150 Steps...In the Present Moment

Sometimes access to too much information can be a very bad thing. Reading blogs can be such a wonderful and positive experience...and then at other times...so heavy or heartbreaking or aggravating or shocking or just downright upsetting. I am continually amazed at and horrified by the hordes of angry, pissed off people in the world and especially in the online world. The vitriolic rants they engage in on their own blogs as well as the hate-filled comments they leave on others' blogs - shocking. Makes my blood run cold when I encounter them. It's like a poison. It's enough to make me almost lose my faith in humanity. But then...sometimes online (and in the "real" world) you come across genuinely nice authentic people. Really lovely strangers like the two women who left such thoughtful and kind comments on this blog. " Thanksgivingmom " of   I should really be working...  commented on my  OK, it was a really short break...a bit of a rant  pos

A great many people have been asking about the home-study. What the heck is this thing? "Home-study" is actually something of a misnomer since our social worker, M, will make a home visit, but what she is really studying is... Us... Chris. And. Me. Who we are. What we're like as a couple. What we're like as individuals. What we're thinking about adoption. How we live. Our beliefs, interests, and activities. Chris actually wrote a great  post  about the home-study process on his blog 150 Steps. Check it out. It's very informative (and, of course, amusing.)

What's in a name? It's started already. People are asking if Chris and I have chosen a name for The Kid. No. We are considering quite a few names. But are we telling anyone? No. Why? Because... Dearest family, friends, colleagues, blog readers, etc. please know that we love and adore you. And that we always value your input and opinions. However, when it comes to names for our Little One...well, we're not sharing that information... so that none of you get particularly attached to any one name and then find yourselves disappointed or surprised if the name you happen to love isn't the one that we bestow on the Little One. The truth is that we may pick out a name and the Little One might arrive and we realize that the name we've selected doesn't fit. So we're playing this one pretty close to the vest. However, I will be happy to share some of the names* we briefly considered and then rejected... Aphrodite Arizona Aspen  Athena

Apparently, our marriage the topic of the next meeting with me, Jennifer, and M, our adoption counselor and the woman conducting our home study. Our first meeting, held last Friday, focused on bringing M up to speed and her going over the huge amounts of paperwork we'll need to provide, among them being: written confirmation from the Bristol, RI, police, the RI Attorney General, and the FBI that we are not bad people our autobiographies (I'm hoping David McCullough will be available to ghost write mine) financial reports, tax records, mortgage details 3 letters of reference from friends confirming that we are not bad people letters from our employers confirming that we are not bad people and that we actually are gainfully employed medical reports and the list goes on However, meeting #2 tomorrow is when the fun starts. "Next week, we'll talk about your marriage," M says to us as we're wrapping up our first meeting. Of course, she gives us no clue a

I was planning to blog about our trip to the Pawtucket Red Sox game last night and how we were surrounded by parents and kids, most of whom were having a great time. However, Jennifer beat me to it and wrote such a fantastic piece that I'm going to  just point you to it  and say "yeah, me too." Enjoy!

Baseball. America's Game. I love baseball. Attending a game on a perfect summer evening is one of my favorite things in the world. There's just nothing like it. Last night was one of those rare perfect evenings during a Rhode Island summer - not too hot, no humidity, nice breeze. The best night to see a baseball game. Chris spends most of yesterday in complete frustration over computer issues - data from an older laptop not loading properly onto a new laptop - getting almost entirely through the transfer process and then stopping with some kind of error at the end. I volunteer in the morning and come home to collapse for a while in a tired heap on the couch. Around mid-afternoon, sensing my husband's extreme frustration (not all that difficult considering this is what I hear from across the room for several hours is "SON OF A-!!" and various other muttered expletives at each failed data transfer.) Chris gets on the phone looking for a new cord thinking

We are on our way Chris' status on his  Facebook  page last evening: ...just returned from our first meeting to kick off the home study (aka the process that will prove we aren't going to be totally hopeless as parents). We now have more paperwork to fill out then when we bought our house. Of course, you can always sell your home. Kids are forever and appear to result in a correspondingly larger amount of things to be signed. So very true. Our lovely social worker, M, handed us two-page check list of things we need to do...mostly, as Chris writes, involving killing off any number of trees. Do I feel guilty about this? Yes. But not much... We're officially on our way to becoming Plus One. Holy  moly !

OK, I admit it...I'm a bit nervous about our first home-study visit scheduled to take place tomorrow. Part of me knows that Chris and I are going to make it through the home-study process with (hopefully) flying colors. Part of me says, "We're great! Any child would be really lucky to have us as parents! I'm going to be a good mom!" And then there's that other little, irrational, nasty, doubt-filled part of me that thinks its oily, horrible little thoughts in one almost forgotten corner of my mind. It asks in a terrible little whisper... "Who, in their right minds, would let YOU have a kid?" Doubt. Vipassana  Buddhist teacher  Gil  Fronsdal  had the following to say about doubt in a talk entitled  "The Five Hindrances: Doubt"  given on November 24, 20008: Doubt is said to be the most dangerous of The Five Hindrances...especially for the sake of the spiritual practice because doubt can cause a person to abandon their spiritual pra