Dear obnoxious co-worker in the next cube who insists on talking on her speaker phone all damn day long:

I appreciate that you think my homemade salad dressing looks good.  I am a pretty good cook and enjoy letting others sample things I’ve made then basking in their adoration.  However, I would appreciate if you would NOT put your finger in my dressing and THEN ask if you could have a little taste.  Keep your chickenbussing fingers out of my salad dressing. If asked before you stuck your finger in there, I would have gladly given you a taste on a plastic spoon.  I don’t even particularly like you – I certainly don’t want your finger germs in my salad.

Thank you,

The management

This is Cindy Crawford’s 5 yr old daughter.  Cindy has allowed her daughter to do a little modeling.  People are criticizing Cindy because they feel this pose is too sexual or suggestive for a 5 yr old. What is your opinion?

Dear Woman On The Elevator:

Once your child’s age exceeds 24 months, please start using the years. Telling me she is 34 months old requires too much effort on my part to calculate. Telling me she is 2 1/2 or almost 3 would suffice.

Thank you,

The management

I returned to work yesterday after my long weekend in Texas. I emailed my boss and a couple of co-workers our good news about Sabrina before I left town but yesterday was my first day back. My boss immediately hugged me and wished me congratulations. She asked sotto voce “Are you going to tell everyone?” I said I was. She said “Oh good because I already did!” So I spent some time showing off my photos and telling every one about the phone call and upcoming process.

At lunch I went to the bank to get a cashier’s check to pay my agency fee. Out of curiosity she asked what the check was for so I happily told her. She kept asking questions which prompted me to pull out my photos.

Monday night we went to have our Power of Attorney and a couple of other adoption related documents notarized. I made the man re-do the documents because I explained his signatures needed to be clear and gave him my spiel about the picky people in Guatemala. He asked some questions about the adoption so I whipped out my photos to show Sabrina off.

On my plane home, a nice older woman sitting next to me asked about the photos as I was flipping through them so I was happy to show them off to her too. She said her oldest daughter was adopted and when her daughter was small she said to her “Mom, I don’t think you know I am adopted.” I thought that was sweet.
Friday, during my pedicure, the woman asked me if I had any children. I just happened to have a photo tucked into the book I was reading so I shared it with her.

When we received our referral, I sent pictures via email to everyone we’ve ever met except my 4^th grade teacher (she was a mean old bat).

My point? It’s happening. I’m turning into one of those people that everyone will avoid because they don’t want to look at yet another set of photos. I really don’t force them on anyone. I only show them off when asked but it doesn’t take much prompting. I think that showing off the photos has helped to make it feel a bit more real. Saying “this is my daughter” out loud lends credence to it in my mind. The first few times I showed them off, I said “this will be my daughter” but as I say it more often, I can say with confidence “this is my daughter”. Now if I can just keep suppressing the giddy laugh that wants to follow that statement…

Full story on my blog about my brush with death while Michelle was getting her nails done…

Death by Canoe

I got on one of these:

It took me here:

To visit the new grandma:

She treated me to:

After my toes got pretty, I saw this and thought of beautiful Gia waiting to come home:

Every morning when I woke up, I saw this (out of focus because no contacts in yet):

I saw bizarre yet beautiful things:

Definitely don’t see these on the back porch in Pennsylvania:

Then I went up here again:

To return home today.

My trip has been nice and relaxing so far.  Strangely, I have to say it has largely revolved around my feet.  It started with the spa pedicure.  I enjoyed the pedicure but the woman cut the nails on my big toes so short that I can already feel ingrown toenails beginning to be sore.  Lovely.  After my pedicure, we walked around Rice Village for hours and my feet started to get very tired and hot.  It rained and then the sun came out – ya’ll, it’s freaking hot down here.  Today, we went to lunch and then shoe shopping (as I mentioned, my DSW closed so we visited the one here).

I have a few photos I will share once I return home but nothing too exciting.  Speaking of photos, I’ve spent much time staring at the photos of our little one.  And have I mentioned her name?  I’m so scattered I have no idea if I have or not.  Her name will be Sabrina.  Middle name still in negotiation.

Tomorrow?  Church with mom.  Hope lightening doesn’t strike.

Thank you for all of the well wishes and congratulations. It is so nice to feel all of this love from my friends and family. We have to agree that she is gorgeous but I guess we are biased.  I can’t believe how many of you came to see our joyous news.  I usually have 100 – 110 unique visitors in a day.  Yesterday?  267!  And I might get 14 comments on a post.  There are 40 on the post about our little girl.  I read each and every one with a huge grin on my face.  Thank you all for the support and just for sharing this journey with us.  It feels wonderful to have all of you rooting for us.
Some asked how it happened so here’s the short version. Steve and I were discussing who would take the camera this weekend – me to Texas or him canoeing with her brother. My phone rang around 10:15. It was the director. I’ve never spoken with her before so we made a little small talk. I wasn’t sure if she was calling with really good news (a referral) or really bad news (my entire dossier was lost at sea) so I was getting progressively more anxious as we chit chatted. She finally said “I was calling to tell you about a baby girl…”. My response? An eloquent “Are you kidding?” She assured me she doesn’t kid about this things. I was wildly gesturing to my husband at this point (who by the way also asked if I was kidding). I put the director on speaker phone so that we could both hear and talk. We stood there in the middle of our family room, arms around each other, staring at my little cell phone with huge smiles on our faces. After the call, the director said she would email a bunch of photos and the medical report(s) to us. I was freaking out waiting for the photos to arrive and my husband (remember you all, I’ve told you there are down sides to having a computer geek in residence) tells me that her email was rejected because it didn’t have some authentication thingy. So I freak out some more, tell him to fix it, and email the director to resend. She does (and quickly thankfully). They arrive. We gazed at the first photo for a full 5 minutes. I couldn’t click off of her sweet little face. We went through everything that we received and realized it was 11pm. No one was awake. I called my dad and my best friend. My mom and my MIL weren’t reachable. We started sending email to everyone we’ve ever met. And I of course posted to the blog and message board. Neither of us were the least bit tired. We finally went to bed around 2:30am. I caught my flight to Texas in the morning (of course grandma thinks she is beautiful). This is day 2 in Texas and I’m about to get my first pedicure. I don’t get it but Mom claims it is one of the great joys in life.

You all are seeing these before most of my family and friends because they are all asleep! Don’t tell my mom you saw them first. She has her phone turned off! Here she is…

And she is beautiful. Born 9/4/06, 6lbs 1oz at 4 days old, 43.3 cms. Perfect. Beautiful. I will post photos as soon as I have a minute. I promise.