Rain, flowers and a cutie pie

Oh its been raining..I mean like REALLY raining! Like I wonder if my roof is coming off raining? Worthy of finding my camera raining. Can you see it?

But it makes for lovely flowers!

Who's that cutie pie in the flower bed?

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE.....

visit the Rumor Queen site. She provides a way to find your state reps and who to contact concerning the extension of the 171H from 18 to 24 months. I don't know how much it will cost to get my 171H redone, but it is at least the filing fee of almost $600. I will also need an updated home study, I am not sure how much that will cost (nothing has changed, I hope its cheap!). So frustrating!

Marvin strips - the single sister is adopting from China. I wish them th ebest but the first strip is already wrong. You can't adopt a 2 month old baby from China.

Reality Check

http://www.worldonfire.ca/images/worldof.mov

12 Months

Ok, the wait is up to 12 months. I've accepted it.

That puts me with a Dec referral (LID 12-5-05) and traveling in Jan/Feb.

Bye bye tax credit for April 2007!

Curried Hummus - yum yum!

I am hooked on this stuff with wheat crackers:

• 2 (15.5 ounce) cans chick peas (garbanzo beans), rinsed and drained
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 garlic cloves, crushed
• 4 teaspoons curry powder
• 4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 cup water
• Salt, to taste
• Hot sauce, to taste

Just whirl it around in your food processor :)

(Conversation with a friend....curried what? Hummus. Hummus? Um I just bought potting soil with Humus in it and its cow poo..no way am I eating cow poo. sigh.... sometimes its hard living in a little town!)

2nd House

I found out that I still have an active offer on a fixer upper house. I am the back up offer if the people in front of me get tired of waiting. The contract expires Oct 31st to give them enough time to go to court and fix the title (foreclosure).

Just a history of the house, I was the only bidding on the house with mortgage company #1 back in Dec. They found out the title was dirty 3 months later and weren't willing to clean it up and sold it to another company and just took it off the market and returned my check. Nice huh?

The new mortgage company listed the house with another realty company. I can see it when I drive to work and I saw people walking into it one day (people walking into MY house!!). I called my realtor and I had an offer in that day. Even though I bid more than the asking price (which BTW, was 7K less than my offer in Dec with the other company) I was second in line.

If I do get the house, and I still optimistic that I will, once fixed up, make 35-40K depending on repairs (notice the bad part on the roof). It will get all new paint, inside and out, a new gutted bathroom & kitchen and new windows. It will be cute when its done :)

More kids :)

My indoor kids in their favorite spot, on top of the washer and dryer. They love looking out that window :)

The kids :)

When my 15 year old Siamese died it about killed me. Like taking a week off from work bad.
So when Siamese cats started appearing outside my house I didn't know what to make of it. The first that appeared looked just like her but had a different meow (when I first saw it I thought I had lost my mind!). That kitty stayed for a couple of days then another one appeared a few days later. Keep in mind, up to this point I had seen 1 outdoor cat in the 3 years I had lived here. Two Siamese cats in one month?
The second kitty decided to stay and I called her Bella Blue for her eyes. She was already pregnant when she arrived on my door and the thought of having kittens again (my "youngest is almost 7) really excited me. She had the babies the first week of may 2005 while I was on vacation. When her babies were 8 weeks old she was killed by a dog.
The first week was really bad. They would sit on my deck crying for their mother, they didn't know where she went. I'd spend several hours in the evening just petting them. I didn't have the heart to separate them, they were a matched pack.
So back to the reason for the post, I don't take enough pictures. I have several of my indoor cats but none of the outdoor babies. I wish I had a picture of Bella but I spent some time tonight trying to get her kids to hold still. They don't look like their mom but they have her personality. I just wanted to introduce my outdoor kids to you :)

Who ordered the box of kittens?

Insomnia Strikes!

This evening's thought pattern...
If referrals speed up, she's been born!
Oh, she's been born and I've not decided on a name!
Wait, yes I have, or have I? I did hold off on monogramming her blankie.
Blankie.....hhmmm...I wonder if I won those curtains to her new bedding set?
Bedding..bedding..crud, I forgot to get paint mixed at THD today that matches her bedding....
Wait, can't paint until the floor is done, I should put another layer of clear coat on it..
I wonder if I have another brush since the other one turned into a brick...
brick...I should buy more stepping stones for the yard before they stop selling them..
yard...i should take a picture of my flowers while they are so pretty
wait I did that yesterday, its still in the camera
remember that commercial with the kid stuck off the diving board
hhmm..pool
I want to go back to the ocean
ocean..seashells....seashells around my flowers
hey here is a picture of my flowers! and my tomatoes! Good night!

:)

For the whole 3 people that read my blog, you are probably wondering why I even do it. I know its boring, I'm not in denial :) I am doing it so I can remember what on earth I did during the wait, my mommy brain has set in early!

I wanted to share the goodies I bought at the beach. I've spent a lot of money this month I guess because my savings for the trip later this year (look at me being optimistic) is in really good shape. I am usually pretty frugal and don't spend a lot on "pretties". so let me just share what this shop-o-holic has been spending these past 2 weeks! :)

My first bad of the trip was to break down and buy the new towels I wanted. Huge pink fluffy towels, almost the size of a beach towel (and twice as thick!). Ralph Lauren...light pink...I won't share how much I spent :0

I got a second hot pink Asian diaper bag while in SC because I had 4 people tell me they wished they had one and out TJ Maxx didn't get them. I figure out of the 4, 3 were just being polite and one looked at it, then at me, then at it again... like she was trying to figure out if she could run faster than me. I got the bag for her, you know who you are ;)

Right before I left for the beach, I got a pastel pink diaper bag in a different brocade pattern. It is not a messenger bag like the cool hot pink one, more of a traditional lumpy fluffy one. Its really pretty but not cool like the other one. My dad needs a diaper bag but he won't carry this one lol I guess its going back after I look at it for another week :)

My new baby bedding arrived while I was gone too! Its a really cute set I am glad I bought it. It is white on one side and has embroidered/patchwork hearts and paisley swirls in pink, yellow & green. On the back is a pink color that defiantly in the pepto family. I am going to take it to Home Depot and match the paint then get them to lighten it so it won't be so loud. I am stalking matching curtains on ebay right now, I hope to get two windows worth for $30. I also got a small throw rug that is the same color as the darker pink color in the set (like a raspberry color) for a whole $4 :)

I also found diaper wipes for her cloth diaper collection. I had already bought a chenille bath robe to cut up for wipes (yardsale 50 cents!) but I found pink striped washclothes for $1 for TWELVE. They were really big and thin until I washed them, then they shrunk & plumped up to look like a regular washcloth. I got 48 total and I really wish I had gotten more, they would of been an excellent cleaning rag.

I also bought a 512 Ram chip for my PC and I am a happy camper. It was $30 after the rebate and my PC runs like a dream now. I was considering buying a new PC but no more, I'm good :)

I also bought clothes, something I rarely do! I got a pair of crops that actually make my rear end look good, they have orange flames on the pockets and have a turquoise butterfly embroidered inbetween. They also have those little ragged spots on them, look how cool I am ;) I got a plain turquoise t to wear with them and turquoise leather sandals with sparkly butterflies on the toes. I also got orange sandals, dark brown sandals and light brown sandals. I also got a great brown peasant type skirt that is very light and floaty and looks great with t's. I spent $115, that is a major clothing spree for me!

I was also excited that I found a bar of the mysterious laundry soap at Food Lion near our hotel. Detergent was starting to make me itch and I found a recipe online for homemade laundry detergent. Basically, regular detergent from the store has lots of bad stuff in it. Perfume that makes you itch, phosphates that rob our water supply of oxygen and toxins that seep in through our skin and clogs up our livers (yup, I'm blaming 10 pounds of fluff on my laundry detergent ;) All those bubbles you see? Bad stuff for us and the world and they are just there for show, bubbles don't clean anything. So anyway, homemade "detergent" is actually a mix of three products. One is a laundry bar of soap. I found a calagon (sp?) bar..most people use Fels Nap but I couldn't find that brand locally. You crumble up the soap and it makes about 1.5 cups of crumble. You then add 1.5 cups of borax & 1.5 cups of washing soda (not baking soda, that will tear up your clothes). You mix this all together and it makes 55 tablespoons of product and you use one spoon a load for a front loading machine (prob two for a regular machine). I was wary on how well it would work but it took makeup off my bath towels and a t-shirt like regular detergent. I really like how it smelled and that I didn't have to use a dryer sheet. This mix will strip the old detergent out of your clothes and rinse clean and you just don't need it. I have read of people using 1/3 of a dryer sheet to reduce static but I'm not having that issue. Have you ever taken your towels out of the washer and they were crunchy feeling? You used way too much detergent (I used to do that all the time) and you need extra dyer sheets to soften it back up. When you use a soap product your towels come out of the washer soft, I was really surprised. What else surprised me is that my clothes always came out of my washer wet. This load of towels and sheet came out 80% dry, its like the soap mixture released the water too. It took 20 minutes at low heat to dry a full load of towels and sheets. If you are curious, here is the cost break down if you use up all your ingredients- 6 bars of the laundry soap ($5.90), one box of borax ($2.29) & 1 box of washing soda ($1.69). So its 9.88 to make 6 batches of 55 scoops or just 3 cents a load. Interesting huh?

Okie I think that's it for now. I am off to my dad's house for a Father's Day meal. I bought him and Patti a front load washer earlier this year just like mine. Where I paid $600 for mine, his was $350 including tax because it was the floor model. He was wishy washy (haha) about buying it so I got it and said Happy Mother's day, Happy Father's day, Happy Birthyday, Happy Birthday, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas. I figured that I spend $350 on them a year for these events and they never use what I give them. My dad has his Christmas presents from me (new Pjs, shirts, robes, things he needs because he won't buy them) and he doesn't want to open them up until what he has it worn out. What he doesn't get is most of his stuff wore out in 2002! lol

Myrtle Beach

I am back from the beach again, we found a cheapo room for June and decided we'd try it out. After going to Myrtle Beach so many times, I thought I would share my wisdom with the world :)

The first thing to keep in mind is that Myrtle Beach is not a classy beach. You should not be spending a lot of money on your room or on your food. Its a quantity verses quality thing..pack in the people and send them to buffets.

I like to go the week before bike week in May. Sometimes that is the first week, sometimes the second week. I usually leave the Fri/Sat that everyone starts to roll in. Another great time is to go the last week of August before labor day or anytime in Sept. You'll notice that I try to avoid times when kids are out of school. When I say kids, I mean the 19 year old ones that are really excited to be sneaking a beer at the pool. Shoot, I'd give them a beer if they'd just be quiet! ;) But anyway, rooms are in the $40-60 range during these times and the weather is great.

Where to stay....
Dayton House. Yup that's it. I have statyed at several "resorts" over the years and Dayton House is very clean modest proprty in the northern section of Myrtle Beach. The rooms are older but very clean, and they come with a full kitchen. I was in an ocean angle side view room, two from the end, and it was just as good as an ocean front room. Other benefits of this room were the comfortable beds, full fridge, large TV, large kitchen table with a fold out leaf and the sink area in the bathroom being separate from the shower area allowing two people to get ready at the same time. Our room also had new carpet, fluffy pillows, a fully stocked kitchen (we didn't need any of the kitchen stuff we brought) and a housekeeper that did a great job. So you are probably thinking why on earth stay at a place with an older room? Pools! They have the best pool, I loved it. They also had several hot tubs, a couple of indoor pools and a sauna. More great features included a grassy area between the pool and beach, gazebos with swings and picnic tables that you could use all day for your family (with umbrellas!). They also had an excellent "pool cop" that made sure people could quietly rest at the pool if they wanted.

So where else have I stayed?
Sand Castle - South = I was very disapointed in our room last week. It was just dirty. The pools were dirty. It was obvious that they hadn't done anything to the "resort" since the last time we stayed there, over three years ago. Three years ago it was sqeaky clean and so nice, I was horrified to see its condition, especially since I had recommended it to one of my friends who stayed there two weeks ago. She was nice enough not to say anything. It amazes me that they are trying to sell rooms in the building for 180K..maybe they should focus on the GLASS in the swimming pool and the tiles that had fallen off the lazy river?

Best Resorts - This was the cleanest hotel room I had ever been in my whole life. They called it a green room, there were air purifiers, water filters and real plants in the room. When we drove past it last week, it seemed like they were adding on a lot to this property. The reason we stayed there in 2001 was I didn't have the money to go to the beach and really wanted to go. The room was $30 a night in August because they didn't have a pool. We spent our time on the beach, it was great.

Blue Water Resort = This is my second choice on the beach. They have many different types of rooms and a lot of pools but it is always so busy (busy=loud).

Sand Castle - North - Smaller pool and lazy river but a nicer (cleaner room). I would stay here again if I had a really good deal.

Where to eat- New China in North Myrtle Beach. For $10 you get chinese with a lot of good seafood and sushi. Be sure to look for the 20% off your bill or $1 off early bird coupons.
Dennys - Yup, I said Denny's. They have great breakfast food and they give you so much you end up eating the leftovers for lunch! Note- I don't eat at the $25 buffets at the beach, I think that's stupid. That is another night I can add to my trip since I split the room with someone.

I think that's it for now, I will add more as I think of things. :) - Kim

12 months?

From a dependable, European agency: The CCAA thinks they can do the rest of June in June.

They are trying to decide whether to send what they have now and do the rest before the end of the month, or whether to wait until the end of June and send everything then.

I love the Rumor Queen site!

My name in Chinese :)

I found my name online in Chinese. If it doesn't really say Kim will someone let me know? Lol Thanks! - Kim

Thought I'd share a couple of work in progress from the "Nursery Take 2" project. The first picture is the color the floor decided to be. When you work on an old floor sometimes you take what you get. I like it tho, its a little redder than the rest of the house but you'd really have to look for it and know its different. The odd room is actually the floor underneath the baby clothes. It turned out much darker, it's really pretty. My dad put in the windows last summer, he did a really good job with those too!

I just knew I had made my mind about the red but I'm getting very fond of the pink and white Ashley set and I just bought it. If I don't like it, it will head off to ebay! :) I am thinking pink walls and white curtains with strips of ribbon on them to match the colors in the set. Depending on how much it costs, I'd like to make a border of ribbon going all around the room at arm chair level. Unless I totally break down and do the grooved wood halfway up with the trim in white and just do pink above it. Either way it will be cute, stay tuned :)

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15% Upper Midwestern

0% Midwestern

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Some of my favorite things

When you are depressed that referrals are taking so long, its always a good idea to go play in the nursery. People ask if I am ready and if I've bought any of her stuff yet. Um yes. Like all of it but the car seat and a mattress. I have way more summer clothes than winter clothes but I'm set from size 6 months to 3T. I didn't buy all of it new, but when I did, it was a great bargain and I decided to take some pictures today.

So I went and took some pictures of my favorite outfits to share with those who need a baby fix.

Gymboree sweater bought with my birthday giftcard from my friends at work and the most $ I've spent on any one item ($18 hehe) . Osh Kosh top and pants were from Ross :)

This is my loud lollipop outfit that no one likes but me from Ross, I can't remember who makes it. The bubble is a Samara one, new with tags from a yard sale for a buck. It goes with her bedding, I might hang it on the wall for deco :)

Left, Baby Gap polo with a kitty on it, right, Gymboree western looking shirt that is super cute. You can't see the pearl buttons in the pic :)


These are both BK Kids outfits, I got 7 of these in an Ebay auction for $3.50 each (kitty polo, two matching outfits below, sailor outfit and three outfits not pictured).

More BK Kids outfits, these are the softest cotton I've ever felt. They are like chambray that has already been washed and softened up. Love it!

Left, sweatheart dress, right, youngland! I really like youngland over Samara because the fabric and embroidery is a high quality. Plus when you wash them they don't roll up like some gingham.

Left, turtle bubble! I think this is just a target brand bubble I think its really cute (she's going to be mad at me hehe) and the cheap super cute sailor outfit by BK Kids.

Every adoptive parent from China is required to buy a red and white gingham outfit with ladybugs on it, I chose Youngland :) The other checked outfit is Osh Kosh from a consignment store with a sparkly cherry on it :)


Left is a dainty Samara outfit, and a baby gap dress that I just love.


Pool time! Bathing suit is Old Navy and hat is Gymboree. They don't match perfectly but they pretty close in real life :)

Left, silk baby Gap dress. Right, my Old Navy polka dot dress that I now call my Mali dress because I think she was wearing it in one of her pics. She looked pretty darn cute, can't wait to see it on my little girl :)


Aloha! This starts the "you paid what?" section of my clothes. The three dresses in these two pictures were $4 each, baby Gap folks. The hat was a buck! It was total random luck, she was literally marking them down as I walked in the store :) The pants and hat were $5 total, Gymboree!

Toys :)

Mom and I ran errands today and I got these two Fisher Price toys at a yard sale. They look brand new, I have had a lot of luck this year with finding these type of toys. Mom said when I was little, all my toys were FP and it looks like my cutie pie will be the same way. I paid $8 total for both pieces, according to the site it is $62 of toys, not bad :)