Gongxi facai!

Pronounced "gong she fa tsigh".  Or Happy Chinese New Year!  Today is the first day of the new moon; therefore the Chinese celebrate Chinese Lunar New Year.  In China, its a time when people clean their houses and pay old debts to begin the new year with a "clean slate".  It's a time of family gatherings and good food.  They also pay respect to the Kitchen God this time of year by adorning his altar with good food and wine.  Folklore says if the Kitchen God is fed well he will go to Heaven and give a good report and the family will be prosperous and have  good luck for the next year.  Interesting.  Gee thanks "Kitchen God" but its all between me and Jesus, we got this covered.  IF you are truly a Kitchen God, where are you when I'm trying to cook?  Burning toast?  When my pasta boils over?  I could use some help in that department! 
Tonight we plan to indulge in good food and will have dinner at our local Chinese restaurant! This is the year of the Horse and will be OUR year to become a family!!!! So Happy Chinese New Year to all, Gongxi facai!

Text causing "freak-out" moment . . .

Knowing that our agency is expecting referrals, we knew we’d be getting an update but would not be in this group of referrals. However; my Hubby calls me today and says ever so calmly, “Did you get that text?” No, well yeah about AT&T alerting us we are close to our texting limit for the month. “No, did you get the e-mail?”.  No. “Well you need to look at the text and e-mail, I love you”.  Okay that’s it. 

So  quickly I scrolled through my phone to the text, see below, the last text. 

 

 

 

Okay, so in my excitement I think the text says “we are in”, I mean, well, that is the first few words of the text, "you are in" So I think, "oh my gosh we're in, I didn't think we'd be in this group! Larry had copied part of the e-mail from our agency and sent it to me.  Basically the idea was that if "you are in the 11-27-06 LID group" our agency wanted us to notify them immediately if we hadn’t spoken to them recently.  Which I had talked to them on the  14^th and wasn’t exactly sure how immediate “immediately” was.  So I have already freaked out my co-worker from my heavy breathing and “oh my gosh” ramblings.  After she asked me if I was okay and if I was sure I was okay, then I said yeah, I’m okay, this could be a really good thing, I’ll be back”.    By this time, I’m calling Larry as quick as I can, pacing with chest pain and now I have to pee!  He really got a kick out of it, he hadn’t meant to send me into cardiac arrest but wanted me to know the agency wanted us to call. !   

 

 Long story short, I guess this is just practice for next month.  A dress rehearsal if you will.  My co-worker got a very small glimpse of how excited and hysterical I may get in the  next month.  We sort of had a practice “call/alert”  and so it’ll be interesting to see how the real one works out! 

 

I guess we can take another jelly bean out of our jar.  Only one, so we’ll have to split it, but somehow I think it’ll taste very sweet.  We are down to only 5 jelly beans left, (5 log in dates) including ourselves and two of those days are weekend days and no one is logged in.  So, 5 beans to represent 5 calendar days but only 3 LID’s.  Got it, hold on, as the excitement  builds.

Expecting now for 86 months!!!

Today marks our 86 month LID Anniversary.  Larry painted the nursery closet and I watched over his shoulder to tell him where he missed spots.  (I'm helpful that way)Tee Hee  Meanwhile I "played" in all the totes and boxes he got out of the closet and stood around and daydreamed a lot.  We have accumulated so much.  Among the neat things I found, . .  my totebag/diaper bag I bought around 2007 or '08 and a beautiful white collage picture frame my sister-in-law had gotten for us for Christmas 2006.  Very anxious to use these things!   

Wow, my heart is "jumpy" !

I dont really know how to explain it but I just read a message form our face book  group and my stomach and heart feel a little quivery/jumpy, fluttery, wiggly, and lots of other things I cant really describe.  I want to  squeal and cry at the same time.  Whoo wee!  Why? You may ask.  Well we didn’t just get a referral but the group in front of us did, and that means we should be NEXT!!!!!!!

Unless they break up the next five days into two groups, which China has done before and they have every right,  but if not then we are NEXT!!! (Okay so now I’m sobbing and shaking.)   I have waited nearly 86 months (it will be on Monday) to write these words.  I cant explain to you how this makes me feel unless you’ve experienced  it yourself.  My eyes are blurred as I type and I am thinking way faster than my fingers can keep up. 

I spoke with our agency a couple weeks ago and our referral counselor had said she (tear just rolled of my chin) that she expected the next group with an LID of Nov. 22^nd would come at the end of January or first of Feb and she would be contacting us  around the first to middle of  February. AND she expected we should have a referral by March.  April at the latest but I didn’t acknowledge the “April” part of the sentence.  So with all the scuttle on our face book group saying the 22^nd referrals have been mailed then families will likely be called /notified early next week and that’s right on target with our counselor’s projection. Then if all goes as expected then we should hear from her in the next couple weeks.  THEN if all that falls into place then we are likely to get our “CALL” in March.  (tears have stopped but nose is running profusely).  . . . Sorry for all the details but you cant recreate the mood when reading this so I’m trying my best.  Just picture me all weepy but happy and you’ll get the picture! 

Marching toward March!

We talked to our agency Tuesday evening, the 14th, and our projections were confirmed. We were told that we will likely receive our referral in March. (Insert squealing and dancing around). Late December the CCCWA referred children to families logged in from Nov. 18th through the 21st.  So our date of 11-27 is creeping closer. 
We have started working on the nursery some, scrapbooking over 7 years of memorabilia,  and  trying to re-organize our house and complete little projects.  All this while day dreaming of our Little One in China and balancing things so we can maintain focus on our daily work and responsibilities.  Shew, that's a lot!

We bought a baby bed!!!!!

So excited, need I say more.  We weren't looking but just saw one and decided, that's the one!  We got an awesome deal and it was just the type of bed we'd been looking for and were hoping to find.  Pics to follow!