I am exhausted.  

All we did today was drive from one place to another, over 60 miles total, trying to get some necessary things done and return cars to people who so graciously lent them to us. 

Tired.

But guess what?

We now have one operable car!  Yay us!  Seriously, I'm doing a happy dance over here.  What a huge relief.

The only bummer is that it is Joe's car that got fixed, and not mine and I can't drive his car because I don't know how to drive a stick shift.

I know, I know, I need to learn to drive a stick.  I really do.  But I'm scared. Don't give me a hard time.  O.K.?

Joe says he is going to give me lessons this weekend.  That should be interesting.  

In the meantime, the car sharing continues, only now I am completely reliant on him to get me to and fro.  I'm very independent, so this is going to drive me crazy.

But still!  We have a working car!  And as soon as our tax rebate comes, we're getting my car fixed, so not much longer. 

(Am I the only one who totally searched the internet to find out exactly when our tax rebate is going to be mailed? Because I did.  And I know the exact date the check will arrive at our house.)

I'm off to make dinner and just chill knowing that 

Dude!  We have a car!

There's Hope

Kayce turned me on to this song(the one that's playing) and I got it off of ITunes and I played it over and over and over yesterday, as loud as I possibly could. I'm feeling better. I have a car to get to work for the first part of the week. One of our cars should be fixed by Tuesday(fingers crossed). I am unbelievably grateful to the wonderful friends and family I have. I am very lucky. I had not one, not two, but three different offers from people to lend me a car until we can get ours fixed. I have received supportive comments, and e-mails, and even a phone call from someone I have never even met(Thanks K!) letting me know that people care and they are thinking of me and to keep my chin up. How can I not feel better, after all that positive energy aimed my way? I'm moving forward. This up and down stuff, it's draining. But it's the nature of the depression from which I suffer. It's going to happen. I just have to try and ride the wave until it evens out again. A change in meds is also in order so perhaps that will help too. I had a great weekend and I'm off this Friday(another conference), so this will be a better week than last. For sure.

3 Words

Here is the three word photo I submitted to the slideshow for this week:


But here are the three words that truly sum up the past week for me:


Yes, the sadness is lasting a long time this time. (My)Depression is like that. It ebbs and flows. Lately it has been flowing a lot. We're dealing with it. It will pass. It always does. When it does, I'll be back. But for now I think the break should continue. I just didn't want to miss the 3 words this week.

18 months

I don't have much more to say about it. It is what it is. 18 months down with no end in sight. I'm still taking a break. It might be a long one this time. Not having a lot of luck with the positive energy. I'm just feeling sad. Very very sad.

Bullets

--Still no car

--Thankful for friends and family for lending us one to get to work this week.

--Next week it'll be the bus. I'm dead serious.

--Taking a wee break. It's better for everyone when I'm this down to disappear for awhile.

--Trying to take a cue from this gal and muster up some positive energy.

--Wish me luck.

--Bye for now.

3 Words Sunday

And the funk continues.......

My car died on my husband's way home from work.

It's the only operable car we have right now.

We do not have the money right this minute to fix it. And that's when it needs to be fixed. Right this minute.

It's not the battery like we were hoping it would be.

I am freaking out because I don't know how I'm going to get to work tomorrow(or the day after that, or the day after that).

Sigh.

Feeling Better

I'm out of my funk. Well, almost. I'm just about back to my smiling, sunny self. Stop laughing.
Hey, you want something to laugh about? Take a gander at this photo I found at my Dad's house. I'll call this "Flashback Friday":
This was taken circa 1990. I think we had been dating for a year. If that.
Hold on. I need a minute. Bwahahahahahahaha! Dude! What's up with our hair? I think possibly Joe was trying to make himself slightly taller? And me? I understand the desire for long hair, but someone could have kindly pointed out to me that a trim once in a while is not a bad thing! And dude. We were skinny.

And just to share the humiliation, here's one of my Sees-ter and her husband at the same wedding:
Happy Friday!

If you were here....

Hey Mom.

It's me.

Today is your birthday. Happy Birthday!

If you were here, I'd come over and we'd go shopping.

If you were here, I'd bring you flowers. Carnations. Because those were your favorites.

If you were here I'd bake you one of my famous(heh) triple decker chocolate cakes and you would have to inject more insulin just so you could have a piece!

If you were here we would all go out to dinner to celebrate.

But you're not here and it feels like you've been gone for a very long time. I guess eleven years is a very long time, but it feels longer.

So I guess we'll just stay home and do nothing but light a candle and think about how much we wish you were here.

Miss you.

Happy Birthday.

Love,

Me

In a Funk

I'm in some kind of funk and subsequently fallen into a blogger's slump.  Hey, that rhymed.  I've had kind of a rough week. It isn't attributed to one thing, but a combination of a lot of things.  I'm fighting with my health insurance company over their unwillingness to provide me with the health insurance I deserve.  Did you know that if you have a major health problem and you don't have any health insurance then you aren't eligible to obtain insurance?  It's ridiculous.  Reading that sentence you probably figured out that I had to let my Co.Bra insurance lapse.  I had no choice.  My husband lost his job and we simply couldn't afford the (over)one thousand dollar a month cost.  I wasted over six hundred dollars on a short term plan that was supposed to ensure that I would be eligible once my insurance at work kicked in.  They lied.  It's os frustrating and stressful.  My husband lost his job over three months ago and was only last week able to find something to tide us over until the new semester starts again(in August!). Him starting a new job is in itself unsettling for me.  He's working the graveyard shift.  So he'll teach at the one school he has left during the day, and then he'll work overnight shifts at a local retail store.  I have mixed feelings about this. I am grateful he found a job. I am.  We're having a very hard time without the pay from the job he lost.  It's the shift I'm worried about.  Sure, I'll be sleeping when he's gone, but I'm not too keen on being in our apartment alone all night.  I don't sleep well when he's not there(even if it's just in the next room).  And then there's the fact that he'll be asleep during the day.  Yes, I'll be at work for the most part during this time,  but I'm worried he won't have time to do anything around the house or take care of the things that we have designated his responsibilities because he'll literally either be at work or sleeping.  I'll grow accustomed to it I'm sure. We both will.  But we're trying so hard to work through some of the problems in our marriage (for the most part successfully) and there are so many extra stressors right now.  I'm so grateful to have weekends like last week to get away and have some fun but sometimes it makes it extra hard to come back to all of the stress, only to find things piling up even more.  We'll get through this.  I know.  I'm just feeling a bit down and in a funk.  I'll snap out of it.

For Laura

This is a project I have been working on for a few weeks now, and finally just finished today. Back when I had my "Pay it Forward" challenge, I only had two takers. One was Lea from Oh My #6, and the other was Laura from "Journey to Amanda". I was so glad that Laura decided to take part, because I had been planning on making her something special as a Thank you for taking over both our October Yahoo group, and our secret buddy project. You see, myself and one other person used to be in charge of the Secret Buddy Exchange. After awhile it became too much for me to handle, even though I was sharing the job with another person! Laura graciously stepped up to take over the daunting task all by herself. Did I mention she is a single Mom to two beautiful daughters, and is LID for another one? I am in awe of her. I'm going to have my hands full with one child, and I will have a companion to share in the parenting duties! I don't know how she(or any other of you single moms) do it. Kudos to you guys. Seriously. I am not worthy.


So anyway, Laura, I made this for you, both as a thank you and as the pay it forward gift that I owe you. I totally had to stalk your blog to download all of those pictures. I hope you don't have a site meter! Hee!

The project itself is a standing tabletop triptych collage with pictures of Laura and her family and quotes printed on vellum.
It is meant to be interactive, in that each panel has a pocket with removable tags that you take out to look at the pictures and quotes.
The middle panel has a very cool shelf that has a mini fold out book on it, with tiny little pictures and quotes. I tried to put as many pictures on it as I could. I hope it doesn't look too crowded.
I even left several small tags and one large tag empty so she can add pictures of Amanda to it(some day). I truly enjoyed making this and am quite happy with the way it turned out. Here are some pics:
The whole project


The left side panel closeup:


The middle panel, with "shelf" and mini book:
The right side panel closeup:
Mini book closeup:
The empty tags for pictures of Amanda:

Pull out tags w/pictures and quotes:




I take no credit for the actual design of this projectt. It was offered as a class at the Scrapbook Expo that I took with my sister a couple months ago. All I did was put it together. You can even buy the kit here: Quick Quotes website

3 Words Sunday

Tagged

Well, I wasn't actually tagged, but I'm bored and this one's been going around and Dannye told anyone who hadn't done it yet to consider themselves tagged, so here goes......

Four jobs I've had:
1. Preschool Teacher
2. After school care director
3. Front office for an orthodontist.
4. I’ve only had three types of jobs in my entire life!

Four shows I watch:
1. Dancing with the Stars
2. American Idol
3. Medium
4. Eli Stone

Four Places I have been:
1. China-Can. Not. Wait. to go back!
2. Mexico
3. Over half of the states in the US
4. San Francisco-many, many(many) times

Four favorite foods:
1. Mexican-I could eat it every night
2. Bagels-I actually do eat one everyday
3. Smoothies
4. Pizza

Four Cd's I've recently listened to:
1. Rent Soundtrack-Original Broadway version. I can recite the entire thing word for word.
2. James Taylor
3. Dixie Chicks
4. Tracy Chapman



Four things you can do to make my day:
1. tell us when we are getting our referral(-totally stole this one from Dannye)
2. Bring me Flowers
3. Tell me I look like I’ve lost weight(even though I soooooo have not. )LOL!
4. Offer to do my laundry! (My husband does this for me all the time)

Since most people I know have already been tagged with this, if you'd like to play along, consider yourself tagged...


P.S. Sometimes I like to look back through the archives and see what was going on in my life a year ago. This is what I was doing a year ago this weekend. Gosh that was fun. We should plan on getting together again. Some of those girls are getting(slightly) closer to a referral and I am so excited for them! Who would have thought a year later they still would not have their babies. Not me. And not them either!

There's No Place Like Home

I made it safely home last night.  My poor husband.  He missed me so much and was so happy to see me and all I did in the car on the way home was go on and on about how much fun I had and then totally burst into tears and said I wanted to move to San Francisco to be closer to my sister and niece and nephew and they have lots of colleges up North and why can't he get a job there?  

Today I even looked online at apartments for rent.  I know this will pass and I'm not quite ready to leave the job that I love and everything that is familiar to me, but I really do wish we lived closer.

Even though I didn't want to come home, I did miss my husband, and my dog and our home.  

It was back to the grind today, and we were crazy busy, so the day just flew by, which is a good thing and tomorrow is Friday already!

Today is Thankful Thursday, so here are mine for today:

1.  Something I have been praying for over the last four months happened today, and I am so thankful for it.  I promised my husband I would(try to) cool it with the personal details of our lives on this here blog, but it has to do with him, and our financial situation and it is such a relief that it finally happened.  I was beginning to think it never would.

2.  I'm thankful to have had the opportunity to take that trip and that I had such a great time and that the trip was made safely.

3.  I'm thankful that tomorrow is Friday. Short work weeks rock!

Bloggy Friend Fun

Today was such a fun day. Lisa and Grace and I(Cameron had school) met up with some local Northern CA bloggers at neat little farm. I got to see Mary-Mia, Stacey(pw), and Donna(Double Happiness-pw) again, plus I finally got to meet Kayce. I felt like I already knew her. Blogs are so cool. I wish I lived closer to these wonderful women. Of course I got to see Rose and Marie, Ryleigh(Stacey's daughter), and Maddy and Gwen(Donna's daughters), so I got my kid fix too. Lucky me. They're all so cute and growing up so fast. We got some cute pictures of all of the girls, but since two of the blogs are password protected I won't post that picture here. I think it's okay to post the grown up picture though. So here we are:
Fellow bloggers and China adoptive Moms(two of us waiting).
















Left to right: Stacey, Me, Kayce, Lisa, Mary Mia, Donna

Thanks Stacey and Kayce for making the long drive to meet up with us! I'm going to be up your way for a week this summer, so maybe we can meet in your stomping grounds then. I had such a good time.

Oh, Stacey's husband Mark and son Austin, as well as her Mom and Mary-Mia's mom and dad were there too. They got the fun job of keeping an eye on all the kiddos so us girls could gab all we wanted.

I heart my blogger buddies.

I go home tomorrow. Sob!

3 Word Sunday

HAVING A BLAST

WITH THESE TWO










Okay, that was six words. Not sure I'll be able to get this one into the slideshow this week, as I'm on Lisa's computer and can;t figure out how to get the text on to the photo. Bummer. We're off to Chuck E. Cheese's. And yes, I have lost my mind. But it's sprinkling and we can't go to the park. Wish me luck.

Having a Ball

Operation "Watching the kids by myself" is going swimmingly. O.K., I was going to let you think I was here all by myself, and that I had everything under control all by myself, but I guess I should admit that my Dad is here with me. But still! Usually I have my husband here to give me a break and I'm totally up here without him this time. This morning we went to Cameron's baseball game, and then Lisa and Scott hit the road and we went to the movies. We saw "Nim's Island". It was pretty cute. For dinner I had a half(eaten) hot dog that Gracie didn't want, some popcorn, and a sour licorice. Wasn't I just saying I was going to try and eat better? Maybe tomorrow. Oh, and I'm totally psyched because on Tuesday I'm getting together with some local bloggers, some of which I have never met. Is it weird to be excited to be meeting people you "met" on the internet? No? Good. Because I am. Totally excited. Send good thoughts to me that the kids sleep until at least 7:00. 7:30 would be even better! :)

Tired

I am sooooo tired. I slept maybe four hours last night. Last minute running around, doing laundry, packing. I leave directly from work tonight and head to the airport and won't be arriving at my see-ster's until close to eleven. It's okay though, because I plan on getting plenty of rest and sleeping in every day while I'm there. Ha! I crack myself up. I'm watching the kids overnight on Saturday, so I'm sure I'll be nice and wiped out by Sunday night. I'm hoping to get a little bloggy get -together action early in the week, so I'm really looking forward to that.

Thankful Thursday

As you may have guessed, yesterday I had a massage.  Ahhhhhh.........I felt so good afterwards.  As I mentioned before, I had been seeing a chiropractor after I injured  my back a few weeks ago. If helped me greatly and the injury is almost completely healed.  They have a massage therapist on site, and my chiropractor suggested I get one to help improve my circulation.  Well come to find out you can get a 30 minute massage for only ten dollars more than the cost of the chiropractic visit.    I was all over that!  And aside from the co-pay, it will be completely covered by my insurance.  Oh yeah.  Anyway, so here are some things I am thankful for this week:

1.  Massages

2. Bloggy friends. Lea over at Oh My #6! sent me a cute little notebook to thank me for the "Pay it forward" gift I sent her.  Totally unnecessary, but greatly appreciated!  I'll try to post a pic as soon as I find my camera.

3.  Days off.  How I heart my day off.

4.  Job interviews(for my hubby).  He had two job interviews this week and I really, really(really) hope one of them pans out.

5. I am thankful that tomorrow I am getting on a plane and going back to my sees-ters house for five whole days.  Woo Hoo!

What are you thankful for?

Wordless Wednesday