Long time no blog.....

Well, I have neglected my blog for far too long and there's just so much to report so I will write it all at once.... sorry in advance.

Since Halloween, I have been going absolutely non-stop. My older brother visited me for an extended weekend on his drive from California to N.Y. He is an excellent chef and he cooked for me (I could get very used to that on a daily basis). We had a fantastic weekend, but I wasn't feeling so great, gastronomically, as each day passed, and we suspected we'd been poisoned by the sushi we'd had Friday night while out and about. He left on Monday (I was pretty sad but I was going to see him again in December at least) and had several stops before he reached his destination. I told him to "send my love" to my family members he would be visiting, but it was not my intention to have him send the stomach bug I'd given him as well. Oops. I was up Monday night with a pretty serious case of "the worst stomach flu I'd ever had". Great. Two sick days later, I worked Thursday, with plans to fly to Australia to spend three weeks with my friends on Friday! I took Friday off and packed THAT DAY with an afternoon flight. I got to San Francisco and I have to say, the flight over was pretty brutal because right before I got on the plane I started to feel really bad again. I'd like to forget that day. I didn't sleep but maybe two hours. Meanwhile, my brother made three or four stops in Missouri and fell ill on his drive, leaving the "worst flu anyone had ever had" in his wake. Sorry everyone!!!! I apologize to all for the "love" I sent in your direction but one of my travel companions who met up with me in San Francisco luckily did not catch it. Off to Sydney, all dizzy and sick. Was it a plane ride or was I on a high velocity merry-go-round for 14 hours or so? Wouldn't you know it, we would spend the next three days going non-stop on trains, boats, ferries, in cars and even a double decker tour bus ..... ugh. I have one of those relief bands which reduces nausea, and I wore it for at least 2 days. I think it saved me from complete misery. Thank you EBay. I spent three weeks traveling with friends to Adelaide, Kangaroo Island, Port Douglas/Cairns, then to Christchurch, Nelson, Queenstown New Zealand and everything in between. A full schedule, thousands of pictures, and great memories. I definitely want to go back some day.

But back to work for a week and a half, with Christmas rapidly approaching. I had this grand plan of flying to N.Y. just in time for my sister-in-law to go into labor... we would whisk her off to the hospital within hours of my arrival and I'd get to be there and witness the miracle of birth.... best laid plans. I got the call in the wee hours of Dec. 19th that it was happening without me, five days before my trip .... blast my luck! It was very hard to wait to see my nephew but having finely honed my mad skills of patient impatience with my own adoption, I busied myself with last minute shopping, reading three weeks of held mail, and rushing yet more adoption paperwork through the gauntlet. Lots happening all at once! I left Texas with the knowledge that my final two notarized documents were en route to my house. I'll tell you now, that is not a refreshing feeling, knowing I'm my own hold-up.

N.Y. was a 5 day trip and it was nice to see everyone, especially my new, beautiful, healthy, and did I mention beautiful nephew. It was a great visit and although I didn't want to leave, and I'd been able to step outside of my daily routine, by day three, I was again aware there were very important notarized documents languishing in my mailbox that needed my attention... I flew home and the documents were waiting. I would have done a cartwheel but I would have hurt myself, so let's just imagine I did one, no, strike that, I did two of them and they were perfect, followed by a round-off with just a gold medal worthy ever-so-slight hop.

I sent everything to the Secretary of State's office on New Year's Eve and then I knew I'd have to wait about a week. After days of thumb twiddling, I checked the mailbox to see they'd arrived, freshly authenticated, on Thursday! Yesterday I made copies of everything and this morning I compiled everything, which if you've done it, you know is not without a bit of stress. You find yourself going over and over this huge pile of papers looking at dates, signatures, and over months you've written/scribbled lots of little notes on post-its, corners of copies of documents, instruction sheets, and then when it is out of control you switch to a spreadsheet that you print and then scribble all over, trying so hard not to forget every little instruction such as "check waived signature on mailer" or "make sure header of documents says THIS and not THAT".... and "does this get notarized", am I forgetting something? Did I remember to put a stamp on the return envelope? Is that address correct? Did I include the correct items? Did I write the wrong date? Who am I again? What this is, I've decided, is several months of worry and waiting for paperwork to show up, offices to open, phone calls to be returned, questions to be answered, corrections to be made, hopes and expectations, things I've learned and read.... all of it rolled into one final crazy rush because now, for the next day or at least for a few hours, I am now officially my own hold-up and although I think I have everything, I might not ..... I am sealing into this envelope the days, months, and in my case two years and a second try, all my hope, thoughts, worries, fears, trust, to people I've never met but who want to help me get where I'm going. I have two plus years of labor pains in there! So it should be no shock to me that when I got to the post office today at 11:58 a.m., two minutes before they locked the doors, and there were about 20 people in front of me and 10 people behind me, that I stood there, reread the instructions on the e-mail from my "assistant stork" for probably the 34th time, queued forward one person at a time, got to the counter, requested everything I needed correctly, having rehearsed all the things I needed to tell the lady behind the counter, I handed over my money, wrote out the addresses correctly, sealed the envelope, pushed it forward into her hands, and promptly burst into tears right there in the middle of the bloody post office! For the love of Pete! I was doing so well.... focused on task! I told the lady it was an adoption dossier and I needed to make sure the address was right, that I had tracking, needed a money order for the embassy, that I needed a stamp on the return envelope, that the money order needed to go with the packet before I sealed it, that I needed to waive the signature per stork's request, etc. While she's meeting my demands, she asks me, "boy or girl", "girl", "what country?""Ethiopia" and as soon as I seal that envelope I had to put my hands on it, and thoughts were running through my mind, "Is it all there? Is this going to make it? Is this part over for good? I think it is....... now I think I need to cry all of a sudden, just like my newborn beautiful nephew!" I've got tears streaming down my face and when she asks me what age the girl will be, at that point, I couldn't even speak. So I hold up my right hand and display two fingers.... and I felt like a child. She just smiles and says, "awwww". I walked off, a blubbering mess, to my car, people are staring and then I'm just crying and laughing at myself. The feelings of relief to have that out of my hands and on its way somewhere where it will get me that phone call I've been waiting for! And some crazy lady at the post office today was sobbing while giving the post office personnel the peace sign.... heehee. I returned to my house and just sat there for a minute trying to figure out what was going on in my head. What a day! I just wanted to share it because it is was a moment for sure. I've been carrying quite alot on my shoulders but until today, I had no idea just how heavy it truly was.

Attached is a photo of a funny little doll I "won" on EBay. She was on my doorstep this morning inside a box full of blue tissue paper. I thought I'd bring a small variety of new and previously loved dolls with me on my trip to Ethiopia to leave there, but this one will need some shoes and a new dress. She is the first one to arrive, and like myself, she looks a bit "road weary" and ready for a little break before her next big trip.

Happy 2009 to everyone! I think this is going to be an unbelievably great year.