Heh - this looks familiar

Willow did this to me, out of the blue, night. She was all like, look at me, I am the Hallowe'en kitteh! But it's much cuter in sterio.


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Yesterday

It seemed to go really well - as well as it could have gone with 180+ families in one room all wanting answers. The good news - the bankruptcy trustee is thrilled that we want to go ahead & restructure the agency to bring it out of bankruptcy, and there are apparently a group of qualifies people who have stepped forward to do it. The restructuring proposal still has to get through court, though. Fingers crossed. The proposal will be worked on in the next 2-4 weeks, but I'm not sure when it will go before the court. The head chair of the meeting, who is from the government department that oversees bankruptcies, said he was very impressed with the enthusiasm we have, and all the work we have done. He's never experience such optimism in all his years working with that department. The head of the BDO team said the same thing, and she's very optimistic that we can make this work. In the meantime we can apply to BDO to find out where our file is on the list of files in Ethiopia. That will determine whether we sign up with CAS or not. I'm glad to be starting the long weekend with good news, instead of more uncertainty - we're headed in the right direction!

Tomorrow

I'm pretty nervous about the creditor's meeting tomorrow, so much is riding on it. Our future, the futures of the other families involved in this mess. Whatever happens at this meeting will affect how the Ontario government decides to help us. I'm so hoping this is a positive meeting with all the right answers but I'm trying not to get my hopes up. Not sure if the nasty blonde horse-buying lady will be there - in a way, I hope so, in a way I hope not. I just hope she has to reap what she has sown. Sigh.

Mystery solved?

The That Damned Rabbit saga continues.....
Turns out the decimation of our garden may not be the fault of one rabbit. Turns out that there is also a mousie at work! We've dubbed him Basil, as scurrying under the basil plants is his preferred method of escape. As I looked out at the garden over the weekend I saw a small brown shape tugging at one of the leaves of the broccoli plant. It was Basil - he gnaws on the leaf stem a little, then pulls the leaf of & scurries back to his burrow, which we believe is under our garden, or in the neighbour's shed. Over the winter we'd often see him under the bird feeder, eating the discarded seeds. He had 2 little tunnels in the snow - one that led to the other side of the yard, and one that lead to underneath our garden. We discovered them once the snow started to melt. Clever little guy. And since it appears to be one little guy - we'll let him be. We didn't want those stinky broccoli, cauliflower & brussels sprouts anyway.

R.I.P. Oliver 2004-2009

In the latest in a series of bad things happening this year, my brother's cat has passed away. He was a very sweet, good natured cat, a tall & lanky brown tabby, with the highest pitched mew you ever heard. He had some seizures a few weeks ago but he seemed to be doing okay. Then on Saturday he had a major seizure & never came out of it. He will be missed.

Not much of an update

We're looking into putting our name into the CAS, perhaps we can adopt a baby locally. Hey, it worked for our friends from our PRIDE group, maybe it can work for us. That doesn't mean that we won't proceed with our Ethiopian adoption, if that turns out to be possible. Man, I wish I was psychic or had a crystal ball or something. Patience may be a virtue, but it's not my best trait. I just wish I could know that this all turns out okay, and that we'll finally be a family of 3 (or 4).

Because I can't be asked to post anything else right now, and because I totally agree

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Heh - buns

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We're famous!

We attended a meeting of a lot of families affected by the Imagine Adoption bankruptcy today. There were several members of the media there, and lo & behold, Andrew & I are featured in a picture on the ctv.ca website. We didn't speak with them (we did speak with CBC national news) so we're not mentioned in the article, but hey - this is my 15 minutes. I might as well use it for good instead of evil.

http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20090719/bankrupt_agency_090719/20090719/?hub=TorontoNewHome

ETA: We were indeed featured on the CBC national news last night - there was much hilarity in our house when we saw it. We were the third story of the night. Yes, we will accept requests for autographs.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2009/07/19/ethiopia-adoptions.html

No more news yet

There really isn't much more to say. This is not something that will be fixed tomorrow, or the next day, or probably even in a month. This is something that will take an awfully long time to fix, on a literal, monetary front. On an emotional front, it may never be completely fixed. On a trust front, again, perhaps we'll never be able to truly trust a process like this again. The last couple of years have been difficult, to say the least, what with the cars being stolen, dad's illness, the possibility of losing my job. At least we've got each other, and my family, even if it hurts to see my brother & SIL and my parents with my niece, knowing that might never be me (being a parent, that is - I'm not banned from seeing my niece or anything). Sigh....

Cast away

Where do we go from here? I guess that depends on where here is. Best case scenario – all the dossiers currently in Ethiopia are referred children & we can all complete our adoptions. Worst case scenario – our money is gone forever. Slightly better case scenario – we don’t get a referral but we do get at least some of our money back. Without getting at least some of our money back, I don’t know if we can move forward with another adoption. It’s a good thing we didn’t go into debt for this adoption – oh wait, we did. What happens to the paperwork that’s with the Ethiopian side of things? Do we get that back? If not, we’re going to have to pay to get all the paperwork again. What happens to our homestudy – do we need to get approved again if we change to a different agency/ country? I feel like we just squeaked by with approval last time, what with my weight & all. The government even requested a weight loss plan from me, for the next 18 months. Have I lost a single pound since I submitted that plan – no, no I have not. That’s another issue I’ve discussed briefly before, I won’t revisit it here. Honestly, I’m at a loss. I’m numb, I’m devastated, I’m angry. Good thing we didn’t buy a stroller. Oh wait, we did. And some clothes, and a baby gate. We got a crib & playpen from friends of ours. I’m not giving up entirely on having a child, but this certainly throws a spanner into the works. It was just starting to feel real, and being part of the Ethiopian adoptive community was just awesome, I finally felt a sense of belonging. Now I feel adrift again.

Really bad news

The agency has declared bankruptcy. I am numb.

I imagine this is what my place will look like, eventually

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Weekend

It was boring - that is all. I finished the Twilight series, though, and I know find myself all bummed out. I really immersed myself in that "world" for a whole week and now I'm at a loss. Sigh.....

I vote exorcist

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Sigh.....

Well, I guess it's official - no homegrown broccoli, cauliflower or brussells sprouts for us this year. There's only 1 plant left of each, thanks to that damned rabbit (tm). Funnily enough, he hasn't touched the carrots. Who know rabbits didn't like carrots? Or maybe they're just too much work to dig up. What a lazy rabbit!

Last night we had dinner with my brother & his wife & their daughter Evie, and my cousin, his wife & their son Leen. It was a lot of fun - we haven't seen my cousin & his family for over a year, almost 2 years. They're considering moving out west to be closer to her family, so I suspect we'll be seeing even less of them. It was a really good night, we all get along so well.

This weekend Andrew's doing his fun run, but after that we are footloose & fancy free. Which probably means we won't be doing much of anything, at least not until I finish the last book of the Twilight series. Then next Thursday we're going to the Just For Laughs gala, which should be heaps of fun. Then Andrew will be fly-fishing in New Brunswick for the rest of the weekend. Lucky dog!

Man down

Well, actually "plants down". Yes, that damned rabbit (tm) has been at it again. We lost 3 brussells sprouts plants (no big loss to me), 2 cauliflower plants & 1 broccoli plant. Now is the time for action! Now, if I could just figure out what to do.... Perhaps we'll start dusting with black pepper every evening, but that doesn't work when it rains. Oh well, I'll think of something.

I have a sneaking suspicion "that damned rabbit" is doing the same thing to us (see prev. post)

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Seinfeld-ian

Really, I should have called this blog "Seinfeld", because it's a blog about nothing. Well, it is at the moment anyway. As soon as we get our referral I'm sure the excitement factor with ratchet up big-time. Anyhoo, it was a good but quiet weekend. Friday I left work a little earlier than usual & stopped at the grocery store on the way home to pick something up for dinner. I was originally thinking roast chicken, but then I remembered it was our 4 month anniversary of our file arriving in Ethiopia, which I usually celebrate with little cheesecakes or pastries or something. So I picked up a (bargain) lobster for Andrew & a filet steak for me, and we had that with salad. And of course, the little cheesecakes from the bakery (sooooo delicious). Saturday we went to Cora's for brunch, then to a local farm for strawberries, and to the Superstore for a flank steak for fajitas for dinner. While we were there I picked up some cute clothes for Wren (on sale of course, all in size 12-18 months). I got a sweet pair of jeans with rainbows on the pockets, 2 onesies with birds on them, an adorable soft pink cardigan & an orange t-shirt with a japanese scene embroidered on it (sounds weird, is actually really cute). I picked up a shirt for Andrew too. We also got replacement broccoli (& cauliflower & brussell sprouts) plants to replace the ones that bastard rabbit ate. When we got home one of the other Team Alpha Super Awesome Cool Dynamite Wolf Squadron couples invited us over for drinks. Other than the fact that I should have worn a sweater, we had a lot of fun. Sunday was a "re-arrange the house" day. We've been going through our clothes lately, to thin the herd, as it were, and were sitting in the spare room. I thought to myself - I'll bet the linen wardrobe would fit in here (backstory - our house doesn't have a built-in linen cupboard for reasons known only to the previous owner, so we have a shelving unit with doors from Ikea) and I got Andrew to measure it. Sure enough, with a little elbow grease we had the wardrobe in there about an hour later. It went very smoothly, actually, considering the wardrobe is about half a foot higher than our doorways. We also changed out the bedside table & lamp for smaller ones that match the décor & hung a picture. It really pulled the room together, and gave a heaps more room in our bedroom, enough to put Wren's crib in there if we need to. Of course, we stirred up so much dust my allergy system went into overdrive, so I got minimal sleep last night. Gah. Every rose has it's thorn, I guess. Other future projects will include painting the spare bathroom, setting up the nursery & moving the towel tower into our bedroom, so we can easily access clean towels (now that the linen wardrobe is in the spare bedroom). The spare bathroom is currently rocking a rubber ducky theme, so I'm not sure what colour to paint it. I'm always drawn to green, but Wren's room is going to be green & blue, so I think that'll be too much green. Perhaps a nice beige, or even a terracotta.

Well, that is all for now. Stay tuned for the next installment of nothing.

ETA: I can't believe I forgot to say that I read Twilight & half of New Moon this weekend (starting Saturday afternoon) along with all the other things we did. I got sick of being the last person in the Western world who hadn't read that series. I must say that I am quite enjoying the books, and am making Andrew take me to W@lmart to buy the last 2 books in the series. Huzzah!

I want my baby back baby back baby back ribs

Actually, I don't, but we're going to check out the new Chili's near my work so I thought that was appropriate.

That is all.

ETA: Andrew had the baby back, baby back, baby back ribs, and declared them delish. I had the monterey chicken (?) fajitas, they were also delicious, and I had plenty for leftovers. Good times.

Ain't that the truth