Time Flies When You Have Tons to Do

Has it really been a full week since I have written anything here? I apologize from the bottom of my heart for the dearth of updates. Well, I suppose now is as good a time as any to fill in the blanks of the past days.

I spent last Wednesday and Thursday continuing to help Andy with his roof, which looks quite good now. I was not able to help him finish the job, but Craig was probably able to work more quickly with me out of his way. On Friday, I helped another of my colleagues, Bill Linderman, get a piano back into his house from a repair place. I, along with the other three guys Bill had enlisted to help with the move, was rewarded with lunch and a homemade apple cobbler.

My original plan was to get an update posted on Saturday, but that went out the window when we received a surprise visit from Joyce (Sandi's mom). As the pictures below can attest, we now have our crib installed in the nursery. I think the visit and delivery helped lift Sandi's spirits from the delayed interviews. Overall, we had a great weekend, even though I had to do a great deal more work than I had anticipated [wink wink].

Monday's highlight was Ranger's next-to-last obedience class, where we really just reviewed our stuff from the previous weeks. Our next (and final) meeting is a 'graduation' class, where each dog is supposed to showcase a trick of some sort beyond what we have done during the course. We plan on having Ranger roll over; although crawling would be adorable, he is way too prone to lift his fanny from a down position to pull it off with a week's work.

Yesterday, being the fourth Tuesday of the month, brought our waiting families meeting in Knoxville. The topic of the get-together was 'meeting a birthmother,' which is a scenario most of our office's adoptive parents will experience. I gathered two main things from our discussion, which had two guest couples who had adopted from our office. First, it is completely normal to feel awkward at the start of the meeting. Second, beyond the first point, there is no way to predict what will happen during the meeting. I also wanted to let you know a bit about our social worker, Mark, who is the most delighfully politically incorrect guy I have ever met. One of the guest families had adopted a child whose birthparents are from India. At some point, the little boy in question was called Indian, which compelled Mark to add, "not like 'whoo whoo!'" with one hand over his mouth and the other in the air. Good times. On our way home, Sandi and I discussed the sorts of information we would like to have from our birthmother in case there is no future contact.

Our first interviews are tomorrow morning; this, of course, meant that today was spent whipping the house into tip-top shape for the occasion. I cleaned the bathroom and kitchen, and we dusted tonight before Sandi went to bed. Unfortunately, the weather did not allow me the chance to mow the front yard. We hope Julie will not think less of our yard for having a week's growth on it. Now that I think about it, I still have to douse our sofa and chair with Febreze prior to retiring myself. As always, prayers for the morning are coveted. Oh, and in case you were wondering, I finished my reading assignment Monday night, so there!!

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