Friday already?

Lol... well, it did feel a bit like a long week earlier, and here it is late Friday night!

I did call our adoption worker yesterday, and she said she has the letter of approval ~ if she got the time, she was planning to mail our file to our agency yesterday. If we haven't received our copy of the approval letter within a week i need to call again. So after our agency receives the package, it goes to wherever for legalization/ authentication (about 2-4 weeks for that)... and then off to Ethiopia and we officially begin waiting for a referral at that point. That could take 3-12 months. Exciting!

It really felt good to have a day off today. The kids and i went to our favorite second-hand store. We didn't buy a lot, but found a few treasures. Reagan bought a "Shmuzzle Puzzle" (all the pieces are the same shape ~ shaped like lizards ~ that all fit together like a jigsaw puzzle). We had fun putting that together ~ it was a regular scenery picture of water, trees, mountain and sky, but complicated because of the shapes.

Then this afternoon Jonathan & I needed to sign some papers for our mortgage, and took advantage of the trip to the city to do another "grocery shopping." Well, he looked so tired that i told him he could go sleep in the van if he wanted. (Getting up at 4:30 is a bit of an adjustment). Two hours later I was done shopping and packing $250 worth of groceries. I was thankful (at that point) that at least he'd be able to help me pack everything into the van. Lol... when i got to the van, he wasn't there :-) He'd come looking for me i guess, and he must have just missed me. So I loaded everything up myself (fortunately the hatch held itself open ~ it doesn't when it's too cold), and when i grabbed the last item out of the cart, he showed up ~ lol.

When I got home, i had an invitation to join a friend (two friends actually) for coffee (actually for me it was cheesecake and water ~ i don't do coffee), so that was a lovely evening out too. (Thanks ladies!)

Oh, and Jonathan's shift is changed back to 7:00 for next week. That's so much nicer. I love having him home at 2:30-3:00, but then he's always tired/sleeping whenever ~ not worth it.

Anyway, busy day tomorrow trying to catch up on some over-due house work... or maybe, i did suggest earlier to the kids that maybe we'd do some fun "school" stuff... but either way it's getting late.

Sometimes my blog must almost be boring... sorry.

This week with no school (Easter break, or spring break?), we have both Robbie & Andrew every day (except Friday because we've asked to have Friday's off). And mostly longer days too (starting at 9:45 ~ when Robbie has preschool he gets here about 11:30). Today it took me 2 hours to get Robbie down for his nap! I took a break after 1 1/2 hours while he sat in his chair for a bit, but then took him back on my lap for another half-hour before he finally gave in. So there's a reason i sometimes feel like i'm getting nothing done. I did some reading with Brenden today, but our "homeschool" has been very challenged lately! It's easier when it's just Robbie, so hopefully next week will go more smoothly again... but it's feeling like a long time til June ~ lol. Still trying to maintain a good attitude about it all.

Jonathan has an even earlier shift now ~ they call it "summer hours" (even though it's only March??). It's not a bad shift at the end of the work day (done at 2:00), but getting up at 4:30 (to be at work by 5:30) might be a bit brutal after a bit. The reasoning is ok ~ welding gets warm, so in the summer heat it can be unbearable ~ but we're still doing winter! We'll see... if it's too crazy, he might be able to come in a bit later.

I'm waiting patiently (so far) to hear from our adoption worker about our provincial approval. I'd like to call already and be sure she got all our paperwork and is working on it, but i don't want to be impatient either. She should've had everything last week Monday, so i think it's about time to call ~ maybe tomorrow if we haven't heard anything by then.

This week is going better. I'm pretty sure that (last week) i had swollen lymph nodes in my neck and head causing my head to feel yucky ~ and affecting how i felt overall. So I'm very thankful to have a clear head again!

So far Brenden & Reagan are doing pretty good with Robbie, but today looks like it could be a bigger challenge. We have both boys today since 9:30 because there's no school. And all of next week is the same.

I also have my other sister's boys today ~ my brother-in-law called at 8 this morning asking if we could watch them (just the older 4) because my sister is at the hospital with the other two. She took the 1yr. old (foster boy) in last night (i assume breathing problems ~ asthma or pneumonia?) and this morning they were still waiting for him to be admitted (waiting for a bed). She's got their baby with her too and hasn't slept all night! UGH! I don't know how she does it! Of course i can watch the other 4! (they don't have school today).

I guess i haven't "quit" after all. Long story short, my sister would still prefer to leave her boys with us, and so we will continue to have them, but hopefully not more than 4 days/ week. I just feel we need that little breather. Actually, Brenden & Reagan want to share the job opportunity and income, so they will be mostly responsible to keep Robbie entertained and/or out of trouble. :-)

And it might not be til the end of June... maybe only til early-mid-June, so that's not all that long. If we make a point of getting up at a decent time, we can get in 2hours of school stuff before Robbie gets here, and then we he naps we have a little more time for whatever. On the days when Andrew is here, well, i guess we'll figure something out.

We had a homeschool Math workshop on Friday (at the school division office), and we rather enjoyed it. Kind of inspired me to pull out some games and such that we've sort of forgotten about. And i asked about testing... so i guess we'll probably be doing that about the second week of April. I'm looking forward to that.

On Saturday we all went to an adoption get together (for families who have adopted or are considering/ in the process of adopting children from Ethiopia). We enjoyed that, and met a few new families. This is the second time we've been at one of these events, so we're slowly getting to meet some of these families. It's a pretty big group (almost a bit overwhelming at first), but a wonderful support group!

We signed our revised homestudy on Friday, so that's going to the office today. I'm waiting to hear back from our adoption worker about one paper (whether or not she needs it, and if it needs the professional witness/signatures), and then i hope to drop of the last of the papers ~ the employment letters ~ today.

Jonathan's job sounds ok so far. He didn't do any real welding til Wednesday, and the hours have been a bit confusing (to me anyway)... but that's likely just with orientation and such. And i think they go in earlier for manditory over-time on Fridays?? We'll figure it out yet... not a big deal. I really like that he gets home so much earlier!!!

My week has been a bit more difficult... having Robbie here full-time has it's challenges, but my head has been feeling a bit yucky all week. I find that really affects me way too much and i need to find a way to cope better with those days. But yesterday when my sister asked about it (because i had mentioned to my bil that i was feeling stressed), she decided to see if daycare was still an option... so she's going with that. While it has been a relief to me, i feel really badly about "quitting" (even though i didn't "quit" but left the decision up to my sister so far ~ i guess she thought rather deal with it now than let it get to be too much??). And I guess Andrew had wanted daycare in the first place, so while i offered he could still come here, she decided to put him in daycare too ~ but more like a drop in so that she doesn't have to pay everyday just to hold his spot. And we'll be back-up for days when daycare doesn't work out. Oh, and the bus will continue to drop Robbie off at our house and we'll walk him over to daycare.

Of course, with that decision made, today is going pretty good. My kids haven't had this much fun with Robbie, probably ever before. ???

And there i break to put him down for his nap ~ and he fights me more than usual to go down ~ lol. I guess maybe all the fun equals "i don't want to sleep" today, and he put on a serious fight. But he did give in, and after 1/2 hour of holding/rocking him, he is sleeping now.

Anyway, I do feel badly about not having it all "together" enough to manage him full-time for 4 months... and it seems like i'm looking at everything in light of our pending adoption like "if you can't handle this, do you really think you can handle adopting two children?" Maybe i'm just afraid that's how others will look at it... and i need to stop thinking like that! It's God's voice and thoughts that I need to listen to!

Tired today

My head wasn't feeling great yesterday, but when my friend called to see if I might join her (she took her little girl to emerg because she hadn't been feeling well), i decided it could be a good thing to go out. It's been a while since she & I have had a good visit anyway ;-)

So three of her children stayed here (with Jonathan & our kids), and her 12yr. daughter came along to the city as well. We got to the hospital about 7pm, and finally left there about midnight. None of us really had supper (i'd been snacking enough that i really wasn't hungry though), so on our way home we did drive-thru at McDonalds which took dreadfully long too, and we got home sometime between 1 & 1:30am. We'd been in touch with Jonathan so everyone had gone to bed. (Well, one of the boys had kinds of "waited up" for his mom and went home with her). So i had two extras today, besides Robbie & Andrew who came at 11:30.

Today being the last homeschool skating for the season, we didn't really want to miss it (we haven't gone near as often as we used to), so we packed everyone up and went! We knew it would be an adventure with Robbie there, so I really appreciated how Brenden kept running after him. (After about 20-30min. of that I had Robbie sitting with me).

I'm waiting to hear how Jonathan's first day at the new job went. I'm not sure how much work they'll have done today since it was orientation... but i'm still anxious to hear how it went. He is taking a Perpsectives in World Missions class on Monday nights (in the city), so he hasn't been home yet. Makes for long Mondays!

But i'm tired, and don't get to sleep in tomorrow morning either... so i'm off.

Couple of pictures from today

Darwin has been begging all winter to do a wiener roast, and they've kept the fire pit in the backyard cleared of snow just for this... so i had to get a picture.

And my nephew Robbie ~ After telling him numerous times not to stand on the piano bench, and he doesn’t listen, we take the bench away… and this is what we get ~ lol. Reagan was just sitting there watching TV and Robbie squeezed between him and the piano, reached his hands up and began to play piano... and then eventually propped himself up to kind of sitting on Reagan's back and then climbed right up with his feet like you see him here ~ lol.

They called to offer Jonathan a job ~ guess we'll get the details tomorrow since Jonathan wasn't home now when they called.

Still waiting...

For some reason i just thought we'd know by Tuesday if Jonathan got the job or not ~ but we didn't know that was going to be a preliminary interview. So then we thought we'd know by Wednesday... and now we're hoping to find out today... but still waiting.

Lol... just a little bit ago, the phone rang and I said "that'll be the job" (hoping, of course)... and, it's another babysitting job! Lol... too funny! Ok, so why don't we just go full speed right away, bring Jonathan home and do full-time daycare?? It sure seems that there is a need for childcare, but at the same time, i know that one of the things that people like about having their children here is that it's NOT a daycare. Guess it depends on the family. I guess the challenge for me is how to continue providing a sufficient education for our children through all the changes and added responsibilities. Somehow though, strange as it might sound, it seems this babysitting thing has been good for me... it seems that it's giving me a further purpose in my life (not that my children and home aren't purpose enough, but somehow it's easier to get into a slump with the usual routines and easier to slack off). I'm not sure how to say it the way i feel it, and it might not make sense to anyone else, so i guess i'm making myself vulnerable to say anything. But it does seem that it's giving me an extra push which has been good for me. (Although i've had some reservations about having Robbie here everyday ~ but I anticipate God will be trying to build some character in a few of us through that experience).

Oh, this new job is apparently only for a few months as well... i think she said 3 or 4 months. She's got 3 children, but one is in school, so usually just two here. She wasn't sure about her hours, but sounded like maybe part-time, at least to begin with.

Jonathan is doing some extra shifts at the farm ~ just covering for some of the others here and there, so that's been kind of nice ~ helps out.

Anyway, i need to get some tidying done... can't wait for spring garage sales to clean out some of the clutter!

The welding test and interview went fine apparently... so now we're just waiting to hear if he has the job or not. He might still go check out the job fair in the city tomorrow... we'll see.

I guess i have another babysitting job starting on Friday. My sister needs someone to watch her boys until the end of June. The kids have agreed to take turns keeping Robbie busy/entertained (in other words, "out of trouble" ~ lol), and they will get paid for helping in this way. (And we don't charge like the typical daycare! lol).

Anyway, still feeling a bit tired and bogged down from my cold (although feeling like i'm over it otherwise), so i'm off to get some sleep.

Jonathan didn't actually get to do much "hands on" stuff yesterday ~ it was pretty cold out, and by the time they had everything set up (tarps and heaters, and other supplies), and the guy had a "business lunch meeting," they decided it wouldn't pay to get started. (He still paid Jonathan for helping out). But in their "talking" the guy suggested Jonathan might be better off taking the other job (if he gets it). Benefits (especially big bonus for a family), not working in the cold, and if Jonathan is still interested in welding, welding is a more stable "long term" job (whereas the construction craze will probably not last long term). Then of course there are a few other factors wtih sub-contracting (don't qualify for EI benefits if the need should arise, stuff like that).

So he had a group interview this afternoon, and goes back for a personal interview tomorrow morning. This will include a welding test... please pray he does his best (and not feel the pressure).

Guess there's a reason i'm feeling a bit "under the weather." I've been fighting a bit of a cold since last week I guess ~ but i didn't think it was all that bad (as long as i wan't trying to work too hard). Last night i woke more often with a dry/sore throat, and this morning my one lymph node is really swollen. Big bubble there!

Anyway, a few possibilities on the job situation... on Friday we did a family day ~ we went swimming. On our way into the city, Jonathan dropped off an application/resume at New Holland. (By the time we got home, there was a phone message ~ he has an interview tomorrow). On our way home from the city, we stopped in at Extra foods for a few groceries. We met numerous people we know, and one of them told Jonathan that his son is looking for someone to help him with stone mason kind of work ~ Jonathan is checking that one out today ~ trying it hands-on to see how he likes it. We rather like the idea... he'd be sub-contracting, so while there's some loops to learn about that, it seems like a pretty good situation for Jonathan (better than assembly line work at a big manufacturing place ~ although there are obviously going to be pros and cons to both jobs). There might still be a possibility of getting back on with the last new job he had just started before taking the Caton's one... but unless they had more overtime hours available, it's just a bit too tight financially at the wage he was getting there (although he'd get a raise after 3mos.)

I'm contemplating looking for more babysitting jobs... not sure yet what i'll do. Guess i'm more curious where Jonathan will end up working and all... life is an adventure at times.