1-adoption posts

Used to gather any and all adoption posts

Mar062011

Adoption Progress.. Every Little Bit Helps

Saturday at Word Camp Miami was aMAZing! I’ll be doing an in-depth recap on that later with pictures and some stuff I learned. Needless to say, I am crazy excited about today and getting some stuff implemented around here.

Saturday night, we started talking and eventually got onto the topic of adoption. Actually, it was from a blog lead I got at WCM from one of the guys I met. I started reading the blog earlier and it is about a Caucasian family that was in the process of adopting their second child. The first child was a little Caucasian girl and the second is a little African-American girl. They also have a biological son. I flipped through most of her blog reading snippets here and there to Steve, then flipped over to AdoptUsKids.org to do yet another Child Search.

I would read off the names and ages, quickly scan the profiles, then show him the pictures.. And then do a more in-depth read of the profiles for why (physically/ mentally/ emotionally) the children were in the system. His comments were always the same: “Why are they in foster care? What happened that they are now in the system? Where are their families?” Rightfully so as I’m yet to come across a profile answering those questions.

Actually, no. Tonight I found one that stated some possible causes and that potential adoptive parents needed to know about those topics and the adverse effects.

This exercise led to questions of, since we might be able to actually choose, do we want 2 boys, 2 girls, or 1 of each? Yes, We want 2 siblings. I *think* we decided on one of each, but there’s plenty of time to figure that out.

The comment “we need to get things rolling if we’re going to do this” was uttered. While, yes, I still would love to have an infant, I am so happy over this adoption process! Biological kids aren’t ruled out at all, we’re just not going to focus on that until I get insurance again. From that point, we’ll see what the feasibility of things occurring naturally are and make the decision then.

Image source

Mar052011

#wcmia – Word Camp Miami Live Feed

OK my friends, as promised for those interested, below is the live feed for all tweets #WCMIA. That’s Word Camp Miami in case you didn’t know. This post will update constantly all day long.

Seeya!

Mar042011

Gearing up for Word Camp Miami

OMG, I am ridiculously excited about Word Camp Miami tomorrow. Like, I can’t even begin to share with you just how excited. It is my first blogging conference and I’ve already gone through the program picking out which sessions I want to attend.

Every time slot has 3 options for each track: Beginner/Blogger, Marketing/Design, Developer. My choices are a good mix of the 3 tracks, mostly concerned with SEO, monetizing, developing WordPress for business and other similar topics.

Clicky-clicky the image for a full size version

Are you heading there? Let’s meet up! I’m hoping to be there around 7:45am with a huge steaming Starbucks coffee. Coming from Homestead to Coral Gables means waking up around 6am to be on the road by 7am. And this girl loves to sleep until 10-11am on a regular basis!

Recap will follow probably on Sunday. If I can figure out how to live tweet only the #WCMIA tweets into a post, I will.

Mar042011

Recent Design Stuff, Mild Depression

Hello my friends,

It’s been quite busy lately for me.

Recent creative accomplishments:
* Created the adorable business cards from a few posts back
* Designed the theme for this blog
* Designed/created a business card holder from scrap yarn [pattern forthcoming!]

Upcoming accomplishments:
* Legalizing my companies
* Preparing for Word Camp Miami this Saturday
* Knitting a [test knit pattern] sweater
* Job hunting, primarily in Orlando
* Going back to school (no clue for what though!)

While things are busy, mentally I’m not doing so fabulous. There is everything and nothing going on at the same time. Between not contributing financially and living in a place I despise, I feel out of my mind. I am sorta on the mend – as much as I can. Working through depression without professional assistance is difficult, to say the least.

It was suggested that I buy the book, The Dance of Anger to read and work through my problems. Here’s hoping, yes?

Feb262011

[Re-]Defining Motherhood

Several conversations with both friends and Steve over the last few days have got me thinking about motherhood. I used to think that I couldn’t be a mom unless I got pregnant and gave birth. Now I, of course, know that there are other options like adoption, foster-adoption, IVF, and surrogacy. Becca of younger years would never have dreamed having children any way other than by giving birth herself.

Over the past few months, I have come to not only accept adoption as how our children will join our family, but embrace it. I’m sure a huge part of this is my [suspected] broken reproductive system, but more on that later. As mentioned in the last non-new-blog post, we are heavily leaning towards foster-adoption. This hasn’t changed and our friend is helping gather the info we’ll need for this to happen. We are certainly no experts on this topic and have a lot to learn, but feel it might be our best option.

It’s starting to dawn on me that I don’t need to give birth to be a mother. Yes, I’m a bit slow, but pregnancy was always a part of my future when I was a child. I already mother all the little ones in my life and I obviously didn’t give birth to them, so why put constraints on my own children?

It’s tough for me, and my ridiculous reproductive health is making it worse. In short, I haven’t had a period in over 90 days. Yes, I’ve taken a bunch of pregnancy tests both at home, the clinic place, and the ER and every one of them has read a resounding not pregnant. If I actually was pregnant, then this kid would be made of steel or something seeing as I’ve been X-ray’d and taken hard core drugs for both the flu and pneumonia over the last month. Oh, and before I get all the advice to lose weight, I am working on it. However, I’m fairly certain that it’s not a weight thing. For the first 11 years of having a period, it was never ever regular. We’re talking at most 5 times a years and lasting for weeks at a time. Talk about hell for a junior high and high schooler!

Anyhow, not much else to talk about. Right now it’s just a lot of adoption research. Also, we’re taking a database class together which is a little time consuming. And of course, this new blog design which had sucked up my entire life the last few weeks. Not to mention writing thank you notes, sleeping, working, and little bits of knitting here and there when I’m tired of doing everything else.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Feb252011

Welcome to Becca Blogs!

Cute cards, right? This iPhone picture doesn’t do them justice!

I finally got everything completed with the transfer and domain swap. There are still a few glitches here and there like some posts have multiple signatures (I learned to hard code around the dynamic code so I’d stop forgetting to add it.. see below!) and some hard coded links from earlier posts direct back to the other blog. However, seeing as this blog is about 97% complete, I decided to launch!

Those adorable business cards up there? They are obviously meant to look similar to the header on the blog.The back has my name, phone number, Twitter handle and email address. These cards have been in the works for about a week as I tried to find a company to print them with a relatively quick turnaround time. No dice! In the end, I laid them up in InDesign CS4 16 per page and printed them out on our shiny new printer. Oh, but finding a thick enough paper to suit my desires? That was a pain in the tush! Michael’s didn’t have it and ordering it online would’ve taken forever. Someone suggested Pearl’s and they had it! You can’t really tell, but the paper is an ice blue which saved our ink from having to bleed color around the entire card. Win-Win! Oh, and it cost me under $4 for the paper with no shipping costs! Bo-nus!

Anywho, welcome to my much-easier-URL-to-remember blog!

Feb222011

Adoption Talk and… a Zucchini Recipe

Yes, I know these topics don’t mix… at all! 😉

I know it’s been quiet around here lately. To be honest, I don’t really have a lot to talk about.

We have been discussing children – both biological and foster adoption – quite a lot lately. More than likely we will be adopting a “sibling group” of 2 kids. As I want a little one and he wants an older one, if we can get like a pre-teen/ teenager and a 2-4 year old, we’d both be happy. Granted, I have no idea when this will all take place. We’re not to that level just yet. We are, however, extremely fortunate to have a friend that licenses foster homes and knows the in’s and out’s of that part of the system. We did decide that fostering before adoption makes a lot more sense than flat out adoption. To our current thinking, it would give us all a chance to make sure the kids would be a good fit with us. This may be the wrong way to think, but there is still a lot of research to be done!

In other new, I have been cooking a LOT! Our new crock pot gets used 2-3 times a week with all sorts of delicious meat, pork or chicken recipes. A few I’ve followed recipes (or rather adapted) and a few I’ve just plain made up. The latest was an adaption and by far my favorite… shredded beef and veggies over garlic brown rice. DELISH!

I’ve been perusing the SparkRecipes.com website quite a lot and most of them are from there. Today, I decided to put the zucchini’s I bought last week to good use with this recipe. Zucchini Crisps recipe adapted slightly. My changes are in pink.

Ingredients

1 medium fresh zucchini (2 medium)
1/4 cup egg beaters or egg whites (I used 2 whole eggs & prob woulda been fine with 1)
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese (½ cup as I doubled the zucchini)

Directions

Pre-heat oven to 425.
Slice zucchini in round slices. Make slices thicker for more al dente and thinner for a softer, more cooked texture. (About 1/4” is the perfect size)
Pour parmesan cheese into a zip lock baggie or freezer bag. Dip zucchini slices into egg beater and place in cheese bag. Close bag, shake until all pieces are coated and place on a non-stick baking sheet. Feel free to shake remaining bag mixture over zucchini. (I dipped and shook in 2 parts bc I only have quart baggies.)
Bake for 15 minutes or until cheese starts to melt and brown.
Tastes great with a marinara or ranch dipping sauce! (Or plain!)

Number of Servings: 2 (4… or lots of snacks. Mine made roughly 30 pieces. YMMV.)

I had a few with a plateful of brown rice and shredded beef with veggies for lunch. Little slice of heaven.

So how have you been? Are you adopted or contemplating adoption? What are your thoughts on foster adoption? I’d love to get your input!

Jan032011

Getting Back into the Blogging Groove

Hello my friends!

How was your first weekend in 2011? Ours was extremely low-key, same as the few hours before and after we rang it in. We cooked, talked, went to Barnes & Noble (one of our favorite places), had dinner at Mario’s (another favorite), I knit, he practiced his Rosetta Stone Spanish, and we slept in quite a bit. Steve is back at work tonight, so it’s just me, the animals and a CSI marathon on Spike.

I’m currently doing a test knit for a pair of socks on Ravelry. Are any of you Ravelry members? Hit me up if you are! I’m rbf42 on there. The part of the socks I’m working on:

We discussed adoption a whole lot more as well. Right now we’re really in a bad financial position to bring a child into our lives. We really want to pay off/ down our debt, both have high[er] paying jobs, have a larger house (room for a nursery) and a few other things. Will they happen? No idea. Will we get pregnant before they happen? No idea. Will we still adopt in 2-ish years? Absolutely. Well, really no idea as it may be less or more of a time frame. Only time will really tell on that one.

Right now I’m playing the waiting game. During the last week I have been feeling like major crap with headaches, heartburn, indigestion, nausea and sheer exhaustion. Seriously, I could sleep for a week and still be exhausted. Every time I posted these symptoms, my girlfriends would chime in about those sounding familiar. As it turns out, they are also symptoms of depression and serious under eating. I am guilty of both lately. Who knows which it is, even though I’d be willing to place a wager on the depression/ under eating as the culprit.

Well, tomorrow it’s back to the grind. I know I am fortunate to have a job, even though it is only a few hours a week. So, here’s to an amazing year for all of us!

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