Clean freak?!

Tomorrow is the day. the big day.

Our adoption specialist, Dianna, is coming to our house! It's an unofficial homestudy visit. And the first time I'm going to meet her! AH!!

At first the whole idea made me so nervous, and I still am a little bit, but to be honest I think most of my nerves are nerves of excitement. I know that most people go all clean freak before a specialist comes to the house, but I'm not.

which is weird. so weird.

i am a perfectionist. i love things to be a certain way. my house to be a certain level of clean. and it's not like that and hasn't been for two months. between being a "single mom", a homeowner, school, dentist appointments to start invisalign again, doctor appointments to diagnosis which autoimmune disease I have, adoption process and spending all the time that is required with a deployment for/with my husband I just don't have to stick with my high standards.

if bubba was here he wouldn't find it acceptable. he is more anal and more of a perfectionist than i am. that's our downfall. we balance each other out in almost everything else except for out perfectionism.

ha. sometimes its torture.

so my feelings going into tomorrow are excitement. scared. and a bit nervous.

i'm so excited to get this process moving forward, as slowly as we are being as he is deployed and all, but it's another step closer. to getting our baby..

i think about that day. the day that we will get to meet our new child. it makes me so excited i could just dance!! and cry. and throw up all at the same time.

so anxious. will my hubby come home already!?!?

As I blog

I am writing or talking to nobody.

nobody. at all.

While making this blog is a little risky for me. you see...

no one knows about my blog. yet. just my hubby. but being as he's in Afghanistan he doesn't even read it.

The thing is. We have told very select people that we are adopting. My mom. my sister and brother. I have also told my two besties.. Tarah and Josh (aka Christopher).

We have sworn them to secrecy. Bubba and I both feel that we don't want to share the news with people until our homestudy is done and approved. We feel like we will get through the process fine and we believe we will be approved, but many things could happen and we feel like it's announcing that you are trying to have a baby.. and then never actually pregnant. or maybe it takes a long time to get pregnant. and then you have everybody asking you all the time about it and wondering what takes so long. Being as even with the few people we have told, not a lot of people understand the process, the paperwork, all the training, and the time and all the PATIENCE involved with adoption.

So as I blog... to NO ONE.. I take a bit of a risk, with someone stumbling upon my blog that knows us. The odds are almost NIL, but you never know.. weirder things have happened.

But this is my out. my journal. my experiences. my life. I don't want to forget the feelings, trials, and process of the whole adoption. It's a new thing to us and I find there is very little on the open and honestness that goes into the feelings during the whole process. So that's me. Recording it for ALL..or no one.. or just me..  to read.

adios!

Lilac Season

Are you enjoying lilac season?! I sure am!!

Tour of my Garden

This is only my second year at gardening. To see if I even have a pale green thumb has been quite the experiment. Last year I planted some things and my best growers were tomatoes, sugar snap peas, and lettuce!

So I'm trying my hand again this year. Trying a few new things, learning from last years mistakes (like planting too early because I'm so excited!) and Bubba built a new raised bed. Although he won't be here this year, so we will have a lot of extra produce this year to share with friends!

I apologize for any pictures sthat turned sideways, I'm still learning this whole blogger thing from my phone. I took them with my phone and uploaded them onto the Blogger app, but some of them turned sideways? Hmm... maybe it's me. most likely is. :)

  

Here are our 2 strawberry plants. We planted these last year and they did pretty well. the hardest part was waiting to get a strawberry to eat. I think the most we were able to eat at one time was three. Hoping for a few more this year.

Celery- this is a new one to me. I actually cut the bottom off of a stalk that I bought from the store. And I just shoved it into the ground by my tulips. It started growing rather quickly!

{Excuse the weeds}

These are 5 strawberry plants that I bought this year at Fred Meyers on one of their sales. I think they were .50 a plant. You can also see the mint that I planted last year (to the right of the photo) and it has started expanding. It smells so amazing! Although it's an invasive plant I'm kind of hoping the strawberries will co-mingle with the mint ok. But it should stay contained being in a "planter" style area. I'm hoping when I get enough that I can make my own mint extract!! :)

Here are my onions!! And my zuccinis. I had way too many zuccinis and I just decided to plant them all. Even though they are too close together, but oh well. We'll see what happens. I also have a couple of pumpkins in there too.

These are my beans. These are new this year. I made 2 bamboo teepees. And as I was making them I was wishing that my husband was here to do them. None of my sticks were the same length and I wasn't about to whip out the saw and cut them myself, I'm a bit accident prone. And then one of my teepees didn't last more than 3 days. so until I get it fixed I have a little cage thing set up around them.

Do you see that? Do ya?? It's a little flower bud!! On my tomato plant! woo hoo! I bought this cherry tomato plant as a start. Last year I did all my tomatoes form starts after all but one of my seeds died off. They grew amazingly! So this year I ought a cherry tomato and a yellow pear tomato plant. I've never even seen or heard or tasted a yellow pear tomato, but I'm excited to try it. So crossing my fingers it survives!

My sugar snap peas! These are what I'm most excited about. Last year we only had 3 plants from starts and they grew wonderfully. My dauhgter just loved going out and looking to see the peas and to pick them off and eat them right there. LOVE IT!

This year, I've started much more and all from seeds.

I also have carrots seeds planted in here.

Sideways picture - carrots and spinach. I've never grown spinach and WOW.. it sure grows quickly. When watering it tonight I saw those little tiny round leaves coming out. I'm so excited! Also I'm growing a different kind of carrots, some regular long orange ones and the pretty rainbow ones.

This is Rowan's garden. She planted sunflowers and lettuce. The sunflowers we started inside because last year the little birdies decided to eat them as a snack.

This is bubba's garden. rowan said she was going to plant seeds in there for daddys this year being as he isn't here to do it. She decided on pease and spinach! They are all growing already.

Another celery. This is my second one - pot planted. Also if you see those little tiny worm looking things, those are my cayenne sprouts. ha. i tried them last year too.. no success. I don't think they will last this year either.

Lastly, these are where my tomatoes will be going. I have the two already and I need to get a few more regular red tomato plants.. hoping for the .50 sale at lowe's again, like last year! also some cayenne and carrots are planted in here. I am hoping to get some radishes, lettuce or kale planted in here as well.

That's it! My little garden... well not so little for only a sophomore gardener. But it sure is fun to try all of this! Hoping for some good crops and an abudance of produce this year!!

Ice cream truck

So it begins..

I'm feeling better about the adoption process starting, but I am still a ball of nerves! Our adoption specialist will be coming to our house at the end of the month and I'm trying to get things done that I know will be required for the homestudy. Things like carbon monoxide alarm, locks on cupboards, locks for medicine, etc.

Well turns out that being as Rowan has been old enough to listen and she knows, when Tarah and I attempted to put on the locks on the cupboards it was a hilarious nightmare. Not only did we loose ten thousand screws, but neither one of us could figure out what the sticky tape was for or which direction to screw in the pieces or where. Oy! We finally figured out part of it and got one piece screwed in and was matching up the little clicky thing that you push on to open the cupboard, to only find out that the locks won't work because of an overhang from my kitchen sink!! After all the threats of throwing screwdrivers and digging for screws - we couldn't even use those safety locks!!

I'd like to say it was a learning experience, but we all know it was just full of frustration and giggles.

Needless to say, I must go to Target and find some other locks. go figure. isn't that how my life always works out?

We have had so many appointments between doctors, dentists, dance and everything else that I have been too busy to even think about our first home visit. A blessing? I think so. Although when the time comes I know I will get that knot in my stomach and be thinking, what is she going to say about this or that?

The good thing is, she's super nice. And I keep telling myself what they told me at the information meeting "we try to find ways for more people to qualify to adopt, not ways that they don't qualify" YAY!

Makes total sense to me. Duh, why wouldn't they?!

maybe i can keep repeating it, like a mantra. :)

Cold Feet? Already?!

This is an honest blog. I am an honest person.

{for the most part. who doesn't avoid someone's feelings getting hurt to tell them they did a great job or look good in something, right?}

So right now I'm starting to get really nervous about the whole adoption process. But who wouldn't right?

With Bubba being in Afghanistan and our adoption specialist coming to our house at the end of the month, I'm feeling scared. nervous. like i'm getting cold feet.

I know that part of this is because I don't rather enjoy doing this process alone, but really want to be able to get it started being as it can take awhile.

Ugh. what to do. the only thing to do is push on. push through the nerves.

However, we haven't even gotten our entire list of "to-dos" for the whole process. And I am starting to think.. why are people who are willing families put through the ringer to adopt. I understand the process. I think that it's great that they make people talk about most things.

But why is that someone can get pregnant and they aren't asked where they are going to sleep that night or if there are enough bedrooms in the house. or how much money is in their bank account. or what their relationship is like with their parents. or asked about previous relationships.

i get it. i understand. but we are also at the VERY beginning of the process and I am already seeing why everyone doesn't adopt. this will be a long process where we will have to have a lot of patience.

things will be better when bubba gets home. he always balances me.

for now.. i think about everything i should have done by the time our adoption specialist comes to our house at the end of the month. uffda.