Dear Amelia,

Happy Two Year Angelversary, Baby Girl!

Love,

Mommy, Daddy and Brock

The Sting of Rejection

It was another long shot.

But it was trying something different, exploring our options.

Due to a remarkable series of coincidences, we found ourselves considering adopting a sibling group of little girls through Wednesday's Child. EVERYTHING mysteriously fell into place from the time we were made aware of the little girls to filling out the paperwork and arranging for our home study to be sent to the state. We sent a letter heralding our virtues as a family to the appropriate social worker. And then we waited.

"Don't get your hopes up." I told myself.

We didn't talk about the girls and only made slight mention of the immediate changes that would be necessary if by some miracle we were chosen. Nevertheless, I continued to check my email almost hourly to see if by chance there was any correspondence from the social worker.

Then yesterday, we received an email thanking us for our interest and informing us that another family had been chosen. *STING*

We were almost 99% positive we were not going to be chosen from day one and I'm sure that following a thorough investigation of all families, the state chose the best fit for the sisters. And we're sincerely happy for that particular family and for the little girls.

The *STING* is the personal rejection.

You see, when you try to adopt, you not only endure an intense litmus test, background checks, references and referrals, but you also put down a lot of money up front and place your fate in the hands of a deciding committee. After that, you have to advertise yourself--sell your family.

You think, "WE ARE AWESOME!! Who wouldn't want to be part of our family??"

Unfortunately, rejection is a big part of this horrible journey and swallowing the bitter pill of disappointment becomes almost standard practice.

Still, we're blessed in many ways and whether or not we're ever chosen to adopt, we make the most of what we do have. Besides, there's always hope, right?

Honey-Do and Honey-Did

It's a curious thing to wake up and notice your computer desk, circa gloriously-cheap Walmart, is leaning rather inconspicuously to the right, as though it wished to lay down and take a morning nap. So, Brock and I made the executive decision to help the desk along and armed with Clarke's heavy hammer, I whacked away at the poor and dying, sorry excuse for a computer desk while Brock hid behind the couch, squealing as wood shards went sailing through the air. Then he looked at me with sparkling, hero worship in his dark blue eyes and for 20 minutes I was the epitome of maternal coolness.

The gaping hole in my living room that was once an ugly computer desk suddenly presented a little hiccup in my decorating scheme. The emergency solution came in the form of our card table. 

Unh! Talk about eye-sore! It's almost as embarrassing as our carpet.

So, I put on my sweetest, lip smacker smile, batted my mascara-clad eyelashes and showed Clarke this picture..

"I want. Honey do?"

And honey did!!!

Or, I should say, Honey-is-doing because even though Clarke is no where close to finishing, his sheer carpentry genius GUARANTEES that this project will be ***STUNNING.*** 

He's about the 1/4 finished with our computer armoire and it already looks fabulous. 

Naturally.

I wanted to wait until the project was completed so that I could crow about my husband's mad skills in the garage, but as I sit here typing on a shaky and crowded card table, I can't help but express my excitement about our newest piece of furniture. 

And when you're excited about something, you should blog about it. ;)

Greece

A couple of nights ago, I was watching a drippy and predictable romance on Netflix, the kind that make you lose interest because they're so painstakingly dumb and ooze thick, nauseating, Hollywood sentimentality. It was called "Opa." My apologies to anyone who watched and inexplicably loved this horrible movie, but *GAG.* Blech!

You're probably wondering why I would even own to spending 93 minutes of my life watching straight-to-DVD-bypassing-the-theater, "romantic comedy whatever" dribble. 

Why? 

Because it was set in Greece. And the water (oh the glittery, warm water, mmmm) was turquoise and green and clear. The sunshine was radiant and enveloping. 

And for those 93 minutes of agonizingly poor screenwriting and equally appalling acting, I actually felt at peace with Mother Nature, under her blue sky, basking in the hot, yellow sun and swimming in the turquoise waters along the beaches of Greece.

Only too bad for me, because one glance out the window reminded me that we're still enduring a dry but miserably cold Northwest winter. Gray skies, blowing snow, skeleton trees and an unshakable chill that sunk in around October and won't dissipate until March. Or April.

And suddenly, I missed Greece.

Even though I've never actually been there.

A Conversation

***

(while driving to the grocery store...)

Brock: Mom, what are we going to get at the store?

Me: Food.

Brock: How about we get some M&Ms for the Brockster??!

Ba-dum-chhh!


***

Dinnertime

Is it just me or does the clock signaling 5:00 pm also send a pang of dread rushing through your brain because it's that time again: time to make dinner. 

Last week, Clarke informed me that cold cereal is not a dinner food as I was happily pouring bowls of Cap'n Crunch. We may need counseling.

He also shot down my brilliant plan for Oreos and milk in lieu of chicken and rice.

Who doesn't want Oreos for dinner?

You see, he's old school. 

The wifey-poos produces a hot and delicious meal when the hubs comes home from work.

But, I'm more elementary school. 

Chicken nuggets and french fries, anyone???

How about some Cap'n Crunch?

I still maintain that a bigger kitchen would help motivate me to make impressive meals. 

But in the meantime, if Clarke agrees to let me paint our ugly cabinets a sparkling white, I may compromise my meal plans and attempt a more diverse palate of foods. No promises, though. ;)

So tonight, it's chili from a can, tortilla chips and cheese. 

What are you making?

The Awful Truth

The awful truth has been sloshing about in my mind for the past week, like a bowl of runny oatmeal. Consistent with many of our most recent ventures, this too was a long shot and we pretty much knew that going in, but we let our high hopes enslave our common sense. 

So here is the awful truth: We won't be selling or buying a new house this year.

Darn it.

And not your "aw, shucks" sort of darn it, but more of a tearfully melancholy, my-hopes-and-dreams-have-ultimately-been-shattered sort of darn it. 

Last week, we met with two Realtors who gave similar and bleak presentations as to the market in our area.

Even though we're not upside down in the value of our home (whew!), enough of our neighbors were/are and their foreclosed homes are CRUSHING TO DEATH the possibility of the rest of us selling our homes for what they're worth, or what we still owe, just to break even. 

But you can still rent out your house. 

That's what you're thinking, right?

(sigh) If only it was that easy.

 Because here is dream crusher #2:

Those homeowners whose homes are being foreclosed on are making a profit in the interim, before the bank seizes the house, by renting out their foreclosed homes for a couple hundred a month. This is apparently a very common practice in our area. 

How can responsible people like us compete with that? 

(hopelessly shrugs) We can't.

So renting is off the table.

This little house that we built nearly 8 years ago, our "5-year plan" house as we called it way back when, is just going to have to do for few more years until the market picks up again.

Realistically, it may become our "10 year plan."

And we're going to make it work!!

Starting with hardwood floors, some fresh paint and a lot of elbow grease.

Smooth, Like Butter

The deliciousness of a task that is so easy that it flows like yellowy, creamy butter on a steaming-hot-from-the-oven-on-a-Sunday-afternoon roll induces an easy sensation of triumph. A satisfaction so tangible that it almost drips off the chin like a stream of melted butter from that first bite of corn on the cob. 

For example, when I hesitantly approached the frightening task of setting up our new Mac, I was overwhelmed by an immediate sense of inadequacy. Upon opening the box and finding only ONE cord, I knew that we had been had by Best Buy and almost tripped over my own shoes in my race across the room to my phone. There is no way a computer can be set up with only one cord! My PC needed 37 different and distinct cords to connect the monitor alone! In a confoundingly miraculous 5 minutes, I achieved the impossible. I set up our computer. ALL by myself. And it runs smooth. Like butter. 

This afternoon, my 5 year old niece, visiting from Oregon, was traipsing through my house, cloaked in her princess blanket, with a yawn on her face and that vacant stare in her eyes that signaled she needed a nap, in spite of her protests to the contrary. With the flick of a switch, my XM radio powered on and the soothing sounds of a melodic, Mozart symphony chimed throughout the room. She nestled herself into an overstuffed chair and in minutes was sleeping peacefully. Aunt Char operates smooth, like butter. 

Valentine's shopping for my boys this morning resulted in not only a too-good-to-be-true parking space right up front, but also yielded the most PERFECT gift.....for Brock. He is getting a chocolate dog in a cardboard doghouse covered in hearts. I tell ya, shopping for Brock today was smooth. Like butter.

But not everything runs like a drip of melted butter. Some things run like a chunk of cold, refrigerated margarine. 

For example, Valentine's shopping for the hubs. Normally, shopping for Clarke is such a simple task, it's almost sickening, actually. But today, as I perused the picked over shelves of shiny, heart-shaped boxes of chocolates and the ridiculous stuffed frogs and monkeys that sing some rendition of a romantic ballad, courtesy of light FM, I was lost for a brilliant gift idea and settled on something tragically common and predictable. I fear my insignificant offering to my prince charming will have me scrambling come Monday morning. Here is my PG-13 back up plan (and perhaps peace offering when Clarke realizes how my adoration translates into a gift): Lingerie Cookies. It's going to take a lot of melted butter (and sugar and sprinkles) to make up for my admittedly pithy Valentine's gift. 

Our new wireless printer and I have come to a truce. Unlike the smooth, like butter setup of the Mac, the printer proved to be of the same brain matter of the PC. Complicated, unyielding and frankly a pain in the patoosh. The compromise came in the form of a USB cable, rendering our wireless printer, wired. Following HOURS of setup, cursing, and throwing up my arms and shouting "Why.....why?"the eventual defeat hit me like a frozen brick of Blue Bonnet. *THUD*

In conclusion, ooey gooey butter not only makes everything taste better, but every smooth as butter task gives one an unequivocal sense of remarkable good luck and effortless achievement.

Mmmmm....butter.

So long. Farewell.

Auf Wiedersehen. Goodbye.

It only took YEARS and YEARS, monthly head bangings and those my-computer-won't-work-so-please-give-up-your-evening-and-come-fix-this-stupid-thing phone calls to family and friends much more proficient in PCs than ourselves to finally cowboy up and get ourselves a REAL computer.

So, gulp. We bought a Mac.

I mean, OMIGOSH, we bought a Mac!!!!!

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

According to the zillions of satisfied Mac customer reviews, this computer is so astronomical that simply removing it from the box and plugging it in will dazzle you in ways you never believed possible.

I do hope so.

Clarke said I had to hook up some doohickey to another thing and use a new $30 cord we just bought and ha ha ha, he totally thinks I can do this. His faith in me is inspiring, but makes me question just how much he knows about me and electronics. But, I can totally do this. Right?

Oh, and while we were signing away our entire tax refund (the one we'll presumably get after we file--nothing like putting the ol' cart before the horse analogy...), we decided to do a thorough job and throw in a wireless printer too. What's that?? You're besotted with confusion as to why the Sees are the last family on the planet to have a wireless printer? I know. It's tragic.

Wish me luck.

Time for a good Thursday afternoon dazzle with our new Mac, provided I can hook up the doohickey thing to the other thing. Maybe I should just wait until Clarke gets home???

Nah!

May The Force Be With You

and this...

Seasoned

It was birthday time at our place this weekend. 

It all started out when someone around here celebrated her thirty-something birthday, but for the sake of preserving her self esteem, we'll just call it her 29th birthday.

The day began with a hearty Costco chocolate cake breakfast (earned me the coolest mom ever status in Brock's eyes!) and my nemesis: inducement to workout immediately afterward by way of Wii Zumba, wrapped ever so eloquently in it's Amazon.com box--complete with packing slip.

Clarke is a darling man who's gift-wrapping skills defy explanation.

The second gift, on the other hand, was wrapped rather fabulously in a glossy pink striped gift bag and tucked into an iconic pink box. It was something INCREDIBLE from Victoria's Secret. Yay!

Then it was off to scout camp for Clarke. Many women would feel gypped if their Mr chose scouts over their birthday. Too bad for Clarke, because I felt gypped. Darn it.

(And I know he felt bad about it. It's just one of those things.)

My mom came to the rescue by cooking an Italian feast at her place for my birthday dinner and then topped it off with another chocolate cake from Costco.

It's a fact: Calories don't count if you're eating birthday cake. Particularly chocolate cake.

And since everyday is someone's birthday, somewhere, cake is almost always calorie-free.

After consuming mass quantities of pasta and cake and in a caloric state of euphoria, Brock and I returned  to our little house and prepared for bed.

"Mommy, can I sleep in your bed tonight?"

Thoughts of cuddling with my boy made my heart want to sing happiness.

Brock crowded my king-size bed with ALL of his stuffed puppies and plugged in his night light/aquarium, announcing that he was ready for bed. And at 8:30 pm. Score!

We brushed teeth and said prayers and then we snuggled down under the covers.

Here was the plan:

Snuggle with Brock for about 5 minutes until his breathing was even and relaxed and he had slipped into a dreamy sleep, like some flaxen-haired angel.

Then I would sneak out of bed, prepare some homemade kettle corn and settle down for a chick flick.

HOWEVER,

as I laid in bed contemplating my delicious scheme, I failed to recognize that I, too, had fallen asleep and didn't realize this fact until I rolled over and noticed that my alarm clock read 4:30 a.m.

WHAT THE CRAP???

I went to bed at 8:30 pm on my birthday??????????

LAME! LAME! LAME! LAME! LAME! LAME! LAME!

Sigh.

And to make matters worse, I just admitted this fact on our blog, thereby denouncing your thoughts about how someone of my infinite coolness celebrates her birthday.

So here I am, another year more seasoned than the last, complete with a forgetfulness of purpose and an early bedtime. Before you know it, I'll be smacking my gums together and turning up my hearing aids.

Isn't growing old grand?

Ramblings

Bazillions of ideas permeated my blogger brain this week about what I could post that would dazzle everyone. Satan and dinnertime. "In Our Next House." A no-fail potato soup recipe. Endorphins. Sundays. Three car garages. Lingerie sugar cookies. I had posts typed up and then immediately deleted them, not because they weren't brilliant, they just didn't jive with me. Things are simply all over the place, upside down, and in the air this week; add a touch of the winter blues and you've got the perfect blend of the bloggity blahs.
So, in lieu of one of my celebrated and charming blog posts, I thought I'd just ramble on...

*We're in the midst of Lost: Season 2. By the time 8pm rolls around, we're ready to fight for the cozy couch in the family room and settle in for a few episodes of our favorite obsesssion.

*I hate scouts. Clarke loves scouts. And the battle continues...

*Brock learned the art of mixing his own chocolate milk this week. Now, he likes to make chocolate milk at least 3 times a day. And he mixes up enough chocolate milk to share with mom and dad.

*I had a dream that we looked at a house that had carpeted cabinets.

*REALITY CHECK: We probably won't be able to sell our house, in all it's miniature adorableness. Next week we meet with realtors to discuss the possibility, but we have no illusions about how miserable the market really is and the heart-wrenching possibility that we'll be STUCK in this tiny house and in this no-where town forever. My hopes are sorta crushed at the moment. I believe they call this premature pessimism "jumping the gun." Nevertheless, I informed Clarke that if we don't move, I will need hardwood floors and a trip to Disneyland as a consolation prize.

*Adoption: We have nothing official to report. But something happened today that might be a game changer. And that's all I'm going to say right now.

*This week I caught Brock watching PBS Kids through a pair of binoculars. "Mom, you gotta see this. The TV is HUNORMOUS!!!" (yes, that would be the marriage of huge + enormous). I guess our 92 inch screen just doesn't cut it anymore. Hmmm.

*On Monday I made french vanilla cupcakes, tinted them pink, and then applied a copious amount of pink, cherry flavored butter cream frosting and smothered them in sprinkles. Some days you just need a pink cupcake. Know what I mean?

*Clarke thinks I should wear lipstick. I think he should wear lipstick for a day and then ask me again. ;)
Lipstick-0 Char-1 Woot! Viva chapstick!!

*Brock still hops around like a kangaroo at karate. This is not normal. But it's kind of funny.

*We paid off a credit card this week! And we'll pay off another one next week!

*The groundhog missed his shadow. I won't lie, an early spring would be a heaven-send.

*If I go to bed now, I can get a full 8 hours of sleep. So g'night!