WOOHOO It's Official

Took our book to the agency today and spoke with our social worker who is hard to get to on the phone. She loved our book! She even said she can't wait to show it to potential birth parents! Can you believe it!

I asked her how long before we are "approved" and waiting. She said now that she has our book we are officially waiting. If a situation arises they will present our book. I am so thrilled!

Tonight we are going shopping for the baby. I'll be posting pictures of our loot! (ever seen a post with so many exclamation points) :)

Have a fabulous weekend!

Security PSA

This will be more of a PSA then an update about our Privacy issue. For the privacy issue, I have decided to get the proof I need that my account was breached and once I have that the Sheriff's office will take it from there.

Now for the PSA:
When you create passwords make sure that it isn't something with your birthdate, place of employment, dogs name, anniversary date, place of birth, parents name, sibling name. It should really be a combination of numbers and letters not associated with anything in your life. In both upper and lower case.

2. Make sure you don't use the same password for every account. Vary the passwords.

3. Change your password every 30 days. If you can't remember 30 days put it on your calendar so you remember.

4. Do this for all accounts: email, google, FB, bank accounts.

5. Double check your firewall protection. Make sure that your security on your computer is top notch.

Don't risk your security for anyone or anything. Having to go through getting the information you need to prosecute is a pain. So be safe and protect your information.

It Came!!!!

It Came it came it came! Woohooo! It was actually here when I did the ABCs of Me post. I just didn't hear the knock at the door, as I was in the shower, when the UPS man came. And Harley is at Grandma's so he wasn't here to alert me.

So when I went to track the package it said Delivered and left at front door! I opended it and I am pleasantly surprised.

It is better than I expected. I left it very simple because on the screen it doesn't look as big as it does in the book. So I could have gone more elaborate but I think simple is better. If you'd like to see our book leave a comment with your email address or email it to me and I'll send it to you via email. Because I don't want to publish it for the world to see as I use our real names and because of the privacy issue we had.

BTW, for those of you who still need to make a book for adoption or just want to make a scrapbook mixbook is an amazing site and the quality is GREAT!

I'm taking the book to our agency tomorrow along with our final homestudy fee check (our agency splits the fee in half.) Tomorrow night we are headed to the Whale of a Sale to look for baby stuff. Gently used in great condition baby stuff at a huge discount. Got to save money where we can.

ABCs of Me

While I wait for the UPS man to deliver our profile book I thought I'd do the ABCs of me.

(A) Age: 29 (I'll be 30 the beginning of June)

(B) Bed Size: Queen although we really need a King

(C) Chore you Hate: Dishes and Laundry.

(D) Dogs: 1 and his name is Harley

(E) Essential Start Your Day Item: Juice

(F) Favorite Color: Blue

(G) Gold or Silver: Silver

(H) Height: 5'8"

(I) Instruments you Play: In Elementary school I played the Viola

(J) Job Title: Substitute Teacher, Student, Bartender/Server, and I own my own business.

(K) Kids: Just my Harley for now

(L) Live: The Sunshine State and Home of the Jaguars

(M) Mom's Name: Ann

(N) Nickname: Breen

(O) Overnight Hospital Stays: once for a stomach virus after having an appendectomy.

(P) Pet Peeves: I have lots.

(Q) Quote from a Movie: I don't know any quotes from movies. We watch a lot of movies but I don't remember their lines.

(R) Right or Left Handed: Right

(S) Siblings: Older brother and younger brother. 1 sister-in-law

(T) Time you Wake up: Depends on the plans for the day

(U) Underwear: Bikini briefs

(V) Vegetable you Dislike: Brussel Sprouts, Asparagus

(W) What Makes you Run Late: I try to be on time or early. Usually it is the internet that distracts me.

(X) X-Rays: Too many to count. I'll just list body parts, chest, knee, ankle, back, neck, wrist

(Y) Yummy Food you Make: I make a very yummy home made Lasagna and Chili

(Z) Zoo, Favorite Animal: Giraffes and monkeys.

Now if that UPS man would get here soon so I could see my book.

profile book

I have a post drafted right now in regards to my last post. However, hubby won't let me post it right now.

I did want to say that I ordered our Profile book! It should be here on Thursday. I will be making a special trip to the agency on Friday to turn it in and also deliver a check! Such an exciting step!

Can someone Help

I really need to write a post but I really need just that post to be private. Do I have to make my whole blog private or can I just make certain posts private.

Basically we found something tonight that might suggest our privacy was compromised and I really need to vent about it.

I'm tempted to make our profile private but I don't want to lose followers or hinder others from following our journey.

Any opinions are greatly appreciated.

A Day Off!

Finally a day off! I'm so excited to just sit on the couch! (Actually I'll be doing homework too). I've been going and going for for a few weeks. No restaurant work just substitute teaching. Which I think makes me more tired than working at the restaurant.

Yesterday I worked with Kindergarten and let me tell you they wore me slap out. I keep thinking about when we have kids and I'm working. I keep wondering if I'm going to be in a constant state of tired.

In adoption news: We have our book just about done. We are waiting on our SW to review our BP letter so we can add it to the book. Then we will have it printed. Once it is printed I'll post pictures here.

Valentine's Day

On 2/14/2008 we learned that we would be miscarrying our IVF miracle. My first beta was on 2/8 which resulted in the first low number. Every 2 days we retested. It was on Valentines day that our numbers stopped rising. We stopped all medication that day. The numbers did rise over the 1000s but my body finally expelled the baby a month later after our 2nd wedding anniversary. It is amazing the things we remember.

Tomorrow as I celebrate Valentine's with a classroom of 1st graders I will remember our little one.

Adoption Board

For several years I have been a member of pregnancy.org. When we started trying to conceive I found the message boards and have 'met' some amazing women. I've gone from the Trying To Conceive boards, to the IVF board, and now the Adoption Board. I am actually the moderator on the Adoption board and the IVF board. I'm hoping to get a bit more traffic through both boards for women who don't have blogs, or friends who understand. I'm reaching out to my readers...

If you have time and would like more support yourself or would like to support other women going through IVF or the adoption process please feel free to stop in there. If you wish to comment or post you will need to create an account.

Here is the link to the Adoption Board

Here is the link to the IVF Board

LOA

Today I took the steps to take a Leave of Absence from the job that I spoke about yesterday.

Let's rewind a bit first.

After yesterday's events I realized just how stressed I am. While talking it over with Cart last night I became more stressed trying to figure out money stuff. I haven't been getting the sub jobs I need to make the money I need to make. Then today I was reminded that God always provides. First I did get a sub job for today. It was for the teacher I "intern" with on Monday's and Tuesday's (who is a very close friend of our family). Then this afternoon while the kiddo's were at resource I returned the phone call to another school to take a sub job for Friday. After that call I found out I'd be subbing the same place I was today. So 3 jobs for this week alone.

So after subbing today I stopped by the other job and put in my leave of absence. I'll return on March 10th. I think during that time I will be able to get our profile book done.

Rough Afternoon

Today was going great. I was just a little tired, but I managed through working with the kiddos. Then I saw my schedule for my weekend job. They took away the shift that I've worked for several months. I went in to find out that the service manager felt that I wasn't strong enough for the shift. So basically he removed me from the shift before he gave me the opportunity to first tell me I was doing something wrong or second giving me chance to fix it. I'm livid with him. This is the job that we will get $7500 in adoption re-imbursement. I've gone from working there 30hrs to only 2 days a week. I'm starting to question whether it is time to leave this job or stay.

I know I'm already stressed with school and this job is so trivial that I'm not sure I should stay because it is stressing me out.