Music Monday

So life has been busy that past two Mondays and I didn't get a chance to post Music Monday.  Today I wanted to post a special song.  This is a very sad post.  I learned over the weekend that an ex-boyfriend just lost his daughter.  She had an illness and passed away at the age of 2.5 years old.  I feel terribly sad for him, his wife, their son and the rest of the family.  This is something no parent should have to live through.  She looked like a sweet little girl and I know she must have meant the world to him.  He was very special to me for many years and I wish I could take his pain away. 

Though we may not be close now and we may not have spoken in a while, know I think of you & your little girl today old friend.  I hope your memories of her bring you comfort during thes sad days.

In my dreams, you are alive and well

Precious child, precious child
In my mind, I see you clear as a bell
Precious child, precious child

In my soul, there is a hole
That can never be filled
But in my heart, there is hope
'Cause you are with me still

In my heart, you live on
Always there, never gone
Precious child, you left too soon
Tho' it may be true that we're apart
You will live forever... in my heart

In my plans, I was the first to leave
Precious child, precious child
But in this world, I was left here to grieve
Precious child, my precious child

In my soul, there is a hole
That can never be filled
But in my heart there is hope
And you are with me still

In my heart you live on
Always there never gone
Precious child you left too soon,
Tho' it may be true that we're apart
You will live forever... in my heart

God knows I want to hold you,
See you, touch you
And maybe there is a Heaven
And someday I will again
Please know you are not forgotten
until then

In my heart you live on
Always there never gone
Precious child you left too soon
Tho' it may be true that we're apart
You will live forever... in my heart

Confession Friday

I confess house hunting is over!  We put in an offer on a house last Friday night, it was accepted, our house insoection completed and the final sign off papers were signed last night.  The new house is offically ours.

I confess now we enter house selling territory and I think this worries me more

I confess I have no idea how we will keep our house clean everyday and have absolutely no idea what to do about the constant dog hair

I confess the house we bought is on a street named Toynbee.  When I was a little girl my sister played baseball and her coach had everyone come over for a pool party and his house was so nice and his daughter was so cool I decided I too wanted to live there.  He lived on Toynbee.  It's not the same house but as a wee Ange I had decided I wanted to live on this street

I confess that family holidays get more & more difficult without Addis

I confess that I have spent the last 5 days in bed with a cold.  To be more accurate, I have spent my days in bed and my evenings on the couch under a blanket.  This has been a terrible cold

I confess that I am hoping for an Easter miracle and that we will hear news of our visa next week

I confess that I desperately want to be with my son on Mother's Day

I confess that today my parents are coming for Easter dinner.  While they are here we are putting them to work moving stuff out and boxing things up to get ready to show our house.  It's true what they say, nothing comes free, not even Easter dinner

I confess that yesterday we brought some KD and some time this weekend we are having macaroni & wieners for lunch.  It's comfort food

I bought a little Easter chocolate but I have split it up into 5 bags.  I will keep one and give the rest to my husband, sister & parents

I confess I hope to get outside today to take the dogs for a walk and let the fresh air clear out my head

I confess that I can hear Brian gathering beer to put in our fridge for tonight and I'm considering not taking cold medication today so I can have one.  The clinking of the bottles is making my mouth water

I confess that I'm going to take the next hour to sit quietly, read a book and drink my cup of tea (blueberry pomegranate - yum!)

Back To The Drawing Board

I had a plan.  I was plan girl.  I was going to go to Ethiopia the first week in May and get my son.  I was going to be with him for Mother's Day (dream come true) and I was going to get his visa for the UK and finish out whatever wait was left for Addy's Canadian visa in the UK with family.  Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans.  Now plan girl is sad girl.  I missed one key detail in my plan.  The passport for Addis to get on a plane.  That little nugget of freedom is safely on someone's desk in Nairobi with all our other paperwork.  Will this visa ever get issued?  I went in a downward jealous spiral yesterday.  A woman annouced that she got her visa.  The catch, the reason I was jealous is that she only waited 6 weeks and I'm sitting here, STILL waiting at 9 weeks and who knows when we will get our call.  I'm happy for her, but I just want to know "what about me".  That's what I hate about this quest to have children.  It has turned me into a jealous mess.  I'm envious of people who have their children and people who's paperwork gets handled quicker then ours.  Ugh, when did the green eyed monster settle into my head & heart and set up house?  More importantly, how do I kick him out?  I know that what I feel is not uncommon.  There were other families who felt exactly the same way yesterday.  I know that my feelings are "normal" but I don't like feeling this way.  I wish I could say congratulations and mean it 100%.  Not be 90% happy for you & 10% sad for myself.  I sincerely hope that once Addis comes home the little green eyed moster packs his bags and hits the road.  In the meantime, I will try to keep my jealousy in check.  I will focus on my journey.  I will focus my energy on hoping, wishing & praying that the visa is issued soon and I can be with Addis soon.  So for now, I'm wait girl.  I have become a champion at that.  I could gold medal if waiting was an event at the Olympics.

Stress & Sickness

So far this week I have been stressed & sick.  This is not a good week.  I'm feeling terrible and very whiny about it.  I have spent the past 2 days in bed.  I'm pretty certain that I have a throat infection.  My throat hurts so bad I can barely speak.  When you add that to the stress we've had with the adoption this week, I'm feeling a major case of self pity.  I found out last Friday that it was a possibilty our Part 2 was not in Nairobi.  This was a major blow after waiting 8 weeks for our son's visa.  Tomorrow will be 9 weeks and it doesn't appear as if the end is in sight, just yet.  We have tried & tried to get a response from our agency about the status of this and we can't even get them to call us.  I'm not really going to go into that because it will only make me extremely angry.  In the end, we had to take matters into our own hands and call Ethiopia to get answers.  It seems our Part was sent exactly as it should have been but they will be sending a second copy just in case.  I was reminded again this past week that until Addis is home, I can't and shouldn't feel secure.  I'm praying that my son comes home soon.  The only good thing about being sick right now is that my parents & husband are joking that it must be time to go to Ethiopia.  Last time we went I got very sick with a nasty cold.  I wonder if this is my body's way of saying "it's time".  Here's hoping that my body is in tune with some cosmic force and the time is coming soon.  In the meantime, I'll be riding the couch under a blanket with a box of kleenex and a serious case of the "poor me's".

Confession Friday

I confess that I'm having cup of soup for my lunch because I don't really have any groceries in the house or the time for anything else

I confess that I'm already tired of looking at houses

I confess that I had a massage today and then a hair appointment afterwards and I'm feeling a little pampered

I confess that I am terrified of clowns

I confess because of my fear of clowns I hate parades and won't go to them

I confess that there is one parade I do enjoy and that the Walt Disney World Christmas Parade because it never has clowns

I confess that my xmas tree is a Disney tree.  From top to bottom, it's only Disney ornaments, tree toppper, tree skirt.  I do not allow any other ornament on the tree.  When Addis gets older we are going to have to get a small tree to put all his homemade ornaments on

I confess that my other fears include the typical snakes, spiders, bugs but I am also afriad of birds & cats

I confess that I need to go out and buy tape today to use with my strapless dress and I have no idea where to find boob tape ot even how to use it once I find it

I confess I don't know why someone couldn't make a good strapless bra that doesn't squish you down and doesn't feel like it's always going to fall down or cuts off your circulation

I confess today I found out they have cancelled one of the soap opears I watch and while I'm sad because this is a show I have watched since I was a little girl, I'm also not as upset as I thought I would be because I know once Addis comes home I really won't have time to watch 2 soap operas and this forces to me to stop watching and I don't think I could have done that on my own.  Thanks for the memories All My Children!

I confess I can hear my neighbour banging away AGAIN and I feel like marching over there and punching him right in his face.  How can one person make sooooo much noise?

I confess that my emotions are really up & down this week.  Beware people, these days you just don't know if you will get happy Ange or the snarly, crying, hot mess version

I confess that yesterday I treated myself to a spa product from Bath & Bodyworks.  It's a sugar scrub that leaves you smelling like a Margarita and with uber soft skin

I confess that I put the majority of my bonus into a savings account to save it for when Addis comes home

I confess that savings account is the first joint account Brian & I have even though we've been married 8.5 years and this is the first time we actually have been able to save money

I confess having money in the bank is a great feeling

Arrested & Fraud Charges Laid

So I said in my Confession Friday post that I was going to blog about this subject yesterday but then the day turned out to be sunny & warm and I thought, why waste a perfectly good day, a day long awaited on this subject.  Don't get me wrong, this subject is very important but I just really needed a day of warm sunshine to give me a little mental tidy and clear out some of the grumpies I've been feeling lately because of the LONG winter and the lengthy visa wait and I refused to let those people take one more thing from me.  I guess it was my way of flipping them the bird.  Today my husband is in a volleyball tournament and his alarm went off at 6:30am.  Since he hit snooze, we have one of our friends staying here and our dogs are like bulls in a china shop when it's breakfast time, I am wide awake at 7am on a Sunday.  Since I'm awake and it's looking a little gloomy it seems like the perfect time to make a cup of tea and blog about what I think.

I got the news Friday via an internet group I'm part of that an arrest had been made and fraud charges laid against the people who used our adoption funds for personal use and led to the bankruptcy of our adoption agency in July of 2009.  I knew these charges were pending, obviously the investigation has been going on since 2009 and I had heard rumours lately about this being wrapped up and that I/we should be watching the papers.  However, when I heard the news, I didn't have the reaction I expected to have.  Or even the one I wanted to have.  I saw the subject of the email and the link to the newspaper article and started to cry.  I have no illusions about the pain from 2009 being healed and thinking I had moved on.  It's still a big lumpy mess under the scab that's starting to form, but I didn't expect all those feelings to come rushing back at me like a Mack truck.  I thought I would be happy & cheer that finally the people who caused so much pain would have to face it.  Instead I feel the sadness, the anxiety, the anger.  I am one of hundreds of people that were affected by July 2009 and I carry the weight of that each day.  I have met and befriended some of these people and heard their stories and know how they were affected.  People who were matched with children lost them because paperwork was not signed and those children went back to their birth families and died because they weren't being fed.  Children in the transition home were getting one bottle or one meal a day depending on their age for months prior to the bankruptcy despite about $70,000 apparently being sent over for food for the kids.  Staff in Ethiopia had not been paid for months and were using their own funds to feed the kids because they were afraid that if they said something these children would end up back on the streets.  Some of those staff members couldn't find jobs for months after the bankruptcy because no other agency wanted them working their or have the stigma of what happened associated in any way with their own agency.  Families here at home lost the child they had hoped & dreamed of for years and while some lucky few, myself included have been able to move forward with their adoptions or adopt elsewhere or even get pregnant, many families have not.  Marriages broke up because it just couldn't take the strain & stress of one more setback or disappointment and this one was a doozy.  There were businesses that were owed money as well.  The ripple affect of what those people did goes far and wide and very deep.  I would love to be able to raise a glass and toast to them finally having to face all of the people they hurt.  I would really like to know that there would be some restitution but I worry that in the end nothing but a slap on the wrist will occur.  I truly & deeply hope I am wrong.  My parents were involved in a business years ago where one of the partners stole a lot of money and had many more fraud charges laid then what has been laid against the couple who ran Imagine and this man never got anything more then a slap of the hand.  I hope that because this involves people, families, children that perhaps the courts will take a harsher stance.  I wonder if they even feel like they did anything wrong.  To this day there has not been an apology.  I guess apologizing would be admitting you did something wrong.  I find that over the past few months when the subject of the bankruptcy came up I would leave the room.  I just don't want to hear about it anymore.  I lived through it and have the battle scars to prove it.  I suffered from anxiety after the bankruptcy and still have attacks every now and then.  I had to take a month of stress leave because it was just too much.  I will give a victim impact statement and I will attend the court proceedings and I will hope that that something is done to give the families a sense of closure.  I don't think anything will ever take the pain away from what happened but hopefully this will give people some closure and allow healing to start.  I totally understand why people are happy and that they did raise a glass in toasting the arrest of these people.  If that gives them peace and helps to heal some of the wounds they have suffered, I say drink up friend, let me pour you the next glass.  For me, my healing will come by focusing on the future.  Our future includes a beautiful little boy, who would not be part of our family had it not been for the bankruptcy.  I will never say I'm glad the bankruptcy happened, but I can't be entirely sorry for it either now, because the bankruptcy was just another part of the broken road that led us to Addis.

Confession Friday

I confess that today has brought up a lot of emotions

I confess that these emotions are because the local police & RCMP have arrested & laid charges against the people who ran our adoption agency that went bankrupt in 2009 because of allegations of misappropriation of funds. 

I confess that tomorrow I will blog about this some more but for now, I'm still trying to process how I feel.

I confess that today I had a lot of people tell me how I SHOULD feel. 

I confess that peole have been telling me how I should feel a lot lately and it's starting to piss me off.  I believe everyone is entitled to feel what they feel without others telling them if it's right or wrong

I confess that I have had people tell me that they don't think I am very strong and their reasoning for this is because I cry and I have bad days where the weight of this journey just seems to be too much to carry. 

I confess that I wish people wouldn't do that because not only do they have no idea what it feels like to walk in my shoes but it takes power away from me and makes me feel weak.  I think I have been very strong during this journey and if sometimes I have to put the weight down and take a break, that doesn't make me weak, it makes me human

I confess that I need and this blog entry needs a little humour today so I'm going to switch topics

I confess that last night in the epic battle of Ange versus Ketchup Chips that Ketchup Cihps won.  If I'm really going to keep it real, the scoreboard probably reads Ketchup Chips - 1000 and Ange - 0.

I confess that tomorrow Brian is playing in a volleball tourney and I plan to lay on the couch and watch General Hospital for hours and the score might turn to 1001 to 0 during this marathon soap watching session

I confess that I buy ABC Soaps magazine every 2 weeks when it hits the newsstands and I read it cover to cover

I confess that I super bored with the stuff on tv or lack of lately.  Why do they only show 22 episodes a season?  Who thought up that bright idea?  Obviously somebody who has a social life and doesn't spend their nights riding the couch.  Hey selfish, some of us DO like to ride the couch and don't have anything better to do so would really appreciate if you could throw us a frickin bone and add a few more episodes of our fav shows to keep us entertained!

I confess that I am a total puzzle geek.  I have a bunch of puzzles and when I need to quiet my mind, I pull one out.

I confess that I am really looking forward to the warm weather we are supposed to have this weekend.  I don't even mind that it's supposed to rain Sunday.  That gives me an excuse to open the windows and curl up on the couch with a good book and cup of tea

I confess that I will probably make time to go to an open house.

I confess that I although I love our house, we have had some very painful memories here and I'm looking forward to a fresh start