150 Steps...In the Present Moment

I think that I'm kind of done trying to educate myself about adoption from "the other side." As a result of a respectful comment that I recently left on another blog I have been in turn called a "predator" by two other  bloggers . Additionally, one of those  bloggers  wrote the following comment when I invited her to visit my blog - specifically the post about  Compassion : Don’t try to teach us compassion–we who have lost our children deserve to be given compassion! Exactly. Yes, you do.  That was one of the main points of the post. And, in truth, I wasn't trying to teach anyone about compassion. I was simply expressing my feelings and thoughts about compassion. Asking the question:  Why can't we be compassionate with each other?   But she was having nothing to do with me. There can be truly respectful dialogue among the parties involved in the adoption triad.  I am well aware of this because I have been extremely fortunate to have had so

Sorry for the radio silence on my end of the world. Life has simply gotten in the way of my blogging. Darn life! That and I haven't felt like I have much to say these days. Well, that's not totally true...I have stuff that's been percolating in my brain - some of it adoption related and much of it stuff that I'm working through in therapy - but none of it is quite ready to come out and play. Hence...radio silence. So, in the spirit of at least getting back in touch I will mention that our house is finally on the mend. Woohoo ! After finally admitting that the flood damage was just too much for us to handle on our own, my fabulous husband tracked down and hired a young energetic contractor guy to come in and fix the place. And fix it he has! Wet dry wall - out! New dry wall - in! Plaster - up! Today Young Energetic Contractor Guy returns to install new waterproof PVC baseboards. It's wonderful knowing that soon our basement will be returned to

From a prior post: Last week I spend 40 minutes grousing to my therapist about how aggravated I am  all of the time by work. "Do you have the book  Co-Dependent No More ?" she asks me in her lovely calm therapist voice. "Yeah," I reply, not liking where this is going. "Maybe you ought to read the chapter on 'Detachment'," she suggests in her very gentle therapist-y way. *** Last night I am once again sitting in my therapist's tiny office in the green, mushy, moderately comfy chair with my feet up on the ottoman. "Look, I did my homework!" I chirp cheerfully as I pull the Co-dependent book from my bag. "I'm reading the chapter on detachment." "And how's that going for you?" she asks. "Is that helping?" "Yeah..ummm," I say, thinking of the very aggravating afternoon that I've just had at my office and feeling my blood pressure soar, "Not so much." Present

We have too much stuff. Seriously, how the heck did we accumulate all of this stuff? Books, furniture,  t chotchkes, weird kitchen gadgets and serving items, miscellaneous goofy things, more books, more tchotchkes,  more books, more tchotchkes . We got STUFF. So yesterday we have a yard sale  - primarily to get rid of all of the stuff that we had been storing in our large and small basement storage rooms because we're finally having a professional come in to deal with the flood damage to our basement. Hosting a yard sale is exhausting.  You stay up WAY TOO LATE the night before pricing all of your various and sundry stuff. The kitchen and living room are your basic staging areas. This is so you can haul the stuff out to the driveway and front lawn post-haste the morning of the sale in something of an organized fashion. Then you get up CRAZY EARLY on a Saturday morning to engage in the set up of your stuff. You've placed ads in the paper and on Craig's List. Ads

Gotta love it when Blogger comes out with new templates. I love messing around with the colors and the formats. So much fun. Perhaps I missed my calling as a graphic designer? Yeah, maybe not. So, anyway, after about 30 minutes of fooling around with the new templates - voila! - a bit of a new look for the blog (although I am nothing if not predictable and it just has to be green and purple!) Not much news about the adoption...unfortunately.  We'll try to schedule a conference call for next week with the new rep from our facilitator. Apparently, the gal who encouraged us to consider a mom who smoked heavily through her entire pregnancy is no longer employed by our facilitators. Go figure. I'm not sure that the new gal is going to have much to tell us. And, in fact, I'm still unsure what the "client liaison" does exactly since our original one seemed to have no clue how to help us except by suggesting the whole smoking change. Truth is...as I mentio

6:09 a.m. Awake. I've actually been awake since 5:42 and probably should have hauled my butt to the gym then, but I was feeling SO groggy and unmotivated... Never shut down my laptop last evening so here I am. But the thing is...I just don't have a whole lot to say. So, what the hell am I doing here? Trying to work up the energy and motivation to head to the gym. Up until this past Monday I had actually been to the gym for 18 consecutive days and would have made it 19 on Monday except that I overslept, brought my gym clothes with me to work with a plan to hit the treadmill after work, but then got stuck working late. By the time I left my office it was after 8:30 p.m. and I just cannot exercise that late in the evening. Wakes me right up. So, here I am today with the time to work out, at the time of day when I prefer working out, but not much energy. In part, it's because I failed to follow my regular routine, which involves laying out my clothes the night

A colleague of mine is on Day 4 of "P90X" from  Beachbody . Until he started  Facebooking  about P90X, I had never heard of it. So I make a quick visit to the company website where I learn that by using the P90X home training system ("our most extreme home fitness training system ever!! Just 3 payments of $39.95 plus $19.95 s & h") you'll "GO FROM REGULAR TO RIPPED IN JUST 90 DAYS!" Wow. That's impressive. So apparently you throw in a P90X DVD each day and for an hour sweat like mad in your basement or bedroom or workout room or wherever you happen to have your television set up and enough room to move around. The system boasts different workouts for each session so your muscles don't get accustomed to a particular set of moves and thus you encounter none of the dreaded fitness "plateaus." Sounds great! But not for me. I've tried working out at home. DVDs, the Fitness channel, following the instructions in a book

An acquaintance of mine isn't a fan of flying. It's not a fear of flying or heights per se but rather the fact that someone else is in control. "How do I know if the pilot got enough sleep or isn't paying attention because he's pissed off at his spouse?" For me, I approach it the other way. I'm fine with flying because I'm willing to put my trust -- hopefully not woefully misplaced -- in the professionalism and experience of the pilots. I'll drive my car from point A to point B but when it comes to getting from point A to point Z in the shortest time possible, I'll defer to the pilots who have the skills and knowledge that I lack. I'll simply sit in my seat, read a book, munch on the peanuts, and ignore the occasional turbulence on the journey. I'm a bystander, a passive passenger as the pilots -- the experts -- do the work and I'm OK with that. Unfortunately, I've discovered that we've become bystanders on our adopti