Black Friday and the Mountain

Friday morning (not too early) I met my sister after she left work and we went shopping, to the Kmart for the doorbuster toys. I bought plenty of goodies, and we went for breakfast and to start our journey up the mountain to visit Matthew at work.
It was a nice drive, and the place where Matthew works has the best view (although my pic doesn't do it justice).
We left the mountain and went to a few more shops, clothes, toys, crazed ToysRUs terrorists, etc. We had a good day.

Matthew at workMatthew at work
A Pool on the 3rd floor!
Matthew's Work


Us on the elevator

The view from the dining area
Dining Room
Me and Stefanie (she is invisible)
Random car parked illegaly at the gas station. I have a close shot of their plate :-)

Stopping By

to let everyone know I had a fun day. Woke up early, made a huge batch of cheeseball (dip), a 2 layer cake, and cookie bars.
Went to Moms and had a huge meal. My aunt and cousin were there also, and we played pinochle.
Took off with my sister to Red Bank and delivered platefuls of food to my nephew's great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother.
Met Matthew at his parent's house and had an excellent dinner with his family and grandmother.
Visiting, Driving, Eating, Laughing.



Tomorrow......... shopping with my Sister and visiting Matthew at work!

Thanksgiving, a four day weekend!

Yeah, I am so excited to have a 4 day Holiday weekend! Here are my plans:
Tomorrow 3 a.m. wake up, clean house, bake cakes, make cheese balls, pack up green bean casserole ingredients. Head to Mom's around 10 a.m. Chill out, eat, and spend time with family.
4 p.m. leave and meet Matthew at his parents' (he has to work, wah!) eat again and visit with the family. :-)
BLACK FRIDAY Get up early, get adrenaline pumping, meet Sis and hit the shops! No money? Who cares! Let's go!
Saturday - sleep, relax, finish West Wing Season 2 DVD marathon?? :-)
Sunday - Church and relishing my last day of the weekend.

Today was a good Wednesday. It was my last day to work, so it was payday, that is nice, getting $ two days earlier than normal. Work was excruciatingly long and tedious. The end of the month weeks are normally crazed, but a short end of the month and it seemed people lost their minds. I worked over long enough for Matthew to come off the mountain and pick me up, and then it was adios!

Matthew did the sweetest, most thoughtful thing for me today and I just have to shout it to everyone. He asked one of the Brothers at Alexian to draw me a bookmark, which is what one of them does for a hobby. He remembered my favorite flower, and even added his own original sentiment to it and had him write a personalized message just for me. It says "you are a blessing and a gift" and if I hadn't been on a high dosage pain killer I would have broke down and cried right there in the car when he gave it to me. It was the best gift ever and I hope I am able to keep it forever.


Matthew and I went shopping for a few last minute fixings and ingredients and then settled in to start West Wing season 2.
The dog settled with his new chew toy, and all was well.

$5.00 Shoes

What a great deal those $5.00 K-Mart shoes were!
Tuesday went slowly.
I was sick and cramping all day and ready to come home and do nothing.
Matthew came home and was still suffering a lot with his cold.
He took off to a meeting at church and I watched Survivor on the DVR.
Overall, it was a slow moving evening full of pain relievers and TV, kinda sluggish.

This morning I woke up about every 2-3 hours being sick and hurting. Thank the Lord I just have to get through today and then I can relax all 4 days of the long holiday weekend.

I was so sick last night that I kicked off my shoes in the bedroom, which I NEVER do, they always go in the closet, but I was so out of it (and medicated).
I would like to think that Toodles tried to carry them to the closet for me, but for some reason decided to play, and quietly, stealthily, and now I'm just going to go back and get new $5.00 shoes. I had been forgetting to get him a fresh rawhide.. so he made his own. What a deal.

FOSTER CARE STATISTICS

FOSTER CARE STATISTICS


Currently, there are approximately 513,000 children in foster care in the United States. It's estimated that 114,000 are eligible for adoption.

In 2005, about 51,000 children were adopted from foster care.

68% of parents who adopt from foster care are married couples, 27% are single females, 2% are unmarried couples, and 3% are single males.

Median age of child in foster care: 10.6 years.

Race/ethnicity of children in foster care: 41% Caucasian, 32% African-American, 18% Hispanic, and 1% Asian; 8% other.

The average child in foster care goes through three different placements and stays in the system for nearly 29 months.

Each year, about 20,000 children age out of foster care.

3 day workweek!

This weekend was too short! After working half a day on Saturday I went shopping at Kohls and the bookstore next to it, and then drove up to my parent's house, where I got to spend a few hours with some of my favorite people.
I had sent my Nephew some model cars and a book thru Amazon and they had arrived. It goes to show you I have no idea about model cars, because only one of the two I had gotten was an actual model he could build. The other was just some collectible car, but that is okay, he collects those too.
Matthew had to work all day Saturday so when I arrived home we had leftover chinese take out for dinner and just relaxed at the house.
He has a head cold right now, so he didn't feel like doing much.
Sunday we went to 11:00 a.m. Mass and had the Rite of Welcoming. Matthew's guy was there, but my girl didn't show. :-( I will have to call her today and see what's going on, hopefully her family is OK and she just forgot about the ceremony.
After church we went and ate a small lunch out and then came home to work on the chores list. Matthew was getting worse and I felt horrible too, and we cut our chores list drastically and just spent some time watching West Wing DVDs and eating soup.
I did manage to give Toodles a bath, which took all of the remaining strength out of me, but he is a clean doggie now.
Matthew is off from work today since he has to work Thanksgiving Day, so maybe he will get healthier from the down-time.
I am praying today to hear from DFCS on our approval and what happens next. I am also praying for all of my friends and family and their intentions.

Saturday, still waiting.

Apparently it almost takes as long for DFCS to approve families as it does to actually take the requires courses. Ugh. A little disappointed everything flew by and now we are left waiting. I did get in contact with them though, and apparently our lady had been out, and now the director was out, etc. etc.
I am off to work this morning, gotta make some $ to fling at Wachovia, LOL. Matthew is going to work too, and has Monday off instead, so right now I am waiting on the shower.

And the post office stinks at tracking packages!

Free Dr. Pepper!!!!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,455744,00.html

you have to print the coupons on Sunday though!

Wachovia has NO customer service

In climbing out of being behind on almost everything in our name, I am currently seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
The last things to get back to speed this month is my car and both sets of student loans.
The student loan people are gracious and understanding, and we have no problem. I have a Wells Fargo Student loan an Edfinancial (both of us).They call a lot, but are genuinely nice.
So, today I sent a partial car payment by mail, mainly because Wachovia's website only allows you to pay the exact amount due (rip off!). So, I put my envelope in the mail, and attach a nice little letter telling them the balance will be caught up next week. I also picked up the phone and called their customer service peeps to make certain we were all on the same page.
The lady was so rude! She went off on how partial payments were unacceptable, and transferred me to the "arrangements" department. That lady was nicer, but very abrupt and highly judgemental. All from a company who went belly up just two months ago, and they wanted to give me slack about my stuff.
I would like to think that if that was my job, I would treat everyone with an equal amount of respect and kindness. Maybe they are all ill over possibly losing their job to whomever bought Wachovia out.
Definitely not my best encounter with faceless, unkind people.

Domine, da mihi hanc aquam!: The pain of failure

Domine, da mihi hanc aquam!: The pain of failure

9 more days!

Although Matthew has to work, and no one knows what is going on for meal plans, gatherings, etc. I am still getting excited!

Tomorrow never knows what it doesn`t know too soon

Ive taken that title from Oasis. It is very fitting for this week, as we are all in limbo, waiting to hear things, completely dependent upon other's actions.
Trying to take our minds off of everything, last night we went to ToysRUs (yeah, that was such a distraction!) and then went to visit Matthew's Mom. Then we headed off to RCIA class and then home to some hungry, disdainful kitties and one happy dog. I did my now-routine list of chores and went to sleep. Woke up at 1 a.m. and here I am blogging in the middle of snoring animals and an unusually quiet Matthew.
As far as Mondays go, this one wasn't the absolute worst ever, but it felt "funny" all day.
This weekend I spent driving around with my sister, went thrift store shopping in Dayton and I got a few toys for the kids and a great collection of kid's books. I also snagged a replacement copy of an Oasis album that I lost years ago. We had to wait for them to find it in their "we keep all cds in one giant bin behind the counter so you can't steal them, but it takes 30 minutes to locate them once purchased" kind of way, but well worth it. If only I had more time, I could have filled shelves with the great book deals! Books are always exciting.
While in the great state of TN, I brought back my Mom Saturday night to see the house, spend the night, and generally get some catch-up quality time since she has been so uncharacteristically shut-in since her accident. I would probably be sick If I couldn't drive myself this long!
She liked the kid's bedrooms, settled in and we (graciously, but not without comment) let her commandeer the TV and watch the Alabama game. I would like to think of my house as a no football zone, but we were o-kay ( we went out to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things).
Sunday morning Matthew and I went to Mass and then we headed to Soddy, where Matthew dropped off my Mom and myself for a baby shower (this is me = slightly depressed) and then he went to help diagnose my Sister's mystery smell emanating from her central heating.
We all met back up and Matthew and I took off to pick up a few things and finally back to the house where we relaxed and prepared for this week of waiting.

Way to go, Father!

Wednesday night we had our first Pro Life meeting at St. Gerard's. It was so nice, and we had a great turnout of people I just know are going to be blessings to Matthew and I!

Here is an article I found most relevant today:

MSNBC.com


Priest: No communion for Obama voters
Priest says it's because the Democratic president-elect supports abortion
The Associated Press
updated 6:45 p.m. ET, Thurs., Nov. 13, 2008


COLUMBIA, S.C. - A South Carolina Roman Catholic priest has told his parishioners that they should refrain from receiving Holy Communion if they voted for Barack Obama because the Democratic president-elect supports abortion, and supporting him "constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil."

The Rev. Jay Scott Newman said in a letter distributed Sunday to parishioners at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Greenville that they are putting their souls at risk if they take Holy Communion before doing penance for their vote.

"Our nation has chosen for its chief executive the most radical pro-abortion politician ever to serve in the United States Senate or to run for president," Newman wrote, referring to Obama by his full name, including his middle name of Hussein.

"Voting for a pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life alternative exits constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil, and those Catholics who do so place themselves outside of the full communion of Christ's Church and under the judgment of divine law. Persons in this condition should not receive Holy Communion until and unless they are reconciled to God in the Sacrament of Penance, lest they eat and drink their own condemnation."

Risking their immortal soul
During the 2008 presidential campaign, many bishops spoke out on abortion more boldly than four years earlier, telling Catholic politicians and voters that the issue should be the most important consideration in setting policy and deciding which candidate to back. A few church leaders said parishioners risked their immortal soul by voting for candidates who support abortion rights.

But bishops differ on whether Catholic lawmakers — and voters — should refrain from receiving Communion if they diverge from church teaching on abortion. Each bishop sets policy in his own diocese. In their annual fall meeting, the nation's Catholic bishops vowed Tuesday to forcefully confront the Obama administration over its support for abortion rights.

According to national exit polls, 54 percent of Catholics chose Obama, who is Protestant. In South Carolina, which McCain carried, voters in Greenville County — traditionally seen as among the state's most conservative areas — went 61 percent for the Republican, and 37 percent for Obama.

"It was not an attempt to make a partisan point," Newman said in a telephone interview Thursday. "In fact, in this election, for the sake of argument, if the Republican candidate had been pro-abortion, and the Democratic candidate had been pro-life, everything that I wrote would have been exactly the same."


Conservative Catholics criticized Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry in 2004 for supporting abortion rights, with a few Catholic bishops saying Kerry should refrain from receiving Holy Communion because his views were contrary to church teachings.

Some say move is too extreme
Sister Mary Ann Walsh, spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said she had not heard of other churches taking this position in reaction to Obama's win. A Boston-based group that supports Catholic Democrats questioned the move, saying it was too extreme.

"Father Newman is off-base," said Steve Krueger, national director of Catholic Democrats. "He is acting beyond the authority of a parish priest to say what he did. ... Unfortunately, he is doing so in a manner that will be of great cost to those parishioners who did vote for Sens. Obama and Biden. There will be a spiritual cost to them for his words."

A man who has attended St. Mary's for 18 years said he welcomed Newman's message and anticipated it would inspire further discussion at the church.

"I don't understand anyone who would call themselves a Christian, let alone a Catholic, and could vote for someone who's a pro-abortion candidate," said Ted Kelly, 64, who volunteers his time as lector for the church. "You're talking about the murder of innocent beings."


Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27705755/

Catholic bishops plan to forcefully confront Obama

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/religion/chi-081111bishops,0,615284.story

About 300 bishops, gathered in Baltimore for their national meeting, adopted a formal blessing for a child in the womb and advised Chicago's Cardinal Francis George, president of the conference, as he began drafting a statement from the bishops to the incoming Obama administration. That document will call on the administration and Catholics who supported Obama to work to outlaw abortion.

Happy Veteran's Day Everyone!!

What a great Holiday! Unfortunately I had to work, but I came home about 30 minutes early and spruced up the place, vacuumed, took out the cat litter, did a last minute dusting for all of the dust that had settled in the 24 hours since yesterday. I have really gotten myself excited!
Our home study lady was back and did a walk through, talked to us about schedules and making rules, and then **poof**, she was gone! Maybe a 20 minute total visit, tops. Guarantee she didn't notice I had scrubbed the trash can right before she arrived! Ha!
Well, we are officially done with all of our prep work, and DFCS will have our file tomorrow afternoon! WooHoo!!
I had made a cheeseball for work today and of course left it in the work fridge, so no cheese tonight :-( I could just go make another one.. it was too easy.
Matthew is off to the church Maintenance Ministry meeting, and I am going to relax and watch TV. Relax. Relax. Relax.

Excommunicating Lawmakers

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/11/11/uruguay.abortion.ap/index.html

Wow. Just, Wow.

Susan Komen Foundation gives $ to Planned Parenthood

How could they not know?
Thanks to Susie for this enlightening article!

I am shocked, saddened and upset.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_G._Komen_for_the_Cure

http://romancatholicblog.typepad.com/roman_catholic_blog/2005/09/susan_komen_bre.html
http://www.rnclife.org/blog/2007/10/susan-g-komen-awards-72-grants-to.html

Homestudy, Part I

The home study went well, about 2 hours of crossing Ts, dotting Is, and making sure all of the paperwork was in perfect order. Whew!
Tomorrow evening she will come again to do a walk through of the house and then we will be done!
I am amazed at how God has been shaping this experience for us. We are constantly meeting really nice people who genuinely support us and are encouraging.
Today the home study person, who is a therapist, told us that she had worked with our prospective kids' parents when they first had issues over 2 years ago. How Providential! We got to discuss them in depth, and we had a really good time with her.

Humor, needed quickly!

Poor, Poor Cindy.

Weekend, toys are expensive!

We had our CPR class Saturday, it went well, and now we have been certified to perform CPR, administer First Aid, and operate an AED device. Cool, huh?
We did errands, hung the storage thingamajig in the boy room, and got a pretty early bedtime.
Sunday we went to Mass, and I left Matthew at home and met my Nephew and Sister at the Mall. I took my Nephew out and we went and spent my 70$ Hamilton Place Mall giftcard that I received from work. My nephew helped me decide what toys would be appropriate, which ones were fun, which ones were not so fun, and generally steered me in the right direction! We ended up with:
Boy:
Pull string racecar
Matchbox car playset
Play-Doh
Nerf football
Connect Four game
Dinosaurs
Girl:
My Little Ponies (a lot of them!)
Barbie
Mrs. Potato Head
Candyland board game
It was so much fun, and 70$ went very quickly! One of my coworkers was so generous and gave me her giftcard too, but I am going to wait until I can use it for more specific toys once I know exactly what the kids will like. Today was just me and my Nephew spending time and getting toys that should appeal to anyone. Did I mention we had fun? We came home, unpacked everything, played around with the toys, played connect four, watched those FRED youtube videos (and laughed our rear ends off).
I can't believe this is what 5th graders love.. it's so silly it's funny:

I drove him home in the Ford truck, stick shift. I didn't let it die once! I was so proud! So we went all the way up to Sale Creek to get the mirror for the dresser and by the time I was ready to head home my Dad was not going to let me drive the stick shift home, alone, at night, down Rossville Blvd. So, he, my Nephew, and My Sister took the truck and her car and all came down together! Dad got to see the house and the decor, and liked it a lot. I was so happy.
After they left I cleaned up a little, ate some cheese crackers and raisins (yum!) and then gave Matthew a much needed haircut.. what a day!

5 things...

Was tagged by Niki, so I must comply....

5 Things I was doing 10 years ago:
1. Being a freshman at Chatt State, enjoying Physics and Astronomy, hating Calculus.
2. Working at JCPenneys with Niki.
3. Just caught my first Pearl Jam concert.
4. Living at home with the parents.
5. Enjoying a cute 89 Toyota Celica convertible, red.

5 Things on My List to Do Today:
1. Attend our Ladies in Prayer meeting 8 a.m.
2. Buy lunch for Matthew and I.
3. Attend CPR / First Aid certification course at the Fire Dept.
4. Buy a lint trap cleaning kit at Wally World, because our new space-age dryer keeps beeping unrelentlessly at us to clean spaces we can barely see!
5. Blog and listen to the Oasis cd again. (right now!)

5 Favorite Snacks:
1. Cheese crackers, not pre-packaged
2. Popcorn and cheese
3. Sonic Slush
4. Cheez-It
5. Pork Rinds

5 Jobs I have Had:
In Chronological Order:
1. KFC
2. Captain D's
3. JCPenney
4. TN Aquarium
5. PVH

5 Things I would do with a million dollars:
1. Pay off bills.
2. Pay off family's bills.
3. Go back to college and major in everything!
4. Adopt.
5. Build a house big enough for the entire bunch!

5 Things that Made Me Laugh This week:
1. Co workers and a naked truck driver.. teehee.
2. My Sister and I watching the youtube Mario Prank Call video:

3. My crazy dog.
4. The health dept. guy.
5. My checking account balance!

5 People I tag:
whoever wants to do it, no pressure.

Country Music Renaissance

Matthew hates it, but I'm liking the country music these days.






and I am also obsessing over the new Oasis album.





Matthew made cookies for me to take to work tomorrow, and I just sat and watched youtube.. lol. Life before kiddies.. so peaceful!

Scaredy Cat, be gone!

I want to thank everyone around me who has been so supportive in our endeavors with this whole foster/adoption part of our lives. Everything is coming down to the wire now and things are happening so quickly.
We are so immeasurably blessed to have our family, friends, coworkers, and church family behind us.
:-)

The dog is now sleeping in the bed with us, a good sign that he can be trusted not to go crazy when we are not there to watch his every move. I love my Toodles.

Matthew had to get up and leave early for work this morning and I will have the entirety of the internet know I got up and got ready with no one in the house, and I was perfectly fine. I am definitely "growing up" now that I am getting to put myself in the frame of mind that pretty soon I will be a parent. That thought alone made me feel a little less afraid of the world.

I wish Obama hadn't won, because of all of the values we do not share.. but then I had to ask myself what all Bush accomplished in 8 years that really made me happy we shared many of the same moral and social values we did.. and that left me coming up short.. so maybe Obama won't ruin the culture of our nation like I had imagined after all. God will make it right, in His will.

Oddly enough, Apple Safari spell check still doesn't recognize the word "Obama".. fix it!

Vote Day, Inspection Day

This weekend was so jam-packed full of things going on, I can't really remember all that has been going on around me.
We managed (through the support & generosity of Matthew's parents) to pull together the children's rooms. We separated the bunk beds, bought bedding, set up toy storage, and a toddler bed. We rearranged the bedroom, installed a pull-down attic ladder.. and now have adequate storage for all of our holiday things!
Oh, we are richly blessed.
We finished our last IMPACT class, got our certificates, and received the children's state case files to review. This week we had our fingerprints scanned, and our health department inspection.
I managed to get the home study worker to hurry us into a 11/10 home study, so we will be finishing up and can be approved at the end of next week. I am so excited!
My sister came down today, and I burned a copy of Oasis' new album.. it is sooo good. YaY, new tunes. I cranked it up and finished up the cleaning!
This weekend I have CPR certifications and a shopping trip planned with my nephew.
My house is so clean!