PAPERWORK - Dossier

Update on our paperwork situation.  I mentioned in my last post that we were told to wait until our move was done to start the dossier.  Everything is time sensitive regarding the dossier.  You can't do it and then wait to send it.  You have to do it all in one small time-frame.  It all basically hinged on the processing of our I-600A (our application to be approved as adopters of orphans).  We were told this takes a couple months, but the approval letter (I-171H) showed up at our door only a few weeks after our biometrics appointment up in Cleveland.  That changed the game a bit.  Now that we would have to process the address change with the federal government anyway, our social worker said, let's get to dossier-ing!  (That's not what she said, I made that word up.)  But that's how it felt!  Zack and I breathed a big fat sigh of relief and said "LET'S DO THIS!!!"  There was high fiving and grinning, and, well, you had to be there.  It was small scale torture to wait for my parent's house to be done and to get this move on.  Plus I felt like it was pressuring my parents which isn't fair.  So this really changed the game for my parents, too.  They can be a little more relaxed with the building.
The biggest change is that we will have to prepare this tiny, less-than-ideal home for potentially 2 more children!  Zack is up to the challenge and is at his best doing things like this.  We shifted stuff around and hauled some stuff off to storage.  We have been approved to house this many children in this house, so we'll make it work to the best of our ability, with loads of God's help!  Thanks everyone for praying and asking how we are doing even though we have such boring things to share!  Someday we will be posting milestones of our new child, and we will remember this paperwork stage as "the wilderness", but important nonetheless.

MONEY - Grants

We talked to our placing agency social worker this week about all that is needed for the dossier.  It is very similar to the home study, only a little less laborious.  The paperwork is a bit more streamlined and less tedious.  The best part is... fewer essay questions!  Just a few letters and things.  The dossier seems to be more "doing".  That doesn't make much sense.  It's more going to appointments and updating things (like fingerprints and renewing passports and getting another physical and blood tests and stuff like that).  All in all, totally doable and I'm excited to get started!  However, we need to move first.  In our conversation, we talked about our life changes coming up.  The move to the bigger house looming nearer, and Zack's opportunity for a new job (it came to find him!).  She suggested we move first, then do the dossier paperwork.  That way everything reflects the new address.  Another however, we will have to move before our USCIS application is processed. That's the approval from the US government to adopt someone of orphan status abroad.  It's currently being processed, our biometrics appointment is this week up in Cleveland.  So we have to do it by the end of September at the latest.  We are going to be laserbeam focused on moving for a little while.  Ok, enough boring update stuff.  Here's a picture.

Ok, sorry, that picture is totally boring, too.  It wasn't boring to do, though.  Those are our grant applications.  It shows how I'm getting used to doing these papers, because it really didn't seem that bad to do 7 of them.  Each one is a similar size to each of the 2 applications I sweated about a year ago.  I've done so much of this that I have all the information in a folder I call "Marriage Papers and Life History" (literally, that's what's written on the folder).  I just get that out and it has all the jobs we've ever had and addresses of them, every old address, our financial items in great detail, family info, you name it.  I wish everyone had to compile something like that because it's so very handy.  What's the value of your vehicles based on condition and mileage?  What's your net worth?  How much gets taken out of your paychecks for taxes monthly?  Annually?  What's your gross income?  Hmm?  Just kidding.  But seriously.

So out of all of those grant applications, 5 are for adoption expenses, 1 is for medical referral expenses, and 1 is for after you get a referral.  We already got turned down for the medical referral expenses, but we were not expecting to get them all.  So we're only a tiny bit bummed. :)  Here's hoping for the rest of them.  It's just another way we are trying to be good stewards of our resources and utilizing all the opportunities and gifts that God leads us to - or drops in our laps!  Praise be to God, the path has been laid out for us and we are following it.  Though we get scared sometimes, we thank God that we have this gift of a purpose and calling!  I know paperwork doesn't sound like so fun a gift, but when put in this perspective, it is somewhat exciting.

MONEY - competitive fundraiser

With the large and scary costs of the dossier and travel in front of us, I can get a little panicky if I think of it too long.  This sort of thing usually occurs at night.  When I need my sleep.  Figures.  Our homestudy has been forwarded to us and to our placing agency.  We are still waiting on word regarding when to start our dossier.  Shall we wait until after we move to our new home (could be happening in the next couple months) or shall we proceed?  Ukraine is supposedly particular about the housing paperwork.  This has actually been a chance for us to think about fundraising again and two things have been happening in that world recently.  First, we started filling out grant applications.  Zack and I are pretty convinced that we are doomed to never-ending essay questions for the rest of our lives.  I feel like we're in school.  We consider ourselves grateful that we even have the opportunity to apply for these, though, so it keeps things in perspective.
Secondly, my sister and brother-in-law have proved to us that they are unending awesome ONCE AGAIN when they posted a fundraiser opportunity to their travel website.  Just read it for yourself - they paralleled a fundraiser another gentleman was doing, in which he was raising funds to travel on the world's most expensive business class seat.  Carrie and Drew thought that, in good fun, and as an opportunity for those wishing for something "more worthwhile" to contribute to, they would post our family's story and accept donations for our adoption.  Like I said, unending awesome.  They raised over $2,000 this way and we are just over the moon.
Here's the link to the original post: http://travelisfree.com/2014/05/09/who-wants-to-pay-for-adopting-kids-no-really/
And here's the second one with a video of us in it: http://travelisfree.com/2014/05/28/adoption-update-video-interview/
And here's the one they were spoofing: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1486582757/one-mile-at-a-time-the-etihad-residences

So thanks, again to anyone and everyone who has helped us in this journey, those I know and those I don't.  Onward we go!

PAPERWORK - Home Study complete!

Welllll.... the day has come that I can say... Our home study is DONE!!!!!
After we update our expired medicals... BUT... nonetheless...
The whole ginormous thing has been forwarded to our placing agency in Alabama who compiles the documents for Ukraine (our dossier).  Our medical papers really seem like no big deal at this point.  It's like, oh, you need me to print out the forms to update and call the office to fax us the originals and take all the above to two different physician offices and make sure that every line is filled in and follow up on the faxing and mailing of the resulting documents and provide addresses and ultimately send the originals and keep copies?  Noooooooo problem!  Got it.  Check.  Done.

So now we will wait on word from our placing agency on starting the dossier documents.  I'm excited to get it rolling!  I'll keep you updated!  This is a big step in a long road - it feels good!!!

Goodbye Smartphone Day 7

One week in and I'm feelin' good.  The transition away from my smartphone  has made it's full realization and while it's been pretty anticlimactic, there are a few things that I noticed that have been a surprise.

First of all, I humbly realized just how hooked I was on this device.  Think about it.  Our basic phones were already our phones, watches, calendars, notepads, calculators, alarm clocks, cameras and stopwatches.  Then we added data to them and they became our phonebooks, weathermen, teachers, babysitters, maps, portable televisions, dictionaries, encyclopedias, gaming devices, magazines, radios, video cameras, tiny freaking portable computers oh my gosh you name it the list goes on.  All with the simple download of an app.  Every question answered immediately.  Every miniscule need for entertainment fulfilled instantly.  Never in my life has this simultaneously blown my mind and terrified me quite like it does now.

I also realized how little I really need a phone at all.  The first couple days my new old phone sat there doing next to nothing and I got a little creeped out at its silence.  I kept wanting to make sure it was still on.  It was.  I get very little calls.  Boo hoo.  No but really, I realized just how few direct contacts I get in a day.  All that "feeling in the loop with people" was really me looking at group messages.  Remember when we used to get those mass texts, saying "I appreciate all my friends and just wanted to tell you all that I love you" and you were like, "aww, that's nice" but were secretly slightly annoyed because it just simply wasn't as personal?  Now we base the bulk of our contact with people we consider our good friends on these mass messages.  Now, I'm not saying that group messages are bad or that those mass texts were not... somewhat meaningful. I love facebook.  I love following people's baby bumps and keeping in the loop with people I love who are far away.  It's not a bad thing per se, but it made me want to call some of these friends I haven't seen in a while... to actually talk to them...

The next bit of business is that I moved my phone charger from the bedside stand to the couch.  I know, I should have warned you about the earth shattering news that that was.  Whyyyy did I need my phone attached to my hip even at night????  When I should be sleeping???  Whyyyy did I not realize how silly that was?  If someone were to call me - I can hear it from across the room.  If I just don't feel like shutting my eyes yet or I wake up in the middle of the night and can't sleep (as happens often), I don't turn on my phone, I think.  It's somewhat scary and yet I like the familiar territory and the whole processing life in my brain thing.  Like, nice to see you again thoughts, it's been a while.  And after a little while I take a melatonin.  And then go back to sleep.  I'm kindof in love with this turn of events.  I'm not going to lie pinterest in the middle of the night was a necessity while nursing but it's just not anymore.

Thursday night I felt a little deficient as my last bit of facebook newsfeed addiction left my body and Zack and I looked at facebook together.  It was so much fun.  I highly recommend the activity.  We were not on separate devices looking at it "together", we were actually looking at the video that someone posted of the national anthem in minor key and flipping through that person's baby pictures and commenting on where that person ate supper together.  I'm sure a lot of you do this but I never did and that makes me a bit sad.

Hey, enough of me rambling, I have a book to read.  Here are some videos to inspire you further.  They've  been circulating so I know you've seen them.

Goodbye Smartphone

Funeral will be on Friday, calling hours tonight from 5-8 pm.  Thanks to everyone for the food and flowers.  I'm just kidding of course.  But it is true, I did it.  Goodbye, Smartphone.

I really didn't know how reliant I was on this particular technology until I severed myself from it.  This switch to a basic phone was planned for months.  Even though now we know we could have switched it before our contract was officially up, I don't know that I would have been ready.

I made the switch to a dumbphone (sorry, basic phone) for two reasons.  Both having a lot to do with the adoption.  First and foremost, we need to save money.  Yes, yes, it's always about the money.  And this does cut our total technology bill $15/month.  I know that doesn't seem like a lot, but that's $180 a year and now we have actual, real live, functioning internet.  The second reason is more important, really.  It was taking time away from the thing that should take precedence over everything else - my family.  I had facebook, Pinterest, blogs, and emails dinging constantly throughout the day and always at my fingertips at every moment that I want to sit for a breather.  It called me to pick it up and see what dinged and then it was just, "Hey, let's see what's on facebook".  It's tempting to flip through those things and then very easy to get lost and suddenly lose 20 minutes to an hour.  Don't get me wrong, I'm all for breaks in the day and "taking a load off" - but I was getting about as frustrated as my kids when they would say, "Mommy, put your phone down!"  I told them, "You know, you're right.  You keep reminding me of that."  I'm taking their advice one step further and just chucking it.  Facebook and Pinterest and the like shall now be reserved for naptimes and evenings when Daddy and I work on adoption stuff.

It seems rather silly that we labored over this decision the way we did.  I'm glad we took the time, though, because we were able to find very economical solutions to our various tech issues because we talked it all through and waited and gathered information.  We researched alternative internet sources (we didn't have official internet for the past 2 yrs, only... tethering... gulp!  don't tell) We labored over what we would miss and might need to replace, and my fast that I did for a while (fasting from my phone until 2pm each day) was a good little practice run.  After all those questions were answered and solutions found, we finally did it.  Day one, and already it seems silly that all the fuss was over a attachment to a smartphone.  Geesh.

For a detailed explanation of our tech switches - read the following.  To skip it, continue to the next paragraph.  :)  Our printer that you had to hand feed is replaced by a refurbished one, and now we can hook it directly up to our laptop instead of saving the file to a flashdrive and walking it down to our dinosaur computer that couldn't read most of our flashdrives anyway (it would freeze the computer).  Our dead laptop was given new life with a fresh battery.  The maps (the only thing we really felt we would truly miss on the smartphone) were replaced with a Garmin bought from Zack's place of employment.  Our internet that was working for the past two years as tethering (even though it was super annoying to have to plug the phone in and rely on spotty service, etc) changed anyway because we had to update the computer operating system (now we're only 2 years behind instead of 7, yay us!) to use our new printer and then subsequently had to update the tethering app which then made it have caps and would cut us off after a certain amount of data unless we bought the advanced version (yeah right no thanks) meaning we could only play a minute or so of video (unhandy when adoption training videos are about an hour each) and couldn't load complex website at all (including email and the bank website we use to pay our bills).  Whew!  *panting due to run on sentence*  So we decided to get basic DSL and bought a router at our local Radio Shack.  Funny thing is, this whole time we've lived in our house (4 years) we had no idea that it didn't have any phone jacks.  None.  So Zack pulled a handyman move and installed one.  In case you're wondering, the Smartphone was replaced by my sister's old LG slider keyboard phone.  Battery life is great and great working condition.  So there you have it - the whole thing took about 3.5 months.

So today was the first day without good ole Smartphone, and quite honestly I feel freed.  Liberated.  Torn from my shackles.  Also a bit silly.  It felt pretty ridiculous when I got my first call - I didn't know how to answer it and Zack had to remind me to press "Send".  I also felt pretty foolish when I was putting my contacts in (goodbye SIM card) and realized that I was punching the screen and getting annoyed that the cursor wasn't moving.  Ha ha, whoops, I guess I have to find some arrows.  Zack made the joke that "Maybe smartphones make dumb people".  If you're reading this, Zack, I didn't think it was funny.  I only laughed to be nice.

So all in all, I feel very good about this.  Having to turn the phone on and wait for it to run it's power on cycle, scan the SD card, search for service, and all the other things it has to do, will be just inconvenient enough that I won't pick it up every time I have 30 seconds of gap time.  Gap time is good and healthy. Not every 30 seconds of every day needs to be filled with something.  If I want to rest I'll just stare at a wall.  Also, I'm hoping that my new old phone will limit it's vies for attention to calls and texts.  I'll just have to wait until the afternoon to see who repinned my pins.  And I'm looking forward to having my children or maybe even God (get outta town!) be the first things I say hello to in the morning, not my facebook newsfeed.

Here's to smartphone liberation!

MONEY - beans week

Mmmmm, beans.  Mmmm, beans again.  Mmmm, more beans.
Beans.  They're cheap.  They're easy.  They're yummy.  They're cheap.  They're the staple of our menu this week.  We are doing a beans week again... guess why... take a guess... go ahead... because, they're cheap!  It's all about saving the dinero.  This round is a little different from our "refugee week" that we did a while back.  The refugee ration week was inspired by this article, and we ate refried beans (with only salt as a seasoning) and homemade flatbread and tortillas for a week.  At that time we were partially doing it as a solidarity exercise to connect in a small way to refugees around the world, and partly because it was very cheap and we ran out of food money in our envelope (darn you, Dave Ramsey!!!).  Well, we ran out of grocery money (don't worry, just until next payday) and so we are doing a beans week again.  (Did you hear that?  Mmff, pinching pennies makes my tummy growl.)  This time our lineup is inspired by this pinterest post of this article which was inspired by this article!  (Whew, don't you love that?)  We had a leeeeetle more money than last time, so we were able to get some fresh veggies and make it a little more sophisticated.  Not that solidarity is unsophisticated.  Solidarity rocks!  Go solidarity!  Hmmm, I got off topic.  Anyway, here's our little "plan" with recipes where it applies.

Step one: dump a bag of beans (whatever beans you want, we use about a pound of black beans) into the crockpot with lots of water to cook on low for several hours or overnight.  Add water as needed.  When done, drain them and save however many cups for your chili.  Mash the rest and add taco seasoning to taste (I make my own - recipe here) and cilantro (I use dried but fresh is better)

Day 1: Chili and cornbread
Chili recipe (adapted from More With Less  - A World Community Cookbook "Mexican Chili Beans" recipe)
   couple cups of beans you made the day before
   some chopped onions (don't you like my measures?  good stuff)
   2 tsp salt
   1 tsp petter
   2 tsp chili powder
   1 tsp dried leaf oregano
   1/4 tsp cumin
   3/4 c tomato paste
   1 c tomato sauce (wanna know a secret?  for the last two ingredients I used a quart of canned diced tomatoes and a few squirts of ketchup!  I thought it was tasty!)
Dump all above ingredients into a pot and heat that sucker up to almost boiling, ok, boiling is fine, too.  Noms!

Cornbread recipe (this time taken straight from More With Less)
Preheat oven to 400°
Mix together:
   1c cornmeal
   1c flour
   4 tsp baking powder
   1/2 tsp salt
   2 Tbsp brown sugar
   1/2 c dry milk powder (optional) (I did use buttermilk powder)
Make a well and add:
   2 beaten eggs
   1c milk
   1/4 c oil or melted shortening
Stir until just smooth.  Pour onto a greased 9x9 pan and bake 25 minutes.

Day 2: Nachos!
We piled plates of tortilla chips with dollops of our mashed beans, lettuce, tomatoes, olives, cheese, sour cream, and homemade ranch dressing.

Day 3: Taco Pizza (<----- p="" s="" that="" today="">Pizza crust made from Bisquick (taken from Betty Crocker's Quick and Easy cookbook from the "Fajita Pizza" recipe)
   1 1/2 cup Original Bisquick stirred together with 1/3 cup very hot water and pressed into a greased circular pizza pan
topped with: refried beans, salsa, lettuce, tomatoes, crunched up chips, and cheese. Baked in a 450° oven for 12 min

Day 4: Burritos
beans and rice and tortillas and ... lettuce and tomatoes and whatever else

Day 5: Chili Mac (not sure what this is going to be, but it's the plan anyways)

So there you have it - an incomplete blogpost about our beans week including shady kinda recipes!  I hope you are inspired to come up with your own version!