Job Search

Today's guest post is from my friend Kathryn, another one from Lubbock. (I do have friends outside of Lubbock, but thus far none of them have answered my pleas for a guest blog post.) Kathryn and I have many interests in common (including, but not limited to, our sci-fi geekiness), and I often say that I'm going to be Kathryn when I grow up, because of the frequency with which she says aloud what I am thinking. It's really pretty fun for both of us (or so she tells me).

Kathryn shares with us today her thoughts as an almost-empty nester.

Adoption

It feels like we aren't getting anywhere, and we didn't really make any strides forward in May. But, one of our goals is to pay off credit card debt (and some medical debt as well!) before we have children placed with us, so in that way we are moving forward. Also, it seems we are going to be moving into a larger house before we get children, so we'd have to have our home study, if nothing else, redone if it were done before we moved. So we'll check into our options and keep you posted.

This morning

This morning we are going to be fingerprinted for a background check for our adoption, and then I am leaving for a Bible bowl trip to Abilene. But first, I'm going to go run two miles.

We spent quite a bit of time with Angie (and some other people) last night. It was nice to see her after so long!

Odds and ends

I wanted to post an update on our adoption process, probably the last one for a while, because we've entered a rather slow phase! Our paperwork is almost ready to be turned in, in fact we hope to have it done this week. After that it is a matter of getting other things done as we have room in our budget, so we do not expect to be ready for our homestudy phase until May at the earliest. From all accounts, the homestudy phase is what takes the longest. I have pretty much abandoned all hope of having children by the end of the summer, although we are still thinking end of the year. For now, we're praying for that.

We've also had a rash of bad news from various sources lately, so we're hoping for better news today. About anything.

And finally, I have pictures posted here of some quilts that I am so very proud of. My entire photo blog is here.

At least I got THAT over with!

I walked to work this morning, just because I could. :) Seriously I wanted to ride my bike, but what with conflicting weather reports about expected wind I decided not to take anything with me that couldn't easily be brought back home again if the wind were to pick up. And as my husband never tires of reminding me, my balance is bad enough in pristine conditions. Adding high winds to the mix is a recipe for disaster.

I stayed home the last couple of nights to do "peer reviews" for work, and it was miserable. Fortunately, they are done, turned in, and off my plate. Now I just have to wait for my own performance review to see if my coworkers all wrote variations on, "Su is kind of funny but she's a jerk." We were asked to be frank with our reviews, but I couldn't bring myself to write much that was negative about anyone else. The main reason is, I work with an amazing group of people. There is no one in that office that is not absolutely fantastic at what he/she does. So it is hard to come up with areas for improvement. Reason number two: even if said coworker does get on my last nerve, that does not affect his/her job performance. Or mine.

Anyway. I have Bible bowl questions to write, CPS paperwork to fill out, a quilt to, well, quilt, a blanket to finish crocheting (preferably before the baby is six months old!), two more crochet projects to start, a couple of cross-stitch projects that likewise need starting... Oh, dear. If only everyone I know (including us, I suppose) wouldn't insist upon having children at once.

Warning! Ranting ahead!

So I was driving home just a few minutes ago, and I thought to myself, "Why was this ever hard?" Driving a standard is as natural as an automatic now. Thank goodness.

This Tuesday is our last pre-adoption training class (Halelujah!). I know the classes are important, we are getting valuable information, etc., but I'm really glad we won't have to go any longer. It will be very nice to have our Tuesday evenings back. Lest anyone think we are close to getting children, let me correct you by saying we still have paperwork, fingerprinting, home visits, and probably some stuff I haven't yet thought of to get through. We still have quite a way to go.

And now for my main topic: I drove home yesterday after taking Chad to work, and I was distressed to see people flocking into every high-fat, high-carb, high-calorie, low-nutrient restaurant in sight. The obesity epidemic is well-publicised, well-hyped, and well-known throughout America, and the dangers that come with obesity are very real, and yet so many people aren't even trying. Why must people who are already overweight insist upon driving to a nasty fast-food restaurant, circling the car park for the closest spot, and waddling in to load up on more junk? I'm not opposed to enjoying one's food, nor to eating out on occasion, but there are people who don't even bother to take charge of their own health. Or perhaps I have it wrong. Maybe this is their way of taking charge; the "I'll do what I want with my own life" attitude that has no regard for the fact that you won't have a life with which to do anything if you keep this up. Or regard for those who care about you. Or for the Medicare system, that someday will be obliged to pay your medical bills, should you manage to be with us that long.

Okay, so that was a nice little rant, but I had to get it out of my system. In other news, I was back on my bicycle yesterday for the first time in a few months. I now have flat-proof tires on both wheels, which means I can ride anywhere without worrying about picking up thorns, broken glass, or whatnot, but it also adds to the drag and means I have to work harder. We took a short trip to the library, about three miles total, and that was enough work in itself for one day. It is almost hard to believe that last summer I was riding four miles one way, but I was more in condition then. So that's what I need to get back to, I suppose. The wind was also unfriendly to us yesterday, but then that is part of life here.

Saturday in January

Well, I am totally liking the new Blogger! I've spent waaaaaay too much time playing with my template (templates, actually, since I have 3 blogs), and I think I'm liking it at the moment. And then I went back and added labels to all my old posts, good use of my time I know, so if you are wondering what I have to say about the weather in Lubbock, you have only to click on the label in the sidebar (as I understand it, since I've not tried it yet) and they all come up. Fun, fun, fun.

So Day 1 of the weight-loss challenge is going well-- we've managed to avoid overeating and even went for a walk in the cold. We went to the library, for two reasons: it makes a nice walk (about 3.5 miles), and Chad wanted to get a book. When we got there, though, we decided not to get a book because that meant we had to carry it home with us. So basically, we got really cold only for health reasons. :) Steaming cups of tea were in order when we returned home.

Also today, I made the first move toward making our home child-friendly for adoption: I moved some furniture out of the extra room, which will be the childrens' room, and even started a "Craft Box" for the children. Really, it was my old craft box, but it has not been in use since I got one of those nice wheeled 3-drawer cart things for my craft stuff. Today, however, I pulled out the child-friendly stuff from my cart and put them into the box. That's about it in terms of a child-friendly house, except we do have outlet covers in most of our outlets. We'll have to get some more for the rest.

Time to update...

Or people may think I've fallen off the face of the earth! I do live on the upper storey of our apartment, but I am still gravity-bound, alas.

Anyway! My life is completely consumed at the moment with the upcoming Mission Fare at church (I'm "running", if you would call it that, the England booth. Only because that's the only booth at which I can serve hot tea and talk about football (not the daft American version) and it make sense.), the sheer tonnage of paperwork that CPS has very kindly sent us so that we can be on our merry way to fostering and adopting children, the half-a-dozen craft projects I have going at the moment (two quilts, one crocheted baby blanket, one crocheted curling-up-in blanket, and a couple of cross-stitches-- wow, that really is half a dozen), typing up some senior Bible bowl questions, reading Acts myself while I'm at it, oh and I'm still going to work every day. So when I started that list I thought I didn't have a lot going on, but having typed through it all, I'm thinking I need to stop typing and go do something else.

So. This is why no one has heard from me in a while. :) I'm really excited that we're doing Acts for Bible bowl this year actually, it's a great book to read (not that the others aren't, but I think everyone reading this knows what I mean). And I'm even more excited that my participation this year will be limited to what I do for senior Bible bowl. Don't get me wrong, I've loved doing it with the younger kids, but four years of helping with Bible bowl when we don't even have children in the program has taken its toll on my already unstable sanity. I was at the meeting for about 10 minutes tonight, when someone brought to my attention that an adult who actually needed to be at the meeting was instead supervising some kids watching a movie down the hall, so I switched places with her. And that 10 minutes was enough for me, really, to remember that it is probably just as much fun to participate on the fringes as on the inside. So we'll see.

Well, this has turned into a Bible bowl post, but I was so inspired by my brother's Bible bowl post that I had to talk about it. His group is doing 1 & 2 Corinthians-- can't say that I envy him at the moment. :)