You know how when you decide to paint a room, you go out and pick out colors and get supplies, then you realize when you’re finally ready to do the deed, there’s a million nail holes and tons of furniture to be moved? Then taping and scraping and sanding?
You know how when you spend 8 hours at the amusement park, then look back on the day and realize you spent a total of 5 min, 37 sec actually riding coasters, and the rest walking or standing in line?
A lot of us have jobs that resemble painting and amusement parks. You come home thinking you’ve had a productive day but can’t actually explain what you accomplished. Or you plan out a project, code it, test it, and convert data - the whole thing takes months - but then it only takes a matter of hours to actually “go live.”
I mean really, the fun of an amusement park comes just as much from hanging around with friends and/or family as it does allowing a machine to launch you forward at 75 MPH twisting and turning for 60 seconds. When you paint, I’m sure we all look at our walls and remember not just what color they were, but what terrible shape they were in just a few days prior, right? The reward for a job well done at work comes from the camradare and teamwork of the project itself as it does watching an hourglass load up your latest software release and have some semi-interested user finally tell you “yah - looks like it works now.”
You know what I’m talking about? Well the activity in our household around here since October of 2006 can be measured in a similar way. At this point, we are looking back all all of our preparations, background checks, home studies, visit trips, shopping, attachment research, prayer, and meditation. We’re looking back on the support, advice, help on Guatemala night, message boards, bloggers, cleaning help, gifts, and prayers more fondly than you can imagine. Surely, it’s all about CJ, but it’s also in part about the journey. And we’re not anywhere near the end, believe me.
With that in mind, I share with you the goings on of the last week or so. For some moronic reason, I failed to take any photos or before and after shots of the immense and intense cleaning that our home as been through lately (with the help of a few friends I should add). If there weren’t a downturn in the market, I’d probably consider selling it right now - it’s never been cleaner, at least not since we moved in.
It’s taken the better part of a week, but I think I’m getting used to child proof drawers. Our oldest pet - Ellie decided to investigate why a new hole suddenly appeared in the kitchen. Keep in mind - this is the same cat that found herself under the attic floorboards due to her over-zealous curiosity. I’ll share that story sometime.
As soon as I pulled this drawer out, Ellie came running into the kitchen to find this…
Within 20 seconds, the sequence went like this….
Then to this - where she spent the next 5 minutes - until I had to kick her out in order to replace the drawer. [hmm, filezilla is acting goofy, gonna have to link to image shack]
In other fun, we packed CJs suitcase for pickup. As was the case for our visit trip, packing for a child without having the child yet seems a little strange, but such is the world of international adoption. I can’t imagine what this would be like for a longer trip.
Yes - all of this stuff fit into that small-ish suitcase without opening the “expandable” zipper thingy.
I wasn’t real confident at first either, then brainstorm after brainstorm hit me in order to condense all the stuff. Of course, after thinking of the following trick, the red-head said, “yah, that’s what I was thinking.” Note that I didn’t think of it until the end, and she’s so gracious that she didn’t want to intrude on my packing scheme, just in case my ideas were better. This from the same woman who blew on spoonful of cereal yesterday. This from the same man who poured soda into a bowl of cheez-its.
That’s all for now folks. I’ve got a few half finished posts that might show up tonight as I clean up this site in prep for the trip. I’ve got 2 adoption themed movies half reviewed. One I like, one I hated.
I expect some blogging to happen while in Guatemala - we’ve got a week to get to know Carmen again before the big trip home. We’ve got people watching the dog, checking on the house, and taking us to and from the airport. We’ve got all kinds of people still praying for us, so we feel like we’ve got it made!!!
In less than 2 days - we’re on our way…
Posted on March 10th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: Fun, Thoughts
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