Hi,
Mark it down, June 23rd, 2005 ... My official approval date. I had my last home study at 7:00 this morning. My home study was approved. My social workers best guess is that I will receive a referral in the next 2 months. HOLY COW! Thank you to my mom, dad, Jen and auntie Deb for helping prepare (by cleaning etc.) for the home study. It's over ... Now I have to start collecting official documents for Ethiopia.
breathe Stacy, breathe ...
Hi all,
I just finished the first part of my two part home study. I met with my social worker this morning at 7:00. It was a good meeting, basically going over the stuff I had written in my self-study. Next Thursday she comes to my house for the second part. I am feeling a bit overwhelmed with all there is to do before next Thursday. Not that the house has to be perfect, but I want it to partially represent what it will be like after the baby comes. I spent 3 hours downstairs today rearranging and cleaning and that was just the main room. Next is the storage areas and the bathroom. This week and weekend are filled to the brim. Starting tomorrow night I begin to have overnight guests that are coming to town for Sara's wedding. I am actually very excited to be hosting ... I love hosting ... Next week, starting Monday is the serious "social worker is coming" crack down.
Friday morning we go to the immigration office to get fingerprinted.
life is exciting, Stacy
This morning I got a phone call from the INS ... I was thinking, wow there are real live people working there??? On Monday I sent the application for the advance petition to adopt an orphan from abroad. Here it is Wednesday and they are already calling me. They had a question. I guess I assumed that the INS was super bureaucratic and would take forever but nope ... at least they opened the envelope fairly quickly. Their job at this point is to give me and Jen a date to get our FBI fingerprinting done ...
Stacy
Hey ... I am finally finding interesting (readable) books with an Ethiopian (or at least African) subject. One book was fiction, set in some other country in Africa called "The Number One Ladies Detective Agency", it was an easy read and I want to believe it gave me some insight into the culture. Another book, that I am currently reading is called ???? (something like Journey into the dark star land ...) anyways, it's a travel narrative about very recent travels that one man made through Africa ... part of which is spent in Ethiopia. I am definately learnign something about the culture, history and politics through reading that book. Specifically it seems that each country, region etc has a specific history and culture but that there is a flow throughout the continent, the borders are fluid (culturally speaking). Reading the book(s) is making me very excited about my upcoming travels. The travel book is a little addictive, I am finding myself staying up late late at night reading it. It isn't necessarily an easy read as I am unfamiliar with the names, history, politics etc so skimming over parts is definately not an option. Once I finish this book, I believe that my brain will be ready for the Ethiopian history book that I bought months ago and tried to read but really couldn't get past the introduction because it was all so foreign and I couldn't place any of the events into my head in order to connect them with other world events ... it's complicated to explain, but the best I can do is say ... it was like I was reading a foreign language (although it was English)....
This morning I went to the goverment center very very early ... had the joy of experiencing their first day with the new security system ... (it seemed like their first day anyways) ... and I obtained three certified copies of my birth certificate ... I only know I need one but I figured, the way this process is going it cant hurt to grab extras while I am there.
rolling right along
stacy
