Stalking the Mailbox...

Well, my long and winding road is moving forward! After 76 days of no activity, my homestudy agency called today and said they are mailing the homestudy today!!!

Yea!!!! So I am stalking the mailbox!

I had a little scare earlier this week. I had this black bag I had all my other dossier papers in, just waiting for the homestudy, to get it all authenticated and sent to Ethiopia...and I LOST IT!

I thought I had it at my work office, but opened the cabinet and it was not there. So then I thought I must have it at home, and it was no where. Not wanting to panic (I HATE STRESS)...I realized any paper in there, I could get again, but it takes a while. My passport was in there too.

SO, I gave my children an incentive. The one who could find the black bag, gets $10.

So a sidenote: I had taken Nick to a Casting Crowns concert for his 10th birthday. He loved it. At the concert they talked about World Vision and sponsoring a child. (http://www.wvi.org/wvi/wviweb.nsf) He was SOOO moved by it, he wanted to sponsor a child himself. I was hesitant, we already sponsor a little girl, Eva, in Mexico through Compassion (http://www.compassion.com/default.htm) I DO have a big heart, but also have lots of expenses, and adoption costs. But Nick felt so passionate about it, he said he would do extra chores to earn the $30 a month. I agreed, so Nick is sponsoring Sharif from Bangladesh.

SO, when Nick heard the reward, he was all over that...said he would have $10 toward his sponsorship for this month. He started upstairs and was looking diligently, under beds, closests...etc. Not an easy task, since we still have tons of boxes yet to unpack. I wanted him to go get his sleeping bag out of the garage, as he was heading off to Ranger camp at 5 am the next morning, but he was impassioned with the search.

SO, I went out to the garage, to dig up the sleeping bag, and what should be sitting beside it? Yep! The black bag!!!! I was overjoyed and camp in the house with the two bags. But then, immediately felt sad. I SOOOO wanted Nick to find it. So I slyly was trying to slip it under the couch with no one noticing, when Nick, at the top of the stairs, said, elated..."You found it!!!" Then turned to sad face, when he realized that yes, IIII had found it.

Trying to find the logic in it, I said, well actually YOU found it. How so? Well, if you had not been hunting so I was the one to go get the sleeping bag, we may not have found it. You might have just grabbed the sleeping bag and walked on by. So because of you, it was found. (Well, a mom has got to try!!)

So he got the reward, (actually Sharif did) and we have the all important papers! Woo-hoo.

So I will spend the next few days stalking the mailbox and getting ready for the next step in the process!!