What I should have been doing. . .

What I should have been doing during Spencer’s nap time was working on my summer class design. I have a new class to design and pull together for summer. It takes soooo many hours, upon hour, upon hours to do. I was just. . . not in the mood. . . to be a slave to WebCT today.

So, I worked on something “creative” for the Giveaway (from the last post.) I got two “surprises” done. The first two people that signed up will be getting a little som’n, som’n from me the mail :) Good luck trying to guess. Don’t worry. . . I plan to have more surprises in the mail very soon! (Much to WebCT’s chagrin.)

First Five Free For All!

First Five Gimme Gimme

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me, my choice, for you! This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

1. I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!

2. What I create will be just for you.

3. It’ll be done sometime this calendar year. *Translation: you may be waiting a little while*

4. You have no clue what it’s going to be … it may be cards, a poem, a bookmark, something yummy or a complete surprise to you (and me!) … who knows? Not you, that’s for sure!

5. I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

6. Most importantly, you must offer the same deal on your blog - the first 5 people to comment on your blog.

I am double-dipping on this one. . . I hope my sisters don’t mind!

Need. . . more . . books

Well, yesterday I finished “Princess Acedamy” and really liked it. It was a fun sweet story and you can never have too many of those. So my plan was to get another Hale book from the library. Apparently some other people had the same idea. I put my name on the list to reserve it. . . I was Number 12.

I thought to myself, I will just get another book while I am waiting. Another book for book club is “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society,” I heard there was a wait at the library, so I thought I would reserve it now. Well, hello number 144 on the wait list. Hmmm, I hope I make it to the top of the list before we read it in a few months.

So I settled on a book I have meaning to read for awhile, “Scout’s Progress.” It is a Sci-Fi book, in the “space opera” genre. I haven’t read a lot of Science Fiction but this got good reviews on GoodReads.com and the county library has it available. It should arrive at my branch next week

Here’s to happy reading. . .

Last night was my first book club meeting . . . ever

I joined a book club in December. I have never been part of one and always thought it would be fun. We selected all the books for 2009 in December and I was so excited to be part of it. In January I was in Niagara with my cute husband and missed the meeting, so last night was my first meeting.

Our book was the “Count of Monte Cristo.” It took me about 6 weeks to read this book; at 1400 pages it was the longest novel I have ever read. I loved it and the last 400 pages just flew! I really liked hearing what everyone had to say about the book. It was great to hear all the perspectives and I think it made our discussion richer. There are about 10 people in the book club and 5 came. It was nice, but I had too many cookies for 5 people. Oh well, I guess our family will have to finish them off : )


Our discussion turned to children’s literature and I really liked all the advice about what books are good. Right now we are still in board book mode with Spencer, but I loved hearing some recommendations. As he gets older I am sure the “Truck Book” will not hold the magical power over him that it does now. I really hope my son loves reading.

Our next book is Princess Academy by Shannon Hale. I started it on Monday and I am about 2/3 of the way through it. I read “Book of 1000 Days” last summer and it was the fist Hale book I read. I really enjoyed it, and I like this one just as much. I think I missed out on a lot of these fun books as a tween/teen. I really didn’t enjoy reading as much back then and I guess I have a lot of catching up to do. I also like these young adult books because I don’t have to worry that something. . . inappropriate. . . sneaking in there. I think I will also try to read “Goose Girl” before the next book club since I think it one will not take too long and I am in the fairy tale zone.

*Kaz Update: Today we have our USCIS appointment and I got my fingerprints taken yesterday one step closer to our daughter.

Dossier Purgatory

Well, we are officially accepted into the Kaz adoption program for our agency. A week from today we will have our updated homestudy in hand for Kazakhstan. And one week from tomorrow we go to USCIS to apply in person to switch our visa pre-approval (I-171-H) to Kaz. So things are moving in a very positive direction.

Here is the down side. We completed 95% of our Nepal dossier in November 2008. We just heard that for the Kaz dossier the paperwork cannot be more then 3 months old. *Translation: We have to do the entire dossier from scratch*. . . yes, you just heard a deep sigh. Man, this will be the 4th dossier we have completed and I am an old pro when it comes doing state certification. At least I know what I am doing, the first one was so stressful because it seems there were all these crazy rules that they didn’t tell you about until you submitted the wrong thing (“Oh no, this notary stamp expires in 6 months, that wont do! This must be re-done.”)

So, I will be pacing myself. I will not start on the paperwork for a couple of week. That way the I-171-H can have time to process and all the paperwork will be dated March, so when it comes to the embassy it will be less then 90 days old. There are 30+ documents to gather, notarize and certify. This dossier will be the most extensive one we have completed.



By the way. . . I finished The Count this week. I loved that book. Book Club is meeting at my house a week from today. I can’t wait to hear what everyone else thought of it.

Hello Kazakhstan. . .

Well, once we heard last month that Nepal was not looking pretty we started the research process all over again. We looked at all our options and again it seemed international adoption is the right choice for our family. After looking at Russia, Pakistan, Panama and Kazakhstan it seemed that Kazakhstan kept coming back again and again. We contacted our agency last week, (who we started the China process with and who also did our Nepal Homestudy) and signed up. This week we do the official paper work and get the ball rolling.

Here is our new projected timeline:

Prepare Dossier: 1-2 months. . . March-April 2009
Dossier Translation and Submission to Kaz Consulate in D.C.: 4-6 weeks. . . June 2009
We wait for an invitation to travel : 12-18 months. . . Summer-Fall 2010
Travel to Kazakhstan & meet little one: 1-2 months later. . . Fall-Winter 2010
Time in Kazakhstan to complete adoption: 4-8 weeks. . . We hope to complete the adoption by the end of 2010.

Of course this is just an idea, things could change and probably will.

Our agency has facilitators that work in the city of Uralsk, Kazakhstan. It is north of the Caspian Sea and boarders Russia. The children are of Caucasian, Eurasian and Asian decent. We are requesting a daughter, younger then Spencer.


We are quite excited about this little turn in the road. It was unexpected but we feel so good about it. Here’s to preparing yet another dossier! (Yippy.)

Mish-Mash

Wow, so much has happened in the last week. I can’t believe I have not blogged about any of it. . . so here is my mish-mash:

Chess: We saw Chess last Friday and I totally loved it! It was fun to see it performed and I love the music. The story was little different then the original and there were a few technical glitches, but I had a big huge smile on my face and was singing along with the music in my heart. I got a little tear in my eye during “Anthem.” It was 100% fun and I am so glad we went.

Dave’s Birthday: Dave’s birthday is Tuesday but we celebrated last night. Janelle was here and we had one last night of free baby sitting and we look advantage. We went to the planetarium and saw this breathtaking show about Saturn, we then had a fabulous Brazilian dinner and then off the book store to browse the latest and greatest titles. It was so fun.

Visiting Sister: Janelle has been here for a couple of weeks and I have loved every second of it (she flew home today.) Her PhD work is going well and dare I say, she is AHEAD of schedule! That girl is a research machine.

The Count of Monte Cristo: I am loving this book! I almost can’t put it down! I am on page 950 of 1400. . . I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Online class: I got some sad news about my online class. One of the Universities that I teach at has had "budget cuts." They have decided to cut the online classes they offer and the salaries they pay. So starting next fall the number of students I teach each semester will be cut from 75 to 25 students. Yes you heard me right. . . 2/3 of the students who usually take my class will get the boot. Of course my paycheck also gets “the boot,” (as in 72% smaller *ouch*.) But in other news my other college asked me to teach an additional class for them. So. . .it could be worse. (As a side tangent. . . I think some unnamed state school is shooting themselves in the foot! What are they thinking cutting services to online students? Very short sighted if you ask me. . .but nobody did.)

Nepal: We also got some serious, but not surprising news about the Nepal adoption program. Our agency called us and told us that completing an adoption in Nepal with them was not going to happen in a realistic time frame. It is sad, but again not surprising. Dave and I have been preparing for this news for about a month since Nepal made the dossier limit. It looks like the path to a second child is not going to be in Nepal. I think we have settled on a path and I will post more about that later, once the dust settles and things are in place.

So. . .Mish-Mash. . The good. . . The bad. . . and the ugly.