On the Home Front

Well, gotcha day went off without a hitch. The boys didn't really understand what it was, this one being the first and all. As time goes on and they begin to understand the difference in their parental story versus everyone else's story, I think it will begin to sink in. But as of right now, I am having trouble convincing GQ that not everyone has started out living in a "groupa" (orphanage) like he and Blue Eyes did. And as for Blue Eyes, he hasn't the slightest clue about what being adopted means....nor does he care to know.

On a side note: I need to put a shout out here to our friend Amy that makes our cakes. She is the BEST cake lady that I know! Not only do her cakes look absolutely darling and perfect....but they are so yummy! The best cake I have ever eaten! So moist and fluffy.....I could go on for days! THANK YOU AMY!!!

Left Brain and I are having a mini dilemma. Since we have known one another, and especially since we've been engaged, our lives have been non stop! It's been one thing after another, and multiple things at one time.

For instance......We got engaged in December of 04. We had a long quiet engagement, other than building a house. We decided in January of 06 to get married on the beach in Florida. We had to rush and get that planned by June of 06, when we were married.

Left Brain had just graduated college in May (actually he still lacked one class, so he didn't technically graduate until the following December). But he had landed a job with a hydrostatic lawn mower company in a nearby area. HE HATED THAT PLACE! So, two weeks before our wedding he quit his job without having another one lined up. For those of you who know my husband, you know how uncharacteristic this is. He got a new job fairly fast, and started it with an engineering firm when we returned from our honeymoon.

We had to live with my in-laws for the first 9 months of our marriage because our house wasn't finished on time. Then as soon as we moved into our house LB started having colossal headaches and was told by our local neurologist that he had a brain aneurysm. YIKES!

During that same year I had two miscarriages! DOUBLE YIKES!

He finally figured out that the headaches were a nerve problem, and got them stopped. What a relief, it saved us multiple trips to the ER!

LB switched jobs 2 more times, and on the 3rd switch he left a SUPER stable job with TVA and landed back with the same Engineering firm from before.

During the first job switch, we started the process to adopt our two little boys....that was two years in the making. A busy, up and down, two years. We spent 5 weeks in Ukraine with two boys that didn't speak English and brought them back to America with us. YIKES! We made it just fine, and every got adjusted.

That all ended about 6 months ago. So do you see what I mean when I say we "Figuratively" didn't have time to sit down or breathe? It was non-stop around here. For about 4 years! And for the past 6 months we haven't done ANYTHING!

I know it sounds weird, but we are getting a bit bored. You would think we could relax a bit. Apparently 6 months is about all of the relaxing we can do without getting ancy.

I said all of that to say this....

On Saturday afternoon, while the boys were napping, LB and I started working on plans to add on to our house. We sat at the computer for several hours and hashed out every way we could think of....finally deciding on the one that worked the best for our needs.

Since we don't really know what our needs are at the moment, this was more difficult than one might think.

We've decided to adopt again, from Ukraine. But we aren't exactly sure when we can do this. It comes with added expense this time. You see, we are out of room in this little "cracker box" house. We can't fit one more living thing in here. And I am pretty sure that a social worker wouldn't approve us to add two more children into this space. Here in lies the rub.

We can't adopt until we add on. But, we can't add on until we know how many we are adopting, or that we are for sure adopting again. What a dilemma!

We've decided to start them both at the same time, thus the added expense. And what a headache! Why must we always do things the hard way?!?!

Oh well. So, we are now in the "pinching pennies" mode to save up to pay for the adoption, so that we can afford to have a higher mortgage that comes with doubling the size of our house.

YUCK! I hate "pinching pennies" mode. Curses to the "pinching pennies" mode.