Thanksgiving Week.....

As I expected, it is quieter than a tomb at work this morning. Granted, I come in a lot earlier than most people, (6:30 am) but when I arrive at to work, there are usually at least 4 or 5 of my co-workers here already, running around like loons.

Apparently they're all on vacation this week. I know that one person is in Florida, another person is heading off to Mexico, and my 'teammate' (the woman who moved here with me from the Boston office) is visiting her family in Michigan for the week. That means I'm in for a VERY quiet week. Won't that be nice??

Unfortunately, Jim and I didn't come away with any cash from the Hungry Persons Dinner (I know, don't get me started on that name...) but we did get a nice consolation prize....a GIANT Tootsie Roll!!! Remember that from Bozo the Clown??? I was SO jealous of those kids who got a giant Tootsie Roll as the consolation prize...

ANYWAY.....we got a very nice basket (NICE BASKET!) filled with all sorts of goodies; a bottle of wine, two wine glasses, a bunch of yummy cookies, a few different types of holiday napkins and some other cute 'holiday themed' stuff. Since we weren't destined to win the cash, I was happy to have received the gift basket as opposed to a scratch ticket. Lots of other 'non-winners' received scratch tickets as their consolation prizes and as far as I know, not one of them won anything significant. All in all, it was a fun event and nice to catch up with Jim's family and some fellow 'townies'.

Saturday morning Jim and I got up, had some breakfast (COFFEE!!!) and painted the ceiling in the soon-to-be-nursery. Soon after we were finished, Jim's dad came over and showed us how to 'fix' the walls. Essentially, all we had to do was to slather this 'joint compound' stuff all over the walls in an attempt to make them smooth. It was kind of like spreading frosting on a cake....but a lot more difficult. Once I got used to it, it was easier, but it is NOT easy work. Of course, I tend to be rather 'particular' about projects like that and I had to realize that it wasn't going to be perfect. Once I accepted that fact, it was a lot easier to get through and between the 'repaired' walls and the newly painted ceiling, the room came out looking REALLY great. There is a strong possibility that we're going to be able to paint the walls after all....which would be AWESOME. The next step is for us to sand down the walls and then throw on a coat of primer so that we can see if painting is an options. Jim's dad is coming over tonight to bring us some special 'sanding device' that he has which will make that job a lot easier. I would really love to avoid wallpapering, but if painting turns out to be impossible, we'll have to wall paper.

We shall see!

Once we were done working on the room, we went out to the wallpaper/paint store to try and get some ideas. As it stands, I think we're going to try go with a light yellow for the walls (don't worry - it won't be too bright) and then we're going to do the trim in brighter colors (blue and red). We're planning on installing shelves all around the room, so that may be where the colors are used if the brightly colored trim turns out to be 'too much'. There's a closed up (and painted over) fireplace and mantel in the room that we have to take into consideration as well. That might be a fun place to paint a mural or something creative like that.

Just a thought...

Saturday night we had our friend Charles over for dinner and then we watched a (terrible) movie. The movie was called 'The Houseboy' - no it was not an 'adult film', although it was pretty close - and it was bad. I'm not even going to go into WHY it was bad, just take my word for it. You'd be better off going out for a long walk that sitting through this movie.

In spite of the bad movie, we had a nice night....Jim made a delicious new recipe (whole wheat linguine with green beans, ricotta, and lemon - thanks Giada!) which may or may not show up some day on 'Jim's Whims' - only time will tell....

On Sunday morning, we got up and went to church...yes we did!!! We went to the congregational church (the one where Charles and Jerry's twins were baptized) and it was a great service. As it turned out, Sunday happened to be the day they were celebrating the 10th anniversary of their pastor, so after the service, there was a not-so-brief 'ceremony' celebrating that fact. It was very nice service and great tribute to her...but it went on just a bit too long for my liking.

After all was said and done, the congregation gathered in the church hall for a luncheon, but Jim and I took off and headed home. We spent most of the day getting stuff done around the house, relaxing, and catching up on our recorded shows (the new DVR is working out JUST fine, thank you very much!).

Jim's brother and his family showed up for a quick visit - which was nice - after they left, Jim and I had dinner and planted ourselves on the couch for the rest of the evening.

Hooray for Sunday nights!!!! :-)

Now I'm here at work (all alone) and getting excited for the week ahead!!!!

Have a VERY happy Monday! xoxo

PS - the beard is coming along nicely....I just passed the "I want to rip my face off, it's so itchy" phase....yahoo!!!

Who's Hungry???

Tonight Jim and I are attending a fundraising event for the town Lion's Club called "The Hungry Man Dinner".


Don't worry - it has nothing to do with these:

Actually - and I'm not joking - in more recent years, it's often been referred to as "The Hungry Person Dinner".

Oh my...I feel a politically correct headache coming on......yikes.

Anyway...the basic gist of the event is that they only sell a certain amount of tickets at $100 a couple. For that price, you get a fancy-pants dinner for two and are entered into a drawing for the chance to win one of three cash prizes ($2,500 - $500 and $250). Each couple has a number on their ticket and as the night goes on, numbers are drawn out of a hat (or something similar). If your number is drawn, you get eliminated. Whatever numbers are left at the end are the big winners. I'm not exactly sure how they determine final the three winners, but I'd be THRILLED if Jim and I won any of the prizes.

Let's hope that our number makes it to the end!!!! :-)

Whatever happens, I'm sure it'll be a fun time and the money all goes to a great cause. The event is being held at the local 'social club' and I must admit - I LOVE attending these 'townie' events. All of Jim's family will be there, as will all of his parent's friends - who are a lot of fun to be around. It certainly doesn't hurt that you can buy your entire table a round of drinks for what it would cost you to buy two drinks in any Boston bar.

Tomorrow morning, Jim's dad is coming over to help us (teach us) how to 'fix' the walls in the soon-to-be nursery. Since they're in such rough shape, we're going to have to put wallpaper up in there. I know....I know. Our only other option would be to knock down the walls and put up new drywall - and that certainly ain't gonna happen. We'd love to paint the room, but since the walls are SO old, we're just going to throw some Spackle-type wall repair stuff on them and throw up some wallpaper.

I'm not 100% sure what we're going to put up, but we're probably going to look for a solid color. We've talked about it at length, and since Jim is a H-U-G-E Curious George fan I think we're going to go with that as the theme for the room. It would certainly be very cute, and it's not gender specific....just in case. Once the 'wall fixing' has been completed, the plan is to go out on the hunt for wallpaper. I think we're going to look for a solid color....possibly yellow - a la the Curious George books...but maybe not quite as bright. We shall see!





Have a great weekend!!!

On the MAPP

Last night was our first MAPP class...and we survived.

I'll try to keep this brief, but let's be honest...chances are it won't be.
:-)

The Group

We have two women running our class, Noreen and Krystal (not their real names). Noreen told us that in the class she just finished teaching, there were 11 couples taking part, and in the class before that one there were 10 couples.
As of right now, our class is made up of 5 couples and one single woman.
There is the possibility that there will be one more couple joining us next week, but that seems to be up in the air. Last night there were only 9 people in the class because we were missing one husband, the single woman, and one of the couples. According to the rules of the group - none of those people who were missing last night are allowed to miss any more classes. If they do, they're OUT!
Jim and I were the only gay couple there, and we're pretty sure that we're the youngest couple in the class. It seems like a very nice group of people. I'm not sure that we'll make any life long friends out of the class, but you never know, do you???

I do know that one of the couples has at least three children at home already...they have a 20 year old, an 18 year old, and a 6 year old. Whether they're their biological children or if they're step-children of some sort, I have no idea. One of the other couples has an 8 year old daughter and I think that the remaining 2 couples are childless. Well, put it this way - if they have children, they didn't mention them at all.

The Class

They began the class by having everyone introduce themselves and say where they were from and what they did for work. Most of the participants live locally, but there are a two couples who are traveling an hour and a half to get there. They're both from Cape Cod and our class location is the closest option for them. Yikes.
Once the introductions were finished, the class 'leaders' gave a high-level overview of what we can expect from the class, and quickly went through what we'll have to turn in when all is said and done. One of the biggest things is a 'profile' that each couple (or individual) has to complete before the end of the 8 weeks (or in our case - 11 weeks, due to the big break we have in December).
It's a very detailed 40-something page profile that is filled with all sorts of questions that we'll have to answer - some questions will be answered as individuals, some as a couple. It is a HUGE part in helping the social worker with our home study. Our friends who have been through the classes told us all about this, so thankfully we weren't taken by surprise. We haven't seen the profile yet, but it's being emailed to us today or tomorrow. THAT should be fun. The good news is that because of the 'December break' we'll have plenty of time to work on it during the non-class weeks. :-)

Last night we spent a lot of time focusing on the idea of 'permanency' for the children. We talked a lot about each of the people (foster parents, adoptive parents, social workers, birth parents/kin, etc...etc...) that are involved in the children's lives and what role each of them plays in working towards achieving the ultimate goal of permanency for the child. As you can imagine, in such a small group (again, last night there were only 9 of us) there is no hiding!!! Thankfully, both Jim and I have no problems talking in front of other people (shocking, I know). In fact, it seemed that most of the people there were OK with it. One or two of the people seemed rather quiet, but I'm sure they'll come around and start talking eventually.

About halfway through the class we took a break and then when we returned, we watched a video - yes, a video....not a DVD....a video - that, in spite of the horrific wardrobe and hair styles (clearly this was filmed in the late 80s, early 90s) had a very nice message.
It told several stories about people bringing new children into their homes, how they dealt with the initial arrival, how they handled discipline, how they dealt with 'acting out', etc...etc...
One of the more interesting points the video covered was the concept of creating a 'life book' for your child. Essentially, it's a scrap book that contains photos, memorabilia, etc. from the beginning of their life up to and continuing on through the time that they're placed with you. According to Noreen and Krystal, they've found that the birth parents are more than happy to contribute to their child's life book. They've seen birth parents pass on ultrasound photos, the baby's first hospital pictures, as well as other items that will have meaning to the children as they get older. All of the things that make up the life book will help them to better understand where they came from, and what their life was life before they became part of your family. Once the video was over, we had a brief discussion about the video and then class was over.

It was a little overwhelming because they threw SO much information at us, but I'm sure we'll be fine. I should have mentioned this earlier, but they did tell us that part of the reason for us being in a smaller group is that DCF is re-designing and re-configuring some of the MAPP training, and we're going to be piloting parts of the new curriculum. It's always interesting to be part of a newly developing process, so I'm sure that there will be some bumps in the road due to the changes. Even the leaders aren't sure how it's all going to play out, but at least we'll all be figuring it out together!!!

If anyone is still reading this - THANK YOU!!!
I hope it wasn't too tedious to sit through.....but the good thing is, you'll probably only have to suffer through one of these posts once a week.
:-)

xoxo

Mid-November.....ALREADY??

Seriously....we're already halfway through November? UNACCEPTABLE!!!!

My how time flies.

Jim and I had a very busy weekend....but it was quite fun.
Friday night I ended up going to the show solo (that would be 'Reckless' @ SpeakEasy) because Jim got home from work and wasn't necessarily 'feeling it' - so I knew it would be much better to go alone, rather than force him to join me. You know how that is, right?? Right.
Anyway....the show was SOOOOO good. I had no idea what to expect and I was more than pleasantly surprised. I'm not going to go into detail about the story itself, but I will say that I enjoyed it VERY much. I laughed a LOT and cried as well. Granted, I cry at TV commercials, but there were some truly great moments in the play that had me welling up.
Visually, it was beautiful, fun, and festive and it was clear that the director (Scott Edmiston) was responsible for the show working so well. After seeing the show, I want to get a copy of the script so that I can appreciate his direction even more. I know that there is a lot of stuff that he put in there (transitions, etc...) that aren't included in the script - and all those things are what made the show work so well. If you're in the area, I highly suggest making the trip into Boston to see it.
Go here for the specifics. :-)

On Saturday I pretty much lounged around the house (the weather was gross and rainy) until I had to go to my softball meeting that evening. It was great to see my teammates and catch up with them. We were getting together in order to discuss the upcoming year and to introduce the new players that we're adding to our roster (we're definitely adding 4 new players, possibly 5) since we lost a few players at the end of this season. After the meeting we all grabbed some dinner and then we headed over to Fritz (Yay Fritz!!) for a few drinks. Jim and our friend Charles met us there as well so that was fun.

Sunday morning we slept in and while Jim drained, cleaned out, and re-filled the hot tub, I did some picking up around the house and once he was all set, we showered and headed out to go grocery shopping. We got home from shopping and then stopped be his mom's house to visit for a bit. We then went home, had some dinner and then tried to stay awake on the couch for the rest of the night. We were both SOOOO tired - but we managed to stay awake until 10pm, when we finally decided to hit the hay.

Tonight we're having Jim's parents over for dinner. Since Jim is making his sauce, meatballs and sausages - and it feeds about 20 people - we decided to have them over. I'm sure it'll be fun.
:-)

Have a great day.....10 more days until Thanksgiving!!!!

So, here we are again....

Yet another Friday the 13th!!!

I drove Jim's car to work today and I LOVED it!!! What a great car. I felt so 'fancy' driving down the highway in it.

After work I'm taking it to get an inspection sticker, which is why I have it today. Jim won't get out of work early enough and since I'm closer to home, I can scoot out of here a little early and get it taken care of.

Last night was VERY fun, as I knew it would be. We got to spend a little time with Melissa's ridiculously cute daughter before she was off to sleep. Her name is Ava, and she's turning FOUR on the 17th.....in NOVEMBER!!!!! (a direct quote from her)

Dinner was great, as was the time spent catching up with Melissa. She's currently pregnant and is due on mine and Scooter's birthday....February 11th! We'll see how that all works out...you know how babies are, they rarely show up on time. :-)

After a very yummy dinner, Jim and I carried in Melissa's new kitchen set (since she's pregnant, and her husband is nursing a sore elbow). While we carried int eh kitchen set, we were carrying out the crib, bit by bit. It was a very efficient, and quite a fair exchange. She was able to get the new kitchen set into her house, and we were able to get the crib into our house!

Once we got home and everything was out of the car, Scooter gave the crib a quick inspection to be sure it was 'OK', and then he pretty much ignored it. Since the nursery isn't quite ready (and by not quite ready I mean, not even remotely close to being ready) the crib is in four pieces sitting in our front closet. This morning I emailed the manufacturer, in hopes that they can send us the 'users manual' for the crib. I looked online and I can't seem to find any info. out there regarding this specific model, so hopefully they can send us something. If they can't, it's no big deal. It seems fairly simple to figure out, but I'm more curious than anything. I'm definitely one of those people who reads manuals from cover to cover in order to be sure I don't miss anything.

Unlike Jim, who has very little interest in manuals of any form.

I didn't take any pictures, because it's not put together yet, but once we have it assembled, there will be pictures. It's a beautiful crib though, and I can't wait to see it when it's all set up.

Tonight Jim and I are attending opening night of the Craig Lucas play 'Reckless' at SpeakEasy Stage Company in Boston. I have a few friends in the show, and I know NOTHING about the play - so I'm very excited to see it. I'm a big fan of Scott Edmiston's (he's the director) work, so I'm sure it'll be a great show. Be sure to check back on Monday morning for my 'review'.

This is their poster....which I really like.

Have a great weekend and be safe!!!

xoxo

Dinner and a crib.

I'm SOOO excited for tonight.

Jim and I are getting together with our friend Melissa for a LONG overdue dinner date. We've been trying for what feels like weeks (because it probably has been weeks) to find a date that 'worked' for all of us and it has finally arrived!!!

We're also picking up a crib while we're down there. A friend of hers was looking to get rid of a practically brand new crib and since we're in the market for a crib, we're taking it. Yikes.

I realize that it will go unused for a while, but when the time comes, we'll be ready.

Until then, Scooter can use it.

Kidding!

Of course, Jim and I were joking around the other day - while we were taking the last of the wallpaper down in the soon-to-be nursery - and contemplating what would happen if we changed our plan entirely.

Do you think a teenager would object to sleeping a night or two in a crib???

Stay tuned for pictures!!!!

And the final decision is.....

I'm going to grow it. :-)

I know, I know - some of you aren't crazy about a 'bearded John', but have no fear. Nothing is forever.


Besides, you know how I am....it's probably going to end up annoying me sooner or later and I'll get rid of it. I'm just tired of shaving every day and I want a break.

Keep in mind, this could all change if I don't like the way it looks!! Each time I've grown one, it comes in a little bit greyer....so we shall see!!!!

Beards through the years: