In the present moment...

A new kind of life

2011-07-06T09:34:00.000-04:00

My first day in eight years without a paying job.

It feels...odd.

Yesterday people at work tell me that I must be so relieved. That it must be nice to be getting rid of my stress. And, yes, it is.

But I haven't totally gotten rid of stress in my life...just the stress of working in a job at which I was pretty good for a long time, but on which I had burned out some time ago.

Now there's new and different stress...

We're officially a one-income family until I can figure out a way to generate some income while I'm a stay-at-home-mom. Hopefully with my writing.

I've committed to getting the house in shape for the baby's eventual (and hopefully soon!) arrival in our lives. That means cleaning out all of the closets, getting rid of more accumulated stuff to make way for new baby stuff, baby proofing, painting the baby's bookshelves and dresser, and the big project - sanding/priming/painting the remaining trim on our main floor. That's seven door frames (both sides), four window frames, and all of the baseboards. May not sound like a lot, but if you've ever sanded/primed/painted trim you'll know that it's a huge, time consuming, tedious and tiring task. Still, when it's finally done the house will feel fresh.

And then there's making sure that I'm using my time wisely and efficiently each day. That I don't allow myself to get lazy. That I don't sleep in everyday, but I get up and go to "work." That I make a list of things needing to get done each day and that I do them.

As part of my daily "get things done/don't get lazy" regime, I need to make progress on my book. Big progress. Now that I'm not dealing with the exhaustion (or the excuse of exhaustion...) of a full-time job I am making the commitment to myself to write everyday.

Every. Single. Day.

To make writing part of my daily list of things to do because until now I've been pretty haphazard in my approach to getting this book written. Some days I don't even look at it. Other days I'm off at the coffee house for six hours clackering away on my laptop and ignoring the rest of my life. It's time to learn a little discipline when it comes to pounding out my novel.

Then there's also the stress of being the person who is now available to get "stuff" done. The cat needs to go to the vet. The plumber is coming to deal with the leaky faucet. Deliveries. Other house stuff. Grocery shopping. Cleaning. Laundry. That's all going to fall to me because I'm the one that will be home and not "working."

My conversation with my husband this morning:

CHRIS: So, what's on tap for you today for your first day of freedom?

ME: Well, I need to head to the Target in W to get sheets and beach towels for the trip. And also those t-shirts that I like so much, but they didn't have a whole lot left at the Target in S. Um, and then I have a couple of other errands to do and then an appointment with N (my therapist) at 2:30. And then I'm going to come home and deal with laundry.

CHRIS [furrowed brow]: Mmmm. Um.

ME: What?

CHRIS: Would you mind doing the laundry this morning?

ME [furrowed brow]: Why?

CHRIS: So everything has time to dry today. I'd really like to pack this evening so we can get on the road tomorrow as soon as I get home from work.

ME [brow still furrowed]: Um.

For about half a minute I'm annoyed by my husband's perfectly reasonable request/suggestion.
I have my schedule planned out for the day! The way I want to get things done in the order that I want to get them done. And now he wants me to change my whole schedule to take care of the laundry this morning???

I'm about to make a really stupid comment to the effect of what is on my mind which will surely start something that involves serious bickering. But I stop myself. Suddenly feeling very foolish and embarrassed for being annoyed for even thirty seconds.

He's right, of course.

It certainly makes more sense to get the laundry done and hung up this morning before I head out for the day. And, aside from my 2:30 appointment, do I really have a set schedule? Nope. Just my handy list of things to do and purchase.So, getting the laundry done this morning? Not such a big deal.

ME [flushing slightly with embarrassment and hoping that Chris doesn't notice]: Of course. I'll take care of it.

The first load of laundry is in the washer right now. It's still early and I have plenty of time to get everything done that I want to today.

* * *

Just because I don't have a paying job doesn't mean that I'm not going to be working or that I won't have stress.

I'm just going to have a different kind of job. And there's going to be different kinds of stress. And I'm sure that there will be days where I wish desperately that I was heading into the office. Days when if I have to look at another load of laundry or clean out another closet I will likely lose my mind just a little.

Hopefully that's in the distant future (or, even more hopefully, not in the future at all.)

But for now I've signed on for a new life of being the person in our house who takes care of the "stuff" and who has to learn how to fill her days in new ways - with writing, taking care of our home, hopefully taking care of a baby very soon.

Am I excited?

Yeah, kind of.

Am I scared?

Yeah, a little.

OK, a lot.

But here I am and I want to be in the present moment with all of it.

Maybe next year

2011-07-04T20:56:00.001-04:00

Most days I'm OK.

I do not spend much time these days obsessing about the adoption that fell through earlier this year or the one that has yet to happen.

Most days I'm OK.

I go about my business. The business of living. The business of trying to be in the present moment.

But then it creeps up on me. Stealthily.

The sadness. The longing.

Like yesterday.

In many ways yesterday is a good day. Gray and rainy. I spend the day in my jammies, reading the last book in my very favorite fantasy series, hunkered down on the couch, enjoying the cat snuggled up beside me. The house needs to be cleaned, but I ignore it in favor of the life of the mind and imagination.

It is only in the evening when it's finally dark enough for the fireworks to start and I head out with my husband onto our back deck to watch them that I realize how sad I am.

How yet another holiday has almost come and gone.

And we are still not parents.

I try to enjoy the fireworks, but fail and head back inside to finish my book.

Last year at the Independence Day parade we talk about how great it will be "next year" when we have the baby with us. We laugh and wonder if she'll make it all the way through the parade or if the heat and the noise will be too much for her and we'll have to pack up and head out early.

And yet here we are at "next year" and next year's parade...

Still no baby. Still not parents.

Today we head to the parade, but surprisingly, I am not sad. Apparently I had my little moment yesterday. Instead I clap for the marching bands, clap for the veterans from the Korean War, Vietnam, and WWII, eat a forbidden hot dog, laugh at the tiny Chihuahua a few feet away barking like mad and desperate to get at the passing Clydesdale horses, and thoroughly enjoy watching parents with their children all around us enjoying the day.

And hoping that maybe next year...

Mental illness: There but for the grace of God, go I...

2011-06-29T22:39:00.000-04:00

She is in line in front of me at the Dunkin Donuts. It isn't that she has a bad odor drawing my attention to her because she doesn't have one, which is surprising.

It is her oddness.

The way she holds her arms away from her sides, hands dangling, and sways ever so slightly. It's the short brown obviously unwashed hair standing straight up in the back with large flakes of dandruff embedded in it. It's the droopy, dirty, strapless sundress and the dirty white flip flops that make me look at her more closely. Her tan feet are filthy with long, sharp looking toenails that have not seen a clipper in many, many months. I notice that her long, sharp looking finger nails are dirty as well. When her arms are not held away from her sides she plucks and plucks at the skirt of her dress. I'm guessing that she is somewhere in her early fifties, although it's hard to tell. Her face, except for her rapidly blinking eyes, is slack and immobile.

The young girl behind the counter quickly gets the woman in the sundress her two powdered sugar jelly donuts and a large coffee all the while pointedly not looking at the woman or speaking to her except to say "That's three dollars and eighty-two cents."

Donuts and coffee in hand the woman in the sundress makes a beeline to a table with her flip-flops slapping loudly against her filthy feet as she walks.

The young girl behind the counter, obviously relieved that the crazy woman is gone, chatters loudly at me as she takes my order. I take my bottle of water and grab a seat.

From across the restaurant I watch the woman in the sundress. It's hard not to. I am embarrassed to find myself staring, but she doesn't notice. She has dumped the donuts on the table without the benefit of a napkin. The table top is now covered in powdered suger. One of the donuts has a large bite taken out of it. Half of the woman's face is covered in powdered sugar, but she makes no attempt to wipe it off. Doesn't even seem to notice. Her eyes blink rapidly as she chews and she continually plucks at the skirt of her dress. After swallowing she stops blinking and plucking, stands up, grabs the partially eaten donut and makes a beeline to the trashcan. Slap-slap-slap go her flip flops. She throws the donut away, taps the door of the trashcan four times and then slap-slap-slaps her way back to the table to grab the uneaten donut and repeat the whole slap-slap-slap/throwing away/tapping process all over again.

Now other people in the Dunkin Donuts are watching her. It's obvious to them that she's not right in the head and they stare at her. As I am staring. She still doesn't notice.

The remains of her original twenty dollars are on the table next to hers. She grabs a five dollar bill and returns to the counter where she orders another two donuts (same kind) and another large coffee. The same young girl waits on her and is apparently still too embarrassed to look at her. The woman sways and plucks at her skirt until her order is ready. Her sundress is falling down. I am suddenly afraid that the entire Dunkin Donuts is going to be treated to seeing this woman quite naked. Amazingly, the woman notices her dangerously drooping sundress and hikes it up.

Back at her table, the woman in the sundress again dumps the powdered sugar covered donuts on the table. But now she stops. The plucking and the swaying stop. She holds her arms out straight from her sides and looks perplexed. Furroughs her brow. It's obvious that she is confused. Then she suddenly appears upset. Something is wrong, but she doesn't know what. She pulls her arms back in, furiously plucks at her skirt a few times, blinks rapidly and then just about leaps out of her seat to grab another five dollar bill and head back to the counter.

This time she takes her third order of coffee and donuts to a completely different table on the other side of the Dunkin Donuts leaving the mess of her orginal two coffees and second set of donuts on the first table. She also leaves the rest of her money out on the other table. Again she dumps the donuts on the new table. Now she studies them and her current location. A brief smile plays on her face as she picks up one of the donuts to take a large bite apparently much more satisfied with this table and these donuts. She chews, blinks rapidly, and plucks at the skirt of her dress.

I pull myself away from the spectacle of this seriously mentally ill woman because I have to get myself to work. But not before I sit in my car for a few minutes breathing deeply, wondering if I should do something, not knowing what to do for the woman in the sundress, feeling guilty about not knowing what to do, and then simply being thankful for my life.

Am I an awful person?

2011-06-12T16:52:00.002-04:00

I'm sitting in my favorite coffee house today trying to get some writing done when she walks in with her friend.

She can't be more than 15 or 16 years old. Laughing and giggling. Very pretty with long dark hair, dark eyes and tanned skin. She is wearing one of this season's popular floor length "maxi" dresses.

And she is also very obviously very pregnant.

She and her friend purchase their coffee and treats and sit at the next table over from me chatting happily away. I know that I am staring at them, which is terribly rude, but I cannot tear my eyes away from them so distracted and distressed am I by the sight of this pregnant girl.

Distressed and distracted not by her or her pregnancy, but rather by my reaction to her and her pregnancy.

"How can you possibly take care of a baby at your age?" I ask her in my thoughts. "You're just a child yourself!"

I wonder whether she's planning to keep her baby, if her family is going to step in with help and financial support. Will this young woman's parents step up and raise the child if she cannot or will not raise it? Is the father going to be involved? Will they live at home with her family? Or will this young woman try to live on her own with the baby?

Then suddenly some part of me contemplates getting up and walking over to this young woman to introduce myself and ask her outright if she's considering adoption. To tell her that there is a couple living just a few miles away who would make wonderful adoptive parents for her child. That the woman who would make a great mom is me! Standing right in front of her!

Urgh! Ach!! WTF??? How can I be thinking these things???

Quite suddenly my mouth goes dry and I start to sweat with the shame of it all. I am so ashamed that even just one of these thoughts has for one millionth of one second been rattling around in my brain. So ashamed.

This young woman's pregnancy is clearly none of my business.

And, further, I have absolutely no business whatsoever judging her for being young and being pregnant.

Soon the young women finish their coffee and treats and make their way out of the coffee house leaving me behind with my terrible thoughts. Leaving me feeling...

Bad.

Selfish.

Judgmental.

Predatory.

Does this make me an awful person?

I am still not a mom

2011-05-22T12:45:00.000-04:00

It's been 70+ days since we found out that the adoption fell through.

In that time I've: wept, blogged, withdrawn from the world, come back out into the world, exercised, not exercised, gained and lost 6 pounds, gone back to therapy, attended a conference for work, decided that I'm going to have a nervous breakdown if I continue my work, tendered my resignation (effective July 1), started looking into new careers and returning to school, cleaned my house, let my house become a complete wreck, avoided the subject of adoption, talked incessantly about adoption, got weepy when I would see little babies out with their moms, came down with The Plague, missed a week of work, started revamping my novel.

And...

At least over the course of the past week, I stopped thinking about the fact that I am still not a mom.

Until today.

It just kind of hit me. And I don't know why. I walk into the house after my trip to the gym and there it is loud and clear in my head:

I. Am. Still. Not. A. Mom.

Which then leads to this thought:

Chris. Is. Still. Not. A. Dad.

And the really sad thing is that we're not having those great little conversations that we had been having for a long time before the adoption fell through...

"We're not going to be able to sleep in on the weekends anymore once the baby comes."

"I can't wait until we get to take her to her first PawSox game!"

"Omigod. I am so not looking forward to the poopy diapers."

Nope.

It seems like we've kind of lost our enthusiasm.

We've turned our attention to other things to avoid thinking about the fact that we were supposed to be more than two months into parenthood by now.

I am still not a mom.

Which kind of sucks.

However, there's not much I can do about that now except be in the present moment.

And so in this present moment I am off to drink a green smoothie, have some lunch, shower and then hit the grocery store.

Life goes on.

Being with discomfort

2011-05-18T08:53:00.000-04:00

"Did you take anything for that?" my husband asks me a few days ago during the height of what I am now calling "The Plague." The "that" he's referring to is me practically hacking up a lung every twenty minutes or so.

"No [coughs]," I reply in a deep scratchy voice through a stuffed up head and chest. "I'm waiting until I go to bed for the night [coughs] to take any cold meds [sneezes and blows nose twice] so I can at least breathe a little better while I sleep. [coughs] During the day I'm just trying to let [sneezes] this thing make its way [coughs] through my system."

He looks at me as if I have lost my mind.

"Yeah...umm...OK."

A few hours after this conversation I still cannot breathe. I'm huddled in my nest of blankets on the living room couch and still hacking away. Our elderly cat is enjoying the warmth I'm emitting as a result of my fever. She lays snoozing on top of me, opening her eyes each time I cough to regard me with a baleful glare as if to say, "You're disturbing my nap. Hush."

Like my husband, I'm sure the cat would love it if I would just take the cold medication.

Nope.

Unlike those folks who medicate themselves day and night in an attempt to squelch every symptom of an illness, I prefer to simply be still and quiet and let whatever upper respiratory yuck (because that's usually what I get) just run it's course.The cold meds aren't going to make it go away any more quickly. If anything, I sometimes think squelching the symptoms slows the progress of a virus through your system forcing it to linger.

Better to just let it do its thing and get it over with.

Yep, that's my strategy.

It hits me as I'm laying there trapped under the cat and coughing yet again: In spite of feeling wretched, I am actually good at sitting with physical discomfort.

I am good at just being quiet for days on end and being still and sitting with the discomfort. At waiting it out and letting it run its course.

How weird is that?

In the next moment it hits me that, sadly, I do not possess the same skill when it comes to my mental and emotional life. While I might be good at sitting with physical discomfort, experiencing psychic discomfort of any kind...yikes!

Nope. Not good at all at being quiet and being still when it comes to sitting with difficult emotions or thoughts.

Like most people, I want to squelch the symptoms of discomfort in the realms of the mental and the emotional - numb them with things like food, movies, televsion, my computer, solitaire, anything fun and pleasant that will distract from the discomfort.

How sad is that?

And especially now when I have just given notice at my job, with no new job in the wings and my future plans uncertain. I'm making the leap into parenthood (hopefully, if our adoption ever goes through) and potentially into a writing career.

Yep, there's definitely going to be some psychic discomfort heading my way.

Maybe I should replicate my nest of blankets from my days with The Plague? Think that would help?

How many self-help books are too many?

2011-05-17T09:27:00.000-04:00

I open the plastic storage bin in search of a specific journal that I've used in the past to record notes and thoughts about a particular self-help book.

And there they all are.

My collection.

I've had to move them because we turned what was the guest room/my studio into the baby's room. My studio is now down in our finished basement. And I haven't taken the time to pull out and shelve my self-help book collection in the new space.

Until I look at them in their bin this evening, I had forgotten how many self-help books that I actually own.

Holy buckets, Batman.

That's a whole lot of advice from a whole bunch of experts staring me in the face from inside that bin.
That's a whole lotta books.

Books rife with meditations and affirmations. Buddhist books. Art therapy guides. Zen books. Writing therapy guides. Mystical books. Practical self-help books filled with strategies that I can easily incorporate into my everyday life!

Authors who promise they'll take me on the wonderful journey to becoming the thin, healthy, professionally fulfilled, sexy, happy human being that they know I can be!

Many of my self-help collection have illustrations. Others have accompanying workbooks or spaces within for me to write and journal. Still others allow me to create my own illustrations or add my own artistic touches.

So many tomes devoted to guiding me through multiple exercises that will lead me through the pain through the suffering through my past and my present to get to the healing and to discover my ultimate truth!!!

I've read them all. I've worked through them all.

And yet...

Here I am.

Forty-three years old and not quite where I would like to be in my life.

Still struggling.

Still looking to yet another new self-help book for some guidance and inspiration.

Maybe I just haven't connected with the right book yet?

How many self-help books are too many?

The missing piece...

2011-05-03T08:04:00.000-04:00

Being present is challenging when you're waiting for something.

Especially when you're waiting for a big something.

Like becoming a mom.

And you have no idea when it's going to happen.

Or even if it's going to happen.

As hard as I try to be in the present moment, to be in the here and now, to enjoy this moment and the next, to live...somehow it just feels like my life is on hold.

I hang out with my husband, go to work, go to the gym, see friends, write, make art, do all of the things that I once did before we decided to adopt, but now I do these things with a sense that I'm missing something.

Something essential.

Every part of me is just aching everyday for that missing piece.

Still...everyday I try to smile, try to be a good wife/daughter/friend, try to do my job, try to take care of my body. And everyday I feel it down to my core. The missing piece.

How can I miss something so much that I've never had?

All will be revealed...

2011-04-29T09:38:00.001-04:00

"Can you at least tell me what I need to wear? Casual? Dressy? What?" I ask my husband for the fourth time earlier this week.

"No. All will be revealed on Friday," he says with a sly grin.

"But I might want to go out shopping to get a new outfit if I just knew what I need to wear!" I say getting exasperated.

"You don't need to buy a new outfit."

Argh!

I hate surprises.

Really. I do.

Hate. Them. With. A. Passion.

Early in our marriage I tell Chris, "If you ever decide to throw me a big surprise birthday party, you might as well just give me the signed divorce papers as my birthday present."

That's how much I hate surprises.

But a few weeks ago at our 10th wedding anniversary dinner Chris tells me that my anniversary gift isn't quite here yet and that I should take the day off on April 29th.

"Why?"

"Because it's part of your anniversary present."

"Are we going somewhere?"

"Can't tell you that."

"Well, what do I need to wear or bring with me?"

"You'll just have to wait and find out."

Argh!

So, by yesterday when not one of my inquiries met with anything more than a "All will be revealed on Friday" I am absolutely beside myself with curiosity and not just a little bit of frustration because I have no idea what we're going to be doing or what I should be wearing today.

Last night at 5:15 Chris texts me, "So, what is your evening looking like?"

I text him back, "I'm wrapping up here and can be out of here pretty much at any time."

"I'm in the mood for some chili steak. Want to meet up at Tongg D?"

Meet up at my very favorite Thai restaurant? As if he even has to ask? "Sure!"

"6:00?"

"Done! See you there!"

Of course, at that moment my computer decides to go all kaplooey on me (seriously??? now???) and I spend twenty minutes trying desperately to un-kaplooey it. So now I'm running late. Urgh.

Finally I make it to the restaurant twelve minutes late. Chris has already secured us a lovely corner table on the far side of the restaurant. He is standing in front of the table wearing what I can only describe as a huge shit-eating grin on his face. The grin widens as I move closer. Then he steps aside as I am about half-way across the room to reveal someone else sitting at the table.

And there she is.

G.

My oldest and closest friend flown all the way out from Seattle.

My surprise anniversary gift from my amazing, kind, thoughtful husband who always knows what I need.

This surprise...pretty fantastic.

An open door

2011-04-26T07:48:00.000-04:00

"Come on. I'll show you the baby's room," I say to my parents during their visit this past weekend.

So, I take them into the baby's room with it's newly painted lavender walls, the gifted crib, new super comfy glider with matching ottoman, new changing table, new stroller/car seat combo, and all of the other assorted and sundry baby things that we've either purchased or received as gifts.

"You've done a really nice job in here," says my mom.

"Do you like the color?" I ask.

"It's really pretty," she replies and then after a pause adds, "I guess I just thought you'd have this room closed up."

Really?

I relate this story to Chris after my folks have gone back to their hotel. He says, "What? Like if we have the room all closed up it'll be like none of this ever happened? Like we'll forget?"

In a way, I can kind of understand what my mom means. When the adoption first falls apart back in March, every time I walk by the baby's room it's painful to see all of that stuff in there. But somehow I can't bear to close the door. I can't make myself do that.

And I still can't just close the door. Doing that....shutting away all of the baby things...somehow that would be like I've given up hope.

So, the door stays open. I look at all of the baby stuff in there everyday. Every single day.

And I know that someday soon there will actually be a baby in that beautiful baby's room. I have to keep hoping that.

I have to keep hoping.

Might have spoken a little too soon...

2011-04-20T19:37:00.000-04:00

Night before last...meltdown.

Meltdown #32? #33? Who can remember?

The night before last Chris comes home after his first long, craptastic day of the week (and, rather inconveniently it's Monday, so there are at least four more long crappy days to come) to find me puttering the kitchen, no dinner yet prepared, looking...pitiful.

"What's up?" he asks me. And then, "How'd work go today?"

And before I know it I'm absolutely bawling into his shoulder.

Bawling and sobbing.

Like I haven't sobbed in a long time.

And then last night, after another completely craptastic day at his job, Chris says to his still depressed wife, "I guess it's been easier for me. I mean, not easier, but I've been able to just say to myself, 'OK, that didn't work out' and then I let it all go. I've been able to move forward. It seems like you haven't been able to do that yet."

Apparently so.

My head says to move forward, but my heart...not so much.

I've promised my husband that I'm going to make an appointment with my therapist.

As much as I don't want to re-hash the entire adoption-falling-apart-at-the-last-minute for her (I haven't been to see her since December...), it looks like I'm going to have to. I don't seem to be working through my grief. It sneaks up on my at the worst times. Stealthily. I'll feel fine and then...BLAM!

Nausea, upset stomach, headache, tears, no energy, no appetite, depression, misery.

It's just so stupid.

I need to get over this and move on.

When will it happen?

When???

Happy...

2011-04-18T08:06:00.000-04:00

America's game.

Baseball.

"I know what I want to do for my birthday," Chris tells me a few weeks ago. "The PawSox have a home game on my birthday. So we'll get a block of seats and invite everyone to the game."

Which is exactly what we do yesterday.

Nine of us enjoy fifth and sixth row box seats in section fourteen just along the third baseline. The weather is perfect. Sixty degrees, a few clouds in the sky, but mostly sun. It's not too hot or too cold.

Peanuts, hotdogs, chicken sausages, french fries, and hamburgers are enjoyed by all throughout the game along with beer (for the adults) and cotton candy (for the kids...yech! How can they eat that stuff???) thrown in for good measure.

The PawSox and the Buffalo Bisons play some fantastic baseball: homeruns, stolen bases and some absolutely incredible diving catches in the outfield. It's glorious. The PawSox run up the score to 10-2 by the bottom of the sixth inning. Buffalo rallies in the seventh with four runs, but they never do make up the difference.

A great game. A great day.

And for an entire glorious day, I am happy. Happy that my husband is enjoying his birthday. Happy to be with dear family and friends.

Happy to not be talking about our failed adoption.

In fact, I don't think about the adoption at all.

For a day...I forget.

And I am happy.

Too old?

2011-04-16T10:17:00.000-04:00

The old mom.

That's going to be me.

I'm at an evening event for work a few weeks ago. There are lots of "young people" in the room - mostly in their early and mid-twenties. One of the servers, offering me a nibble from a tray, points at one of the twenty-somethings and asks me, "Oh, is that your daughter?"

I must give him quite a look because he quickly amends his question to an ever-so-awkward, "Orrrr maybe your, um, sister? Um, you look a lot alike."

I don't answer him. He quickly scurries off to the other side of the room with his tray of nibbles.

Darn you, you young whipper-snapper!

You couldn't just leave me my illusions that I still look really young???

I'm going to be one of the oldest, if not the oldest, mom on the playground. Until this twenty-something server kid makes the comment about me being the mom of a twenty-something (which I could be had I had a kid at twenty...), I really don't spend a whole lot of time agonizing about being too old to be the mom of a new baby.

Now, of course, after the whipper-snapper's inadvertent dig at my age, I'm kind of obsessing about it a bit.

Well, more than a bit.

A lot.

I relate the story and my obsessing about being too old to be a new mom to my colleague "C" who was an "older" adoptive mom.

"I was forty-two when we brought F home," she says, "so I was definitely the oldest mom out there for a while, but you know something? It really doesn't matter. Those moms who were in their twenties? All twits!"

We laugh.

"I mean they really were kind of twits but it was because they were SO young. But, you know, you stand around with the twits talking about your kids and all of the funny things they do and it's fine. No one really notices how old you are. And now, with so many women having children when they're older...chances are you won't be the oldest one out there."

She's right, of course.

I need to just get over myself.

It finally happened to me...

2011-04-15T07:39:00.000-04:00

And the boys understand as much as they can, they really do. But I truly believe that we have these mama buttons inside that once they get flicked on they can be all consuming.

A friend of mine wrote the above to me in a Facebook message. While Chris and I are in the waiting/wondering/agonizing/hoping stage of adoption, "A" and her husband are in month 20 of struggling through infertility. It just kills me knowing how much A wants to be a mom and how difficult her journey has been so far.

As for me...What's kind of crazy is that I never believed that wanting to be a mom could be so all consuming. For many reasons (which I've discussed at length in earlier posts) I always thought that I didn't have that "mama button." While other women I knew were so excited to become moms, some even obsessed with it, I just never had that feeling.

Ever.

Until recently.

Two years ago when I told Chris that I wanted us to have a family, I was thrilled knowing that my decision would allow Chris to finally become a dad because it's something that he's wanted for a very long time and I know that he is, of course, going to be awesome.

But for me...there was still a lot of fear. And still not "that feeling" that becoming a mom was what I was meant to do. It was something that I was choosing and something that I would have to work very hard at, but...

Until now.

Now, after two years of waiting and writing and reading and learning and hoping and worrying...It finally happened to me. That something in me that most women feel in their twenties and thirties finally seems to have clicked on. What A calls the "mama button."

However, for me it's been more like a seismic shift than a button click.

It's taken such a long time, but now that the shift has happened...man, I just want to be a mom. More than anything. And I want to see Chris be a dad. More than anything.

I'm trying hard to not let this feeling be so all consuming. To focus on being in the present moment and enjoying my life, but is it ever hard.

So, I send A and her husband healing energy and hope that their wait to become parents ends ASAP and I try to give myself and Chris that same healing energy.

Yeah, it finally happened to me...and it's driving me kind of crazy.

Umm...yeah...my life is fine...

2011-04-12T07:33:00.000-04:00

A friend of ours is in the hospital for a second time in just a few short weeks with a serious - yet mysterious - illness. He's already had one emergency surgery, but the surgeons are hesitant to go in a second time until they know what they're going in there to do.

This is serious and life threatening and super extremely scary stuff.

We're keeping L, his wife and their families in our thoughts and sending him lots of healing energy.

So...all of the bitching and moaning and whining that I've been doing about adoption these last few weeks....

Umm...yeah...my life is just fine...

Monday Monday...

2011-04-11T08:19:00.000-04:00

It's been hard to go to work these days.

Especially on Mondays.

While I am most certainly on the upswing from the lows of the last few weeks, I must admit that I've been finding myself on Monday mornings thinking, "I shouldn't be going into work. I should be at home on maternity leave."

And it's pretty much sucked.

However, this is the first Monday since everything fell apart that I'm not feeling incredibly blue.

It's a Monday.

I'm going to work. Just like I've done a million times before.

Work isn't where I thought or hoped or dreamed that I would be these days, but it's where I'm at so I'm going to be in the present moment and focus my attention on my job. Not on what "should be" or what "could have been" or "what will be."

Take a breath. Be in the present moment...

Monday Monday...

La la la la la la la...

Surprisingly joyful...

2011-04-10T11:48:00.000-04:00

Yesterday...my niece's 6th birthday party.

We travel three hours on Friday for an overnight stay with my sister-in-law "C", her husband "G" and their girls "L" and "A" so we can celebrate "L"'s 6th birthday. We arrive at 9:00 p.m. to find my SIL baking three cakes, my BIL plunked on the couch recovering from a 22-hour work gig, the girls sound asleep in bed (not surprising) and that my husband's little brother "P" is also in town for the celebration. Surprise!

"P is here," C tells us as she separates eggs over the garbage can.

"Like here here?" we ask.

"Yup, here here, but not here at the moment because he's in The City visiting with a friend. I told him that he has to be back no later than midnight so I can pick him up at the train station."

"What's he doing here?"

"He got a call from [super extremely famous high-end modeling agency] to have his photo shoot done with [super extremely famous high-end fashion photographer]. It was supposed to be today, but I guess it's been moved to next week so he's staying with us until then."

"That kid is going to be really famous, isn't he?" one of us says (as one of us usually does) a little ruefully.

Someone else pipes up (as one of us usually does), "As long as he pays for our kids' college educations!"

We laugh.

C finishes the three cakes, which will ultimately be carefully cut, stacked, sculpted and frosted together to create one beautiful cake that looks just like a baseball stadium. My SIL says, "I know, I'm completely crazy."

My FIL, his wife and their daughter arrive at 10:15. Lots more chatting and watching my SIL bake.

We all finally retire to bed at 11:30.

The day of the party is gorgeous. Despite earlier predictions in the week of rain and yuck, the day is sunny and rapidly warms up. Chris and I greet P, next supermodel of the world as he and my 12 year-old SIL "S" are playing Mario Brothers on the Wii. Breakfasts are consumed. Everyone takes turns in my SIL's one lone shower.

SIL gives us all our marching orders for the day. Chris and I are to head to Michaels' Crafts to pick up supplies for the craft project (decorating blank baseball caps) and when we return we are put in charge of putting peanuts and popcorn in their various bags. Chris also helps with outside set up.

The rest of the family arrives around noon. My MIL and her husband. Lunches are consumed. Party set up continues. The gigantic baseball themed Bouncy House arrives and, once it is set up, the male adults and the little Girls avail themselves of its fun while the rest of us hang out in the kitchen watching the Master Baker frost the baseball stadium cake.

The guests start arriving at 2:00 p.m. The older kids (that would be all of the 6 year-olds) immediately make their way into the Bouncy House, while the moms, dads and their toddlers/babies hang out on the driveway watching.

The rest of the day is filled with food, bouncing, baseball, crafts, musical bases, parents hanging around talking to each other and amusing their babies/toddlers, cake, and keeping kids out of the house. L seems to be having a wonderful time during her party. Aside from a few kids getting bonked on the head by a stray elbow or knee in the Bouncy House and one bitchy mom acting rude, there's no tears or drama and everyone has a marvelous time.

Lots of joy and laughter.

Even me.

Truth be told...I've been pretty much dreading this party.

Awful, I know.

This is my beautiful little niece we're talking about! Her 6th birthday!

How could I be dreading it?

Well, of course, I've fully expected to be attending this party with my own little one in tow. But, after the adoption falls through last month, obviously that isn't happening. So, I go with a sense of dread...of being surrounded by all of these moms, dads and their kids .... and Chris and I still in the waiting and wondering and hoping and agonizing stage of adoption.

I keep thinking that at some point during the day it will all be too much and I'll have to excuse myself so I can go downstairs, lock myself in the bathroom and cry for a while. That somehow this party will just bring up all of the feelings of loss and sadness that I've been experiencing on and off for weeks.

Yet somehow...once the day starts...I am amazed to find myself enjoying everything and everyone. I am not sad, but instead feeling joyful while watching the kids play, meeting and cooing over all of the babies and toddlers, talking to other moms. It's so surprising.

"K" and "S" are kind enough to hand off their 3 month-old baby "R" to me to hold after she's been fed. She's a super mellow, beautifully plump little baby with lots of dark hair and really intense dark eyes. R seems perfectly content to simply be in my lap as I ask K & S to provide some advice for a soon-to-be new parent.

Many of the people I meet have learned from my SIL of our recent failed adoption. They're all very kind. And while people's kindness just a few weeks ago was simply more than I could bear, today their kindness feels soothing and healing. Surprisingly, I'm able to talk about what happened without feeling resentful, sad, angry or exhausted. Instead, surrounded by the joy of the party and the joy of the people and with little R hanging out so happily in my arms, I feel OK and even hopeful in a way that I haven't felt in weeks.

As if soon the baby in my arms will actually be our daughter.

Bad days and good days...

2011-04-08T08:01:00.000-04:00

Today...a good day.

So far.

Husband wakes me up and off we go to the gym - he to a personal training session and me to my beloved treadmill (2nd one in from the left in the set of treadmills that do not have television screens attached to them. I come to the gym to get away from watching tv!)

While Chris gets put through the ringer by his devilish little trainer (she's tiny, petite, adorable and smiles very prettily while she tortures him), I pound out two and a half uphill treadmill miles. It feels good to sweat.

And now we're back home getting ready for the rest of our day. I'm clackering away here. Chris is making himself some breakfast. The grumpiest cat in the world, our Cecil, has a little pep in her step and is busy doing kitty acrobatics with her favorite toy in the middle of the living room. Not bad for a cat who is turning 18 in just a few weeks.

"Who put a quarter in you this morning?" I ask her. (And she has now stopped her play to crawl into my lap while I type...this is a little challenging as I have a laptop computer. Can you see the visual?)

So, so far today the blues have not come crashing down on me.

Off to seek sustenance and a shower.

Today...a good day so far.

Good days and bad days...

2011-04-07T08:42:00.001-04:00

Yesterday...bad day.

I keep saying that I'm going to move on...move forward...move wherever. I'm going to be in the present moment. Live life. Focus on the good stuff and all of that other jazz. And then sadness, headache, tummy ache and just plain lowness hits me like a ton of bricks.

That would describe my yesterday. All ready to head off to work when the nausea kicks in. And my head starts pounding. And the tears start flowing.

Damn it.

"Have you talked to N [my therapist] recently?" Chris asks me last night. He's been watching me as I, with a definite lack of enthusiasm, fold my laundry (oh, and he comes home last night to find me huddled up on the couch once again drowning my misery in Animal Planet, the Food Network and movies about which I usually could care less. Did I really need to watch the moderately awful "Valentine's Day" for a third time?)

"No," I reply, "I haven't been to see N in a while."

Chris raises his eyebrows.

"Maybe you should."

"I don't think that I have the energy to re-hash all of this for her," I reply, not looking at him and instead focusing on the t-shirt I'm folding.

"Still," he says and pauses, "I think it might be a good idea."

Well, of course it's a good idea! Seeing my therapist and talking through all of this crap - it's a frickin' brilliant idea! But I don't want to go! I just want to be done with all of this. I want one of our agencies to call today to say that we're on our way. That we'll be doing soon rather than this interminable thinking, wondering, waiting, hoping, agonizing, fretting.

Sigh.

So much for just spending some time in the present moment while not thinking about or writing about all of this adoption stuff.

I'm hoping that today is going to be a good day.

I've had enough of the bad days.

Wish me luck.

Being present and moving on...

2011-04-03T10:08:00.000-04:00

I don't want to disappear again from posting here.

Like I disappeared for a few months earlier this year...until we got The News that it had all fallen apart for us. However, now I'm not sure about what I should be writing anymore.

Writing about the monotony of the waiting seems...ummm...rather monotonous. For you. And for me.

And exploring all of the reasons why we're adopting...well, been there and done that. If you've been following along for a while you'll know that I've covered a lot of that ground.

From time to time I still visit a few blogs of folks who are either violently opposed to adoption or have reasons to dislike it just to keep myself informed, but I don't feel the need anymore to write lengthy posts about them. Again - kinda been there and done that.

My worries about becoming a mom and taking care of a child...over the last two years I've worked through a lot of that, although I'm sure that it will all come up again when we actually bring our daughter home. But, until then, think I'm all set with that subject.

So, what else is there?

Apparently - and amazingly - I have run out of adoption fodder. Or maybe I've just run out of steam for any further exploration of all things adoption. For a while anyway.

It would seem then, that until we receive some new news, I will instead simply post about other things for a while. Just spend some time being in the present moment and sharing what's happening here.

So, what's happening in my present moment (that has absolutely nothing to do with adoption or waiting or hoping or worrying) is that it's a gorgeous day. No clouds. Sun. Not too windy or cold. A perfect day to throw on my walking duds and hit the bike path for a long walk. And that's exactly what I'm going to do.

Namaste.

Actually moving forward...

2011-04-01T07:24:00.000-04:00

So, I think that I'm pretty well de-funked.

Thank goodness.

Been going to the gym this week. Eating well. And generally settling back into life.

And, of course, I've settled back into the waiting groove.

It's easier to wait now that just about everyone in our lives knows that our adoption placement fell through at the last minute. No more having to explain. No more saying "Chris and I will just move forward" or "I'm doing OK" or "well, obviously the Universe has other plans for us" or "It is what it is" or any other hope-filled re-frame that I can think of to make others feel better about my pain. So many people have expressed their sympathy and asked their questions (for which I am really, truly, deeply grateful - even if I didn't sounds terribly grateful in that last sentence...) and heard the explanations. So, now it's a relief that I don't have to keep talking about it.

It's a relief to once again be in a place again where sadness and grief aren't at the forefront of my consciousness.

There are little twinges when I walk by the baby's room filled with all of the baby stuff, but they're just that - twinges. Not the deep stabbing gut pain I was experiencing until just a few days ago.

So, life is moving on.

Chris and I are indeed moving forward.

We're doing OK.

The Universe has its plans for us and we'll just have to be patient to see what those plans entail.

It is what it is...

De-funking...

2011-03-26T11:55:00.000-04:00

11:47 a.m.

Day two of my forty-third year on the planet.

Still in my jammies and bathrobe. Have not - as I promised my husband yesterday - gone to gym. Instead, got up while he was at spin, had my breakfast and went back to bed for several hours.

Thinking that perhaps I'm not exactly out of my funk just yet.

"You OK?" says wonderful husband popping his head into the darkened bedroom.

"Meh."

He looks worried.

He probably should be.

Still kind of funk-y.

It's a gorgeous day today. Another of those not-a-cloud-in-the-sky kind of days. Chris says it's cold out, but I don't care. Time to put on some outdoor-cool-weather-exercise-clothing. Go for a walk. Get some air in my lungs and a bit of Vitamin D.

Time to de-funk-ify.

Happy birthday to me...

2011-03-25T07:28:00.001-04:00

Welcome to forty-three.

"You have a birthday coming up this week, don't you?" asks my mom the other night while we're on the phone.

"Yep."

"How old are you going to be again?"

"Forty-three," I drawl.

"I can't possibly have a daughter who is forty-three," my mother groans. "That would make me old."

Sorry, Mom, but there you have it. It's true. Forty-three.

And here I am...said birthday has arrived today without much fanfare (and, thankfully without any snow, as had been predicted.) Cecil is sitting next to me sulking because I remove her from my lap a few minutes ago so I can write this blog post. Chris is off sweating at spin class. I should be at the gym with him.

But here's the thing.

I'm in a funk.

(For those of you who have been reading for the last few weeks...I'm sure this doesn't exactly come as a shock.)

I keep trying to sort of pick up the pieces of myself and move forward, but I'm feeling kind of stuck. And I hate it.

Hate that I feel stuck and grumpy and sad and funk-y.

Part of me feels like I should go whine to my therapist about all of this for a while. Another part of me has no interest whatsoever in going to see my wonderful therapist to rehash this whole debacle. All of me knows that I definitely should get my flabby ass back to the gym. And then another part of me is kind of like, "Oh, for God's sake...Just. Get. Over. It. Already. Adoptions fall apart all of the time. You're not special!! Move. On."

And that last part of me is probably pretty smart. Time to get out of this funk. Set aside some of the grief and Just. Move. On.

It's not like I don't have things to do either.

There's an unfinished novel residing on this laptop that I haven't touched in months. My art studio...ugh, a disaster that needs cleaning and sorting in the worst way. Ditto for our bedroom. Cecil needs constant adoring. Exercise and meal planning could definitely be brought back into my life. There are friends that I haven't seen in weeks. My job is ramping up again. Thank you cards to write to family and friends who gave us all kinds of wonderful baby stuff. There's my parents 50th wedding anniversary party that I'm helping to plan. Oh yeah - and I have a pretty fabulous husband who is also sad and hurting and who could use some of my attention.

It's not like life needs to come to a screeching halt because of all of this adoption crap.

Time to get off my stuck, sad, grumpy, funk-y keester to get back into life.

Forty-two did not turn out to be - for me anyway - the "Ultimate Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything." But I'm hoping that my forty-third year on the planet will be a good one.

Welcome to forty-three. Happy birthday to me.

Think I'll go have a bowl of oatmeal.

Nightmares...

2011-03-23T08:26:00.000-04:00

"Your subconscious is apparently not so happy about the disruption," Chris says to me this morning.

This is his assessment of the nightmares that have been plaguing me for the last two weeks.

Ya think?

While I don't remember last night's latest round of nightmarish dreams, I do remember quite clearly waking up drenched in sweat, practically hyperventilating. So fun in the middle of the night!

For many years I suffered from insomnia - both kinds - the "I can't fall asleep" kind as well as the "I can't stay asleep" kind (very often suffering both types in the course of the same night.) During those years I came to dread bedtime and night in general. I lived on anywhere from one to four hours of sleep a night. It wasn't much of a way to live.

Once I married Chris the insomnia waned and over the years just about subsided altogether. I still struggle with it from time to time, but these days thankfully I mostly enjoy the normal eight hours of sleep that non-insomnia sufferers enjoy.

Until two weeks ago.

Until our adoption fell apart.

And now the nightmares have come.

Full throttle apparently.

I'm waking two and three times a night covered in sweat and out of breath. And after a few minutes of cooling down I fall back into an uneasy sleep - very often right back into the same nightmare that sent me into terrified consciousness in the first place. Not really enjoying this so much night after night after night. In fact, it's getting downright old. Waking up feeling more exhausted than when I went to bed the night before....yeah...ummmm....not so much, Folks.

It's kind of sad that I'm actually sitting here just longing for the days of plain old annoying insomnia.

The thing about insomnia - and now these nightmares - is that they become cyclical: You have a bad insomnia/nightmare night. That sucks. Then you have another bad night. That really sucks. Then you have a third bad night. And then you start worrying about having a fourth bad night in a row because you're so tired from the first three bad nights. And guess what? You have that fourth bad night. So then your anxiety starts to grow and you dread going to bed because you're afraid that you won't sleep or that you'll have the nightmare. And then the anxiety hits you earlier and earlier in the day and you spend time worrying that you're not going to be able to get a good night's sleep.

You see how this works?

So, I'm now in the cycle.

But the thing is that I'm aware of the cycle. I'm aware that I'm having these damn dreams. I'm aware of why I'm having the damn bad dreams. There's no mystery here. So, really there is just no good reason for this to keep going on anymore.

Message to my subconscious: I get it! You can stop with the nightmares anytime now!

Maybe I'll take a little nap under my desk at work today.

Think anyone will notice?

Sixteen days later...

2011-03-22T07:10:00.000-04:00

Sixteen days since we received The News.

It's been sixteen days since we received the news that we would not yet, as we had hoped and planned for, become adoptive parents. That we would not be getting on a plane to head to AZ. That we would not be meeting our daughter for the first time. That we would not be bringing home that little girl. That we would instead have to continue waiting and waiting and waiting as we have done for the last two years.

Two weeks and two days since we received The News.

I don't feel quite so raw two weeks and two days later.

Yesterday is the first day I make it through a full day of work without feeling the need to go to my car for a private place to sob or to run away from my office to someplace where I can read my book and eat fattening food. I actually feel some modicum of focus and normalcy as I do my job.

But then last night I walk by the baby's room all kitted out with crib, changing table, glider, kids' books, stroller, car seat and new lavender paint and...the grief hits me again. Not a wave, but a sharp stabbing pain deep in my gut. Brief and intense. I want to go with it - be present with this feeling of pain and grief - but I just can't.

I just can't.

It would be so very easy to fall into this grief. Into allowing myself to wallow in this grief. Into crawling downstairs everyday to numb myself with television and Cecil's soothing presence in my lap. Allowing the grief to swallow me up. It would be just too easy.

I just can't let that happen.

My life has to go on. My life as a wife, a daughter, a friend, a professional, a writer, an artist - all of it. It has to go on. I have to go on. I will go on.

So, I set aside that stabbing painful feeling. I don't give into it, but instead head downstairs to snuggle up on the sofa with my husband to watch two amusing episodes of "Chuck" and to adore Cecil.

And today I head to work for an all-day training.

Life is going on.

Yes, it is kind of crazy...

2011-03-17T08:01:00.000-04:00

Ugly confession time.

I can sometimes be pretty judgmental.

OK, very judgmental.

This judgmental-ness is not a quality of which I am particularly proud. In fact, it's something about myself that I don't like at all and I try desperately to squash when I become aware that I'm doing it (sadly, not always with much success and sadly I'm not always aware that I'm being judgmental.) I swear to God that it's genetic...the wonderful quality that I inherited from my maternal grandmother - the Queen of Judgmental...

And before all of this adoption stuff. Long before I ever even knew that I could and would someday want to become a parent, I am afraid that I was very judgmental of couples desperately trying to become parents. Couples who spend thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars on unsuccessful infertility treatment after unsuccessful fertility treatment. Women who endure injections and hormones and all kinds of invasive tests and procedures over and over again in hopes of becoming a mom. Men and women who watch as their mates endure the injections and hormones and tests and procedures and disappointments. Couples who run through their life savings and take out second mortgages on their homes in desperate and often vain attempts to become parents.

"They're crazy!" I would say as I'd hear or read about these couples. "I mean who would spend their life savings like that? What kind of woman would put herself through all of that just to have a kid? What kind of spouse would sit by and watch his or her wife go through all of that pain and misery? That's just crazy."

See? A lot of judgment...

(Again - really, really, really not proud of this...)

But now I get it.

I do.

I really do.

The single-minded drive and willingness to do what you need to do to have the family that you thought was just going to happen for you in a relatively "normal" amount of time....Yeah, now I get it.

In the case of couples struggling with infertility, I'm sure they originally think, "OK, we stop our birth control and in a few months...Ta-dah! Pregnancy! Parenthood! Family!" and years later as they continue to spend and hope and endure the countless tests and procedures and disappointments, I'm sure they must be thinking, "OK, this time...This time we're finally going to become parents."

And in our case, where adoption is our path to parenthood and a family...we sign on board with an agency that informs us that the average wait time is 2-6 months.

Wow! 2-6 months? Holy buckets! Great! Ta-dah! Parenthood! Family!

We fill in form after form after form and endure the rather invasive homestudy process. We write check after check after check...thousands and thousands of dollars to cover the numerous and often outrageous fees. We clean and organize. And spend more money prepping our house. And inform our families and friends and jobs. We wait and hope and wonder.

And wait and hope and wonder.

And wait and wonder.

Months go by.

Possible adoption situations come and go and some just plain fall through.

More checks are written.

More months go by.

And here we are two years later... thousands and thousands of dollars later.... three situations that didn't amount to anything later.... and one heart-breaking disrupted placement later. We are no closer to parenthood than when we set out on this journey.

So now we are embarking on work with Agency #2 (our local agency - the one through which we got the social worker who does our homestudy and homestudy renewal) in addition to the agency across the country that we signed on with way back in the beginning. It's gotten to that point for us. Our local agency was not really doing much by way of domestic adoption when we started down the adoption path two years ago, but is now much more active with domestic adoptions and has called us repeatedly about potential situations.

So, we sign on.

Even though the money we've already spent with Agency #1 is non-refundable.

We sign on anyway.

Luckily, we don't have to take on a second mortgage, but signing on with yet another agency is certainly going to take a huge bite out of our savings. But, at this point, two years into our journey we're just ready to become parents and to have a family. We're ready to move forward so we're willing to do what it takes to get there. And if that means thousands and thousands more, well...

Now I get it.

Someone out there reading this blog or knowing our story is probably thinking, "They're crazy! Who spends their life savings like that?"

And I don't really blame them for expressing those sentiments.

It is kind of crazy.

But now I get it. The single-mindedness of knowing that you just want to have a family like everyone else and that you just want to be parents, but being disappointed over and over and over again is enough to drive you to do a crazy thing like this.

So, we've signed on. And we'll wait some more. But hopefully the wait will be much less this time. This time hopefully a new situation will come to us sooner rather than later and we'll have our family.

Now I get it.

A little clarification...

2011-03-16T07:56:00.002-04:00

"You know that's twice that you've mentioned on your blog that you were ironing my shirt," says Chris last evening. "People out there are going to think that I'm some kind of Neanderthal. 'Woman! Go iron my shirt!!'"

We laugh.

"I'm sorry. I'll make sure to clarify on the blog about the ironing."

"No, no. That's OK."

So, even though my Neanderthal husband says I don't have to...I'm clarifying about the ironing.

I like to iron.

And this is pretty much the only household/domestic chore that I enjoy.

Really.

So, while Chris (who, I might add is pretty much the farthest thing ever from Neanderthal...) makes our lunches, I iron his shirts and pants. Actually, I'm pretty sure that I come out with the better end of the deal.

"'Woman! Iron my shirt!' kind of reminds me," I continue, "of that Bloom County strip from a million years ago. The old guy guy who's the leader of some really conservative fundamentalist group..."

""Oh yeah. I think it was like the Bloom County Moral Majority."

"Exactly! Yeah, that was it! And he comes home yelling, 'Wife! Make me my dinner!' and then in the last panel you see him holding a TV dinner while wearing a frilly apron and reading the instructions aloud, 'Fold back foil to reveal tater tots.' I love that strip!"

We laugh again.

It feels good to laugh.

Not quite walking on sunshine, but trying

2011-03-15T08:12:00.002-04:00

Well, the ides of March have come...

Not so great for Caesar, but good for me because they have actually brought with them a not-a-cloud-in-the-sky-walking-on-sunshine sunny gorgeous day. Somehow it's just so much easier to feel like moving forward and moving on when it's sunny outside.

I'm walking on sunshine, wooah
I'm walking on sunshine, woooah
I'm walking on sunshine, woooah
and don't it feel good!!

Hey, alright now
and dont it feel good!!
hey yeh

OK, so I'm not exactly in a "Walking on Sunshine" place right now, but I will admit that there is something hopeful about a sunny day. And I just hope that I can carry this sunny-day-Katrina-and-the-Waves-Walking-on-Sunshine-type-hopefulness with me today instead of descending once again into the depths of despond.

Off to iron the husband's shirt and then get myself ready for the day.

Moving forward...

2011-03-14T07:40:00.001-04:00

Moving forward.

What does this even mean?

I keep saying to people and writing on this blog and in messages to well-wishers, "Chris and I will just move forward."

And I guess that's the case. Except perhaps for the one ginormous ridiculous glaring fact that we've taken a huge step backwards. Back to waiting and wondering and uncertainty. Here we thought that today we'd be on maternity/paternity leave. Starting a new and exciting chapter in our lives. The chapter when we become parents. And instead today is back to work as usual.

Will anything ever feel "as usual" again?

"We'll just move forward."

At the moment I don't even know what that looks like. I keep moving from being sad to being numb to moments when I feel OK to trying to distract myself from the sadness and the numbness to extend those moments when I feel OK.

And now we're supposed to just go back to work as usual.

How do my husband and I do that?

How do we grieve and be normal and functional at the same time? How do I do that? How do I move forward when all I want to do this morning is crawl downstairs to my couch/cave and spend another day weeping there?

"We'll just move forward."

Our little tragedy is done, right? Move on. Get over it. Go to work. Focus on your job. These things happen for a reason. This obviously wasn't the right situation. Soon you guys will be parents.

"We'll just move forward."

Like Chris, I keep trying hard to not think about all of the things we would have been doing today had the adoption not fallen through. And I'm kind of failing miserably at not thinking about what today would have been like had the adoption not fallen through.

"We'll just move forward."

How do I do that? Can someone tell me?

At the moment I keep pretending to other people that it's as simple as moving forward one day at a time. I'm pretty sure that I keep pretending to myself that I'm moving forward.

But at the moment I don't know what the hell moving forward looks like.

I really don't.

* Addendum *

Chris reads the above post then wanders into the living room to plant a few gentle kisses on my forehead.

"I'm so sorry. I wish there was something I could do for you."

Knowing that he is in just as bad a shape as me, I reply, "I wish there was something that I could do for you."

"You could iron my shirt," he says with a little grin.

"Now that I can do," I reply with a smile.

So...I guess we're moving forward.

Day after meltdown...

2011-03-12T09:34:00.000-05:00

Chris was supposed to wake me this morning to head to the gym with him, but he let me sleep instead.

And sleep I did.

Totally exhausted from yesterday's complete emotional/physical meltdown. Wow. I didn't even hear him head out for his Saturday spin class. I was out. Completely and totally out.

And apparently a really good night's sleep and waking to a gorgeous, beautiful, not-a-cloud-in-the-sky sunny day seem to be helping immensely...my spirits seem to be lifting. My tremendous sadness of yesterday, while not quite completely evaporated, is such that I don't think that today will require once again being crumpled in on myself on the couch watching bad television. And weeping.

That old phrase, "What a difference a day makes"... hmmm, apparently true.

Today - miraculously and thank goodness - I don't feel like my world is ending.

Life is sometimes not fair. The adoption that we've waited for and worked for and hoped for and dreamed about fell through. Yeah, that really, really sucks. And I was truly down and down and down about it yesterday.

Really down.

"Checking out" for the day yesterday...well, why not? I guess I needed it. I had tried so hard to keep it together all week - tried to go to work, tried to be functional, tried to be a grown up and assure everyone that I was OK, tried not to cry, tried to hold it all in.

Look where that got me.

Maybe I should have taken Monday off when we received the news. Let myself be a wreck. Let myself bawl and moan and weep and curse at the Universe. But that's not the way it went down. And so it built up all week while I was holding it all in. The sadness hit me like a ton of bricks yesterday. So I crumpled in on myself. Let myself indulge in the utter desolation that I hadn't let myself feel all week.

Cried and cursed the Universe. And tried not to cry and curse the Universe. And watched television in a pitiful attempt to fill my brain with something other than the sadness that was there.

And now it's a new day. Now I'm awake. And the sun is shining. Its a gorgeous new day.

Life goes on.

We only get one shot at this life. One go around. Gotta make it a good one.

So, I think that I've officially had my adoption-disruption-meltdown and it is time to move forward.

Perhaps I'll throw on my running shoes and a hat and a jacket to head outside for a walk. Get myself a dose of Vitamin D and some fresh air.

Life goes on.

Not moving forward quite yet...

2011-03-11T22:51:00.001-05:00

I kind of crumple today.

It's a work day, but I use some of my sick time to crumple in on myself at home on the couch in front of the television.

To withdraw from the world and into myself. Into this wreck that is me today.

Cecil doesn't care. She curls up in the crook of my arm and snoozes all day. And when she isn't snoozing she stretches her front paw way out to tap me gently on my neck - her signal that she is awake and wishes to be adored.

"Are you the grumpiest kitty ever?" I ask her in my sweetest baby talk voice. "Are you? Nooooo. You're the most beeeeauuutiful kitty ever." I tell her while using both of my hands to rub her face and ears back. When I stop petting her she reaches out once again to tap me on the neck. So we repeat our little love fest. Satisfied after a few more minutes of being the center of my universe she sighs, puts her head back down and quickly falls away into deep kitty sleep.

Much of my day is spent absently flipping between "Animal Cops Houston" and "Say Yes to the Dress" and whatever really lame movie happens to be on Channel 53. And when those shows are over I flip through all of the deluxe cable movie channels.

Nothing actually holds my interest for very long.

I want and need to fill my brain with anything but what's in my head: today, had our adoption plans not fallen through, we'd be on a plane on our way to AZ. We'd be that much closer to being parents. We'd be settling into the apartment that I found for us. Contacting the attorney and the adoption rep. Buying linens, a few pots/pans and some utensils (the apartment is furnished, but doesn't come with these supplies) as well as the other baby stuff that we wouldn't have packed. We'd likely be freaking out just a bit. And we'd be excited.

But none of that is happening this weekend.

Or in any weekend in the near future.

We're starting over. We're back to waiting again.

Tears fall occasionally throughout the day, mostly when I'm watching movies or sappy commercials. Or when the rescued puppy on "Animal Cops" - the one that was almost starving to death and was covered in fleas - is shown in his new a home with his new family at the end of the show and he's a happy, fat, frolicking puppy who's blessedly already forgotten the horrific start to his little life.

Yeah, I cry at that stuff today.

My husband texts me at the end of the day to see if I'm still at work. I text back saying that I had called in sick today.

"Your stomach?" he texts back.

"No, I just felt really really low."

And it's true. I feel low. Sad. Down. In the dumps.

I wish I could lie and say that I'm OK.

I'm not.

I'm really not.

Not ours...

2011-03-10T07:36:00.000-05:00

She was never ours.

Never.

The child who is likely going to be born to L this very weekend was never ours.

Ever.

The truth is that we had only the most tenuous connection to this little baby. Just the very barest hint of the tiniest thread of a connection.

But we allowed ourselves to get attached anyway.

We allowed ourselves to get attached. To this little person who we'd never even met. Who we never knew about until two months ago. Who is growing inside of someone else. Who has older brothers and an extended family who it seems fought for her tooth and nail and with whom she will now grow up.

We allowed ourselves to get attached. We chose names. Our guest room became a baby's room. People gave us baby stuff. We started to say things like "When she comes home..." and "I hope she's a good sleeper..." and "I hope she's a good eater" and we talked about how our elderly cat Cecil would react to the presence of a screaming, squalling baby.

And we weren't talking about just any screaming, squalling baby anymore (as we had been doing for close to two years), but a very particular baby. She ceased to be hypothetical. "The baby" had gone from being just an idea, just a fantasy, just a hope to being a real little person. A little person to whom we found ourselves growing more attached everyday even though we had never met her.

Even though she wasn't ours.

Day 3 after disruption...

2011-03-09T21:23:00.000-05:00

Can a person go through the 5 stages of grief in 2.5 days?

Seriously, because I'm pretty sure that I've hit 4 of the Big 5 today: denial, anger, depression and acceptance.

Not really sure that I'll ever get to bargaining since the only time that I ever really look to a higher power is when I get on airplane (a terrifying experience for me every single time.) At all other times of crisis in my life I figure that the Divine Mystery has more important things (like, for example, the revolutions currently going on in Egypt and Libya) to worry about.

So, the stages of grief...I actually feel like today I've gone through most of them: denial (when I wake up this morning, just for a minute I forget that we're not getting on a plane this weekend and I try to hold onto that for a few minutes longer), anger (see earlier blog post), depression (sitting at my desk a feeling of utter desolation comes over me and I have to tell myself over and over to just focus on work and to move forward), and acceptance (any number of colleagues come over to talk with me and I assure them over and over that I'm OK and that eventually my husband and I will become parents.)

There's a jumble of stuff going on inside of me. One minute I feel fine and then the next...utter despair...and a few minutes after that rage against the Universe.

I'm exhausted.

And so on that note... I think that I'll have a little late dinner and then go fill my head with a DVR'd episode of "What Not to Wear."

I can worry about all of this again tomorrow.

48 hours later...

2011-03-09T07:31:00.000-05:00

48 hours since we received The News.

Somehow I make it through yesterday, although I can't say that the day is particularly productive.

Last evening we meet my MIL and her hubby for dinner out at a favorite Thai place. Chris is running late so I go in by myself. My MIL hugs me really tight. I say to her, "You cannot start crying. No crying."

"Nope. No crying," she says into my shoulder, still holding me tight.

Dinner turns out to be fun. When Chris arrives we talk just a little bit about the disrupted adoption, but soon move on to other topics. It feels good to laugh. To feel normal. To actually feel something after the numbness of the day.

This morning I'm trying to figure out how I'm feeling. Can't really decide at the moment. Sort of numb and not numb all at the same time. Maybe it's like when you have dental work done and the Novocaine starts to wear off: You can talk mostly normal, but you still feel kind of weird and half-numb.

Yeah, that's it.

And now I have to face the day.

The thing is that I... I don't want to face the day the way it is. I want to be facing the day thinking that this weekend we are getting on a plane to go meet our daughter for the first time. And that I'll be out on maternity leave next week. And that we'll finally be parents going through the big change that we've been preparing for for the last two years. I want to rewind 72 hours and be in that place of excitement and hope again.

Man, this just sucks.

Hmmm...apparently I'm a little more than half-numb this morning.

Apparently I'm a little mad.

Not mad at L or her decision - again, I truly only wish her and her family happiness.

Instead, I'm mad at the Universe and mad at myself for getting excited and getting my hopes up. Mad at myself for waiting until I was 41 to decide that I wanted to be a parent. Mad at the stupid body I have that requires me to take medication that will not allow me to get pregnant. Mad at the adoption agency that led us to believe that this process would be quick.

Mad.

Mad. Mad. Mad.

Well, shit.

This isn't how I want to feel.

But this is where I'm at. So, I guess I'll head off to my office and put up my "Please Do Not Disturb" sign while I try to get through the day.

Disruption...

2011-03-08T08:56:00.002-05:00

24 hours ago my husband races up the stairs to fling open the bathroom door eyes looking a little wild. I'm standing there in a towel having just stepped out of the shower. He asks in a husky, shaking voice, "Have you seen the e-mail from T [our adoption rep]?"

No. I haven't.

"L changed her mind and she's decided to keep the baby."

We hurry to the living room and my laptop so that I can see T's words for myself. And there they are "...unfortunately..." "...bad news...." "...disappointment..." "...so sorry..."

For a few minutes nothing seems real. Chris sits next to me on the couch. We hold hands both feeling a bit numb. Actually, very numb.

Eventually we start talking again.

"We always knew this was a possibility..."

Lame attempt at some humor.

"Well, at least now we can go see the Paula Poundstone concert..."

"I'll have time e-Bay all of that crap in the basement..."

Putting a positive spin on things.

"Now at least we're really READY for when we do eventually get a baby..."

Chris calls his parents. I call mine. I have to get ready for my day and get to an early meeting. No sense in sitting at home weeping all day. That's not going to change anything. Be a grown up. Just go to work like it's any other day. Chris lets me know that he'll stay home for a bit to cancel the airline tickets, the apartment we had reserved in AZ, and make some other calls to deal with arrangements that will no longer be needed.

We hug a lot before I go. Tell each other "I love you" a lot. Try to reassure each other through the numb feeling that we'll be parents someday soon. And hope that we both believe it.

Once at my office I tell the HR Director that I won't be heading out on maternity leave next week and give her the bare bones of the story. She is lovely and offers her support. Same with my supervisor.

"I'm OK," I tell them both. "I'll be OK. Really."

I smile what I am sure is a very wan and pitiful smile.

Next I compose an e-mail for the staff since just about everyone at my office knows of my impending maternity leave. I explain briefly that we just found out this morning that the adoption has fallen through, that my husband and I are hopeful that we'll still become parents soon, that I'll be happy to answer questions in a few days when the news isn't so fresh, etc. I thank them all for their support of the last few years while we've been trying to adopt. And I hit "send."

Replies to my e-mail start trickling in. Lovely replies filled with "I'm so sorry" and "keeping you and your husband in my thoughts." My supervisor sends an e-mail letting me know that if I need some personal time I should take it.

I sit at my desk for another hour trying to focus. And fail miserably.

Chris and I text each other making little stabs at humor. Checking in. Connecting.

And then one of my colleagues comes to my cube. She looks so sad and gives me a big hug. It's all I can do not to burst into loud sobs right then and there.

Everyone's kindness....it's just too much.

I thought I could just get through the day by working, but it's all just too much. So I pound out an e-mail to my supervisor saying, "You know that personal time you offered, I'm taking it..."

And I flee my office.

To the darkness of a movie theater.

Two hours where I don't have to think about a disrupted adoption, the possibility of another two years of waiting to become a mom, the sadness my husband is experiencing, my job, the numbness.

Ironically I've opted to see a kids' movie, "Tangled" at the cheap theater and so here I am with three moms and their infants and toddlers. This makes me chuckle a bitter little chuckle. I realize as I'm sitting here that while I might enjoy the refuge of the theater right now, that I'll probably never be able to watch this particular movie again as it will always be associated with The Day That We Found Out We Weren't Going to be Parents.

But for now I just don't care and settle into my seat to enjoy some Disney silliness.

After the movie I head home to retreat to the comfort of my loveseat in the basement to numb myself even further with whatever happens to be on the television. Thank God for Animal Planet and The Food Network. And Cecil who plants herself in my lap and begins purring. She has no idea why I'm home early. And she doesn't particularly care. She's just pleased to have a warm lap in which to snuggle and one of Her People at home to adore her.

Chris, despite his intentions to come home early, gets stuck at work for a while. When he finally makes it home we engage in Round 2 of phone calls to friends and family to break the news. More sympathy. Lots more, "when one door closes another door opens" and "this happened for a reason, I'm sure of it" and "I'm so sorry."

We hug a lot before Chris sits down for his dinner and I make my way once again downstairs to fill my brain with "Iron Chef America."

Eventually I head up to bed leaving Chris to write a blog post (If you have a few minutes, you should read it. He provides more details than what I've provided here and he's an amazing writer...)

And here I am today. 24 hours later sitting in the very same spot I sat in to read the news of our disrupted adoption. Somehow I managed to sleep last night. Chris, too. And strangely I feel OK this morning - not quite refreshed, but OK. We'll see how long that lasts today.

Here's the thing...what happened is hard for us, but ultimately I just cannot be sad about it. Really. Because a young woman - L - who thought she was going to have to give up her baby forever, found the resources within herself and from her family to be able to keep and parent her own child.

This is a good thing.

A really good and excellent thing.

And I am happy for L and her family. Truly, I am.

I needed to be really sad for Chris and myself yesterday. And probably in the coming days the sadness will persist, but I don't want anyone to think for even one second that I'm angry at L or that I feel anything negative about her. Because I simply don't. I can't. That would be so very, very wrong. She's a mom who is going to parent her own kid. And that is an awesome thing. I wish her only the very best.

And now Chris and I move forward.

We start again.

We wait and we hope.

A good person...

2011-02-26T08:29:00.000-05:00

"You're so good to be doing this."

"Wow. It's such a good thing you're doing - adopting this baby who would have had a horrible life."

"You're a good person."

No, I'm not.

I mean, I am, but I'm not when it comes to adoption.

If I were a truly good person, I'd be adopting a 15 year-old away from foster care and dealing with whatever behavioral and other issues he/she might have from years of being shuffled in and out of foster care. If I were a truly good person, I'd donate the money I'm spending on adoption to family planning clinics to prevent the crisis and unwanted pregnancies that lead to adoption in the first place. Or I'd consider working with a family who is considering surrendering a child purely for financial reasons by providing them with the resources necessary to help them keep that child.

There are all kinds of things I would do if I were a good person when it comes to adoption.

"Just think of what kind of life this child would have led if you weren't adopting her."

Well, it would be a different life, but not necessarily a worse life. I hate the assumption that people seem to make that a child who is given up for adoption would have led some terrible life had they not been adopted. I imagine that the vast majority of women who place children for adoption do so because they lack the financial and familial resources to raise them. Because they are poor, overwhelmed, and want to give their children the life and opportunities they feel they cannot provide.

The child we're adopting - would she have had a worse, terrible life with her biological family? I don't think so. Simply a different life.

Am I doing a "good" thing by adopting a baby?

Not really. But this is the way that my husband and I will be able to have family. It's our reality. It's neither good nor bad...it is what it is.

So, for everyone out there who has told me that I'm doing this good thing - I do thank you for your kind wishes. Really. I truly appreciate that you think so. But really, I'm just a woman who wants to be a mom and this is my path to motherhood.

Waiting...additional thoughts

2010-12-23T08:39:00.000-05:00

One of my colleagues yesterday says to me, "So, what are you up to these days? Working and waiting?"

"Yep. Working and waiting. That's about it," I reply. "And we've put up a new website for ourselves. One that basically says, 'Hey, we're really nice people. If you know of anyone who is in the position of needing to adopt out a child...look-y here.'"

She looks at me with great empathy (both of her children are adopted so she knows about the working and waiting and waiting and working.)

I end the conversation with what I usually say to end these types of conversations, "It'll happen when it happens."

When I first started blogging about adoption, so many of my posts explored topics like whether or not I'd be a good mom, fear, transracial adoption, the relationships that we'll have (or not have) with the child's first/birth family, the rightness or wrongess of adoption, etc. In re-reading some of those posts recently it hit me that I have covered a lot of ground in writing and thinking about all of this adoption stuff.

And then it hit me that as we've gotten further and further into the waiting and wondering phase that I kind of stopped blogging.

Guess I'm feeling kind of done thinking about all of this.

I'm less interested in thinking and I'm more interested in doing.

I know that there are more issues that I could explore in regards to adoption - and to our particular adoption. However, the more I just think about stuff, the more I find myself feeling a bit blue. The waiting seems kind of endless when I'm blogging and wondering and wondering and blogging. So, I'm focusing on doing...

Doing my best to be a good wife, daughter and friend.

Doing my job.

Doing my best to get rid of this stupid upper respiratory thing that I've had for two weeks.

Doing my best to enjoy Christmas and get ready for our annual New Year's Eve Eve game night.

Doing my best not to whine or complain about how long we've been waiting, but instead to be happy, to be in the present moment and to enjoy this one life hat I have to live.

It'll happen when it happens, right?

Christmas again

2010-12-19T12:21:00.000-05:00

Chris picked a great Christmas tree this year.

Well, he always picks a great tree, but this year it seems especially nice. We've gotten to the point where we have enough "special" ornaments - those that we've given each other over the last 11 years, family ornaments, and those we've received as gifts - that we don't need to add an "fillers" (you know, the plain round ones.) The tree looks beautiful. Smells great. Every time I look at the tree I love seeing the fat glass reindeer, the pickle ornament, the cheer leading moose, our various lobster ornaments (yes, we have quite a few), the felt Pinocchio characters that Chris' Gram made by hand a million years ago, the ornament that Parker made in kindergarten, and, of course, our tree wouldn't be complete without the many light-up, noise making Star Trek ornaments collected by my goofy husband.

It really is a beautiful tree.

It's Christmas again.

And yet I seem to be missing my holiday cheer.

Partly because I caught whatever horrendous cold bug/plague that was flying around the office (and very kindly passed along to Chris. I'm such an awesome wife...) and I'm feeling physically pretty lousy. But mostly because I thought that we'd have a Little One here in the house with us for this Christmas season.

Last Christmas as we were decorating the tree, I remember us saying things like, "Just think, next year the baby will be here and it'll be our first Christmas together." And I remember thinking things like, "Will she even be awake when we decorate the tree?" or "I know she's not going to remember her first Christmas as an infant, but it's going to be so much fun for us to have her here going through her first Christmas."

But here we are a year later and...

Well, here we are.

I had kind of a "moment" during Thanksgiving where I had to leave the table or risk crying in front of the whole family. Watching my brother-in-law and sister-in-law with our beautiful little nieces was really hard this year. Selfishly, instead of being thankful for our family, our health, our home, our jobs and all of the really wonderful things in our lives, I kept thinking about the fact that another Thanksgiving was rolling by with Chris and I no closer to parenthood than when we started all of this almost two years ago.

And now here we are at Christmas time again and I'm feeling a little blue.

Stupid feeling this way? Yes.

Selfish feeling this way? Yes.

But here I am trying to just move forward. Trying to remind myself that we'll become parents when we become parents and that I need to live in the present moment.

Right now.

And reminding myself to not spend so much time fretting about what is or what isn't or what hasn't happened or when it's going to happen.

Be in this moment.

Right now.

And in this present moment it's Christmas.

So, I'm off to do some last minute shopping, clean the house a bit, and try to find myself some holiday cheer. Because I really am an incredibly lucky person with an amazing husband, wonderful family, terrific friends, a nice if somewhat messy home, and a cat who we love to distraction even if she is a pain in the patootie sometimes.

Life is really good.

Merry Christmas.

Not much to report...

2010-10-24T22:17:00.000-04:00

We thought we might have some news, but it turned out to be nothing.

Still waiting.

Please come visit me at my other blog 80 Sticks of Butter to read about my ongoing efforts to rid myself of Bernice.

Yep...still here

2010-10-10T15:07:00.000-04:00

Still here.

Still here.

Still no news.

It's actually gotten to the point that we will need to renew our homestudy...so that means that almost a year has gone by with no real movement. So, at least we'll have something to "do" for the adoption in the renewal process.

I'm trying not to be sad that we are not yet parents. Trying to simply enjoy life. To not let my crazy-making job make me too crazy (not doing too well with this...) To focus on health and fitness as we continue to wait.

Please come visit me at my other blog 80 Sticks of Butter. There's quite a bit more activity over there these days as I focus on that journey.

Still here...

2010-09-22T22:33:00.000-04:00

I'm still here.

Just very focused on health and weight loss at the moment.

Trying to move ahead with life during "The Wait."

So, if you need a good chuckle or two, please come visit my other blog, 80 Sticks of Butter, where you can read all about torture by stability ball, the Fall Fitness Challenge in which I'm currently engaged, and my battle to get and stay healthy.

Hopefully we'll have adoption news soon, but until then...it's all about health and fitness.

Still no news...

2010-09-05T16:55:00.000-04:00

All's quiet on the adoption front.

Chris and I have some decisions to make about potential changes to our profile. And we're going to re-do many of our photos in the coming months as we both shed the pounds.

But otherwise...

[Insert the sound of crickets here]

I had been eager a while back to get the guest room turned into a nursery, but with the start of my busy, busy season at work and the new focus on weight loss with its attendant time commitment (prepping food and taking time to exercise...) I ended up not getting around to painting as I had planned.

Perhaps Columbus Day Weekend would be a good time to do that.

Hoping for news soon, but attending to life in the meantime.

When?

2010-08-28T11:49:00.000-04:00

When?

The question pops up in my mind frequently these days, much as I try to be in the present moment and not worry so much about the future.

When?

We had our company picnic a few weeks ago and it was Baby Central. A new born, a few one year-olds, some toddlers. Baby Central.

And I visit them all.

Everybody's kids and grandbabies.

I hold the newborn who decides at the moment to let out a great wail. So I hand him back to his grandma who laughs and says, "It's nice when they aren't yours and you can still do that."

"He wants his grandma," I reply, "he doesn't know me."

When?

I play a game with a colleague's one year-old daughter. We roll a soccer ball back and forth along the ground to each other. She smiles and laughs each time it comes back to her and laughs even harder as she sends it back towards my waiting hands.

Someday I'll be playing this game with my daughter.

When?

Another grandbaby at the picnic is sucking not very contentedly on a bottle. Her little face is red. She's been crying.

"Oh she's so tired!" exclaims the proud grandmama who's holding her and feeding her the bottle.

"She needs a nap in the worst way," says the baby's mom from across the picnic table, "but I think there's too much going on here for her to sleep. Now she's just getting cranky."

The mom doesn't seem overly concerned when grandma hands her the baby. She gives the now loudly fussing baby a quick squeeze and a big kiss on the forehead, "You need to go to sleep Little Girl."

I wonder if I'll be so calm in the face of a cranky baby who needs a nap, but won't go to sleep.

When?

I watch my ball playing friend scootch sideways along the concrete crab-style while her mom calls to her, "Hey there. Where ya going? Where ya going?"

The little girl pays her momma no mind whatsoever and scuttles along quickly to her destination - a pair pink sneakers left behind by one of the older children.

When?

As I watch the moms and the grandmoms and their little ones I keep hearing the question over and over in my mind...

When?

No news...still

2010-08-18T21:00:00.000-04:00

The phone is silent.

No emails from the adoption facilitators.

Adoption feels very far away right now.

My focus is on work and getting healthy.

I'm writing entries in the new blog about the other journey that I'm on right now.

I try not to think about how long we've been waiting or how long we'll have to wait.

Life goes on.

Life goes on.

Another blog???

2010-08-17T00:07:00.000-04:00

I know. It seems so crazy to have more than one...but I can't help myself.

Actually, I realized today that weight loss and getting healthy are becoming a very important part of my life, so much so that they really deserve their own space. They're starting to crowd out adoption stuff so...

Please come visit me at my new blog 80 Sticks of Butter to read all about my journey to good health.

And please keep coming to In the present moment... for continuing news about our impending adoption.

Best and peace,
Jennifer

Not Fat Old Jenn...

2010-08-15T13:31:00.003-04:00

I step on the scale again today to check my weight.

Stupid, I know. Shouldn't really weigh yourself everyday when losing weight.

But I can't help myself.

Because I keep thinking that I'm not really losing weight. Somehow in my head I've convinced myself that I was just "overly dehydrated" a few days ago when I weighed myself and so when I step on the scale again today that those three pounds will be right back where they were. I just assume the worst.

How crazy is that?

I've been carrying around this weight for so long now that I sorta dumbly resigned myself to the fact of being Fat Old Jenn. And there is a part of me is who is desperately afraid - despite all current evidence to the contrary - that I'll never get rid of the weight.

That I always be just Fat Old Jenn.

But here's the thing...I wasn't dehydrated a few days ago and those 19.5 pounds I've lost this year - still gone! I stand there on the scale today and the number is just the same - in fact a little less! - as it was two days ago.

Guess what??

Making responsible eating choices + exercise = weight loss.

It's a pretty simple formula.

There's no magic cure for being fat.

Eat healthy food. Move everyday. Breathe. Lose weight.

I have a lot of pounds left to lose to get to where I want to be and where I know I can be a healthy, active mom to Schmoopie. But now that Chris has joined me in this weight loss adventure, I know that I can do it.

P.S.
My husband is a genius. Today he decided to have a salad and a burger (no bun, of course) for lunch. No ketchup or BBQ sauce allowed on SBD because they contain too much sugar so he used Taco sauce. Brilliant! I wouldn't have thought of that ever...

We drank the Kool Aid...

2010-08-14T19:56:00.000-04:00

So Chris and I have successfully completed Week 1/Phase 1 of the South Beach Diet.

Yep, we drank the SBD Kool Aid.

I know.

You weren't expecting that, were you?

Well, miraculously, we're doing it.

And LIKING it.

No, really.

So I didn't buy the SBD book that explains the whole diet/way of life. Instead, printed from the web the lists of foods that are allowed/not allowed, bought the latest cookbook, and used the sample meal plans along with the food lists as guides. The recipes produce really flavorful, tasty meals (so far anyway...we're batting 1,000 for dinners...Asian Beef in Lettuce Cups, Southwestern Turkey Skillet, Beef with Edamame and Ginger Garlic Sauce, Steak with Mustard Shallot Sauce...YUM!!!)

It's a bit of work. And it definitely takes planning to be successful. Today Chris and I planned out meals for the coming week then hit the grocery store to purchase ingredients. On the menu this week: Quick Beef Fajita Salad, Turkey Romesco, and Chicken Satay Burgers.

As we're driving to the grocery store Chris says to me, "Y'know the leftover cash that I took out for our trip to New York?"

"Yeah."

"I didn't touch any of it this week. I mean before we were doing South Beach that would have gone for lunches or ordering something for dinner, but it just sat there all week in my wallet."

"We did like to eat out a lot before this didn't we?"

"Yep."

So, in addition to losing weight (and, yes, SBD really does work if you follow it) we're actually saving money even though our weekly grocery bill is a bit higher than it was pre-SBD because we're not paying for restaurant food.

Bonus!

"Y'know, the other good thing about this is that we're getting into routines making food, which is going to be awesome for when the baby comes. Can't not have food in the house and just rely on take-out when you've got a kid," I say to Chris one day earlier this week as we're preparing dinner.

And it's true.

I'm so glad to be starting these good habits now so that when Schmoopie arrives she'll have parents who keep the fridge stocked with good healthy food. She'll have parents who set a good example.

I'd like to write more, but it's dinner time. So, no more clackering away on the laptop for me this evening - instead it's off to the kitchen!

TGIF...

2010-08-13T06:33:00.001-04:00

Rocky Gorge, New Hampshire

I'm really longing for the White Mountains right now.

(Can ya tell?)

Work is really ramping up. Meetings, meetings, meetings. Work event today and one a week from Saturday (and I'm in charge of a big portion of the one next week.) Interviewing for annual temporary staff all next week. External meetings with clients to begin the following week. Continued aggravation with one aspect of my job.

There's a lot going on.

While I'm actually keeping up with all of it and only feeling moderately overwhelmed, there's a big part of me that is desperately wishing for a more simple life.

Not going to happen anytime soon.

In the meantime, I'll just have to be content that it's Friday.

Still here...

2010-08-11T09:17:00.000-04:00

I've been neglecting the blog.

Life is busy right now.

No adoption news. Waiting, waiting, waiting.

Wishing we were back in New Hampshire.

More soon.

I promise.

Man vs. nature...

2010-08-02T22:14:00.000-04:00

Man vs. pothole...man loses

Man vs. pothole...again

Controversial post!...

2010-07-31T12:09:00.000-04:00

Sorry, but not really.

No controversy. Just said that to get you here. (What a horrible blogger I am...)

I stopped visiting blogs written by the anti-adoption folks so there certainly hasn't been much controversial fodder for creating posts that have that "oomph" factor to them. And I've stopped asking all of the questions and expressing my anxieties and worries. I've stopped asking you and myself, "Are we doing the right thing?"

Now we've just settled in to the waiting phase.

And let me tell you, it's not very exciting - for you or for me - to continually write about the fact that we're just waiting right now.

So, I've been writing less and less. I miss writing the daily posts.

But when it comes right down to it, what's happened is that at long last - after more than a year of mulling and agonizing and questioning and writing and processing - I have finally gotten comfortable with our decision. I'm letting go of those fears that I've expressed in this blog. What's going to happen will happen and we'll deal with it as it happens.

I accept where we are right now in this moment.

This is how we've decided to build our family. I don't need to question it anymore. Or worry about it. Or fear being judged about it.

In a recent post I wrote about making a space in our home to welcome a child - that we need to let the Universe know that we're really and truly ready by creating the physical space for that child. Not just saying, "Yeah, eventually we'll turn the guest room into The Kid's room" but actually doing it.

Now I'm also realizing that I need to let the Universe know in no uncertain terms that I believe in our decision. No more questioning. No more uncertainty. No more hesitation. No more fears.

I accept where we are right now in the present moment.

So, Universe, bring it on.

Let's not talk about it anymore. Let's just do it.

Motherhood.

I'm ready.

A new favorite place...

2010-07-30T08:31:00.000-04:00


Rocky Gorge, White Mountain National Forest (along the Kancamagus Highway), New Hampshire

Making space...

2010-07-26T08:56:00.001-04:00

Is positive news that doesn't really change anything actually news or is it just a series of statements that find no anchor and have no impact?

--Chris (my husband)

I'm chatting with my dearest friend on the phone last evening. We've been on the phone for quite some time when she pauses and says, "I've been reluctant to even bring this up, but is there any news at all on the adoption?"

Not really.

(And there's no need for reluctance to ask us about the adoption - friends and family. Really. We'll be happy to talk about it.)

Chris describes very well the most recent conversation with our adoption contact in his post Dog Day Thoughts so I'll suggest you hop on over there to take a gander at it rather than rehash it all here (it's a quick read.) The quote at the top of this post gives you a hint of what you'll find over at his post.

I haven't had much to say about the adoption these days because there really hasn't been any "news" so to speak.

We're waiting.

That's the news.

Which isn't really news at all to our friends, family, colleagues and anyone who has been following our blogs. We're waiting.

The only change or news is that now that we are 90% done with the post-flood basement re-do, our erstwhile guest room is pretty much close to being empty. All that remains: futon sofa, one large bookcase, one lamp, one small dresser and a few pieces of art work on the walls.

Which means...drum roll please!

The room is that much closer to being ready to become The Kid's room.

My lovely husband doesn't know it yet, but if the heat and humidity stay away this weekend, there is every chance that I am going to push for us to move what little furniture remains to the center of the room so we can paint the walls a kid friendly color (I'm voting for some shade of purple...)

And I'm going to begin looking online for furniture - changing table, dresser, crib, etc.

Shocking, I know.

The thing is that when we started this process I said loudly that I didn't want to be one of those prospective adoptive moms who has a nursery full of furniture and baby stuff, but no actual baby. I just thought that would be so very sad.

Even pathetic.

However, I've changed my mind.

Going through the homestudy and the adoption application was a shitload of work and certainly put the word out to the Universe that we're ready to start our family.

But I can't help thinking now that we need to do a little more.

We certainly haven't made any effort to create a space for a child. Just said, "Yeah, we'll turn the guest into The Kid's room" and left it that.

What is that telling the Universe?

I mean we've purchased all kinds of baby/parenting books for ourselves, but nothing for the kid.

So, my thinking now is that it's important to move forward by creating an actual physical space for this child in our home. Creating a space where this child will be welcome.

Putting that energy out into the Universe.

OK, Universe. We are serious. We are ready. Everything is in place.

"The Voice" in Field of Dreams says over and over to Ray Kinsella, "If you build it, he will come."

Maybe there's some truth in that...

If we build it...

The heavy lifting...

2010-07-23T09:07:00.001-04:00

"I had this really weird thought on the way over here," I tell my therapist earlier this week. She looks interested as I continue, "I didn't want to come here today because I didn't want to do the heavy work we've been doing."

I pause.

She doesn't say anything. Just looks at me with that calm therapist-y look she has.

So I go on.

"I just realized today that I am feeling very resistant to the heavy emotional stuff we've been doing because it's getting to be 'that time of the year' [my crazy busy season at work] and I feel like I have to pull everything inside of me. Kind of marshall all of my resources and gather the troops. Y'know what I mean?" I ball up my fists and pull in my arms close to my body to demonstrate, "So when I was coming over here I thought to myself that I just can't spare the energy to open myself up like I have been. I can't do the heavy emotional lifting. I can't do it and I don't WANT to do it."

My therapist nods and asks, "So, how does that feel in your body."

Considering that I have pulled my knees up, my arms are crossed, and my fists remain in tight balls...I'd say that I feel pretty tight, stressed and uncomfortable.

The thing of it is that I am coming to "that time of the year" in my job - the busiest, craziest time of the year where I'm going to be facing each day at a dead run with no stopping: lots of daily travel, client meetings most everyday, multiple presentations each day in October and November, preparing tons and tons and tons of prospect letters that I not only sign but on which I write personal notes, lots of follow up with clients in December and more client meetings, etc. etc. etc.

And, until this year, I had not ever really been consciously aware of the fact that at this time each year I do just pull everything inside of me. That I put up walls and retreat into myself in a vain attempt to save every bit of energy because I know that I'm going to be crazed and absolutely exhausted for the next few months.

The rest of my life pretty much stops from August to the end of December.

Or, at least, it has stopped in the past.

But no more.

The truth is that I can't do this to myself again. Sacrifice my life for my job.

It's slowly killing me.

Yet here's why I do it and keep doing it: I'm kind of a perfectionist when it comes to work.

I'm that idiot that's still in the building at 10:00 p.m. working on something for a client that's technically due the next day, but if I called the next day and said to the client, "I hope you'll accept my apologies, but I miscalculated how much time I actually needed to prepare these materials for you. I'm going to deliver them to you tomorrow morning instead of today" the client would - 98% of the time - be just fine with that.

I'm that idiot that says "Yes" with a smile to her supervisor and to others about taking on new projects and joining new teams when she knows perfectly well that her plate is already full to overflowing.

I'm that idiot that isn't good at asking for help or delegating tasks. Every year in September a temporary staff person is assigned specifically to me to help me during our crazy, busy season. And every year I fail to utilize that person the ways that I could and should. "It'll be better and faster if I just do it myself," is the thought that always runs through my head. Even after I was part of the hiring process last year and knew that we had hired really good, competent people.

I'm that idiot that cannot let go.

So, I pull inward to focus all of my energy into being my perfectionist self - the person that will throw herself head first into the job, work the crazy hours, take on too much, and end up exhausted and burned out from the busy season.

"How can you do your job differently?" my therapist has asked me on any number of occasions over the last year.

I entered therapy several years ago because I hated my job. Or at least I thought I hated my job. The process of therapy has uncovered SO much about me that has almost nothing to do directly with my job, but has also revealed some completely interesting reasons as to why I'm still in this job.

"How can you do your job differently?" my therapist asks repeatedly. She doesn't confirm that I need to be looking for a new job (as I tell I want to) nor does she assure me that I am most assuredly in the wrong job. No, she asks me, "How can you do your job differently?"

By asking me this over and over it seems to me now that she's basically saying without saying, "Your job is fine. Chances are that you'll be exhausted and unhappy in ANY job because your behavior and the way that you approach your job will be just the same."

I've felt totally exhausted by my work for years and years.

"How can you do your job differently?"

Until this week, I had not been able to come up with an answer to this question. I couldn't see the answer. Because I didn't truly understand the question. Because I had no awareness of just how much I was sacrificing myself to the Gods of Work each busy season.

But now I see it.

It took three years of therapy to figure it out (apparently I'm a slow learner...)

It's not the job.

It's me.

It's how I approach the work. It's not the work itself.

And I realize that I can and have to do my job differently. In a way that I might actually be able to enjoy it, be successful and not end up totally burned out.

I need to really and truly plan for and prepare for the busy season.

In the past, I've done some prep for my busy season, but I realized recently that I haven't done nearly enough and thus ended up working late nights and weekends because there were numerous things that I hadn't and could have done in advance. So I took 3 days last week and I've taken much of this week to prep my materials.

I need to delegate.

There are tasks and accounts that I could certainly delegate to my temporary staff person. Stuff that I have not been willing to let go of in the past. And I need to plan ahead of time just what I will delegate. Last year, because I really hadn't prepped myself, I was doing just about everything on the fly like my hair was on fire. Yeah, that was bad...I didn't know from one minute to the next what needed doing and so I couldn't really make any informed decisions about delegating. Won't be doing that again...

I need to have a life outside of work.

There are people that I love - friends and family - my husband for goodness sake! - who I rarely see over the course of my busy season and that has to change. I can't lock myself up in my office and then my home for 5 months and expect to feel happy. I need to make time for and commit to reaching out to people. No more pulling inward and retreating. Dates with my husband! Game nights with friends! Girls Nights Out! Life goes on in the midst of the busy season. Well, it should go on. So, I have to make it happen.

I need to utilize my new art studio.

Being creative isn't an option for me anymore. It's a must. I feel alive when I'm making art and when I'm writing. So I need to get down there and use it.

I need to ask for help.

Not so good at this and never have been. But I know if I am going to be at all successful and not lose my sanity that I have to ask for help.

And, actually, I started yesterday.

"I need some help," I say to one of my colleagues.

(I actually say the words "I need some help"...It's a miracle.)

She shoots me an inquiring look.

"Here's the thing...I need to get energized for the busy season. I'm feeling kinda burned out and I just need something to re-energize me and re-inspire me for what's coming. So I was thinking that our team needs to do something. I don't know what - maybe a great team dinner somewhere or some kind of mini-retreat -"

I'm about to make some other suggestions when my colleague says, "Ooo! I'll plan it! I love doing this kind of thing!" just as my supervisor walks up with her own inquiring look.

So, I say, "I was just saying that I need some help," (there! I said it again!) "because I've been feeling like I need to get re-energized for the busy season."

"So we want to do some kind of retreat!" says my colleague.

My supervisor gives us the green light.

I put it out there in the Universe that I needed help and help arrived.

"How can you do your job differently?"

It took a long time to get to this place. I don't know if I'll be able to change behavior that is deeply ingrained in my being, but I know I have to try.

This is going to involve some seriously heavy lifting...

Soooo very hot...

2010-07-20T08:49:00.000-04:00

It's too darn hot
It's too darn hot
I'd like to sup with my baby tonight
Refill the cup with my baby tonight
I'd like to sup with my baby tonight
Refill the cup with my baby tonight
But I ain't up to my baby tonight
Cause it's too darn hot

-- Cole Porter

The heat finally breaks last evening. Instead of stale, yet cool air conditioning in our bedroom, we sleep with the window fan running.

It's heavenly. Feels totally delicious to have cool, fresh air in the bedroom.

I don't do well in the heat. Actually, that's something of an understatement.

I completely wilt in the heat of the summer - to the point where I feel like I'm going to pass out.

Any temperature above 75 degrees is something of a misery for me unless I sit very still in front of a fan or condemn myself to extended periods of hibernation in our air conditioned bedroom.

This past weekend Chris and I work on finishing our finished basement. The final stages of turning flood damaged rooms back into usable, livable space. Moving furniture around, emptying boxes, organizing my studio, hanging art work and painting a few pieces of furniture to match our office/entertainment area's new color palette (blue, tan, & black...)

After about 15-20 minutes of spray painting a bookcase in the 90 degree heat/sun on a tarp in the middle of our backyard, I am sweating profusely. I feel dizzy. And sick. And there's a good chance that I might just vomit onto our bookcase.

Not good.

"You want me to do that?" Chris asks, looking surprisingly cool (of course, he's smart enough to be wearing a hat...something that doesn't occur to me to do before heading out into the sun.) He looks at me a bit more closely. "You really don't look so good, Sweetie."

Thanks, Honey. Just what every wife wants to hear from her husband.

Of course, it's totally true.

Back in the house as I am cooling off by splashing some cool water on my face I note the extreme flush on the apples of my cheeks and the fact that all of the color has drained completely from every other part of my face.

Yes, very attractive indeed.

Chris very kindly finishes painting the bookcase in the broiling sun.

Best husband EVER.

"Looks like it's breaking a bit this week," Chris tells me this morning, "It's only going to hit 82 today. Then it looks like 86 tomorrow and then back down to 82."

"Lovely," I say, my voice saturated with sarcasm.

"Hey, at least it's not going to be in the 90s."

True. Very true.

But it's still going to be in the 80s, which just sucks.

Grumble, grumble.

The thing is that I absolutely haaaaate it when people grumble and complain about winter - about how cold and miserable it is. Personally, I love winter. Bundle me up in a jeans, a turtleneck and a sweater and I am a happy, happy girl.

A nice crisp, cold, sunny day when it's 20 degrees outside. Heaven!

So when people complain about winter I'm all like, "Hey, Doofus! Winter comes around every year! Quit bitching about it. It's not like it's a surprise, y'know..."

But then summer comes around and, as much as I hate to admit it, I'm just like those people who complain about winter!

Only louder.

And grumpier.

Hey, Doofus! Summer comes around every year! Quit bitching about it. It's not like it's a surprise, y'know...

Yeah, whatever.

Writer vs. ...

2010-07-18T09:25:00.001-04:00

I just finished reading a fantastic young adult fantasy series by Brandon Mull entitled Fablehaven.

If you haven't read it yet - you should.

Really.

The series is so incredibly engaging and entertaining.* By the fifth and final book I was desperate to see how the story ended. Read late into the night until I couldn't read anymore, but tried to keep reading anyway because the story was so compelling. Love that! Brandon Mull - what a great writer.

However, as I was reading this series it set me to thinking about my own writing. Kind of this nagging annoying feeling in the back of my brain. A feeling that I intentionally ignored because I was too busy reading and enjoying to start worrying about my own neurotic stuff.

But now that I'm done reading the last book in the series, suddenly that feeling and all of its attendant thoughts and worries about my own writing that I had been squashing down and ignoring have bubbled right up to the surface of my consciousness and are shrieking "Hey! You! Dummy! Over here!!!!! Pay attention to us!!!!!"

Crap.

I don't want to be thinking about this today.

Too late.

Here' s the thing...It's just like what I wrote about in my last post "Making art vs. ..." where I almost never refer to myself as "an artist," but instead as "someone who makes art."

I almost never refer to myself as "a writer" but will describe myself as "someone who writes."

Here's the other thing...I have absolutely no confidence in myself and my creative abilities. In my ability to produce something interesting, entertaining, insightful, engaging, thought-provoking, whatever...

Really.

Most of what I write...I always think that someone else could have written it better.

How stupid is that???

And yet here I am...Writing stuff here on the blog for the world to see (well, a really teeny tiny itty bitty fraction of a portion of the world..) and secretly (now not so secretly) working on finishing a novel (I already have 100+ pages) that may or may not ever get published. And outlining other stories in my head that I may or may not write.

So, does that make me a writer?

I don't know.

Here's what I do know: I write because I have to write. Because I am compelled to write.

Because I don't feel like myself when I'm not writing.

So, does that make me a writer?

Don't know.

Maybe I am just "someone who writes." Maybe I have not "claimed my inner writer." I don't know if I'm good or terrible or somewhere in the realm of just mediocre, but I do know that there is something inside of me determined to get out into the world through my writing.

So...guess I'll keep showing up each day to clacker away here on the laptop. And if that makes me a writer, then I guess I'm a writer. And if it just means that I'm someone who writes - I guess that's OK, too.

Maybe someday I'll even believe that what I've written is worthwhile.

*But, be warned, Mull has no compunction whatsoever about killing off interesting and favorite characters in the Fablehaven series. The books aren't all nice and happy ending-ish in that way. So if you're reading them with your kids - be prepared to have a conversation or maybe several about death and dying.

Making art vs. ...

2010-07-16T08:50:00.000-04:00

Therapists are tricky little buggers.

I don't intend to go to therapy last night to talk about being an artist, but somehow that's exactly what happens during my session.

What???

Through a series of conversational and therapeutic twists and turns somehow I end up "claiming my artist self."

Huh???

And committing to submitting a piece of my artwork to a show (any show) by the end of this year.

What???

How the heck did this happen???

It's that tricky therapist of mine.

Oh, she's a wily one alright!

Darn her.

The thing is that I know this is probably good for me. But it's also scary.

I haven't exhibited a piece of artwork in a show in more than 20 years!

This is probably how I let myself get railroaded into this situation...by mentioning that in therapy. And by talking about the fact that often I don't think of myself as an artist. It's always been a kind of "making art vs. being an artist" situation for me.

I mostly think of myself and refer to myself as "someone who makes art" rather than "an artist."

For many years in my twenties and early thirties I don't even pick up a paint brush or make a place for myself to make art in my home. Art becomes something that I look at and think about, but in which I never engage.

Then in 2001, my maternal grandmother (my last biological grandparent) passes away and my mother and I meet in Florida to lay my grandmother to rest and to clean out her home. During this time, my husband apparently decides that I am much too sad, that it's been long enough since I have made art and that he is going to change all of that right quick. When I return home Chris surprises me with an antique drafting table, new chair (which Annabel immediately claims as her own...) and art supplies - all set up in a nook in our office.

What a kind and generous man I married.

Lucky me.

In the succeeding years, I've added significantly to the original set of supplies and used that drafting table on and off. Some years very on and other years - depending upon what's happening in my life - very off. But it's always there waiting for me. And Chris is always. always supportive of any time that I spend away from him while being creative.

Since the flood, we've re-done our basement and I claim our former finished storage room as my own. I mean I kind of ask Chris if it would be all right for me to use that room as a studio, but it's really more like I kind of - um - er - inform him that we'll be clearing out that room so I can use it as a studio.

"Sooooo, what would you think..." I say to Chris, "about me moving my drafting table down to the storage room and using it as a studio?" [Interpreted...this means "I've already thought this through and this is what we're doing"]

No hesitation from Chris as he replies, "I think that's a great idea."

Best husband EVER.

So suddenly I actually have a dedicated space where I can create.

My studio.

MY STUDIO.

A real studio space just for me where I can be creative. Not in our office. Not in a corner of the guest room. My very own room. It feels very decadent and I know it's going to be kind of a pain in the ass to get rid of all of the stuff we have down there in storage (and it IS a huge pain in the ass), but I can live with that.

Today all of my supplies still need to be organized, but the furniture - including the beautiful antique drafting table that my very thoughtful and generous husband bought for me so many years ago - is in place and ready for use.

So, somehow all of this comes up in therapy and suddenly I find myself "claiming my artist self" and committing to this show.

Oy.

Still, I guess this isn't such a terrible thing. Because the truth is that even though I might not have the confidence in myself to say that I'm an artist, I am truly at my happiest when I'm at my drafting table being creative. And this commitment will certainly force me to get to it.

So, Universe, bring on a show for me!

(Darn therapist...)

Still here...and bizarre dreams

2010-07-15T09:07:00.000-04:00

It feels weird to have been away for the blog for yet another mini-hiatus.

I haven't had the energy to write because of continued concern over a dear friend in crisis. She and I have been talking a lot over the past few days as the events of this crisis continue to unfold.

It's been incredibly draining for me so I can only begin to imagine how totally exhausted she must be.

I'm feeling pretty wiped out. This is in part not only because I am excessively worried about my friend, but also my anxiety appears to have triggered a series of truly bizarre dreams culminating in the doozie I had last night.

In the dream...

Chris and I have adopted two kids already - both boys. Because we had been waiting so long on our little girl, we had decided to change our preference to "either" when it came to gender and were able to get the boys. Still wanting a girl I ask for a third child to which Chris readily agrees. So we go through Adoption Round #3. Somehow we end up in a kind of "baby born" type situation where we have to take this little one...who once again turns out to be a boy. I decide that the Universe is telling me that it's boys for me.

So we go to get this little guy. He's so tiny. We're not really ready for a newborn again (in the dream the older boys are like 7 and 5) and so we scramble to kind of get stuff ready. Don't even have a name for the little guy when we bring him home so we just keep calling him "The Baby."

On Day 3 of The Baby being with us I go in to check on him in the morning because he hasn't been crying. Just want to see if he's still sleeping. He looks really big to me. More like a 10 month old baby than the little newborn that came home with us just a few days ago. His eyes are open. So I pick him up and am shocked at how much he weighs. It's impossible that he's grown this much.

Then, suddenly, he SAYS something. It's muttered and indistinct, but I could swear that he actually spoke in English.

"What did you say?" I ask him.

His eyes turn to me and there is comprehension in them. I just about drop him back into the crib. He sees my shock and LAUGHS.

"Omigod!" I shriek. "Who are you? What are you?"

He smiles broadly and there is something quite threatening in his eyes and his voice as he replies, "You'll figure it out."

I drop him in his crib and scream because it's then that I realize that our new son is possessed by a demon.

I wake up totally confused. It doesn't help that Chris is a away on business. So I am alone in our bed...bewildered and upset by this frightening dream. The cat wakes up and looks my way, but does nothing to assure me that it was just a dream and that all is fine. She just puts her head back down to slip back into her peaceful kitty sleep.

Damn cat.

Damn dream.

Cruelty...

2010-07-11T10:51:00.000-04:00

All cruelty springs from weakness.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Cruelty is a tyrant that's always attended with fear.
-- Thomas Fuller

Is the capacity for cruelty inherent in all of us?
-- Soledad O'Brien

Now I say that with cruelty and oppression it is everybody's business to interfere when they see it.
-- Anna Sewell

I was the victim of bullying when I was growing up - elementary, middle and high school. Cruel children, adolescents and teens making it known that I was not welcome.

Not accepted.

Not acceptable.

And making it known in cruel, public humiliating ways. There are events from my childhood that I have tried in vain to erase from my memory. Humiliations of which I will likely never speak or write ever again...but that remain burned into all of my cells.

Never understood it then and I don't understand it now...this need for and capacity to be cruel that some people possess.

It's one thing to be stupid, thoughtless, careless...to hurt someone without meaning to. We've probably all done it at one time or another. Some of us actually recognizing our thoughtless hurting of others and attempting to make amends. Others too dumb or thoughtless to realize that they're inflicting pain.

But to be intentionally cruel. To inflict pain out of malice. With forethought.

This is a mystery to me.

A dear, dear friend is currently the victim of unspeakable cruelty. Her pain right now is unending. And so completely undeserved.

I ache for her.

And I am so incredibly angry at the cruel people who are inflicting this pain upon her. This torture. And it is not thoughtless hurt. It is with malice and intention and forethought.

It is so completely unfair.

The waiting...

2010-07-08T08:50:00.000-04:00

The waiting is the hardest part
Every day you see one more card
You take it on faith, you take it to the heart
The waiting is the hardest part
-- Tom Petty from "The Waiting"

I want to be patient and to let the events of our adoption unfold as they will on the timeline set out by the divine mystery of the Universe. Instead (and unfortunately) I seem to be leaning in the direction of impatience - and restlessness.

"Is this really going to happen?" I ask myself...as each day passes with no news... as the waiting continues...wondering if we'll ever be a family.

In Buddhism, impatience and restlessness/worry falls into the category of the Five Hindrances - negative mental states that impede one's ability to be mindful. I'm embarrassed to say that it's been quite a while since I've listened to any Dharma talks or even cracked a page in any of my books about Buddhism. Between work, the flood, damage to the house, repairs to the house, putting the house back to rights, worry about the adoption, trying to lose weight, blah, blah, blah...I guess that I let life get in the way of my studies.

And in the way of being mindful.

So here I am feeling anxious and worried. Impatient and restless.

Suffering.

Gil Fronsdal, in The Issue at Hand, writes the following about patience:

When we recognize that clear-seeing, peace, compassion and love are quite different from, even incompatible with, compulsive behaviors and reactions, the value of patience becomes apparent. Patience entails choosing not to respond reactively. It provides tremendous support for mindfulness practice. Perseverance, patience under insult and acceptance of truth are three traditional facets of patience that give strength to mindfulness.

The patience of perseverance, through a gentle and steady effort, keeps us from succumbing to doubt, discouragement and fear.

I want to be patient. I want to listen to Gil. To practice patience and perseverance. To trust in the Universe, be in the moment and not let myself succumb further to doubt and discouragement.

Really, I do.

But...the waiting really is the hardest part.

It's complicated...

2010-07-03T11:04:00.000-04:00

In a recent post - Done - I wrote the following:

Genuinely wanted to (and still want to) understand how Chris and I can make our adoption the best it can be - not just for us, but for the child we will raise and the parents of that child.

Another blogger, Mei Ling, had this to say about what I wrote:

I think the very issue with this (in the solely anti-adoption POV) is that adoption is not "the best" thing and can never be "the best" thing because it relies on the worst case scenario already having come to fruition.

As always, I want to thank Mei Ling for visiting and taking the time to comment. Even though we come from different places in the adoption triad, she has visited in the past and been someone who has engaged in thoughtful and respectful dialogue.

In response to your comment, Mei Ling, I say: You're right.

Adoption isn't "the best" thing because it does rely on the worst case scenario coming to fruition.

The very best thing would be that all babies are born healthy, get to stay with their families and grow up in their cultures/places of birth with all of their biological relatives.

Period.

I actually have a whole different version of this post in which I describe the "in an ideal world" scenarios and all of the things that wouldn't happen in regards to children and their natural parents. And in that version of the post I write about how I came to the world of adoption - my "Life is what happens when you're busy making plans" story.

But I've opted not to post that version because...well, because I've just run out of energy for trying to tell my story and have it make sense. I've run out of steam in regards to feeling like I have to defend myself about our adoption.

So, you're right, Mei Ling. Adoption isn't the best.

Adoption is complicated.

It's a complicated solution to building families in a messy, complicated, and entirely imperfect world. It's a whole world unto itself that involves love/loss/gain/sadness/joy/regret/hope/anger. It's about the haves/the have nots/the frightened/the powerful/the manipulators/the manipulated. It's about children. It's about children and their parents. It's about children and first parents and adopted parents - and the complicated, messy and imperfect relationships that they must navigate throughout their lives.

If it wasn't complicated, I don't think that I would have started this blog to process the experience for myself and for the people who choose to share my story with me. If you've read this blog, you'll hopefully recognize that I am aware that adoption isn't all rainbows and kittens.

However, having a family via adoption is my imperfect reality. And the best that I can do is to make every effort possible to make our particular adoption the best that it can be in its very imperfect, complicated form for the child we will raise, for ourselves and for our child's first parents.

Still here...and technology

2010-07-02T09:04:00.000-04:00

Radio silence...hmmm.

I've been off the grid because we went on vacation last week to Maine and New Hampshire where I unplugged (well, mostly...I did have my phone with me for text messaging a friend who was having a hard time while we were away) and didn't look at a computer, the news, TV, etc. for four whole days.

It was heaven.

Not that I don't love my blog and FB and all of the other technological wonders that make life easier.

But I am a person who, before I got married, didn't actually own a computer. Or a television. I listened to the radio at home, did my e-mail correspondence at work or headed to my college library to use the computer lab after work, and when I was feeling the need for entertainment I took a book to my favorite coffee house where I would hang out and watch the world go by for a few hours...sometimes by myself, but more often than not with coffee house friends who would sidle up to my table.

Who needed technology to have a good life?

Now, of course, I'm married to Mr. Techno Guy and am surrounded by technology - all of which I have come to greatly appreciate, although none of it would I have were it left up to me.

A few years ago Chris comes home with a box under his arm and says with a huge grin, "I bought myself a birthday present."

A DVR.

Seriously???

"How much is THAT going to cost us each month?" I ask him, annoyed at yet another new piece of technology in our home and at the additional monthly expense. I mean, for God's sake, we already have a perfectly good VCR that is in great working condition! What the heck do we need with a DVR???

Chris ignores my annoyance and cheerfully gets us set up with the DVR.

I grumble about it for days (mostly to myself, but sometimes not...)

But then I discover the joy of watching a favorite show as it's recording while simultaneously recording another favorite show.

How did we ever survive with just a VCR player????

And so now I am addicted to our DVR.

Same goes with WiFi.

You would think the world was coming to an end the way I carry on when Chris announces that we need WiFi. What??? How much is that going cost us? Why is this necessary???

And who is now at this very moment sitting in the living room on her laptop utilizing the dreaded and totally unnecessary Wifi? Who is the person in the house that uses her computer in the bedroom, in the kitchen, on the deck?

Yep. That would be me.

I L-O-V-E having WiFi...how it allows me to not be tethered to a desk when I use my computer.

Which brings me to the computer itself. I always had a desktop system, but when I decided to go back for Round 2 of grad school, Chris suggests that I get a laptop. I argue about the expense and all of the reasons that it's unnecessary, but we go to look at Mac Books and sure enough I leave the store with one (and a beaming husband) and now, of course, I can't imagine going back to a desk top system.

Ever.

I'm very slow- even reluctant - to accept new technology, but when I finally do I generally embrace it.

Still, that doesn't mean that I'm unwilling to live without it, particularly when we travel.

So, last weekend while we were hiking Mount Willard in the White Mountains and searching out as many waterfalls as we could find, I didn't miss the computer, the TV or the DVR at all. Even though I had my iPhone with me, I didn't bother to get online to check FB or my blog. Although I did get online a few times to look up things related to Maine and New Hampshire - mostly to check the weather for the next day so we could plot and plan our activities accordingly.

If I had to give up my computer and all of my life's current technological conveniences.. .I'd miss the online friends and visitors I've met through my blog, the ability to instant message with friends far away, reading my favorite blogs with the regularity that I do now, and the ability to record and watch a variety of television entertainment.

But last weekend reminded me of a time when I didn't rely so much on technology.

When I didn't feel the need to be tied to a computer or the TV.

Four days of being unplugged.

It was lovely.

This vacation made me realize that I need to unplug more. And not just when I'm on vacation. As much as I love blogging and Facebooking and e-mailing and all of the other technology stuff that I do, it truly is a great thing for one's mental health to sometimes just shut down and focus on being in the present moment.

Done...

2010-06-24T07:38:00.000-04:00

I think that I'm kind of done trying to educate myself about adoption from "the other side."

As a result of a respectful comment that I recently left on another blog I have been in turn called a "predator" by two other bloggers. Additionally, one of those bloggers wrote the following comment when I invited her to visit my blog - specifically the post about Compassion:

Don’t try to teach us compassion–we who have lost our children deserve to be given compassion!

Exactly.

Yes, you do.

That was one of the main points of the post.

And, in truth, I wasn't trying to teach anyone about compassion. I was simply expressing my feelings and thoughts about compassion. Asking the question: Why can't we be compassionate with each other?

But she was having nothing to do with me.

There can be truly respectful dialogue among the parties involved in the adoption triad. I am well aware of this because I have been extremely fortunate to have had some amazing, respectful and thought-provoking dialogue and interactions with other bloggers who sit firmly on the opposite side of the adoption fence.

And then there are interactions like these - full of name calling and hostility - that leave me feeling sad and stomped on.

So, I think that I'm going to take an extended hiatus from visiting the blogs of those folks who are vehemently in the "against adoption in all forms" camps. I've been there and tried my best to educate myself. Read the stories. Asked my questions. Genuinely wanted to (and still want to) understand how Chris and I can make our adoption the best it can be - not just for us, but for the child we will raise and the parents of that child. I've tried my hardest to be respectful.

As such, I will always welcome respectful dialogue from other bloggers - in any part of the adoption triad - and sincerely hope that those folks who have visited me in the past will continue to do so and to leave me their candid, thought-provoking comments. I hope these women know how honored I am that they took the time to engage with me about their views. And hope that I've expressed my appreciation at having the opportunity to converse with them.

However, I believe that I am done going out into the blogosphere and intentionally opening myself up to a stomping from anyone who doesn't like me - or even apparently hates me - because I am a prospective adoptive parent.

It's gotten too hard.

Home improvement...

2010-06-23T07:45:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the radio silence on my end of the world.

Life has simply gotten in the way of my blogging.

Darn life!

That and I haven't felt like I have much to say these days. Well, that's not totally true...I have stuff that's been percolating in my brain - some of it adoption related and much of it stuff that I'm working through in therapy - but none of it is quite ready to come out and play.

Hence...radio silence.

So, in the spirit of at least getting back in touch I will mention that our house is finally on the mend.

Woohoo!

After finally admitting that the flood damage was just too much for us to handle on our own, my fabulous husband tracked down and hired a young energetic contractor guy to come in and fix the place. And fix it he has!

Wet dry wall - out!

New dry wall - in!

Plaster - up!

Today Young Energetic Contractor Guy returns to install new water-proof PVC baseboards.

It's wonderful knowing that soon our basement will be returned to us and we can get back to living in our entire house - not just three rooms.

The best part of having Young Energetic Contractor Guy come in is that we asked him to demolish a small storage room right off the main living area. It seems as though the original owners of the house intended to make the room into a bathroom, but only ever installed a crummy tiny little itty-bitty mostly useless sink.

No toilet.

At one time we looked into having a toilet installed, but it was just crazy expensive. So we used the room for storage. By having the room demolished, it opened up a huge amount of space in our laundry/utility/furnace room. Enough room that we can finally install a big useful functional utility sink and a laundry sorting/folding table! And still have room for storage!

Yay!

We will also be installing what apparently should be in every New England home - a sump pump.

Which, of course, we'll probably never actually need considering they're saying that the floods here were a freak thing in a "once every 100 years" kind of way.

But we're taking no chances.

The sump pump goes in the now enlarged utility room in the lowest part of the room. So that - on the off chance that more than three feet of water decides to make its way up through our foundation anytime in the future - we'll be ready for it!

(Oh, and by the way, in case you ever experience this particular kind of flooding - where the water table is SO high that it has nowhere to go except up through your home's foundation...just know that according to your homeowners' insurance - even the kind with a flood rider - that this is apparently considered "normal seepage." Not exactly sure how anyone can think that a foot of standing water in your basement is "normal seepage" but that's what our insurance company told us. Yeah, whatever...)

The other great thing about having our basement re-done post flood is that it forced us to get rid of a lot of things. We used a large finished room off of the main room for all the years we've lived here as a storage room and as the cats' toilet room.

Stupid really to have wasted such valuable space for storage and kitty toilet.

So now that room is pretty much cleaned out.

The kitty litter box is currently living in the bathroom, but will be moved down to the utility room upon its return to the basement.

So that leaves a nice finished room (listed originally as a bedroom) free for my use as a studio. I'll be moving my drafting table and all of my art supplies from their current location in our guest room to the downstairs.

This is a very good thing.

Not only for me to have a dedicated space I can call my own for my creative endeavors, but also because it finally means that we can begin the process of converting our guest room into the baby's room.

"I think it's time," I tell Chris, "to get that room a little more ready for the kid. I didn't want to have a whole nursery set up when we started the adoption, but I think it's at least time to clear out the room and paint it. To say to the Universe, 'OK, we're really ready. Send us a kid.'"

He gives me a sideways glance.

"You really want to paint that room?"

Yep.

And, conveniently, one of the colors that I had been thinking of for my new studio wasn't quite right, but it would be perfect for a little girl's bedroom!

We'll see if Chris is OK with this, but since he gave me a "I'll leave the nursery decoration all to you" just a few weeks back, I'm thinking that the color will be approved.

Insomnia...part 43

2010-06-16T03:57:00.001-04:00

From a prior post:

Last week I spend 40 minutes grousing to my therapist about how aggravated I am all of the time by work.

"Do you have the book Co-Dependent No More?" she asks me in her lovely calm therapist voice.

"Yeah," I reply, not liking where this is going.

"Maybe you ought to read the chapter on 'Detachment'," she suggests in her very gentle therapist-y way.

***

Last night I am once again sitting in my therapist's tiny office in the green, mushy, moderately comfy chair with my feet up on the ottoman.

"Look, I did my homework!" I chirp cheerfully as I pull the Co-dependant book from my bag. "I'm reading the chapter on detachment."

"And how's that going for you?" she asks. "Is that helping?"

"Yeah..ummm," I say, thinking of the very aggravating afternoon that I've just had at my office and feeling my blood pressure soar, "Not so much."

Present day...3:33 a.m.

Here I am awake and obsessing over work.

Thoughts of work wake me at 2:54. So I move out to the living room to try to get back to sleep without waking Chris.

And yet here I am more than 30 minutes later fully awake, feeling beyond aggravated and blogging about it.

The thing is that I don't want to feel like this. I know that my response to this particular situation at work - to this particular person - is totally out of proportion with the situation and now getting kind of out of control. Hence my being awake at this ridiculous hour blogging instead of getting the rest that I desperately need to cope with my job!

This goes way beyond me being angry about work...this is anger coming up that I've been carrying around for a long, long time.

In regards to anger (or any extreme emotion) directed at a situation or at someone else, my therapist recently used the phrase, "When it's really intense...it's yours."

This anger I'm feeling...it's pretty intense.

So I guess it's mine.

Damn.

And the things is - I really don't care to to let this person at work trigger me like this.

He just isn't worth it.

Me getting so angry doesn't affect him or help me resolve the situation.

It only hurts me.

Why am I so good at hurting myself?

So....Detachment....

Um, no...not so much.

Yeah, actually not at all.

I have the feeling that my therapist is going to be a wee bit disappointed at our next session.

Maybe now that I have blogged about this - acknowledged that it's happening - I can get a bit more shut eye. If I shut down the computer and manage to get myself back to sleep I could still get in a few more hours.

G'night.

Or I should say...g'morning.

Stuff...

2010-06-13T11:18:00.001-04:00

We have too much stuff.

Seriously, how the heck did we accumulate all of this stuff?

Books, furniture, tchotchkes, weird kitchen gadgets and serving items, miscellaneous goofy things, more books, more tchotchkes, more books, more tchotchkes.

We got STUFF.

So yesterday we have a yard sale - primarily to get rid of all of the stuff that we had been storing in our large and small basement storage rooms because we're finally having a professional come in to deal with the flood damage to our basement.

Hosting a yard sale is exhausting.

You stay up WAY TOO LATE the night before pricing all of your various and sundry stuff. The kitchen and living room are your basic staging areas. This is so you can haul the stuff out to the driveway and front lawn post-haste the morning of the sale in something of an organized fashion. Then you get up CRAZY EARLY on a Saturday morning to engage in the set up of your stuff. You've placed ads in the paper and on Craig's List. Ads that list what assorted bargains yard salers might expect to find amidst your particular treasure trove.

Ads that say, "No early birds please."

But, of course, there's at least that one guy who shows up 50 minutes early when you have maybe a third of the stuff actually outside and set up for display. He hovers around for about ten minutes while you're hauling stuff outside like mad. You hope that he doesn't just grab something and leave while you're not there supervising.

Your mother-in-law and uncle-in-law arrive with the stuff that they'd like you to sell on your behalf so you give them different colored stickers than yours so you can figure out who gets what $ in sales.

And then the fun begins once you're all done setting up and the raging hordes of yard salers descend upon your driveway and yard.

Some look at every single item you have on display. Study them to see what might actually be of value or of need for them.

Others do a quick walk through to see what jumps out at them immediately. Some of these folks leap back into their cars to head onto the next sale, hoping that the next sale had better junk than yours.

Others find just what they didn't know they were looking for. A lovely woman practically runs up to me with a wooden serving tray I received for Christmas a number of years ago. It has a large rooster on it and has sat unused in a cabinet since the day I received it. "I can't believe you have this!" the woman exclaims, "My mom just re-did her kitchen and everything is roosters. She's going to love this!"

Some meander around with no apparent method of selection and ask, "How much for this?" for every item they pick up in spite of the price tag on the item located right next to their thumb.

Still others do the sloooooooooowwwwwwwwww drive-by in their cars...some to turn around and actually get out to shop, while others just keep on driving. Who knows what they were looking for.

And lastly, you have the quick drive-by people. These are the folks who apparently and miraculously can tell in 30 seconds if you have or don't have good junk. (These are the same folks who drive by with their cell phones clutched to their ears, no doubt reporting to other yard salers, "Yeah, you can skip this one. Nothing good here!")

Everyone wants a bargain.

Some will simply hand over the $ no questions asked when you tally up their purchases.

And others...

"OK, that's five paper back books for $2, the serving platter for 25 cents, the potholders for 25 cents, the set of 6 candles for 25 cents. That makes the total $2.75."

"How about a dollar?"

Sigh.

We keep our books in beautiful condition. Particularly Chris. He can read a paperback book and leave it looking brand new as if no one had ever even opened it. I'm getting better at it (particularly now that I don't read in bed much anymore and so do not fall asleep on top of my books...) So we didn't think it unreasonable to charge 50 cents per paper back or 5 paperbacks for $2.00 for our almost pristine books. Considering that paperbacks today cost almost $9, we thought 50 cents was a pretty good deal.

One yard saler later in the day is simply UP IN ARMS about our pricing.

"When I have a yard sale, I only charge 25 cents for a paperback," she says testily.

She weasels the entire Peter Robinson set of Alan Banks mysteries - all 14 paperbacks! - out of us for 3 bucks.

Another gentleman, a neighbor of ours who drives a very expensive car, wants Chris' $120 diving flippers for a buck. Chris holds out for the $10 he has listed on the price tag. Cheap neighbor guy acquiesces after a while of making jokes and trying to get Chris to relent on the price.

I like the lady to who drives up to our yard sale in a brand new Jaguar.

A. Brand. New. Jaguar.

Seriously???

"Maybe this is how she can afford that Jag," says Chris to me after Jaguar Lady leaves.

At the end of the day a lot less of our stuff is left in the yard, but there is still lots of it.

Damn.

Not our most successful yard sale venture, but still...there is less then when we started.

Woohoo! Make this stuff go away!

Until our next yard sale...

As we are hauling stuff back inside, I say to Chris, "For Christmas and birthdays this year, can we ask for tickets to things? I don't want anymore stuff."

New look...(all over the place blog post...)

2010-06-11T08:20:00.002-04:00

Gotta love it when Blogger comes out with new templates. I love messing around with the colors and the formats. So much fun.

Perhaps I missed my calling as a graphic designer?

Yeah, maybe not.

So, anyway, after about 30 minutes of fooling around with the new templates - voila! - a bit of a new look for the blog (although I am nothing if not predictable and it just has to be green and purple!)

Not much news about the adoption...unfortunately.

We'll try to schedule a conference call for next week with the new rep from our facilitator. Apparently, the gal who encouraged us to consider a mom who smoked heavily through her entire pregnancy is no longer employed by our facilitators.

Go figure.

I'm not sure that the new gal is going to have much to tell us. And, in fact, I'm still unsure what the "client liaison" does exactly since our original one seemed to have no clue how to help us except by suggesting the whole smoking change.

Truth is...as I mentioned in an earlier post...kind of tired of the whole thing. The waiting and the wondering. So, unless people ask me specifically about the adoption I'm not spending a whole lot of time thinking about it.

Mostly I'm thinking about work these days because it has been a tremendous and seemingly constant source of aggravation for me. I've just been a huge, walking, seething ball of anger. So much so that I can't seem to let it go at the end of the day. I come home fuming. I vent to Chris. I go to bed fuming.

It's not good.

Last week I spend 40 minutes grousing to my therapist about how aggravated I am all of the time by work.

"Do you have the book Co-Dependent No More?" she asks me in her lovely calm therapist voice.

"Yeah," I reply, not liking where this is going.

"Maybe you ought to read the chapter on 'Detachment'," she suggests in her very gentle therapist-y way.

Damn.

Knew that was coming.

So, essentially my therapist is telling me that I'm being obsessive and controlling about this particular issue at work.

Damn.

Knew that was coming.

Last night I am once again sitting in my therapist's tiny office in the green, mushy, moderately comfy chair with my feet up on the ottoman.

"Look, I did my homework!" I chirp cheerfully as I pull the Co-dependant book from my bag. "I'm reading the chapter on detachment."

"And how's that going for you?" she asks. "Is that helping?"

"Yeah..ummm," I say, thinking of the very aggravating afternoon that I've just had at my office and feeling my blood pressure soar, "Not so much."

She looks at me sympathetically and then launches into trying to help me detach from my anger about my work.

Gotta love therapists.

I leave the session feeling more calm than I have in days.

This morning I forget to set my alarm, which is bad in that I missed a trip to the gym, but is good in that I was feeling a bit droopy yesterday - always a sign that I'm on the verge of getting sick. So a long night of sleep was probably the best thing for me instead of hauling my butt out of bed to hit the gym.

And in other news...

Yard sale!!

That's right.

We finally found someone reliable and reasonably priced to come and deal with our very flood damaged basement because we finally admitted that we were just too overwhelmed to do it ourselves.

And he's coming on Monday.

Which means that we have to get everything out of the basement so he has room to work.

Which means that tonight after work will be a mad scramble to haul everything up from the basement that has yet to be hauled up. Then we have to price everything and scour the rest of the house for more stuff to sell.

Gotta love yard sales.

And now that I have rambled somewhat incoherently here I must be off to have some breakfast and then get myself off to work.

Think maybe I'll bring my copy of Co-dependent No More with me...

I was going to say, "You never know, I might need it."

But, quite frankly, I'm going to need it.

Not much to say...

2010-06-09T06:24:00.000-04:00

6:09 a.m.

Awake.

I've actually been awake since 5:42 and probably should have hauled my butt to the gym then, but I was feeling SO groggy and unmotivated...

Never shut down my laptop last evening so here I am.

But the thing is...I just don't have a whole lot to say. So, what the hell am I doing here?

Trying to work up the energy and motivation to head to the gym.

Up until this past Monday I had actually been to the gym for 18 consecutive days and would have made it 19 on Monday except that I overslept, brought my gym clothes with me to work with a plan to hit the treadmill after work, but then got stuck working late. By the time I left my office it was after 8:30 p.m. and I just cannot exercise that late in the evening.

Wakes me right up.

So, here I am today with the time to work out, at the time of day when I prefer working out, but not much energy.

In part, it's because I failed to follow my regular routine, which involves laying out my clothes the night before so I can jump into them and GO. But last night I fell asleep on the couch. Chris sent me to bed. I stumbled my way to the bedroom where I promptly passed out in bed. Now...this morning...gym clothes are down on the laundry lines. And my socks are back in the bedroom where Chris is asleep. So not only do I have to go to two places in the house to get myself ready, but I run the risk of waking my exhausted husband (huge proposal at work for him...rather hellish week...)

Some excuses, eh?

Yeah, they sound pretty lame to me, too...

OK, my alarm is about to ring so I think that I will get myself ready to go.

Hmmm...for not having much to say, I seem to have had much to say.

Beachbody...not quite

2010-06-06T19:17:00.000-04:00

A colleague of mine is on Day 4 of "P90X" from Beachbody.

Until he started Facebooking about P90X, I had never heard of it. So I make a quick visit to the company website where I learn that by using the P90X home training system ("our most extreme home fitness training system ever!! Just 3 payments of $39.95 plus $19.95 s & h") you'll "GO FROM REGULAR TO RIPPED IN JUST 90 DAYS!"

Wow.

That's impressive.

So apparently you throw in a P90X DVD each day and for an hour sweat like mad in your basement or bedroom or workout room or wherever you happen to have your television set up and enough room to move around. The system boasts different workouts for each session so your muscles don't get accustomed to a particular set of moves and thus you encounter none of the dreaded fitness "plateaus."

Sounds great!

But not for me.

I've tried working out at home. DVDs, the Fitness channel, following the instructions in a book, etc.

I always stop after just a few days or a few weeks.

What I realize today while I am at the gym is that working out at home to a DVD or the TV has never worked for me. And not because I don't like to work out...quite the opposite - I really like working out.

But what I truly enjoy is sharing the experience of exercising with other people.

At the gym.

There is something about being with a group of people who are sharing the same kind of physical activities at the same time that I find extremely comforting. That I just cannot get from watching people exercise on a DVD.

Sharing the experience of breathing and moving and focusing with other human beings in the flesh is akin to a kind of collective meditation.

There is an energy at the gym that I can't get at home by myself.

It is the energy of solidarity.

When I'm on the treadmill I am focused on my breathing and the movement of my body. I do not read or watch television and I usually ignore the music that is playing.

Breathe and move.

Breathe and move.

And absorb the energy of the person on the next treadmill or the bike behind me or on the elliptical trainer just down the way.

We are all breathing and moving.

And moving and breathing.

Together.

Not a true meditation practice, but as close as I have gotten to a regular group practice in many years.

Lifting weights or stretching - I am again focused on my body, on my muscles, on the breath, on feelings of becoming stronger, more fit and healthy.

The rest of the world simply drops away.

Again - a kind of meditation.

And although I am focused inward while I am moving and breathing and sweating I am still - on some deeper level - aware of the people around me.

Aware of their energy. Their breath. Their strength.

When I see a very heavyset person sweating away on the elliptical trainer or the bike or the treadmill I am inspired to work harder. To breathe deeper. To push a little more.

I notice the weightlifters with their incredible drive and focus. While I have no desire to look like them, I do want to emulate their commitment.

I watch other women - fit women whose bodies I admire. I observe what they're doing to achieve their levels of fitness. They inspire me, too.

Every single person I encounter in this world is an inspiration and a source of energy and comfort.

The gym has become for me more than just a place to get in some exercise.

It is a community.

Will I become "ripped" in just 90 days?

Probably not.

But that doesn't bother me. I know that slow and steady is the best route for me.

And I have a place to go each day where I can escape from the world of work and aggravations and stress...a place where I can enjoy the breath and the body and community and solidarity and quietness of the mind.

Tired...

2010-06-04T08:19:00.001-04:00

I was a bit...um...upset yesterday and the day before what with the whole lopping-of-the-profile-by-the-facilitators-without-our-knowledge-or-consent incident.

Actually I was beyond upset, but was instead a seething ball of rage.

Today my anger and rage have faded. I don't have that horrible churning, roiling, boiling sensation in my gut that I had all day yesterday. This is in large part thanks to a visit to the gym and sparring with the Ringmaster.

I beat the living hell out of that heavy bag last night.

Poor Ringmaster. He took quite a pounding.

In the midst of me knocking the stuffing out of my sparring partner I actually scared some guy right out of the room. He walked in looking to work out on one of the balance balls, took one look at me pounding on the bag, and literally scurried away.

I must have looked pretty pissed.

Not today.

Today I am just tired.

Tired of being angry.

Tired of waiting.

Tired of having so little control over this process.

Tired of being 42 and wishing that I could turn the clock back ten years and pretend that back then I was even remotely healthy enough to have had a baby the natural way and not through this crazy convoluted process.

Tired of being on the same professional merry-go-round.

Tired of feeling stuck.

I'm just tired.

I feel quite a bit like a deflated balloon.

Well, this sucks...

2010-06-03T08:53:00.000-04:00

Our adoption facilitators officially suck.

Suck suck suck.

I'm so aggravated at the moment that I'm not even certain that I'll be able to write a coherent blog post.

"So, how exactly do they suck?" you ask.

Well, after three months of our profile being "live" we are "allowed" by the facilitators to finally make changes. So my lovely and very thoughtful husband makes some changes to our profiles and sends said changes along with a few new photos to the lady who does all of our profile stuff at the facilitator's office. He receives a confirmation message from the Profile Lady stating that the changes will be made post-haste.

Two weeks go by.

No changes.

So Chris sends the Profile Lady a quick e-mail just saying something like, "Hey, noticed that our profiles look just the same. Wondering when you're going to incorporate the stuff we sent you two weeks ago?"

He receives a reply stating that our stuff is in "the queue" which usually takes several weeks.

Ah, would have been nice to know that since in her first e-mail she never mentioned that it takes several weeks. Her original e-mail makes it sound like it will happen right away.

Fine.

So a few more days go by and we don't hear anything. Lovely husband just checks the profiles yesterday to see if changes have been made since we have not heard anything from them. Lo and behold - changes are made.

And boy are they ever.

Profile Lady has lopped out 20% of our profile information. Things that we painstakingly and thoughtfully wrote about ourselves - things we definitely wanted anyone reading the profile to know about us.

Gone.

Needless to say we are a bit shocked and the quite upset.

After sending off an e-mail questioning the removal of what we consider vital information, he receives a reply from Profile Lady stating that they have been receiving feedback from birthmoms (god, how I hate that term) that the letters are all getting too long and so the facilitators are changing their approach on how they promote adoptive parents. (And apparently starting with us because we read a number of other profiles that are considerably longer than ours...)

Well, that would certainly have been nice to know before they started lopping.

I sit in front of the television last night feeling pretty beat up, while Chris is tapping furiously away at his computer generating a reply to Profile Lady.

"Hon," he says quite a while later, tapping complete, "I think you'd better read this before I send it off. I think I may have gone a little too far."

You could say that he's gone a little far in the e-mail communication he has written for the Profile Lady. It is... ohhhh, shall we say ... a bit - erm - snarky in places. I indicate that a few places could be de-snarked. Chris doesn't look happy about my comments.

I return to the television.

Chris returns to tap-tap-tapping away on his computer and after making quite a few revisions calls me over, "What do you think of this? De-snarked enough?"

The revised communication is a truly thoughtful e-mail that conveys our distress over the drastic changes made to our profile without our knowledge or consent. The e-mail also effectively communicates our desire to work with the facilitators to make changes - not to have them foisted upon us with no warning. He ends the communication with the following:

When my wife and I embarked on this journey, we were told by my father that this might possibly be the most important thing we’ll ever do. We believe that he is right. Based on our conversations with your past clients and with a member of your staff, we also felt confident that we were making the right decision to work with [adoption facilitator]. We still do, and hope that you will help us succeed in this journey. All we are asking for is a level of communication, support, and feedback that enables us to be a part of this process, not simply bystanders.

My husband is a very brilliant man.

So, now we wait for yet another reply from the Profile Lady.

***

When we first started this process more than a year ago, I began reading as many adoption blogs as I could: those of adoptive parents, other prospective adoptive parents, first mothers and adopted persons. At the time what surprised me most about the blogs was the hostility that so many of the bloggers expressed toward the adoption industry. We had just chosen or facilitator and the folks there seemed so nice, kind and helpful. I thought, "Well, we really lucked out and got the right facilitators. We won't have that other kind of bad experience that those other bloggers wrote about."

Not so sure about that now.

Right now I kinda totally get the whole hostility-toward-the-adoption-industry attitude.

In a big way.

Done...

2010-05-30T13:13:00.001-04:00

I don't want my weight to be the central story of my life anymore.

It seems as though for as long as I can remember I've worried about my weight and had others worrying about, commenting on and being concerned about my weight.

As a kid, I was bullied and tortured by other kids because I was fat. Then I shot up in height and lost a lot of weight in high school. Suddenly I was thin and had no idea how to be a thin person. Boys noticed me, but for different reasons than when I was fat. I actually had boyfriends. And then over the years as I struggled with leaving home, college, jobs, and learning to become a grown up my weight went up and down and up and down and up and down.

And then my weight went up and then up some more and then up some more after that.

Until last year when I reached the heaviest I've ever been.

And all along people have noticed and commented - when I've been thin when I've been heavy and at all stages in between.

Truth be told....I'm kind of sick of it.

Yes, I'm fat.

I know that.

Although I know you mean to be kind, you don't have to tell me that you're worried about me or that I'm doing a great job losing the weight.

I'm exercising everyday, watching what I eat and the weight is coming off. Not in a dramatic "I lost 47 pounds in 9 weeks!" kind of way (although if that was at all a healthy possibility, I might be tempted...), but in a very healthy 1-2 pounds per week kind of way. Being healthy is my focus and my goal. There is also a "goal weight" in my mind, but I'm keeping that to myself.

So, folks, if you don't mind...I just really don't want to talk about it anymore.

Things I don't understand...

2010-05-27T09:18:00.001-04:00

The whole "wearing my pants down around my knees" phenomenon among young guys (and some unfortunate young women.) I saw one the other day whose pants were just below his butt cheeks. Below his BUTT CHEEKS people. And he was wearing a BELT (apparently so the pants didn't fall off altogether?) What the hell is up with that???

Facial piercings and nipple piercings. Yeah. Just don't get that. Ouch. And - as comedian Bill Engvall would say - people who "landscape the private property." DEFINITELY don't understand that at all. Eeeuuuwwww.

People who are cruel to animals.

The continuing trend in foo-foo-shi-shi restaurants to pile food in a single tall column on my plate.

Why our cat Cecil wanders around the house with her favorite toy in her mouth MOANING pitifully and then when I actually throw it for her she just stares at me with a look of blank incomprehension.

Why I can only manage to keep my house tidy for a few days before it slides back into clutterdom.

"The Bachelor," "The Bachelorette," and all other forms of reality television with a bent toward romance, sex and people supposedly falling in love. Really? Seriously? Why?

Why I am still on the non-profit, fund-raising merry-go-round.

That it's taken me so long in my life to realize what's truly important.

Wishes...

2010-05-23T09:34:00.005-04:00

I'm feeling kind of disconnected from the adoption these days with nothing adoption related to "do" except wait.

Life has just kind of been rolling forward via its natural tendency to do so.

Work, eat, watch tv, Facebook, blog, ignore the basement, sleep, repeat.

Yesterday, we spend the afternoon and evening with our little sister-in-law S while her parents attend a concert. We take her to see How to Train Your Dragon (we've all seen the movie already, but enjoy it just as much this time, especially S who sucks down a slushy and a good portion of a medium popcorn) and then out to our favorite Mexican food place (where 11 year-old S kicks my butt in our favorite card game and laughs at me when I sweat profusely through my enjoyment of a very spicy bowl of chili.)

Arriving back at her house, S and I take her little dog J out for a walk. Despite J's petite size, he pulls crazily at the leash and we hurry to keep up with him in his quest to smell all of the new and also the familiar and apparently tantalizing smells along his regular walk.

S tells me about some of the dogs that live in the neighborhood and a few of the cats. Finding the huge inflatable ball that had escaped from their yard earlier in the week, she spends the rest of the walk bouncing it off of her face soccer style and then when we're on a grassy path rolling over the top of the ball onto the ground. All of this startles J out of his mad sniffing, but he continues in the forward motion of a dog on a mission.

On our return walk home S asks me, "How old are you?"

"How old do you think I am?"

She shrugs. Face bounce.

"I am one year older than your mom."

She looks intently at me for a minute and then asks as she rolls over the top of her giant ball, "Are you ever going to have a kid?"

Hmmm.

Where'd this come from?

I could have sworn that we had talked to S about the adoption. I proceed as if we've never mentioned it.

"Well, Chris and I are actually going to be a adopting a baby soon."

"When?" she asks as she bounces the ball off of her face again.

"We're not sure about that yet. Right now we're just waiting to hear back. We've done everything that we're supposed to do and now we're just waiting. Hopefully it'll just be a few more months because we've already been waiting for a few months."

She looks thoughtful for a minute and then asks between face ball bounces, "So, it could be months?"

"Yup."

"But you don't know for sure?" Rolling over the ball on the ground again.

"Nope."

"So then maybe it could even be weeks!" she says happily with another face ball bounce.

"Well, that would surely be nice," I reply, "but-"

"Or maybe even days!!!" she says with the gleeful enthusiasm of an 11 year-old who is warming up to her subject. "It could just be days!!!"

"I don't know about that, S," I say with a smile. "That might be a miracle if it was just days."

She stops and looks at me, "But it COULD be, right?"

"Probably not, but it's nice to think that."

"Are you going to get a boy or a girl?" S asks with yet another face bounce of her ball.

"We'd like to get a girl."

"Why?" Bounce. Bounce.

"I guess I think girls are kind of easier than boys. I'm not sure I'd know what to do with a boy."

She looks at me once again, thoughtful, "Sometimes girls are easier than boys, but not always. I did a lot of bad stuff like staying out too late and I wasn't easy, but I also do all the stuff that boys do so I guess my mom and dad kind of got both."

The wisdom of an 11 year-old.

We get to the end of the grassy path and S points to a giant flat grey boulder that is bisected by an almost perfectly straight white line. "Do you see this white line?" S asks me. I nod. "This means that this is a LUCKY rock. So if you roll around on top of it and make a wish your wish will come true."

I must look a little dubious because she adds, "Well, you don't have to roll around on top of it. You can just rub it if you want to. I'm going to make a wish!"

She closes her eyes, lays down on top of the boulder and rubs it with her hands. Her eyes squinch shut tighter. Looks like she is wishing very hard. Finally after a full minute of wishing she jumps up and says, "You can make a wish if you want to."

"What'd you wish for?" I ask. She looks at me like I've lost my mind. "Or can you not tell me because then your wish won't come true."

She nods vigorously.

"Oh, of course. I should have realized that. Guess I better make a wish, too."

I opt not to lie down on the boulder, but instead rub it gently as I make my wish.

"What did you wish for?" S asks me when I open my eyes.

"I thought I wasn't supposed to tell or else my wish won't come true."

"Oh, right," she says in all seriousness.

We continue on our walk home, but before we get more than 20 paces S says, "Wait, I have to go make another wish!" and races back to the boulder where she again lays on top of it. J strains at the leash looking in the direction that S has gone. He watches her intently as she makes her wish and then visibly relaxes as she returns to us.

"All set?" I ask.

S gives me a single firm nod and we head back to the house for some bedtime stories with Chris. J is in the lead his little legs pumping hard and his nose firmly pointed downward smelling all of the smells he can get in before then end of our walk.

I don't know what S wished for on the lucky boulder.

But I know what I wished for...

Procrastination...

2010-05-22T10:43:00.003-04:00

This is me.

This is me sitting on the couch.

This is me sitting on the couch writing a blog post.

This is me sitting on the couch writing a blog post when I should be getting into my gym clothes.

This is me sitting on the couch writing a blog post when I should be getting into my gym clothes and going to the gym.

This is me sitting on the couch writing a blog post when I should be getting into my gym clothes and going to the gym where I should be doing thirty minutes of upper body weightlifting.

This is me sitting on the couch writing a blog post when I should be getting into my gym clothes and going to the gym where I should be doing thirty minutes of upper body weightlifting followed by thirty minutes of cardio on the bike.

This is me procrastinating.

OK.

This is me.

This is me ending this blog post.

This is me ending this blog post and heading into the bedroom to put on my gym clothes.

This is me ending this blog post and heading into the bedroom to put on my gym clothes and then heading to the gym.

This is me ending this blog post and heading into the bedroom to put on my gym clothes and then heading to the gym where I will be doing thirty minutes of upper body weight lifting.

This is me ending this blog post and heading into the bedroom to put on my gym clothes and then heading to the gym where I will be doing thirty minutes of upper body weight lifting followed by thirty minutes of cardio on the bike.

This is me trying to live my 2010 Healthy and Beyond resolution.

Wish me luck.

**Addendum**

This is me back from the gym after having lifted weights for 30 minutes and ridden the bike for another 30 minutes.

I rock!

Food for thought...

2010-05-21T07:48:00.005-04:00

So the first e-mail I open this morning is from my sister. There is no text, just a link to a story from TODAY MOMS entitled Our Adoption Story Was a Facebook Fairytale.

In the story, the author, Seth, describes the tragic loss of his and his wife's twins when she went into labor at twenty weeks, their subsequent struggle with infertility and their journey into adoption. He writes:

Feeling a little frustrated and trying to think of new ways to let people know we were interested in adoption, I put our adoption flyer as a PDF posting on my Facebook site late one night in early December 2008. It was more of a whim than a well thought out plan. My friend Jon took the flyer and put it on his site. On Dec. 8, 2008, his friend Jenny, to whom he hadn’t spoken in 20 years, saw the flyer and contacted me at work.

They were parents by January 1, 2009.

While we've told people that we are adopting, we have not shared our profiles with them. That part of the adoption we've kept more private - leaving it to the adoption facilitators to get the word out about us.

Perhaps we've been going about this all wrong.

Any thoughts on this from out in the Blogosphere?

Faux post...

2010-05-20T22:25:00.003-04:00

I want to write a really engaging and interesting blog post this evening, but I don't seem to have the necessary energy or brain power. As soon as I started typing, my eyes started feeling kind of droopy.

*yawns*

Is it stupid to write a post about how I'm not actually going to write a post because I'm going to go to bed instead?

Yeah.

That's pretty lame.

Guess I'll try again tomorrow.

G'night, Blogosphere.

Sleep well.

No, none for YOOOUUUU, Jennifer...

2010-05-19T20:53:00.006-04:00

13 dresses.

No that's not a movie.

That's how many plus size dresses I find during visits to three different department stores this evening. That's right - THREE department stores!

Macy's = No dresses (and nothing remotely dressy - just sloppy looking casual wear)

JCPenny = No dresses (just like Macy's...sack-y, sloppy looking sportswear)

Nordstrom = 13 dresses (13 really kind of sad looking, mother-of-the-bride-y looking, old lady looking dresses. Needless to say, I am not inspired to try any of them on.)

How can two national department stores not have a single plus size dress in their entire stock??? And the one department store that does has the most pitiful little selection tucked away in a corner - UGH! Horrible!

It's like the department store folks are just saying, "Oh, we're so sorry dear Fat Person, but there are noooooo nice dresses for you. Nope. Not here. We don't serve your kind. We don't actually need your money. Just go on your little merry way and make room for the thin deserving people."

WTF?

Talk about dispiriting.

I leave the mall feeling somewhat hopeless, but decide to go for one last try at Kohls since it's on my way home.

# of plus size dresses at Kohls = 7

# that do not look like completely shapeless potato sacks = 4

# that I try on = 4

# that look hideous on me = 3

# that fit and look moderately decent = 1

So I buy it.

Here's the thing. I am attending a wedding this weekend and realized rather belatedly that I don't have anything appropriate to wear for said wedding. Hence, my very frustrating and demoralizing visit to the mall.

But now it's done and I'm all set.

At least for this wedding.

Miraculously...I even find shoes.

Go figure.

Denial...

2010-05-18T07:21:00.007-04:00

I have always been one of those women who struggled with her weight, but also one of those women who - to my deep embarrassment and shame - quietly scoffed at other women. I scoffed at those women who said things like:

I didn't realize that I had gotten that heavy until I saw myself in photo X. I was so shocked!

"How can you NOT notice that you've gained THAT much weight???" I would think snarkily to myself - feeling just a bit superior. "I mean really. How can you be shocked? You live with yourself everyday. Surely you must look in a mirror from time to time. Well, I guess you must have been in pretty serious denial."

Guess what?

I saw photos of myself today.

They are pretty horrifying.

I didn't realize that I had gotten that heavy.

I was so shocked.

There is no full length mirror in my house.

Denial is not a river in Egypt.

And...Karma's a bitch, isn't it?

Being here...

2010-05-17T07:15:00.006-04:00

The BMI ("Body Mass Index") calculator tells me that I am obese.

Obese.

It even sounds like a yucky negative word.

But there it is.

According to the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (part of the National Institutes of Health) "BMI" is:

a measure of your weight relative to your height and waist circumference measures abdominal fat. Combining these with information about your additional risk factors yields your risk for developing obesity-associated diseases.

For people who are considered obese (BMI greater than or equal to 30) or those who are overweight (BMI of 25 to 29.9) and have two or more risk factors, the guidelines recommend weight loss. Even a small weight loss (just 10 percent of your current weight) will help to lower your risk of developing diseases associated with obesity.

Never thought that I'd get here. I mean I've always struggled with being heavy, but never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would ever get to the point of being labeled "obese."

Of being obese.

I hate it.

And I hate that I did this to myself.

I have only myself to blame.

But the thing is...I did this to myself and I know that I can undo this to myself as well.

Now, as you may remember from previous posts, I have been losing weight. I had lost the equivalent to 56 sticks of butter by the best count back in March...but then the floods hit and all hell broke loose for a while. I fell off of the good eating/regular exercise wagon. Not terribly, but enough that a few of those sticks of butter have crept back onto my already large frame.

Aaaaaiiieeeeee!

Damn it.

So, here I am again. Renewing my commitment to living a Healthy 2010 and Beyond.

Because I want to be here for our Schmoopy. I want to be able to run around after her and with her and not be exhausted - or worse - really sick and incapacitated by a totally preventable disease.

Schmoopy deserves to have a healthy mom to be here for her elementary school, middle school, high school and college graduations. And to be around and healthy for her wedding. And perhaps the birth of a grandkid or two. To be around for the everyday stuff and for the hard times.

To just be around period.

If I continue on the path of obesity, I worry that there is a distinct possibility that I will not be around or will be so incapacitated that I won't be a good mom. That I won't be able to help our Little One grow into the person that she is meant to be.

Time to get back to health!

So, if you see me out there chowing down on a big, fat laden candy bar or french fries or some other ridiculous food that has no business in my healthy life, please remind me of this post.

I have a ways to go before I am no longer labeled "obese" by the BMI calculator! But I know that I can do it!

Productivity...

2010-05-16T16:50:00.006-04:00

I'm usually fairly unproductive on weekends. A failing to be sure, but nonetheless true.

Most weeks I'm so wiped out from my work that there's just no gas in the tank by the time the weekend rolls around. Hence, while Chris is often busy cleaning the kitchen or doing the laundry because he somehow manages to have an amazing energy reserve, I can barely make myself just straighten a little around the house before I have to collapse in a heap on the couch.

Quite frankly, when I've had a busy week at work (which is just about always!) I resent having to come home to housework of any kind.

Stupid, I know. But true. I just want to come home to recharge the batteries, refuel, re-boot, re-whatever I can so that I feel prepped and ready for work on Monday.

How crazy is it that I resent my home life because it takes energy away from my work life???

Shouldn't it be the other way round???

Yes!

But then there are weeks where for whatever reason I actually feel kind of peppy. When taking care of our home via a variety of house work-y kinds of chores is very appealing to me and I dive in with a kind of enthusiasm that I don't often have.

Like today.

Despite having had something of a crazy work week followed by social plans on both Friday and Saturday night, I have managed to have enough energy for a productive day: gym, grocery shopping, even making dinner.

Chris almost faints when I inform him that I am making dinner. "Really? Uh, what are we having?" has asks dubiously.

"Chicken cacciatore," I reply, "in the crock pot. If we don't eat it tonight we can just throw it in the fridge for later in the week."

He still looks a little dubious.

How bad could it be? I mean it's basically chicken and tomato sauce. Even I can't screw that up too badly. Right?

And now I'm off to tackle the Great Wall of Laundry in our bedroom. Four baskets at the end of the bed that always seem to be full to overflowing and that I can never seem to get completely emptied.

Ever.

But today I am going to try!!

Chances are it's going to take me the two hours that the chicken has left to cook...

Wish me luck.

** Addendum **

That darn husband of mine had the TV on and was flipping back and forth between "Die Hard" and "That Thing You Do." So OF COURSE I was TOTALLY distracted from dealing with laundry. And now it's dinner time.

Laundry will just have to wait until tomorrow.

"Congratulations," says Chris with a grin, "you have succeeded in again avoiding folding the laundry."

Hee hee.

Enough already...

2010-05-15T10:47:00.003-04:00

Life feels like time and numbers right now.

24 months since I started managing my health issues and became a much healthier and happier person.

18 months since I started realizing that I could actually be a healthy, happy and capable parent.

16 months since I began contemplating telling Chris that my feelings about parenting had changed.

13 months since I told Chris and we decided to adopt.

10 months since we started our homestudy.

6 months since our homestudy was approved.

4 months since our profiles went live.

609 hits to one of our profiles as of today.

The big countdown continues...

As I mentioned in my most recent post...I seem to be hyper-aware of time.

And to be truthful - it's driving me crazy. I look at other expectant mother and prospective adoptive mother blogs with their little "X days still waiting for Baby X to arrive" counters adorned with cute little accompanying bunny and flower graphics.

Urgh!

I don't want to BE that person. Counting the days and wishing and moping and praying and feeling somehow incomplete without a baby.

That isn't me.

It is strange and alien that there is even the tiniest part of me feeling this way. This feeling of somehow being in a kind of stasis. Feeling like I can't look for a new job even though the one I'm in is leaving me feeling burned out. Worrying that I can't take on any new projects or commitments because the baby might arrive.

Feeling kind of stuck.

Chris just sent me updated versions of our profiles. While I am here moaning pitifully on my blog, he is taking action.

OK - enough complaining! Enough blogging for today!

There is life to be lived!

And lunch to be had.

Kinda hungry.

Four months today...

2010-05-14T07:35:00.002-04:00

I must've been radiating adoption "energy" yesterday while contemplating today's four-month marker because any number of people at work came over to ask me if there was any news yet.

"No," I say with a smile that I'm sure does not reach my eyes. "We're still waiting."

"Wow," says one of my colleagues, "It's been like 5 months."

I don't correct him, but instead say, "Yeah. It's been a while, but this is what happens in adoption. You wait."

"So, do you know what's available out there? I mean you can look and see if there are kids waiting, right?"

"Nope," I say. "They can just see us."

"Ohhhh," says my colleague thoughtfully. "Well, I hope you get some news soon."

"Thanks. Me, too. And thanks for asking, K. It was really nice of you."

Part of me is wondering if there are going to be future posts of "Five months today...", "Seven months today...", "Eleven months today..." and so on. I hope not. The 14th of the month has always been a good marker of time being that our wedding anniversary is April 14th. I hope that this day doesn't become something of a sad marker of time for me and that I don't start looking upon it with dread.

Truly, I hope not.

Chris and I have been so busy with flood stuff, work and my parents' recent visit that we have done absolutely nothing about updating our profiles, although we had said that we would at the three-month point. Chances are that this weekend we'll be dealing with flood stuff again - pulling off baseboards and putting more holes in the drywall to let it finish drying out. Possibly even taking down several walls in the storage room that we plan to demolish.

So, chances are probably equal that our profiles will remain as they are while we deal with the house.

Will updating our profiles really do anything toward getting us closer to being parents?

No idea. We're probably just fine with what we have considering how much time, thought and energy went into the original creation of the profiles.

Still...part of me feels like at least we'd be DOING something instead of just sitting around waiting.

Four months today.

Hmm.

Time to get myself ready for work. Time to go out and live and be in the present moment.

Time flies...

2010-05-13T07:24:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow is the 14th.

My cousin's 18th birthday - Happy Birthday K!

A Friday - always nice.

Payday - even better.

The day after a big evening work event, which means I'll probably be really tired and just a bit grumpy. Sorry Chris.

Seven days before my friend K's wedding. Congratulations K & M!

Nine years and one month that Chris and I will be married. Woohoo! Still married and we still like each other!

And also exactly 4 months since we "went live" with our adoption profiles.

Hmm.

Despite protestations in earlier posts that I wouldn't be marking time as we wait and that instead I would simply be in the present moment enjoying life to the fullest...Yeah...Not so much despite my best efforts.

I seem to be hyper-aware of time these days.

I haven't been consciously counting the days, but this morning I wake up to the thought that tomorrow is the 14th and that it's been 4 months of waiting (quite a bit longer if you add in all of last year as we prepped for the adoption...) So my subconscious or my body or some part of me is indeed carefully marking time while my conscious self is going about my life. That subconscious part of me alerts my conscious self as another significant date approaches.

How utterly annoying.

Not much to say...

2010-05-08T09:04:00.007-04:00

I haven't had much to say these last few days.

Shocking, I know.

Me with not much to say???

Say it ain't so!

But it is.

I've been poring over numerous blogs - the usual round up of adoptive mom blogs, first mother blogs and adopted person blogs, but even those - despite their wealth of controversial material (sometime soon I will devote an entire post to the folks that refer to me as "adopter" or "adoptress") - haven't inspired me to write. Guess I'm feeling kind of low, although I know that I shouldn't be feeling this way. It's spring for heaven's sake and it's sunny and beautiful! Our gardens are blooming!

So why am I feeling so blue?

That is the question of the day.

I have some ideas, but nothing that I want to write about at the moment.

So, I'll end this very uninspiring post by saying that I will most certainly have something more interesting and inspiring to say soon...but, for now...

Meh.

Mother's Day...

2010-05-07T09:27:00.003-04:00

Mother's Day is quickly approaching.

I usually call my mom on Mother's Day, but won't have to this year because she and my dad are here visiting this weekend. They're back at the hotel eating breakfast and cleaning up after our visit to the gym this morning. (Where, by the way, I discovered to my horror that my 69 and 72 year-old parents are in SOOO much better shape than I am....)

So, a little time to write something here on the blog.

Kind of had this little fantasy in my head that by Mother's Day 2010 I'd actually BE a mother. That there'd be a little tiny baby in the house keeping Chris and I (and the cat) awake at all hours of the night, but that we'd all be sort of happily exhausted (except the cat, who will no doubt be outraged by the appearance of some other small being that will take her place as the center of our Universe...)

Not so much.

Still no call.

Still waiting.

But - as the saying goes - it is what it is.

So, instead of moping about it I'm going to revel in the present moment. Planning to take my folks to Whole Foods for a healthy delicious lunch (no Whole Foods where they live...) and then off to the zoo for the afternoon. Tomorrow we'll hit some museum or other.

And then on Mother's Day we'll have a lovely dinner with my mother-in-law, her husband and our Nana at a favorite Thai restaurant.

While I am not yet able to mark off Mother's Day as "my" holiday, I'm going to enjoy it all the same this year because I will be with three of my very favorite moms.

Baby envy...

2010-05-06T07:48:00.004-04:00

The organization where I work hosts an annual May Breakfast for its employees.

It's a nice affair (although this year I couldn't eat any of the food served because all of it contained gluten) held in our conference room. Table cloths and flowers on the tables. Programs. The organization honors the employees who have been there for 5 yrs, 10 yrs, 15 yrs, etc.

This year the 30 yrs. of service recognition recipient brings his family: wife, two daughters, son-in-law and his twin 8-month old grandchildren.

After the breakfast program concludes the twins - K & A - sister and brother - are the center of attention. A line forms so that all of us can get a good look at these adorable babies. A is definitely trouble with a capital T banging his little hands on the table, trying to pull the table cloth off of the table and generally trying to get into mischief even at 8 months. I ask his grandmother if he's always like this, "Oh yes!" she assures me with a big smile. "And even worse!"

Lord help his parents when this little one becomes mobile.

K is very mellow by comparison. Laying quietly in her grandmothers lap, K is content to watch all of the goings on with big hazel eyes and then to grab my forefinger in a death grip as I kneel down to take a closer look. I say to her, "Look at you!" and she looks at me, "You have great big fat cheeks just like me!"

I grin at her. She studies my face intently. Her hazel eyes search mine...for what, I'm not entirely sure. Perhaps she's just sizing me up and deciding whether or not I'm a safe bet. After a minute or two she seems to decide that I'm OK and she grins right back. The she shakes my finger in her little hand.

"Are you just the cutest thing ever?" I ask her in the voice that I reserve for babies and cats and dogs. "You are, aren't you???"

Her grin widens.

The death grip remains firmly upon my finger, which now kind of hurts.

Ow.

"Omigoodness! You got a good grip there, Kiddo!" I say, now wincing ever so slightly. "Good grip indeed! Guess what? I'm going to have one just like you soon. Isn't that exciting?"

K's grandma says, "Oh, when are you due?"

"We're adopting," I reply. "So, not entirely sure. Soon I hope."

"That so exciting!" Grandma says.

"Yeah," I say, looking back at K, "And then I can call your grandpa and make a play date with you! Omigosh you're so cute!!"

The line to see the babies is getting longer so I say to K, "Well, I better let some other folks get a look at you," and gently disengage myself from K's grip (which surprisingly takes a minute or two to pry her tiny little fingers off of mine!)

As I walk behind Grandma to let someone else have a good look at baby girl, K stops smiling and furrows her little brows at me. I might be done hanging out with K, but apparently she isn't quite done looking at me. She cranes herself back and then forward to get a better look at me as I am walking away. I give her a huge grin, wave and say "bye-bye" to her several times. She studies me as I do this and finally rewards me with a huge smile.

What a cutie-pie.

I can't say that I've ever really experience baby envy.

Always thought they were cute and I would get a little gooey around them, but never really had that "Oh, I wish that I had one of those!" moment.

Until K grabs onto my finger and studies me with those eyes.

Now I get it.

Aggravation...

2010-05-04T06:51:00.003-04:00

I leave work yesterday more aggravated than I have been in a long time...maybe ever.

(The details surrounding my aggravation are not relevant except to say that it's really sad when one person at your workplace can make life such an absolute misery.)

Chris texts me at around 6pm to find out where I am and what my schedule is looking like. At this point, I am in my car and heading in the direction of home, but know that I won't be there for a while.

I need to cool down.

Definitely need some down time.

So I call C to let him know that I have an errand or two to run and I'll be home in an hour or so and not to wait dinner if he's hungry.

My "errand" is to head to a favorite independent bookstore that is en route home where I read through People magazine and some other equally trashy mag (maybe "Us" or "In Touch"?) and then roam the store looking at whatever. I peruse the kids books and toys, the self-help section and also notice that a few of my favorite mystery authors have new books out, but I'm not planning to spend close to $30 for a book today. I can wait until these come out in paperback or, better yet, can check them out at the library.

I notice after close to an hour of this down time that my blood pressure seems to be getting back to normal and that I am no longer clenching my jaw (and I hadn't actually noticed that I was clenching my jaw in the first place. Not good.)

Still, when I finally arrive home Chris - who is watching the Red Sox and trying to enjoy his dinner - asks me about my day and all of my aggravation comes boiling out anyway despite my attempts to get myself cooled down completely. I absolutely UNLOAD all of this major YUCKINESS on my poor unsuspecting husband. He listens patiently and makes all of the right sympathetic noises. Also makes all of the "I can't believe that [X] is still working there!" noises, too, to which I agree.

Poor dear man. Thank you for listening to me as I ruin your dinner with my vitriol.

It helps to talk about it, but I find myself unloading a second time to a close friend in a phone call and only then does my jaw stop the clenching that happened again once I started talking about my aggravation (although it seems to have locked up again overnight as I slept and this morning I have quite the face-ache...)

I know in the near future when I'm a parent that there are going to be days when I'm pretty fed up. That our Little One is going to go on a 4-hour crying jag as she teethes or she's going to be two and a half and take firm ownership of the word"NO!" and drive me batty. I know that I'm going to lose my patience and find myself getting aggravated.

But somehow I just cannot imagine that as a parent that I will end up feeling the way that I did yesterday.

It's probably not terribly feminist or progressive of me to admit this, but there is a huge part of me that will be so incredibly relieved when this kid arrives - not just relieved that we'll finally be parents and that we get to experience all of the joy that goes along with that, but also relieved that I will be getting away from the workplace. Don't know for certain if we'll be able to swing it for me to stay at home full-time while our child is little, but more and more these days I am hoping so.

There are some women who want it all - the career and the family. Me - if having it all means days like yesterday then I definitely do not want it all.

No thank you.

My voice...

2010-05-02T09:12:00.002-04:00

I'm a talker.

No doubt about it. I have the gift of gab...for the most part.

But when it comes to talking about the adoption, my feelings about the adoption, or any issues relating to adoption...I often find myself having an almsot impossible time articulating my thoughts verbally.

It's awful.

People - family, friends, colleagues - all very often and very kindly ask about how things are going...is there any news? any updates?...and I find myself saying things like, "We're just waiting right now. We've done every single thing that we need to do and now we just wait."

To this answer I usually get an "Ah" or a sympathetic "I'm sure you'll hear something soon" or even the "How long do people usually wait?" and then I trot out a "Yeah" or a "I hope we'll hear something soon" or finally a "There's no real usual wait time. Every adoption is so different."

Sometimes I want to say more and just can't. The words won't come. I cannot seem to articulate to other people in everyday conversation what's on my mind. Or maybe the words would come if I let them, but part of me realizes that other people would not necessarily know how to respond or would be very uncomfortable if I mentioned my fears about buying things for the baby now.

Hence - this blog.

Somehow here in this space I can articulate in writing my hopes, my fears, my joys, my frustrations, my whatever in regards to our impending adoption when I can't get the words out in real life.

Not that this is always a good thing. I mean - it is - this is the place that I turn to when I need to "get it all out," but sometimes it would certainly be more convenient if I could just spew it all out in conversation - especially with the people who are closest to me...husband, parents, good friends. It feels ridiculous to say to them, "Just read the d@#$ blog!" when they ask an innocent question and I know that I've just written about that, but don't feel comfortable talking about it.

Sometimes someone will ask a question that starts all kinds of stuff percolating in my head, but, again, the words won't come right away in that conversation. A few hours later or even a few days or weeks later I find myself with my laptop in my lap and my fingers clackering away answering the question belatedly. Sometimes it just feels too belatedly to start up the conversation again in real life.

Maybe this is the joy and the danger of blogging.

The blog gives me a safe place to share my thoughts, but sometimes I wonder if it also is the thing that robs me of my voice.

Baby stuff...

2010-05-01T16:51:00.004-04:00

I haven't bought anything yet for the baby.

Nothing.

Not a little dress or a onesie or a binky or a bumbo seat.

Nada.

I told Chris a while back that I did not want a baby shower until after the baby actually arrives. He passed along this information to well-meaning and loving relatives who were all set to start planning a huge baby shower many months ago while we were still in the home-study process. Chris very kindly and diplomatically put a stop to that plan.

"I don't want to have a house full of baby stuff and no baby," I tell him.

And so we don't.

We do have a lovely hand-knitted baby blanket that we received as a gift from my mother-in-law, a few kids books and a little teddy bear.

That's it.

But today my neighbors have a yard sale. I can see their driveway is full of stuff, much of it baby stuff and kid stuff. There's a little plastic scoot-car...white, red, yellow and blue...the kind that a toddler would use. I stand next to my car for a few minutes looking across the way at the scoot-car. It's really adorable. Part of me wants to go over, buy it, and then put it up in the attic "for future use."

But I don't.

Instead I get in my car and head to the gym.

Part of me wants to start buying baby things and toddler things. Part of me wants to join a friend of mine on her weekly yard sale adventures so that I can start socking away little baby clothes that I find for a dime and little baby toys that someone is selling for a quarter.

But then there's the part of me that worries that no one is going to choose us and there will be no baby. And then I'll have this house full of stuff serving as a daily reminder: no baby. That I'll be that poor woman who on her blog writes incessantly about how the nursery is all ready and has been for two years and yet still she is waiting...

Yet today - just for a minute - I have this thought that maybe I should be buying things. That by having baby things in the house that somehow I'll invite a kind of baby energy into our home that will speed this process along.

I feel like a complete dork even writing this. It sounds ridiculous like Rhonda Byrne's The Secret or something.

Sigh.

Need to reflect on this some more.

To buy or not to buy?

That is the question.

Invasive species...

2010-05-01T16:13:00.003-04:00

In the U.S.A. and Europe, Japanese knotweed is widely considered an invasive species or weed. It is listed by the World Conservation Union as one of the world's 100 worst invasive species.

The invasive root system and strong growth can damage foundations, buildings, flood defences, roads, paving, retaining walls and architectural sites. It can also reduce the capacity of channels in flood defences to carry water.
--Wikipedia

And it has taken root in our backyard behind our shed.

I tell my colleague (who happens to be a master gardener) about the invasion. She says, "Ooooo Mommy...that's not good. Not good at all. That stuff can come up through concrete. Once you have it it takes a lot of work to get rid of it."

So, based on my colleague's instructions on how to kill the unkillable, today Chris and I undertake the arduous task of trying to eradicate the invader.

Step 1: Pull and dig out each plant as deep as you can. The knotweed has a taproot that can be as long as two feet. This step is a pain in the butt as the plants root themselves pretty firmly and require a LOT of digging and pulling.

Step 2: Pour a good 3-5 count of white vinegar into the hole where the taproot remains.

Step 3: Smother the area where the knotweed was growing - cover with black plastic and heavy rocks so that no sunlight or water can get to the taproot, which will regrow if given the chance

Step 4: Bag the plants you have pulled up in a plastic bag and toss them in the garbage. According to a few websites I checked out you should NOT put these in with the compost because they can live for a while, re-root and grow again thus spreading to other parts of the state.

Step 5: Repeat Steps 1-4 when the knotweed reappears and grows through the plastic (which, according to my colleague, it will...)

It's war.

The score so far...

Chris & Jenn: 1

Japanese Knotweed: 0

Bring it on, blasted plant! We're ready for you!

Calmed down...

2010-04-25T10:25:00.002-04:00

I awake this morning feeling much more calm than I was last night.

The combination of a good night's sleep and taking the time yesterday to twice write about my anger - my dosa - seems to have helped to diffuse it.

The yahoos will be yahoos. There is little I can do about them or the less-than-truths they choose to spout at me. However, if I have learned anything, it is that I can certainly do better in managing my reactions to them and in setting my expectations in our adoption journey.

It doesn't do anyone any good - especially me - for me to get angry. I've made enough suffering for myself in my 42 years...There's no need to add yet another layer of suffering. I've worked too hard in recent years to peel away my layers upon layers of suffering. To be happy and in the present moment.

So, today will not be shaped by anger, but will instead be about taking care of myself, my marriage and our home. Grocery shopping. Cooking. Helping my husband in the next steps of dealing with our wrecked basement.

Life is good and it's good to move through the world in a state of happiness...not dosa.

Best and peace, everyone.

Still irked...

2010-04-24T23:28:00.004-04:00

I'm still really irked - actually downright angry - with the yahoos employed by the adoption facilitator.

I set aside these feelings for a good portion of the day, but tonight while I am trying to wind down they have bubbled to the surface again in a most unpleasant way. In fact, I'm feeling a bit sick to my stomach because I am so angry...

Vipassana Buddhist teacher Gil Fronsdal has the following to say about anger in his book The Issue at Hand:

The Buddhist word dosa, usually translated as anger, might more accurately be translated as "hostility," provided we recognize that hostility can be present in emotions ranging from minor aversion to full blown rage...Dosa burns the one who is angry. Classic Buddhist teachings liken being angry to holding a red-hot piece of coal. For Buddhists, acting on dosa is never justified; dosa is a form of suffering that Buddhist practice is designed to alleviate.

Hostile anger seems to have its roots in recoiling from our own pain...

Anger is always a signal. Mindfulness helps reveal what it signals. Sometimes tells us that something in the external world needs to be addressed, sometimes that something is off internally. If nothing else, anger is a signal that someone is suffering. Probably it is you. Sit still in the midst of your anger and find your freedom from that suffering.

I don't wish to suffer in this way.

Really.

It doesn't move me forward in my journey.

So, I'm sitting still in the midst of my anger. Trying to breathe. Attempting to be mindful. Working on letting go of my dosa towards the yahoos and of the anger I'm directing toward myself for wanting to believe them.

Time...and lies

2010-04-24T07:42:00.002-04:00

A mourning dove is awake early on this sunny Saturday...cooing its sad and mournful coo... giving voice to how I'm feeling this morning.

Yesterday...I speak with R from our adoption facilitator's office. She is yet another person there who is here to "serve" us through our adoption process, apparently by checking in with us once a month (now that the first three months of waiting have elapsed) to review our stats (which we can already review ourselves via an administrative website...) She is another person there whose salary we are paying with our adoption fees.

I ask R about what we should do to update or change our profile, which we had been told we could do after the first three months.

"Oh, I would give it at least another three months before you do anything to your profile. Really, it's so early yet."

Early yet?

Seriously?

That's funny. Our original adoption "consultant" (read: sales person) J indicated that the average wait time was 2-4 months. Three months certainly doesn't seem like early days at all in a 2-4 months wait scenario, so I ask R, "So, what is the average wait time that you're seeing?"

"Oh, gosh...I'd say like 6 months to a year and a half."

"Really?...So I guess 3 months is kind of early days," I respond weakly, a bit too stunned to point out to R that her colleague J had told us something entirely different at the start of this process.

I feel as though we have been lied to.

In truth - I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up based on J's original statements. I had certainly done enough reading on the web that I think I knew that the wait could and likely would be significantly longer than 2-4 months. But when the "expert" throws out those time frames. When the adoption consultant gives you the sales pitch...

I heard what I wanted to hear and stupidly got my hopes up.

My heart got in the way of what my head really knew.

R tells me that there are some changes we could make that might move things along a little more quickly like "some of the medical stuff." She suggests that we consider "birth moms who smoke" because "so many of them do because they're so stressed about this process."

Oh, you think they're stressed out? Really? I can't imagine why.

"And, really, the doctors we work with say that smoking doesn't really affect the babies all that much. So, y'know, it's something you could consider."

WTF?

Apparently, those numerous studies over the years linking smoking during pregnancy to low birth-weights, a higher incidence of stillbirths, underdeveloped lungs and organs, and other serious health problems don't apply to expectant mothers who are considering adoption...

I decide at this moment that I really dislike R.

Intensely.

Because she's either (A) so dumb that she believes the crap she just spewed at me about smoking during pregnancy "not being so bad," or, (B) she's just knowingly lied to me to sell me on this concept.

I do not think that we'll be taking R's advice at this time (or at any time in the future...)

Still, unfortunately, as much as I might dislike R and J...and as much as I might feel that we have been led astray by these "adoption professionals" there's just no turning back now. We've made our choice and our investment in this particular facilitator. We simply can't afford to pull out now.

So, we move forward and we wait.

And we'll dutifully check in with R.

And we'll make changes to our profile now (against the very knowledgeable R's advice) and again in three months if we're still waiting.

Time will pass.

And we'll continue to fix our house and be in the present moment.

And eventually....this will all be worth it.

That could be us...

2010-04-22T07:12:00.006-04:00

I'm sitting in my booth at Minerva's Pizza reading my book. Waiting for my Greek Salad.

"We need to sit at a bigger booth," I hear a woman's voice saying and a child responding, "Why, Mommy?"

"Because Daddy will be here soon and we won't fit in that small booth. Come over here. We can sit in this booth by the window so we can watch for Daddy to come down the street."

"OK!"

The woman is about my age. Long brown hair, black sweater set, black & white skirt, black tights and black Dansko patent leather clogs. Her little daughter is probably about 5. Hair pulled up into braided pigtails, pink sweater, little jean skirt, multicolored tights, and sneakers.

Very, very adorable.

And very likely adopted.

Her daughter is black.

They're obviously regulars here at Minerva's. The waitress greets them with a friendly "the usual?" but tonight they order something different - Greek salad and a large spinach calzone.

The little girl has a coloring book, but is reading it rather than coloring in it. And chattering away.

"Daddy" turns out to be about my age and white as well, confirming my original thought that their daughter must be adopted. He is wearing a corduroy blazer, button down shirt and jeans. Looks like a professor.

"Hey there, Buddy," he says to his daughter.

"Hi, Daddy!"

The man greets his wife and then returns his attention to his daughter, "You were a little sad this morning when I left for work. I wanted to find out a little more about that."

The little girl shrugs.

"Are you feeling better now?"

The little girl nods and starts chattering away to him.

As they work they're way through dinner and conversation about their days, I find myself openly staring at them. I know I shouldn't be staring, but I can't seem to help myself...hoping fervently that if the parents notice my rude behavior that they also notice the huge smile on my face and forgive me just a little.

I just keep thinking as I watch them, "That could be Chris and I in a few years. That could be us."

And then I wonder if they are used to getting stared at in restaurants and at the mall and at the movies and wherever they go as a family. I imagine they must get stared at a lot. Then I also wonder how many of those stares are hostile and rude, versus the stares of people like me who think that their daughter is such a cutie-pie and that they make a nice looking family. I'm hoping that the friendly stares outweigh the hostile ones...but somehow I can't help but think...

A little part of me wants to approach their table to ask them all about their adoption experience and tell them all about ours so far, but, of course, that would be totally inappropriate. They're out to enjoy dinner together, not to hash through their adoption experience with a total stranger.

So I simply try not to stare, but fail (also inappropriate on my part) and enjoy watching them.

That could be us in a few years.

Lost...(and then not so much)

2010-04-20T07:32:00.006-04:00

I keep sitting down to write a blog post and then....

Nothing.

There is mucho buzz out in the blogosphere about a few hot and controversial adoption items, but I can't seem to work up the interest to write about them.

No. Just feeling a little lost at the moment.

Chris says last night, "I feel like I'm living in this little eight foot space between the desk and the couch."

And it's true.

While our house isn't what many would call "large" or "luxurious," losing half of our space to flood damage has certainly highlighted the fact that the house is perfectly spacious enough for two. And without that space - we're feeling kind of cramped and just a wee bit cranky.

And on top of the house...

It's been more than three months now. More than three months since our adoption profiles became active and still nothing. Now, I know...three months...in the grand scheme of things not so very long at all.

Really - it's practically a blink.

But when I think about the fact that we started this process a year ago...three months feels like a long, long time.

I'm feeling kind of lost...and sad...and very whiny...and apparently quite sorry for myself...and sorry for Chris.

[pausing to re-read what I have just written]

Oh - for heaven's sake!!!

If you've gotten this far in the post then you deserve some kind of award for making it this far. A f@#$ing medal! What a bunch of self-pitying crappola I've been writing!!!!

Oy vay!

As Loretta Castorini famously says to Ronny Cammareri:

SNAP OUT OF IT!!

OK.

I'm snapping out it.

Really!

The house will be fixed. Not maybe as quickly as we'd like, but it will be fixed and we WILL have our space back.

My ridiculous illness was intense, but temporary and if I think about it pretty short-lived at 6 days AND I feel much better.

Somebody will see our profile and think that we'd be good parents. We WILL get The Call. Maybe not as quickly as we'd like, but we will eventually get the call.

Life will get better.

Hey, life is actually pretty good right now. Not perfect certainly, but when ya think about it...we have a nice place to live in a beautiful safe neighborhood. We have family and friends who love us. We are fortunate enough to have money in the bank and jobs during one of the hardest economic times on record. We have time for each other...And, on top of it all, it's a GORGEOUS day today with sun and blue skies. And our gardens - the gardens that we have planted over the last five years - are starting their miraculous spring transformation.

It's all good really.

OK, so enough whining.

I'm snapping out of it. I promise.

I'm going to be in the present moment and enjoy it...

You, too...yeah?

Overwhelmed...

2010-04-18T17:36:00.003-04:00

I have a bit of a meltdown today.

It's all of our STUFF and nowhere to put it...it's just making me feel totally overwhelmed.

I've managed to clear off most of the kitchen table, but there's still more stuff.

And I don't know what to do with it.

I don't know what to do with all of the soda cans.

Soda cans? This is the cause of your crisis today?

Yes.

Chris drinks Diet Pepsi. He buys one of those long, narrow boxes of them - the 24-pack. They don't all fit in the fridge. Pre-flood there was a spot on our kitchen desk where we kept always the box.

Not anymore.

So, I'm standing there trying to figure out where to put this damn box of soda cans and THERE IS NO SPOT FOR THEM. It's the last straw.

I have a meltdown.

Chris isn't here to see it thankfully...me standing there holding this perfectly harmless box of Diet Pepsi cans and swearing up a storm at it. Crying. Storming around the kitchen like some crazy lunatic. Crying more.

How f@#$ing stupid is that?

Still here...kinda

2010-04-15T22:50:00.002-04:00

Have been rather neglecting the blog for a bit.

Still here.

Kinda.

If you're checking in - thank you, I really appreciate it.

Struggling with the house and some health issues and so haven't had the energy or motivation to write anything. There are some posts floating around in my head, but they'll have to wait just a little longer.

Will be back soon.

Promise.

Making home livable...part 2

2010-04-10T17:05:00.003-04:00

Everything I wrote in the first post of the day...

NOT!

Turns out that our wonderful and loyal Fisher & Paykel super energy/water efficient washing machine bit the dust as a result of being under water for many days.

"Yeah," says the very nice repair guy this morning, "the flugalherman is completely rusted out. I've never actually seen one that rusted before. So is the whatchamajiggy and the thingamahoojy. Oh, and I'm pretty sure that the computer board is a total loss."

Cost to fix: $400. Possibly more. (He didn't have prices for all of the parts.)

The original cost of the F & P washing machine 5 years ago: $600.

Um, yeah, we're not fixing it.

RIP.

"Um, Jenn," says Chris after the repair guy leaves, "I'm not sure we should be spending any money at IKEA if we have to go out and buy a new washing machine."

Oh, BITE ME, you stupid flood!

So we head off instead to Gil's to look at washing machines. An hour and a whole lot of moolah later (minus the $225 mail in rebate), we are now the proud owners of a Bosch front loading washing machine.

On a 15 inch pedestal!!

Take THAT water table!

Our plans to purchase a larger and more functional side board are scrapped for now. We'll just have to make do with what we have and figure out where to store some more stuff.

Oh - and I also made a trip to the consignment shop where I found a very nice $30 round coffee table that has opened up space in our living room. Yay!!! Our rectangular coffee table is now taking a hiatus from daily duty and is living or a while with everything else in the guest room.

Gotta run. I cleared off bookshelves in the bedroom (mysteries now in storage...except Martha Grimes, Lee Child, John Dunning, Laurie King and Craig Johnson) and am about to haul up our sci-fi/fantasy collection from the basement...some to go in storage and our favorite most-often read series (David Eddings, Dennis McKiernan, J.K. Rowling, Garth Nix and Suzanne Collins) to live in the bedroom.

I'm having so much fun.

Not.

Making home livable...

2010-04-10T10:49:00.002-04:00

Now that my sister has so kindly and lovingly kicked my butt out of Pathetic-Feeling-Sorry-For-Myself-Ville, I have to get up off of that same butt to help Chris make our home livable again.

While we have made progress in getting our home into a state of order, we still have a long way to go and this weekend is the weekend that it will happen.

We cannot spend one more week living in semi-chaos.

Chris has been up for a few hours now getting things done - like digitizing even more of our - er yeah not - more of his - ginormous music collection. (I could listen to the same 6 CDs for the rest of my life and not really miss new music very much - I'm sure, to the dismay of my music loving husband.)

Me...well, apparently I needed the sleep and my wonderful and very kind husband let me sleep late today. And now he is kindly letting me play on the computer for just a little while before diving into the madness of our day.

So, here's the schedule for the day:

Eat something
Wait for repair guy to come look at washer & dryer
Rent van from place up the street
Load van with various and sundry ruined pieces of furniture from basement
Take van to transfer station where the Town is allowing people to dump for free today (last day to do so...if we had to take what we're taking to the dump on a normal day...hundreds of dollars in expense)
Drive van to IKEA in Stoughton, MA
Look for and hopefully purchase good size side board for kitchen to replace little dry sink (pretty, but not very functional because not a lot of storage space) and baker's rack (purchase 10 years ago at Christmas Tree Shoppe for $12. I think we've gotten our money's worth out of it...) with more functional storage space for the kitchen
Return home to unload and assemble side board
Collapse and watch a movie or something recorded on the DVR

It seems like a doable, although tiring day. I just realized that I forgot to include dinner in there somewhere...

It feels good knowing that by the end of tomorrow we'll have a home that is tidy and livable so that when we come home from our stressful jobs we have a place where we can relax. It also feels good knowing that we'll have this place in order should we soon (hopefully!) get The Call about the arrival of our little Schmoopie.