  I would guess 75% of those people had children who were under 18 months old.  The babies were ready for a meltdown after standing in line for that long and then were handed off to this big freaky looking bunny.  Moms and dads and grandmas were on the floor (to avoid being in the photo) waving and squealing and making faces to get a smile out of their little ones.  Most babies weren’t having any of it.  I, personally, found it quite funny to watch.  I made a solemn vow – I will NOT be doing that next year.  Maybe when Sabrina is older.

Overheard in the food court: “No I don’t think you are fat but you should stop wearing pleated pants.  I’m just saying…”  People crack me up!

Memo to the clerk at the mall today:

I understand that telling your BFF about your crazy awesome date last night is really important to you.  I also understand that you are likely getting paid minimum wage and received very little training on what exactly customer service entails or why it is important.  However, when you have a line of 7 people at your register and 3 of those people have whiney antsy children who were just traumatized by the freaky looking Easter Bunny your mall hired, perhaps you can put down the phone and stop asking your friend to repeat herself because you can’t hear over the whining children?  Thanks.

Oh and that tramp stamp peaking out of the back of your pants?  Totally looks like a drunk dude did it with a sharpie on spring break in Ft. Lauderdale.

Sincerely,

Customer #6

I really don’t have much to report but I feel guilty about not posting.

Tuesday I went to Columbus to see my best friend.  She gave me a huge box of baby clothes.  It’s great to buy her daughter cute clothes because now they come back for Sabrina!  She also gave me some other baby accessories.  The generousity of other moms has made prepping for Sabrina much easier.  We had lunch and a nice visit.  And I was reminded that I-70 from the Ohio border to Columbus is the MOST BORING stretch of highway I’ve ever encountered.

Wednesday I got a hair cut.  Figured it might be awhile before I can a decent cut and I might not want to look like a shaggy dog in Antigua.  Then I finally got to Once Upon A Child.  I’ve been wanting to stop in there for ages.  It looks like a fun place!  Sabrina doesn’t need much at the moment so I didn’t really buy much.  I cooked dinner since that’s my job now.  Hehe…figured I better earn my keep.

Today I headed back to my hometown in Ohio.  I had lunch with my step-mom, my sister, and my nephew.  I ran into my old boss and enjoyed chatting with her for a few minutes (and of course I showed off photos of Sabrina).  My step-mom gave me one of my dad’s antique dressers to use in Sabrina’s room so that’s another thing to check off the list.  The car seat arrived today.  I think we have everything we need for Sabrina except the rocker for her room and a high chair.  I have both picked out we just need to purchase them.

There you have it – my last few days in review – exciting stuff isn’t it?  Stay tuned for tomorrow’s exciting installment: trip to the mall and trip to the drugstore.

I’m out living instead of blogging as Carla would say.  I’ll catch up tonight.

I’ve been a little quiet about the details of my fostering trip lately. There has been some drama for the past week surrounding the whole thing and I wanted to see how it would resolve itself before talking about it.

First, I received word from my agency that I might not be able to go and foster. I won’t get into the details because it is an internal issue but thanks to the help of my agency director my trip is still on.

Then, I learned that the house I rented might not be available to me after all. (Thank you my friend for the heads up on that – you know who you are.) After a number of email and some nail biting, I learned that I can in fact rent the house. Again, my agency assisted in this but so did the woman who is handling the rental for the owners. Thank you to all who helped!

Throughout the past 7 days of uncertainty surrounding my fostering trip, I’ve remained surprisingly calm. All of the issues were out of my hands so I let others do their jobs with minimal interference input from me and it all worked itself out. So despite some bumps my fostering trip is on and the details seem to be in place. I’m in this rather Zen-like place right now. And the rose-colored glasses look smashing on me, don’t they?

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My friend Kendra got OUT yesterday!  She’s in my blogroll – go give her some love.

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Tricia’s post today reminded me of my favorite quote.  I always had it hanging in my office when I did case management and therapy:

“Peace is not the absence of conflict from life…but the ability to cope with it.”

Found carved on an ancient sundial.

Today is my first blog-o-versary. (Today also marks 4 weeks in PGN.) I started out reading blogs for adoption information and quickly got sucked into the stories of these wonderful families. I decided to jump into blogging too once we started the process. This time last year I was scheduling our home study and obsessing about agencies and finances. A year later, I am still obsessing about finances but also getting ready to move to Guatemala to be with our daughter. I never expected this process to still be on-going a year later. I never dreamed I would go to foster Sabrina. I also had no idea how much I could love this baby girl. Ten days from now I will have her in my arms forever. This process sucks but wow what a pay off.

And this is me today.  Ahhhhhhh.

What a great Saturday! First, dragged Steve to Babies R Us to buy a car seat. I looked on line and knew exactly what I wanted to get. Unfortunately, they didn’t have it in the store so I had to go home and buy it on line anyway. Steve didn’t understand why I didn’t buy the one they had in the store – but I thought it was boring and if I have to look at this thing for the next 5 years, it should be cute. It makes me smile:

We picked up a couple of outfits and some sheets for the Pack N Play I was lucky enough to purchase from Cathy who just returned from fostering in Antigua. She left it there in the care of another mom so it is waiting for me. Thanks Cathy! I will pass it along to another fostering mom when I am done with it.

Then we had dinner with some wonderful friends. They took us to the Melting Pot – a fondue restaurant. The food was incredibly yummy and the company was fabulous as well. Sharon made this beautiful alphabet blanket for Sabrina:

I am so touched! And how she found time to make this while working and having 4 children of her own is beyond me. They also loaned us some luggage since we only have 2 big suitcases to take down. One of their suitcases is nicknamed “the mother” so you can imagine it will hold lots of stuff! And they loaned us a bunch of wonderful baby things they aren’t using anymore – a Pack N Play for home, a walker toy, a doorway jumper, and a box full of toys and teethers. Thank you guys so much!

And we got another surprise gift in the mail last week for Sabrina. Our wonderful friends J & R sent some books and a gift card for BRU (it went toward the car seat – thanks guys). Tuesday I am heading to Columbus to visit my best friend who is gifting/loaning a bunch of baby clothes and gear that her beautiful baby girl has outgrown. We are blessed to have such great people in our lives!