For Special K...

Awesomeness overload!

For those of you that have been following the blog for the past week or so, you'll remember that I wrote this post all about the Ultimate Blog Party (or UBP10).

Anyways, I never thought it would happen, but I *actually* won something and I couldn't be more pleasantly surprised and happy about it. I won a $250 gift certificate to a Hilton Garden Inn Hotel! How awesome is that?!

It's going to come in *so* handy when we go on our road trip later this year. WOO...HOO!!!

Thanks everyone at 5 Minutes for Mom!

43

43 months down. ?? to go.

I chose this charm to add to the bracelet as a remembrance for my late paternal grandmother. I'm named after her, and her name was...Rose.

Hell Mobility

You might wonder why I've got a picture of Snookie here, but all will be explained in time...

I've been having some issues with my cell phone lately. I've got the Palm Pre (need I say more?) and there have been problems with it for a while. Long story short, the volume button on the side doesn't work. I can decrease the volume, but not increase it (without going into the menu and adjusting it there). I can hear the phone ring, but I can't play videos or listen to music on it. I know it's not the end of the world, but when I buy something I kind of expect it to work.

So I went into Hell Bell Mobility this evening to talk about the issue. I went up to the customer support person who was busy talking on her cell. She was a combination of Snookie and Carmela Soprano - complete with the poofy hair and the long fingernails. I mean, LONG. She had her nails airbrushed with the Louis Vuitton insignia on them. Seriously.

They had to be at least a couple of inches long and she kept putting her fingernails in her mouth while we were talking. GROSS. But I digress...

Snookie The sales rep asked me when I got my phone, and I know I got it sometime in September, so all I said was "late September". She went to her computer and started looking for the date I purchased it...by the DATE. Not by the phone number or any other information, and she just kept scrolling. One of the other reps bitchslapped asked her to step away from the computer and go hooch it up elsewhere deal with another customer.

He found all the details and told me it was still under warranty. Great. He said I could get another phone, but they were on back order. I asked him how long it would take to get a new phone and he told me it could "take up to a month". Umm, ques'que fuck?!

Not that I live and die by my phone, but that's kind of an inconvenience. I asked the rep if I would lose any apps that I recently downloaded, and he said he wasn't sure and if I wanted to know, that I could call Bell. Umm, I'm in the Bell store, shouldn't he know that?!

Anyways, I called Bell from the BELL STORE and the customer service rep went through some trouble shooting with me. He asked me to restart the phone because "sometimes that fixes the problem". Umm, my problem is a mechanical problem with the button, but apparently I don't know what I'm talking about...but I digress.

When the phone restarted, he told me to click this, click that, do this, do that, and after twenty seven minutes and fifty three seconds (yes, the phone had a time stamp), he told me that the issue was with the phone's buttons. For all things holy...I was about to scream.

He told me that I should go home, upload all my pictures, and any info that I had on it, to my computer and then go back to Hell Bell and ask for a new phone. Didn't we already establish that I needed a new phone?! Anyways, he told me that if I wanted a new phone, I could get one for "free".

Technically it would be "free", except I would have to pay $35 for them to diagnosis the problem (yes, I already diagnosed it for them), and if I wanted a "loaner" phone while I wait for my "free phone", I could get one for $25. Yup, I could get my new, free phone for $60.

In the long run, I decided that I didn't want to bother. The issue doesn't affect the phone, per se, it's just annoying. Anyways, really, why should I pay for any of this when it's a technical problem? They suck.

Party hardy, drink Bacardi...

I've been doing the "Ultimate Blog Party" thing for a couple of years, and it's always a great way to "meet" new people and find out about them. For my regular readers, the handful that still keep reading my blurbs, the UBP is basically where you meet other bloggers and can actually win prizes. Some of the prizes kick ass, if I do say so myself. If I won anything, the one prize that would really come in handy would be the $250 gift certificate to a Hilton hotel, especially with our upcoming road trip this summer. ;)

Granted, I haven't won anything yet, but you never know...

For those of you that are new to this blog, I'm an ever-so-impatient, waiting mom for a child from China. So far it's been a very long process. When my husband and I started out, we were told that we would have a child within a year, but things changed...slightly.

Next week we'll have been waiting for 43 months. FORTY THREE long months. I'm not going to bore you with all the things that have led us to this point, but suffice it to say that this is the hardest thing I've ever been through. This wait has, in essence, drained us; emotionally. Who would have thought that it would be *this* difficult to have a child? But I digress...

The two things that have kept me somewhat sane throughout this process have been my wonderful husband of almost 14 years (is it wrong that I just referred to my husband as a 'thing'?), and my cat, Deuce.

If any of you new(er) folk would like to leave me a comment, I'll be sure to visit your blog.

Seriously...?

As I mentioned in my last post, we had met with our new social worker just this past Thursday. I just checked my email and the update is complete.

Seriously.

I'm absolutely stunned that since first talking with her on March 1st, that we were able to get all the documents complete, meet with her, and she was able to do our update. I'm sorry, but I'm just not used to this kind of prompt attention from a social worker.

Now if the CCAA could just hurry up...

Wow...just wow.

[Does anyone actually read this blog anymore?]

This past Thursday (yes, April Fool's Day and the middle of Passover), Josh and I met with our new social worker. We decided to schedule the meeting during Passover because: a) the house would be at its cleanest and,
b) Josh had the whole week off to help me with cleaning and preparing.

I can't get over how great she was.

We sat for just over two hours (she even ate my all-too-dry passover cake and said it was delicious) and talked about *everything* - including what's going on with our agency...

She wasn't a "typical" social worker, or at least what I've come to know as "typical" over the past 4+ years. She wasn't stiff (again, unlike the cake), she was *gasp* human. We talked, laughed, joked about things. It was totally bizarre, but in a good way.

She went over our original home study, page by page, but really only touched on the major points. She didn't even bother to comment on our first update because there really wasn't any substance to it. A few comments were made about our previous social workers (by her), which made me snort. ;)

When we got around to the topic of education, Josh mentioned that he had gotten his MBA during the time we were doing our original homestudy and that he had spent three weeks at Cranfield University. Our social worker's mouth dropped open. She told us that her second daughter was born on the grounds of the university (in a res). It was all a little bizarre considering how small the university is (in case anyone is familiar with the area, it's near Milton-Keynes). They spent about 15 minutes talking about the scenery, etc.

At the end of the meeting, we asked her if she wanted to see the rest of the house. She looked at me, and said that "your previous social worker saw it two years ago, that's good enough for me." (I wish I had known that before we cleaned it from top to bottom). :P

She told me to let her know when we're close (about a month or two before we think we'll get our referral). She actually schedules her vacations around referrals, so if she knows she's got a client who is getting theirs, she'll make sure she's in town.

We had such an enjoyable (I never thought that was possible) time with our social worker that when she left, I had to stop myself from hugging her. If any of the GTA folk need a social worker, leave me a comment and I'll pass her info on to you...

I know I've said it before, but I'll say it again, THANK YOU, LISA for giving us her name. We seriously can't thank you enough.