Hit Me With Your Best Shot

My father got all of his shots months ago and was too excited to do so in my opinion. Ive been really busy but procrastinating more than anything about getting my shots.

I couldn't get them done at my doctors office and every place else that I called wanted a $125 consultation fee, $60 office fee, and $95 for the shot (times 3). My dad paid $50 in Indianapolis.

I was also told that insurance would not cover it. I kept looking and was able to get my TwinRx Hep A/B shot for $15, no consultation fee and no charge for an office visit. Now I just have two more shots to go.

I do love the internet. I hope I got the full strength shot!

Don't You Love a Bargain?

I have been looking at children's bedroom furniture for awhile. I was at least happy when I finally decided that I wanted black wood furniture. I narrowed it down to three or four beds. Once I get to that point I start looking for the best price.

I decided on this bed.

• Furniture store price for one bed is $900 before tax and delivery. The sales lady told me that if I paid cash for both she would give me a 15% discount. Total for two beds = $1835
  
• Online searching I found the beds for $535 each with free delivery. No tax! This was a bargain but I kept searching.
• Online best price search found the exact bed from the same manufacturer for $385 each. White glove delivery that comes with full setup the total for the two beds is $965. Now, that is what I call a serious BARGAIN! Even better they only require 33% before delivery.

If anyone is looking for furniture check out www.furnituregeek.com.

DJ Play My Song

If I were a DJ I would talk in a deep voice and send this out to all of the waiting mommy's and daddy's. Granted the new pop princess isn't singing about adoption but the words fit.

Jordan Sparks winner of American Idol 2008.



Live Version

Starting Over

It's been 283 days in this process. I spent the first 240 writing like I nothing else to do. Now, my blog hasn't really been updated in a few weeks. Well, it's not because I had nothing to say, it's because I had too much too say and struggled with how to put it all in to words.

What does my header say? Follow me on the journey and a journey it has been. I just wasn't sure how much I wanted to share. I also felt like I needed to take a few steps back and take a lot of deep, deep breaths.

So here is a brief update. Many details will be filled in later.

1. I started the process in August of 2007. I chose my agency applied and officially went on the wait list January 5, 2008. I settled in for what was to be my 0-6 month wait.
   
2. On Wednesday, April 30,2008 my agency and I came to a big impassable fork in the road. We officially parted ways on Monday, May 5, 2008 -- four months into the wait.
   
3. I had some concerns early on (December), considered switching agencies but having just finished the paper chase and sending off the dossier, It was too much to think about starting over with another agency. Lessons Learned: An agency might be a great one but what's good for some may not be good for you. Trust your instincts.
4. I began the process again and had to find another agency. What was immediately evident was that I had learned a great deal over my months in the process. Earlier I didn't know any better, I really didn't know the questions to ask. It was interesting talking to agencies and hearing the things that some of them said. Lessons Learned: What matters at the beginning of the process is not what matters in the middle or the end. Trust your instincts.
5. So, believe it or not I talked to probably 10 agencies. Some didn't even exist when I started the process, some I would never have considered at the beginning. My needs were different, what mattered most to me was open communication. You will find that even bad news is better than no news or being pacified but people who don't think that you can "handle the truth." Lessons Learned: Ask all the questions that you need to ask and realize that the quality of the answer or NO answer speaks LOUDLY. Trust your instincts.
   
6. I narrowed my choice to two agencies. I abandoned those two and I selected a waiting children's program. I selected two amazing children and began the new process. Application and fees paid, dossier documents prepared only to find out that the children weren't actually available. I was offered (I think) four sets in their place, however they may or may not be any more available than the last two. Having learned my lesson, I spent no more time on that program. Lessons Learned: Ask more questions about how and when children are referred. We focus so much on our paperwork but are the children paper ready?
   
7. I stepped back took a couple of deep breaths and went back to my first choice. I started over. This is the right choice for me and I am only sad that I didn't choose them earlier. Application filed, fees paid, dossier documents prepared and sent off. Lesson Learned: Trust your instincts.

Well that's the update. At least it is what I'm comfortable sharing at this point. More to come I promise. I'm not going to change my process or wait time clock. But, let's consider today the new start.

Working the List

Still working and waiting. Update from April 29.

1. Clean the kids room down to the floor and walls. - Not yet. I'm close only furniture left to go.
   
2. Hold a garage sale. Let a hauler take away everything else. - This weekend. A couple of weeks ago. Made a few bucks.
   
3. Clean the carpet throughout the house. - Someday. Mmmmm
   
4. Paint the children's room and their bathroom. - Before I clean the carpet. Mmmmm
5. Clean their linen closet to the bare shelves. - Before I travel to Ethiopia. I did it!
   
6. Dry wall the garage it is an absolute child hazard as it is today. - Tomorrow. DONE!
   
7. Wishlist for shower. - Growing daily.
   
8. Begin purchasing things that they will need. (It's been hard holding off). Still hard. Shhh...I did buy a couple of things.
   
9. Plan the itenarary for me and my dads first visit to Ethiopia. - Can't even think about it. It's getting super close.
   
10. Visit a couple of my final choices for schools. Make a choice. - The list has narrowed.
    
11. Choose, order, purchase their bedroom furniture. - See below.
    
12. Decorate thier room - choose bedding, wall stuff all of that. - After furniture.

Thankfulness

Maya Angelou has always said that the most eloquent prayer is, "Thank you." Whenever I hear her say it, I think of my favorite chapter in the bible, Philippians 4.

Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. Philippians 4:11-13

From the Contemporary Translation:

I know what it is to be poor or to have plenty, and I have lived under all kinds of conditions. I know what it means to be full or to be hungry, to have too much or too little. Christ gives me the strength to face anything.

Something that I remind myself about time and time again. Now, when I think about the children in Ethiopia and read the passage it has even more meaning.

Thank You...!

New Beginnings

When I started on this adoption journey I was talking to a young 30 something minister named David. The funny thing is that many years ago when he was a teenager, David was one of my teen Bible study students. He would hang arrive at class early, he would always stay late to continue talking about the scriptures and how they applied to his life. I remember the first time I was a keynote speaker for the Annual Children's day and he unlike the other teenagers sat in the front row. He was always attentive, always listening, always asking questions. I watched him grow up and accept his call into the ministry. Now, he is the Christian Youth director holding the position that I did many, many years ago.

David is a tall, strong, handsome minister of the gospel but he and will always be one of my "kids". What I love about these young people who are still present in my life is that they now share, minister, and encourage me. I was talking to David about the adoption and all the things that had gone on and all the things that I could see coming.

David said, "God has led you full circle. You know when you go full circle you get a new beginning." I thought that was a simple but profound statement. So, today when I came across a post on one of the adoption blogs I remembered that conversation.

Read this amazing full-circle story of a little girl adopted from Ethiopia.

The Voice of Young Ethiopian Americans

A site that I enjoy reading is Abesha.com. It is a blog that presents young Ethiopians living in America and abroad in their own voices. There are good articles and I particularly like the personal profiles of individual young men and women. It really shows how they see themselves as Ethiopians living abroad and how their upbring has been influenced by the traditions of Ethiopia and the pull of their new homes. As our children will grow into teens and young adults, I've found this site gives me great insight. Check the archives.

Here is an article that I think deserves a look: The Politics of Identity. Below is an excerpt.

The Politics of Identity

My prayers consisted of a vision of a utopian society, whereby people would hold hands and lift them in an upwards direction towards the sky and stand in a line. Okay not exactly, but they would have the option to play under the sun, frolic in the rain, sing songs, and trade colouring books. In short, I was asking for a crayola paradise. This desire for a world that doesn’t take into account which part you come from echoes the dreams of many, but reflects the reality of few. For example, racism abounds in many industrialized countries, discriminating which jobs are available for which sectors of the population. Likewise in many underdeveloped nations, the struggle for access to scarce resources is often drawn along ethnic lines.

Growing up, I don’t remember being told once exactly what my specific ethnic group was. ...we stayed in Addis and spoke Amharic, and my mom had grown up in Jimma and understood Oromiffa.

It is perhaps lucky that I came to ask this question at a time when I was dealing with identity politics on a very personal, day to day level in the small, southern Virginia town where I resided. Having moved there at the age of 13, my identity inevitably changed from that of an individual coming from a relatively economically privileged background in Ethiopia to being a black, hence, African American student in a majority white high school institution. And, as any one who’s experienced it may tell you, living in a practically all white Southern town doesn’t usually turn out to be the most pleasant experience for any up and coming black individual, unbeknownst to their white counterparts.

W.E.B. Dubois conceivably put it best in his book The Souls of Black Folk where he posited that the average African American cannot have the same things to say about living in the United States as a white person, as a result of his or her ‘double consciousness’. By this, Dubois meant that black people, by virtue of their skin color, are forced to carry a double identity in the United States: that of an American, and that of an American with dark skin. These two experiences are not interchangeable. For example, what experiences black skin affords one in the United States are such things as being pulled over for the most common felony among African American circles—driving—and, turning a simple trip to the mall turn into a peek a boo game played with overly suspicious salespeople. This is a privilege that most White Americans take for granted—that they never usually have to think twice about their cultural identity in relation to their economic well-being.

Likewise for those of us who may find ourselves perplexed at the various manifestations of different ethnic groups freely expressing themselves and their culture in ways that may not seem inclusive towards the average, Amharic speaking, Addis residing Ethiopian, perhaps the aforementioned paradigm might be helpful. Although one always hears of Ethiopia being a diverse place (over 80 some languages spoken), I find that most people never actually sit down to fathom what all that means. Neither did I actually. I approached it more like a figure to brag about to foreigners when asked. But never did I actually sit to think there are potentially 79 other groups of Ethiopians I had little means of communicating with—or perhaps even shared a dissimilar view as to where we fit in the country/history of Ethiopia.

We must understand that any group crying out against humanitarian injustices dealt to them does not deserve our mockery because of it’s particularity, but rather, our active support that these injustices, regardless of who it’s affecting, must be stopped, period.

When Sunday Comes

Finding strength in my old time church favorites like Daryl Coley. This is how I'm feeling and I just love great singers. There is a little interview intro first.