"Easy like Sunday Morning" ~James Taylor

This weekend has been wonderful. It is not only the second weekend that I am not working my second job, it is the first weekend that I have been home on a Sunday to watch football! Football is something D and I enjoy, and I usually miss a fair amount of the games due to my work schedule.

My day started out around 8:30 am, and I was greeted by two rambunctious puppies! I love that they join us for some cuddling on weekend mornings. D made his famous apple pancakes, but I had to eat lightly because I was meeting my Nesties for brunch at noon. We went to Max London's, and it was fab! I will definitely be returning with D. After 2 hours of girl time, I headed out to wander around downtown for a bit. I love downtown so much; I sometimes wish we lived there. The weather was perfect--sunny and crisp. When I got home, D and I played chuck-it with Mattie and Fen. They make us laugh so much!

We had a productive weekend on the adoption front. We were able to get all of our paperwork finished on Friday, and we mailed the envelope on Saturday. We also finalized our profile text and sent it off to the agency. Hopefully we will hear back later this week. I am getting excited!

"When you said, 'I'm down with that' it meant you had the flu..." ~Tim McGraw

What a week. It has actually been one of the most boring weeks at school because so many of the students are sick with the flu. Today was the first day that I had more kids present than absent all week. Luckily, I am feeling fine.

On the adoption front, we are moving full speed ahead! Our profile pictures were approved by our agency. We will finish the first draft of the text this weekend and send that off for approval as well. We are waiting for one more letter of recommendation to arrive from California and for D to get a paper notorized, and then we can mail ALL of our home study paperwork in! I am so glad to be moving ahead. For a few weeks it felt as though we were standing still, but it is all coming together now.

This weekend is my cousin's wife's baby shower in Utica. After the shower, we are going to Pop Pop's to pick up a crib that S left for us. It is 10 years old so we will leave it with my parents for the occassional sleep over. I was pleasantly surprised when D said that he wanted us to have a new crib. Being ever so frugal, I assumed we could use a second hand one, but NO! We reasoned that standards have changed on cribs and car seats so that it made sense to buy new. Yay for baby!

Typing with my eyes closed

It is difficult to wake up at 5:15 am on a regular basis. It is so cold and dark outside that the last thing I want to do is leave my bed. I am looking forward to falling back in a few weeks. :-)

This week is Spirit Week so school has been zany! It is nice to see the kids excited about something, but it also makes it tough to get any work done. Progress reports were due yesterday, and I have 2 tests scheduled for next week. Book reports are also due in the next 2 weeks so there will be much grading in my future.

On the adoption front, we have received 2/3 of our letters of recommendation. I finished my physical yesterday morning as well. Dave has his on Monday/Wednesday. All we are waiting on is our 3rd letter and a copy of our tax returns! Crazy! We are still "working" on our profile...and by working I mean avoiding! We have a bit more writing and revising to do before it is ready to send to our agency. We are aiming to be active by Christmas, so hopefully we are able to be! I have to say, and I hope I am not speaking too soon, but the paperwork is not as bad as I thought it would be.

New Do!

What a weekend it has been! I cannot believe that I am sitting down to type this at 7:47 pm on Monday night. We were so looking forward to savoring this long weekend, and yet it is almost over. We did have quite a busy weekend. On Friday night we headed out to NH to visit D's family. We had a nice family dinner with his grandpa, step-grandmother, and his brother, sister-in-law and kids from Maine. It was so great to see everyone and catch up. We stopped to see Nan and Pop on our way too. We stayed up too late watching the Yankees, hoping for a loss. It was not to be. This weekend ended any hopes the Sox had of moving on. Alas...

On Saturday morning I FINALLY was able to get my hair cut and colored. I went with a new style and shade, and so far, I am quite happy with it. It is the shortest it has ever been, but it seems just right to me! We also took some photos for our adoption profile. We used D's father's camera, and they turned out just great! We spent the day with the family, and then we rushed home to have dinner with J and J. We drank too much wine and played Smart Ass. It was a great way to spend a Saturday night. No matter what we do with J and J, we always have a blast!

On Sunday I worked the largest tournament of the year. It is one of the last events, phew! It was a long day, but overall, it went well. I stayed after to hang out with some co-workers and have a drink. It was pretty nice to be almost finished there for the year.

Today was another busy day! We went to the grocery store and when we got home, we found out that our neighbors got a new puppy! This is extra-exciting because they just lost their lab about a month ago. They got an adorable Puggle named Zoe. I am in love already! Then I met J and A for lunch at Panera. Unfortunately, I had to fly home for my adoption physical. After that, I met D at Honda and waited with him while he had an oil change. The great news is that we are almost done with our first batch of home study paperwork! We went for our finger prints tonight and that was one of the last things left on our checklist! SO EXCITED!!

Book Review: The Hour I First Believed

I just finished an amazing book. The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb is one of the best books I have ever read. One of the reasons I say this is because when D asked me what it was about, I couldn't really give him an answer because the plot is so complex. The novel jumps back and forth in regards to time and reality. Parts of the book are fictionalized versions of what really happened while others are completely original.
The protagonist, Caelum Quirk, bears a striking resemblance in some ways to Dominick Birdsey, in Lamb's other life-changing novel I Know This Much is True. It is also neat because both novels are set in the same town, and Dominick and his brother are mentioned in The Hour... While this novel is in no way a sequel, I liked the familiarity of the setting and characters. Both protagonists are emotionally detached for the bulk of their lives. It is only through tragedy do both men come to terms with their feelings. I think I appreciate this quality because I too have felt that way. Like most novels, once the protagonist is self-actualized, he then becomes likable and feels fulfilled. It seems that one must always undergo a journey of sorts to find out what we can withstand and how we can rise to the occasion. For Caelum, it took 3 marriages, Columbine, his wife's drug addiction and consequent prison term, and her sudden death as well as raising a foster kid of sorts and learning that who he thought was his mother actually wasn't.
A sub-plot detailed the creation of a female prison system from it's Civil War roots to its actualization in the early 1900's. The prison's motto was "A woman who surrenders her freedom need not surrender her dignity." It raised questions about how women prisoners are treated and what life events have brought them to that place. Maureen, Caelum's wife, is a likable character. While she is emotionally frail post-Columbine, I was truly able to both feel Caelum's frustration with her and empathize with what she had lived through.
All in all, a fabulous read. Check it out!

More Shopping

I resisted the sweater dress/skinny jeans fad, but I finally broke down and tried it out. Here are my most recent finds:

Lost: Motivation

I am feeling less than motivated today. I am working on curriculum mapping, and it is pretty boring. I was originally excited about it because it meant that I would be able to be in my room all day and getting work done. All of that is still true, but I am so blah today that I am having a hard time focusing. I am bummed that D will be away all weekend. I hate that we are so busy all the darn time. One positive thing is that we looked over our homestudy checklist, and we have almost all of it finished! Okay, I need to get back to work.

Sick but still shopping!

I stayed home sick today. I have been feeling less than fab this week. I think it is a combination of working 2 jobs for many months, plus school and all the new germs that are going around. The good news is that once I have been sick, I usually stay healthy for the rest of the year! I slept a ton today, and it felt great!

I also found a second dress for an upcoming wedding. I like that dress in the post below, but I can't get over the fact that my mom owns the full length version in a different color. I just can't wear the same dress as my mom! As cute as she is, I just can't do it! I had a coupon for White House Black Market, one of my all-time favorite stores for super-sexy formal wear. I logged on and fell in love with 3 dresses! Luckily my BFF helped me decide on this dress. It should arrive sometime next week, which is good because the wedding is on October 18. I am keeping the other dress in case for some reason this one doesn't work out. WHBM is also a store I love because I know that my size will fit like a glove. Did I mention that I am SO EXCITED for it to arrive?