Busy Busy

Sorry for the delay in updating the blog!  It is a new year and that means a lot of new activities and responsibilities. 

John is getting ready to work with the Atlanta Curling Club to hold a bunch of "learn to curl" classes.  With the winter Olympics coming up, there may be a spike in interest to join the club or spend the evening learning what curling is all about.  http://www.atlcurling.org/ is their site if anyone wants to check it out.  My classes for Spring term just started.  I decided to take two this semester- digital photography in instruction and a course on designing technology for enhanced instruction.  So far I think that both of these classes put together will be less rigorous than the one course I took last term.  They should sufficiently distract me from the adoption wait!  It turns out my dinky little point and shoot digital camera is not really good enough for the photography course, but it is all I have, so I will make do.  A nice digital camera is not required, but is suggested.  Perhaps once I win the lottery that I don't play, I will buy an $800 camera.

In other news, it has been unseasonably cold in Georgia!  Yesterday morning I got locked out of my doctor's office in 5 degree weather.  They opened the door late to a very grouchy, frozen human.  I believe my words were "Really?  I wouldn't even leave a cockroach out here."  I totally would though... gross.  I hate cockroaches! Everyone was hoping for a surprise snow/winter weather day off of work.  Even though the news got our hopes up, we all trucked it in Monday morning and begrudgingly worked all day.  It was the first day of classes here at the University where I work, so it's probably best that we were open.  It's a huge exciting deal any time Georgia is threatened with snow (at least to us Georgia natives!).  It has been a couple of years since we have had a good snow.  I am like a child when it snows.  Some people want snow, because it is pretty, I want snow so I can play in it.  I want to build snowmen or even snowcats!  I want to make a sled out of whatever we can find in the garage and then go home worn out and drink hot chocolate.  I totally live in the wrong region of the country.

On to adoption stuff.  This is an adoption blog after all.  I have been thinking a lot lately about what open adoption really means to me.  Open adoption to me, means that our family will only grow larger.  Not just because we will have a child, but because our child's birth family/mother will (hopefully) become like extended family to us.  If they aren't comfortable with that, it is understandable, but from what I have read, it is psychologically healthiest for all involved- mainly the child- to have that sort of relationship.  To me, open adoption means that our child will have the answers they need when times get tough, like when their teacher wants them to draw a family tree or when they hit the teenage years and have angst about life (as we all did.... don't pretend like you didn't).  Open adoption means that if our child gets sick, we can access medical history and make informed decisions about treatment.  Open adoption to me means that somehow, someday, we will complete our family.  All of the hardship and disappointment will be in the past.

We made an adoption Facebook page about a week ago.  https://www.facebook.com/johnandsarahadopt?ref=hl Our agency recommends doing a lot of our own networking and it took me quite a while to embrace the idea.  I don't want to come off as forceful or like we are "advertising" for a baby.  It is more about just getting the word out  that we are a homestudy approved hopeful adoptive family.  Please think about liking our Facebook page and sharing it with your friends.  You never know who may know someone who is planning on making an adoption plan for their baby.

Until next time! Here is a picture of Waffles demonstrating how cold it has been lately.