Whew!

It is with a giant sigh of relief that I announce that my dad made it through his 5 hour long partial kidney removal surgery with flying colours. Sure they had to remove one of his ribs to get at the tumour, but the tumour is now all gone, and it hadn't spread anywhere, so his prognosis is very good. I was on edge all day, wondering how things were going. Luckily, my mom's best friend Pat was able to stay with her the whole time, and is probably still there now. She's a keeper, I tell you. Now I feel like I can leave on my trip & put all this stress behind me. Look out UK, here I come!

This is pretty much my exact reaction to arachnids

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Meh

We're picking up the new car tonight - yay!
Got word today that my job may not be as stable as I thought - not so yay.
No need to start looking for a new job yet, but with the adoption pending, Dad's surgery pending & our UK vacation 3 days away - a little uncertainty is not a good thing. I'm a worrier by nature, and this has got my worrying tendency in overdrive.
Meh. I need a hug.

2 for 1 - not a good deal

5am this morning - wake up to kitteh barfy noises. Not surprised, since Pippin was grazing on a fair bit of grass the evening before. We think she's half kitteh, half cow.
6am this morning - wake up for good this morning, shift foot to the right to stretch & put said foot in cold puddle of kitteh pee. AWESOME! Turned out to be 2 medium sized puddles of kitteh pee. Good thing we changed the sheets 2 days ago. Let me tell you - mattress protector + new mattress = best investment EVER.

Darn cat.

Blog updates

I've added pictures of my kittehs & added a little bit of info to my profile. Enjoy!

Looking forward to the long weekend, plan to spend most of it doing not much or visiting with family. Only 7 days til Dad's surgery.

Hope everyone has a good weekend! See you on the flip side! (Yes, I just said see you on the flip side. Shut up).

The lloyd has landed

The Mazda5 has been purchased & will be picked up next week. We have decided to name it Lloyd, in honour of its benefactor. And there was much rejoicing in the land.
UPDATE: The Lloyd is "stormy blue mica", bringing the total number of blue cars in our family to 2. We were shooting for "copper red mica" but alas, one could not be found for us in the time frame we specified. We're harsh taskmasters like that. It's how we roll. It's a little disappointing, as we were told the red colour with the paint protection "popped" and looked like a jolly rancher candy. Which made me remark to no one, "why are you licking my car", and also, "this car not taste like watermelon". Heh, I gots to be me.

My kittehs

This photo is from the first 5 months we had Willow (the black cat). That's how long Pippin (the grey cat) tolerated her before she (Pippin) decided that the house wasn't big enough for the 2 of them. Pippin believes that Andrew & I are her people, and that's enough for her. She tolerates other people in her presence, but is likely to hiss or swat if they get too close. The cats remain separate at all times, but they spend an equal amount of time with us. It's not the ideal situation, but we are reluctant to find either of them a new home, because we love them both. Sigh, I wish you could reason with cats....

Blargh....

I have a headache that won't quit in the face of Tylenol & an infection on one of my fingers. I will be glad when it's time to go home. In other news, the Mazda5 debate 2009 continues - do we buy a new car now when we have (in all likelihood) at least a year to pay it off before Wren arrives, or do we wait until we need one & risk losing the car allowance? Do we get ourselves into more debt now or later? The car allowance will cover about two thirds of the price of the car & insurance, we just need to make sure the other third fits into our budget. Gah, decisions, decisions!

The Tuesday Heh

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The details of my life are inconsequential, really....

I suppose I ought to fill people in on how Andrew & I arrived at this point in our journey. Here's the condensed version:
1992 - I spent the summer working & sightseeing in the UK, based in London. Andrew & I met through one of my housemates, then a week later he returned to Australia & I returned to Canada.
1993 - Andrew spent the year in Canada. We got engaged at the end of the year.
1994 - I moved to Sydney, Australia in May of 1994, and we were married in October.
1997 or so - We decided to start a family, but we went no-where fast. I'm diagnosed with PCOS. We try Clomid but it doesn't work. We decide not to try anything else at that point. I met my BFF Vicki around this time.
2002 - We moved from Sydney to Toronto, to see if we could make a go of it in Canada, and to be closer to my family. INSIDER'S TIP: If you move to another country with the intent of moving back to Canada (or whatever your country of origin is), try to move back within 7 years. Otherwise your credit history will be wiped & you'll have to start from scratch, which was an ENORMOUS pain in the arse.
2007 - We attended an information session with one of the local international adoption agencies, and decide that that is the way we will start our family. We initially intend to adopt from China, because they had few restrictions at that point. We switch to Ethiopia when China referral waits grow & they impose several restrictions, especially one regarding weight. In case I neglected to mention it before - there's rather a lot of me to love (in case you don't me - if you do know me, you know this already).
March 2008 - We spend the month in Australia, our first trip back since we moved back to Canada. Wowee, do I miss our friends there - they get me.
April 2008 - June 2008 - We completed our homestudy visits with our social worker and our PRIDE training. Then we wait (& wait & wait) for our CAS clearances to arrive.
Late November 2008 - The last of 5 CAS clearances arrives. Our homestudy is complete & submitted to the gov't for approval.
Late February 2009 - We finally receive approval from the gov't to adopt! Best. Day. Ever!
March 3, 2009 - Our dossier arrives in Ethiopia. We are finally waiting for a referral!

And that's where we are - preparing our lives for our daughter, and enjoying the last few months of "freedom". I found the waiting during the homestudy SOOO stressful, because there was always the thought in the back of my mind that we wouldn't be approved (because of my weight). Now that we're waiting for a referral, I feel like I can relax. We'll receive our referral when our daughter is ready to join us.

In honour of the new Star Trek movie

Bits & bites

Mother's day passed peacefully & uneventfully. We visited my folks in (not so) sunny Southwestern Ontario, and while we were there my mom & I visited my aunt, who was babysitting my cousin's 10 week old baby. Wow, was that child crabby. Apparently she doesn't like to be held & will only tolerate her bouncy chair if you bounce it continually. It appeared that she had a fair bit of tummy gas, though, which might explain the crabbiness. At one point I said to her, "you, my little friend, are making me reconsider parenthood". What a contrast to my little niece, Evie. She's pretty good natured, for a 5 week old baby. Maybe she just likes me. Who knows? I do seem to be getting more comfortable with small babies, which is a bonus since will soon (well, relatively soon) have one of my own. Once we get back from our trip to the UK we'll start setting up the nursery. I've got a few ideas of what to do, so I'm pretty anxious to get started. On another note, since Andrew got a car allowance at work we are looking to buy a second car. We're leaning towards the Mazda 5. That's probably going to wait until after our trip too. Thus concludes another rivetting installment of Road to Wren. Tune in sometime in the next few days for pictures? another post? Lolcats? Who knows?

Heh - but a little too wide

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Mother's Day

Hopefully this will be my last Mother's Day as a non-mother - maybe next year we'll at least have a referral. I suppose I am a mommy to my cats, but I don't think that really counts. I don't expect a gift from them, unless it's a hairball or something. Come to think of it, perhaps that was what Pippin was shooting for earlier this week with her 4AM hairball. Too bad it was a few days too early.
We're visiting my parents this weekend, and it will likely be the last time I see my dad before his big kidney surgery on the 21st. Hopefully they'll get the tumour & everything without having to remove the entire kidney. While I'm excited about our trip to the UK (probably our last trip before the baby-retrieving trip to Ethiopia), it's really bad timing. We fly out just 48 hours after Dad's surgery. I know in my heart he'll come through it just fine, but part of me wants to be here just in case. It's been a pretty slow week so far, with the exception of picking up my parents at the airport on Monday. Let's hope the weekend is uneventful too.

2 months!

We've been waiting 2 months for our referral, as you can see from our "countdown banner". We're still pretty chilled out about it, but that's likely because it's going to be several months yet before we're even close to getting a referral. We've finished all our paperwork, finished the first part of the citizenship paperwork. Nothing much to do now but set up Wren's room & wait!

This one goes out to Vicki....

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