Progress

I am happy to announce that progress has been made regarding the preparation of the dossier!  I travelled to the big city yesterday for my first visit with the social worker for the first part of the homestudy.

She asked me questions about my childhood and how I was raised and what my relationship is like with my siblings and parents.  There was nothing unexpected and I was very calm and relaxed for the hour and a bit that we talked.  In two weeks she will come to my house and check it out and we'll talk some more.  We have a plan to be done the homestudy by the end of June.

The weather was pretty terrible on the first two hours of the drive back home but the last three were totally fine.  Welcome to spring in Canada! For about an hour of the trip there was an ambulance right behind me.  I thought that would be perfect if I ended up in an accident! But the Lord protected me and I made it home safely.

 

Today I took my three daycare children out and about to gather a few of the documents I'll need.  The only hiccup I ran into was that my fingers are so dry that the ridges weren't being picked up well by the fancy digital finger printing machine.  It took quite a few tries but we managed to get prints that the computer would accept in the end.  The kids got a kick out of seeing what the inside of the police station looked like and they came home with tattoos from Officer Korey. :o)

I also got my tax info to my accountant today.  I'm not looking forward to seeing how much I owe the government!  No big refunds when you're self employed that's for sure. lol Doing the taxes was one of the things that needed to be done for the income part of the dossier.

So in the next few weeks I'll continue to get the house ready for the homestudy.  Dad and I finished the flooring in one room and there's one more room to go.  I'll be very happy when that is done.  Having the livingroom full of bedroom furniture has really messed up the daycare nap/rest times.  Not to mention that I can't get to my sewing machine and I haven't sewn anything in two weeks! Withdrawal I tell ya!

I'm also starting another course for my Early Childhood diploma.  This one is called "Guiding Children's Behaviour".  How perfect is that?  I bet I'll find some answers in the textbook that will help with some of the questions in the homestudy.  Once I'm finished this course I'll be ready for my first practicum so that's exciting.  There are four practicums to do and I'm just a little worried that I'll end up doing practicums and travelling overseas for my first visit at the same time.  But God has worked out the timing of everything so well so far that I think I'll let him worry about that. ;o)

So there's your update! Things are really underway now and that feels great!  Now I'm off to rip carpet out of the second bedroom.  Should be fun.

Fundraising and Homestudy News

Things are really starting to get going here!  I have my home study dates now.  I don't want to post it publicly on the blog but I will be travelling to Winnipeg at some point this month to meet with the social worker for the first home study date.  Because the home study is three visits and I have to pay for the social worker's hotel and fuel to travel the 5 hrs here and 5 hrs back it's cheaper for me to go down there for two of the visits.  She will be coming up here on the first weekend in May to see the house.

I've been doing some fixing up of the house as well.  I bought laminate flooring for both bedrooms.  It'll be nice to get rid of that lovely gold shag carpet. ;o)  I spent this evening mudding and taping the small bedroom to get it ready to paint tomorrow.  Then hopefully Dad and I can get the flooring finished in that room sometime next week.  I'll have to post pictures when we're done.

I do plan on having a garage sale or two in June so I will be taking donations. If anyone has anything they'd like to contribute that would be very much appreciated.  Let me know and I'll come pick them up!  I've had a few donations made already that I'm storing in the basement until it's time for the sale.  I wouldn't mind a whole basement full. lol

I worked a lot of extra hours in March at my part time job but that should slow down in April.  I did manage to finish both the courses I was working on and one whole day before the deadline too! haha My material for the next course came today so I'll have to get on that pretty soon to avoid doing it at the last minute again.

So that's about it.  I'm just keeping busy and reminding myself daily to be patient and stay in the moment.  I don't want to "wish" this time away.  God is preparing me during this time of waiting for what's to come so it's important to pay attention to the lessons He's showing me and not try to press the fast forward button.

Please continue to pray for me.  I'm reading so many posts on fb of other adoptive parents and the attacks they are under emotionally, physically, spiritually and financially and I know that the prayers of my friends and family have been an umbrella of protection since I started this journey!