Train potty

Extraordinary things are happening around here. Meaning, things slightly away from our boring little norm. Let me elaborate [while also proving there is a SomeEcard for every occasion]:

1. I am working tomorrow. I only drug myself to the gym two days this week and my current goal is three days. So what am I going to do? Call it a slacker week and be done with it? No. I'm going to get up at 5:30 am on a Saturday so that I can make it to the gym before work. The gym is actually at my work, so that helps. I'm feeling like I deserve an extra cookie [or glass of wine] for this heroic feat. I'm also quite nervous about using the public shower in the locker room. I hope I don't contract some sort of fatal disease.



2. I am almost finished with my scrapbook. That means I've whipped through nearly 200 pictures in a matter of a week or so. Damn, I should do this for a living. If only I didn't have that pesky full time job to limit my spare time:
3. When I was hired to this new job in October, I was promised a "very nice" raise within six months. I had my 90 day review with my boss and apparently I am the bomb. Not really, but she is going to get me my raise. As soon as she figures out how to calculate the total. A little worrisome, since she is the boss and should know this....but whatev. I'm HOPING it's about 5k for the year, but we'll see. This type of bonus NEVER happens in PT so you have to savor every wage increase. From here on out I'll only receive my measly 3% cost of living raise each year. Literally, that's it. So I deserve a big fatty raise before my potential earnings flat line for life. I plan on stalking my boss for the amount on Monday.

4. Not only that, but I totally forgot about my 5k sign on bonus! I get the first 1/3 of it with my next paycheck [after heavy taxes, of course]. The next 1/3 is due after a year and the last of it after two years. Talk about a nice little surprise!
5. I was home for 30 minutes this evening before I noticed this monstrosity. Look closely. It's not the fluffy white beast on the couch that throws me off. Nor the fact that the couch isn't perfectly aligned with the wall decor [although that DOES really bother me a lot, now that I see this picture]:
It's the hideous Packers dolls on my shelves! Not okay. Nate apparently thought he'd "decorate" with his little treasures and place them in one of the most prominent locations in our apartment.
I'm sorry, but they are so ugly and TOTALLY don't go with my photography/wedding/ pimptastic theme. He bought these in Spain in a moment of weakness, being mesmerized with the green and gold painted wood. Once he returned to the USA he realized these things are all over the place. Not exactly an authentic Spanish souvenir.

6. Remember how I whined about the weather? Well apparently it's a lot worse than I thought. A "Winter Weather Advisory" has been announced due to wind chills in the negative thirties!! Please read below and feel very sorry for me.

Well, it happened. I have tumbled down the rabbit hole....again. But in a good way.

The first time I tumbled down was February 13, 2010. My mother took me out to lunch to "discuss" something with me. It sounded ominous, like she was about to announce she was sick or had cancer. How little prepared I was for what came next.

The gist? I was always told she adopted me because she couldn't have children of her own. I was a gift. Special. Unique. Turns out, that wasn't entirely correct. She confessed that she had a daughter whom she had given up for adoption in her 20s. It was true she could not have children, but from complications from her first pregnancy. She had fully intended on never telling me, swearing to take her secret to the grave. She was only telling me now because her daughter had found her and requested contact. My mom then mentioned that she had just had coffee with her and she wanted to meet me.

Umm...what!?

She seemed so excited, so buzzed on finding her daughter. She was trying to down play it so as not to hurt my feelings, but it was clearly all she wanted to talk about. She had a picture of her. She wanted to share. I could also tell she was full of angst, nervous about how I might take it all, terrified that people might find out her deep, dark secret. The secret that she made a poor decision in her youth (haven't we all) that resulted in heartache. I assured her that people would not judge her (and I was right). She was excited, but secretive and she wanted to share that with me. I could tell me being OK was important to her, so I asked questions and tried to be as supportive as I could. In reality I was furious. "How could she have not told me?," I thought, "aren't I adopted? Wouldn't I, of all people, have understood?"

For about a week the world felt like it was upside down, much like Alice in Wonderland who fell for a long time through the rabbit hole and came out the other side. I was shocked. I was upset. But then I began to think about all the pain of what my mom must have gone through and I realized, she didn't keep it from me because she didn't trust me, she didn't tell anyone. She quietly hid her pain, stuffed so far down she thought it might even be gone. Suddenly so many things, so many occasional comments that made no sense at the time, suddenly were given new context. She was struggling, and in watching her process, I began to wonder, what would reunion look like for me? Did I even dare search? Life was fine the way it was. But, there are always those unanswered questions (such as the ones I wrote about just over a month ago).

I met my mom's daughter. She is lovely. I very much enjoy her company. I know she was disappointed that my mother never had any more biological children, but she and I have found a sort of sisterly bond, and we share one very important factor. We are both adopted. It was when I was out with her and my mom one day that the two of them ganged up on me. "Why aren't you searching?," "It has been so amazing," "I think it would answer a lot of questions for you," and "I think you are just afraid of what you will find." How to explain to them? It wasn't so much fear of finding rejection but fear of upsetting the status quo. But then my mom commented to me one day on why she agreed to meet with her daughter in the first place, "No matter how uncomfortable I am with what happened, she didn't ask to be born. I owed it to her to meet with her and answer all the questions she had because I made the decision to bring her into this world." Her words gave me hope.

Watching the two of them get to know each other and watching my mom answer questions for her daughter that I had always had for myself, set something in motion. The clincher came when my middle child, Raindrop, started experiencing severe allergic rashes that were covering her whole body. Allergy testing after testing. Food diaries after behavior diaries, all desperately trying to pin point what was causing it. She was going through blood tests and skin tests and x-rays and ultra sounds. Nothing seemed to be helping and she was missing skin clear from the backs of her knees up to her mid-back area. Enough was enough. If I could spare her discomfort, I would. My fear evaporated and I allowed my mom to hire an intermediary to help me locate my birth family. Mama bear instinct reared it's head! If medical information could help us get answers faster, than that was what we needed and quick.

Ironically I did most of the research myself (I had done most of it five years earlier on a whim one day). Turns out I had quite a knack for investigative online searching. (Although in all fairness I did a stint as an Internet researcher for one of my graduate professors seeking obscure data online such as what was the preferred method to skin a deer in X year in the X area of the United States, so I had lots of practice). I handed over my findings and the intermediary attempted to contact my birth mother on my behalf. I didn't have to wait long. She called me with news within a couple of days of her first attempt at making contact.

Back down the rabbit hole....
Whatever starry eyed fantasy I may or may not have had about a potential reunion popped rather quickly. The intermediary was horrified with the response she had gotten and was reluctant to read the letter to me over the phone. The theme of the letter was anger. Fury even (although the words were meant to convey the opposite of that). Closed adoptions are meant to be closed, she was content, and that was that. Um, closed adoptions might have been true in 1976 before the advent of the home computer, but we have the Internet now. You can't hide much these days (a fact I remind my children of daily, lest my daughter get caught having to give up her dream of being president because of a posted Facebook photo of some poor decision making on a spring break trip to Cabo). I only wanted medical information and to ask some questions. There was little chance of that happening. And I really doubted she was going to give me the name of my birth father.

So, I began digging further...I was really getting good at this stuff now. However, I hit a dead end with my paternal side when I realized their surname was one of the top 30 most popular names in the U.S. No way to whittle....or was there? (Enter the scariness of what is available on the Internet). I was surfing high school yearbooks that people have scanned in from the state I was born in and found a high school year book with pictures taken the year I was born. I then used the data I had from my adoption records and abracadabra, I narrowed my search down to two families. Eventually with some more digging I had my confirmation and I sent the information to my intermediary. We were supposed to meet sometime in the next few weeks to discuss making contact. And then........

One more time down the rabbit hole....
They found me first. They were searching for me at the same time I was searching for them. And even more amazing, they are open to meeting with me and answering questions. How exciting.....and scary.....and mind blowing.

The fact remains that I still have two half-sisters out there who most likely have no idea I exist. And if I ever could, I would say to them in the event they found out about me, "I truly understand how you feel". It is shocking and overwhelming to find out something like that from your mother. It calls into question all sorts of things. I know, because I have been there myself. I too have tumbled down the rabbit hole a few times. But, the good news is, it is temporary. And in the end, I feel I know my mother better now than I ever have before. I only hope I can represent that same sense of healing to my own birth family.

I so enjoy the little "mom tips" that I've come across in life - those little things that I've learned from my mom, or a mom friend, that just make life a little nicer.  Things that make the "daily-daily" just a little easier, or make me smile a little more, or maybe will be a time saver for me.  I'm not referring to the bigger projects like de-cluttering or re-organizing, (although those definitely make me smile)!  But just the small things - the "mom tips" that aren't in the self-help books, they're just life-experience things that I've gotten from a mom with experience under her belt.  Well I'll share with you some Mom Tips for Around the House, #4; I hope they bring a simple breath of fresh air to your regular every day patterns!  *smile*


~ Pleasantly pouring popcorn - There is often a foam seal underneath the lid of the popcorn container, adhered to the rim of the container.  Instead of pealing the whole thing off, consider cutting just a triangle hole opening to act as a spout.  This enables the pouring of the popcorn in to a one-cup measure (which I do to make home made popcorn) easier and cleaner, especially when pouring from the 8 lb. Costco-size containers with a 4-inch wide "mouth".


~ Lobster crackers for nuts - Our family likes to eat Pistachio nuts for "dessert" after dinner sometimes, but there are always some nuts that aren't cracked open enough to open with our fingers.  So we use our crab crackers to crack open the nuts.



~ Filling a large container with water - Use a clean dust pan to fill a container that doesn't fit into the sink. 







~ Getting keys on a key ring - Use a staple remover instead of your fingernails.



~ Stop things from boiling over - Put a wooden spoon across the pot while cooking.



~Save flip flop soles - Use a bread clip to stop a split.



~ Putting shoes through the dryer - Simply hold the shoe in place by trapping the laces in the door.




~ Avoid people sneaking up on you while wearing headphones at work - Use sunglasses or a small convex mirror to see behind you while you work.



~ Keep your straw from rising our of your soda can.



~ Prevent frost on the windshield - Place a microfiber cloth on the windshield at night.



~ While hammering - Keep the nail steady without endangering your fingers.



~ Catch drywall debris - By using a post it note while drilling.



Blessings on your efforts at home!
Mom Tips - For Cooking 
Mom Tips - For the Kitchen
Mom Tips - For the Car: Organization & Preparedness
A list of all the Mom Tips posts

Merry Christmas Eve!

I'm sure there will be many more pictures of our festivities to come, but I have a few to share right now. Merry and bright around here, indeed.

I did get a few more pictures of them in their matching jammies. Note the 'TV faces'. HA!




And this is them on our first day of 'vacation'. We are all pretty much on cloud 9.




Nativity scenes are yummy.


Our buffet is exploding with Christmas cards. Have gotten a dozen more since I snapped this picture. Love it so much!


Wrapping gifts this year was more of a chore for me. I attempted to color coordinate by the family---so when we open gifts tonight on Christmas Eve with Nate's family there is one color, then tomorrow morning on Christmas Day with our little family of four has another, and Christmas night with my family from Missouri has a third. Makes my head hurt just thinking about it!


Someone is going to flip out over all of the gifts he is getting this year. It's ridiculous, actually.




My boys.


And then? This morning, on Christmas Eve, the boys went out to shop AGAIN while us girls stayed in to get CC a nap. But first I just had to get her all dolled up in her Christmas dress to take a few photos. I really really want to get pictures of both kids dressed up this afternoon before church but I'm not holding my breath. Truman apparently hates the red sweater I bought him this year because it's not a tee shirt. Sigh. But this girl? Totally loves her silky red dress by Carters that I got at my consignment store. And the cream shrug is NEW from Target. Hairbow made by Go-Go, of course. I could die over the cuteness.
















Merry Christmas, blog-world.