Too Many Janes...too many Edwards...

My husband suffers, I think more than most people understand.  I, of course, realize it because I'm usually the one inflicting his sufferings upon him.  Seriously, who but me has the desire to watch every version of Jane Eyre ever made?

Jane Eyre is my favorite book, has been since 7th grade (I think.)  In fact, Edward Rochester, the book's main male role, was my very first love.  I fell for him for all the reasons a girl falls for someone at that age.  He was strong and rich, not exactly handsome.  Although Jane is a simple governess he can see that her spirit and heart are the equals of his own and treats her that way.

So, when I found out that someone had made a film version of Jane Eyre, I knew I had to see it.  More than anything else so that I could discover how someone would dare interpret the giant of my imagination.  Since then, it has been like a sickness.  Everytime I find out about a different version, I have to watch it.  Netflix and the library loan system have been my great aids in this endeavor.  I own two different versions and just this week two others arrived at the library for me.  My favorite version so far is probably the older BBC version with Timothy Dalton.

Poor Nathan, usually he just holes up in his office and passes through the room occasionally, shaking his head at me.

4th Anniversary Weekend

In celebration of our 4th anniversary, which conveniently fell on a Thursday, which is my Saturday, I took two extra days off.  And I have to say, my four day weekend was very worth it. 

We spent our actual anniversary day in an adoption seminar listening to birthmothers tell stories about their relationships with the children they placed for adoption and the families they were placed into.  Our anniversary dinner was at Taco Bell.  Oh well.

The next day was 4th anniversary observed and we went out to dinner at my favorite bar.  Sadly, the food was not of the best quality, definitley not what it has been in the past.  Then we went to the university where the theater and dance department was putting on a production of Twelfth Night my favorite of Shakespeare's comedies.  It was awesome. 

And really, the rest of the weekend was very low key.  Saturday, which might actually have been my favorite day of the whole weekend, we didn't do anything.  Literally.  We stayed at home, we read, we played video games.  We didn't actually leave the house until close to 11 pm when we decided we wanted a pizza.  Sunday must have been "family day" we had breakfast with my family and then spent most of the rest of the night with Nathan's family.  It was pretty great.

Thanks to my mom and dad for the lovely card and the cookies, they did not make it through the weekend.  Thanks to Pam and Craig for the new microwave.  I LOVE IT! 

Reality

Our home visit with the social worker is over.  And, honestly, just like all the adoption books I've been reading have predicted, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.  That doesn't mean all the cleaning and preparations were unnecessary.  It was just a more relaxed process than I anticipated.  Our social worker arrived and came into the kitchen were we sat around the table filling out paperwork while we had muffins (that I decided to bake so that the house smelled warm and homey) and coffee. 

Then we just gave her a tour around the house.  It was really fairly simple.  And then she left.  We kind of stood there and looked at each other and said "well, what now?"  There is a three part seminar series our agency is hosting that we are going to.  We are 2/3 done with it and those hours count toward our 16 hours each of training.  So all we have to do is finish training.  Really....All we have to do is finish training.  That is so weird. 

It has been close to 3 years since we have started thinking seriously about adoption and now here we are.  Finish our training and our profile will start being given to birthmothers.  That is the strangest thought.  I thought there would be more to it than this...not that I want there to be.  I just thought it would be harder somehow.  Of course, our homestudy hasn't been approved yet, it could still be really hard.  I sincerely hope it's not. 

A look back...a look forward

Four years ago yesterday (I meant to have this up before midnight...oh well), Nathan and I got married and started our new life together.  When we were still in the preliminary phases of this new life, actually before the vows were even said, Nathan told me he wanted at least two years before we started trying to have children, so that we could get to know each other as spouses before we had to start figuring out who we were as parents.

I grumbled about this quite a bit and resisted for a little, but eventually I let it go.  I was ready to be a mom right away,but if he wanted some time I decided I should let him have it.  And I have to say, I'm really glad I did.  We have had a great four years of just spending time with each other learning about the ins and outs of early marriage.  We still surprise each other, we still amuse each other, we still generally enjoy being together.

And I don't know if we would have had all that we do now if we started having children right away.  But I consider it fitting that, yesterday, on our fourth anniversary, we were in Addison at an adoption seminar (part of our 16 hours of training).  We had our two years plus and they were great, wonderful and exciting.  Now, we're both ready to move onto the next phase of our life together.  We are ready to be parents.  It may not be happening quite like we had envisioned it, but everytime I read or hear about a successful adoption story, I get a little thrill of excitement thinking about how that is going to be us one day.

We are very blessed that we have family and friends who support us in each phase of our life together and will continue to do so, no matter where the process takes us. 

The "Holy Crap" List

Our social worker is coming to inspect the house on October 15.  I have no idea how old this house is as a structure.  It has a history as a carriage house before it was turned into a home, so it is quite old.  It was also badly treated in the recent past.  So, we have quite a few things  to do around the house.

1. Clean and organize our breezeway (the space is newly bereft of our old refrigerator and I hope it will make a good mudroom)
2. Clean both bathrooms and wash/scrape the walls.  The paint needs a good touching up.
3. Clean and organize every room
4. Sweep and mop all floors
5. Sweep garage and basement
6. Adjust temperature on water heater
7. Trim the lovely vine that grows up the trellis on one side of our house
8. Reattach the downspouts to the garage
9. Hang and put batteries in smoke detectors/CO detector

 There are also quite a few things we need to do outside the house

• The cats need rabies shots and I was hoping we could get Hyperion professionally groomed (he needs it)
• We need to have our fingerprints done
• We have a few finance matters to get ironed out
• We need to get our references back from friends 
• We have to purchase a fire extinguisher
• Some of the pictures we submitted for the parent profile were rejected because they were too blurry so we need to find a time and someone with a good camera and have a bunch of pictures of us retaken

We also have a series of 3 adoption classes on Thursday nights beginning October 14.  Our anniversary is the 21st (it's our fourth, we'll be in class).  But then on the 22nd we're going out for a nice dinner and to a play.

As you can see, the next few weeks are going to be quite hectic for us as we try to get our home ready for our home visit.  By the way, if you're in the area and bored one day, please feel free to stop by and help out!