Bloggy Beach Break

Jeff and I are thinking about our baby girl...

At the beach!! I'll blog later...for now I'm gonna go kick my feet in the sand. Ta ta!

The Flat Iron Incident

No...it's not a movie. It's something that happened when I tried to beautify myself yesterday morning. Instead of grabbing a section of hair to de-frizz with my flat iron, I grabbed my earlobe. Can you say ouchy?? Here I am point to my ear...you can't see the boo-boo too well. Maybe you can see it better here....

Notice my Vanna-like way of pointing at my ear. Do you feel bad for me? I feel bad for myself...that's gonna leave a scar. ;)

I'm a domestic goddess

Hi. My name is Nicole. Welcome to my lair of domesticity.

I have had no school for 2 whole days now and I have been feeling extremely home-ly (in all senses of the word). I have managed to make these:

Buckeyes (just like my GG used to make)

And bunches and bunches of these:

Green Christmas Tree Cookies (made with my grandmother's recipe book and her cookie press)


From these:

Big bucks worth of baking paraphernalia



AND I made these:

4 super sized bags of leaves

And this:

A clearing in my yard (notice my chunky shadow)


From this:

A slew of leaves in my side yard

I also managed to clean out the refrigerator, organize my "school stuff" bookshelf, clean the living room, kitchen and bathrooms and DVR Judge Judy for Jeff (he loves that chick). Just call me Stewart...Martha Stewart. :)

Clunk clunk clunk

Is the noise my car makes when it is approaching a stop. That and creak creak creak. Jeepers people, it was just in the shop like a week ago and had some pretty expensive repairs that we had to pay out of pocket (that I still think were cause by the latest fender bender). Anyway...I am at the car place in their computer room right now. If you have to be at a car repair shop, it's nice to be at one that has the internet, right? I just hope that this most recent "clunk creak" is one that won't cost big bucks.

29 Months

It's been 29 months since our paperwork arrived in China. Happy 29th Month-A-Versary!!

Time to try to work again...maybe

I am at ANOTHER crossroads...to work or not to work?!? Nursing school has been overwhelming for the last almost year and it led me to this point where I am not working. You know what that means...no income. I have been so fortunate to be able to focus on school for these past months and not have to worry about juggling school, clinicals, work, etc. but I think now it's time to take another look at the situation.

Jeff has worked very hard to make it possible for me to not work. He has worked mostly 12+ hour days, 5 days a week plus call whenever he can get it. I do appreciate that so much. I try to tell him that but I don't think I really can put it into words.

Anyway...I am looking at a little lighter load coming up (fingers crossed) and have put applications out there at a few hospitals. Honestly, I don't WANT to work right now but I AM 32 years old...I don't have the excuse that I am young and in college. Plus this is the first time since I was 17 that I haven't had a job...and I feel pretty useless. So I guess I will see what happens. If it's meant to be then I will get a job that will work with my school schedule and give me enough flexibility to still be successful. My last stint with the work and school combo was a flop so I have a pretty good idea of what I need this time around to make it do-able.

Although I am flippant with this post, I have thought long and hard about this and really need some positive vibes this way just for things to work out as they are supposed to. If I am supposed to work, bring on the job. If not, give me some peace with the useless-ness feeling, why dontcha? Either way something's gonna give, right?

Adoption Forecast - November

This was a pitifully small month of referrals in China Adoption World...only 2 days of LIDs were referred children this month. Sooo...what does this mean for us?

• According to China Adoption Forecast, our new estimated date of referral is July 18, 2010. So this means we lost about 3 weeks this month. See last month's post here -- > http://nicolesdoodlings.blogspot.com/2008/10/adoption-forecast-october.html.
• The CCAA is now averaging 5.9 LID days per month of referrals.
• This month's referrals covered February 16 & 17, 2006. See the two little marbles that I removed from our "waiting" collection below? One is for each of those days, never to return to the batch.
• There are still 117 days of LIDs to be referred before China gets to us. 117 LID days/average of 5.9 days per month = 19.8 more months of waiting for us (note that last month's stats said 19.5 more months of waiting so we are actually going backwards AGAIN).

Evil Car People

Some guy hit me while I was stopped at a red light last week. He was probably going 30-35 mph and just didn't stop like the rest of the cars did. It was minor cosmetic damage but my car started making this horrible grinding, whining noise when I was backing up and, well, when the car was moving at all. So I took it in to the shop and they have determined that it needs new brakes - front and rear, a new tire and that some rear bar thing is messed up...we are talking well over $1000 in repairs that they are saying don't have anything to do with the accident.

Let me say this...my car is a Honda...it is 2 years old...it has 55,000 miles on it. Why in the world should a car with these stats need such extensive, costly repairs?? And why would there be absolutely no grinding sound, man hits me go boom and - voila - grinding noise but it is not at all related to the aforementioned boom?!? I am currently livid. peeved. p.o.'ed. angry. fired up. outraged. and mostly...broke.

To top off the wonderful news that I got when I called the car place, the woman had the GALL to say, "I'll have the service rep call your husband." ARRRGGHHHH. I'm gonna go punch a hole in the wall now.

My November 4th

Jeff woke me up at 5:00am and said, "I think someone just sent you a text." I went down and got my phone and it was my sweet Mom texting Happy Anniversary to us. Of course it was my parents' anniversary today too so while Jeff and I celebrated 7 years today, they celebrated 35 - what a feat! I am pretty sure all 4 of us are celebrating this special day with microwaved food and election updates. No comparison to last year's trip to the beach for our big day --> http://nicolesdoodlings.blogspot.com/2007/11/at-beach.html . There's always next year for us to celebrate together again, right?
So shortly after waking up at 5, I threw my sweats on and Jeff and I happily went to stand in line to vote. We were at the polling site at 5:30am and there were about 30 people ahead of us. We stood around, chatting with each other and the folks around us until the doors opened at 7am. We were in, had our circles bubbled and were on our way by 7:10.

I'm glad we voted...and glad we did our part together on our anniversary. It was fun. And tonight we will continue to be consumed by the election as I watch my boyfriend, George Stephanopoulos, keep us updated on the future of our country. No matter the outcome, at least we've done our part. I'm satisfied with that.

I Volunteer

I am sitting here watching this show ----------->

and trying not to concurrently bawl my eyes out and gag with a fork. I understand addiction. I have a big one myself...it just so happens that mine involves chocolate, ice cream and tootsie rolls. If any of my lovely friends or family members would like to organize an "intervention" and tell me that my time for twinkies and ho-ho's is up and I need to go on an all expense paid trip to some tropical island to detox, now would be a great time.