And then I was 37

Damn time flies. How is it that I still feel 22 but my driver's license insists on 37? I feel 40 breathing down my neck. And it's not pleasant. However I do have good news to share.

HOME STUDY approved. We're just waiting to receive it in the mail so we can add our signatures and get it back to the agency. (There always seems to be just one more step, doesn't there?)

HAD A GREAT VISIT with my family. My 3 nieces were unbelievably adorable. They left me a b'day voicemail. All 3 of them screaming into the phone at once. Oldest monkey (6 years): I love you to the moon and back! Middle monkey (4 years): I love you one hundred dollars! Baby monkey (2.5 years): Love you whole world! They crack me up (and make me feel all warm fuzzy special).

BEING WHISKED away by my girl as soon as I get home. We're going to the mountains for hiking and a side trip to the county fair (complete with funnel cake and redneck watching!).

Guess 37 is not too bad after all.

Ps
This is my first attempt to post from my phone - please excuse the typos (stuck at the airport. trying to catch up on life via blackberry)

2 signatures and that time I almost burned down the house

In (waiting to wait to) adoption news:
We are two signatures away from actually being approved to join the real live waiting list. I'm trying to dwell on the positive ([almost] almost there [!]) instead of the negative (OM f'ing G we started this damn process last October).

In other news:
We had a super good time watching the soccer game on Sunday. And now I can't wait to live vicariously through my children and force them into every sport my mom never let me play. Just kidding. Sort of.

After the game we came home and I attempted to make this cake as a birthday present to myself (I'll be out of town for my real birthday later this month - and if we're being honest, S is not the baker in the family - but then, by the end of this post you'll realize, clearly, neither am I). I found the recipe via this post over at Love Invents Us. And just as I was cleaning up from all the hard work and daydreaming about the chocolatey payoff, the smoke started coming out of the oven. And I started freaking out. Which turned into me yelling for S to lock up the kitties* so I could open the back door to let the smoke out (we don't have a fan in the kitchen but we do have a smoke alarm that automatically calls the fire department and I have an irrational fear of fire trucks showing up for a false alarm birthday cake gone bad disaster). S tried to fan the smoke toward the door while I burned my fingers rushing the baking sheets to the backyard. The cake remnants now reside in the trashcan. And the house has this vague burny smell. But all is not lost as 1) the smoke alarm never went off and 2) I have a coupon for an ice cream cake from Baskin Robins (mmmmmm, mint chocloate chip).

*Don't worry, they are fine. In our house locking up the kitties = putting them in the bedroom and closing the door.

Book review - #2

Blogher was nice enough to let me review a second book. If you're into happy teen lit, you can check out my thoughts on Sarah Dessen's, What Happened to Goodbye here.

ps
Stay tuned for review #3 (next month maybe?). I was super eager to read this book even before it was added to the review list.

smoke up ass? check!

Met with the agency today. I reigned in the beast and was professional and polite and stuck to my mental list of what I wanted to accomplish. And the lady across the desk was equally as fake and basically fed me all kinds of polite, concerned-faced answers. We now have a plan to get these final steps done. But no promises that they will be done in a timely manner. I'm kind of torn between being excited about being *almost* done with this pre-waiting paperwork segment and being pissed at all the communication and timeliness fails.

In emotionally related happy/pissed news, my car broke down in the middle of the road (pissed), the ex-mechanic crack head on the corner offered to fix it (happy - it's a long story), he managed to break more than he fixed (pissed), I took this as a sign that it was time to upgrade my '98 Civic (and maybe not do business with the neighborhood crack dealers) and get our soon-to-be peanut something safer and more reliable to ride around in (happy), I had to pay $400 to get the ol' girl running and trade-in-able (pissed), but if all goes well I'll be taking home a new-to-me civic hybrid on Friday (*super* happy).

So, I will take a lesson from my wife, who almost always sees the happy in life, and just relax into the oh-my-god-about-to-get-on-the-baby-wait-list-and-a-newish-car-to-boot and feel the happy!

MIA

Where did June go?

I have so many posts that made it as far as my head but never quite found their way to the key board. S and I just returned from a much needed vacation. We literally got lost in the sand dunes of P'town (and have the sunburns to prove it). We were about 15 minutes away from being the tourists that end up in the ER because they were too dumb to bring water and ask for directions. But even that part was lovely and perfect. (and if you're headed that way, try Bliss yogurt and ice cream - yum!)

Our home study has still not been approved. Not that it's been rejected. It's just sitting on someone's desk. Waiting. For them to look at it. The communication and customer service have S-U-C-K-E-D at this agency and I have gone from playing nice to kicking ass and taking names. I am hoping to have an in-person meeting with them this week to try to get the ball rolling again. It's been 7 months since we signed up and handed over a serious wad of cash. Surely we should at least be officially waiting by now.

And, completely off topic, but I picked up The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks at an airport bookstore while on a recent work trip and it totally rocked my world. Honest to g-d all this time I thought HeLa was a nice old Jewish lady living in NY and donating her cells. I don't know how my little mind came up with that story, but nothing could be further from the truth. I highly recommend the book.