It's ICLW Time!

Happy ICLW!!

If this is your first visit to my blog, welcome and stay tuned for a bit of info about me. If you've been by before, well, welcome back!

The break-down on me:

I'm a 33-year-old, married, PCOS suffering, slightly retro, slightly metro Georgia girl who's been trying to start a family for 8 1/2 years. My other half (conveniently known as The Hubs) is British born and bred, but made the sacrifice to move to the States with me 6 years ago. We've been married 9 1/2 years and spent the first 3 years of our married life (and the preceding 6 months) living in England. My homesickness and dad's ill health precipitated our move to the US.

The last year has held a lot of changes for us. My dad had a stroke last May and spent the following 5 weeks in the hospital. He was home for 4 weeks when he had a massive heart attack and passed away. I've always been a total Daddy's Girl, so his death has left a huge hole in my life. Following my dad's death, The Hubs and I moved to a new home, as did my mom (we had previously lived next door to my parents). And, after much discussion, The Hubs and I decided to procede with adoption through foster care and are currently in the middle of our training and home study.

In addition to those huge changes, I am in the final 5 weeks of my Bachelor's degree. I will be traveling to Iowa (from Georgia) for my graduation at the end of April. I also work full-time. So, right now my head feels as if it's spinning with everything I have going on!

Did I mention that, in the midst of all that change, my best friend (apart from The Hubs) abandoned me to move off to Afghanistan for a significantly higher-paying civilian contractor job? Yeah, a tough year.

All this has helped to contribute to me being terrible over the last few months at ICLW. So much so, that I actually skipped last month because I didn't feel my failure on commenting was fair to the other participants. I have decided, however, to give it another shot this month.

I've also been atrocious at blogging consistently over the last couple of months, so I really need to work on that as well. Fortunately, the Blogging From A to Z in April Challenge begins in 10 days and I've signed up again this year. Hopefully I'll do as well with it this year as I did last year. If you haven't signed up yet, you should definitely head over and get your name down!

Other things that might interest you about me?

I love to read! I'll read virtually anything and I feel out of sorts without something to read.

I enjoy crocheting but it's been one of those things that have become a casualty over the last few months. I'm hoping once I finish school I'll get back to it since I owe someone an afghan!

I absolutely love singing! It's my greatest passion in life. I actually submitted an audition to my university earlier this week in the hopes of singing the National Anthem at graduation. Want to hear/see my audition? You can find it here.

The Hubs and I are major movie buffs and we try to go to the movies at least once a month (which usually equates to more like 2 or 3 times a month - this is what I waste my free time on).

I am a huge, Huge, HUGE Hunger Games fan! I cannot stress to you how much I love this series! The Hubs and I (naturally) have tickets for the midnight showing tomorrow night and I can hardly wait! It's going to be epic!

I have developed a huge (but harmless) crush on Josh Hutcherson who plays Peeta in The Hunger Games, which my amazing husband indulges gleefully. If he goes shopping without me and sees a magazine with Josh or anything relating to The Hunger Games on it, he'll buy it for me. He also informs me when JHutch is going to be appearing on the David Letterman Show (tonight!! Eek!!) - he really is a fantastic guy! Who finds my crush on a celebrity 14 years younger than me humourous =D

There are two socially concious organizations that I support and cannot sing the praises of highly enough. As an aspiring teacher and Social Science major, these are my pet causes. The first is To Write Love On Her Arms, "a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery" (definition taken directly from the TWLOHA website). The second organization is Straight But Not Narrow, founded to encourage teens who are straight to support their LGBT peers. Both these organizations help to prevent bullying and to offer support when bullying does occur.

Well, that's pretty much me in a nutshell! I hope I haven't sent you running for the hills! Got any questions? Feel free to ask!

The Dangers of Car-Shopping

As I'm sure many of you across the country have experienced yourselves, the Wistful part of the world has been under tornado warnings and flood advisories today. Most sane people would stay inside. Most logical folks would stay off the road. Most level-headed individuals would take cover.

For the record, The Hubs and I have never claimed to be sane =D

We decided today was a great day for car shopping! For the past four years, I've been borrowing my mom's truck to get back and forth to work. I know you're questioning why I would be borrowing her vehicle rather than getting one of my own, but the truth is I actually already have one of my own. It just doesn't run. When we first moved here in 2006, The Hubs and I purchased a 1999 Chevrolet Tahoe. It has been nothing but trouble since we got it. On top of the money we're paying for it (because, yes, we're still making payments - when The Hubs was out of work, we came to an arrangement with our loan company where we paid only interest. This means we're now still paying on the truck), we've put approximately $3000 into repairs on the thing in an attempt to make it a usable piece of machinery. Alas, it was not to be.

So, today The Hubs and I climbed into his car, drove 2 hours into the area worst hit by tornados and began searching for a car for me. We decided that, since we're in the midst of the adoption process, it would be prudent to acquire a vehicle for me that would accomodate little ones (or medium-sized ones if we adopt the child we're interested in, seeing as how she's 14). We looked for about 2 hours and stumbled upon a car I was absolutely and totally in love with! After another 2 hours, we were driving out of the lot, in seperate vehicles this time!

I am now the proud owner of a red 2011 Chevrolet Aveo. It is the most new car I've ever owned. I am exceptionally proud of it and pleased. The Hubs is happy because next weekend is his birthday and, as he stated, he'll probably drive it more than I will (I hate to drive and prefer to sleep on trips longer than 15 minutes, lol), therefore, it's like a new car for him as well!


My new ride. Isn't it gorgeous?!

Adoption Class Number 1

We had our first IMPACT Training class last night. It was really an interesting class, but I have to admit it did not leave me feeling any calmer. In fact, I would probably have to say it increased my stress level tremendously. I don't like the unknown, so this will be a test for me.

To begin with, The Hubs and I had only ever planned to be an adoptive home. Fostering wasn't really something we felt we would be comfortable with. As a child, my parents kept foster children for 6 years. I've lived in a home with foster children coming and going and the separation is not something I enjoyed. I know it will be so difficult on my emotionally.

However, last night we were informed that our chances of being able to adopt a child through the Department of Family and Children Services (DFCS) without being an active foster home were slim to none. Therefore, it looks like we are going to be a foster/adoptive home. What this means is that when a child comes to our home, the parental rights of at least one of the parents involved will already be terminated and the caseplan for the other parents involved will not be going as it should and, thus, it is more likely the child will become available for adoption. While there is still a small chance the child will be returned to their biological family, there is a much higher probability the child will be made available for adoption and, as the foster parents, we would be given the first opportunity to adopt the child.

I'm still trying to decide how I feel about this scenario. While it breaks my heart that there are families that will lose their children, I'm also aware that these are families that will have been given ample opportunity to complete steps to get their children back home with them. The real upset will be with the children.

I think my real frustration is that I haven't yet had time to process the change to my plans. I'm sure I'll feel happier about it once I've had this time. At the end of the day, this is the process we need to take to find our child. We know there is a child that we are meant to parent and we'll follow whatever path we need to bring us to that child.

Back to the class, though, we had two instructors, each casewokers for the two areas (each inclusive of several counties) in our region. One of the caseworkers we felt a great connectin with immediately; the other not so much. Unfortunately, the one we connected with is not our caseworker. However, we will work through this as well. I'm sure as we get to know our caseworker better, we'll feel more connected with her.

Afterwards, we approached the caseworker we had the connection with and explained to her that we were interested in a child on the State listing. She was very interested and told us to bring her the information on the child next week. She stated they would definitely try to push our homestudy on through and get us prepared to proceed with the adoption as soon as possible.

All in all, it was a good class experience. I'm really looking forward to next week now. Hopefully some of my nervousness and worry will dissipate over the next few weeks.

Getting Through My Adoption (Slightly-More-Than) Two Week Wait

With 5 days to go before our first adoption training class and having been more than a week since my last post, I’m sure some of you may have been wondering what I’ve been doing with myself (or, perhaps I overestimate my interest-factor…..either way). Here is a list of the activities that have occupied my time and helped to fill the slightly-more-than Two Week Wait between our invite to adoption training and the first class:

• Had a severe sinus infection.


• Went shopping with The Hubs to get some new work clothes (we’re no longer wearing scrubs and I’m actually okay with that) while having a raging fever.


• Read through The Hunger Games trilogy a second time.


• Purchased The Hunger Games Tribute Guide to go along with the movie.


• Purchased The Hunger Games Official Illustrated Movie Companion.


• Read both of the movie tie-in books I purchased.


• Wept through the haze of a high fever because I could not be a character (obviously one that survives and, preferably, winds up with Peeta) in The Hunger Games trilogy.


• Re-acquainted myself with Twitter


• Searched for websites related to The Hunger Games


• Found and devoured all the info on Mockingjay.net


• Discovered (via Mockingjay.net) the actors playing the characters from The Hunger Games


• Developed a wildly inappropriate crush on Josh Hutcherson (who plays Peeta Mellark and is 14 years [!!!!] my junior)


• Located JoshHutcherson.com, the official website for Josh Hutcherson


• Followed the link from JoshHutcherson.com to Josh’s personal Twitter account, @jhutch1992 and began Twitter-stalking following Josh on Twitter - despite my strict personal rule about not following celebrities. I guess rules were made to be broken!


• Began following @TheHungerGames on Twitter.


• Returned to work after 2 days off sick (yes, I managed all of the above over a weekend and 2 sick days!)


• Survived the other 3 days of the week at work to reach the weekend


• Began planning what The Hubs and I would be wearing for opening night of The Hunger Games seeing as how we plan to dress in fasions of the Capital. Yup, both of us - well, The Hubs' costume will be a male costume, lol!


• Went shopping with The Hubs again and became a member of Books-A-Million. Got some great books as well!


• Had a fantastic meal at the Olive Garden.


• Went to see Journey 2: The Mysterious Island starring (surprise!) Josh Hutcherson (did I mention I'm a little obsessed? =D)


• Had a nice long Skype-chat with my best friend who will be home for a visit from Afghanistan on March 16.


• Was told by a random stranger in a store that if I were a pizza topping, I'd be cheese because everyone likes cheese (I know, I was perplexed as well).


• Discovered a fantastic organization via @jhutch1992 called Straight, But Not Narrow founded by Avan Jogia and began following @WeAreSBNN on Twitter.


• Began following @ATJogia on Twitter.


• Watched an extremely powerful episode of Glee.


• Tweeted that I felt the next episode of Glee should have some members of the cast wearing Straight But Not Narrow t-shirts as they fit very well with the storyline.


• Saw and Re-Tweeted that Max Adler (who plays Karofsky on Glee) should join several other awesome celebs and do a PSA for Straight But Not Narrow.


• Began following @MrMaxAdler and @msleamichele (there goes that no following celebs thing. Oh, well, it was fun while it lasted)


• Petitioned for, was accepted and have paid my dues for my graduation from college in April! The Hubs and I will be traveling to Iowa for my graduation...I can't wait!


• Decided I want to get a guitar and learn to play.


• Began eating better (again) and exercising using Just Dance 3 for Wii as my exercise routine.

I think that's all. Now, what have I NOT been doing that would have been more productive?

• Visited and commented on my blog reads


• Worked on the afghan I owe Emily.


• Made any hairbows to open my Etsy shop


• Kept myself sane

I know I should be unhappy with the things I haven't done, but I'm actually not terribly upset about the things I have done. I will need to work on these things, but I'm going to try not to beat myself up over it. In a few days time, we'll be moving forward with things and it'll all work out. Good times!