Oops! I goofed....

And forgot to say anything on Monday about my SIL Lisa's birthday. The adoption drama sort of derailed my good intentions. Anyway, I'm going to chat about her for a couple of minutes; she the wife of my kid brother (I love saying that since he 8 inches taller than me!); mom of my older two adorable nephews; a dedicated nurse; a soldier in our fine US Army; and the person who can take all the credit for getting me addicted to scrapbooking.

It was my last rotation in medical school and I was out at Triple Army Medical Center actually working hard at learning child psychiatry. (I know, I've heard all the jokes, but I really did put in some serious work time & got treated like one of their residents instead of a lowly med student -- good times!) So while I was there, Lisa decided to take me around to some of her favorite craft stores & got me hooked up on the basics. It was a match made in heaven: something that combined my love of photography with writing & art stuff. The only way it could get better is if I didn't have to work to supply my scrapping habit So in return I spent 5 weeks teaching her a lot about photography and helped her buy her first SRL camera. She's much more disciplined and productive than I am. I have about 2 albums & 2 layouts done in the past 7 years, not counting gifts I've done. But I wouldn't have even gotten started if she hadn't taken me on that first shopping trip. So since then, whenever we get together we scrap! And right now we're counting down the days until May 5th when they come home!!

So Lisa, Sorry I'm late -- but I'm sure you're not surprised! Hope you had a Happy Birthday!! Can't wait to see you!! And as a salute, some photos from fun times!

Thank you to all the suggestion I've gotten regarding Houses & Ownership in the last 24 hours. On my way home Monday I called my mom to update her about the latest & she apparently got pretty fired up because 8:30 this morning I got voicemail from her & her attorneys in Parker County with some suggestions regarding "legality". Turns out that the Denton County Clerk won't help us on this one, but good thought guys. The title company's lawyers, btw, told their people that unless we had documentation from the Russian courts that this was necessary documentation, to not assist us. Gotta Love That!

Kate (our Gladney person) & Michael have been doing a huge amount of telephone work with everyone they can think of to get "proof". The difficulty is that the judge has not defined what acceptable "proof" is, so we're totally guessing. We're apparently family #2 to be assigned to the "house" judge and as yet, Gladney doesn't have feedback on how well the process goes through that court since the other family hasn't traveled yet either. Michael's impression, based on the sense of urgency that Kate is conveying, is that this home ownership issue is the only obstacle holding up getting a court date. So Kate & Michael drafted up a document that has now been faxed to Russia, in addition to copies of the site survey, details from the sale documents, etc and we're hopeful that it all works.

You can not imagine the amount of energy this has drained & the angst it has generated. Fortunately I have my hands full at work (Can you say multiple sets of preemie twins?) or I'd probably be nuts now too. As it is, I have a migraine & a 7:15am Pediatric Department meeting, so I'm calling it a day.

Oh and Michael still needs to call a dentist....

It was a "Good News / Bad News" day on the adoption front....

Kate called Michael on Monday.

The good news is that our case has been apparently assigned to one of the two Russian judges.

The bad news is that the judge we've got has the quirk that he/she doesn't believe that the notarized, apostilled copy of our house deed is proof that we own our home. Not sure quite what they want, and Gladney doesn't have any guesses at this point either. By-the-way, the other judge has a quirk of wanting the medical forms dated within the last 30 days, hence last week's crazy paper chase to get another set of those (in case we got that judge). Turns out it's probably not so necessary as trying to prove that we own the home we're in. Of course, if one wanted to "pick nits" the bank owns the house, we just pay the mortgage. And if you really wanted to nit-pick you could argue that the cats own the place because they're the ones home all day....

The worse news is that Kate thinks we might not get a court date until the judge is convinced that we own the house. Did I mention that no one really knows what constitutes "proof" in this context....

Michael's patience is being sorely tested on this one....

Just in case we thought life was dull lately....

I brought home KFC Fried chicken Friday night for Michael’s dinner. Me, I was all about the Pizza Hut Pepperoni Pan Pizza.... hmm sounds good right now even. SO we’re watching the Olympic skating exhibition with the medalists and munching on dinner. Michael introduced the kittens to fried chicken for the first time and while they were slow on the uptake they did finally decide that they Adore fried chicken. Fast forward about 10 minutes and Michael comes over and drops a shiny smooth object in my hand and asks me what I think it is. “I dunno, looks like a chunk of chicken bone to me....” “Nope, it’s part of my tooth – I just broke a tooth.” So at that point my mind had conflicting responses to process:

• “Yuck! That’s gross! Just why did you have to drop that in my hand?!?!”


• “Ewwww! That’s gotta’ hurt!”


• “I knew you should have seen Dr. G a few months ago!”

I think I responded with something lame like “Ouch!” and quashed my squeamishness. I still can’t believe he dropped a chunk of his tooth into my outstretched hand. That’ll be the last time I blithely hold out my hand when asked..... So now it looks like Michael will making friends with a dentist locally very soon over the next few days....








Me, I’ve just realized that in an effort to purge this need to “blog”, I’ve managed to stay up until 2am. Ouch, the alarm clock is going to be awfully unpleasant later this morning. It is so hard to be a night owl trapped in a world run by larks.... . Apparently Molly thought I needed supervision because she’s been curled up in my lap for the last hour, snoring.... I guess I can take a hint....

Couch Carcasses & God-Breezes

As I was driving home along 360 today, I kept my eyes open to see where that damn couch ended up. I really did hit it and its sad, pathetic carcass ended up shoved off on the edge of the Trinity/Riverside exit. One arm had been ripped off totally and stuffing was poking out from the seat cushions and the missing arm. I felt validated that the entire episode really had happened and it wasn’t me hallucinating due to sleep deprivation.....


So, three weeks ago today I was driving home from Arlington, much less eventfully I might add. It was about 5pm. Traffic was its usual metroplex nastiness, and I experienced one of those nagging thoughts. Do you ever get those? One that just worms its way in and usually starts off with “I really should....” So as I was headed home I kept thinking “I really should go by Payless Shoes,” and “I really should go by the Payless Shoes that’s by the house.” There are two others that I pass on this route home, but that nagging urge wasn’t directing me to either of those. For a bit of context, I don’t typically shop at Payless Shoes. I’m a bit more of a Dillard’s girl myself, or OnlineShoes.com. So for me to want to go to a Payless Shoes is shall we say, out-of-character. By the time I got to our neighborhood it was about 5:30pm and Michael was still driving home, so I decided to just go around the corner & stick my head in. I had thought I might look for a pair of sneakers for Tabitha and if there wasn’t anything then I’d just zip back home.

So Guess What!?!?!

I walked in and the two shop girls were busy marking down a bunch of clearance shoes. I took a quick look, found a pair of sneakers for Tabitha, and as I was headed up front to pay, I stopped and actually looked at one of the pairs that were marked down. They were a pair of very sturdy mary-janes in an uninspired navy color. Then I actually looked at the price and realized that this $20 pair of shoes was marked down to $5!! So in the next 15 minutes I had both girls helping me grab 14 pairs of boys’ leather boots and girls’ mary-jane shoes to buy for the humanitarian aid bag we needed to fill for this second trip. I was able to get a mix of bigger kids sizes and a couple of adult sizes too (for the teenagers). So five bags of shoes later I was headed home. I was a little stunned at how quickly that shopping trip occurred, but as I drove home I realized that what I had experienced was what someone I know refers to as “God-Breezes”. That’s where in a moment of open-mindedness an answer suddenly appears. Sometimes attributed to “gut-instinct” or “intuition” I’ve been the recipient quite a few times in the past. As the years go by, I’ve learned to pay attention when they happen. As I got home, Michael was just pulling in ahead of me. He was floored when he opened up the back of the jeep and saw all those shoe boxes. So he helped me tie each pair of shoes together and then load up the teal duffle that has been nick-named “The Gladney Bag.” As we worked and I told him about how it was that I had been in the right place at the right time, he just looked at me and said “If you ever have one of those thoughts and it involves lotto numbers, stop what you’re doing and go get a ticket immediately!” All joking aside, I really do think that this time it was a “God-Breeze” because I had been worried about how we were going to stock another big bag of aid for this trip. The orphanage director requested “shoes, socks & underwear” specifically and I really had been agonizing over how we were going to be able to afford to fill up that bag since the shoes they needed really are not cheap. Just goes to show that patience is a virtue and sometimes when “Ye ask, ye shall receive”. I ended up with nearly $300 worth of solid leather shoes for $80, and this is what the bag looks like now instead of being empty.... There’s still a bit of room for socks and underwear though....

Arthur Dent would be annoyed.

Well tonight I experienced a new first.... I hit a couch on the highway driving home tonight. Is it still considered a hit & run if the object being hit is inanimate?

The drive home from the Arlington hospital started as usual. Tragically I had talked myself out of a side trip to my favorite scrapbook store & instead I got to live my own version of the Douglas Adam’s book, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, where couches just mysteriously appear due to eddy’s in the time-space vortex.... yadda, yadda.

At any rate, I was in the center lane following behind a pick-up towing a flatbed trailer with two couches on it. They were wrapped in plastic and looked new. As I drove into a section of the highway that dips down, wind seemed to catch the plastic wrap of one couch and caused it to develop “lift”. Then in slow motion, I watched the couch stand on end and tumble off the trailer directly into my way. Situationally, it was a worst case scenario. For 7pm there was a fair amount of traffic. I had a huge diesel truck on my left side and a small sedan on my right side and no where to go to, and lots of cars behind me. So quashing that first instinct to swerve out of the way, I just slowed down, pulled as far to the right side of my lane as I could, impacted the couch with my front driver’s wheel and ran right over the damn thing. The only damages, excluding a not-needed adrenaline rush, were some superficial scratches on the front bumper & the fog-lamp on the left needs a new bulb. It didn’t break, but the wire in the bulb apparently was jarred. I will probably develop a lifelong phobia about burgundy couches from this point forward.

The section of 360 that this happened on is probably one of the worst places to stop, because of the lack of shoulders. The pick-up couldn’t stop either & about 2 miles up the road he pulled off to a stop along one of the exits. At that point I had already wiggled the steering wheel and assessed that I still had four working tires and I was not about to stop. The last thing I needed was to deal with someone ticked off because I ran over his couch. Of course, had the couch been tied down to the trailer with rope, none of this would have happened. I just wanted to go home. So I did.

Lesson learned: so next time I have a really strong urge to go to the scrapbook store, I’m giving in and indulging my inner brat.

The paperchase continues

Monday started off in that usual jarring way that Mondays usually do. I was dragging my tail since I’d been responsible for 47 babies over the weekend and I had headed to the second hospital, which was busier than typical. It seems to be the new standard lately that there are baby explosions happening wherever I’m scheduled to work. Michael called Gladney to find out about how soon we needed to get our papers in to Austin to be apostilled again. Turns out that the state security letter that we were most concerned about, was not concerning to Kate at all. Instead what she urged us to update post-haste were the medical forms, and then get the security letters done.

I’m very glad that Michael called on Monday, since Kate hadn’t planned on calling us until later in the week. As it turns out, having my day off switched to Tuesday came in very handy since I spent the day running around updating our paperwork for the third time since the original application to Gladney. Hopefully the third time will be the charm, because this is getting very old. I’m also very grateful that we have Matt & Christy on our side. Christy is acting as our “official” paperwork doctor for all of these ridiculous medical forms. The delays involved if we were using anyone else would be unimaginable. Then the accessiblity factor of having a police officer in the "family", can not be underestimated. So then, Michael & I managed to meet up with Matt later on Tuesday to get fingerprinted again. Chalk that up to experiences I thought I’d never have in this lifetime. I think I’ve got the routine down though and I can do “limp spaghetti” fingers with the best of them.

So now its notary time before sending it all to Austin. I wish I could have taken pictures of all the cumulative paperwork stacked together. I’m sure we’re way past a few phonebooks worth by now....

So I had good intentions

So I had good intentions and was going to save my make-a-meals for when we’re dog-tired after traveling to Russia.  Instead, I came home hungry, and after a week spent avoiding the grocery store, fairly desperate.  So the four cheese macaroni & cheese really looked good.  Took a bit longer in the oven than I expected, but I am getting the hang of cooking in a convection oven (sort of).  It was quite yummy, and there are even left-overs!  So we fixed dinner & watched the Olympics.  Just my idea of a quiet night at home.  

It’s 34 degrees right now, so that shot any enthusiasm I had for a grocery store trip.  The cold weather has gotten into the kittens, who are busy wrecking havoc.  I just caught Merlot dragging a decorative pillow out of Tabitha’s room and down the hallway into the living room.  He was growling at it and wrestling with it like it was truly an adversary.  I guess that pillow will be going to live up high for a while, just so its life will be spared! (And where is that darn camera when I need it???)

Tonight’s theme has really been about the best of intentions and just not having the energy to follow though.  I’ve managed to spend this evening in front of the TV and the Olympics and reading e-mail on the laptop. (Love the wireless internet on the laptop – it’s acting as a lap warmer right now too!)  As the ice dancing has been on, I’ve been thinking about my colleague’s little girl and hoping that she’s getting a chance to see this.  This event brings together dancing & skating & fancy dresses and right now, that’s what this young lady is about.  (Hi Clara!!)  Just wait until Sunday night....

Michael & I talked tonight about how frustrating the waiting is getting to be.  On one hand, we want to be traveling NOW.  On the other hand, we’re trying to just carry on with life as usual by not putting things on hold, like my assorted club meetings & work obligations, even the seminar I went to on Wednesday.   It’s very hard to maintain a sense of normal.  Each of us gets asked about 20 times a day or more: “Have you heard anything?” “Do you have your little girl yet?” “Is she here yet?” “What’s taking so long?”  Believe me, If I knew, I’d tell you.  It gets a little wearing after awhile, but both of us realize that all the questions are really people just trying to say they care.  I can only imagine that as desperate as I feel and as down as I get some days, that Tabitha’s got to be feeling this even more.  I send letters & photos every time another family travels, but I have no idea if that’s making a difference since info travels one-way only.  We’re also looking at our Texas DPS letters expiring at the end of the month.  We used up the fingerprint cards that Matt did for us last summer, so we need more to send off to get a current letter.  I can see the potential here is that we need to do the fingerprints this weekend.  I have to be at the hospital, on call all weekend, so Matt comes to the nursery to get my fingerprints.  Knowing him, he’ll come in full police uniform to “print Dr. Erwin”, at which point there will probably be a camera involved, and yet another unforgettable experience in the nursery that I won’t ever be able to live down....  This is the type of stuff that happens all too frequently in my world.....<sigh>  Stay tuned, I’m sure something interesting will happen tomorrow....

Humor me....

Just for a bit as I share about my Wednesday this week.

Yesterday was my day off from work for this week since I’ll be on-call this weekend. Potentially living at the hospital since ice & freezing precip are predicted for this weekend – it just never fails to be awful when I’m on-call, but I digress.

Yesterday was a very good day! I took myself up to Denton to a Skill Path seminar called Conflict Management Skills for Women. I can not fully explain how empowering it was to be in a room with 40 other women, from all different backgrounds, who all bravely shared the conflicts in their lives. In particular I met Arlene, Karen & Shandy, who confirmed for me that some of the problems I’m having at work, objectively don’t stem from me. Even better, I learned a few new tricks, for the next time a significant conflict pops up. I realize that there will be a future opportunity to stand my ground and I’m actually looking forward to that, instead of living in paralyzing dread of the “next time”; it’s not an “if”, merely a “when”. This People, is PROGRESS. For the past three years, my passiveness has only been contributing to my current situation. And I scored so far to the P side of the Passive/Aggressive grid, that I really did need this class just to help me get a backbone. The last three years of work & this class were both painful growth experiences. Boy, have I learned some lessons that I’m not going to repeat!

I’m intentionally being vague, but to give some context, I basically have become the target of a bully, and I didn’t do a good job in kindergarten of learning how to deal with them, so these are lessons that have come around again for me to learn at 35 years old. I’m hoping that I “get it” this time.... <sigh>

A funny side note about this seminar is how serendipity played a role in my going. Last Nov/Dec when I was really starting to get down about stuff at work, the flyer for the seminar turned up in the mail at home. I held on to it for the longest time “just in case”, especially since I didn’t know if I’d even be in Texas or Russia on Feb 15th. As the weeks passed in January, I got the work schedule for February. I discovered that the 15th was a day off so that I could go to the seminar without taking time off (especially good as vacation time is extremely tight this year....) I realized this fact the last week of January. At that point I took it as a sign from a higher power that I needed to go to this event, and all of the obstacles were getting cleared away so that I could go. So I went, and I’m really glad that I did.

The funniest bit I learned is that BITCH is really an acronym for “Babe In Total Control of Herself” which I will have to use once in a while at work.

My horoscope today has me wondering if that course is going to have some serious payoff down the road. Who knows?

Recent spiritual breakthroughs might have you feeling both exhilarated and
downcast. The sensitive side of you tells you that this is a definite step forward for
you on your spiritual path, but the logical side of you might be causing you to
doubt the reality of it. Take comfort in the fact that reality is relative, dear
Gemini, and that what you are sensing is at least very valid for you. Then keep
moving ahead!


Wednesday continued and I went to “Girls Night Out” at “the Club”. Had a fabulous time hanging with some of the ladies I’m getting to know. The theme for last night was “Make-a-meal” and Chef Paul had done all the prep work for us to assemble three different dinners to take home & freeze for later. He gave us bigger containers that we probably should have gotten, so I now have three serious meals stockpiled in the freezer, which I did have to rearrange when I got home. I took that as a chance to clear out some freezer clutter, so all is right in the kitchen now.

It was a very satisfying Wednesday, something of a rare occurrence in my “TAME World”

Today hasn’t been half bad either. Saw 20 of the 42 babies on our service today. Managed to only be 10 minutes late to the Dance Class Michael & I signed up for. Tonight was Waltz 101, and by jove! I think he’s getting it! Next Thursday will be Waltz 201. We can’t wait to go!

Adoption update

Heard from Gladney on Friday that Family #2 had a smooth day at court and hopefully they are close to being on their way home. Family #3 has also been assigned a court date and is apparently traveling to Russia this next weekend (Feb 18-19).

This has been encouraging news that the court dates are being doled out at a steady pace. On the one hand, Michael & I are genuinely happy for the families that are ahead of us, but it's frustrating that our turn hasn't come up yet. Michael has a countdown going in his head, because a rather crucial bit of paperwork expires in early March, so if we haven't traveled by then, that will delay everything. Now that I have Tabitha's room organized, her coming home is much more real to me and I find myself lacking in patience at this point. I realize that in the grand scheme one more month is nothing compared to the five years that we've been talking about getting to this point, but still I could do with a little immediate gratification here!

Her room is done, (mostly)....

This weekend found the painting stage of Tabitha’s room completed, finally. After much effort & help on Michael’s part, i.e. lots of painting grunt-work while I lived at the hospital last week, the paint cans all got sealed up again. Saturday was spent doing lots of touch-ups, and now I’m thrilled with how the paint came out. I think Michael was pleasantly surprised at how much he liked the green colors. Although, towards the end of the week I was getting a bit exasperated with how many times I heard that infamous Kermit song, “It’s not easy being green!” Now Michael’s ready to tackle painting the other rooms and wants a power paint roller system – I think I may have created a monster....














Sunday was spent arranging furniture and that ever delightful job of cleaning up the mess left over. But by Sunday afternoon, all the linen’s were washed, the bed made (and napped on by multiple cats), the furniture restocked, and the closet cleared out. So the next project was cutting tags off all the clothes that I, my Mom & my MIL have been “collecting” for the past 3 months. Have I admitted that I have an addiction to Gymboree on line? Cute! Cute! Cute stuff! (Gift cards welcome....) So separated everything out & I was stunned to see the huge pile of just pink clothes. It’s a really good thing her favorite color is pink, because she sure has a lot of it!

The kittens, Brie & Merlot, have been nearly inconsolable when I’d be in the room painting and they were locked out. So now that the door is open again, they are fascinated with the new room. Brie seems to understand that this is all for “her” Tabitha & she kept giving me looks on Sunday that seemed to say “So where is my kid, now that her room is ready?” Pretty much if you can’t find Molly, Brie or Merlot, then check Tabitha’s room. Tessa even checked it out today!

I still have a few things to do like curtains & storage boxes, that if they get done – great. If not, then there will be time later. I still want to get a child-sized play table & chairs, but I haven’t been able to find what I want in the two Targets that I’ve visited. That may end up being an internet item.

So now one could say that we "have all our beanies in a row".... And we'll just continue to wait, not so patiently, for a phone call....

And more developments on the family front....

Just recently heard from my brother & his family that they are finally coming HOME!!

They have been stationed in Germany since August 2003 and they are coming back stateside in May of this year. Even better, they'll be stationed about 6 hours away from us, so we stand a chance of seeing them more often than once every three years! My oldest nephew is now 6 years old & the younger one is 2. They were 4 years & 6 weeks old when I saw them last. So I'm just counting the days until I get to see them again. I can't wait to see how much they've changed! I'm also pretty excited to see my brother & SIL too (just so they don't feel ignored :-))

So here's a shout out to Doug, Lisa, Drew & Chase! Hurry Home Guys!!!

New Additions to the Family....

Michael's sister Michelle just recently gave birth to twin boys and this past week they & Mom were able to go home. Everyone seems to be adjusting to the new status quo and Michael's parents are almost giddy that they finally have grandchildren.

The four of us had been lectured on all of our bad timing that the twins & Tabitha's arrivals could potentially happen all at the same time. That fortunately did not occur so the grandparents have some time to focus on the boys.

We are thrilled that the boys are here and doing as well as they are for being 5 weeks preterm. We want to welcome Wyatt & Beck to the family! Here's to you Boys!!

Hugs & Purrs, Aunt Theresa & Uncle Michael!!

The News that's New & Approved....

Well, it's been busy around here. Work has been insane, both in terms of volume of babies & quality of babies. And then, there's the ever joyful aspect of work politics which have been getting more & more unsavory of late. Things will either get better or they won't, in which case I have some choices to make.... The approved above refers to a few posts that I was going to make, but discretion won out and I didn't. No sense looking for trouble.... (I guess this is what's know as "good sense" & maturity.... )

On the adoption front, the second family from our Bright Futures Camp is enroute to Russia this weekend to finalize their adoption. I managed to get a letter to Tabitha to Gladney in time for them to be able to courier it to her and as always we send them godspeed & safe travels. We're encouraged by the fact that they're the first family to travel since the end of the holidays and it's a bit of a sign that the freezing temperatures in Moscow have not stopped everything. As far as we know our dossier is working its way through the channels overseas since its arrival in Moscow on Jan 13th.

I've continued to plod along on fixing up Tabitha's room and it's slowly coming along. A few photos of before & after:

Today's big project was starting on painting the walls. The prep work took a few hours. Oh, the joys of 12 foot ceilings.... I definitely got a work-out today doing the "ladder-stepper" as I made at least 15 trips up & down, not to count lugging the ladder all the way around the room - Twice! Michael surprised me and helped out on the big paint roller while I did the detail work. I really had thought I would be on my own, since his opinion has been "Why paint? Beige is a color!" But his help was very much appreciated! Two walls are about 98% done. Hopefully I can get the other two walls done tomorrow before our superbowl party. I've got the fajita steak marinating in the fridge and can't wait to see our friends tomorrow!

Oh, and for the record, Christmas got packed up on January 21st.... Next year I hope to do better!