Jodi Speaks Her Mind

Wireless made complicated 10/22/2004

I guess I’ve taken for granted how easy it is to make use of a wireless card on a Mac. Here at work they finally set up some of the laptops to use wireless cards, and they installed those big, ugly, blue wireless routers in the conference rooms so they sit in the middle of the conference tables! But that wasn’t even enough - each router is positioned right next to the piles of ethernet cords that remain plugged in because too many people still don’t have wireless or don’t have it activated or even more likely don’t know how to make it work. The ITS people e-mailed out instructions on how to set it up and make it work on your computer. Said instructions are FIVE pages long and include several detailed pictures along with instructions for the things which have to be turned OFF in order to be turned back on again. Evidently PC laptops are also equipped with some sort of external “switch” you have to engage in order to turn on the hardware itself.

What kind of insanity is this? It’s 2004 for goodness’ sake! You should be able to install the wireless card, boot your computer and GO!

Thank you, Apple, for making our lives simpler and mainly just for making things that WORK.

Adoption Process - Week 10 10/15/2004

The Waiting Game

Well, our Homestudy paperwork is all in. Our police clearances were received by the court, and all our reference letters have been received. Up until now we have had so much to do: forms to fill out, stories to write, documents to track down, applications to sign, checks to write, doctors to see, and fingerprints to make available to every law enforcement agency known to man. It was busy, crazy, challenging, and exhausting. And I want it back!!!!

Because now we wait. First we wait for our Homestudy to be written by the social worker and then submitted. Then we wait for the Judge to certify us (ha ha, certify us, that’s funny - I’d never thought of that one). Then we wait for the notarized copies of our Homestudy and certification. Then we wait for our USCIS approval to be completed. Then we wait for authentication by the state, apostilling by the feds, and finally translation of the entire dossier (which of course takes place in Ukraine). After that is mailed back to us, we send everything right back to Kiev to the National Adoption Center and then we get to pick up our boy wait some more (sigh). We wait for them to approve us. If they find everything in order, we then have to wait for an invitation. Once we have received our invitation and have requested a date, then we wait to travel. We’re so close, and yet so far.

The prize for those who can wait it out: a beautiful toddler for your very own!

God give me strength, patience, and plenty to do to help the time pass more quickly!

Life Update 10/13/2004

Yes, it’s a fact: life goes on whether we want it to or not. I’ve posted regularly about our adoption process but have sorely neglected posting about the other aspects of life, which have not been uninteresting.

Work has been the primary front where the battles have been waged. I mentioned in passing that I organized a major conference for our company, and only today can I say that it has been “wrapped up”. It was a huge project that I thoroughly enjoyed even if it was stressful and draining. It is the type of project I perform the best at, and I did get a lot of positive feedback from attendees and presenters, which certainly didn’t hurt my feelings any. In addition to that project, I’ve just been swamped with a huge workload. I finally feel like things are easing a bit, but I’m sure that’s only temporary.

In other news, I’m slowly (that should be s–l–o–o–o–o–l–y) getting the house organized (re-organized?) and we’re looking to paint L.T.’s room this weekend. The story behind the color selection we ended up with is rather entertaining. The short version is that we are painting a yellow room yellow.

The long version: Parents of the couple that lived in the house before us tells the story like this: The husband thought he’d do his wife a favor one weekend while she was away and paint the room a pleasant, sunny yellow. The trouble is that yellows are difficult to gauge, and the yellow he chose was too intense for the small 10′x10′ room. The wife was not pleased. When we bought the house, we didn’t know what we’d use the room for, so we never bothered to change it. In the back of my mind, I’d always hoped it would be a nursery, and I rather liked the idea of yellow…

So currently the room is a very saturated yellow. As a result, we took a yellow-avoidance tack when discussing colors for the room, but couldn’t settle on anything definite. Finally, we realized that the room should be yellow, but it needs to be a less heavy yellow. So we will be re-painting our yellow walls yellow this weekend. Then we’re adding a chair rail, which should break up the color a bit.

I have to get back to work now, but later, I plan to blog about blogging. Stay tuned!

Adoption Process - Week 9 10/9/2004

This week we mainly did one important thing: had our second and final home visit. Our case worker (if that is the right term) is really nice. I have mentioned on here a couple of times that we experienced some “negativity” from the agency, but it was made very clear at our meeting yesterday that it was not originating from her. She has been really supportive and encouraging to us, which is largely why the negative tone seemed so out of character. In any case, our visit went very smoothly, and Tina has been great about tracking all the paperwork so our homestudy can be submitted to the judge hopefully on Thursday of this coming week!

For our homestudy to be final, we are only waiting on two things: first, acknowledgement that the state received our criminal clearances (we know they did, but for some reason she was not notified yet about it) and second, one of our reference letters hasn’t been sent in yet. Hopefully both of these can be resolved early next week so our Homestudy can be submitted on time. WooHoo! It’s very exciting to be nearing the conclusion of one of the first of several large hurdles in the adoption process.

I would like to take a moment to mention here the agency we are working with for the Ukraine side of our adoption. I haven’t mentioned them much, but we communicate with Cheri of ADS, International at least 2-3 times per week. She has been the most amazing support during this process and has demonstrated the utmost professionalism. Her website will be up shortly, and I’ll be sure to give it a mention here so others can give consideration to her as they seek direction with regard to adopting from Ukraine. The greatest gift Cheri has given us is that she never tires of answering my endless barrage of questions (and I do mean endless!) Kudos and lots of future business to you Cheri!

Adoption Process - Week 8 10/3/2004

Wow, another week has flown by. Each week it feels like we’re doing very little that works towards the adoption, but then I list out what we’ve done that week, and it almost always sounds like a LOT! So here’s the list for this past week:

• Submitted Tax forms and W-2’s for the past 3 years for the dossier • Submitted medical statements for our dossier • Submitted copies of physician licenses for the dossier • Created and submitted a photo collage for the dossier • Submitted Steve’s employer statement (mine was submitted earlier) • Submitted recent pay stubs for each of us (for dossier) • Had color copies made of our passports (not yet submitted) • Communicated a lot with our Ukraine agency regarding our status • Sent a difficult-to-compose e-mail to our Homestudy Agency defending our choice to adopt from Ukraine • (Edited to add:) Steve got his USCIS fingerprinting done this week, too

By far the hardest part of this week was learning that it will likely be more like next summer (rather than late winter/early spring as we were hoping) before we’ll be able to travel to Ukraine to get our L.T. Word is that things have just slowed down in Ukraine and there is a significant wait time between getting your approval and getting your appointment at the Adoption Center in Kiev.

We are hoping and praying that this won’t stretch out too long and we’ll be able to have him home earlier somehow, but we know ultimately, we’ll bring him home in God’s timing. Guess it’s time to pray for more patience!