Late night musings

I apologize profusely for the long absence. We are well, healthy, and doing fine, just a wee bit busy. ;) I'll share some pics--hopefully that will make up for the long lack of posts. I've been in training for work all week and Mark has been jumping between work and the house. In the evenings we've been working on the house, or we were until I developed tendonitis and needed to rest my wrist for a couple of days. So last night we ran some necessary errands and tonight we did some reorganization at the house we currently live in. And Julie, no. Pigs will fly and certain warm areas will freeze over before we would be able to manage finishing the house before going to Ukraine. You might understand better when you see the next pics, or when I tell you that the most recent person who came to see the house said,"Oh...I know you guys said it needed some work, but wow." Of course, he saw it in this condition:


Those are the front two bedrooms upstairs, and since those pictures were taken we (ahem, Mark) have removed the rest of the plaster off of the walls in there, so both of those rooms are completely stripped down to the studs and joists. The third picture is to show the multiple feet of plaster that are currently on the floors upstairs. We're planning on finishing the 3rd upstairs room tomorrow. We had hoped to have a dumpster the week after next, but it's going to be pushing it to get all of that plaster down in that amount of time. We did figure out a faster way to take down the ceilings, so that helps.

In adoption news, we have purchased an adapter/converter. We could have borrowed one, but we travel quite a bit internationally so we thought it wouldn't hurt just to go ahead and get one. We're also in the process of consolidating various packing lists into one. We tend to travel quite a bit lighter than most people so we are able to cross a lot of things off.

In other adoption news, I was the recipient of a rude comment. In training this week, two people were discussing the first time their children said "mama" or "dada". The woman asked if I had any kids, to which I answered no. Her reply: "Oh, you really can't understand how precious it is to hear that unless you've experienced it."

Let me tell you something: It's a lot more precious when you've been waiting for many many years and are still waiting to hear it.

I was good; I kept my mouth shut. I know she didn't mean it to be rude, but it really did hurt a lot. I've seen countless children speak their first few words. I've seen the joy on their parents' faces when they say mama and dada. And I've experienced the pain of knowing I might never hear those words for us. I am hopeful that that time will soon be coming to an end. 45 days until our appointment. I'm excited and nervous and scared all rolled into one, and a little sad too. I know it will get here and be over before we know it, and part of me really wants to cherish the last few weeks of our journey. To ponder what it will mean to be parents, and to pray ever more earnestly that we will be the kind of parents God desires.

Well, if I'm going to be able to hold a hammer tomorrow I've got to head to bed. Good night, all! Have a wonderful weekend if I don't manage to post again in the next couple of days! ;) :)