A Few Things ...

And by a few, I mean ... oh, let's say, three followed by seven, and here they are.

1) My deep dark secret is no more! Ladies and gentlemen, I have a library card.

[As soon as I can find the cable that connects my camera to my computer, I'll put a picture of it here. "It" being of course my library card, not the cable that connects my camera to my computer.]

One of my co-workers, with whom I am Facebook friends, found my blog, read my post about my secret shame, and offered to help me out. So last Saturday, when no one was looking, she re-activated my account and gave me a new card. It was all very stealthy, and I expected to be caught several times. I am just not cut out for espionage.

Thanks, Alexia! I'm glad you're back :)

I cannot even say what a relief it is to have that little matter taken care of. I no longer live in fear of being found out, and I won't have to endure the humiliation I would certainly have faced if I'd been found out.

2) I recently had to submit a detailed outline of my FSA presentation to the people who are in charge of that sort of thing. In the process of researching some of the things I wanted to discuss, I ended up sobbing about my dad's death for about twenty minutes. Am I wrong in thinking it bodes poorly for me that I'm supposed to be talking about grief and I seem to be struggling with it myself?

But it's not the same kind of grief, really. Death and placement weren't the same kind of pain at all. It's not that one was worse than the other, because I think they both rank pretty high on the rottenness scale, but the pain was definitely different. So maybe my presentation won't be so bad, after all. I mean, I do feel at least moderately qualified to talk about making placement grief useful. I don't feel remotely qualified to talk about grieving the death of a parent. I'm still trying to get the hang of it.

Onward now to happy thoughts, like the fact that for some reason,

3) People seem to like me. I'm always sort of surprised when people like me. But Mary likes me well enough to give me a blog award! Mary blogs at Genuinely Jarman and is an adoptive mama. I think the title of her blog fits her because she is a very genuine person. I love her thoughts on birth mothers; you can read them *here.* Mary gave me this:



Wasn't that nice of her? Thank you, Mary! It looks so pretty in my sidebar by Captain Cluck and friends.

There are rules with this but as usual I'm weaseling out of some of them. Well, I say some, but I mean most. I'm already blathering today so I'm going to do the bit where I tell seven things about myself, and here they are in no particular order:

1) I've had four surgeries in the past eight years. All four made my life a million times better, particularly the fourth one, which brought Roo into the world!

2) My biggest fear is fish. I think they are the nastiest, creepiest things in the world, and I have no sense of humor about them.

Let's change the subject.

3) My driving record is immaculate - not so much as a warning from a police officer. (This is a happy consequence of being a good driver.)

4) I have an Arizona cosmetology license, and I used to work at a children's hair salon.

5) I grew an inch taller between my 19th and 20th birthdays. I hadn't grown before that in nine years.

6) I started my first blog in 1997, before it was even called blogging. You think the internet is full of whiny emo crap now, you should have seen it in the days of Geocities and Tripod.

7) I don't know what I'm going to do if I have another baby girl someday, because I gave Roo the only girl name I really like.

Anyway. That's probably a lot more information than you ever wanted about me, but there it is. Thanks again to Mary for the blog award!

I'm supposed to give this award to at least five other people, but I can never choose, so as usual, if you're reading this and you've always wanted a blog award, it's yours for the taking, because you are all awesome.