Happy 4th!

Wanted to wish you a happy 4th of July. I hope to finish up (late) the challenge this weekend. Then have another challenge to post by Tuesday.

challenge day 3

Tell us about your social media! Where can we find you? Link to your twitter, pinterest, Facebook, instagram, or google +. If you don't use those sites, then tell us why not!

this will be short. due to wanting to remain somewhat anonymous (aside from those who already know me or those i get to know well first), my facebook account is somewhat private and i'm not sharing it at this time.  i won't mind sharing my pinterest page with you, once i can figure out how to "disconnect" facebook from it.  though i'm not nearly as pinterest happy as other people.  i don't pin a whole lot and i only go check out other people's pins every 2-3 weeks when i think about it. i also don't tweet very much, but follow quite a few people. i have instagram, but i forget about it all the time. and lastly i signed up for google+, but i never use it.

wow, all that makes me sound really lame.  i am on the computer all. the. time. , mostly for work though. like i said, when i can get some privacy things figured out, i'll be happy to share pinterest with you and maybe i can start making better use of instagram and share that with you too.

anyway, busy day, maybe tomorrow's topic will be something i can better talk about!

challenge day 2

Tell us about your blog. What do you blog about? Why do you blog? How did you start blogging? What kinds of things do you/are you willing to share with the world? Where do you find your topic inspiration?

my blog is a bit of a hodge podge of things.  mostly it is just about my life.  when i started it was parts venting and parts sharing.  when we got pregnant it was going to be a great place to write about that and to record the beginning of our family.  then we lost our baby, and it became a place to share that story.  now i'm sharing our adventure as we wait to adopt and other things going on in our busy lives.  my husband has suggested at times that i should do some product reviews, when i couldn't think of things to write about.  i haven't done that yet, but i've done some minimalist movie/tv show reviews since i'm basically addicted to netflix.  (after this challenge i'll have to catch up on what i've been watching since my last movie marathon).  i hope to share some recipes and craft ideas in the future and some of the projects we've been doing around the house.

i'm not entirely sure why i blog, there are certainly better bloggers than me out there (both in content and the ability to keep up with blogging), but i figure it is a good way for out of town friends and family to keep up (especially when we get our kiddo).  and much like the blogs i follow, maybe someone will get something out of something i write.

other than the long post about our pregnancy and loss, i don't guess i've gotten too deep/personal with any of my topics.  particularly if there were questions to answer i don't have a problem being somewhat open, at least to the point of sharing what i would share with someone face-to-face.  but on the other hand, this is the internet and i will protect as much as i can by not giving away information that is too identifying.

i guess my inspiration just comes from what is going on around me and in my life.  i just jotted down a list of topics for upcoming posts, so you can look forward to: netflix i've been watching recently, house projects we've had going on, a new game i'm pretty addicted to, some youtube channels you might be interested in subscribing to, and some great blogs to follow!

challenge: accepted

Jenna's Journey

found this on a blog i follow and thought that i'd give it a go.

my name is amy.  i have a wonderful husband, travis, and two (usually) great dogs.  a yellow lab named evey and a golden retriever named harper (both girls).  we live on the gulf coast and i work as an accountant.  we don't have any kids yet, but read some archives and you can find out more about our plan to adopt.

i haven't really done my commenting yet, but i'll work on it.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday ...er... thursday

bnl

my husband surprised me friday night

(i'll have to put the videos on youtube and link them later, i have a couple of more)

marching on

i know i haven't really updated recently, but there hasn't been a lot to say.  time and life keep marching on.  we've been fairly busy with different family events and some small projects around the house. as far as adoption, we're just waiting.  you'll definitely hear (and see) when something happens. we do know that a potential birth mom looked at our profile a couple of weeks ago, but we don't know anything specific about the situation like how far along she was, whether she chose us, or whether it was a boy or girl.  travis and my dad are planning to build our crib, so travis and i finally sat down to see what we could find in the way of plans last night.  we found several options, so hopefully they can get started on that soon.

we also celebrated my dad's 60th birthday with a couple of dinners out.  my brother and sister-in-law were in town also.  that same weekend travis had an "old fashioned" LAN party for the release of diablo III (video game) so we had a couple of friends staying at the house.  it was a busy, but fun weekend.


a month or so ago i had bought some new outdoor lighting for our house and we finally got it all installed this past weekend. we didn't do much to celebrate memorial day, mostly stayed in from the heat.  i went with my mom to visit my grandmother on saturday and did a little shopping with my mom on sunday.  other than church and moving the sprinkler around the lawn, because we are in such dire need of some rain, the weekend was spent relaxing.  i hit up several movies that are being removed from streaming on netflix this friday. "private" (was so awful i didn't get more than 30 minutes in before i turned it off) "art of war" (wesley snipes action film that was fairly good) "baby boom" (diane keaton plays a career driven woman in the 80's who's life takes a big turn when she receives an inheritance from a distant cousin, cute movie) "molly" (elizabeth shue plays a mentally retarded woman, slightly strange movie, but ok) "backdraft" (kurt russell, billy baldwin play firemen; action, suspense, and some family drama; pretty good) "lorenzo's oil" (susan sarandon and nick nolte play parents of a boy who develops ALD, a horrible and quickly crippling disease that leads to death.  their refusal to settle for current treatments and to wait out medical studies eventually leads a treatment. not my normal type of movie, but it was good) "a life less ordinary" (ewan mcgregor and cameron diaz - kinda weird, but not bad).  i've also been rewatching the first season of heroes so that i can watch the rest of the series.


travis had a special/secret event planned for me this weekend, been in the works for a few months.  i just found out that we are going to see the barenaked ladies at hard rock! i'm pretty excited.  i was really into them in college, and still enjoy their music.  when i got in my car after work there was a barenaked ladies cd playing, there wasn't even a barenaked ladies cd in my car this morning. isn't he sweet? =)  i finally popped it out to find it wasn't one of my cds, but a burned cd that he had written a note on and tickets on the bed when i got home!!


i've been back at running, though progress seems to be really slow.  the past month or so i've only been running two days a week and going to either body sculpt or yoga another day (for a total of 3 days working out).  i'll just keep plugging along and hope to make some progress with my running soon.


hope you enjoyed the update, maybe i can get some product reviews, more movie reviews, or some craft projects up soon.

one step closer

the other day we (finally) ordered our adoption profile books. we got our social worker to look at it first, and she gave it a thumbs up! the website said they would be here by apr 27, so i figured i would take them to martha (our social worker) the following monday, apr 30. BUT i just got the ship notification and they will be here tomorrow!! so hopefully martha will be able to send them to her sister agencies next week after i deliver them monday.  we got a copy for ourselves too. 


the little things get me so excited that this is really going to happen. of course at those times i don't think i'll be able to stand the wait. but God has a perfect plan, and even though it isn't always easy, i know that when the time is right God will give us the child he has picked out for us.


you should see a slideshow of the book below.

| Learn About Mixbook Photo Books | Create your own Photo Book

updates galore

adoption: i know i said i would keep you informed of what was going on, but it turned out there wasn't much to say. it took about 3 weeks for the social worker (martha) to call and get my individual interview scheduled. it was long, but went well. there wasn't anything to hide, but after all the information we had to provide in our application i couldn't imagine what else she could want to know. turns out, not a lot, apparently i had done a good job with my personal profile and had answered most of her questions. that was in late february. travis had his individual interview on march 7th. it went well too.

the monday after travis' interview i got a call from martha to set up the home visit. we scheduled for the following tuesday (march 20th). it was perfect timing. just enough time to get some cleaning done that hadn't been done because of a family emergency (i'll get to that), but not enough time to flip out and try and clean the house from top to bottom. which probably would have resulted in a larger mess. we had some putting away to do in our bedroom, but the guest room (future nursery) was the room that needed the most attention. and yes, i'm ashamed to admit it, some things kind of got squeezed into closets. (we{i} have a good bit of stuff to sort throw and donate/throw out) oh, my parents dropped by the night before to bring some flowers for the table and my dad very sweetly cleaned the dog slobber off our backdoor window =)

martha didn't bring her white gloves to the visit to check for dust, she just needed to know that our house was decently clean (not unhealthy), that it is safe, and that we have room for a baby. she had to meet our dogs (even though she is afraid of dogs) and ask us even MORE questions. it went well too.

since then she has been working on getting out home study document written (takes 2-3 weeks) and we are working on getting our adoption profile book done. this is a book full of pictures and information about us for women to look at when picking an adoptive family for their baby. we have been slow about starting on it, but should be able to order our books this weekend.

other things: march was a crazy month, i'm glad we have moved into april and that things are slowly (but surely) getting better and back to normal. the beginning of march my "baby" brother and his wife were involved in an incident that left them quite shaken and with some pretty bad injuries that required surgery. the important thing is that they are alive and that God was protecting them. they are both working towards recovery, but still have a lot of physical therapy ahead. they are looking forward to an upcoming vacation they already had planned. i'm sure it will be great!

so basically we are trying to finish up our profile book and ever so gradually work towards getting the guest room more ready to house a baby, and just praying for some peace while we wait for martha to call and tell us we are going to be parents. i say we are praying for peace because some friends of ours who adopted through the same place waited a year on their son. it will be worth it in the end, but some days it feels like we've been waiting forever since we started trying to build our family.

grrr

what the heck blogger?!? why can't i change the font color on my previous post??

It's official

We have turned in our adoption application. That means that we will start the home study process, beginning with individual interviews and then a joint interview at our house. Which means I have some cleaning, and cleaning out, to do! We are really exciting about this bringing us one step closer to being parents and can't wait to get started with the interviews. So, the fingerprint post a bit back was regarding the FBI and ABI background check we had to undergo. We passed, by the way. So, any prayers you could send our way will be appreciated and I'll keep you informed.

Geo-caching

yesterday travis and i went geo-caching. if you don't know what that is, it is kind of like treasure hunting, with a gps device. i use this website and their app on my iphone. i was hoping to do this series of 8 caches that are located at the univ of south AL, but upon further investigation we hadn't allowed enough time to do them all. they are located in and around a extensive series of mountain bike trails on campus. we opted to leave the bikes at home (the tires need air again) and decided to walk it. we got to the location where the first one should be, but couldn't find it. we started hiking the first trail and realized it wasn't going to get us where we needed to go, so we back tracked to find another cache that was close by. it ended up being the last 7th cache that we found second. it was getting dark by then so we headed out of the woods and found a couple of more located on/near campus by car. we had a really great time and got a bit of excercise.

after that we went to zorba's and had some great greek food. ran by lowe's to grab something we needed and then went home and finally finished packing away the Christmas tree. slightly ashamed to admit that i still have to finish cleaning up the rest of the decorations, which will have to get done by thursday, since i have bible study at my house then.

i promise there is still an announcement coming, i haven't forgotten, just not quite yet.