No, I'm not going to see a doctor.

Yes, I feel like crap.

No, I'm not going to see a doctor.

This isn't strep. It isn't the flu. It's a really nasty head cold. Plain and simple. I have intermittent congestion, and a cough. A cough that gets worse when I talk. And then I get a splitting headache. And I am not sleeping well.

This does not warrant me going to the doctor. It warrants me getting rest. Period.

And if I hear one more goddamned time that being sleep deprived is good practice for when I have a newborn, I'm going to shoot someone in the face. I do not need practice at being sleep deprived. And if I were feeling as crappy then as I am now, at least I'd be better off in that I was a parent.

So shut up. I've had it.

There.

Thanks for letting me vent. I'm going to go curl up with my vile Robitussin, a box of Kleenex, and brew myself some more tea. God I am sick of tea.

I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, I swear

So, after the raffle, we did a little weekend getaway. We didn't know if we were going to be able to pull it off, but with cheap airfares & a freebie ticket, and us being super-frugal with our food, we did 4 days at Walt Disney World!!



We've gotten pretty good at cutting corners & finding deals, and watching our pennies, so I was very pleased we were able to do a weekend for a couple hundred bucks, including the delicious "Mickey Premium Bar" you see above.

The only downside to the trip was that my honey dropped our digital SLR camera (yeah, the nice one you can see in the header on my blog) on the concrete. The LCD screen was toast & we couldn't tell if it was taking pictures or not. We pulled all the pictures off the camera card when we got home & found out that it was taking fine pictures.



Okay, so that one has a bit of blur ... but the tiger was moving. Note: tigers are BIG animals.

Anyway, when we got back, we hit the ground running. Suddenly, my days were completely full, both with work & with more sales from the half.com, amazon.com, craigslist, and eBay sites. Very good from a revenue perspective ... but I was really getting worn thin.

This past weekend I ran errands, did some holiday shopping (normally I'm mostly done by now, but the past 2 months I've been so focused on the adoption related stuff, I've only squared away TWO gifts, of about 24 needed!!), and met up with several friends I'd not seen in a while.

Well, yesterday I woke up congested & thought I'd shake it. Nope. I'm down for the count. I took a sick day today & I'm just focusing on staying warm, drinking tea, and trying to send myself healing vibes. Since it's healing for me to connect with others & to feel "caught up," I feel justified in posting here. *grin*

Raffle was a huge success!

We had the raffle drawing today, at half-time during the Bears game, at a local restaurant/pub. Here are the baskets with items from local area donors:



It was very cool to see the people who turned out to support us - a real warm fuzzy to have my parents & some friends come! Here's my yoga instructor & her mentor, buying tickets!


And it was cool that the patrons were supportive of us -- some of the guys joked that if they won a basket, they also wanted weekend visitation! I told them sure, as long as they take the kid(s) to some sporting events!!! They sold tickets right down to the wire.



Here's the event organizer, Robin, her daughter Jessica, and me!



The first prize basket went to a guy named Dave, who had just purchased a ticket that day, from one of Robin's kids. The 2nd prize basket went to one of the guys who works at my husband's office. And the 3rd prize basket went to a lady who'd bought a ticket in the past couple of weeks from the restaurant's staff!

The net result is that we're $618 closer to our goal, and the amount we needs is getting smaller and smaller!! Thank you to everyone who helped and who pitched in and who just generally are thinking great thoughts for us!!!

Moving in the right direction

So, an update on the raffle: Out of the $300 of tickets the 2 of us were given to sell, we've got only $35 left, plus several people have made some cash donations in lieu of entering the raffle, so I'm pretty excited, because this means we've raised at least $300! We're getting very close to our goal!

I've also managed to get about 1/3 of the carpeting steam-cleaned ... and it felt so good to tackle this project. Now that the air is drier, it's easier to do this, because it only takes a few hours for the carpeting to dry completely! I hope to tackle the remaining 2/3 before my parents arrive Saturday afternoon.

We pursued a lead with respect to a birthmother, but reached a dead end when we found the expenses related to her situation far exceeded our budget. Frustrating, but we're not overly stunned. Even though our budget seems like a ridiculous amount of money to us, we're really at the low end of costs compared to other hopeful adoptive parents.

We've had many people ask us how they can help. Right now, just send some positive energy into the universe! And if you've got leftover stuff for newborns, we'll happily accept it! Other than that, we just have to wait for a birthmother to pick us. If we're still waiting to be parents in another 6 months, we might do another fundraiser of some kind. I am trying to figure out if I can make something (potholders, trivets, who-knows-what) to sell and raise more money. I may just start combing through my craft supplies and start making random things to put up for sale!