From Texas To China With Love

Ms. Exec Admin to the VP was given an ultimatum on Friday afternoon [while I was out getting the doctor reports fixed] to shape up or ship out. She chose to leave the company immediately. I received a call on Friday evening from the director of our division to tell me I am immediately going to cover administrative assistance for the VP until a replacement is found. Which will probably be about two months.

I have a good opportunity to ask for more $$ and do both jobs. It would just be a matter of streamlining some processes and becoming more efficient & organized at work as well as at home. It is rather tempting. Scott thinks I should wait a week. The VP is traveling this week (doesn't mean I won't be busy -- I'll be joined at the hip via cell phone) and I have a good time to evaluate the climate.

How embarrassing. I walked around the grocery store parking lot for five minutes, lugging around the cart, trying to find my car. I decided to walk to the end of a row and walk past each row pointing my automatic door opener clicking the PANIC button. Hey! It was a panicking moment! The alarm went off. Whew!

When I go to a store I frequently shop at, I always park in the same row even if I have to park out further. This time, I was thinking to myself, I want a change, let me park my car ----> Over there.

Well, it turns out I really did park my car in the row I usually park. I forgot because I drove around trying to find another row to park in, but must have gravitated to my usual area. I guess I'm a creature of habit even though I say I like to be adventurous.

Tomorrow, Ms. executive adminstrator comes back from vacation. However, I know she is going to be put on corrective action / performance plan because the Big Boss has asked me to request a change in her passwords for the computer and telephone. I put a few calls into some other executive administrators to send me their resumes because I know someone (and didn't mention a department or manager) may be looking for an admin soon.

I have to be in the office early...8am. I know, I know. It doesn't seem early, but hey! I am used to walking into the office at 9:15am. Yes, I know, a very nice office to work at. Aye? Sales and Marketing have three clients coming in and I have to help out because one admin is sick with the flu and Ms. Exec Admin comes in from vacation not knowing about these meetings. Don't worry, I called in the forces. I asked an admin who works part-time to work a full day tomorrow.

Scott had to go get our doctor reports notarized. He was so proud of himself because he was able to help out. [ He doesn't know I called the doctors office early this morning to speak to the office manager to make sure all the papers were in order or to make sure to not let the doctors go to lunch until after they signed the docs in front of the notary. ] When he returned to the office, he called me to walk to his office to see the notorized documents. I walked into his office and he looked like a strutting peacock. Then I looked over the documents and quietly asked

The winds went out of his sail pretty quickly. I was trying to be so sensitive. Poor guy. He says "sweetheart, this is why you are responsible for the dossier. You're good at the small details."

Now, I have to go back this Friday to get them corrected. Crap! I know we are going to have to get these docs rewritten and notarized again because I have a gut feeling the scratch outs won't be accepted by our agency.

Warning. Reading this entry can be confusing if you are not computer technical.

Tonight I spent almost an hour trying to figure out why i-tunes wasn't connecting to the music store. I couldn't figure it out. I went on a huge google search for the answer.

First, I thought it could have been my firewall. I disabled it. Still I couldn't connect to the music store.

Then I ran across this fix which had to do with Microsoft Internet Explorer. It said I needed to go to internet explorer> internet options tabs > advanced tabs > check box SSL 2.0 & 3.0 All I could says was "WHAT?". Anyway, that didn't fix it, but then it dawned on me. I don't use IE as my default. I do use when I get a website which is ONLY "IE" compliant. Well, the last time I had used it was at work (I lug a laptop back and forth to work -- belongs to the company) and I had the settings set to my work settings. I changed the settings to connect to the house and all of a sudden I got a popup window that said "connecting to gmail account".

All I could say to myself before I even finished closing IE was "OMG. There is no way that an application is THAT highly integrated into using Internet Explorer's internet connection settings". How wrong I was. This fixed my i-tunes connectivity problem and my gmail dns connection problem.

30 minutes later, I am still in shock. Don't get me wrong. I like windows, but at work I also use a unix system. The company doesn't condone windows, but my department was acquired and they still live in a MS windows world. Hence, the reason why they buy each of their employees a laptop. They just stare at me when I get on my unix system and can type commands on a terminal line. The unix box is GUI based JDS over Solaris (giving a little hint of where I work).

I'm into the 80's pop music. I may hide my real identity behind the name AndieG, but I am not afraid to say I am 35 years old, born in 1970. Suprisingly, I wasn't aware rock or pop existed until I was 14 years old when there was this all day outdoor school fitness day the first month of a school year. They had a DJ play music. I really wasn't paying attention until I heard the song from Footloose called Let's Here It for the Boy by Denise Williams. I was hooked.

I grew up on ranchero (Mexican style music) and country. My world was confined. We lived in the country where we didn't have cable and my parents had 8-track and cassette tapes. After hearing pop, my parents said I hit puberty.

As a mature woman, I can say I have became my parents. I love oldies. I was cracking Scott up by listening to Air Supply "Making Love Out Of Nothing At All". Now this song was prior to 1984, but I heard it on the movie Mr & Mrs Smith and had to go to i-Tunes and buy it. [Yes, I own an i-pod]

I am fond of the 80's, but I really like all kinds of music. The genre I have downloaded from i-Tunes ranges from Spanish pop to music from Kelly Clarkson.

I really don't listen to the words of songs. I am more into the beat and rhythm. However, Scott has a tendancy to "Weird Al Yankovic" a song. Then, I can never listen to the song again because all I can think about are the changed lyrics. For example. La Bouche's Be My Lover. Scott sings the lyrics "beat my blubber". That song will never be the same again!

Right now,I'm listening to Pat Benatar, We Belong. I really don't have a favorite artist or song, but Scott makes a gagging sound when I ask if I can play an ABBA song. I can't help it if my freshman year of college that my roommate was a senior from Europe! I had to grow up fast!

I think it is cool to listen to music before it hits mainstream America. I remember in college when I heard a song from Rozalla named "Everybody's Free To Feel Good". A friend of mine went to The Netherlands for a week on a school sponsored trip and brought that song back. I heard it about a year later in night clubs around Dallas/Ft.Worth. Then in 1993, I went to a wedding in Mexico. The night before the wedding, all us young folks went to a Mexican night club. We heard and learned The Macarena. It was about six months later before it reached the U.S.

Sometimes people say mathematics is the true language. I think it's music.

I don't have much to write about because I am exausted. I am covering for the executive administrator to the vice president AND doing my job. Let me just say that the exec admin doesn't do a good job and she has been told to find another job. So the admin is on vacation this week and I am cleaning up lots of crap because I refuse to let the vice president look like a fool. I've had to cover for her before and let me just say I pulled in sooooooo many hours. I was told by my boss that the VP really like my style and what would I think about moving into that position. I had to be very diplomatic in saying "no". Some jobs aren't worth it. Don't get me wrong. If it was junior executive, maybe I would have said yes. [Besides, I work for a director. At least they have a life and get home at somewhat decent hours] However, this VP has no discipline in saying "no" to anyone.. She says don't book more than 4 hours of meeting in her schedule, but then tells everyone "YES, see my administrator". Oh! And she makes her admin run personal errands such as getting lunch or getting her cell phone accessories. Egads! I've never heard of anything like that. I am purposely carpooling with Scott as much as possible this week. I'll even park in the back and tell her I carpooled so I can get out of getting lunch or running errands. Anyway, I'll be bringing home lots of moolah to help pay off the adoption loan. Fortunately, I can work from home in the evenings. WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY. Also, it doesn't hurt to be drinking a few glasses of wine while I peck away at the keyboard, pulling my hair out, trying to figure out how to not schedule her more than 4 hours worth of meetings each day.

I also feel stressed because the doctor call this morning with my blood test results. Everything is fine except my thyroid is slightly off. I need to go back in 2 months to get another blood test. She isn't going to note it on the medical report -- thank goodness. She has been very helpful because her first son is adopted domestically. So, she is familiar with all the scrutinizing. I need to take time off work to go meet the notary and get our reports signed on Wednesady. Scott isn't able to do it because he has a customer meeting. However, if it gets cancelled, then he'll go and take care of it. Needless to say I really don't have the time, but I am making this a priority. Hey! Family comes first! Which is why I wouldn't work for a senior executive.

(SIGH) is it Friday yet?

Thanks for telling me what being tagged means. I was in the dark there for a while. I'm scared of the dark.

What were you doing ten years ago: I moved out to my first apartment. Worked two jobs to pay for rent and my car. Oh! and to go party. (Yes, I somehow found time to do that) Met my husband.

What were you doing one year ago: I got laid off a year ago. One day after being let go, I was picked up by another department.

Five snacks I enjoy:

1. banana chips
2. fruit leather
3. Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia
4. gourmet chocolate
5. Funions

Five things I would do if I were a millionaire:

1. Buy a yacht
2. set up schools around the world for underpriveleged girls
3. get a personal trainer
4. lyposuction
5. travel around the world in my own jet

Five bad habits:

1. biting my fingernails
2. not listening
3. leaving dirty clothes on the floor
4. piling shoes under my desk (that's where they're at!)
5. drinking a few sips of soda pop and then leaving the full can on the counter (drives Scott nuts!)

Five things I like doing:

1. blogging
2. reading
3. amusement parks
4. thrift store shopping
5. sleeping

Five things I would NEVER wear, buy, or get new again:

1. wear spandex pants (it's a right, not a priviledge)
2. buy a new car
3. pay full price for anything (my husband says I can find the 50%-75% off rack from a mile away)
4. buy a breadmaker (as if I ever make bread)
5. buy single-ply toilet paper
6. (this warrants a 6th item) wear a home hair perm again given to me by my grandmother. [Bless her heart. She made me look like a sheep dog. I didn't realize it until about 10 years later when I was looking at the pictures.]

Five favorite toys/games:

1. laptop computer
2. Merlin (that red electronic toy)
3. lemon twist
4. Scrabble
5. View Master

Call me dense, but I can't figure out the rest of this tag game. So I'll leave like this because I just may go cross-eyed from reading and re-reading the directions.

Scott arrived home today to find a fedex note on the door. He didn't know what it was for. I tell ya, that man has left it up to me to do the paperchasing. I told him on Monday I had ordered his birth certificate through vitalchek. He obviously wasn't listening.

The note said they would attempt to re-deliver on Friday, but we both have meetings at work which we can't miss. After the second attempt, Fedex would return it to sender. Egads! So, we drove 30 miles to theFedEx station to pick it up this evening. He told me it gives new meaning to paperchasing.

AND I have no idea what it means. I've been tagged by Story of Ava. I'm a newbie when it comes to blogging. Drop me a comment if you know what it means. What am I supposed to do? I'm feeling foolish at this moment because ignorance is not bliss.

Went to the doctor and got a clean bill of health. Getting my blood drawn was not painful. I closed my eyse and thought about Point Lobos in Carmel/Big Sur. Felt like a fire ant sting, but I think fire ants hurt worse. The technician was pretty good.

It will be a few days before the blood test results come back. I was told the HIV test could take a week. Lovely! I was hoping to have the doctor paper notarized by this Friday. I'm going to have to give my husband's doctor another blank form because the technician accidently wrote my blood pressure information on his form. Then she scratched it out and signed her initials. I saw red flags going up at CCAA with that mess up. Besides, I think doctors have really bad handwriting. Might as well have them do it. Why can't they have tiny computers in their patient offices or carry a laptop and just print it out? I think their offices are so far behind in technology.

This whole adoption process is a lesson in patience.

Today, I received the certified birth card from Louisiana. The Secretary of State office created a new fedex airbill which put my address as the returning address. How nice of them. I was really worried since I put the Secretary of State as the returning address.

Now I know, since I am going to have to do this again when Scott's birth certificate arrives. I wish I found out the opening of the vital records office sooner. If I recall correctly, VitalChek just put out the notice the first week of January that the office is open for expedited processing through them.

I-600 update: I am sending the form in without the home study and Scott's birth certificate. Instead, I am sending in a copy of his birthcard and the signature page of his passport along with a letter stating the reason why I sent a birthcard.

I'll send Scott's birth certificate when it comes in. It should arrive at about the same time as our homestudy. It is better to have too much information than too little information.

Tomorrow, Scott and I have our doctor appointments to complete our medical form. We can't get our homestudy report completed without that document. I'm not looking forward to getting my blood drawn. I hate anything with a needle. I can feel my heart beating faster and the anxiety setting in as I type this. I just have to remember it is a few seconds of "ouch" for a lifetime of hugs.

I am torn between sending in my I-600A now or sending it in when we get our homestudy. I have posted a question on a newsgroup about processing time with San Antonio. I heard from two people who have opposite experiences with San Antonio. One person sent in their homestudy along with their I600A and it took 6 months. The other sent it in prior to the homestudy, then they submitted their homestudy when it was done and it took 3 months from submitting the form. Now, I don't know what the extenuating circumstances are of the person who had to wait 6 months. I didn't ask if there were problems with their paperwork.

San Antonio won't make an appointment for fingerprints without the homestudy. However, at an FCC waiting families luncheon, I heard if we submit it in now, then send in our homestudy at a later date, CIS will append it to our file while we are still moving up the queue and not losing time.

I still haven't received Scott's birth certificate from Louisiana. I do remember sending this in with a return regular stamped envelope with the old postage price ( I remembered last night) Well, crap! I went to vitalchek and Louisiana was reopened December 6th and taking expedited request. Yippee!! I ordered an expedited birth certificate. It will get here in about a week and half.

Now, should I wait to send in the I-600A with the photocopy of the birthcard and passport signature page along with an explanation of why we are sending a birthcard or should I wait until the birth certificate arrives? I heard there was this infamous officer Bruno who waits 6 to 8 weeks before telling the parents there is something wrong with their paperwork.

Ahhhh, decisions, decisions. I'll probably send it in this week since they aren't even processing January I-600A's . At least I'll get in a queue. Then when I get Scott's birth certificate, I'll mail it in along with the homestudy. Better to have too much supporting information than none. I found this website https://egov.immigration.gov/cris/jsps/ptimes.jsp? which shows what dates district offices are processing. The website seems to be updated every month around the 15th.

If anyone has any recent experience with San Antonio, please leave a comment.

Today, at work, it was rather slow. As a matter of fact, my boss told me to go home at noon. Well, I decided to stay and work on our dossier. I decided to re-read the manual and see if I missed something. Oh Crap! I made a mistake.

Before I go on, let me tell you why I think I am making mistakes. I LIKE TO SKIP TO THE BACK OF A NOVEL AND READ THE ENDING THEN READ THE BOOK. If the book is boring, I will gloss over the non-exciting parts instead of trashing it. It drives my husband nuts to watch me read a book. The exception to this rule is anything Jane Austen or Harry Potter.

So, I'm skimming through the manual and come across the statement about the employment verification letter. Ah, Heck! I didn't ask our employer (Scott and I work for the same company) to put a comment about prospective continued employment. AND guess what? I sent off our employement letters to get certified in CA on Monday.

You want to hear something scary? GWCA sends out a newsletter with dossier tips of the week. When I booted my computer this evening at home, in my inbox was waiting the tip of the week. Today's tip, Employment Letter (and Financial Statement). How weird is that?

Anyway, the e-mail states we should fax or e-mail the dossier consultant the documents before sending them off for certification. I KNEW I could do that, but I was trying to be self-sufficient. Now I am out a few stamps and $40 for certification fees. From now on, I'll send them the documents prior to starting the certification. Fortunately, I only have two docs which need to go out of state for certification and authentication. The rest need to be certified in Austin and authenticated in Houston.

The birthcard I sent to LA to get certified may get sent back to me unprocessed. I put the secretary of state address as the sender's address on my returning fedex airbill. I was reading the LA website and it said do not list secretary of state as sender on return label. I pondered what a return label was for a few days. It's like looking at a word you are writing and you think you misspelled it, but it just doesn't look correct. To make a long story short, I put the secretary of state's name and address on my returning airbill. Maybe it will escape under the radar.

So we have lost a whole week of progress on our dossier. You're probably wondering where Scott is during this whole process. Hmmm....I dunno. I guess I am doing a good enough job at screwing up, we don't need two people messing up. He has been supportive and doesn't criticize me when I goof up. He's been basically saying the dollar amount lost is such a small amount compared to the total cost of the adoption. He's read the manual and knows it is difficult to follow. He told me to consider it part of the pain of being paper pregnant. The end result is we are bonding with our unknown child(ren) during the paperchase, just as if we were biologically pregnant. When I was pregnant, we found ourselves constantly touching and caressing the belly. Now that we are trying to complete our dossier, we find ourselves patting and hugging the document folder.

We swore we wouldn't be one of THOSE people who make their house spotless for the SW house homestudy visit. [ if you recall from an earlier blog entry, our first homstudy session was at a coffee shop, so no pressure to clean the house] (SIGH) Last night, we rented a steam cleaner and steamed cleaned the gameroom, office, and living room. Today, our housecleaning service arrived few hours prior to the SW visit. Oh my gosh! We became one of THOSE people.

The SW walked in and did a tour of the whole house and backyard. I am SOOOOO glad the house was picked up because I was only expecting her to look at the rooms which would become the kid's rooms. The SW did ask if our house was always this clean. Was it that obvious? I told her we did clean up on regular basis and contract to have the house cleaned once a week.

When she left, I broke the silence and said to Scott, "Honey, I'm glad you picked up your underwear from the bathroom floor." Ha!Ha!

Normally, the guest bedrooms (which will become the children's bedrooms) are a complete mess. Since, I've been having trouble sleeping, the bed was unmade until the cleaning service made up the bed. In the other guest bedroom, we usually use it as a catch all room for exercise equipment, sewing machine, small TV, digital piano, and ironing laundry. I rearranged it this morning and put things in a somewhat organized arrangment. The SW described this room as the "hobby room". Hah! Never thought of describing it as that type of room.

The SW said it would take two weeks to write up her report, but she needs our medical reports. We have our appointment next week and then it takes a few days for the blood work to come back, so we'll have it to to her when she wrapping up the homestudy report. She'll then send us the report for our review. If we approve of the report she wrote, then it will be sent to GWCA for approval.

I need to fill out and send our I600A, but I have been holding off doing it because it is such a large chunk of change I will have to part with.

Nothing cures the sniffles like a good homemade soup. Last week when I started to feel the onset of cedar pollen allergies I got this hankering for chicken and sausage gumbo. I was hesitant at first considering everytime I make it it doesn't comes out as good as Scott's mom or grandmother's recipe. I had my husband go purchase sausage and chicken. I then slaved at a cutting board for nearly 30 minutes cutting up all the vegetable and then stood over a hot stove for nearly another hour, on a ladder, peering into a huge pot making a roux. The rest of the processes took another hour. Then the soup had to simmer. You can't make gumbo for one meal because of the large amount of time it takes to make this tasty Cajun dish. I don't make gumbo very often because it is a labor of love. This time, it was well worth it. This was the best gumbo I ever made. It exceeded our expectations. Scott commented it could rival his mom and grandmother's gumbo. Since I made such a large amount, I had to freeze the majority of it in meal portion containers.

Scott thinks I'm becoming quite the chef. My Christmas dinner of rib roast, asparagus, homemade rolls, and roasted garlic potatoes came out perfect. Now I have mastered gumbo.

Scott asked what we are having tonight and I replied gumbo!

Today our passports arrived. Wow! That was fast. I mean, we DID pay for expedited service, but we were told it would take 3-4 weeks for expedited service because there was a backlog. We considered regular service, but it would have taken over 6 weeks. I can't believe how small they are. Another hurdle out of the way.

I sent off our employement verifications to California to get them certified. Scott and I work for the same company, but different departments. The company's headquarters are located in California and they have many sister campuses around the world. Before I sent off the verifications, I visited the usps.gov site to see if they had a trackable type envelope, but didn't see anything. I took a chance and put a self addressed 39 cent stamp so the CA state department could send back the certified documents. I am taking a chance, but the post office hasn't lost a single credit card invoice. The bill has always managed to end up in our mailbox at the same time every month.

A little later that day, I was visiting forums.adoption.com China Adoptions and there was a thread saying the expedited mail service has an tracking number. How the heck did I miss that? I must have glossed over the information. I have to send Scott's birthcard to New Orleans to get certified. I am definately using expedited service the return envelope.

I know the birthcard isn't the same as a birth certificate, but I've been waiting forever for his birth certificate. The New Orleans vital records archive is working at a snail's pace because of the limited man power available. I was told by the adoption agency we can create a notarized letter explaining why he doesn't have birth certificate. It can't hurt to try to get the birthcard certified. Hopefully, it won't take too long. I was told 4-5 weeks which in the scheme of things is just another month.

The rest of our documents are from Texas. Fortunately, we live in Austin where the department of state is located. Its just a short drive and about a 2 hour wait.

Itchy water eyes, sneezing, and sinus headaches. Ahhhh, it that time of the year when many Texans suffer from cedar fever. I am one of the lucky ones to be severely effected. Which is why I haven't had a chance to blog in a while.

Let me give you a history of the cedar tree. It really isn't a cedar but a mountain juniper tree scientificly knows as Juniperus ashei. The tree pollenates mid-December to mid-February with the peak of the pollen blooming around the first three weeks of January. The male trees begin their mating ritual by creating amber colored cones no bigger than the size of a grain of rice. The whole tree takes on the color of rust. Where I live there are lots of hills which are infested with this scourge of a tree. When the wind blows, the forest of trees look like they are on fire as the wind carries clouds of pollen into the path of female trees which have sticky, rice sized, green cones to make...well you get the point. I have to admit it is a pretty awesome site to look out the comfort of a hepa filtered, air-conditioned, room or windowed office and witnesses these trees procreating. If I ever ran for a local government office my campaign would revolve around annahilating all cedar trees.

So anyway, I've been blessed with my mother's genes of being a year round allergy sufferer. I refuse to take weekly shots because I am scared of needles. On a daily basis for the last two years I have taken a prescribed nasal spray to control spring hay fever and fall ragweed which has really cut down on sinus infections caused by congestion I develope from all the sneezing I endure. During the summer, I don't have to take the nasal spray and can enjoy the Texas hot summers with ease. When mid-December rolls around, I start including a daily dose of 24 hr Claritin. It works fine, until the end of December or beginning of January when the cedar trees start pollenating. Then I have to switch to Claritin-D which has interesting side effects.

I don't know which is worse:

Without Medication

• sneezing
• itchy, water eyes
• stuffy head
• sore, red, nose
• chapped lips

With Medication

• disconnected feeling
• tingly scalp
• dry mouth
• insomnia (which accounts for this entry)
  
• no libido (Scott hates this effect)
• occassional sneezing when pollen count is really high
• nasal congestion when the pollen count is really high
• dry itchy eyes relieved by natural tear eye drops
  

Not only am I cranky, my husband is cranky because I am the most unbearable person to live with during this time period. We basically have to sleep in separate rooms because I toss and turn all night from insomnia and then when I do sleep my nasal congestion causes me to snore loudly. I have no sex drive-- need I say more? Oh, then when I start PMSing, he chooses to stay out of my way completely because I am just one crying, angry, sneezing, sleep deprived, bitchy woman.

I manage to keep my composure at work, but when I get home, I have a tendency to let it all out. I'm surprised we aren't divorced. He has confessed that there have been years when he was about to resort to that measure to release him of his misery. Like the time when he and I were between houses. You know when you sold one house, but your new house isn't finished? We ended up living in a one bedroom apartment because it was only supposed to be for a couple of months. That couple of months stretched to 6 months. When cedar fever hit during our 5th month in that apartment , I had to sleep on the couch. To top it off, my congestion turned to bronchitis and I had fits of coughing. The coughs could be heard throughout the tiny apartment and probably by our neighbors. After 2 weeks of no sleep and my husband at the brink of his patience level, my doctor prescribed a cough suppressant which pretty much knocked me out for the next 2 weeks. I was still sick when we signed the papers to our new house.

So honey, if you are reading this blog entry, please forgive me over the next 4 weeks, for I know not what I do. The medicine did it.