A Little Bit of Hope

The CCAA just finished reviewing dossiers through June 30, 2006! They were only in the review room for 21 days! This is now 2 months in a row of speedier progress! Those who got referrals in June are also getting their travel dates! It looks like people are working faster in some departments at the CCAA! We still have a ways to go since we have a LID of 12-11-06, but this brings us one step closer. Referrals should be coming in the next week or so. It will be interesting to see how far past Nov. 14, 2005 they got! Rumors are flying all over the place from Nov. 22 being the cut-off to mid December! I am praying for mid December!

Conversations...

Troy and I got out of town on Sunday and drove to Champaign. We really didn't need to buy anything, but wanted to visit some stores that we do not have in Decatur. As we were debating where we should go, Troy said, "Do they have any baby places?" Of course he followed up immediately with, "I cannot believe I just said that!" I thought it was too cute! I too couldn't believe he said those words, but I know how anxious he is in getting our nursery ready. It is the only room in our house that is incomplete. We have always said we wouldn't decorate until we get a refferal, but he is ready to paint the white walls some color!

Cards...

I have been busy stamping card fronts for a swap using new stamps from the Stampin' Up! catalog. This is my swap. I will be getting 31 other card fronts and I cannot wait!

These are some cards that I have made for one organization. Part of my rubber stamping hobby/business/ministry is donating cards to various not-for-profit groups. This was my first time to make square cards and it was so easyand fun!

Cukes, Conversations and Cards

We have the first crop from our garden... a tastey cucumber that we ate in our salad last night. This is our first attempt to grow cukes and we have been successful! Our garden is very haphazard. I threw in some tomatoe, cucumber, cilantro and basil seed and PRESTO... we have a lush and fruitful garden! I have never been able to grow cilantro and it is flourishing! We didn't do anything fancy with the soil and it has worked!

Our first cuke and crop from our garden!

Our small, but fruitful garden.

We have tons of tomatoes on our vines. We are waiting for them to brighten up. The weather has been in the 80's (perfect!) and not hot enough to ripen up the little ones.

I've Been Tagged...

... by Christine. This is one of those fun blogging type of games where you can learn a little more about other. I am to list 8 interesting facts about myself and then tag others. If you are reading this, consider yourself tagged! I took forward to reading about you on your blog!

1. Since my birthday is June 18, I have been on vacation when it is time to celebrate! I remember turning 13 in Yosemite, 15 in Washington State, 16 in Arkansas ( I got to be a part of the driving rotation that year )18 on the plane to Germany and 32 in Sheffield, England.

2. I became a Stampin' Up! demonstrator without ever going to a party or stamping a card! I saw the catalog and thought it was awesome! I signed up a month later and have been doing it for 6 years now! I have met some incredible people, it supports my hobby and ministry and I am hoping to make more $ to go towards our adoption.

3. I decided to sky dive on the spur of the moment on July 4, 1997! It was so much fun and worth every penny! I have a video to prove it! Unfortunately, the pilot of the airplane was not certified to fly that type of plane and he rolled it for fun! You can see our heads hitting the ceiling in the video! The guy I was dating soon after I did this was a pilot and was in a twin-engine ratings class with the guy who took us 10,000 feet to jump!

4. I have spent more money on college transcripts and state teaching certification tests the last 5 years! I am now certified to teach in Texas, Missouri and Illinois. I have an elementary ed, early childhood and family and consumer science teaching certs. Don't ask me which ones I have in each state because I have no clue at the moment.

5. When my husband wants to go out to eat, I often ask, "Which Mexican food place should we go this time?" My dad used to say the same thing growing up! I LOVE and crave Mexican food! I love Thai food too, but it is not in our town!

6. My dog Jolee (AKA Joey), got to go to school with me everyday for two years when I taught in Texas! She was quite the hit! Joey loved kids of all ages, cheered you up when you were stressed and loved to play soccer! We lost Joey when she was 5 due to a major back injury. She was the smartest dog!

7. I always wanted to have a pet monkey growing up and twins!

8. I changed my major 3 times in college from interior design, to social work and then family and consumer science (FACS). FACS was the fast way for me to graduate with all the other classes that I took. I graduated in 5 1/2 years (6 years from HS since I took a semester off and went to the YMCA of the Rockies in CO) and have enough credits for a Masters degree. Funny thing now, my job for BabyTALK now is a combination of social work and FACS so it was not wasted time, money and education. I have thought about going back to school to become an RN or even a doula. I would love to work on the labor and delivery floor of a hospital.

7 Months Down and ? to Go!

Today marks our 7 months of being logged into the CCAA for our child(ren). This time has gone amazingly fast! Hopefully, we have one year or less (my optimistic attitude for once) to wait for our little one(s). Right now we are in a transition time for our family with Troy now being an "urban missionary" and working for the YMCA as an associates sports director. We are launching a house/simple/organic church network in Decatur this September with the first one out of our home. Currently, we are working on laying the foundations and doing weekly training to a group of people who are interested in this way of being the church. We know God's timing is PERFECT and adding little ones during this time would be an adjustment. It will be nice to get the network off the ground and moving throughout the city!

A bit of interesting news, the CCAA has finished reviewing the month of May 2006 dossiers and they were only in the review room for 14 days. April 2006 was in for 106 days! They say the review room has nothing to do with how fast matches will be made, but I have a hard time believing this. I pray this is a good indication that things will be speeding up! The excerpt below is from Rumor Queen's website on how the review room works. RQ's site depresses me, but I like to look at it during referral time!

Each agency has their own review person. They know how to put a dossier together based on how their review person wants to see it, and based on the things their review person will approve or deny.
Each review person has their own assigned agencies, or maybe their own assigned country.
Sometimes one review person has twice as many files to review as someone else does that month, but the next month they may have half as many.
This means that one reviewer could be several months ahead of another reviewer, and may stay that way until their agencies have a big month and they get slowed down again. It is normal for one reviewer to still be working on February while another reviewer has made it to April.
The review room notice on the CCAA site won’t show that a month is complete until all reviewers are through with that month.