YOU MIGHT BE ADOPTING FROM CHINA IF…

...you know that I-600 & I-171 aren't highways.

...you've been expecting a baby for over 3 years.

...you understand that it's 2006 in some parts of the world.

...you've "paid for" 3 citizenships, but never brought anyone into the U.S.

...you know that waiting for China has nothing to do with Dillards or dishes

...your homestudy is followed by a number (i.e. #3 or #4)

...you never know how many days next month will have

...you know that babies come in batches

...you've been fingerprinted four times, but never committed a crime

...you automatically assume everyone who is expecting is having a girl

...you own new clothing in 3 little sizes for all 4 seasons (because you don't know when or how big)

...you look twice when you see a lady bug

...you're more interested in what will happen in March 2006 than in March 2009

...you know people who understand when you talk about 2 day months & 5 day months

...your due date hasn't changed by days, but by years

...you know who the Rumor Queen is ... AND ... you don't know who she is

...you know that forecast doesn't have anything to do with the weather

...you've waited so long, they re-checked your fingerprints to see if they changed

...trying to understand why they're printing you again, you study your own fingerprints and wonder if fingerprints grow wrinkles

...when you speak of "that time of month" you're talking about CCAA updates & referrals

Peekaboo!

Hey... what am I doing on Blogspot?!

I used to maintain my own website...
on my own server...
that I built...
all by myself...
and kept running...
and had to maintain...
and had total freedom with...
and had to maintain...

Oh yeah, the maintenance thing.

*Sigh*

It has finally driven me over the edge. I'm tired of upgrading software, applying security patches, dealing with internet connectivity issues, and all that stuff. So here I am...

...on Blogspot.

Yes, that means most of our old posts are no longer accessible.

Yes, that means you have to look at a fairly generic template for now.

Yes, that means the URL is harder to remember, at least for now.

But look at the upside - with less maintenance to do, I can spend more time on actually posting.

Or at least, that's the idea...

Cheers!

I've been hacked!

That got your attention, didn’t it? It’s true, just not in a computer sense.

I’ve always been a bit of a hacker, in the most traditional sense of the word, in trying to figure out how things work and get them to do things they weren’t originally meant to do. I’ve even played a few practical jokes on people using their high-tech equipment, but nothing ever malicious.

Well, it appears Peter is going to take after me. Amy brought the kids to see me at lunch today, and while Sydney was eating her Jelly Bellies out of the little coin-operated dispenser on my desk, Peter figured out how to get the dispensing handle stuck in between stops so he could twist it back and forth and get them without a coin. He was quite pleased with himself until I told him he couldn’t eat them all.

I tell my co-workers that dispenser represents the kids’ college fund, and at this rate, things don’t look good…

We’re baaaaack!

Ok, so guess what? The blog is back!

I can hear it now...

"But, but, you haven't updated it in over a year!"

Well, yeah, but there's always today...

"And people have stopped visiting! How will anyone know to come visit?"

Um... I'll call everyone who used to visit. All two of them!

"But, but, it was never any good in the first place!"

Well then, I don't have much to live up to!

Seriously though, the blog is about to get really good again! Why? Because there's another adoption trip on the horizon. Seriously! Fer-real!

We don't know exactly when it will happen, but our paperwork has been in China for two years and ten months now (and yes, that's about five months before we knew Peter was on his way), and it is looking like we could have a referral (that's the part where they send you a picture and a name and a location) by the end of this month! There are no guarantees, but at this point it is looking like the latest it will happen is late February or early March, and that's like... right around the corner! Like, oh my gosh, right around the corner!

So, there are a few things to take care of before then, and one of them was having a place to once again post progress reports and be able to update everyone back home on how things are going when we finally travel to China.

Voila!

It's a slow start, but this train is only going to pick up speed, and we're in for a crazy ride, I tell ya!

So bookmark us, add our feed to your reader, or just add us to your proxy's blacklist (no, no, don't really do that last one), and keep your eyes peeled!

Christmas Forest

So Amy and I moved into a new house recently. We really like it, and are looking forward to having family over for the holiday gatherings. The previous owner left us a number of things in the form of small decorative shelves on the wall, towels in one of the bathrooms, flower pots, and even a wall rack to hold several candles. Those are all great, but the strangest thing he left was not found until we had been in the house for a while and started to organize and move things to the attic space. What did I find up there? I found six, 6, VI, yes six!, 4′-6″ pre-lit artificial Christmas trees in their boxes!

What does one do with six small Christmas trees? I have absolutely no idea! But here is where our readers come in: I want ideas on what to do with them this holiday season. I can’t think of anything very original or creative, but I’m sure he had something in mind when he bought them. Then again, he left them behind, so maybe not. But what should we do with them? Ignoring the option to leave them in their boxes and sell them (which is not out of the question…), what kinds of ideas can we come up with?

So, let it rip! Any and all ideas welcome!

(Editor's note: Comments were lost in the migration to Blogger)

One man’s trash…

So, dear readers, what do you do with old books and CD's that you don't need to read again or don't want anymore? Garage sale? Half-price books? Pitch them? Trade them with a friend? That last one sounds nice, but who has friends that want the very books or music we don't want anymore?

Well, thanks to the world wide web, you can! I stumbled upon two sites last week that really jazzed me, and having tried them, I'm only more jazzed now than I was then.

<REFERRAL DISCLAIMER:> Let me say right up front that if you use the links below and sign up, giving us credit for the referral, we get a free credit on the site you sign up for. However, that's not the reason I'm posting this. If you don't want to give us the referral, that's fine. I just want people to check out the site and realize what a cool system they have set up! <END REFERRAL DISCLAIMER>

So, what are these sites?

PaperBackSwap.com and SwapaCD.com.

What are they?

These are sites where you list any books, whether paperback, hardcover, audio, or whatever (PaperBackSwap.com) or CD's (SwapaCD.com) that you own but are willing to give away. When someone requests one of the books (for example) on your list, you mail it (typically Book Rate for $2-$3) to the member who wants it. When they get it, they mark it received and you get a credit. Then you can use that credit to request any book listed in their system and the owner ships it to you for free! The same goes for CD's except the shipping is cheaper and the site charges $0.49 per CD that you request. In all it works out to about $1 per CD, half when you mail one and half when you request one.

So what's the catch? Well, I suppose the catch is that, similar to Half Price Books, the selection changes all the time and you can only order what is currently listed by another member. There are currently over 1.6 million books and something like 76 thousand CD's, though the CD site is newer and still growing. However, you can search their entire catalog and add books and CD's that are not listed to your wish list. If a member lists one of your wished for items, you have the chance to request it at that point. In fact, of the 12 books and 20 CD's we initially listed, three books and three CD's were on members' wish lists and were snapped up as soon as we listed them. In a week, we have already mailed seven books out, have received one, and two more are in the mail to us. We just joined the CD site today, so I can't estimate the activity there.

So, as I said before, this really jazzes me. The ability to trade a book or CD you don't want for one you do want, without paying markup for someone in the middle (not that middle men are not useful at times) is great, and is just the kind of thing that is perfect for the world wide web. The "friction" costs in each book transaction (shipping, etc) are low compared to the difference between what you get for selling a book at a garage sale or used book store and what you would pay for a book at a used or new book store. The CD costs are even better.

So, all that to say - Check it out! If you are an avid reader or music buff, this might just be the next best thing to sliced cheese.

Giving money back

God's timing is a funny thing. So often he brings us into situations which test our faith just as we are learning and studying that very aspect of faith. Such is the case in the last few months as Amy and I have been praying about and working through the finances as we prepared for a move into a new hous, not to mention helping to lead a Crown Ministries small group at our church. Three times in the last few months, we have been presented with situations in which we were given money that we should not have been given, and each time it has been both harder and easier to give the money back.

The first situation was a case with a Health Savings Account at work. Because we are on a high deductible health plan, my employer's share of the premiums for my covereage has gone down (as has my part of the premiums) and in return, they make a generous contribution to our HSA to be used towards the higher deductible. They made that contribution in January, as detailed in the plan literature, but then made a duplicate contribution in June. After waiting a pay cycle to see if the mistake would be corrected without my intervention, it took four phone calls and several hours of my time to convince people that we should not have been given that money, and to please take it back.

That was finally resolved and my account showed the adjustment, only to show another employer contribution a few days later! I again waited to make sure I was not just seeing an echo of the first adjustment or something that would shake out in the wash. After realizing it would not go away, I again called and started the process of letting them know that they had erroneously contributed too much to my HSA.

In the meantime, I got an email letting me know that my cell phone company had received my rebate request and was processing the information for my $400 rebate. The problem is, I only applied for a $100 rebate - $50 per phone for two phones. I try to avoid rebates, but the corporate buying website had a better price on the phones than the carrier's direct sales channel even before the rebate, so the rebate was just gravy anyway. But now it looked like a whole flood of gravy instead of just a nice dollop.

Well, I waited, figuring that their automated systems might have mis-stated something and maybe the cap was $400. Maybe they quoted that amount by default and then would get the correct amount when they actually looked at my paperwork. Maybe not...

I'm still waiting for my employer to straighten out the HSA because apparently whoever adjusted it the first time made a right mess of things in terms of the tax reporting systems, etc. That may take a while. In the meantime, a rebate check for $400 arrived in the mail. I called my cell phone carrier this morning and spent 30 minutes on the phone explaining that my rebate was too big (they weren't quite sure what to do with my wanting to give money back...) After making sure I knew that it was "just" a matter of integrity, and that there was nothing printed on the check about them chasing me for an incorrect rebate, they transferred me to the rebate group (actually a separate company) who was quite happy to stop payment on the first check and request a new check for the correct (smaller) amount, to be mailed within 15 business days...

I suppose some folks might read this and think I'm crazy. If you're asking why I'm doing this, and why I didn't "Go on, take the money and run", the answer is a pursuit of honesty and integrity in my life as a result of God's holiness and love. I honestly had to ask myself how much effort was too much effort to go through to give this money back. But I had to try, because the bottom line is that it was not my money. It is not even my employer's or my cell phone carrier's. It all belongs to God, and He would have me be an honest steward of it.

Be holy, for I am holy.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

Better is the poor who walks in his integrity, than he who is crooked though he be rich.

Like I said at the beginning, it wasn't easy, and it didn't mean I didn't think about what I could have done with that money. It would have been easy to justify keeping it and considering it "an unexpected blessing." But, as I work through what it means to really be a wise steward, to hold losely what is not mine (which is everything), and to seek to serve God with all that he has put in my management, I have to say that those justifications would have been empty, and would have come from a feeling of needing to provide for myself rather than rest in faith on God's provision and holiness. I pray Sydney and Peter will learn the same lessons, and maybe even go through less pain to get there than I have over the years.

(Note: Comments lost in the migration to Blogger)