I know, I’m a terrible blogger. My bad. Life’s been busy, but I’m still here.

Yesterday was Admin Professionals day at the schools across Dade County (and probably more, but that’s where I work) and I received a gorgeous bouquet of orchids, roses and, I think, chrysanthemums. So beautiful! My entire office smelled wonderful and, later, so did my car and house. This morning, my car still smells heavenly.

I also received this email from our Board President, sent to the handful of Admins at the school…

My apologies that this is coming to you all so late in the day. However, on behalf of the board, and personally, I would like to thank you for all you do each every day.

No one, no teacher, administrator, parent, lay leader or student- could get done what they need to without your help, guidance and assistance. You are consummate professionals and represent the Hebrew Academy in the best way possible every day.
You deserve a thank you- each and every day- but especially today.

Have a wonderful evening.
Leah

I knew they appreciated me here, but this just feels amazing to read and receive.

To all the new moms and dads out there, if you don’t already have a bedding set for your little one, you need to check this out! Normally $120, it’s on major sale for $35 and comes in pink or yellow. I personally would buy the yellow one for both boys and girls, but that’s just me not wanting to go pink overboard for a girl.

4-Piece Tiny Tillia Crib Bedding Set is 100% cotton and includes a decorative quilt (33″ x 42″), crib sheet (53.5″ x 28.5″), bumper (157″ x 9″), and crib skirt (28″ x 52″ x 15″)

Hmmm, are any of you still around?

I know, I know. It’s been far too long between entries.

In the last month, we have fully moved into our new and amazing house, got Phoenix totally cleaned up of his flea infestation (and in similar news, my parents had to flea bomb our last place twice due to the attacks they were subjected to every time they walked into the house), traveled to Orlando for MegaCon 2012 (and took SO MANY PICTURES), met David Anders, did lots of fun work stuff (the new job), planned a tennis tournament, got sick, got Steve sick , did a lot of work for my aunt (the old job)… and I’m sure a million other things.

MegaCon – I was already featured on AccidentalSexiness.com with my pictures of Tom Felton and David Anders

We were planning on going in costume, but alas, the actual plans to attend didn’t even get finalized until 3 days before the Con started. Instead, I went dressed in my Doctor Who TARDIS shirt and then Jack and Sally shirt.

It also gave me so many ideas for MegaCon 2013.

Much like at the 2011 Con, I continue to be so fascinated with the gorgeous steampunk outifts. That is a very real possibility for my 2013 costume. Also, we are attending Florida SuperCon in June, so I can see wearing the costume at both FSC and MC.

Don’t know what steampunk is? According to Steampunk.com,

Steampunk has always been first and foremost a literary genre, or least a subgenre of science fiction and fantasy that includes social or technological aspects of the 19th century (the steam) usually with some deconstruction of, reimagining of, or rebellion against parts of it (the punk). Unfortunately, it is a poorly defined subgenre, with plenty of disagreement about what is and is not included.

Still confused? I found some of these online as an example…

And some artwork:

So what d’ya think? Can I pull it off? I saw ladies of all shapes and sizes corseted and steampunked out at MegaCon.

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.

Here is a tour of the house. There will be another tour once we’ve furnished it and made it really homey and ready to entertain.

…walking up from the parking lot…

…the living room…

…from the kitchen to the living room…

…the huge back yard…

…the office…

…the hall closet and linen closet…

…our bedroom (I was standing in the largest closet taking these)…

It’s not much, but it’s our new home and will be a fresh start for us.

Just had to post this quickly… even the heavens are shining down on the next step on our journey.

We found a place to live! Well, pending a successful background and credit check by the HOA. It’s ours!

That’s right, we looked at a place Saturday morning and signed a lease. Then Sunday morning, we dropped off our deposit check with our new landlord. Muy exciting!

I did find this place on Craigslist and it made me quite nervous until I was able to Google her, found her other Miami properties, spoke to her several times, met her and got a good vibe from her. Yeah, this is awesome. She actually brought the paperwork from her last tenant with her so I snuck a peek at it. Shhh.

We will be living in a huge complex of 10 or so duplex buildings and several 2 or 3 story condo buildings (formerly an apartment complex). Our place is a duplex and we briefly met the other half’s tenants when we were looking at the place. They were moving in. (Note to self: make friends with them.)

The rooms are both about the same size, but we’re taking the back one due to it having 2 closets and a lot of daytime shade. The shade part is imperative since hubby sleeps during the day and works at night. The landlord pays the monthly HOA fees. The big electric gate to get into the complex gets hooked to our phones so people can call and we buzz them in. We have use of the pool and fitness center over at the condo building.

There’s like a 6′ wall around the entire property and each yard has a 7′ wood fence. We do need to put some wood around the bottom due to the unevenness of the ground and there are Lola-sized big gaps that she could slip through if she really wanted to get out. Also, we’re like 2 miles from this big Pinecrest/ Palmetto Bay dog park with all kinds of fountains that we can take her to if she needs a change of scenery.

But you don’t care about this stuff, right? You want to see the pictures, don’t you?

Tough noogies. I don’t have any. You’re going to have to wait until we get the keys and do the walk through on Sunday. I promise to take pictures then. (I did find a couple sites with pictures online, but they clearly have the address listed. If you’d like to see them and swear you won’t stalk me, comment with your email address.)

Aaaaaaaand, I will shave off at least 15 miles from my trek to Miami Beach each way. My car loves that part. As does my wallet bc gas is expensive as hell! And I’m sure my body will grow to love the whole not needing to wake up at 4:30am part as well. So now, instead of 44 miles, I’ll only be driving 27 miles each way.

My life has been completely insane lately! I am currently in voice recording this as I drive the 45 miles to work from Homestead to Miami Beach. The same as I’ve done everyday this week and for several days in the preceding weeks. It’s a long drive, but if I leave early enough, around 5:45am, I get there with so little [sara lee - what?!] traffic and get there around 6:30am and I relax in the car – and sometimes fall asleep – until 7am when I walk inside.

So this is now my life. Or at least for as long as we live in Homestead. Getting up at 4am – okay, let’s be honest, I don’t get outta bed until about 4:35am – then  shower, make my lunch (as long as I forgot to make it the night before), and get out of the house and on the road by about 5:45am. My very first official week has been ridiculous because I’ve been working from 7am to about 3:30-4pm most days. We have our huge annual event, which I walked right into the tail end of the final planning stages, this coming Sunday the 8th. So, needless to say, the days are very long  with wrapping up everything, thank you’s and tax letters signed and mailed, confirming all the reservations etc. My life has been full immersion in this job with extremely long hours. By the time I typically get home, I’d have been out of the house for 12+ hours.

After the event on Sunday I believe we’re all taking off Monday and then it should be back to a normal schedule of leaving around 2 or 2:30, but I need to check on that. But in the meantime I don’t leave until almost 4 o’clock get home around 5:30-6:00 and stay up for a couple of hours and then try to get to bed by 10. I say try because nothing ever works in my life I turn the television off around 10, get the dishes done and I’m usually in bed by about 10:30. Getting up at 4am, or rather the alarm clock going off at 4am, is just not enough sleep for me. I think once Steve leaves at 9pm to go to work, I should just get my stuff done and go to sleep and not even try waiting until 10. My body does not know what to do with itself as I’m constantly exhausted because these are the longest days I’ve worked in a very long time.

I have no time to get on the internet at work and don’t usually feel like getting online when I get home. I only have a little bit of time to get some stuff done at night, so if I wanted to put a blog post out, I guess this is the only way to do it. Hey I might as well kill the 45 minutes in the car, right? I realize last night that I haven’t posted since last year. Holy smokes it’s 2012… where did 2011 go? I swear it was just January 1st, 2011. This year completely flew by and now we’re on to the next. Who knows, maybe this’ll be the year we start our family! However, at the rate I’m going I’ll be burned out and have absolutely no time to do anything with adoption or even start a plan on having a family. But on the upside we have a look at a couple of houses and hopefully we will be able to rent something within the next month. Hooray!

But back to the job for a second, every day multiple times a day my new boss tells me how happy she is and how much my being there is helping her. That makes me feel really great. The last girl didn’t even bother to work her full 2 weeks notice.. she just decided to leave one day. And right before the huge event. Bad timing!! I am really happy that I took this job and so far I really like my coworkers. I keep meeting new people every single day and it’s a completely different world than I’ve ever known. Everybody is Jewish, obviously, and so nice. The dress code is a little sticky but I’m dealing with it. Take for instance yesterday it was 38 degrees when I left my house which means I had to wear my skirt with leggings, knee socks, and boots underneath and was actually pretty warm.

However I had to go and buy a ball gown for the event. I found one and it is gorgeous! The only problem is I need to find something to wrap around the top of it because well my girls are really big. And in this crowd I might get some really funny looks, but that’s okay. I respect that I have to wear certain things in order to work in this environment. I might have mocked it in the past, but it doesn’t mean I can’t and don’t respect it. At least now I’m learning about a culture that is part of who I am just to much more extreme degree.

I have no plans on going Kosher and respect that the school is kept Kosher. No ham and cheese sandwiches in my lunch! OK, be prepared for another post tomorrow with more exciting news!

I actually believe that my new job will help a lot with my Jewish identity. I don’t really have one, if that makes sense. Sure I was raised, bat mitzvahed, confirmed, and volunteered in my family synagogue, but currently I feel no pull to Judaism. And I don’t think I’m alone in that. It seems many of similar aged friends are not drawn to religion. I have several atheist friends, as well. Religion is a funny thing. Who knows.

It never really mattered to me to marry a Jewish man. In fact, my ex-fiance pretty much turned me off dating Jewish guys, so I guess there’s that. I always knew that, by definition, my birthed children would be Jewish. Now that we are planning on adoption and he is not Jewish (nor religious), my thoughts are thrown for a loop. We have discussed it, but didn’t come to a definitive conclusion. When you adopt older than infant children, I’m thinking you need to respect their religion. I could be wrong though..

But back to my job helping my Jewish identity. Obviously working for a Hebrew school, I will be exposed to much more religion than I’ve been exposed to in the last decade or so. Even during the trial run working there on my days off, I have noticed a change. I am conscious of the food I bring there (no ham, no cheese on my deli sandwiches), the way I dress (covering all my tattoos to the point of buying boots for my 3 ankle ink and wearing a chunky watch for the above wrist ink), less cursing (OK, well I’m around kids so that’s a given), and, well, I’m sure there is more.

I’m looking forward to the other changes in myself. By the time this posts, I’ll have been at the Hebrew Academy for hours. Don’t I wish I was still warm in my bed? Yep!

Tuesday and Thursday, I am also seriously dead to the world by about 8pm. Tonight I am fighting to stay awake until at least 10pm. Normally I stay awake until 1-2am with no problems. Well, except for in the morning when I don’t want to get out of bed! This morning I slept late (4:50am) and still managed to get out on time.

Perhaps my body is aware of the fact that in just a few short days, this will be my new schedule Monday through Friday. A girl can hope, right?

The good news is that I will get out of work around 2:30-3pm. The bad news is I am unbelievably exhausted and have zero energy to do anything but sleep.

On the flip side, I absolutely adore my new boss R and my new job. She is about my age (possibly younger) and a big bundle of energy. She’s like the Energizer Bunny. We seem to be a really good fit with my extreme [office] organization skills. Just the few days I’ve been working there, comments have been made about the differences with past employees. Hey, I can’t help it. I’m not trying to make anyone look bad, that’s just how I am.

We really do need to find a closer place to live. I currently have a 45 mile/ 1 hour trek from Homestead to Miami Beach whereas hubby drives about 4 miles. No, I don’t begrudge him a short drive bc the tables were turned in NC. I drove 5-6 miles to the YMCA and he drove 30-35 miles into Raleigh every day. Plus, my car is a lot newer and in better shape. I’ve been looking at the Cutler Bay and South Kendall area for us, but without a good realtor helping us out, I don’t know that I’ll be able to find anything good. It seems as though only about 20% of apartment complexes are posted online and Zillow hasn’t been much help either.

So, if you live in a good neighborhood in Miami – Kendall/ Cutler Bay preferably – I would seriously appreciate it if you could check around your neighborhood for For Rent signs and shoot me the phone numbers. Yes, that warranted being bolded.

I will basically be doing the same job I did for the YMCA… that is to say I will be the assistant to the Development Director. Only in this case I won’t be working for a Christian organization I’ll be working for a Jewish organization and another non-profit. I will be helping organize all of the annual events and the not-so-annual events, maintaining the calendar, booking travel, booking caterers, and keeping generally organized. It doesn’t exactly tax my brainpower that much but it is really exciting work and interesting as well. I’ll be meeting lots of influential people and not only the Jewish community but all over Miami as well.

And to those curious about the perks, the salary is lower than I would like, I will have full health benefits and can put hubby on if I want for extra funds. I will have almost every single Jewish holiday off, every Friday we get out early to be home in time for Shabbat. I will have flex time for when I work long hours for the events. I will get to work on a graphic design sporadically. I will be running the facebook and twitter feeds. Yay!

That’s right, my new job is at the Hebrew Academy on Miami Beach. Yes, I live in Homestead. Yes, it is 45 miles from my house, but leaving at 5:45am seems to work to get me there by 7am. I am choosing to work super early to avoid traffic. And so far it’s working.

I was a little worried about leaving my current job but my boss seems to be extremely happy for me knowing that I have a full time job with benefits. When I got to her party on Sunday, practically everyone already knew about it and kept congratulating me. Apparently she has been telling everybody that I have a new job and I’m off on a new adventure. Clearly I can stop worrying.

Now we just need to find a house halfway between my job on the beach and his job in Homestead for a decent amount of money and we can hopefully begin adoption and start creating our family.

I’m so ready for you, 2012!

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!

• I ditched my iPhone for a Samsung Infuse 4G. Yep, I went Android. And I freakin L-O-V-E it! 
• I designed a knitting pattern for a Checkered Ribs Cowl. And had it tested by a great group of ladies on Ravelry that loved it so much, they each knit 2 versions of it.
• Discovered Texts From Bennett - which turned out to be a fake blog, but that doesn’t stop me from laughing until there are tears streaming down my face.
• Hubby got back into twitter bc he finally upgraded to a smart phone. His. Mine.
• And then he joined FourSquare. His. Mine.
• I cooked a lot. Potato soup.
• And baked.
• Re-read the whole Hunger Games trilogy. Mmm love.
• Found some old friends of Facebook.
• I interviewed for a job – which required lots of shopping for “modest” clothing due to the religious nature of the position.
• And then I got that job. What what..! (I will actually do a full post on this once I begin on January 2nd.)
• Thanks to Facebook, I saw a friend get engaged. Another give birth. And another get married.
• Looked for a new place to live. After all, driving from Homestead to Miami Beach and sitting in traffic for 2 hours each way every day does not sound like a fun plan to me.
• Lola got worms. Eww, I know, but they’re being handled.
• We toured Babies R Us one evening and picked out the nursery furniture and crib bedding for out future kids. No, I’m not pregnant. They had the nearest bathroom and then we didn’t leave for another 45 minutes. If you’re wondering, dark wood and monkeys.
• Hubby found out he has a nasty respiratory problem - inherited from his father and could pass it to our kids. Well, if we have biological ones, that is.

And all this is courtesy of the new timeline on Facebook. Damn, that thing is helpful!

And now a recipe… Cranberry Pumpkin Breakfast Biscuits
(Snagged from Dig This Chick. She adapted it from this recipe.)

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 egg
1 1/4 cup pumpkin puree
2 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup dried cranberries (I used fresh cranberries, chopped into pieces.)

Preheat oven to 375*.

1. In a large mixing bowl, or your stand mixer bowl, cream together butter and sugar.
2. Beat in vanilla, egg and pumpkin.
3. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Or, you know, don’t sift it. I sure didn’t.
4. Stir cranberries into mixture until well blended.
5. Spoon heaping spoonfuls of batter on a prepared cookie sheet. (This means parchment paper… until I ran out of trays and used muffin tins.)
6. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes.

They will be soft and moist and divine! I made these for my aunts 60th birthday party and had to walk out of the kitchen to avoid eating more than one of them. Oh yes, I probably could’ve eaten the whole batch. So good!

I love the Christmas season. I mean LOVE it. No, I don’t mean the December holidays season. I mean the Christmas season. Working at the YMCA and for a landscape company with a thriving Christmas tree decorating business certainly didn’t help this obsession. I love the music, decorations, trees, decorating the trees, decorating the house, cookie exchanges, Secret Santa’s, and the weather. OK, that last one is just the time of year and not Christmas specific. I don’t, however, care about the religious aspect of it. Jewish, remember? While I’m not a practicing Jew-girl and haven’t set foot into a synagogue since my cousin’s Bar Mitzvah several years ago, I’m still not quite ready to give up my Jewish identity. And no, having 7 tattoos doesn’t make a difference in that aspect.

Sure, I married a non-Jewish guy who technically celebrates Christmas, it was never important to him growing up. Pretty much how I feel about Chanukkah. I almost always forget to take my menorah out of my Christmas ornaments box (not kidding) and even when I do, I maybe light 3 days of candles maximum. And, my Christian friends usually have to tell me when Chanukkah is. Pretty bad, huh? By the same token, we have discussed our children’s religious upbringing and haven’t decided exactly how it’ll occur, but it will be open for them to choose. I am fascinated by other religions and cultures, why shouldn’t my children be as well?

Anywho… This wasn’t supposed to be a religious post. Back to the pretties…

If you’re one of my Pinterest buddies, you’ve seen the boards I have for Holiday Decor and Holiday Gift Ideas. There are also a few ideas sprinkled into my Crafty Goodness board that I just haven’t edited and moved yet.

So, I found this super cute tree during one of my many searches and decided to re-create it. I actually am quite pleased with how it turned out.

pretty-ditty.blogspot.com via Becca on Pinterest

And here is mine:

I also found some amazing DIY yarn wreaths and this was my choice to emulate. Lots of styrofoam balls of varying sizes, wrapped in scraps of yarn and stuck together. I bought a wire “wreath” and now just need to figure out the best way to attach my yarn covered styrofoam to it.

And mine… Any idea on how to attach it? I pinned the yarn even though the directions suggest hot glue. Hot glue and my fingers don’t get along very well… I have 6 large and 12 small styrofoam balls. (I tried so hard to not use the word “balls” bc my 5 year old self is now giggling…) I also have small glass ornaments to use if I need to fill in more space. Ornament box, remember?

* wow, I had a real problem with the fonts and images in this post *

Anyhow! Do you want to win a photo book, calendar or photo cards from Inkubook? They are an amazing company with a whole array of page layouts, backgrounds and sizes for their books, not to mention your choice of hard or soft cover. They also have calendars and photo cards with tons of layouts. And in case you simply have no idea what to do, they have a whole section of ideas for your perusal.

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All you need to do to enter is leave me a comment telling me what occasion you would create for your book if you win. Or hey, would you make calendars or photo cards? We’ve made 3 books with Inkubook and love them all!

Extra entries, leave a separate comment with a link to each:
- Subscribe to my blog or let me know you’re already a follower/ RSS reader
- Share this on Facebook or Twitter: I entered to win an @inkubook photo book from @rbfletcher & you can too! #Giveaway ends 12/4/11 ~ http://rbfl.me/2112
- Blog about this giveaway

I’ll use Random.org to pick a winner on December 4th. You don’t have to be a blogger to win, just make sure you use an active email address when you leave your comment so I can contact you if you win.

PS- Just in case you win, you might want to start putting your book/ calendar/ photo cards together as the code expires on December 7th. It is for a project of up to $34.95, not including shipping. Hey, I said I slacked!

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This post was sponsored by Inkubook. I received a photo book in exchange for providing my opinion on their products. All reviews and opinions are my own.

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)

Last month I posted a call to action for adoption bloggers on all 3 sides of the equation. Did any of you participate? A couple weeks ago, Heather from Production, Not Reproduction paired me up with Meghann of Bflomama.com. Not only did I enjoy reading through Meg’s blog, but I loved finding out all the things we had in common! She is a knitter, baker, gardener and all around DIY mama, which I love! She is also a homeschooler and lives in gorgeous Connecticut with her husband and 2 young children. Amazingly enough, her children were adopted about 14 months apart from the same birth mother. I love that! She discusses it below in detail.

It seems that we approached adoption similarly. While, in my case, hubby brought it up, we were still both unsure which is why it didn’t appear that quickly on here. While Meg and George were contemplating adoption, they were each doing soul searching and exploration of their own.

With all the blogs out there, I’m not sure that I ever would’ve stumbled over to Bflomama, but I’m sure glad tht I was paired with her and got to know her virtually! And on with the interview….

(quick note to say I am updating this from my phone and will have to go back in and link to some of Meg’s posts later from home..)

It actually took me a while to determine that both Julia and Asher are adopted.. And siblings too… That is so cool! I am adding this little blurb in as a lot of her blog wasn’t adoption related so it took me a while digging around. This explains why!

It’s funny—I thought of that last week; this blog doesn’t talk about adoption as much as my old one did. I never did get around to moving the archives from my Vox blog over to this one. I wonder if I have any of it saved on my hard drive anywhere…

Anyway – getting to your questions…

I have dug around looking for info about your adoption of Julia. (I can’t believe that they lost her adoption paperwork!) What made you decide to adopt? How did you go about deciding to adopt and finding an agency? Did you ever consider international or foster-adoption?

We took the sort of stereotypical route to adoption—we stopped using birth control…wow, ten years ago now…and didn’t get pregnant. I had an annual checkup about a year later & my doctor suggested we have a fertility workup done. We had—we thought—just a minor problem, and our insurance covered some fertility treatments, so that was sort of the path of least resistance. We spent about a year and a half trying a few different things and I got pregnant but didn’t stay that way long enough for a baby to result from it. It turned out our problems were more involved than we first believed, and there were still a whole host of other things we could have done to try to have a baby biologically but I reached a point where it was just too much for me—physically, emotionally, mentally. I just couldn’t keep doing it.

George was really unsure about adopting, for a number of reasons, and he had a lot of questions about it and a lot of soul-searching to do. So we decided to take a year off from trying to start a family & just think about where we wanted to go from there. I spent the time trying to come to terms with the idea that we might never have children, and he spent it talking to people we knew who had some connection to adoption—first parents, adopted adults, and adoptive parents—to try to get his head around the questions he had.

We had a really easy time finding an agency—one of my colleagues had recently adopted and spoke in glowing terms about her agency, so once we had decided we wanted to look into it more seriously, we went to an information session there and that was that. We had some criteria in mind when seeking an agency—we wanted an agency that was more child-centered, that offered ongoing services to first parents after placement, that offered options counseling and information about services to women who ultimately chose not to place, etc.—and everything we learned in that first session told us that this agency was exactly what we were looking for.

We did consider international and foster-adoption…briefly. I used to joke that we decided not to try international adoption because I am so disorganized, I’d probably forget to get our visas until the last minute & mess everything up. But really, we had some concerns with ethics, and the language barrier making it almost impossible to make sure that everything is really on the up-and-up, and also we weren’t sure how we felt about taking a child away from his or her culture and whether we could properly honor our child’s culture—as thoroughly Western as we are—if we were to adopt internationally.

Foster-adoption…it’s horribly selfish, but really, we weren’t in a place where we thought we could handle getting attached to a child unless we knew for sure that the placement would be permanent. I want to be all noble and say we felt like we wouldn’t be able to give a child everything he or she needed, since we’d be guarding our hearts and wouldn’t be able to really bond—and that’s part of it, for sure—but really I think we just didn’t want to risk having our hearts broken.

(I think this is a normal reaction.. I’ve certainly had the same thoughts!)

We talked about looking into foster-adoption if we ever adopted a second time—thinking maybe once we were already parents we’d feel more like it was something we could do wholeheartedly, but…

Were you in complete shock when your agency called about Asher? Did you ever consider saying no? I have wondered about this myself, if we adopt and another sibling is born, what we would do.

We were pretty stunned, for sure. Julia’s adoption was (and is) open, and I’d been having trouble getting in touch with D in the month or so before he was born; I was really worried that something was wrong—I just had a weird feeling that something was up—and when our case worker called, out of the blue, on a Saturday afternoon, my heart was in my throat because I thought something must have happened to D. I remember being really confused because my first thought was that she was calling with some sort of terrible news but her voice was so cheerful, and it was this weird sort of contradiction.

I don’t think we really considered saying no. Our gut reaction was certainly to say yes, but we did take an hour or so to talk about it. I think that was more about making sure that our gut reaction was the right answer, if that makes sense. I was self-employed when Julia was born, and I went back to that when she was a few months old, but part-time; I knew that with a newborn & a toddler I was going to have to stop working entirely, so we crunched some numbers to make sure living solely on George’s salary wasn’t going to mean we’d end up in a cardboard box somewhere. That sort of thing. But really, I don’t know that saying no was ever a real option for us; we would have made it work even if it meant we would struggle, because how could we ever look Julia in the eye and tell her that her mother had asked us to adopt her brother, and we said no?

Is 2 human children enough for your family? I have to specify bc if you’re like me, my pets are definitely my furry children.

It’s funny—when I was younger I always saw myself as having a lot of children, and when we found out we were going to have trouble having *any* children, that was a lot to wrap my head around. By the time Julia was born I had—in a completely academic sense—come to grips with the idea that any child we adopted could very well be an only child. It wasn’t until the day she came home with us that I was actually *okay* with that; I remember sitting there with her, thinking, “Okay, if this is it…that’s fine.” And then Asher came along, and I thought, “Okay, so Julia won’t be an *only* child,” and that was okay, too.

We aren’t planning to adopt again, so it’s unlikely we will have any more children. In my heart of hearts, I’d still love a houseful of children, but these two are everything I’ve ever wanted, so I guess two is enough.

You write about so many things besides adoption and I just love your writing style. What made you start this blog? Was there an event in your life that you were so passionate about that you had to get it out?

Thank you so much—I feel like I’m still finding my style, after all these years writing, so it’s nice to hear when someone likes it.

I started blogging a really, really long time ago, right after we moved to Buffalo, so that our family and friends in New England could see what we were up to. My first blog was called ‘Buffalo Things’ and I started writing it in 1999 or early 2000, and—when I actually made time to sit down & write in it, which wasn’t often—it was a pretty boring chronicle of our new life in Buffalo. When we bought our house in 2002, I started writing a lot about our home improvements—the whole house needed doing over, so there was a lot of material there!—and then when we started fertility treatments I changed the name to “On Pins and Needles” and started writing about that. Then there was adoption, and the blog was called “A Different Kind of Family”—and then, about a year ago, I guess—I realized the things I was writing about weren’t all that different from any other family, so I changed the name again, to reflect our efforts to see the extraordinary in ordinary days. (There was another name change in there—for a while in the early 2000s I called it “The View from Here” but I never liked that name much…)

How’s that for a long response that doesn’t really answer your question? There wasn’t any trigger event that started me blogging; it just seemed like an interesting way to keep in touch with far-flung family, way back then, and has sort of morphed to keep pace with whatever is going on in my life. I write more now than I ever have before—I used to write every day for a month & then not publish anything for half a year, with tons of half-written pieces in my queue but nothing I felt was worthy of putting out there; now there is just so much material to draw from, with so much going on in our lives, and it’s not as depressing as, say, writing about infertility was.

Someday I want to try to find all my old writing & pull all my archives onto this site, but that will require time I don’t have at the moment. One of these days…

We have tossed the idea of homeschooling around due to the horrendous state of schools in the area. Your homeschool planning posts are very similar to the endless research I would do as well. So tell me, how is the first “term” progressing? Is Asher also doing school?

It’s going pretty well. Mostly, I think, because I didn’t have very high expectations of any of us, going into it! This year is really more about my own learning curve than anything else. We aren’t following our plans exactly—most weeks we get a craft of a story that goes with our theme, but rarely do we fit both in; and I’m learning what works and what doesn’t as far as “planning” goes. The children…well, they just enjoy hearing stories and doing crafts at this age, so they don’t know that this is all a lot of trial and error for me right now! It’s really nice to have these first few years where “school” is just a short time telling stories and doing crafts every day, and the rest of the “curriculum” is just plain old normal life. I don’t know how parents who start homeschooling older children do it, without these early “practice” years. Maybe they’re just more organized than I am!

Asher “does school” in the sense that he listens to the stories and does the crafts and he does circle time with us—in his own way. He always wants to do whatever Julia is doing, so we have to do crafts that he can do, too, or I come up with something similar for him to do at the same time as Julia is doing her craft.

Does your husband read your blog? Mine doesn’t ever and I was curious if that is “normal.”

He does. Mostly, I think, because he likes to see photos of what the kids & I do during the week when he is at work. I have so many photos on the computer & only ever publish the best ones, so this way he doesn’t have to sift through them all! I have no idea whether or not that is normal, though.

Totally unrelated, but I noticed you linked to a few patterns on Ravelry, what is your username on there? I am MsRIB. Also, do you ever participate in swaps and whatnot on there? I am completely obsessed with Ravelry and knitting. (Did you see my wedding veil pictures? Yes, I’m that crazy!)

I am bflomama on Ravelry. I’ve never participated in any swaps, but I’ve been active on & off on a few of the discussion forums there. I also thought of joining the test knitters’ group but I hardly have time to do my own knitting these days, never mind testing other people’s patterns. I do want to do some of that eventually, though.

(I did see your wedding veil. And I loved it! But I already told you that…)

And there you have it.. Miss Meghann from Bflomama.com! Take a look around her blog and enjoy! I know I will certainly be reading her blog from now on.

Make sure to check out all the other Adoption Blogger Interviews over at Production, Not Reproduction.

The list of all the participants in order of comment leaving:

And, using random.org, here are the winners! So Marie, Lori and Heather, if you didn’t leave contact info in your comment, please email it to me so I can send out those redemption codes! I will select alternates if I don’t hear from you by 11/16.

Keep an eye out for an Inkubook giveaway and a Canvaspeople giveaway! I have to do reviews for both items recently received and each post will have a giveaway to more free goodies.

Yes, popcorn really is my favorite food. While I prefer it homemade with a bit of oil in a tightly lidded pot, microwave kettle corn is pretty darn good as well.

Some of my favorite toppings are garlic, salt and Splenda (tastes enough like kettle corn to me!), salt, chili powder, Lawry’s seasoning salt… you name it! And when I need to scrape the last bit of seasoning from the pot, I add about a tablespoonful of butter to melt down and drizzle over the gigantic bowl.

How do I make it? Grab a pot with a tight fitting lid as you’re going to be shaking the pot quite a lot and popcorn pops very high! Add about a glug of oil (or a tablespoon, your choice) and 4 or 5 kernels of corn and place on the stove on High heat. When those all pop, pull the pot off the burner, dump enough kernels to cover the bottom of the pot and a sprinkle of whatever seasonings you want. Do not over season! A little goes a long way when added at this stage. Shake the pot for about 30 seconds (with the lid on!) off the heat to make sure everything is covered with oil and seasoning. Put it back on the heat and keep a close eye on it. Once most of the kernels are popped, turn the heat off and dump most of the popped corn into your bowl. Put the rest back on the stove and let it pop away. This way gives me the least amount of unpopped kernels.

Plus, popcorn is one of the many food that my little Lola loves. She will chase popcorn all over the house.

What is your favorite food?

For the full list: 30 Day Photo Challenge : Gratitude

Who’s with me?

Apparently there is an entire blog post devoted to this on the Positively Present website.

We had gone into our local Planet Fitness a little over a week ago and toured the facility. It’s pretty bare bones as far as gyms go with no pool, classes or steam room/ sauna. However it has TONS of machines running the entire length of the (huge) wall in 2 rows. They also have free wrights and those machines that all gyms have. Clearly I’ve spent very little time in gyms. But I do know this place is huge. And open during the times I want to work out. Oh, and is $10 a month for the cancel at anytime with no penalties plan. The other plan was $20 a month which included tanning beds, massage chairs, some funky infrared light machine thingy and some other perks. We opted not to do that one as there is a minimum of 3 months at the current club before transferring to another club. And since we have no idea how long we will be living here..

Monday was our first day working out. We’re definitely going to have to rearrange our gym times as by the time Steve got home, changed and we got there, it was 9:35am. In order for me to make it to Home Depot to meet my dad to drive into Coral Gables for work, I need to be in the shower by 10:15am at the latest. So, basically, we walked on the treadmills for 20 minutes with a 5 minute cool down.

This morning I am aiming to get there by 9am so I have a full hour to workout. Hopefully I can keep it up for 3-4 days a week. I know for a fact that when I actually work out (which I’m not a fan of), I lose weight pretty quickly. My biggest problem with weight is that I don’t eat properly. That is, I don’t snack, emotionally eat or randomly eat all day, I just don’t eat. Well, no, I eat when I am hungry and stop when I get full. I also don’t eat balanced meals, or at least rarely eat them.

Yeah yeah, it’s terrible. Trust me, I know. That whole bought of “anorexia” (umm, my diet pretty much consisted of diet pills and alcohol) in college and the forced Weight Watchers diet when I was 12 has done a real number on me.

Working out will hopefully kick my metabolism into normalcy and make me hungry so I start eating on a regular schedule.

My “physical” goal for my 35th year is to get in shape, feel better about myself and look awesome in the bridesmaids dress in Felice and Chris’ wedding. More specifically, I want to be in shape enough to actually have my body work properly again even though we are planning on adopting siblings from foster care. This also means that I will be able to run and play with our children and not get winded. And be able to strengthen my seriously weak ankles that keep spraining. Yeah, they’re holding up quite a bit of weight and never healed properly from all the sprains.

I have absolutely how much I weighed in this picture, but it was taken 8 years ago and I think it’s a good goal to have. I remember the size I wore (based on the job uniforms hanging in the closet) and that would be a pretty drastic change from where I am now. Man, I sure do wish I could go back and dye my hair and brush it better…

So now I’m off to the gym… Cheers, my friends!

But I digress! I wish I could say I’ve been loyal to one company, but let’s face it,I am a deals shopper. The last couple of years we used Shutterfly; this year will be no different. I haven’t been disappointed yet! The cards are always high quality and they have so many designs.

We used Shutterfly as the photo dump site for our trip to Las Vegas and other wedding pictures, which was so convenient! We made photo books, and possibly will make a few calendars for gifts this year, and definitely the holiday cards for the December holidays.

Do you prefer to send a flat or tent card? What about receiving- what’s your preference? I personally like to receive flat cards only because it makes it easier to read the messages on our card wall every year.

Not only do I get to send beautiful Shutterfly cards this year, but, my lovely readers, you get the opportunity as well. I have 3 codes for 25 Free Cards of your choice. That’s right, there will be three winners!

All you need to do to enter is go check out the vast selection of holiday cards and leave a comment telling me which one you would choose if you win. Also tell my one of your favorite holiday traditions. (Hey we’re newlyweds and could always use some new ideas.)

Extra entries, leave a separate comment with a link to each:
- Subscribe to my blog or let me know you’re already a follower/ RSS reader
- Share this on Facebook or Twitter: Enter to win 1 of 3 sets of 25 @shutterfly holiday cards from @rbfletcher ~ #giveaway ends 11/9/11 ~ http://rbfl.me/2035
- Blog about this giveaway

I’ll use Random.org to pick a winner on November 9th. You don’t have to be a blogger to win, just make sure you use an active email address when you leave your comment so I can contact you if you win.

Do you notice a theme with the cards I like? These were 3 of my top choices for this years cards.

Anyhow, I am a member of the Free Pattern Testers group on Ravelry. Ravelry, of course, being my favorite site on the entire internet. OK, maybe not, but you get what I mean.

So a few weeks ago, I signed up for a test knit for some super cute fingerless gloves. Sure, it took me a lot longer than the rest of the testers, but I’m immensely pleased with how they turned out! Of course they’re Gator colors. I used stash yarn that I had sitting in a box from years ago and since there wasn’t enough for both gloves, I alternated the colors. So they’re kinda like the Weasley twins… the same, but different.

About a month ago, I received an email from Jessica at Inkubook. She saw that I had previously blogged about my amazing experiences with Inkubook (here) and graciously offered up the opportunity for a giveaway for my readers and another book for me to review. Now, I’m not doing the giveaway in this post, but will hopefully be posting it in the next couple of weeks. I want to wait until I have the book in hand.

In the meantime, here is a small sampling of the pictures I took during our week in West Virginia. It really makes me want to move up north so we can be in the mountains!

I really hope y’all can see the book as I can’t no matter how many times I install and re-install and re-install Adobe Flash Player. It also doesn’t care that I have a full version of Flash CS4 on my computer. So, good luck to you!

As y’all know, my husband and I are planning on adoption 2 children from foster care (a sibling pair to be exact) and I have been researching everything I can find on the subject. During this research, I discovered (and became a part of) the Open Adoption Bloggers (see the orange link in the sidebar?)

If I’m not mistaken, some of my readers have found me from OAB. Welcome!

I just found out about the Adoption Bloggers Interview Project from OAB this afternoon. And it’s brilliant! Basically, it pairs up 2 bloggers to learn about each other and post an interview on their blog. You can bet that I signed up!

The Interview Project is open to any blogger…

1. who writes at least occasionally about adoption,
2. is interested in meeting a fellow writer with different views and experiences, and
3. wants to welcome someone into their own online space.

Pop on over there and read all about the Project and sign up. Just be sure to sign up by October 28, 2011 so that you can participate!

** Also, I offered up my services and created the above logo!
** If you know anyone that needs any design work for a blog, website, or a logo, please send them my way!