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my blog, that is. The new address is http://zenmama.wordpress.com. Click here to access it.

Please update your links (and note that the new address has one "zen"--not two.

See you over there!

Zgirl

Adoption Talk at The Melting Pot

Last night, ZGuy and I went to celebrate our DTC status by pigging out at The Melting Pot. We had a wonderful four course meal that left us stuffed well into this morning.

While eating, both our server and the restuarant manager asked us if we were there to celebrate anything (I get the impression that lots of people go to The Melting Pot for special occasions, probably because it so darn expensive), and we told them about our DTC status. They were very congratulatory, and the manager even said that he and his wife were thinking about adopting at some point.

What was particularly interesting about their responses to us was their assumption that our decision to adopt was based on a desire to save the orphans and help needy kids. Our server told us that we were "good people" for adopting, and the manager said that he respected our way of "ministering." In actuality, we decided to adopt not to be charitable but to start a family. We just wanted a kid and couldn't have one the old fashioned way. After considering our remaining options, adoption seemed like the best path for us. The server and manager seemed very nice and genuine, though, so we just smiled and said thanks and didn't explain the "real" reason for our decision.

Based on comments made by other China a-aparents, this type of response is not unusual. Lots of them have gotten it. Although it is true that the primary motivation of many a-parents to adopt is give orphaned kids a home, many others decide to adopt because, like us, they simply want to be parents.

I have more to say on this topic, but I don't have time right now to write a longer post. I'll continue this post later.

Recipes, anyone?

It was my birthday a few days ago, and because I'm such a wild and crazy gal, I asked ZGuy to get me a slow cooker. So he did, and now I'm the new owner of a $19.99 red Rival 4-quart crock pot. Here's a photo of its white counterpart:




I am very excited about my crock pot. I' ve never used one before, however, so I need a little help. Specifically, I need recipes. Vegetarian ones. The guide that came with the crockpot consists primarily of meat-based recipes. I did buy two vegetarian slowcooker cookbooks yesterday, but if you know of any good recipes, please send them my way. Thanks!

Celebration

So ZGuy and I began our weekend of post-DTC festivities by going to see The Descent, a wonderfully scary and claustrophobia-inducing movie about six women who get lost in a very dark and creepy cave chain in the Appalachian Mountains. There were some aspects of the film that I found a little too Hollywood-ish, but overall, it was one of the best horror films that I have seen in a long time.

Tonight, we are continuing our celebration by going to The Melting Pot to eat lots of ooey-gooey cheese and chocolate fondue.

At some point, my post-DTC high will wear off, and the reality of our upcoming two-year wait (give or take a few months) will soon set in. But that hasn't happened yet, so in the meantime, I'm going to milk my excitement for as long as I can. As the drunken college-aged guys in our neighborhood like to say at late hours on weekend nights, "Woo!"

OMG! We're DTC!

Our agency sent our dossier off to China today. They didn't even get it until this morning, so I just assumed that it would get there too late for them to include in this week's batch.

So, like, wow, ZGuy and I get to celebrate a week earlier than we thought we would. The Melting Pot, here we come...

It's off

I sent our dossier to our agency this afternoon. So assuming Fed-Ex doesn't mess things up, our agency will have it tomorrow morning. Yay!

Hopefully we are finally done with things on our end. If our agency finds problems with the dossier, we may get delayed a couple of weeks trying to fix things.

My brain hurts from all the sorting and document checking I did today. Must rest now.

More about the update

So yes, our 171-H, homestudy report, and my medical form should be arriving tomorrow afternoon. Which means that I will most likely Fed-Ex our dossier to our agency tomorrow. Which means that the agency, if all goes to plan ("if all goes to plan" is my new catch phrase, as it seems that this adoption process has reduced our life to a time line), will receive our dossier on Friday.

The only reason why I might not Fed-Ex the dossier tomorrow and do it on Friday instead is that some of the xerox copies of various documents that we have to send along with the originals have my hand/wrist prints on them. This resulted from me holding down the documents on the xerox machine to make sure they were properly aligned. The hand/wrist prints aren't obstructing the actual documents or anything, but they are a little creepy and reptilian looking. Actually, now that I think about it, what I will probably do is redo the xeroxes tomorrow morning so everything is ready to go when I get the forms.

ZGuy (previously known as Mr. ZGirl) and I just got back from our 8 day roadtrip to assorted east coast and southern states, so we are pretty tired.

Oh, and Fed-Ex tracking is a wonderful thing.

August 11th is still looking like our DTC date if (say it with me) all goes to plan.

Update

The last of our authenticated documents should be arriving tomorrow afternoon.

More updates soon.

First squirrels, now monarchs

For the past few weeks, I've had several lovely monarch butterflies hang out in the foliage outside of my office window. There are two of them out there right now.

If my camera had working batteries, I'd take some pictures of them. But alas, it doesn't, so instead I'm posting this photo from the World Wildlife Foundation: