Rambling for anyone reading this drivel.

Have you ever had so much to do that you just can't bring yourself to do anything? I think that's where I'm at now. I'll start working on my to do list and whittle it down a few things at a time and then just give up, however I know if I'd just do the stuff on it I would feel so much better. Nothing like procrastination!

I have no idea how I'm going to pack in the little bags I have assigned to the task. Every past traveler insist that you travel light, but has a list a mile long of necessities. Ugh. I have nixed a few of their necessities. Down to grabbing just a few more things beyond clothes to stuff in the bag. I went to Target today and grabbed more sample size stuff. I normally don't worry about taking sample size of anything when I travel however, space and weight are my bigger worries now. I'll pack the clothes and last min toiletries the day of, next week I plan on getting the house pretty clean, ha! I'm more worried about trying to find something like Tums in a Ukrainian drug store so I have a pretty good stock of OTC stuff packed. I'm a regular walking Walgreens.

No news is good news coming out of Ukraine. I haven't heard a peep from our facilitator so I'm guessing things are moving smoothly there. I do worry, as I have seen another blog that has turned down two referrals now and I think they are using the same facilitator. I don't know their details. It's hard not to worry about people getting bad referrals. You wonder are their acceptable conditions so much stricter than mine or are they determined to only come home with a 2 year old girl (the holy grail of Ukrainian adoption it seems). I'm not saying this particular couple doesn't have a wide range of parameters, or that they are set on only a girl it just makes me wonder exactly what do they have in their minds eye as their child, and that maybe the child they turned down would be right up our alley. Overall the blogs I've been watching seem to be getting "good" referrals so I hope it's an isolated incident. I wish the best of luck to the couple still searching.

Well I really must get to work, I've got bills to pay, a book report to write and a vacuum cleaner to run.

If your reading this crap, leave a comment!
Winnie

The tension builds...

Not a lot new to post. The last week has been spent in Arkansas at my mother's house with Sonny Boy, Hubby had to tend to work related stuff in Little Rock so it was a good opportunity to have his job pay for the gas for us to drive down. I don't imagine we will travel much for a while once #2 gets home so it was likely our last visit for a while.

Sonny Boy had a good time at the Children's Museum of Memphis. They have the cockpit of a Boeing 727 with all the stuff still in it and he could go and "fly" the plane as much he wanted, perfect for the wanna be pilot in him. I normally don't recomend places in Memphis because I believe they tend to be over hyped, however they have a very good children's museum.

We arrived back home yesterday and though the foot of snow on the ground and 20 degree temps ( compared to the 50's at mom's) wasn't ideal, it was good to be home and in my own bed. I have a feeling I'm going to be terribly homesick while in Ukraine. I'm usually great anywhere for the first 3 or 4 days after that I want my own bed. I think I have a love affair with my bed, it's nothing great, just a mattress and box spring, no headboard and no fancy linens just the fact it's MINE!

I'm sure the next couple of weeks are going to be spent in a whirlwind, packing, freaking out, unpacking and trips to the store. I think I'm going to call my favorite massage therapist ever - Jill- and make an appointment or three. What's a few bucks if it keeps your shoulders from crawling up to your ears?

I think most of the big things are taken care of and if the little stuff falls through the cracks we'll make due. However since the Ukrainian process is so totally out of my control I feel like by making sure I'm controlling all the bizarre things like if we have wrinkle releaser packed or not it gives me a small measure.

Well I have supper on the table getting cold, Sonny Boy went next door to drag his dad home from the neighbor's garage, it looks like I'm going to have to go too or maybe I'll just eat a meal alone without saying " don't do that xyz"

Winnie

Public Humiliation or Really Funny?

The picture has nothing to do with the following story or does it?

Yesterday as I picked up Sonny Boy from preschool I decided to take him to the McDonald's with the playplace for lunch. I had one of those darn training books to read and he had lots of energy so I thought it would be a good trade off. We drive over to McD's order our food, eat, and Sonny Boy promptly runs off and climbs to the top of the playground. I get out my book and look up every page or two and locate him, watch him for a few seconds and go back to reading. After a while a woman comes up to me and ask me if my son had on black jeans, well no he didn't he's right there and then she giggled and said a little boy just went climbing up the thing with his underwear in his hand. I laughed, said it sounded like mine but there he is. A few minutes later I decided we had loitered enough and called him down from the structure. This is when he informed me he didn't have on any underwear. I said "What?!" and looked down his pants and sure enough he was commando, of course the next question is "where is your underwear?" "Up in the play equipment" This was witnessed by quite a few moms and grandmas in there who were getting a great giggle. I promptly sent Sonny Boy back up the equipment to retrieve his underwear and when he gives them back to me they are wringing wet. What had happened you ask? Well it appears that Sonny Boy had to go pottie but waited too long and when he finally ran to the restroom ( it's right beside the play structure, that's why I didn't see him go in) he had left tread marks on his drawers. When he finished his business he rinsed them out, washed his hands and then carried his dirty underwear back up into the structure! At this point I'm mortified and just toss the wet underwear in the nearest trash, wipe his hands down with a wet wipe announce to all the witnesses in the play area I don't know weather I want to cry or laugh and then get the heck out of there. I don't know if we are banned from the Mc D's playground for a while or if I'm just gonna hang low for a while and hope my face is forgotten. In retrospect it's pretty funny, and the other people there were getting a good laugh, however in the heat of the moment I just wanted to sit down and cry. Honestly this will be a story that haunts him for years and years to come though. You decide: does it rank at Humiliation or Funny?

And you wonder why your kid gets sick three days after going somewhere like that?

On other fronts we ordered travel evac insurance for the trip, actually the whole year because it works out cheaper that way. We got it from http://www.medjetassist.com/. They may not have the very cheapest rates but they will send an intensive care equipped jet for you and take you wherever you want to go, not to just the nearest decent hospital like most of the evac insurance I found. This works anywhere as long as your 150 miles from home. It's a thing I hope I don't have to use but gives good piece of mind when traveling to country not known for their healthcare system.

Happy Valentines day. We are not doing anything special, I'm ordering a pizza and hubby is picking it up. I am not cooking.

Winnie

Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock

Can that counter over there move slower? Though I swear it speeds up sometimes too. I don't have anything to truly write about but I'm doing this somewhat for my sanity so bear with me.

The last couple of days have been pretty slow for the most part, we've been working on the darned training. Part of the training is to read Adopting after Infertility. It's an informative book if were 10 years newer. It has it's good points however as training for prospective adoptive parents it's outdated and focuses alot on actually making the decision to adopt. By the time most people have hit the required training courses they've pretty much made up their mind. Maybe I'll change my mind on it, I'm halfway through it now. I'd finish it tonight however I've got my service club meeting tonight to attend.

This morning I ran errands in the snow. I hate snow, I used to like it, light up like a kid when the weatherman said "snow coming" but this year it's just been a pain. I'm seriously thinking about the Arkansas winters I had as kid - I honestly had never shoveled snow until I was 30 years old, now I'm an old hand at it however hubby gets frustrated because I don't push the snow banks back far enough. I'd really like to wear shoes that are attractive, not warm and waterproof.

Part of the errands this morning was going to the drug store to pick up all our Rx for the trip. I was prepared to pass out at the price however our insurance covered most of it and there were generics available for all but a couple of the drugs. I'm really not taking much, just a couple of different antibiotics and some serious stuff to get through a migraine without having to resort to a Ukrainian emergency room. I don't hit the ER often with them but I'm sure a humdinger awaits in Kiev for me with the stress, jet lag, and odd food to adjust to. I just hope I'm not fighting one at the SDA appointment as I'd really like to be clear headed for that, the rest of time I imagine hubby and the translator can manage to drag me around like a doll if needed.

Well I'm off to cook supper ( tacos, I just had a craving) get my stuff together for the meeting. I hope the snow quits as I really don't like driving in it at night.

winnie

For entertainment purposes only

Not a lot new here, but I see I'm getting some hits so somebody is out there reading my drivel so I thought I'd post with my saga of carpet cleaning!

My husband's job has a LARGE industrial carpet cleaning machine, supposedly for work use however it gets used by employess just as much, anyhow after months of hounding him to bring it home he did this weekend. We hauled it upstairs and filled it up and got it going, all was going well until I had the bright idea " Let's clean our mattress" hubby said "go for it" an hour or so later of bending at unnatural angles I got it done and started on the stairs ( the real reason for bringing home the machine) two hours later with a hand tool because the big floor thing won't make the corner I finish the stairwell. Grant you the stair carpet looks MUCH better however at this point I literally crawled up the stairs to turn off the machine as my back was doomed to have a permanent bend in it. Amazingly this morning I wasn't that sore, I was a little stiff but not that bad. Then this afternoon I decided to do the living room chair and it caught up with me again, I see that's it going to be a while before I'm back in stooping shape.

Today we tested our new coats out well. I purchased hubby a nicer wool coat to carry to Ukraine as the only winter coat he had was a Carhart. Anyhow after dashing from house to car, car to church in 20 below wind chill he decided that the coat wasn't ment for this type of cold. Uff da as the relatives say, so I'm hoping spring comes early to Ukraine this year. However my coat did just fine.

For those of you not familiar...

Click on the link to the right labeled Orphans of Ukraine Video. Most of the adoption community is familiar with this, however if your not click on it.

Winnie

Just rambling...

Does it count as a month if the month is short? As I check my counter today I see we are at 31 days until our appointment. My question is since today isn't the 11th does that make it a month or do I have to wait till the 11th? Anyhow I'm saying we are at a month and counting down.

I got a few more things done on my to do list today despite a rip roaring headache that just laughs when I take Ibuprofen. I woke up with it this am, caused I'm sure by clenching my jaw with pressure that rivals an alligators bite power. Can't imagine why I'm clenching and grinding my teeth all night.

I called the bank and made sure my money was ordered, called the credit card but they said not to put a note on our card until just a few days before we leave, called the kennel to see about boarding the dog when we go to Arkansas. The sim card for our cell phone came in, I hope that goes smoothly because I'd hate to be battling that issue while there. Ordered a pre-paid calling card for my MIL to use so we can talk to ds every couple of days. Picked up the pictures for our photo album, used an online translator and labeled the pictures in Russian. I hope if we end up in the Ukrainian speaking end of Ukraine I don't insult anyone, but there are no translation thingys into Ukrainian that I know of. I also hope if the translations sound dopey that I'm forgiven and given an A for effort anyway.

I suppose there is no real news, just busy with everything and living. Just thought I'd update for those of you checking my blog, I know your there my counter is moving, leave a note please.

Winnie

Let it stop snowing!!

Ugh, SNOW and lots of it, the heavy wet kind where every shovel full feels like a load of bricks. I took sonny boy to the sledding hill behind house and thought I'd drag the shovel along and do my community good deed of the day and shovel the steps up the hill. I did the shoveling but Sonny Boy decided really quickly he wasn't going to follow "sledding ettiquette" and was getting in everyone's way, finally he decided he'd had enough after about four trips down the hill and bouncing out of his sled ( he wouldn't hold on). So anyway the sledding hill in town now has nicely shoveled steps for the other kids!

This afternoon I plan on dragging out my volunteer projects and get them together for the people taking over my stuff while I'm gone. I've really been dreading doing this because it's so time consuming and messy. However after our monthly meeting Tues. I will be officially on leave, can you take time off from a volunteer group?

I can't believe it's still a month until we go. It has draagggeedd by since we got our appointment date. I almost wish it was like the "good old days" of Ukrainian adoption where you'd only have a week, maybe two to get there, less time to stress. I can't really do anything to prep for the child because I don't know age, sex, etc etc so I feel as if I'm just waiting around for a really big vacation to start.

Wow, I didn't know I could be so busy!

Things have really started going crappy here the last week. Last Thursday our sewer line backed up into our basement ( no real damage but gross). The plumber wanted $130 bucks just to show up and work for an hour, so with the mantra " We don't pay anybody to do something we can do ourselves" - Honestly they will put that on dh tombstone - we rented a roto-rooter machine and did it ourselves. What a job, three hours of slogging through sewer water later we pull out massive tree roots and unclog the drain. I still haven't gotten back down to the basement to finish the clean up, though it all got scrubbed with an old broom. All this had to happen the night Lost premiered and I missed it all and haven't had time to watch it on line since.

Saturday we got a letter from our homestudy agency that our state approval letter was about to expire, we thought we'd sneak in without all the training that has been recently implemented here but no such luck. Now we are jamming through several on line courses and have ordered a few books off Amazon that we have do book reports on. All this along with getting new letters from our MD who is getting tired of all this after three homestudy physicals and two Ukrainian physcial forms. I think I'm going to bake some cookies and write a nice card to them if I can find that elusive element of time.

Also weighing on my mind and schedule is a trip to visit my mother in Arkansas in two weeks. I also have loads of work to do for the volunteer group I'm involved with to keep everybody abreast and projects running. Combine this with general worry about the trip, a very active kiddo, a dog recovering from spaying, a foot of snow expected tonight, and the fact I feel like I could just sleep until the middle of next week I'm about ready to throw in the towel, cash in the airline miles I've been acumulating and go somewhere that they don't even know what snow is.

I know this is whiney and I apologize, once things start getting checked off of the to-do list I'll start feeling better.

Winnie