The Liebster Award!

So, something pretty cool happened yesterday....

A fellow adoption blogger, Nikisha from Grown In Our Hearts , recognized me with the Liebster Award. The Liebster Award is a way that bloggers recognize other bloggers who don't have many followers (You guys! Click the follow button, I know for sure I have more than 2 followers!). This gets the word out about smaller blogs and brings traffic to the them and attention to whichever cause the blogger is writing about.

So, in order for me to receive this award, I have to do the following. I hope it is ok that I just used the rules infographic from Nikisha's blog!

Step 1: Check! Thanks Nikisha! I am digging your blog too! 

Step 2: Answer eleven questions given to you by the person who nominated you. Ok, here goes it! 

1.Why did you start blogging? I started blogging as an easy way for friends and family to follow our adoption process. I also thought it might be a good idea to journal the progress of our adoption and the feelings/thoughts that go along with it. Now I blog for those reasons and so that anyone looking at us as potential adoptive parents can see that there is more to us than just a 4 page PDF profile.

2. What is your favorite food? Mexican food. All day, all night, 7 days a week. Ok, not really that often, but I love it. Last night I made salsa chicken in the crock pot. Since John is a vegetarian, I made him a stove top version with beans, tomatoes etc. We have enough for at least two more meals of whatever mexican concoction we want. We keep mexican food fixings in the house pretty much at all times. Also chocolate. Mmmm... chocolate. 

3. What was your first job? I got my first job shortly after I turned 16 at Ulta3 Cosmetics and Salon- now known simply as Ulta. I stocked shelves, worked the register and eventually moved to the professional hair care area where I priced and stocked the expensive stuff like Paul Mitchell shampoos and styling products. I quit in a fit of rage when they didn't give me the raise I was promised for working a remodel of our store. Mature, I know. 

 

4. What are you having for dinner tonight? Leftover crock pot salsa chicken! It is super easy to make and there are always leftovers. 1lb chicken, 1 jar salsa, about 1/2 pack of taco seasoning (I like the reduced sodium), 4 hours (really like 3.5- use a meat thermometer to make sure you don't make anyone sick!) on high or about 7-8 on low. I add green chiles or jalapenos to make it spicy.

5. Pick one word to describe your blog. Honest

6. If you could go to any place in the world on a free vacation for a week, where would you go? Oh, I've been planning this one in my head for a long time! I would go to the UK and Ireland. I would love love love to see the castles and England, Scotland and Ireland. I would love to stare at the rivers and the shorelines and picture the deep history that they hold. I am a huge British history nerd. I also want to make sure I hit up some authentic pubs.. like ancient hole in the wall ones, eat some fish and chips and pretend I belong! 

7. Who was your favorite teacher? This one is hard to answer! In 2nd grade Mrs. Keheley would give me hugs when I wore my "I need a hug" shirt. I won't ever forget that. In high school, my British Literature teacher, Mr. Barton changed the way I learned and the way I thought of teachers. In college, Dr. Dowd terrified me into actually retaining information and writing good papers. I was not willing to disappoint him! 

8. Where do you see yourself in five years? I see myself as a mom to at least one kiddo. If it hasn't happened by then, perhaps I will be some sort of world traveler/travel blogger? We wont think that way. In five years, I WILL be a mom. I will probably be thinking again about grad school. Well, I think about that every day, but I need to find my path first.

9. Who would you say has been the most influential person in your life? I have to choose one? I think if I had to narrow it down to just one, I would say that my mom was and still is the most influential person in my life. I mean, she raised me after all, but that isn't really it. She is the one person who really got me when I was growing up with kidney disease. She let me cry about it, agreed when I thought it sucked, helped me navigate being a child, then a teen, then a young adult with a disease. She cooked special food for my special diet, she took me to endless appointments, she celebrated with me when I had my health back. She gave me a kidney to save my life when I was 19! She says she would do it again in a heartbeat. She marches to the beat of her own drum, not letting society dictate who she is or what she should think. She is a wonderful grandma to our 3 year old nephew and will be amazing with our kiddo when the time comes too. 

10. If you had to be any animal for the rest of your life, what would you pick? I have thought about this one more often than I should admit. I would be a house cat, but only in a house like ours or my parent's house. Spoiled, warm, cozy, fat. John just laughed at me at the grocery store, because I said I was planning on buying special cat food for our cats on Valentine's day. Someone, please find this girl a baby, so the spoiling can be redirected!

11. What is your favorite color?  Red. Red everything.

Step 3: Answer 11 facts about yourself.

1. I sing and dance in the car like it's my last day on earth. Someone either laughs or rolls their eyes at me almost every day. 

2. In 4th grade I lost the spelling bee due to missing the word parallel. Second place, grrr!

3. I can't function without coffee. Preferably iced coffee. It is a goal to be coffee free one day. 

4. The entire right side of my body is slightly, but not overtly noticeable, bigger than the left. Hand, leg, foot etc...

5. My friends are precious to me. The people I consider my best friends are the most honest and loyal people I know. 

6. I try to to get everyone I know who gets a new pet to name it Pancake. What a great pet name!  (Says the person who named her cat Waffles)

7. I can have a kind of mean spirited sense of humor that some people don't get. It's like sarcasm mixed with general societal observations mixed with bathroom humor.

8. My nephew is my FAVORITE HUMAN EVER. He reminds me that anything can be turned into a toy and that everything can be new and fun.

9. I secretly narrate my life in a British accent on a daily basis. Maybe I shouldn't admit to that one.

10. I met John when I was 21 and he was 22! We have basically grown into real adults together!

11. I love earrings that dangle. I have to wear them now, since no ear with a dangle earring is safe around babies.

Step 4: Nominate 11 blogs that I think are deserving of the award. 

I thought it would be hard to narrow this down, but apparently I read a lot of blogs with a lot of followers. I spent the evening trying to figure out a) who has less than 200 followers [I might a fudged a little on this one] b)who wouldn't be weirded out by me nominating them and c) Who has a writing style or topic that I truly enjoy. In no particular order, here they are! 

The Littlest Brooks-Livingston Not only have we been waiting about the same amount of time with the same adoption agency, but we are neighbors on the family profiles page for our agency. Hey neighbor! Great blog! 

Chris and Amy Thompson  Though they don't post often, I love their updates. It is another adoption blog. They are waiting to adopt baby number two! 

No Bohn's About It Another adoption blog. How cute is this blog!? I am not sure of the number of followers she has, but I love it, so I am sharing. 

The Thompson Baby  The Thompson family has adopted twice. Their blog is adorbs. Yes, i whipped out the lingo for this one. Simply adorbs.

The Hinze Family Also adoption. Sensing a theme yet? They often write about the very support group that we met them in. 

FSGS Sucks A blog about the kidney disease I grew up with from the perspective of someone who deals with it with a great attitude. Now a blog about dialysis and transplantation. Great read! Jenn needs a kidney, so give her some love and share her information! 

Transplant, Tantrums and Tiaras!  This blogger is not in the US, but I do love her honesty. She is a kidney transplant recipient who tells it like it is.

Our Modern Family - Journey to Adoption Yep, adoption related. Great read, neat and organized.

Adoption Adventures Adoption blog! Shocking, I know. Updated every couple months or so, but a good read none-the-less. 

A Bug's Life Full disclosure, this is John's sister's blog. I am not posting it for that reason though. It is a blog about a chronic health condition - Chronic Idiopathic Urticaria and Angioedema and her struggle to get well. It is really well written. More people should read it!

DnDAdopt Another adoption blog. Touches on the serious and not so serious parts of adoption. 

Let's get these blogs out there for the world to read. A bunch of good people writing a bunch of good stuff! If I missed any friends, it wasn't on purpose. Just a lot to think about in terms of criteria!

I am off to do step 5, let the other bloggers know that I nominated them. I am leaving the questions (step 6) as is for the bloggers to answer, assuming they accept. Just answer the same ones I did above. No pressure if you aren't into it! 

Gmork, Naps, and Curling

Subtitle: There is no rhyme or reason to this post. 

We are about 2 days short of 16 months waiting "live" with the Independent Adoption Center . Sometimes it feels like the never ending story (Well, typing that just led to a 10 minute youtubin' bonanza of Falcor videos! You can ride Falcor in Munich! ) I know what doesn't drive us absolutely insane only makes us stronger! That's the saying right? No? Well, we always have that pretty unimpressive looking Falcor "ride".

Did anyone else grow up thinking the Gmork lived in their fireplace? That is my childhood trauma. That and Return to Oz. Chills.

So sidetracked.

I feel like we are in an adoption wait "happy place". This can change day to day, moment to moment, but overall- I think we are dealing quite well. Those thoughts of "why not us yet?" or "why must we be stuck in this land of limbo?!" pop into my head and pop right back out these days. There is no real answer, so I am just going with the flow. I avoid message boards and support group Facebook pages these days, because I feel reading about things gone wrong only make a negative impact on how I handle this process. Believe me, I am aware of what all can happen, so it's not like I am turning a blind eye, just protecting myself a little.

We are keeping busy as usual. We went to the Pajama Curl bonspiel in Charlotte, NC over the past weekend. I was reminded that me going to anything that resembles a 72 hour party is a bit of a joke. I needed naps... multiple. I found that retreating to the hotel to watch a marathon of Law and Order SVU, was replenishing enough to make it through some of night two! John has a much higher energy level than I do and just kept going and going.

Since the theme was Pajama Curl, we saw more adult onesie pajamas in one place than anyone wants or needs to see in life. Grown men in onesies.... hmmm. Still unsure of that one.

I have pictures!  Iphone quality, but pictures none the less.

That is John. Batman.

Some pj's were exceptionally awesome.

No, really. It was a real TMNT!

All of the teams that the Atlanta Curling Club sent. So many onesies. 

Over all we had a good time. Good friends, good food- seriously, they fed us a TON of food. Charlotte still has Qdoba! Delish.

Coming up for adoption wait distraction we have Valentine's Day, John's sister's birthday (which is on Valentine's day! Kinda cool!), and my birthday is in March - the big 3-5! I keep telling people I will be 36, I have no idea why. Brainz not working. I am thinking maybe an evening out with friends... friends, you in? How does one party 35 year old style? Does it involve naps? I love naps. Another year, another nap. Better get to napping before baby comes! 

Well, this turned into a nap themed post. Guess we all know how I am feeling today. Luckily, I have a hot coffee and a nice slow day at working coming up. 

We are hopeful that this is our year. We are hopeful that someone who wants to place her baby with loving adoptive parents reads our blog and thinks we are pretty cool rather than the huge nerds we actually are (nerdy is in right? Oh good!). We are hopeful that you all will share our blog, our official profile , our open adoption Facebook page and our open adoption Instagram , where we are participating in the #hopingtoadopt60days get to know us challenge.

I leave you with our very own little luck dragon, Moe. #sunspotsforlife

Hopes. Not Expectations.

It is adoption love link up time again! This month's suggested topic is actually something I have been trying to avoid so far this year. Basically, it is “What role will adoption play for us in this coming year?”

You see, last year I let adoption take over my life. I let it rule my every thought, decision, emotion and it even invaded every single dream I remembered having (minus that recurring one where the brakes don't work in my car, so I have to stop Flintstones style- which if you analyzed it enough, could be adoption related anyway). Even though adoption is absolutely the number one thing we want right now, it is too emotional and sometimes too devastating to allow it to run our lives. Of course it is exciting, because adoption will lead us to the creation of our family, but it is also just incredibly hard. 

What role are we expecting it to play in 2015? Maybe I need to leave out the word “expecting” and replace it with “hoping”. We are hoping that 2015 is the year our baby makes his or her way to our family. Plain and simple. 

The little things we are hoping for this year include: To enjoy life just the two us as long as we need to. To not dwell on the fact that this adoption wait feels like it is moving in slow motion. To not have dishonest people contact us and lead us on- or at least be able to bounce back faster if they do. To keep busy, so we barely notice that we are still waiting and waiting and waiting. To travel, to experience aspects of life previously left unexplored, to feel the sun, rain and wind... really feel it.

This year, I would like to expand the reach of our adoption blog. I have more people reading on a regular basis than I ever thought I would. I started it to have a place to keep record of our wait and the feelings that come along with it. I also wanted a place we could show who we really are, rather than having a four page profile that barely even touched the surface of our lives. I would like to keep contributing to blog rings and link ups that speak on adoption. I would like to do more guest blog posts like I did earlier this year with America Adopts- my post. I would like for my friends, family, coworkers, and strangers alike to keep sharing the blog. The more the word gets out, the more likely our family is to grow this year. I would also like to think that maybe some of our experiences could help a family considering adoption or a woman considering placing her baby. 

This year, I hope to find more resources for understanding the birth parent perspective, as well as the adoptee perspective. I am a planner and want to be prepared for the emotions our child and his or her birth parents could be feeling in the future. I don’t want to be someone who goes into this thinking love conquers all, because that is fantasy. There will be so many conflicting emotions for everyone involved over the years and we can’t turn a blind eye to that. 

Is This Thing On?

Because I have words just bubbling out!

This post is about the long and the short of it all. If you have read my posts in the past, you know this will probably be more the long of it though... yap yap yap. 

The short: 

John and I are just two people who love each other, who also want nothing more than to have children. I am the one who cannot conceive and carry a child. John is the one who stands by me, because he loves me more than he wants to have a biological child. We are people who do not need that biological connection to love a child.We are just people who want to love a child.

Just us. Being us.

The long:

We are not perfect people, but we are good people. We have shortcomings and we have things we excel at. We are very open minded and easily adaptable to new situations. We have already been through a lot together (over 13 years since we first started dating!). I can't think of much we haven't already conquered or can't overcome in the future. We are happy being to the two of us, but ultimately that isn't what we want.

One thing I keep hearing come up is how peachy, shiny, happy our adoption profile makes everything look. It outlines the best of us, without stating the flaws in our lives. Let's first talk about how much writing and rewriting we had to do with that profile. When it comes down to it, the content was up to us, BUT with some very strong suggestions from the adoption professionals. You have to think of it like this... You wouldn't go on a first date and lay out all of your negatives first thing and this is in the same ball game as that idea. So, sure we want our first impression to be a nice one. We tried to be real, while pointing out some of the positive things about our community, home, and ourselves. Not only that, many aspects of our lives are actually quite shiny. We have a roof over our heads, we have each other, we have jobs and food to eat... that is pretty darn happy and shiny.

You want to know our flaws? Ok!

Well, let's see. I am a person who likes instant gratification. When I want something, I want it right then and get grumpy if I don't get it. This is why we end up eating out too much. I have a tendency to get hangry (hungry-angry) when I wait too long to eat and lose my ability to plan a meal and cook. I shop my emotions away. I can do some serious damage at Target if I'm having a rough day. I eat my emotions too. I celebrate with food and grieve with food. I mean, who doesn't? Food is uh, wonderful. Nothing cheers me up like a night out with the ladies to get Mexican food or an iced coffee.

A huge flaw I have is that I question myself when I shouldn't. I think that is partially due to being so public with our lives now that we are adopting. Do I post this or that? Do I look too tired/too shabby, too young/too old in this or that photo? Is our house too messy in these pictures? Or does it show that we are normal people who have clutter? Do I post about cats too much? (The answer to that is probably yes, especially if you follow us on instagram!).

I say things that are probably too young for me or too "hip" for me (like how I squeezed in hip to emphasize how uncool I probably am? Is self deprecating humor still a go?) . I say things like totes instead of totally, froyo instead of frozen yogurt, fav for favorite etc. It all starts mockingly and then suddenly, it is a part of your everyday lingo. It's a slippery slope to being jelly instead of jealous or cray cray instead of crazy. No! I wont do it! Leavin' it for the people born well after me!  For reals.

Everyone has flaws though, even my better half John. John is a remote control hog- will literally take it out of your hand and change the channel. He likes to control minor things like dessert before dinner (not ok with him, but I say we are adults - if we want dessert before dinner, so be it!). John is too stoic sometimes. It makes him hard to read and can make you feel like you might be alone in one battle or another. I learned you just have to ask and he will let you know what he is feeling, but you can't sit by and assume he will offer it up. John is a bit of a music snob. I think he will admit to this. John will remember a bunch of random music facts and sports history, but wont remember the milk from the grocery store.Luckily, he works at a grocery store, so there is always tomorrow!

The fact remains that people are made up of positives and negatives. We all learn to live with and even love the things that make us unique, even if some of it can get annoying. It is part of having compromise in life and part of loving someone entirely. It is part of what makes a family work.

It is 2015 and the time is now to get this show on the road. Some days are met with a lot of patience and understanding that the world has a way of playing things out the way they are meant to be. Other days are met with aggravation and that feeling of just being over the limbo that has been the last few years of our lives. I am learning a new level of patience and understanding about how life actually plays out. How you generally don't get what you want, when you want it. I don't have to like it, but I have to accept it.

So now you know. Other than just being too honest on this blog sometimes, we have flaws. Plenty. But we will be really incredible parents. I think that is what matters in the long run.

Follow us on Instagram, as we are doing a #hopingtoadopt60days challenge. It is a "get to know us" thing where we have a photo assignment daily that will tell a little about our lives.

We are ever flippin' hopeful that our baby will find us this year. That's right, flippin' hopeful.