On September 30, we had our home visit for the adoption home study. The social worker R was running late due to traffic which gave us some extra time to gather ourselves and drink some tea. By the time she arrived, we were both feeling pretty relaxed and were excited about the home visit. The visit consisted of two interviews, first one with us together, then we were each interviewed separately about things we’d written in our autobiographies. Then we gave R a tour of our house. When she first came in she commented on how much she loved our living room and she kept telling us how much she loved our house, especially our family room with all of the windows. (It’s our favorite room, too.) Then she told us what we should emphasize in our profile book since we’re both such creative people.

October, we spent taking a couple of online classes for us to be part of the domestic agency adoption program, working on the profile book and building raised beds for the garden.

Bryan, my dad and I spent a day building four raised beds. Sinking the posts in the ground was one of the most frustrating and time-consuming parts of the process. Everything had to be level and we spent hours trying to get the beds just right. We didn’t think our yard sloped that much until we tried to put the bed posts in the ground. Then the next few weekends, Bryan and my dad shoveled composted horse manure into the beds. It was definitely the “highlight” of Bryan’s October! haha. There were jokes flying as we were shoveling like, “What did you do this weekend? Well, if it didn’t involve a huge heap of horse manure, it wasn’t fun.” And “Who needs dinner and a movie when you can shovel horse manure for a perfect Saturday night!” Once the beds were finished we were very happy with how they turned out. I immediately planted what seemed like an enormous amount of onions. So we’ll see how they turn out. We may have two onions or we could have more than we know what to do with.

One of the really nice things about working on our profile was it gave us an excuse to ask someone to take some nice photos of us, which my mom was kind enough to do.

On November 7, our home study was approved, which meant we could move into the next phase of our adoption. Also in November, we finished our profile book and had the books printed. They are beautiful. You can view our adoption profile book on Mixbook. We also put together our online profile that’s connected to our agency. Please share either one or both of these profiles with your friends and anyone you know who may be considering adoption. Help us spread the word!

Also in November, we took two infant classes – infant and child CPR and newborn care. The newborn care class came just a day before I visited one of my dear friends for several days who had a then two-month old in her house.
It was really cool to be able to share some of what we learned in our class and she assured me that swaddling does in fact help calm a baby along with the “magic” exhaust fan over the stove.

My parents also have taken a newborn care class for grandparents, so we’re all up-to-date on our newborn info, we’re just waiting for a newborn to try out our techniques on.

Just before Thanksgiving we were listed as officially waiting adoptive parents.

At the end of November, we listed our fundraiser here and had an overwhelming response.

If you’re interested in purchasing bags, please leave a comment on the Adoption Fundraiser post. So far we’ve sold over 55 sets of bags and I’m expecting to deliver bags ordered now (after December 18) in late January/early February. We have been so blessed to have friends who shared the link with friends.

I’ve been asked many times how I’m handling the wait and I just say, “I’m sewing and keeping busy getting bags ready.” I honestly haven’t thought much about the wait as we’re just trying to enjoy having time together, reading, sewing and Bryan’s doing some writing and collages. We know that once we are matched with a baby and expectant mother/birthmother our lives will never be the same so we’re enjoying this time while we have it.

We’re staying in Kansas for Christmas, spending it with my family.

We hope you all have a blessed holiday and a very happy new year. I’ll keep you updated about our journey here.

Make a statement and help save the planet. Go green with a set of spiffy reusable produce bags. The set of five comes in a variety of colors and sizes perfect for produce and bulk items — never have to use those nasty plastic bags again! Cashiers love to comment on them. When you get asked where you got yours, just say, “they were made with love.” (They make excellent gifts, too.)

Bags range from 8″ x 12″ in the smallest size to 13″ x 17″ in the largest size. All bags have a drawstring for easy closure. They are machine washable in warm water. Line dry.

Oh, and most important: All proceeds from the sales go to our adoption fund.

View our adoption profile book on Mixbook.

Each set is $12 plus $5.00 shipping.
Pay through Paypal or by personal check — you may contact me through my contact form. I will reply to you when I’ve received your order. (The comments are close for this post.)

The wallpaper has been a real saga. First there was not one but two layers of wallpaper, one of which had been primed over to prepare for the newer wallpaper. So we were able to tear off one layer, then had to score and saturate the wall again to peel off the top of the second layer of wallpaper, and finally saturate and peel off the bottom of the second layer. It’s been a process I hope never to have to repeat but it’s one of the joys of living in an old house. Fortunately the layers of wallpaper that were here when my great-grandmother lived here are gone. What’s made the process difficult are the areas of the walls where the old wallpaper looks like it had some sort of drywall repair material put over the wallpaper. At times we’ve sworn it was attached with super glue. We’re in touch with my cousin who is a painting expert and we hope he can help us.

Our plans are to paint next weekend but we’ll see. We have to be finished with it by our home visit on September 30. After this room, we’re done with projects around the house for a bit. Outlet covers are a simple task compared to the wallpaper stripping. We’ve also moved our old table, our bed headboard and dresser to a consignment shop. My aunt’s furniture just doesn’t fit our style and we need the money for the adoption fund.

I’m working on an adoption fundraiser that I hope to be able to promote in the next few weeks. We’d love your help.

As we’re getting ready for the home visit we’ve been doing little projects around the house. Last Saturday afternoon, while we were trying to figure out what to do with our endless piles of library books (an ongoing issue with two librarians in the house) we decided to rearrange our family room. There are windows on two sides of the room. With a long table behind the couch and that table next to the back door, it just invited clutter. We’d clean it off and within a half a day it would be cluttered again. It was impossible to keep clean and the coffee table was our library book storage space. Bryan suggested the rearrangement and we love our new room. It feels so much larger to have the couch against the wall instead of along the walkway from the backdoor. I took a rough panoramic photo here.

And what happened to the long table behind the couch? We didn’t have the space for it and we’re selling it. It was a table that my aunt had behind the couch so that she could watch TV, work on bills and eat her meals when it was difficult for her to get around. But we eat at the dining room table and it was just a place for us to put all of our stuff. Right now it’s sitting in our front living room waiting for someone to fall in love with it enough to buy it. We’re looking at consignment shops. Bianca has loved having a table in the middle of the living room. We’re not so fond of it and would like our living room back.

Our solution for the library books was to switch out an end table from the living room. It has three shelves which is perfect for storing our books. It may be only a temporary solution depending on when we have a little tyke crawling around.  So far it’s worked perfectly and we now hang our bags on hooks in the laundry closet. A new room that we love that only cost us about $15 (the cost of the over-the-door hooks). It’s so inviting that I just want to read in my two new favorite chairs when I’m at home. Now we feel like we have a sunroom and over the course of the last 10 days the room has stayed clutter free!

In about a week, we’ll take our only in-person class and turn in our home study notebook. We will still have some required reading to do before the home visit, which is scheduled not long after we turn in our notebook. We’ll have a home visit by the agency and then it’s waiting for the home study paperwork to be typed and completed. I really hope that the home study will be ready for our review by the end of October. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Then we’ll put together our family profile book and if possible our website. I’ve already started on putting together photos of us, our house, and our families. It’s going to be difficult to decide which cute kitty picture to use since Bianca has been our “baby” for the last three years. August 18 is her adoption date for us and we know she’s “excited” about a new addition to the family.

Every day it seems that someone asks how the process is going and it’s really hard to say, “Well, we’re in the middle of getting all of our paperwork together.” Everyone has been really supportive since we’ve told them that we’re adopting I just wish I had more news sometimes. As I’ve read adoption blogs, I’ve noticed one theme about prospective adoptive parents – you can’t give a due date to people, you don’t have a lot of things to show through the adoption process as you do when you’re pregnant. I just have to say I’ve been so blessed with wonderful friends who are interested and excited for us. We may be having a baby in a somewhat unconventional way but it’s no less special for us.

I hope to have more news in the weeks to come. Otherwise, you’ll just get photos of some of the cute things I’ve been sewing, at least the projects I can share. And I really wish I could tell you our garden has been doing fabulously through the heat wave of 2011 but sadly we’ve only had two half-decent tomatoes. The newscaster last night who is like the local tomato whiz said not to fret with the cooler (60-70 degrees F) temperatures that we’re having now we should get some tomatoes soon. We know our crop this year won’t compare to years past because the heat has taken its toll on our entire garden. I hope to get some chard planted this weekend to make up for some of what we’ve lost this year.

I was diagnosed with PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) last June, which I was able to fully reverse by October by changing my diet drastically. Since then I’ve been receiving acupuncture treatments and making other changes, such as exercising and doing yoga, (losing 30 pounds in 18 months) but I have some physical problems that make getting pregnant more complicated. After some of my last hormone tests coming back all wonky – some hormones look great and others have decided to do their own thing, I felt like it was my body’s way of saying that it’s not the healthy or the right time for me to be pregnant. So we’ve decided that our best option is to adopt. I’ve been feeling really at peace with our decision like I just needed to go on the journey I’ve been on for the last year to come to this realization and which is where I’m been meant to be.

We’re in the very beginning stages of the process. Friday we met with an agency and are interviewing another agency next week. Then we’ll begin filling out the trees worth of paperwork and start the homestudy process. We have no idea how long the process will take before we bring a little one home but we know that it will be the baby meant for us. In my life, I’ve learned that so many things happen for a reason and that we meet the people we meet to teach us what we need to learn at that point in our lives. If there is anything I’ve learned, many times the hard way, the perfect thing comes along at the right time. It’s happened to me before with meeting Bryan and getting into grad school. I’m meditating and praying that this all works out the same way. One thing that the woman at the adoption agency told us is to “tell everyone you know that you’re adopting. You never know who might have a friend of a friend’s neighbor who is pregnant and wanting to place their expectant child for a adoption.” So I’m telling all of you.

This time was special. We traveled to Illinois this past weekend and I was delighted to present my friend, Kate, and her son Henry with a quilt I’d made for him. Henry is about 10 months old. It was so wonderful to finally meet him and so sweet to see him play peek-a-boo with the quilt.

The whole family—mom, dad and baby—loved the quilt and it was so special to be there to give them this gift.

This was a quilt of firsts for me.
It was my first Amy Butler quilt. I used Amy Butler’s “Nora’s Mid Mod 2 quilt” pattern for the front with a few modifications to the measurements and I used more kid-friendly fabrics. I love her designs and this one was quite easy to follow.

It was my first quilt using free-motion quilting. I did swirls along the green strips because of the size of the quilt it was about all I could handle. Someday I’ll try other patterns on a real quilt instead of my free-motion practice quilt.

I also learned a big lesson to buy a few extra spools of thread and also how to adjust my machine’s tension. This quilt had me going crazy a couple of times because the thread was pulling horribly on the back while the front looked beautiful. I finally played with the tension and in the end the back looked almost as wonderful as the front.

I quilted the Henry’s name into the quilt, something that I’ve always thought was so cool but until I learned how to free-motion quilt I never knew how to do.

It’s always bittersweet for me to give a quilt away but once I saw Henry and Kate’s faces I knew the quilt was well-loved.

Also in the back I’ve started a shade garden. Last year it had two hostas this year after splitting one of my hostas and splitting ones I’ve received from a couple of neighbors I now have about 19 hosta plants with some ajuga, Solomon’s Seal and a few ferns added to the mix. I bought a Guacamole hosta that I can’t wait to see full-grown.

While I wasn’t in the garden yesterday I was doing gardeny things like preparing terrariums (one of my new favorite things) for my mother and grandmother as Mother’s Day gifts.
We celebrated Mother’s Day a week late this year since my parents were on their three-week trip to Spain last weekend. Today I gave the terrariums to their respective recipients and the terrariums were well-loved.

Not much else is new around here. I’m preparing for summer reading at the library with a completely redesigned program for the kids. I’ve hired all of my volunteers and have orientation tomorrow. To promote summer reading for our library, we visit the elementary schools and the middle school. Last week, I asked a second grade teacher to video the story we told the elementary school kids. Here it is for your viewing pleasure.

Of course after we finished stripping the bathroom, we started talking about doing our office and bedroom. It will be a while but it hasn’t stopped me from picking up paint chips when we’re at the hardware stores.

Image from goodreads.com

Finally, I can’t end this post without telling you, as I’ve told nearly everyone I talk to, about The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. I read and listen to so many books that few affect me the way this book has. I feel I’m mildly obsessed with this book and I am having a hard time finding my next book. Usually when I listen to an audiobook, I listen to it during my commute and once in a while during lunch. With this book, I listened to it while I was fixing and eating breakfast and any other time I could find to listen. Rarely do I finish a 12 1/2 hour book in five days. I’ll let you read the description of the book and reviews as I don’t feel as though my review does it justice.

May spring be with us all soon. It’s been a long, hard winter.