Yes, I did that on purpose. The stereo hasn’t worked for a year, and the CD changer was totally jammed. I finally took it apart to extract the last three CDs that were stuck in there. I bought that sucker in 1996, so it doesn’t really owe me anything. It went in the trash, minus some parts that looked suitable for next year’s Hallowe’en costume for Sport. (Yes, he has already decided what he wants to be NEXT year. No, he probably won’t change his mind.)
This may not look all that impressive, but it’s a thing of beauty to me. I spent about two hours on Saturday morning working on the door, the jamb, the weatherstripping, and the new handle & deadbolt. And we now have a front door that actually latches (gasp!) and doesn’t have to be bodychecked into submission to engage the deadbolt (double gasp!). It’s a miracle, and I can’t believe it took me a year after moving in to do it. Next up: the back door, which is even worse, if you can imagine.
Of course, while I was working away, someone else was lounging. A few things strike me about this photo. Thing number 1: the child is reading a chapter book on his own. Thing number 2: he takes up the whole length of the sofa! When did that happen?? (And no, the jeans are not really that short on him, he’s got them all bunched up. At least I think they’re all bunched up. Alternatively, he grew two inches overnight, which I suppose is not out of the realm of possibility.)
Filed under: life in general
Filed under: life in general
Have you ever updated one thing in your house, only to realize that everything else now looks like crap? Like, you replace the flooring in your kitchen, and then it strikes you that now the countertops and walls look horrible by comparison, and the next thing you know the room is gutted and you are cooking on a Coleman stove in the living room?
No? Just me? Huh.
I know what you’re thinking, and no, I am not currently ripping my house apart. But I have just experienced the same phenomenon in a slightly different arena.
I went to a new hairdresser tonight, and I got the best haircut ever. Ridiculously good. Freakishly good. But, dammit, now I think I might need to actually go out and buy makeup so I can live up to it.
Filed under: life in general
- chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast
- game time after breakfast – Parcheesi and card games
- planted 36 tulip bulbs
- divided some perennials
- trip to the museum (bringing our annual membership cost down to $6 each per visit, with 4 months still to go in our membership)
- quick grocery shop
- present bought for birthday party next weekend
- baked pina colada muffins
- made giant pasta salad for lunches this week
- helped with some Lego construction
- made Southwestern Chicken Stew for supper
- packed lunches for tomorrow
- did 2 loads of laundry
- sprayed and hopefully killed the wasp nest behind my vinyl siding
- and last, but not least, finished my express library book BEFORE the due date! (I can usually either return them on time without reading the whole thing, or read to the end but incur a scary fine.)
And it’s only 8:03!
Filed under: life in general
… in a couple of places around the blogosphere.
First, to Russia, where Kate finally, finally has her lovely peanut Lexi in her arms. Go give her your congrats and check out those SUPERCUTE dimples on little Lexi.
And second, to the amazing Erin, whose beautiful family grew this week with the addition of a nine month old baby boy. Erin is truly a role model I aspire to – in her outlook on life, her parenting, and her passion to educate and advocate for others. (Plus her ability to stick to fitness goals… sigh.)
Congratulations!
Last week marked six months since my dossier was sent to Ethiopia. (For those of you who have not engaged in this crazy process, that’s when all your months worth of paperwork arrive in the country you are adopting from. Basically, from that date on you are waiting to be matched with a child.)
Two years ago, I was matched with Sport three weeks after my dossier arrived. I knew that was not going to happen this time, and when my file went over I was expecting a 10-12 month wait based on the age of child I was asking to be matched with. (Usually, the process for older children moves more quickly than for infants, since less people are asking to be matched with older kids.) Six months later, I am now expecting to wait between 18-24 months. Hopefully in another six months that won’t have increased again, but you never know.
Waiting doesn’t really bother me. No, I’m serious, it doesn’t. Obviously it would be nice to have a better idea of when you will be matched with a child, but it’ll happen when it happens, and I’m ok with that. What does bother me though, along with all the usual uncertainties of international adoption, is the constant fear that Ethiopia may decide to close their adoption program to single parents. This has been a sword dangling over the program for three or four years now, and the only reason I ever wish things would hurry up a bit is to get through before the sword finally drops.
As it did last week, for prospective adoptive parents from Australia. As far as I know this information has not been communicated to Canadian agencies. But it’s not a good sign, that’s for sure. At least it appears that dossiers already in-country will continue to be processed – so hopefully that will be the case even if this ban is extended further.
Filed under: life in general
Yes, the rash is gone. Mostly. And the sinus infection is gone, and the ear infection is gone, so things are looking up. The house and yard, unfortunately, are going to take about another two weeks to get back to where they were before this whole nonsense started. Housework and yardwork is not being helped by the fact that we finally seem to be having summer – now, in mid-September – so frankly I’m not about to spend my day vacuuming or mowing when it’s 30 degrees outside. Sitting by a pool sounds like a much better idea – especially now that I can wear short sleeves without causing bystanders to draw away, fearing the plague.
The week ahead is going to be a doozy. I am breaking every single rule I have held sacred over the last two years since Sport came home. (Tomorrow it is 2 years exactly since we arrived home, by the way. And that is really, really hard for me to believe.)
Which rules, you ask? Well, the rules about gradual transitions and careful scheduling and no over-stimulation. Here’s the week at a glance: Tomorrow he starts at his new daycare, going all day Tuesday and Wednesday. (I chose the small in-home daycare instead of the centre, by the way.) Swimming lessons also start on Wednesday night. On Thursday, he has a dentist appointment and a beginning-of-year school conference. Thursday night is his first Beavers meeting. Friday is his first day at his new school.
It just sort of … happened this way. I wanted him to start at the daycare with just before-and-after, and later have him go for a full day when there was an inservice, for example. But classes don’t start at his school until Friday, and I have next to no holiday time left, so I didn’t have a lot of options. As for the swimming, I could have sworn it started NEXT week, but I got the emailed confirmation after registering him and realized that the first session is on the 9th. Beavers, well… we were out of town on the registration day, so I had decided to skip it this year, but Sport was so disappointed when I told him that I ended up going down to the Scouts office and signing him up anyway. He’s really excited about the whole Scouting thing… I blame Russell the Wilderness Explorer from “Up”.
Next week won’t be so bad – we’ll be into the swing of things, and two weeknight activities is what he usually has. So I just have to get through this week… and I know my kid. It’s going to get ugly.
Filed under: life in general
So I was trying to catch a train, and I was just a little bit late, and ran for it but it pulled away before I could get on. The surly train station worker type person gleefully informed me that the next one didn’t come for an hour and a half. A few seconds later a man in a suit ran up and asked if the train had gone, and she equally gleefully informed him that it had, and he’d be waiting a while for the next one. Equally frustrated, we both wandered off in opposite directions.
It was almost lunchtime, and I was hungry, so I went looking for something to eat, but all they had in the train station were vending machines. With super expensive drinks, and lame looking sandwiches. Naturally, they only took coins, there was no change machine, and I didn’t have enough coins on me for both. (Did I mention they were really overpriced?) As I stood there staring at the limited options, and debating whether to eat or drink, I heard, “That’s IT?” in an incredulous tone behind me. Sure enough, it was my fellow train-misser. So we shot the breeze for a few minutes, bemoaning the stupid train and the stupid station and the stupid, stupid vending machines. After digging through his pockets, he realized he was also going to have to choose either a sandwich or a drink. At which point he suggested, well, why don’t we each buy one thing and split them? At least that way we can have both.
Well SURE, Mr cute and well dressed and nice guy with a good vocabulary and no wedding ring, I will have lunch with you. So we split an iced tea and a ham sandwich and killed the time before the next train came. And we got along really, really well. And then I found myself thinking, wow, this is going to make a nauseatingly cute how-we-met story, like in a movie starring Meg Ryan or possibly Cameron Diaz.
And then I woke up.
DAMMIT.
(Oh, and the cat did come back. The next morning she was waiting at the back door, and bitched me out when I opened it. Her: “MeOW MEOW meow meow MEEE-OW!” with accusing glare. Me: “Do not start with me, cat.”)
