Dear Alexander and Julia,

Welcome! Thank you for putting your trust in us to help you build your family through adoption. We look forward to working with you during this very exciting journey.

We received your adoption application and have officially opened your case file. LZ in our Minneapolis Area Office will be your adoption worker. She will be calling you in the next day or two to schedule your first home study appointment.

Again, we welcome you to our adoption program and wish you the best as you work to complete your adoption.

With warm regards,

The International Adoption Staff of
Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota

***We're official. It's happy and exciting and getting-to-be-very-real news. Now we just have to hurry up and wait for the next 10 or so months!***

This is another busy week at work, with a district-wide art show going up on Monday. Unfortunately, I'm so over being stressed, that I can't seem to get my butt in gear for the next big thing. Alas, I'm on my break, and blogging about nothing instead of getting something done. Oh procrastination, how you vex me so.
When I do get a little time in my grubby little hands, I want to try out this cool project. I've done the freezer paper stencils so many times, that I can't wait to try this cool little twist.
I'd also like to sew this dress.
Again, these are both forms of procrastination, because what I really need to do is go out and give our yard some attention. In the fall, I prefer the do-nothing approach to gardening because I'm sick of it all. That means in the spring the new stuff is trying its best to grow with all the old dead stuff lying on top of it.
More procrastination? My new Blueprint magazine came in the mail yesterday. I've been pouring over it non-stop, and this is my least favorite issue so far.
As a side note, I got my hair cut at Moxie on Monday. It's my second time there with Angela and she's awesome. Anyway, she dried my hair with a diffuser and it seemed managable to do that myself. Especially, ahem, because it would only need to be done once or twice a week. Which brings me to my question... Do any of you Minneapolis people have a diffuser cluttering up your life? If so, I'd love to take it off your hands in exchange for some of my own clutter that might make you happy. Let me know.

Why having today OFF totally rules...

There are lots of reasons why having today off is so great, but here are just a few...
1. I like my coffee in a ceramic mug, not a travel mug. Travel mugs don't feel good on my upper lip, and during the winter time the heater makes the outside of my traveler so hot that it burns my lower lip. Today I drank lots of coffee in a Minnie Mouse mug that my sister brought me from her honeymoon.
2. Last night I did not experience Sunday-night-get-ready-for-work-panic. Instead, I surfed the web and kept thinking about how great it will be to have Monday off.
3. This morning I woke up before the alarm clock went off, and it was already light out.
4. Today the city of Minneapolis replaced the tree they took down. While I'm sure it we paid for it good and plenty, we did not receive a bill and we did receive a very nice little DVD explaining how to take care of a new baby tree.

5. Because I have time to stop and smell the flowers today, I noticed that we have our first bloom of the season.

6. This morning I had time to adjust the duvet cover I made a few weeks ago. I cut up a too small and too shoddy old quilt and sewed it onto a sheet. Then I turned it inside out and sewed three sides of it shut. When I turned it right-side-out, it was a duvet. As a bonus, I found a bag of crocheted flowers at an estate sale and appliqued those on too. I have a lot of those left, if anyone wants some. I should probably put some ties on it to finish it off, but for now, it's fine. I thought I was being so smart and using sheets to make this because I have such a hard time working with large pieces of fabric, that I thought I'd save myself some cutting hassle. Not the case. The sheets weren't the exact same size, and they weren't even truly square. I'll totally make more duvets in the future, but I'll sew panels together instead.

Prom was fun. It was a lot of work, but so worth it to see how much fun the students were having. Oh yeah, the sweet hubbie and Tim worked their hienies off at the coat check. Thanks guys. Here's just a small smattering of Prom 2007, The Allure of Arabia...

Here's a quickie little post, just to stay in touch during this ultra-freaking busy time of year! Prom is tomorrow night. I made 25 gallons of punch this afternoon. My glasses will never be the same after falling into one of my mixing buckets. Along those same lines, the punch might also never by quite the same again. With my grubby hands digging around in there, trying to find my glasses. In my hot and hurried frustration, my only coping skill was to eat the tops off of three of the pumpkins bars that my mom made for the prom chaperones. Sorry Mom, I couldn't help it. There are plenty of snacks left over for them. Anyway, tonight we're seeing Hot Fuzz and I'm quite excited because Shaun of the Dead was so awesome. I'm also excited because I'm on people-overload due to all the drama that surrounds a high-school prom, and I need to do some quiet fantasy land re-charging before tomorrow. Oh yeah, I'm taking Monday off. I can't wait. I'll make sure and post some pictures of the big day real soon.

NEW LINKS PAGE

On this beautifully sunny day, I've been inside, drinking coffee, and updating my links page. I'm heading outside in 5 short minutes, but thought I'd tell you to check out da links. I'm planning on adding some more in the next week or so. Kind of speaking of links, I've been listening to the podcasts for Fresh Air and This American Life while I'm running. Any other regular podcasts I should be checking out? ALSO, I keep hearing how many amazing audio files can be checked out/downloaded on-line from the Minneapolis Public Library. But their website says those files aren't compatible with i-pods. Anyone got a way around this quandary?

Happy Birthday Mom!

Look who just turned 50-ish...