Thirteen Random Strange Facts about Baggage
1. My thumbs look like toes.

2. When I am doing laundry, if something falls on the ground between the washer and the dryer or the dryer and the basket, I have to rewash it.

3. I can shoot a target from five football fields away. Well, I used to be able to anyway.

4. The first time I did CPR on a person was in a church parking lot.

5. I am afraid of shower curtains and talking on the phone.

6. I can’t sleep with socks on.

7. I don’t remember my first kiss.

8. Two days before I was born, a bat flew into our townhouse and hung upside down from the entrance to my nursery.

9. I like to name things Bob. My desktop computer is named Bob. My laptop is named Bobby. And I named the Rockefeller Christmas Tree BOB.

10. When I was in kindergarten, I played the roll of “Jill” in a school play. Jack and I climbed up the hill, and then I did a forward roll to symbolize me tumbling after. After my forward roll, my dress was around my shoulders. I stopped, looked out in the audience, and pulled it down.

11. Despite the fact that I was in the Marine Corps, I’m extremely thin skinned and get my feelings hurt real easily.

12. When I was in combat training, I broke my hip, but I didn’t know I had and before I found out I went on a midnight six mile forced march carrying over 75 pounds. However, once they found out my hip was broken, they wouldn’t let me get out of the chair I was in. I tried to point out that I had just gone six miles on the broken hip, but they didn’t care.

13. I am in love with this song and video. Come on! She is making clothes out of curtains! There is not much better than the Sound of Music.

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Last time I started the foster/adopt process I became OBSESSED with finding a child. I spent hours on the photolistings. Every one. I updated, made charts, harassed Cammie. The photolistings are a strange thing. First, they don’t tell you anything. Bug wasn’t photolisted, but when I received her profile it basically just said she liked basketball (which she has never played before.) It gave no inkling as to as any of the problems she had.

Also, the photolistings are terribly outdated, and even when they are up to date, sometimes the workers aren’t ready to find a home then anyway. After I was already in visits with Bug, I got multiple calls about people interested in talking to me about other children. Some of them were MONTHS after I had Bug home.

This time around, I’ve been avoiding the photolistings. First off, I knew I had to get relicensed but I also didn’t want to become obsessed again. But last night, I had a look through them and I found an in-state sibling group that I was interested in. This morning I sent off an email to their worker.

She sent me back some information on the kids, and without going into details, it seems like they would be a perfect fit for us. They have very similar issues to Bug and have gone through some things that I am an expert at dealing with.

Their life circumstances are eerily similar to Bug’s.

I’ve talked to the worker on the phone (ON THE PHONE?!!?) and they are planning a staffing for January. I’m working on having my homestudy sent in.

I am not going to get too invested in this though because I don’t want to be disappointed.

There was a time in my life where I felt like there was no way I would be able to have children. But now, I’ve got several ways which I might add to my family..I’m excited to see which path I’ll end up going down.

Technorati Tags: foster care, adoption, family, parenting

Despite my success with the scheduling of appointments, today has not been a good day. I’m not sure what exactly is wrong with me. My head feels FULL. I feel stressed out and anxious. There is no real reason why. I feel paralyzed to do anything, and each minute I do something other than what I am supposed to be doing, I feel panicked.

I’ve gone completely off the wellbutrin. I don’t want to be on anything like that when I’m trying for baby Eldoo. I thought I was doing ok..I had some massive withdraw headaches, but as far as the depression goes, I was doing ok. I felt happy, as witnessed by yesterday’s post.

I definitely think that seasonal affect disorder has something to do with how I feel. I’ve been diagnosed with that before. I need one of those light boxes that American Family raves about. Because seriously? At 1 am I feel wide awake. But right now (5:51 pm) I want nothing more but to go to sleep.

I even contemplated popping one of Bug’s adderall. And I didn’t. Because remember when Lynette on Desperate Housewives became addicted?? Yes, that’s me. Basing my choices on freaking Desperate Housewives. Next thing you know I’ll be burying my toolbox in the woods.

I think a combination of things are at work…one, I do have a lot of work going on. It is the last week of school before finals, I’m trying to get the foster care stuff in, I’m trying to get the damn sperm bank to understand that just because my driver’s license has another address on it, I really do live here.

I also think that it has something to do with the fact that I NEVER GO ANYWHERE. I mean, most days I leave the house just to go pick up Bug. Sometimes I go to the grocery store. But I need to go somewhere.

Geo was going to come over and do a tune up on my van, but bless his heart, he offered to come over and help me clean the house instead. If I at least had a clean bedroom, I would be less panicked. I think I’m going to see if we can go out to eat. If I got out and ate, I think I would feel better.

You know, although this post sounds pathetic, I’m proud of myself. I used to feel this way ALL the time when I was in college the first time. And I couldn’t deal with it at all, and so I did the only logical thing..I cut myself.

But I’ve reached the point of mental stability where I can tell when I’m not feeling good, and I can try to arrange things so that I feel better. It sounds like a small thing, but to me it is huge.

How do depressed people have babies? How am I supposed to get through TTC without my wellbutrin? Can you request a C-section? Because if somebody has to keep checking my cha, I swear I’ll have a nervous breakdown. Britney did it, didn’t she? And then I read something about pooping while delivering a baby and that made me have a nervous breakdown. Am I definitely going to get PPD? Have I told you how strange it is to have a quiet house because Bug has been reading for TWO HOURS STRAIGHT?
This concludes my mental health update.

I’ve seen people doing this around the web lately and I needed to join in. Recently I read somewhere that a trait of Virgo’s is getting overwhelmed by things and deciding to do nothing. I don’t know if that really is a Virgo trait, but it certainly is me.

Whenever I get overwhelmed, I tend to do nothing. I just sit and refresh bloglines over and over. This obviously accomplishes nothing except making me feel like crap.

One thing I’ve put off is the foster care stuff. I have done the paperwork, including this HUGE disaster plan thing, in which I had to list about 100 people who could come save me from a flood and what to do if a plague of locusts descended upon my house. It was so involved that if a plague of locusts do arrive at my house, don’t be surprised if someone will be calling YOU.

But I’ve basically managed to finish that and I just need to go get health forms filled out for me and Bug saying we are healthy enough to have foster children in the home. (I hope we aren’t graded on the way Bug smells or my lack of ovary.)

The first time I called I was informed that my doctor has moved to Hawaii and everyone at the pediatrician’s office was out to lunch.

So then I did nothing for an hour.

Then I called again, and both Bug and I have appointments for Thursday. Of course, they are in two separate places. And if the damn VA tries to make me get a flu shot, “But Ms. Baggage, YOU ARE IN A HIGH RISK GROUP,” I am likely to kick someone.

So, mission accomplished. I still need to figure out how to clean my disaster of a home, finish a bunch of paying work, complete my last week of school etc. Oh, and how to make Technorati Tags in Wordpress. Anyone?

As far as foster care goes, I’ll have everything I need to have done on Thursday. I’ll drop off the paperwork to Cammie. She should be getting the results of my fingerprints back this week or next. Then I’ll have to sign new contracts and that will be that.

**Edited to add, I’m sorry for those who got this post a million times in bloglines. I still haven’t figured out freaking wordpress.

I know that most people don’t care about other people’s dreams, however…
I just wrote about the dream Geo had on my other blog and then I just had a dream about Geo. He lived in some kind of dorm thing, and he was a prostitute. But he only had male clients. It also involved an airplane crash, a four wheeler, and this chemical spray for fleas.

Do you ever wake up from dreams feeling horrible? And exhausted? That is how I feel.

Also, I am late to the game, but am I the only one who thinks the bachelor is creepy?

Aurelia asked if my comment about Geo sex was a big hint that we are back together and the answer is “NOPE.”

And I’m happy.

We’ve been hanging out, he’s been doing things with Bug, we’ve been having fun. We’ve had some very serious talks in which I learned a lot. There were some things that I thought were quite clear between us which apparently weren’t clear at all. I was quite shocked about the way he felt about certain things, some very good and some not so good. In the end, I felt like we were forced to take a really hard look at some things and we both learned a lot in the process.

In the meantime, we have been getting along good. He truly is my best friend, and I’m glad that I didn’t have to throw that away.

As I explained on my TTC blog it is all a matter of timing. I want to try for kids now. I don’t want to wait. Although I would like to have kids with him some day, the biological makeup of my children is not important to me. The only reason I am trying to have a biological baby is because I want to raise a child from close to birth. I don’t care that the child will be related to me biologically. And I don’t really care if a child is related to Geo or not. (Except it would be cheaper to try than sperm donation!)
It all is unconventional and kind of strange, but it is working for us. I don’t know what will happen in the future. Maybe we will end up married. Maybe we will live together as roommates. Either way, after talking to Bug’s shrinks and doing a lot of thinking, I could not in good conscious eliminate someone who loved her and she loved out of her life, simply because he talked to some other girls on the phone. He didn’t sleep with them, he didn’t even take them out to dinner. He has gone out of his way to try to rectify the situation, he’s admitted he was wrong, he has offered to go to counseling..he’s done everything he can do to make it up to me. And in retrospect, some of the things I was doing (probably as a result of my stress and depression over the surgery and the after effects) were not at all good and were unfair to him.
But that is between me and him, and not Bug. Bug has lost SO much in her life, she doesn’t need to lose the person who plays four-square with her and lets her work on race cars and tries to show her how to bowl.

Geo and I don’t want to lose each other either. Maybe we’ll never end up married and live happily ever after, but for now, we are all happy. We care enough about each other and about Bug to make a situation that works for all of us.

It’s working for us and we are happy.

Bug wants to have her own blog. She said she would call it “The Blog about Why Gone with the Wind should have a Gone With the Wind 2.” I told her that they had written a book which was the sequel to Gone with the Wind, but she didn’t care. Because it obviously wasn’t a sequel because it wasn’t called Gone with the Wind 2. Also, she said she might read it but then I couldn’t remember if there were parts she couldn’t read so I would have to read it again first, to which she got all huffy and stomped down the hallway.

Bug thinks she should be able to have her own blog. I told her for the time being she could just post guest posts on my blog, because heaven knows..first they want a blog, then she’ll be on myspace and then she’ll be posting vlogs and escaping from the Order with Daniel and…….

Well, anyway, she just doesn’t need her own blog right now.

However, Bug says that people are always given topics to write about. For instance, she knows that I had to write an article about getting rid of boyfriends and she really wanted to do it herself. So she wrote one:

How to get rid of your Boyfriends

By: Bug

1. Lock your boyfriend out of your house so he can not get in.

2. Throw his stuff out so he can not come in and agrervate you.

3. Don’t vist him.

4. Don’t tex or email.

5. Don’t feed him because he might come back overe to eat.

6. If he emails don’t write him back.

7. Don’t talk to him.

8. If you see him walk away.

9. Take your house key away from him.

10. If you live with him, move.

See? That is brilliant. Who needs Dr. Phil when you’ve got Bug?

Bug has asked that I ask my blog what topic they would like her to write about. So if anybody has anything they’ve always wanted to know from a 10 year old, or you would like some killer relationship advice, or want to know the latest about Hannah Montana or you feel like they should have made a Gone with the Wind 2 as well, then please comment.

Bug thanks you.

Bug got her interim report about a week ago and she had all B’s and one C+ in social studies. This was the best interim (or report card) she has ever gotten. I was quite impressed.

Even more impressive was the fact that she is reading ALL THE TIME. I’m not sure what switched on in her head, but she isn’t even allowed to read Babysitter’s Club books for her school reading level anymore. She is above them. She was working her way through my “Series of Unfortunate Events” books and was reading “The Secret Garden.” She said, “I liked the movie so I figured I would give the book a try.”

She always has a book in her hand. She reads in the bathroom, in the car, and on the bus. For me, it is one of the greatest things that I have witnessed in the past year. Not only does she read, but it has improved her spelling and her writing. I’m no longer as worried as I was before.

I went shopping yesterday. I had planned on leaving around 5 am, but when I woke up I felt so sick that I said, “screw that.” But I had already gotten a babysitter, so I decided to travel to the “small city” so I could go to real stores like Target and ToysRUs and the mall. Of course, it takes about an hour and a half to get there and it is the most boring drive ever. It’s a straight shot through cotton fields. (Although I think seeing cotton on the side of the road is cool.)

There are many strange things on the ride though. There are a lot of God billboards, including one that talks about Jesus’ cheekbones and apparently was put up there by a man who says he saw Jesus and that he had bangs. There are several adoption ones, including one that shows a cute baby and says, “2 Million Couples Are Waiting to Adopt.”

Which..OK? I am guessing this is aimed at pregnant woman, which is just crummy. Hey! There are two million couples who want your baby! Not to mention, what about us single folks? We want your baby too, damn it! Include us on the billboard!

There is also an abortion graveyard thing, that has a gigantic painting of Jesus and a field of white crosses which I guess represent aborted fetuses.

I don’t think I need to tell you that I was bursting with the Christmas spirit by the time I got to the mall.

Target was a madhouse with people literally cart to cart. It was kind of fun though. I did manage to find a Bratz doll for $9 bucks. And it was one that was fully dressed, which is my requirement, which elimates 99% of Bratz dolls. (Yes, I know, friends don’t let friends buy Bratz, but this one is actually cute, not slutty). I got Bug this kick ass Mustang remote contol car for half price. And I made it to Best Buy and ToysRus too.

Oh! And I heard a woman ask a very skinny woman with a tiny little flabby stomach if she expecting. It was god awful. Especially since the woman, who was not expecting, was getting ready to fit the other woman for a bra. And who the hell stole all the XS panties from Victoria’s Secret?? Not that I was shopping for myself. I was Christmas shopping!

(I also got a pair of Old Navy Jeans for 10 bucks. For me. Shhh!)

And to top off the day I got to talk with my mom about sperm again, particuarly about if me and Geo have “the sex” and I use donor sperm, how will I know who the baby’s daddy is??

Answer: Maury Povich. Duh Mom.

Hi everyone,

Thanks for making the migration over to the new blog with me. Thanks again to Amy for her beautiful webdesign..check her out over there on the right.

Please bare with me while I try to figure out how to best use wordpress…I’m a typepad girl so it might take a little bit. While I am phasing out the old blog, you’ll be able to get full posts over here and clips over there. Eventually I am going to delete the typepad blog.
And if you have been so kind as to include me on your blogroll, if you could kindly switch this new site (www.baggageandbug.com) then that would be super.

Thanks!