Vacation Time is Here!

I have tried my best to save as much vacation time as possible in the past 2 years. I have completely driven my friends at work crazy and this week is no different. I just worked four days in a row so that I could have a week off without having to use any vacation time.

Today is the first day of my vacation. I am hoping to get as much done today as possible so that I can relax and just enjoy the last week of summer here at the shore. I have been waiting for this week for the last month. The weather is suppose to be beautiful but maybe a bit cold for the beach. The weather should be about 70-75 degrees. Who knows I might even take a little road trip.

Gerard laughs at me and says you would need to have 4 weeks off to do all the things that you have on your list. I laugh because he is right.

1. Clean and organize the whole house
2. Weed the garden to start to get ready for the Fall
3. Finish a quilt for the baby that I started oh say 10 years ago
4. Make Christmas gifts for my family (My attempt to save money
5. Take a road trip
6. Go to the beach
7. Put the closet organizer together for the baby's room
8. Paint my bathroom
9. Go to the spa for a facial

I think I might be able to get this all done in a week!

One thing that I do have to start to think about is having my home study updated. It expires in Mid October and I would hate for that to hold me up because you know September is around the corner.

So Many Thoughts and Feelings

I can remember back to when I first became an Aunt. The excitment just about killed me. I was 12 years old. See that is what happens when you are number 5 out of 6 children. I swore that once I became an Aunt that I would be there for my nieces and nephews for any thing that they might need.

Even though all my Mother's family lives within 10 miles of me we never really got together much when I was a child. Things are different now but I still remember thinking that I wish they wanted to spend more time with us. Again when you are #5 out of 6 children most of scratch that all of your cousins are much older then you are.

Now that I am older and I understand more I see that it was just a difference in age thing and nothing else. Actually I go to church with one of my Aunts on most Sundays. Every month we pretty much all get together for lunch unless I am so sound asleep that an earthquake could not wake me.

My Father's family was never close to us. They live so far away that this makes it very hard. I can honestly say that I have only half heartedly tryied to maintian the contact since my Father is gone. This past week I got a call from one of my Aunts out there and apparently her Husband (my Uncle) Is very sick. I never thought that I would be this sad to out this information. I guess because once they are gone I know that my contact with my Father's family will be gone completely.

I have cousins that I have never meet. Ironically one is also a nurse. Aside from this little bit of information that is all I know about them. I wonder if I would like them or reversely whether they even think of me.

I would not even know how to get into contact with the rest of the family. Most of them live in Canada or Denmark. My Father immagrated here when he was a teenager.

These are all stange feelings but I wonder if these are similar feelings that my child might feel in respect to his first parents? I think this is something that I should prepare for when my little one is older. One interesting thing was when I was decideing on which country to adopt from Russia was my first choice because of how close St Petersburg is to Denmark. I firgured that when I travel I could hit Russia and Denmark in one trip.

Life is Full of Changes

I want to thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers for Dottie. She is back to her sparkly self. Which is what I love about her.

Well today marks 10 months of the adoption process. Honestly I have put worrying aside because first of all I pretty much know that I will not receive my referral until September 2008. The funny thing about me is that if I now their is a target date I am okay until that date comes. So I have just been plugging along. I have not had much anxiety over the whole adoption lately.

I think part of the reason why I have been so calm is because I know the things that are a constant or at least I thought I did like:

• Name of my agency


• Name of my coordinator


• Memorized the agency's address and my coordinator's telephone number


• That the Dossier is in Russia


• I have done all the paperwork that I can do (At least for now)


• I have the PTO time that I need to travel

I also know the things that are not constant or that are up in the air such as:

• Travel date


• Boy or girl


• Age of the child


• And so many other things that I can not even think of right now

So what has me a touch freaked well it is a little of email that I opened last night. Honestly in the grand scheme of things it is not a big deal. I would rate this on the trauma scale of 0-5 (five being the worst) as a -1. So what is the change my coordinator is being changed. I am feeling a touch abandoned because this is the second time that a coordinator has left me but I am going to pull on my big girl underpants and deal with it.

If you remember back a couple of weeks ago my coordinator's father died. Because I know what feelings go along with that type of news I have been worried about her even though I barely know her. I know that when my father died I needed to take off at least 3 weeks because I was so sad. The year that followed his death was equally challenging. So any time I hear of someone who has lost a parent my heart just goes out to them because I know how important the relationship between a parent and a child is no matter how old you are.

I am sure that those of you who have completed your families can really relate to what I am saying. Those of you who are waiting to either meet your baby or to pick him or her up really want that bond that you may have with your own parents.

So I totally understand that she needs to scale back to care for herself and her family because in the grand scheme of things your family is what is most important in this life not the other silly things. I would like to ask everyone to send up a prayer for Lisa that she is able to deal with all the emotions that she is feeling right now.

As for me I am still plugging along. I think I may even decide to rent that beach cottage that I wanted to rent this year in North Carolina. I love this cottage because it is one that allows dogs to come. The cottage has a fenced in yard and the price is right.