Etsy, Finally

Sorry I have been such a schlub about posting.  Hopefully some new and cute things will help get me back in your good graces.

First is Orange Peel Baby who makes really cute burp cloths

and cute blankets.  I like the binding.

The next seller is Gochemoche.  Beautiful silk ribbon “origami” hair pins.  Gorgeous!

Kreativlink makes really cool handmade journals.  I am thinking about getting this small size to take to Vietnam so I can be sure and capture all of my experiences (so I can put them in my blog, of course).  $15 – such a deal.

BluGrn design makes cute jewelry.  Check out this:

and this:

More cute shoes.  Check out Pedrosprout:

and these:

Have a great weekend.

Four Years Ago Today …

… my husband and I were married.  I can’t believe how fast 4 years flew by but at the same time it seems a lot longer than that.  Weird how that works. 

My husband was diagnosed with cancer 6 months after we were married.  We spent our 1st anniversary in the South Austin Cancer Center.  I was madly in love with my husband when we got married.  More than I thought possible.  But after going through that tremendous hardship with him, I am even more in love with him now than I was then.  I am grateful every day that our relationship was strengthened by adversity and not shattered by it.  He is the absolute best husband and partner and am thankful that we found each other. 

Happy 4th Anniversary, Shon.  I love you.

P.S.  In case you were wondering, my husband had squamous cell carcinoma at the base of his tongue.  And no, he never smoked.  If you are familiar at all with the treatment for this type of cancer you know how brutal the cure is.  Enduring daily radiation in your mouth (TWICE a day during the last two weeks) while at the same time your body is being ravished by chemotherapy isn’t the best of times.  The human spirit is an amazing thing.  He has been cancer free for 3 years now.  

Etsy Friday

Cute shoes anyone? Just Kidd’n Babywear makes very cute shoes and clothes for the kiddies.

All the way from Australia.  Sheeps Clothing.  She knits cute hats and scarves and uses beautiful color combinations.

 I found a great place for cute hair clips.  Pink Owl Creations makes lots of different ribbon and color combinations. 

Any coffee drinkers out there?  How about adding a pretty to those paper cups?  This is by Paper Rock Scissors.  I don’t drink coffee but may start so I can use this.  Clever, useful and cute.

 

Have a great weekend everyone.

I’m Feeling the Love!

I was tagged by 3 people to write a meme.  Seriously, with me not writing very much lately I feel very grateful that my blog buddies still stop by and check on me.  I was tagged K at Journey to Our Child, E at Looking for George and Jenn at Long Adventures. 

You have to post these rules before you give the facts:

Players, you must list one fact that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of your middle name. If you don’t have a middle name, use the middle name you would have liked to have had. When you are tagged, you need to write your own blog post containing your own middle name game facts. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged & to read your blog!

So here goes and if anyone calles me Ouisie after this I will block you for life.

L is for my terrible laziness and lethargy and the limbo I am in lately.  Do I get extra points for coming up with 3? 

O is for ornithology.  I have had a tremendous amount of birds at my feeder lately and I love watching them.  Since we have had so much rain here the birds had two nests this season and both sets of their “kids” are using our feeder too.  I am posting a picture at the bottom of this post of a finch feeder a few of her babies.

U is for the unusual size my ass has become.  And by unusual, I mean large.

I is for inspiration.  Here is hoping I get more of it soon. 

S is for sharing.  I have been cleaning out closets, drawers and the attic.  I have a lot of clothes, decorative items, linens and tons and tons of books that need to find good homes.  I have been thinking a lot about how they could go to the best use without just calling Salvation Army to take the whole lot away.  Any ideas?

E is for Elise.  My wonderful mother’s name and my soon to be daughter’s middle name.

I am tagging K at Patience is a Virtue, K at Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, T at Our Journey to Paige, B at Solbergs Squared, S at Our Vietnamese Ladybug, and finally (why, oh why does my middle name have SIX LETTERS?) J at Love from Vietnam.  If any of you have been tagged already, I’m sorry!!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday.

Houston, we have a referral!

Well, sort of.  Have you noticed that up until recently referrals “all over town” had slowed down significantly?  Well Decree 69 was finally implemented and this has affected the referral process.  Decree 69 says that referrals are supposed to be “unidentified,” meaning that both the adoptive family dossier and the baby dossier are fully approved before a child is matched with a family. The intent behind the law seems to be that the US Embassy and the DIA want to avoid situations where the referral falls through after it has been offered to waiting families.   It also should cut down on the great variation among agencies in the amount of time families are waiting between referral and travel. If the referral is received after the letter of offering has been issued, there is no more process to be completed other than scheduling the ceremony.  Two families with my agency were one of the first to receive their referral under the new guidelines and they traveled 3 weeks after their referral!!  I don’t think all waits after referral will be this short but the news is encouraging.  The majority of the waiting will be on the front end now instead of the tail.  That works for me!! 

Oh yeah, getting back to my referral.  Because this (Decree 69) changes the timing of when referrals are offered to waiting families, our agency went ahead and notified us (and 6 other families) that we were “matched” with a baby girl (from Phu Tho Province) so we would be aware that a letter of offering was in process (great news!).  BUT because the letter of offering is not yet complete, this shouldn’t be considered an “official” referral (bummer news!).  Our agency will not be doing this in the future but made an exception for the families that started their “wait for referral” before Decree 69 was implemented.  No, we do not have pictures, medicals, history, etc.

So, that is my “sort of” referral news.  We should have the official referral in 4-6 weeks with travel happening 3-6 weeks after that.  Stay turned for additional referral news as it becomes available.

Etsy Friday

Good morning Faithful Readers.  I appreciate you sticking around.  I wanted to start this week’s Etsy picks with a seller that I ordered from last week.  Vinyl Wall Art has the absolute cutest vinyl decals.  Their prices are WAY cheaper than the “modern” online stores I have seen them in before.  They can be removed (but not resused) when you are tired of them.  I ordered these in white and turquoise:

and these in pink: 

I also really like this chandelier:

ivCreations has some very cute jewelry.  I like these:

and this:

and these:

How about some more jewelry?  This is Bombalurina.  How about this cool necklace?

Or this one?

And finally, I thought I would end with some cute things for baby.  Cherry Blossom has really cute hair accessories.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Hello? Is this thing on?

If anyone is still reading after my long absence, bless you.  I wish I had something witty, interesting or exciting to report, but I don’t.  I have been feeling blah and uninspired so I haven’t written or done much of anything else.  I need to snap myself out of it so this is my first start.  Tomorrow, cute things from Etsy.

Etsy Day

Happy Saturday eveyone.  Here are some goodies from Etsy this week.  I thought I would start with some fur babies:

The first seller is Plants and Animals and her creatures are SO cute but what is even sweeter are the descriptions for her stuffies.  This is Ramone.  He loves fudgesicles and to vacuum.

This is Siegfried.  He loves peanut butter and drive-in movies.

Okay, one more:  This is Roger the Sasquatch and Douglas the tree.  Roger loves hiking and river rafting with his best friend Douglas.

There are several more like this with equally cute descriptions.  She also has some artwork, magnets, etc.

Our next seller is Ola Design.  She offers hand painted ceramic and glass decor accessories.  They are so pretty and delicate looking.

This set can be customized.  I think I am going to order it for Birdie’s bathroom or nursery and have her use turquoise and hot pink and add some birds (duh - of course). 

I think any of her items would make great wedding or birthday gifts.

The following are photographs from Alicia Bock Photography.  I love her work but am the most fond of her “through the viewfinder” series.  They are very dreamy and serene.

Here is one framed to give you an idea of the “feeling”:

This item is a special post for my blog friend ’e’ over at Looking for George.  I think her, fingers crossed, soon to be referred son would look really, really cute in this hat.  This is from Eeny Meeny Mieny Moe.  She also sells cute personalized burp cloths. 

That’s all folks!  Have a great weekend.

Is it Warm in Here or is it the Fever?

I realize that most of the people who read my blog are fellow prospective adoptive parents (except for the 1000’s of Holly Hunter Google searchers) and the following is a real concern for us traveling BUT come on — really!  Doesn’t Dengue Fever sounds like something Gilligan would get?  Couldn’t they come up with a better name than that?

Can’t you just see him all sweaty with fever hallucinating that the rest of the castaways wanted to boil him in a human sized pot over an open flame?  They would all be wearing grass skirts, holding spears, and have bones through their noses.  Then poor Gilligan’s fever would break and the whole crew would have a good laugh as the credits rolled. 

Is it not bad enough that we have to be concerned about Hepatitis A & B, Typhoid, Rabies, Japanese Encephalitis, Polio, and Malaria now we have to worry about a virus that AT BEST can cause excruciating joint pain and at worst can cause your internal organs to MELT?  Personally, I would prefer to not have my gall bladder leak out of my sphincter somewhere in Southeast Asia.  Seriously though, as bad as the news media is making this out to be, according to the World Health Organization, this disease is still not nearly as lethal as malaria.  I don’t hear anyone freaking out about malaria so lets try to keep our wits (and livers) about us.

Is it Just Me or are My Legs Twitching?

So, what’s up with this Restless Leg Syndrome?  Is there such a epidemic of people jerking around in bed at night that we need to be bomarded with endless commercials for not one but two different medications for this condition?  Have you paid attention to the side effects of these drugs?  Uncontrollable sexual and gambling urges!?  So let me get this straight.  You won’t get tingly sensations in your legs but you may start dry humping the person sitting next to you at the black jack table?  Weird.