Fried

Guess what happens when you spend your whole entire ever-lovin' minute of your week doing adoption paperwork, reading about how to do your paperwork, consulting and emailing people concerning your paperwork...and then you take your pre-teen daughter shopping where all you hear is, "I want, I want, I want!"....your brain FRIES!!! Not french fries people, I mean it's fried, gone, hasta la vista, bye-bye, see-ya-later, adios, sianara. It's gone. My hubby keeps coming in and out of the room and talking and I swear I feel like I'm in some Twilight Zone episode. 

I thought the forms for my LOA were bad...I met my match with that Visa form. Are you sick of me still ranting about this paperwork? I don't care, it's my blog and I'll cry if I want to.  Just an update...yes, I did dream about paperwork again last night. The horror is still fresh in my brain. 

But tomorrow is a new day, no paperwork awaits me, just my hubby and kiddos. I plan to make the most of it. Even if it means laying in a fetal position because I had more nightmares about the dreaded Visa app. I shutter when I even type that word. 

Visa App...another paperwork nightmare!

Oh yeah, BABY...I sent that thing packing today!!!! Out.the.door. GONE.  (Please, oh please, God, let everything be right on that thing!!!!!)  Of all the paperwork I've done, that was THE.WORST.THING.EVER!!!!!! 

Understatement.  Want the low-down?  Briefly...I hand-wrote four Visa applications (duh, for all four of us), then messed mine up, so re-wrote it...found out there's a new rule, has to be typed, so, typed four apps, printer cut off tops of ALL of them.  Re-typed  one, computer erased all info, re-typed again, four more.  Something was messed up on mine...re-typed mine.  Brianna's had an error...re-typed hers.  When I was all done, I wanted to address it to 666 Satan Avenue.  I just could NOT believe how that dumb thing kept coming back to haunt me!!! 

At the end of it all, I was begging God for mercy.  Brianna came out of her room and said, "Who are you talking to Mom?" "I'm begging God to have mercy on me before I check myself into the psych ward." 

So, it's all done.  I hope.  Pray that thing doesn't have anything wrong on it, people...PLEEEEEEEZE!!!!  Or they will send it back to me....I REALLY do not want to post one more paperwork nightmare.  Btw, you DO know, I've dreamt about paperwork all this week, right?  I'm soooo not making this up when I say I have an issue with paperwork.

Want to know what else I have an issue with?  Words that get on my nerves.  Want to know what words I despise?

Scamper, scrumptious (haaaaate that word!!), delicious (makes me cringe)...ok, I REALLY hate the word scrumptious. Want to know one more? Paperwork, I hate the word paperwork. 

Celebration and Melt-Down

Yesterday I mailed out my adoption paperwork which includes all the forms with "titles", titles like LOA, I800A, blah, blah, blah...more like title of NIGHTMARE!!   To just say, "Oh yeah, I mailed out my LOA and all the forms that go with it", well, that's an understatement.  I would rather have fire ants eat my face off than ever do that again. I took a picture of it all laid out on the floor because I knew I would someday forget, and I want to make sure I always get a pit in my stomach if I look at it 10 years down the road.  I am not a paperwork kind of person...I will post more on that when I'm in a more serious mood, because, honestly, it's not funny anymore.  Which leads me to today.  

My paperwork nightmare wasn't over...I have to send in our Visa applications, which would have gone out today, except no one told me I needed 20 passport photos to complete an adoption, so we headed off to Wal-Green's to take more stupid pics and I ran out of time to get it all in the mail.  So my nightmare awaits me tomorrow.

In other news, last night after sending out my LOA, I forced my husband to celebrate at my favorite steakhouse.  How did I force him, you ask?  I threatened bodily harm, of course!!!  So, we all went out as a family of four to celebrate becoming a family of six!!  Wow, that sounds weird!!  (Hubby doesn't know I'm already concocting a scheme in my brain to become a family of eight!!)  Tee hee. Don't know if it'll work; it's easier to get a thumbs up from God than it is my husband...remember the cheap thing?  Apparently kids cost money, who knew???   

It's Here!!!!

11:30 on the nose...Fed-Ex truck pulled up and I took pics out the window while screaming, "It's here, it's here!!!" I'm going to go over all my paperwork now to make sure it's complete, sign the LOA and get it out the door. Pray that I have everything filled out correctly!!! I'm not kidding; pray people!! I will post later when it's all done.

Pinch Me

I am still in shock that I finally received the call that our LOA is here.  It will arrive tomorrow by Fed-Ex, and the minute it does, I need to get it signed and sent right back out the door!!  

So currently, I'm numb.  I think the whole process just wears a person down emotionally...and with the LOA wait being double what it normally is, well, it can mess with a person.  Honestly, Friday was an amazing emotional high...the CALL...and then, right at about 8:00 p.m. I got sooooo tired.  I have gone on one year straight of a massive adrenaline rush, with very little sleep, and it took it's toll.  I normally go to bed at about midnight and get up anywhere between 3:00 -7:00 a.m.  (Yes, I get up that early because my brain is ALWAYS going...because of adopting).  So for me to be done, and I mean ready-to-tip-over tired, that's saying something.

I have decided the celebration does not happen with the LOA phone call...it happens when I send that LOA back out the door along with all the paperwork required.  I am NOT a paperwork kind of person.  Adoption paperwork about put me in the nut-house.  So tomorrow night, I intend on celebrating (and NO, it will NOT be McD's)!!!!!