vintage finds

A few weeks ago I was spending a leisurely Saturday morning visiting estate sales in search of office furniture and wall décor for our businesses new location. I happened to stumble upon some cute vintage items for our babes.

The first is a Fisher Price magnetic letter tray. I remember playing with one of these when I was little, so I love the idea of our kids doing the same.

I also stumbled upon some brightly colored cafeteria trays. My sister told me a few months ago that she thought it would be cute to serve lunch to our kiddos on trays like these. So when I saw these for 50 cents each, I got ten! I will be able to use them when my nieces and nephews come over too.

We have now been on the waiting list for 32 weeks. There is only one family waiting for siblings in front of us on the unofficial list. The clock is tickin’. We could get our referral anytime…..or it could still be months. There is no way of knowing. I am excited for the families who have recently received referrals and can’t wait to find out about our children.

eight

So, it is spring break, which means a week off from teaching. I love my students, but a break is always welcome. I have been doing a little bit of work around the house. The closet in our office (what will be our children’s room) is FULL. I have slowly been trying to get rid of things or move items to other places in our house. I took a ‘before’ picture, but I don’t want to post it until I can take a beautiful ‘after’ pic. I can’t wait to see the closet filled with adorable little clothes for our precious Ethiopian babes. We also worked in our garage and got things organized. I now have eight tubs of costumes to wash and sort. There are at least ten more tubs in storage, which will also need the same treatment. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

Tuesday, St. Patrick’s Day, was our ‘dating anniversary’. We started dating eight years ago during my senior year of college. We went to Olive Garden for some yummy salad, breadsticks and spaghetti! It is hard to believe my husband has put up with me for eight years!

Speaking of ‘eight’, today marks our eighth week on the waiting list. I have spent the week obsessing over the FBI list. For those of you not in the Gladney adoption circle, the FBI list is the “Forensic Blogging Initiative”. It was started to track the process of families, from those on the waiting list to forever families. It is not sponsored by Gladney and only represents 50%-75% of the families. I have been analyzing the list from every angle. Really, the entire process in unpredictable and there is no equation I can create to determine the exact moment of our referral, but it is fun to play with. There have already been nine referrals this month! I am so excited and happy for those nine families!

2 weeks waiting

So, we have now been on the waiting list for over two weeks. I took a “1 Week Waiting” pic, but never got it posted. For the last two weeks I have had a “death virus”, as Michael has termed it. Luckily we had an ice storm that shut the schools down for three days, which enabled us to cancel our classes also. It was nice to stay home and not have to teach. This past week we had auditions for our spring musical and then had the extremely difficult job of casting. It is never fun to hold the emotions of children in your hand. We make some kids so happy and others so sad. We have 60 kids in the show, so it should be a great semester!

We also celebrated Michael’s birthday. We went out to eat with his family and some friends and then they came back to our house. His brother brought their Wii over and we had a great time. We had never played on a Wii. I really didn’t think I would like it, but it was lots of fun! I captured it on video, but it won't upload.

There have been a lot of referrals over the past month. I hope they keep coming. There are so many families who have been waiting a long time. I hope their referral comes quickly! The wait hasn’t been bad at all, but 2 weeks is nothing compared to 6+ months!

36 pounds lighter…

Not me, my house. That’s right. As an update to my previous post, “cluttered ramblings” I have been very busy purging. These were my original goals:

1. Paper purge – I am going to go through the papers piling up on my desk, some of which are obvious trash. I will also go through the mail…boo. If I have time I will move on to the file cabinets.

2. Closet purge – I am going to go through my closet and dresser drawers (even though I just did this in October) and rid myself of any clothes, shoes, socks, etc. that I can.

3. Bathroom purge – I will go through the bathroom and get rid of any old bottles of hair products, makeup, etc. This shouldn’t be too hard since I don’t really keep a lot of these types of products around. Also, Michael organized our bathroom a few months ago, so I won’t have too much work to do (no, ladies you cannot have him). I know there are some items I can toss, however.

I had hoped to accomplish this all in one week, but I didn’t get through all of it.

I did spend a significant amount of time going through paper, bills, mail etc. I managed to get rid of 27 POUNDS OF PAPER!!! There is still a little bit of mail left and our file cabinet is in a really inconvenient place in our garage, so I was unable to go through it.

I went through my closet and got rid of 9 POUNDS OF CLOTHING. Yes, I weighed it. I am neurotic. I went through my sock and underwear drawers and got rid of things I never wear. I still have yet to do the bathroom purge. It is really not going to take me long, but I just couldn’t ever convince myself to do it. All in all, I am feeling pretty good about my progress.

So, did anyone see Oprah last week? She did an episode based on Peter Walsh’s new book, Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat? I never really watch Oprah anymore, but when I read the title of the episode, I was very intrigued. I was even more thrilled when I found out the connection to Peter Walsh. Being the organizational freak that I am, I love him. Who remembers him from Clean Sweep on TLC? The following are a couple of things he said on the show:

"People were contacting me … saying that, 'Suddenly I discovered that by clearing my space, I'm making much healthier food choices and I am starting to lose weight,'"

"Eating more and buying more is an attempt to fill the need for something more," he says. "Until you get those underlying issues dealt with, all the rest is a waste of time."

I really do find this very interesting. It is something I realized a long time ago. When my house is a mess, I feel lethargic and incapable of getting much accomplished. On the flip side, when my house is perfectly spotless…I feel like I can conquer the world.

So now that I have purged 36 pounds of ‘clutter’, will my body be 36 pounds lighter? If only…

cluttered ramblings.

Well, I realize Thanksgiving was the last time I blogged. I have had an extremely busy past two months. Our business keeps us constantly moving. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Years. We had a great Christmas and really enjoyed a day of rest and relaxation with our family.

I have had a tiny bit of down time this week and have been concentrating on my home. I am trying to get everything cleaned. We are hoping to have our house on the market by mid April. We are moving to Norman, where our business is located. I want to really deep clean everything, which I will also have to do closer to April, but it would really feel great to have it done now.

I have really been thinking about all of the stuff we have and really all of the stuff we, as Americans, have. I was at home on the computer the other day and looking around my office at all of the things I have, particularly in the closet. Wow. I bet I have more items in my office than people in other countries have in their entire home. What is the point? Why are we the collectors of stuff? Now, I must say, I am not a packrat, hoarder, collector or whatever. I am actually quite the opposite. I don’t feel the need to hold on the most things. I have an annual garage sale and every year I vow to purge my home of all unnecessary items and I still have a lot of stuff. WHY????

I am really going to do it this time. Purge, purge, purge away. Now that I know there will be strangers walking through my house, I have a great goal. I also know that anything I get rid of I don’t have to move.

I started by having Michael go through his underwear and sock drawers, mainly because they were so full (because I was completely caught up on laundry) that they wouldn’t shut. He got rid of quite a lot, especially considering I had him do the same thing in October. He also nicely folded all of his underwear and socks and arranged them very beautifully in their respective drawers. Way to go Michael. What a guy!

So, I am going to concentrate on the following areas this week:

1. Paper purge – I am going to go through the papers piling up on my desk, some of which are obvious trash. I will also go through the mail…boo. If I have time I will move on to the file cabinets.

2. Closet purge – I am going to go through my closet and dresser drawers (even though I just did this in October) and rid myself of any clothes, shoes, socks, etc. that I can.

3. Bathroom purge – I will go through the bathroom and get rid of any old bottles of hair products, makeup, etc. This shouldn’t be too hard since I don’t really keep a lot of these types of products around. Also, Michael organized our bathroom a few months ago, so I won’t have too much work to do (no, ladies you cannot have him). I know there are some items I can toss, however.

Okay, so I will report back next week on my progress. Anyone else want to join in and clear clutter out of their own home?

I hope everyone has a great week!