1 YEAR AND COUNTING....

Today is our 1 year LID anniversary. Is that a good thing? Well, I'm not sure about that. It is a good thing if you have to wait over a year for your referral. It means we are 12 months closer to travelling to China to be united with Maxine.
I have done quite a few things to keep myself distracted from the wait. Some good. Some not so good. Some as frustrating as the wait itself. Some ridiculous. But as long as I was distracted from the wait, then that was a good thing, right?
Here are some of the things I did to keep myself distracted.
-Moving my horse from Tennessee (where my BIL was training her) to California and getting a new horse trainer. Side effects can be family-strifus, roughus-on-the-walletus, but... lots-of-funnus.
-Caring for my dog who has cancer which required chemotherapy and radiation. Side effects (for me) can be heartus-breakus, roughus-on-the-walletus, cleaning-uppus-lots-of-crappus and other bodily fluids during all times of day and night. But I am so thankful she is keeping me company during this wait. She is training me well for a baby's schedule.
-Demo-ing the interior of our house. We are currently attempting to get it remodelled in time for Maxine's arrival.(That's not gonna happen.) Side effects are inability to locatus-our-belongings, only one funtioning-toiletus, and panica-attacki's.
-Designing and attempting to manage the construction of 2 projects that are 2000 miles away from my home in another time zone. Side effects are extremely longus-commutus and unpredictable workus-hours.
-Some other distractions have included Mandarin lessons, shopping(mostly with Dianne!), blogging, joining yahoo groups, starting yahoo groups, eating, tennis, severely spraining my ankle while playing tennis, shopping on the internet, internet surfing while eating(mostly unhealthy, fattening things), and coloring my hair a ridiculously inappropriate color, oh... and more eating. Let's just say when I look in the mirror these days, I am not thinking about how long I have been waiting. I am thinking, "What the hell was I thinking?!!"
-One of the most rewarding things I have done is to make new friends as well as reconnect with longtime friends. So, its been a very busy year...but not as busy as the upcoming year will be. We are *hoping* for our referral to arrive in January and to travel in the spring. Fingers crossed. A more conservative outlook would be that our referral should arrive in March and travel in late May???? We just don't know. Nobody really knows. So back to my distractions for a couple more months...minus the ankle injury, hopefully. And maybe I will get a hair color correction... and maybe I won't. Or, maybe I will get some crazeee chunky highlights, paint my fingernails purple, and wear goth clothing.

PS. That is a picture of what we now call Maxine Pie. I thought we would celebrate our 1 Year LID-iversary with a chocolate pie. It is chocolate cream pie and it unfortunately tasted like hell. YUCK! Whoever said, all pie is good pie, is WRONG! Californians CAN'T make pie to save their lives! If you ever wanted to taste a real chocolate pie, you would have to have had a chocolate meringue pie from H&H in Athens, AL...but sadly, very sadly they closed recently and left me not much of anyplace to eat at night when visiting for work and family functions. If anyone knows where I can find the pie maker for H&H, please let me know. Like I need more pie. We are back to that eating thing as a distraction, again.

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