Holy CrAzY week, Batman!

Happy Friday everyone!

I want to start today's post with this:
 

 

I saw this on imgur the other day, and I about died of laughter.  If you do not know what this means, then you best be doing some reading on pokemon, because you are really missing out.

 

Today started with some rather exciting events right outside of my townhouse!

  

This is the second time this week that I have seen the deer walking around the neighborhood.  Aren't the baby deer just so adorable?

 

As you can guess from the name of this post, things were a bit hectic this week.  As I mentioned on Monday's Post, I had a final exam, and I can say with full confidence that I was not successful on the exam.  The assignment was to read the entire textbook (in a week) and be able to write a synopsis over the textbook.  I spent a great deal of time last week and weekend studying for the test, but when I got there, nothing.  I literally could not bring anything to mind.  I guess that is what happens when you stress way too much over anything, huh? I have a meeting with the professor on Monday to discuss what happened on my test.  I will make sure to post an update after my meeting.

Tuesday was not nearly as stressful, but it was full of tears.  My cousin's grandpa passed away over the weekend, and my mom and I attended the funeral to show our support to their family.  There is nothing more heartbreaking than watching someone you love grieve the loss of a loved one. 

 

I promise some not sad/stressful things happened this week! When I weighed in at Weight Watchers this week I was down 2.2 pounds! I could not have been any more excited.  My mom and I have a tradition of going out to dinner after we weight in at Weight Watchers, which with follow with a shopping trip.  It has become a ritual that we have followed for over  year now, and it is one that I look forward to every week.

 

On our shopping trip, we went to Parisian and shopped around for boots for me.  It is so unbelievably hard to find boots if your calves are wide.  I promise my calves are not super wide, but for whatever reason, all women must have no dearth to their calves in order to wear boots.  I swear they think we are not curvy or something... but I digress.  Our boot shopping eventually turned into dress shopping.  Our one year anniversary is next month, and I have planned a wonderful evening for us, to which I need to buy a dress.  Honestly, any excuse to buy a dress in my book. :) And guess what! I found a dress.  It's a Calvin Klein dress that was originally $100, that I got for $21.  Score!

 

Thursday was uneventful, and I must say I was relieved.  I was even overjoyed that my class was done at 6:15 instead of 7:15.  It is amazing how an extra hour can make a world of difference.

 

Questions of the Day:

What is your favorite place to shop for bargains?

What was the most exciting thing you bought at a bargained price?

 

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Weekend Recap

Good morning everyone! The sun was so pretty this morning, I had to grab a picture while I was sitting in traffic on I-75.

This weekend was rather uneventful, but I was glad that it was not chaotic.

On Saturday, I spent some much needed time cleaning up around the house and doing laundry since I had ignored most of it for the week.  Later in the afternoon, I went to my in-laws house to work on a baby gift for my sister-in-law due on October 15.  I would gladly post about the project, but it is a surprise and I wouldn't want to ruin anything for her.

After the time at my in-laws, Justin and I headed out to a party at our friends house.  It was just a small get together, and we hung out for about an hour before heading home to get some sleep.

Sunday was pretty quiet around the house.  Justin got up early to go golfing with his dad, uncle and cousin out in White Lake.  From the sounds of things, he had a good time, but did not do as well as he had hoped. 

My Sunday looked a lot like this:

I have a final exam this evening for one of my classes, and set up shop to study for the day.  *I must note that this is the table we were trying to get from Ikea last weekend, but were unsuccessful in our ventures.  Justin was able to go on Wednesday evening to get a table for us.  Isn't it pretty?*

Anyway, I sat at that table for at least six hours studying for my exam and do not feel like I am 100% prepared for the test at 4:30.  I guess we shall see how that goes.

Two exciting things happened this weekend though! I finished the project I was working on for my sister-in-law and it is almost ready to be mailed, and I bought some new boots to wear for this fall through Hautelook.



I ended up buying them in the gray and black because, as you can see in the picture, they were such a great deal.  They should be here late this week/early next week.  The only thing I am worried about is the width of the shaft.  Boots tend to be too tight on my calves, so I have my fingers crossed that they will fit me and be comfortable to wear.  If not, I will just return them. 

Question of the Day:

What is the one accessory that you love, but have a hard time finding that works for you?

P.S. the Info About the Blog, Good Reads, Adoption Story & Recipes tabs have all been recently updated!

My Adoption Story

In the last 3 months, I have had at least 25 different people ask me if I was ever going to find my birth parents.  This question used to annoy the heck out of me, but for some reason, it seemed more like a gentle push toward beginning this new adventure.

I want to preface this with the fact that I have always known that I was adopted and it has never been a secret that my parents kept from me. 

 

These are my parents, Tim and Teri.  As you can see from the picture of my mom and I, I was adopted at a very young age.  In fact, they had worked out the logistics of my adoption before I was even born!

Last week, my mom and I sat down and talked about the details that went into adopting me and she said it was absolute chaos, but that she loved every minute of it.  My mom and dad tried for 7 years to have a baby and nothing happened.  She said that they tried everything from in vitro to hormone therapy and nothing worked.  When I asked her what she thought was the cause, she attributed the infertility to her missing ovary.  See, when my mom was in her 20s, they found a very large ovarian cyst, which ended up completely damaging the ovary.  As a result of this, she was only releasing an egg once every other month.

Well, in early 1989 my mom and dad moved back to Michigan from Massachusetts, so my dad could work with my grandpa at grandpa's business.  They got a new home, got everything settled, and that was when things had changed.  My mom received a phone call from her friend, Beverly, and Beverly told her that she knew of a young woman that was pregnant and was considering adoption as an option.  My mom was so excited, that she called my dad to tell him the good news.  Their conversation went something like this:

Mom: "I have some wonderful news Tim!"

Dad: "So do I! What is your wonderful news?"

Mom: "Beverly knows someone that is giving their baby up for adoption"

Dad: "Oh how wonderful! ...(Insert long conversation about the baby)... I got offered a really great job in Texas and I want to take the offer"

My mom and dad applied to be a prospective couple to adopt the baby, and were one of five couples that were in the running to adopt.  Fortunately for them (and me), my birth parents selected them to be the adoptive parents! They chose my parents because they wanted a family where the mom could be at home with the baby, and my parents could provide that type of lifestyle for me.

Now when you are selected to become adoptive parents, you must go through a screening process, and they do an in-home study to make sure everything is safe for the baby.  This became difficult for my parents because they were to move to Texas in early May 1989.  Unfortunately, right before they left my mom's grandmother Whittaker passed away and it was really difficult for her.  They attended her funeral and moved all of their things to Texas. 

The week after they moved to Texas, Beverly called my mom and said that I had been born.  My mom was so overjoyed at the news and was speedily getting the house ready my arrival.  However, three days after I had been born, my parents had not heard anything from the adoption agency.  My mom said that after a week had passed, she thought that the birth parents had decided to keep the baby and that she had closed the door to the nursery and mourned.  She mourned not only for the loss of a child, but for the loss of her grandmother.

What she did not know, however, is that in Massachusetts, the birth parents cannot sign the paperwork for three days.  This gives them a chance to really think about the decision to give the baby up for adoption.  On her 31st birthday, two weeks after I was born, my mom received a phone call from the adoption agency saying that she could come pick up their little girl.

And that is where my story begins.

I am telling you this story because I have decided to start the search for my birth parents and I want to share this journey with you in the hopes that someone else out there that has been adopted can take comfort in knowing that they are not alone.  As this story unfolds, I will begin to fill you in on the steps I must take and the processes necessary to hopefully find my birth parents.

Habitat for Humanity- The 2 Day Adventure

Happy Friday Everyone! I hope that you're week has been as successful as mine has!

This week, my work participated in the GM Cares - Habitat for Humanity event.  For this event, we went into the inner-city of Detroit and helped clean and board up abandoned houses around the Ronald Brown Academy Elementary School.  The purpose of this project was to create a safer environment for the children as they are walking home from school and while they are playing in the neighborhood.

I am posting about this today because this event was a two-day adventure!  On Wednesday, I woke up nice and early to go meet a few co-workers at our office to hitch a ride over with them.

It was early enough in the morning, that the sun had not begun to rise.  I do have to say, though, that the commute into work was very enjoyable because it was peaceful and there was no traffic what-so-ever.

Upon arriving at the event on Wednesday, we were signed in and put quickly to work.  I was assigned to what was called a clean-up crew, and we were responsible for cleaning the front yard, back yard, and garages of abandoned homes.  I was in complete shock at how bad of shape some of these homes were in.

The first picture is of a home where the weeds and grass in the back yard were literally up to my elbows.  We had to cut ourselves into the back yard in order to begin to assess the damage.  In the second picture, you can see a home that is missing all the windows and the brick around the front and side of the house.  There is also a hole in the wall on the second floor above the front door.

Cleaning up these homes was one of the more challenging things I have done in my life.  In the first home I worked on, we managed to find a ton of dead bugs, a lot of dust, and a very dead cat.  In fact, for a majority of the homes, it looked like the owners had grabbed all of their belongings and piled them in the garage before quickly leaving their home.  I think what saddens me the most about all of this is knowing that at one point this was someone's family home and the neighborhood was a thriving and growing community. 

Wednesday was my day of labor and I came home covered in dirt, extremely sore and beyond exhausted.  However, instead of being grumpy, I was very happy.  It was thrilling to know that we were making a difference in peoples' lives.

Today's event was not nearly as enjoyable as the one on Wednesday.  As anyone can guess, today it rained and it was cold.

 But people still showed up! There was a total of about 300 people that came to work between the 8-12 shift and the 12-4 shift and they worked hard even though it was cold and raining.

 I was fortunate enough to not be assigned to a clean-up crew for today, but rather was responsible for driving around and passing out coffee and water for the people working on the homes.  While I was relieved to not be working in the rain, I felt a twinge of guilt.  I wanted to be out there getting dirty and working hard, but I know that I was still doing my part by passing out the water to the crew members.

Overall, I think our crew ended up cleaning and boarding up 15 homes in 2 days. 

Habitat for Humanity is working hard to create a better community, not only in Detroit, but all over the United States.  If you are interested in volunteering in your area to help them build homes and help build better communities, please visit their site: Habitat for Humanity. 

Question of the Day:

What is the most rewarding volunteer work you have done? 

Buckeyes and Turkey Legs

Happy Tuesday Everyone!

This past weekend was pretty busy, which is why I didn't get a chance to post yet, but here I am doing the update that I very badly needed to do.

On Saturday, Justin and I headed out to Ikea to go pick up a new kitchen table, but much to our dismay, they were sold out of the tables.

 So instead, we ended up buying some new throw pillows for our couch in the living room.  Not too bad of a deal at $14 a piece!

We left Ikea disappointed and ended up going to Olga's from lunch, then get some rather delicious cupcakes from a bakery called Just Baked.

From the top left we have Red Velvet Cake, Grumpy Cake, Pumpkin Spice, Chubby Hubby, Fat Elvis and Strawberry Cheesecake.  They were all very delicious, and I recommend if you are in Michigan, you try and stop for one of these mouthwatering treats.

 (No, we did not eat all 6 of those in 1 day)

After our trip to Ikea, we headed home so I could get ready to go to a wedding with my friend.

 

 I must say that I absolutely loved her grooms cake, and we clearly had a wonderful time in the photobooth.  AND they had Buckeyes as part of their dessert!

While Saturday was an adventure, Sunday definitely takes the cake for excitement.  We went to the Renaissance Festival for the first time!

 Justin's co-worker was at the Festival too and it turns out he goes every Sunday while it is in town.  I think my favorite part was the Henna Tattoo, I got toward the end of the fair.  I really like how she did the bird and might really consider getting something more permanent somewhere else on my body.  I guess we shall have to see!

On my next post, I will be talking about something really exciting coming up in my life, but for now, I need to get ready for bed!

Tata for now.

Pirates at Work?

Good morning everyone! I hope the first half of the week has been wonderful for you! It sure has been a strange week for me.

 

Yesterday at work I headed down to our local post office and was pleasantly surprised when a Pirate went waltzing through the building.  While I thought it was a bit strange, I just figured this man wanted to look like Captain Jack Sparrow for the day and decided that it would be fun to walk around dressed like him.  Turns out there was a logical explanation for his presence in my building.

 

This week is Navy week at GM and they were doing a presentation for the Commemoration of the War of 1812. 

 

 

 

On my lunch break I headed down to where the presentation was held to check everything out.  I have to say it was awesome to see the hundreds of Navy men and women walking around and talking to the civilians.   And the ships were pretty awesome!

 

 We were allowed to go onto the ships, but unfortunately I only had a half hour to get down to the river and back, and I somehow had to eat my lunch as well.

 

I think it is so awesome that GM does Navy Week here at the Renaissance Center.  It is not often that you get to walk up to a person in the armed forces and say thank you for their service, let alone be part of something the honors their hard work.  A special shout out to all of those in the service: Thank you for your service!

 

I wish that I had had more time to enjoy the ships, pirates and Navy Seals, but unfortunately work had to come first.  It was definitely difficult to leave the beautiful weather we were having yesterday.  On my way out, I managed to grab a picture of the river and the pretty clouds.

 

Say Hello to Canada!

 

Today has been rather uneventful so far.  With all of the students heading back to school, traffic has been a lot heavier than during the summer, so it takes extra time to get to work today.  I really need to get a book on tape to listen to when I am driving to and from work/school to keep me entertained while I am driving. 

 

Question of the Day:

 

What book should I listen to on tape?

 



Say Yah to da U.P., eh?

Happy Labor Day everyone! I hope everyone has been enjoying their day off of work (and if you are working, I am terribly sorry!).  

This weekend Justin and I headed up to the U.P. with his parents for a relaxing and wonderful weekend.  It was filled with knitting, relaxing, jet skiing, and eating! On Friday we headed up to the U.P. after work and did not get in until about midnight, so we were pretty out of it.  

On Saturday we headed into town to go to a craft & car show, which is always fun to see!  We saw some pretty cute hand knitted/crocheted sweaters! I almost got one for my future niece, but decided to try and make one on my own! After we went into town we grabbed some groceries and relaxed the rest of the afternoon.

This weekend there was supposed to be a "blue moon" and I managed to grab a quick picture of it before heading back into the cabin.  Is it only me, or did you start singing the "Blue Moon" song when you hear someone reference it as a blue moon? I always think of that when someone says blue moon, whether its actually talking about the moon or talking about the beer.

One of the many blessings about going up north with Justin's parents is getting to use the jet skis! Sunday the water was super choppy and that ALWAYS makes for a fun time on the jet ski.  I have never gotten more soaked while on a jet ski than when I went out yesterday; nor have I laughed as hard as I was.  There is something so exhilarating about being out on the water and get splashed as you crash up and down on the waves.  I will look forward to getting to go out again next year.

Another blessing about being at the cabin is getting a chance to work on any projects I have been ignoring over the past few weeks.  About a month ago, I started knitting a blanket for my sister-in-law who is due October 15th, and I have been severely ignoring the blanket until this weekend.  I am proud to say that I am almost done with it, and cannot wait to share it with you all.  

Today, sadly, we had to make the 6 hour journey back home and I was very sad to go.  It is always nice to get a break from life and spend some quality time with family.  The only cool part about the drive is getting to cross the "Mighty Mac".  I always make it a point to take a picture of the beautiful bridge every time we cross over, and today the sun was shining very brightly. 

Well, I am off to do some laundry and get ready for the upcoming work week!

Questions of the Day:

• Where do you go to get some peace in quiet? 
• What do you do when you get to just relax, even if only for a few hours?