It's our policy...***UPDATE***

With the move, I've forgotten to inform all the institutions (no, not THOSE kinds of institutions) that we deal with, yeah I know I should have been more on the ball with it, but since we have all our mail forwarded to our new address for a year, there's still (technically) no rush.

Anyways, I called up someone today to say "we moved, please change your records", but I was told, "we need your permission in writing to do this". Mmmkay. It's just an address change, I'm not revealing the launch codes...

We arranged a time to meet to discuss something else and we hung up. Two seconds later, she called me back and said "By the way, I need your new address so I can send out the permission letter." Ques'que fuck?! (Yes, that's my new favourite saying).

So I said "If you need my address and I'm giving it to you now, why can't you simply change your records and be done with it." I was told, "I'm sorry, but this is our policy and it's for your protection."

Does this make ANY sense...AT ALL?!

***I should have prefaced this all by saying that she didn't check to make sure I was who I said I was when I was talking to her (ie., she didn't ask me any kind of security type questions), which makes it all the more ridiculous.*** ;)

We have a weiner!

No, not that kind, but considering who came up with the winning entry in my "contest", I thought she would be "honoured" with that title...

So without further ado, my new little comment label is "Pieces of Junk in my Trunk". Thanks Sen. ;)

Happy hour...

Who's up for a challenge?! ***UPDATE***

Some people are just weird. Someone found my blog with that search term. Now granted, I have my comment line set up as "Squirrels holding their nuts", so it could be questioned who is more odd them or me...but that's besides the point. Though I think she could take some of the blame for it...it was her suggestion after all... ;)

If you remember this post, you'll remember how all of this got started. So, with that in mind, I think it's probably time to change my comment line to either something more maple-y in nature or something more amusing...put your thinking caps on people. Though I am fond of her previous suggestion of "hard woodies"...I'm just afraid of the kind of "element" I'd get here.

Oh wait, you're all already here.

***Ok, I still can't decide on a new comment label, so in the meantime, I've chosen this...ok, Josh did. The challenge is still open...***

Irony...

This weekend, I FINALLY got around to seeing The Godfather (Part 1), which is ironic, when you consider what my email address is (but that's a story for another day). Sure I've seen bits and pieces of it over the years, but I've never seen it from beginning to end (albeit it was shown with commercials - and censored). I really should rent it so I can enjoy it more fully...though I'm sure I can do without more violence, but then again, I was a diehard Sopranos fan. ;)

For K2

For Special K

I just have to ask, has this ever happened to you? :P

Look no further, I know the answer!

Someone found my blog the other day by googling this. Apparently my blog gave them the answer and they have been coming back ever since. I hope they've gotten the answer(s) they've been looking for.

By the way, if you've found what you're looking for, care to enlighten the rest of us? :)

Sorry, I don't mean to mock you, whoever you are, I just found that very amusing that that search term landed you here. Best of luck in your journey...

25,000 hits

Holy hell people...25,000 hits! Well, at least I should pass 25,000 at some point this evening. It seems unbelievable to me that so many of you find what I write here as interesting as you do, that you keep coming back for more (unless you're all gluttons for punishment).

What I find more remarkable is how incredible this community is, how close-knit it is and that I can count a great number of you amongst my nearest and dearest friends. Just think, for those of you I haven't met yet, we've got three more years to get to know each other. ;)

Thank you, each and every one of you. You don't know how much it helps to know that you're out there, reading and supporting me through this journey to our daughter.

One day...

Always check your bills...

Bell Mobility can go take a running bite at themselves. :)

I got home this evening and opened up my bills mail and noticed that my cell bill was WAY higher than it should have been. Yeah, I know, I don't REALLY need a cell phone, but hey, you never know when you're going to get a referral call...*snort*

Anyways, I looked at the bill and realized that not only had they changed my package, they hadn't even bothered to tell me. So instead of getting 100 minutes with weekends and evenings free, I was getting 36 minutes at a cost of $30...Ques'que fuck?! Care to translate that, Doris?

So I called up Bell, complained, and surprisingly they fixed the bill without much effort. Apparently there was a 'flaw' in their system, so they had to fix it by hand. So instead of paying $73.14 this month, I only have to pay $40.04. Not too shabby.

I guess the moral of the story is to always bitch read before you pay. ;)

A shiny new award...

Sam gave me an award, yay me! Actually it's more of a pity award as she was only supposed to award it to five people but felt sorry for poor little me and tossed it here as well...oh woe is me. ;)

Now I have to fling this on to five unsuspecting rubes other bloggers who I enjoy reading every day.

No list is complete without:
Johnny
Connie
Tasha (a new favourite)
Sen
2kayaks

Apparently, you're all supposed to now list your favourites, yadda yadda yadda...but I know none of you follow rules either, so somehow I think this thing is just going to sort of die now. :P

Sweet sixteen...

Today marks our 16 month LIDiversary and, as usual, we celebrated it with a cake...mmmm Boston cream pie. We were going to get a bubka, but sadly they were out. I'm sorry, Cari, next month we'll get one and we'll think of you. ;)

Last night I went out with Cari, Catherine and a whole host of other A-moms-in-waiting in the Toronto area for dinner. We get together once every other month (in addition to other social events that we organize). Anyways, while Cari and I were talking, bitching, laughing and generally having a good time, we talked about the wait. Anyways, it dawned on us that since this is my 16th month LIDiversary and as my agency mentioned the other day I have another 36 months to go. So all tolled it's going to be a 52 month wait. Yes, 52 months. As many months as there are cards in a deck. Had I known that, I probably would have changed the title of this blog to something more appropriate...

Anyways, with that in mind, I can deal with the wait more easily. I can handle 36 more months. At least I can see an 'end' to this with that number in mind. It's much easier than it all being up in the air...much like 52 card pick-up...sorry, had to. ;)

As it's another LIDiversary, I got another charm for my bracelet, which is also the final link in my first bracelet. The charm I got this month is the R. If you click on the picture, you can see the bracelet in much better detail...and all the blanks are space savers for when we bring Little Maple home.

I also came to the realization that I'm not just going to have one "Friends and Family" bracelet for her, but we're going to end up having two of them. Oh well, one for each arm.

She'll have more than enough people who are going to love her anyways. :)

Captain Caveman

Seriously people...Captain Caveman?! Why are people constantly hitting my blog and looking for pictures of Captain Caveman?! I posted a picture of him once. ONCE! Now I have people doing Google searches of Captain Caveman at least 2, 3, or 4+ times a day. GRAH! Good old Statcounter tells me so.

Actually, the oddest one was today, from a lawyer's office. I guess it was a slow day at the office...

Of course, this post won't dissuade people from looking now...Granted, it was a good cartoon, but sheesh. ;)

I'm always curious what their reaction is when they look for his picture and then find out this is an adoption blog. If you're one of those people, leave me a comment and let me know. :P

National De-Lurking Day...

Wendy over at Adoption and Fire decided that it was National De-Lurking Week, but sadly I know all of you don't have the attention span to devote a whole WEEK to this...so I'll change it to a day. :P

So, you all have until tomorrow to de-lurk and leave me a comment...whether or not you've left one before. What are you waiting for? Mush! Mush!

Are your manners better than an ape?!

Take this quiz! :P

A new day...

I don't know why I was having such a hard day yesterday with all of that news. It just hit me like a ton of bricks. It's not like I didn't KNOW it. I did. I'd have to be living under a rock not to know that our referral was THAT far away, but to see it in print was just very hard to take.

It's one thing to see it here or here, but when it's actually in black and white from our agency, it stung.

Today's a new day and I'm not going to let the next three years rule my life. I can't let it. I just can't. It might hurt at times, I know it will, but I can't let it get the best of me.

So, I'm going to get up, brush myself off and get on with living my life.

When it rains...it pours...

We got an email from our agency, without getting into all of it, I'll just post what affects all of you reading this. The email discussed referrals and the likelihood of when referrals (based on their predicitions) would be received for certain LIDs.

The envelope please...

For those with a LID* of:

Rest of 2005: March 2008

January 2006 through mid-March 2006: Sometime in 2008

Mid-March 2006 through Mid-May 2006: Sometime in 2009

End of May 2006 through end of August 2006: Sometime in 2010

Mid-September 2006 through mid-November 2006: Sometime in 2011

Beginning of December 2006 through mid-February 2007: Sometime in 2012

Mid-March 2007 through end of April 2007: Sometime in 2013

So, there it is. 2011. In black and white. Hitting me over the head.

*They released this information by Group numbers, but I didn't want to post that information here, so if the 'math' looks a little wonky, that's why.

Great news to wake up to...

not.

I found out this morning that the CCAA has decided to take down the box from their site with the information about how far they get with the review room and referrals each month. Great. Another 'lifeline' of information...gone. Isn't that what we all need? Less information?

I'm sorry people, but I'm not going to put on a happy face and say, 'Wow! Isn't this great! We have even less knowledge about our adoption than before! How fantastic!' Sorry, not gonna happen. How is this beneficial to the waiting A-parents out there? How is this beneficial to the agencies who are now going to get X number of frantic emails/phone calls (me being among them already this morning) asking what the hell is going on?

How hard was it to just keep that little box on the site? It wasn't much, but it certainly was...piece of mind. At least we knew things were moving forward. Now, who knows what's going to be? Who knows when the next 'batch' is going to come out?

What's your thought on all of this? How good is your agency at giving you updates?

(Leave an anonymous comment if you would prefer.)

Congrats!

My friend Lisa FINALLY got her referral in this recent batch. Without getting into all the details of why this wasn't announced last week - let's just say the stork needs a GPS - (which you can read about on her blog), go here and wish her and her family a hearty congratulations on their referral of their one year old daughter!

She's a real beauty with such pinchable cheeks! OOF!

Another month of saving...

Woo. I'm thinking that by the time this is over, not only are we going to have first class tickets (there and back), but her college fund...and our retirement fund, since we'll pretty much be in a home by that time.

Oh wait, I'm supposed to think positively this year.

Right.

We'll POSITIVELY be in a retirement home by then. :)

I need a vacation...

On a side note, I went to the doctor today and all I seem to have (besides coughing up my lungs) is a 'virus'. Yay. A non-descript virus. So I'm just supposed to sit my ass in bed, eat chicken soup, suck on lozenges, and drink tea. Whoop-de-doo.

Please read...

This article and pass it along...

Ugh...

...did someone order two servings of the plague? We certainly didn't, but it feels like we have it. :P

It seems that Josh and I have whatever's going around and we're both sick as dogs. What is pissing me off is that it looks like we're going to miss this and we were both looking really forward to Z's birthday party. Let's hope for a miracle cure overnight...though somehow I doubt it. I've only missed one of his birthday parties before, and that was for an entirely different reason. *sigh*

Excuse me while I go *THUD*.

Help those in need...

I know this has been making the rounds on other blogs, and I've been meaning to post about it for weeks...

There's a site called Free Rice that not only helps you build/improve your vocabulary but helps those in need. For every word you get correct, they will donate 20 grains of rice to the United Nations to help end world hunger.

In the time it took me to write this post, I've already donated over 800 grains of rice...won't you help? It's really quite addictive...

Not really a resolution, however...

...I'm going to TRY to stay a little more positive about the adoption and wait times this year. Now don't get me wrong, we all have our hard days, weeks (let's face it, I've been having some hard months lately if you look at the tone this blog has been taking lately)...but I'm going to try.

*After all, I can't be Little Mary Sunshine all the time, now can I? ;)

Originally this blog was going to be printed out for our future daughter as a recollection of the wait for her, but lately with the negative tone it has taken, I'm not sure I'll be doing that. While it's realistic, sure, that the wait was hard...would I really want her to read HOW hard it was?

I think the way I'm going to look at the adoption (even though I am a realist at heart) I know it won't happen for a few more years, I'll be looking at it in stages. By that, I mean, the next 'stage' will be when the CCAA finally gets out of 2005. Then when they get out of March (where I know a fair number of friends are going to get referrals), then June, and then September...which is us!

Yeah, I know, it's not going to be easy, but hey nothing worth having ever is.

So come on CCAA, get into 2006...I'm ready for the next stage of this hayride! :)

*I had to put that in for you...you know who you are...

Double your fun...

Today is my nephew Z's seventh birthday! I can't believe he's 7 already! I still remember getting the call that his mom, L, was in labour, and rushing to the hospital to get there for his birth. *sigh* How time flies...

When I called him this morning to wish him happy birthday, his mom said that he wasn't up yet. Apparently he was too excited that it was his birthday today so he fought going to sleep last night and was up during the night...

He's having a bowling party on Saturday which should be a lot of fun. It's always cute watching him bowl and get so excited.

It's also my very good friend Nic's birthday today as well. Leave a comment here and wish her a happy birthday. (She's on vacation and if you leave a comment on her blog, she might not end up seeing it...but do whatever floats your boat). :P

For Michelle...