Potpourri

(Did you know that's how you spell potpourri?  I don't think I've ever typed it before.  Anyway.)

This is going to be kind of a catch all post.  So here goes.

T-Shirt Fundraiser:
I decided to jump on board the t-shirt fundraiser bandwagon and do a fundraiser through Bonfire Funds.  It is a wonderful site that allows you to use their stock designs or upload one of your own, and then if you sell a certain number of shirts (in my case, 50) they handle collecting the money, printing, and shipping of the shirts.  And the shirts are really nice quality (I have a few, thanks to some other adoptive families!).  Here is the design I am using:

This design was created by my amazingly talented friend Candace, who also designed Ella's puzzle.  I wanted a design that encompassed multiple languages/cultures, not just Chinese.  There are many, many adoptive parents in my little circle of friends, and (shockingly, ha ha!) not all of their kids came from China.  I also wanted a shirt that wasn't just specific to Ella's adoption, but was a cool shirt that people would wear, no matter what.  I think Candace accomplished that.  Plus I really love the color and I think the design is just awesome.  So far, 22 shirts have been sold, so 28 more need to be sold for the sale to be considered "successful" and the shirts to be printed!  You do have to purchase them through this website, but you are not charged until the fund is successful.  About half of each shirt sold goes to Ella's adoption fund.  And of course, it's fine to sell over 50 shirts - that's just a bonus!  The money from this (and from other fundraisers, such as the envelope fundraiser) will go toward Ella's orphanage fee, fees for finalizing her adoption in China, and post-adoption service fees.  If you are interested in purchasing a shirt, click the link {here}.

Paperwork:

So I sort of skipped a celebration in my last post.  When I mentioned that my last two documents were on their way to China, I failed to celebrate the fact that one of those last two documents was my I-800a approval from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.  That approval can take up to 90 days (that is how long they have to approve it); mine was approved on day 37 and I had the approval in hand on day 40.  This was a HUGE blessing.  My goal when starting my paperwork was to file that before February 28, and I had it filed February 26.  I was trying to leave 60 days for approval so I could have the entire month of May to get the sealing done; as it stands, it should be done before the end of April (Lord willing!).  I am incredibly thankful that the good folks at USCIS are moving more quickly (and that my really great, motivated social worker does not drag her feet).  I know there are paperwork steps to complete after my dossier is to China, but I don't really know MUCH about them yet, so I try not to get ahead of myself.  (Let's just say there are a lot more initials to learn!)

Preparing for Ella:

I didn't want to get ahead of myself in preparing Ella's room, but early on when looking at bedding I decided I didn't really like anything in the stores and I wanted to make her quilt myself.  So I set off to find some fabric that I liked in colors that I liked (I kind of followed this tutorial I found on Pinterest).  I made the quilt top in February/early March, but waited until Spring Break to finish it.  I used my dear friend's quilting machine and her seriously incredible quilting expertise to get it done.  I am really proud of how it turned out.  It's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I think it turned out really well.  

On the machine!  The quilting is large interlocking circles, so it gives a flower pattern in the middle.  

The finished product.  I love it!

The quilt isn't what I would have thought I'd choose for my hypothetical child's room even six months or a year ago, but one thing I have found throughout this process is what you think you'd do and what you actually choose to do can be two very different things.  :)

SO, when do you think you'll travel?

This is the question I am most commonly asked.  Right now I am thinking sometime in September.  It could be early September, it could be late September.  It depends on how long the wait for my letter of approval (LOA) is.  Right now lots of people in the same situation as me (who have had pre-approval for several months) have been getting them in less than two months, but the LOA wait is not standard at all.  Some people get them in 40, some get them in 80+.  Right now I am just assuming September and remaining noncommittal.  Once the LOA comes, it give a more concrete wait time and I can answer with more confidence.  :)

I think that's it for now!  I am really enjoying the Spring weather - it makes it sink in a little more that this is actually happening and that I don't have too much longer before Ella arrives on the scene.  I am very excited!

Paper Chasing. Literally.

(Alternately titled:  How Governor Steve Beshear Became a Part of Ella's Adoption Story)

This is a story about my plan and reality.  So you know it's going to go perfectly smoothly, right? :)

My plan:
Took today off.  I was going to get up early, drive my last two documents to the County Clerk Notary Office, get them certified, pick up my friend Stephanie, drive to Frankfort to get my last two documents certified at the state level, come home, grab some lunch, make my copies, overnight my last two documents to the courier in DC, maybe take a nap, take my rental car back to the place, pick up my car, go to church, so on and so forth.

So what actually happened?

I woke up a little late, sat in traffic, got to the County Clerk Notary Office.  The lady seemed a bit unsure of what she was doing but people were helping her and in the end it seemed okay.  So I left, picked up Steph at McDonald's, and off we went.  We got to Frankfort, parked, and headed in.

I noticed some people walking out of the Capitol building but didn't notice who.  I hear Stephanie say, "Hi!"  I turned my head because it sounded like a familiar "Hi."

Yeah, we walked right past the Governor.  Later we lamented not getting our pictures taken with him, so we took a selfie right where we passed him.

We were so close.  Just pretend he's there.

We went in, went to the Secretary of State, and were out in no time.  Stephanie did pick up a sucker and added her date-stamped sticker so that Ella will have it someday.  :)  Not that Ella will get to eat that particular sucker, but you know.  It's a keepsake.  We wandered outside in the sunshine to take a couple of fun pictures of me with my fancy documents.  Did I mention they were the last two?  I am a bit excited about that.

SO OFFICIAL.  (Sense the foreboding.)

So I get home with my lunch and my documents, sit down to eat, and my sweet friend Laura calls.  She was in town for a conference with her husband and kids, and invited me to dinner with several other friends tonight.  YES!  Absolutely.  Let me just ask to be relieved from the church nursery.  (That was no issue, thanks to our amazing Preschool Director at church.)  

I sat down around 1:15 to start making copies.  My computer was out of ink, which was a minor issue.  I looked at the seals on my documents one more time and I am glad I did.  Because the County notary seal on my home study was wrong.  They misspelled the notary's name.  

I called my agency, who very quickly recommended to go ahead and get it fixed if I could.  I called the Notary office, and they checked and confirmed it was spelled wrong.  They said I could come on in and get it fixed, no worries.  Which would be fine and no problem, except of course it had already been certified by the State.  

(A side note.  Staples are a big deal when compiling an adoption dossier.  Once the State's seal has been stapled onto the document, you cannot remove them.  If you do, the Chinese Embassy will not accept the documents and you have to go through the whole process again with that document.  So I knew fixing the County seal would nullify the State seal.  But it had to be done.) 

So basically I repeated my trip back downtown and back to Frankfort in one day.  I nearly literally chased these documents up and down I-64.  

When you get the documents, you have to make copies to send to the Embassy (you also need a set to send to the agency and a set to keep).  So I had to find a copy place since my home printer wasn't working.  It worked out that there was a FedEx close to the Post Office close to where I was to meet my friends for dinner...this feels like a version of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.  If I wasn't so tired, I would change this and make it so. :)

At any rate.  at 4:58 the Post Office accepted my documents, so they are back on track, my day off was certainly used well, and all's well that ends well.   I was blessed to have dinner with some very dear friends (some of whom I haven't seen in three years!) and enjoy some special conversations with people who are dear and special to me.  

So at the end of the long day, while I am certainly tired and spent more time driving than I intended, my original goals (minus picking up the car, but I worked that out to do tomorrow) were accomplished.  My LAST. TWO. DOCUMENTS.* are in the mail to the courier.  I got to spend the morning enjoying the sunshine and laughing with a good friend.  I ended the day with dinner with dear friends of mine.  It's been a great day.

And hey, my friend Stephanie said hi to the Governor.  So there's always that.

* - These are my last two dossier documents.  There will be other documents, but the big dossier document compiling is nearing its completion.  Which is exciting.  Hooray!