I’ve been gone so long, this almost feels like a new blog.
In the past few days, I’ve had a number of people at work and at church ask how things are going.
So what’s been happening? Well, primarily work has been keeping me more than busy. There have been a few fire drills, but for the most part things have actually been slow. In the past, I’ve tried to catch my breath during these periods and develop our tool-set. Then in the next crisis, the tools still aren’t finished. This time, instead of taking a breather, I’m continuing to work like mad to get the tools in place for our next crisis. They still won’t be ready, but at least I’ve tried.
There have also been a few minor crises, just to keep things interesting.
We also went to the beach for a week with my family. We had a very nice time, and we enjoyed hanging out with my parents, siblings, and nieces.
I’ve always wanted to write a novel. While we’re waiting for our daughter, I’m finally doing it. This won’t be publishable, but it’s a good learning project, and I’m having fun doing it. I’ve finished the first draft, and right now I’m planning the next novel. Starting in October, I’ll start revising the one just finished.
We went to an open house for a Chinese Academy one Sunday (20 Aug.). It will be every Sunday for ten weeks. Unfortunately, it’s also an hour away; most of the instruction will have to do with culture, not language; and the language instruction will be limited to phrase-book stuff. That would probably be more useful, but it’s not what we’re looking for, and it’s a very long way away.
We have also been going to the Waiting Families potlucks. For July, someone came and talked to us about life books. They’re similar to baby books, but are adoption-oriented.
We’ve been meeting with some of Jackie’s on-line friends. There are a lot of people in this area who have adopted from China or who are in the process, and there are a lot of informal meetings and potlucks. Since we’re usually the lone vegetarians, we have to make sure we bring something that *we* can eat. That’s been fun.
On the plus side, we found another waiting families meeting that’s probably twenty minutes or less from our house.
We’ve also found a tutor not too far from us who will be teaching us Pinyin over the next six Sundays. That should be fun, and it should give us a good basis for learning conversational Mandarin. The woman who will be teaching us primarily teaches business people and children, but I’m still really looking forward to this.
Hmm, what else?
Friday morning our neighbor called and said that water was flowing from our lawn across their driveway. We arranged to have a plumber come replace the water line going from the street into our house. We didn’t want him working on Saturday (our Sabbath), so he’s coming early Monday, and we’re without water this weekend. Exciting and stinky.
Primarily, on the adoption, we’re just trying to wait patiently and to keep ourselves busy in the meantime so that we don’t think about it too much. That’s part of why I haven’t been posting regularly.
But mostly, nothing’s happening, and we’re just trying to be patient.
