You are stunned for d6 rounds.

So, we got an email from the adoption agency today. Just an automated response to where we are in the timeline. And we learn, for the first time, that at the same time we cough up $10,000 for our activation fee, they want us to have the remaining balance sitting in a bank so when we match, we can wire it to them in 48 hours. Just one problem, we do not have $20,000 to sit in a bank. I mean ... WTF???? I was completely led to believe, based on the breakdown of when various expenses occur, that we would pay them at 2-3 different stages (depending on how far apart being matched & a baby's birth happened). We're applying for grants that won't get disbursed until DECEMBER. How in the hell can we have the money on hand NOW? My head is splitting. I just want to cry. I know that tomorrow things will be better & I will find a solution somehow, but I am just so very upset right now. I am just staring vacantly at the screen while I type. I hurt.

Progress?

Okay, I think we're making progress with the 2nd adoption agency. It's kind of hard to tell, because I've thought we were making progress before, only to find out that there were lots of things missing or we had to do things we'd done before with the other agency, but they needed their own copies, etc. So, here's the deal ...
(1) Our homestudy draft has been written by our local adoption specialist, approved by the 2nd agency, and now needs to be signed by our local specialist's supervisor, which she anticipates happening on Tuesday, then she can send it to the new agency.
(2) We got in all of our reference letters (thank you, all!) and mailed them out to the new agency.
(3) We did our captions & text for our profile & mailed off a CD yesterday to the agency with this info.
(4) We filled out what we HOPE is the last of the forms that are needed & we are mailing those today.
In THEORY, all that remains is for the new agency to put together a profile for our approval & for them to review our homestudy. Depending on how quickly they work, we could be "active" in a week ... or a month. We'll just have to wait and see!

Latharia's eBay Emporium

So I woke up to a zillion emails asking me about combining shipping if people won multiple lots. Once I fielded those, and made myself a bowl of oatmeal, the auctions started ending one by one. It looks like I may have made about $100. Considering the "value" of the auctions was less than $40 yesterday, I'm a happy camper. I know that the winning bidders are getting things for a song, but I'm not using them, and to paraphrase another hopeful adoptive mom, I'd rather be a parent than have these stamps!

I have a good friend whose daughter is renovating her room -- from child to teen, you know the drill -- and she said if I had a garage sale, she'd split the profits with me to help fund the adoption. How can I turn THAT down? I really don't like having garage sales. They're a ridiculous amount of work & the money is usually pretty pathetic. But, then again, money is money, and I've got some stuff to put in there. By then, I'll also have had most of the books up on half.com or amazon.com for a month. If they're not sold by then, I'll put all the inexpensive ones out for a buck a piece & keep back the two dozen or so that are worth more than tat, and hope they sell to the right buyer in the next couple of months.

I am just bound-and-determined for us to make the necessary cash to help bridge the gap in the money we've got access to and the money we need. We're meeting with our local adoption worker tomorrow to update our homestudy. Once that is done, it'll get sent to the national adoption agency, plus we'll get a copy we can use to apply for various grants. One of our essays we had to write was on personal strengths. I put down determined for mine. Yessireebob. Determined, that's me.

A much needed vacation weekend

What with all the upheaval with the adoption process, we really wanted a relaxing weekend vacation ... but wanted to do it as cheaply as possible. Well, we got exactly what we wanted.

We secured a luxurious room at the Hotel Burnham, in the heart of downtown Chicago, for 2 nights.


They stored our car for us & we hopped on the L, red line to Chinatown.



We wandered around & took in the sights & spent a small amount of change on 2 perfect holiday gifts for friends. So far, not outrageously expensive. We then went to the Water Tower Place multilevel mall for the rich and famous, where we splurged on some exotic tea ... it's actually one we've wanted for a while, and now it's ours. We also got a meal for $25 for 2 people, which is a bargain in this place.



After Water Tower, we wandered down the Magnificent Mile, stopping off at the Disney Store to take advantage of their 2 for $24 t-shirt sale. My honey's got a Tron shirt now & I picked up a cute Winnie The Pooh & Eeyore one. It's a big snug, but I am bound-and-determined to drop some more weight, at which point it'll be perfect.


We wound up walking all the way back to the hotel, which was quite a workout for my honey, but not a bad experience at all, and it's good training for the 3 mile American Heart Association walk we'll be doing later this month.

We loved the room, but the bed & pillows & light & noise & whatever were just not kind to us, so we didn't sleep so hot. We nonetheless enjoyed breakfast at the Atwood Cafe, always a treat, and our big food splurge of the weekend.


After brunch, we took a bus to the Lincoln Park Zoo, where we wandered around for hours! We got some spectacular photos, like the one of this Amur Leopard:


and we just enjoyed the people-watching, too. We brought our own picnic, which we enjoyed lakeside. We decided to go back to the Magnificent Mile & found both the Hershey shop & the Ghiaridelli chocolate shop, comically across the street from one another.

We had a treat each ... no, I didn't get the giant chocolate bar, but I did get the biggest cookie I think I've ever seen. While we waited for the L to take us back to the hotel, we talked & realized that we'd managed to fit in everything we wanted. We'd figured on a day for Chinatown, a day at the zoo, and a day for the Magnificent Mile ... but we crammed it all into 2! So we realized we didn't really have anything high on our list for Monday, so although we'd paid for 2 nights, we decided to go home!

We tried to give the last night away to 4 different couples, all of whom have been through some rough patches lately, but they were either busy or we couldn't reach them, so we just checked out, and prepared ourselves to be out the money. They refunded us for the 2nd night! That was just too cool of them. So, a huge shout-out to the Hotel Burnham for helping us save our pennies even more!

We spent Labor Day sleeping in, watching a fave TV show with home-made grilled cheese & crackers, then we headed out to Oakbrook Centre to window shop, get in some more walking time, and we cashed in a freebie coupon at Stir Crazy, and picked up ice cream on the way home.

A frugal, relaxing weekend. Doesn't get much better than this.

They're HUGE!

You may have been following my earlier posts, where I had planted some cucumbers and beans from seeds. To refresh your memory, here they are:
A few days after planting, on July 30th
Two days after that, on August 1st
Three days later, on August 4th
After about a week and a half, on August 15th, I moved them to the front flower bed
So, compare that photo to today's!

Yowza! They're lovin' this space! See the flowers on the cukes and beans? Maybe I'll get some veggies out of this before we have a freeze! Totally cool!

Books for sale!

If you read the post from a couple of days ago, you'll know that we're running short on funds to pay for increased adoption costs .... and if you read the previous post, you'll know that I'm selling off most of my rubberstamp collection to help raise funds ... but what this post contains is actually pretty cool ... I've learned how to link my "store" on half.com, which contains the books, movies, music & games that are up for sale. Here is:

My half.com store -- check it out & see if there's anything you'd like to buy. (EDIT: Guess what? I now have an amazon.com "storefront", too!)

There are some books I have that don't seem to come up in their database, so I'll take photos of them soon & post them. I'm hoping to get a dollar a book, plus shipping costs.

UPDATE: Here are the books that are old enough (or apparently oddball enough) that they don't show up in the half.com database:

Rubberstamps for sale!

Okay, so if you read the previous post, you know we're trying to raise money for unforeseen adoption expenses. I doubt my stamps will raise the $5,600 remaining that we need, but I'm also selling some books on half.com & will just keep plugging away. At this point, every dollar is helpful, right?

So, here's the deal. I had a chance, this morning, to go through a chunk of my rubber stamp collection, and I've pulled out the hook-and-loop fairy tale set, plus a whole bunch of "professionally" mounted rubber stamps. I'll go through the rest of my collection tonight & will pull out the rest of the professionally mounted ones ... the ones that are mounted by me & the ones that are still unmounted will come in a later post.

You should be able to click on the photos to see them larger, so you can make out detail. The largest stamps cost about $15 new ... the smallest ones were $4.50. If you see something you're interested in, please post with an offer. First come, first serve. (Well, the exception to that rule would be if someone offered to buy ALL of them for $1,000...but I seriously doubt that'll happen.)

I'm happy to "hold" stamps until you've seen all of them & can have 'em shipped in one box. I will ask you to pay actual shipping charges, too, please! So, if you're not in the US, you just have to decide if it's worth it to you to pay postage or not.

Set #1


Set #2


Set #3


Set #4


I'll give all of my friends & fellow bloggers about 2 weeks, so you can have first dibs, then I'll start putting things up on eBay and/or Craigslist.

Thanks in advance for helping us out, even if it's just browsing or mentioning to a friend who stamps.

It's been really interesting going through my collection. There were so many stamps that brought back memories & that I wanted to keep, but then I reminded myself that they're just stamps ... I'd much rather be a mom than have a block of wood & a piece of rubber.

UPDATE: Here are the remainder of the professionally mounted stamps I'm interested in selling. Make me an offer! *smile*

Set #5


Set #6


Set #7


Set #8


Set #9


Set #10