We Are Leaving On A Jet Plane!

Florida here we come! We leave Wednesday for a five day trip to Punta Gorda to pick out all our home choices. Even though this isn't a leisure trip, it'll work for me. After all the car trouble and house selling trouble, I can't wait. I ended up getting a new car, so that is all settled. As far as the house selling,NOT! The realtors came over last night and suggested dropping at least $25,000. We dropped $20,000 for now. The slow times are coming ahead as soon as the snow falls, so we are hoping to spark some interest before November. With this being the fact, a plane ride sounds great to me. We may even squeeze in a day at the beach looking for shark teeth. My daughter loves to do that. I am going to leave my troubles behind and for five days not worry about houses or the phone not ringing from my adoption agency, which by the way, I have actually not thought too much about lately. A whole three weeks has gone by without listening to every ring of the phone and checking emails constantly. So, now I am suddenly at 21 months and it is looking like I am almost at the finish line. Even if it stretches out until Christmas, we are only talking a few more months. I can't see it stretching past 24 months. I probably shouldn't say that, but my gut feels like it is coming. Not so soon, but it is coming.Or should I say HE is coming.

I had A Crash!

I haven't posted lately because I have been preoccupied with my car predicament. I was driving home from work last week-alone thank god and an old man pulled out of a side road right into me. I was going about 45 mph. So basically my minivan is alot smaller on the side now and crumpled. We were very content not to have any car payments right now. We were going to drive my van for at least another year and Billy's the same or more. The damage to the car came to almost $5,000. If I traded my car in when it is repaired I will only get about $3500 for it, so do the math. We needed to get a new car with the check from his insurance company. So, with the check for $4500 and the trade in for $1000 with the damage, we got a new car. Not a minivan, but a car to replace what will be Billy's in the future. So now we have two small cars with the hope in a year we can get a new minivan. It is a really cute car. We are happy, we made out well considering the inconvenience. We have a small car payment and a safe car. But, we do have two children and one more coming---well I don't know when, but coming. So, the van needs to come first. Today, I had to part with my rental vehicle which I have become quite attached to the last week. It is a Chrysler Aspen-oh my what a nice SUV. It is like a bus. I felt so powerful. I am almost mad they gave it to me. What a tease. So, it was a sad day for me. Maybe someday I will have one.

We celebrated 13 years!

Today Billy and I have been married for 13 years. We didn't actually celebrate anything, except by sharing rolos at work together this morning. Now that I think of it, we never got a chance to eat them. Oh well, Billy got me a beautiful frame that holds baby pictures- One for birth,three months,six months and a year. I cried. When we get our referral I will put in the birth photo. I also got a wall clock for our new house in Florida from my girls. The thirteen years since we got married has gone by like a rocket, but this waiting for a referral has been like a lifetime. What the heck? We go down to sunny Florida in a couple of weeks to choose all our house colors, flooring and other good stuff. Now we just have to sell this place. You want to talk about depressing- we had an open house yesterday and NOBODY came. That is a scary thing when you have a house being built in another state. Since our house has been for sale, two people have come by. It is sad. It is an adorable country house. I would take it with me, if I could. Everybody seems to want those mansion looking houses with the open concepts. Ours is more traditional with the rooms broken up, but it is still big and I think it is nice. I feel bad for our house. Poor little house. We just need to find the right family for it. I will keep you posted.

Create Your Own!

I Have Been Tagged!!

Myspace Stuff

I have been tagged by Island Boy. I was tagged quite a while ago by my friend Ann and never got a chance to continue it. So, this time I will play along.

You have to post these rules before you give the facts. Players, you must list one fact that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of your middle name. If you don’t have a middle name, use the middle name you would have liked to have had. When you are tagged, you need to write your own blog post containing your own middle name game facts. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged & to read your blog! O.K.-Here we go...

Marie is my middle name

M- Movies- I love movies. I am a big Will Ferrell type movie fan. I love Farrelly brothers films. My favorite movies right now are Blades of Glory and Knocked Up.

A- Animals of course!! I love all creatures with or without fur and feathers. They are my buddies and I need to be surrounded by them at all times. Animals rock.

R- Rocking Roller Coaster. Disneyworld is my favorite place and that ride is one of my many favorites. I actually go through withdrawal if I can't ride it for a long time. Test Track would be my ultimate favorite but I don't have a T.

I- Independence. My husband and I have always been self-employed and I couldn't go through life working for someone else ever. We love to have our independence to do what we want when we want it.

E- Exploring. I love to travel. I love to ride planes and see new places.

I now need to name five people to Tag. The winners are blogs I have been following for a while regurlarly. I feel like I know these people.

http://www.taiwantreasure.blogspot.com- Ann is hilarious.

http://lyadoptionjourney.blogspot.com- Kira is such a sweety pie.

http://www.learningpatience.blogspot.com- William has gotten sooo big!

http://chairmanmom.blogspot.com - I love the name! I started reading this blog a while ago. She is funny.

http://www.babyhomepages.net/dearonebaby/index.php- I have followed the story of Jeremiah for a year. I love to read her blog.



You guys have fun and continue the game.

20 Months !!

Yikes, that is a long time. I have been very busy keeping my house ready whenever prospective buyers come by, and we had to do some repairs and repaint rooms. All of you who have had to sell know my agony. I can't wait until it is over. I know people waiting months and months right now with the market so bad. I hope we are one of the lucky ones. With all my pets it makes it a challenge to get the house visitor ready. My home is always clean but I have to lock up the four cats and now they want me to cover the rats cage and the snakes tank because it gives people the willies. Come on! My rats look like fuzzy giant mice. All they do is sleep. How could they have scared anyone. The only thing that they can possibly do that would embarrass me would be -well it is kind of funny. They are both boys but one is a youngster and he is frisky. He humps my older guy. I feel so bad for Walter my big old fat one. Frederick just jumps right on. So I can see if they saw that going on, but really, it is quite funny and I just can't see how anyone would get frightened of them. As far as Pete our snake. Someone saw him-oh my god are you ready for this? He was SLEEPING on a log! Call the animal control. That freaked them out. He is secured in a tank and if you don't know, he is a baby. This isn't something from the movie Anaconda we are talking about here. I get so mad at people. You aren't buying the snake, you are buying the house. It is a very clean cute house and my clean caged animals shouldn't make a difference. So tomorrow I need to hide everyone. They said that if the rat cage is under a blanket that will be ok. So, apparently nobody will notice a blanket on a cage and wonder what is inside? Same with the snake. I don't know. I just guess I am getting a little ugly with this wait stretching on forever. No news in that area. I just wait for that CALL. I know it will come. We are still deciding whether to go directly to Florida if our house sells. It may be easier before the baby comes to make the two day drive with the kids and pets. I contacted FHSA-which some of you know well. They do homestudies and adoptions. I asked how complicated it would be to switch everything if I move to Florida before I bring him home. It is just basically an update with new police clearances and physicals. I would need to pay USCIS $385 to switch to a different state. So in total with the update-about $700. Not too bad considering my homestudy expires again anyway in February and it costs me about $300 to update. So I am paying and extra $400 but we will have the stress of relocating out of the way and rent is way less down there. So if we rent an apartment until the house is ready next August, I can start my girls in their new schools and we are golden. Hopefully if all goes well- yeah right baby will be home with us by May??? Is that too hopeful. A December referral? Maybe June. The funny thing is if I didn't mention- we are moving to Punta Gorda the infamous Hurricane Charley epicenter. All six Charlotte County schools are being re built but my girls' schools won't be done until Dec. 2008, so they will go to new schools in Pods-trailers I think. They asked me what their new schools look like and I said-They got blown down. They aren't too thrilled. The good news is that they will both have brand new schools after completion. That is pretty cool. Wow, I have typed away tonight. I will keep you posted of my many goings-on. My spirits are pretty high right now. So all is good up here in New Hampshire!