family

Jun192013

Orientation… and Books

I can finally count the number of days until our orientation on my fingers. And not use any twice!

10 glorious days until this adoption process becomes a reality.

Every time I tell someone at work that we’re adopting, they’re so happy and excited for us. It’s amazing to see/ hear the different responses and reactions that I’m getting. Also, I love hearing the “I’m adopted” stories from friends. It’s so heartwarming to know that we aren’t alone in this journey.

I was in a different Barnes & Noble tonight buying some awesome books for our 11year old cousin and asked the sales folks where the adoption books were. They had three. I asked where the grandparents books were. They had one. Ugh. Really? I was considering getting a book and giving it to my parents at their anniversary dinner – 42! – as an opening to discuss our adoption plans. However, the lack of books postponed it yet again. Maybe I’m just not looking forward to hearing that we should just “have our own babies” again. Even if I could get pregnant, we would still be adopting.

May092013

One Year Later

Here’s a disclaimer for you… I wrote this long, beautiful, tear-worthy post 2 nights ago. Then I updated my blog without backing it up and lost the post. I also lost the last 18 months of posts, changes, etc, but thanks to GoDaddy, that stuff is all back. The amazing post, lost. Forever.

I will eventually attempt to re-create it.

But for now, I will write about a beautiful woman that my children will never meet. My grandmother.

She was an awesome lady and I miss her terribly.

She was my last living grandparent – Steve’s too – so our children will never have great grandparents. I still have 3 great aunts on my mom’s side and who know what family I have on my father’s side – he has no known blood family. And unless my brothers have kids, they won’t have any cousins they’ll see on a regular basis either. We have 4 nephews on Steve’s side. I’ve met 2 of them once, and the other 2 I will likely never meet.

But alas, family. I feel for my kids for never having known this cool lady. She was a world traveler, professional ballroom dancer, Realtor, hotel owner (on South Beach no less!). She vacationed in Cuba, rode camels in Egypt, and lived in the same house my mom grew up in to the very end.

The list of her accomplishments is long and distinguished…
– Civic leader and community activist.
– Pioneering member of Temple Beth Am in Kendall
– Past president of Coral Division of NCJW
– Active member of GMJF
– Founder at Miami Jewish Home
– Concert Association and Cancer Link
– Loyal member of the board and dinner committee of the Theodore R.Gibson Memorial Fund
– Business woman
– Hotel owner
– Partner with Fashion designer the late Raoul Arango
– Assistant district Sales Manager for Keyes Company
– Mentor to many young realtors
– Competitive ball room dancer in her spare time

Mimi Abel | October 5, 1920 – May 9, 2012

Apr282013

Let’s Start at the Very Beginning

Well hello there!

This has been a big couple of weeks in the Fletcher home. Two weekends ago, we decided that, yes, it’s time to expand our family. With a human child. Or 2. (as opposed to another furbaby…)

As the first post in my newly revised blog into an Adoption Blog, I’m just going to post all the updates I made on my Facebook the past few weeks.

adopt1

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adopt2

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adopt3

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adopt4

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adopt5

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adopt6

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adopt7

So there you have it. The facebook updates. Coming up will be my [extremely long] elevator speech about the children, the process, and everything else.

Mar122013

Accountability.

Last night, I made a one-year plan. I sorta wrote it in the dark so the mega huge Sharpie helped me be able to read it.

Why am I posting it here on this blog that I’ve virtually ignored for months? Accountability. I’m putting it out there into the universe. I want to accomplish all these things.

Some are obvious (lose weight, join a gym, pay off cards) but some aren’t so much.

– Publish 3 more patterns – 2 days ago, i published a pattern on Ravelry for a Cabled Owls Hat I made. The hat was super easy, everyone raved about it, requests have been made for different colors, so I write up the pattern and published it. Within 12 hours, I had 4 sales. Needless to say, I was stoked!

– Push RSCS! – did you know that I’m a web and graphic designer? Of course you do! No really, do you? Steve and I own RS Creative Solutions and it is my goal to push it as hard as I can so that we turn a profit. I even have business cards and car magnets. Woo!

– Dump crappy friends – OK, this one is kinda obvious too. We all have those friends (or family members) that are more dead weight then beneficial. When someone drags you down, cut the rope and let the anchor sink.

– Cultivate awesome friends – you know, those ones you meet and have tons in common with and can laugh and giggle for hours? Or those that have been with you through thick and thin for practically your whole life but you have no time for. Yeah those. They need to be cherished and brought more front and center.

– Teach a knitting class – I was in Joann’s Fabric yesterday and picked up their class schedule. I have wanted to learn to quilt for some time and figured this would be a good starting point. Apparently unless I wanted to take several hours off in the middle of the work day, I’m never learning through them. All their classes save a few are before 5pm. I am going to take some of my more awesome pieces and convince them to let me teach kids, teens and adults.

– Get a better paying job with a non-assistant title – I won’t tell you how much I make (it would probably depress you), but I need to make more. A lot more. After all, I have been working since I was 12, in the “real” work arena for 15 years (holy smokes!) and have an MBA. A freakin MBA. And it’s sitting dormant and not working for me at all. Don’t get me wrong, I adore my boss. I really have lucked out having a boss that appreciates me and tries to help as much as she can. And not just bc she got Steve and I tickets to see Bon Jovi!!! But being someone’s assistant is getting me no where. Sure, the experience is phenomenal as I do want to work in development and fundraising, but…. I need a change.

– Research FL and OH adoption classes – there’s a lot more to this one than meets the eye. We want kids. We likely will never have biological kids, but that is OK as there are thousands of children out there without families in foster care. Since we have no idea where we will be living when the stars align, I’m researching both states and downloading both states home study applications. We aren’t getting any younger. We want a family. If I don’t get off my butt and do the work, this will be something else that passes me by in life.

– Have a dinner party at least 6 times – I hate cleaning. Do I need to elaborate? OK fine. Having dinner parties and friends over requires a clean house and an organized kitchen for my crazy recipe hoarding. This will push me to not only clean regularly, but keep things clean.

– Organize, clean and make office into guest room or craft space – in our “next apartment” I have all these dreams for our clean and new space. Um, we live here now. We just signed through August. Why keep dreaming of a pretty craft space with a day bed/ couch when I can do it now?

What are your plans for the next year?

Dec112012

Ending 2012 with Some Creativity

This has been a horrible year and I’m so thrilled that it’s almost over. There were way too many deaths, accidents, injuries, hopefully curable diseases/syndromes, and heartbreaks to last a lifetime. Not to mention termites. Never again do I wish to experience this sort of bad luck again. And especially not within a 12 month span. My family has endured so much and we’re still standing. Sort of.

Sorry to start my first entry in many months on a bad note, but it had to be said. There has been some good happen this year. Namely I got a much deserved raise at work, Steve decided to go to law school and took the LSAT (we get the scores in a couple of weeks), and… umm… we have our own place.

Seriously, finding those 3 was like pulling teeth.

Anyhow, tonight I decided to pull my Christmas ornament box out and finish the project that I started last year. Last year I had wrapped all the balls with yarn. I thought there was a color scheme, but it turns out to be blues and greens and other random colors of leftover yarn. Tonight I glued them all down and stuck the ornaments around. I also burned the hell out of my arms and hands in several places. And Lola learned what a hot glue gun was… with her nose.

So without further ado, my adorable wreath!

As far as law school is concerned, we aren’t 100% certain where we will be other then not in Miami. With me supporting us at least his first year, this over the top expensive city just isn’t possible.

Feb012012

Breaking the Blog-Silence

Things have been a little bit hectic around here. You know, in the world of understatements.

Seeing as, by the time this posts, it will officially be February, (What the hell, year!? Slow down!) I thought I’d recap what we’ve been up to this past month.

I started a new job. And I LOVE it! So far everyone has been amazing to me. My schedule is pretty flexible so I can get stuff done that I need to get done. I don’t love the drive though. Or I didn’t because…

We moved! Oh, who am I kidding… We’re still moving! And I don’t just mean the towers of boxes all over the place. I mean we still have stuff at my parents house. But at least us and the fur-babies are living in the new place already. Almost every day after work, we both go to the old place, load up our car and bring it here. And on the weekends, we were making several trips. I’m at the point where I couldn’t care less about the rest. I just want to live here and stop driving back and forth every day. Moving out has been… interesting. (Hey, we’re in the world of understatements, if you recall…) Mom seemed to accept it right away….. We’ll just leave it at that.

I’m still working part time at my old job helping out with data entry. Or I will be once things calm down enough at home. As it is, I’m currently sitting in a half built chair using an empty book shelf as my “desk” due to there being no where else to put my laptop.

One of my goals was to blog more. Seems like a new job, crazy sleep schedule and moving makes that a little difficult! I also wanted to be more organized. This new house is like a blank slate for both of us. We are trying super hard to minimize the clutter, actually use the 2nd bedroom as an office/ artist’s den/ craft space. Hopefully I will have a table for my sewing machine too!

Also this month, we lost a member of the family. My baby girl Kayla Rose passed away last week. OK, she was a Beagle, but she was the coolest Beagle. I’ve been voice recording a post for days. The first one was really good, but I hit the back button one too many times and it erased. I was so mad that I about cried again. Anyhow, she had turned 14 a couple weeks prior to her passing and, unlike all our other dogs, we buried her and gave her a grave stone. I still need to get to Michaels and buy/ make on of those mosaic stepping stones as her “official” head stone.

Blerg, it’s hard to write anything after a death. It still hurts, but Ive been keeping so busy that I don’t think about it. Except for today when I was at my parents house looking around for her to make sure she was in the gates. 🙁

Anyhow, it’s after 10pm, so bedtime. Time to schedule this, pack my lunch and head to bed.

Dec212011

Foster-Adoption on Television

So I have been watching the last and final season of Brothers & Sisters, which finally came on Netflix. Yay! (But also Boo! bc I adored that show and the whole Walker clan.) Anyhow, one of the brothers, Kevin, and his husband Scotty have been trying to have a baby via surrogacy for a couple of seasons. After 2 miscarriages they stopped surrogacy – and all forms of creating a family for quite a while – then eventually started looking into foster adoption.

Image source

The last couple of episodes I watched they attended an adoption fair, were matched with an older child and are doing the weekend visits with her in their home. At the end of the last episode I saw, Nora and Uncle Saul met the little girl, Olivia, for the first time. Isn’t she just adorable?!

Oh yes, there were tears streaming… and I do mean mine. It made me sad thinking that my parents will probably never be that excited about meeting a child that is not biologically related to them. I actually don’t know how they feel about grandchildren in general, not just biological ones. It’s just never come up. I have heard, through the familial grapevine, that my mother doesn’t even think I want kids. Clearly she has never met me before.

My not wanting kids is the same as Jack marrying Juliet. As in, it could only exist in an alternate universe. Or in their case, a sideways universe. LOST reference, ftw!

Nov282011

4 Years Ago Today, I Met my Husband

4 years ago, Steve and I finally met. I say “finally” as we met online (OKCupid) and had been emailing and IMing for roughly 3 months. During my last decade or so, I was a very active Livejournal blogger and chronicled e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. about my life. Including our relationship. The below posts were all written the day of our date. The “friend” I sent the picture to was, of course, Steve and it greatly amused him. Back then, he liked his cell phone a whole lot more.

During the last 4 years together, we went from living separately, living in his miniature 1 bedroom apartment for 3 months, moving into a huge town house, adopting Lola, changing jobs (us both), unemployment (us both), a trip to Pittsburgh, experiencing several snows (aieeee!), moving to Homestead, my graduation from ECU with my bad ass MBA, a trip to Las Vegas to get Married, a trip to West Virginia/ Ohio, meeting new friends, and so many other things.

Basically, it’s been an amazing trip and I am so freakin happy that we finally had a mutual day off from work (him) and homework (me) to meet.

I loves you, Steve! <3

ps- sorry for the lack of caps and random sentences. I totally LJ’d with train of thought… Apparently I was busier typing than worrying about silly things like proper sentence structure.

+++++++++

…
Nov. 28th, 2007 at 11:14 AM

cuz why not?!

i sent this to a friend and thought y’all should enjoy my dorkiness as well!
hehhe

i have a date tonight. he’s 36, deli manager at [[Harris Teeter]] and lives in Chapel Hill. i met him within days of meeting asshat. stupid me for making such a bad choice. anyhow.. i emailed date-guy a few days ago to tell him i was single again and see how he was doing. we’d kept in touch over the months via email, but he totally backed off. i gave him a brief synopsis of what happened and he’s like “how the hell can anyone in their right mind walk away from you?? maybe he was blind? or just plain stupid?” haha cute ::ego boost::

he was seeing someone for a few weeks, but told me last night he dumped her. i kinda wonder if it has to do with me… if so, then i feel kinda bad! [[no, I didn’t feel bad. At all.]]

Fire
Nov. 28th, 2007 at 8:04 PM

date was good. more on that later. it got cut short because….

Nichole and Miles’ apartment complex caught fire. like the building next to theirs. they left with the clothes on their back and 1 of the kitties that they were able to grab before the firemen were kicking them out and making them leave. they’ve left to go buy some clothes to wear tomorrow. hopefully they’ll be able to get back into their place in the morning… or even later tonight. they certainly can’t sleep there. i’ve never so badly wished i had a bigger house! Phoenix and the cat they have, Minion are not pleased. Phoenix won’t come anywhere near her carrier and when i pick him up, he hisses. Minion is now in my bathroom with some food and water and howling like crazy.

the freakiest part is that there were 3 firetrucks in my tiny little cul-de-sac last night. there wasn’t a fire, in fact i’m not sure what it was. but i did go out and ask the firemen if i needed to evacuate. but Nichole said if anything happened i could stay with them. their place is considerably bigger then mine though.

date
Nov. 28th, 2007 at 9:46 PM

date went well. quite well actually. he unexpectedly got the day off so instead of meeting after 7pm, he called me around 5:15 as i was leaving work and we met for dinner. i had to go home to grab a package at my complex office then put on jeans and make it to the restaurant. i made it from morrisville to carrboro to durham (over by Sam’s Club) in just under and hour including changing clothes. i. am. good!

so we sat and talked and ate until i got Nichole’s call. i felt terrible leaving so abruptly and told him “i swear this isn’t the ‘date is bad, call and bail me out’ call.. it’s really an emergency and we;ll do this again very soon!” he sent me a text on my way back here telling me to be careful and not drive like a crazy woman. (oops!)

after Nichole and Miles left, i gave him a call to let him know what all happened. i guess i was babbling a little cuz he was surprised to hear that there was actually a fire and not just trucks. me, babble? heh. we tried to figure out another date and i told him that honestly i was crazy with finals until the 13th, but didn’t want to wait that long. he said he got saturday off. so i asked what his feelings on dancing were (not great) and then invited him to the PPD holiday party. he was only hesitant when i told him it was semi-formal. lol. though i think the vision of me in a floor-length gown kinda offset that. i love getting dressed up and sparkly! i told him i’d find out what the guys were wearing (co-workers’ boyfriends, etc) and let him know and he could make the decision from there.

so, uhh.. we’ve been talking sporadically for just over 2 months. our 1st date lasted about an hour and was super casual. our 2nd will be going to a work holiday party in semi-formal garb. hmm… interesting.

i don’t know the last time a guy i dated met any of my friends, let alone work people. can anyone think back this far? it certainly hasn’t been since i’ve lived here (july 21, 2006)

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