on sunday, we celebrated mike's bday. i won't put his age on here, but let's just say he's at the point where bdays are depressing for him (!) now. poor guy. anyway, it was a pretty low-key day as he didn't really want to celebrate it. but we did have a very nice dinner and i think he really liked his present (which is not an easy task!) - a fully automatic espresso machine. makes coffee and espresso in a flash, with no hassle. pretty awesome actually.
later that night we were up to 4a fixing our place up. after over a year, we took advantage of the long weekend and finally hung some stuff on our walls–much better than the absolutely-nothing-on-the-walls style we've had going on the past 7 or 8 years. about a year ago, mike matted and framed all of our photos, artwork and other great things, and they've just been leaning (not hanging) up against the walls since. for a long while we stopped "trying" with this particular place since we're so up in the air about how long we'll be here, or in nyc for that matter. but i have to say, moving a few things around (fairly minor) and hanging stuff on the walls makes a HUGE difference! it almost looks like people live here now! and believe it or not, it has even made my work area nicer looking, which was a dump before!
however, it's a little sad because it seems like 50% of the stuff we have are things from vietnam. REALLY makes me miss it. we hung a nice series of photos i bought from this little old man i met in hue. for 5 or 6 bucks, i purchased 4 photos (plus a bunch of postcards) from the gentleman, and after speaking with him for awhile he gave me two other photos (free of charge) and signed them. i love the two he gave me because it's a group of women dancing in their yellow ao dais. it reminds me of the one my mom had for me when i was little. anyway, they look so nice framed in a series. he would be so happy to see them matted, framed and hanging! the set is up above my work area, so i can daydream all day. :) behind me, we are planning to put 2 other large photos of bollywood from a photographer friend of mine. love those ones too. :)
so, that was sunday. today we had some friends over for a bbq on the roof. beautiful weather for it and how can you beat bbq food. it's always good and a treat when you live in the city! it was a fun time and a relaxing way to spend the holiday!
--
now on to another topic... as i finally had some time this weekend to catch up on my blog and catch up on others in the adoption community, i was really bummed. you'd think i could just write and write in my own voice and write about whatever i want and not worry about it. why shouldn't i be able to, that's what a blog is for, right? well, not for me. everything needs to be a little bit dry and very pc and slightly boring (haha!). there's a whole other world (good and bad) of stuff going on in my life that i'm careful not to get into here. not that it's all horribly secretive, and although i technically should be able to write freely, i don't. it makes it hard to update this blog since i really can only focus on the not-so-interesting daily happenings and the REALLY not-so-happening adoption! :) what i'm trying to get at, is that monitoring and limiting what i write truly shines a spotlight on all that's NOT going on with bringing Olive home. doesn't help the time go by, that's for sure! we're just sitting here waiting and it's a hard thing to do. ok, enough pity party for me ;-)
just for a more accurate update, i went into our agencies database (on the message board) and found that so far in 2007 there has been 12 healthy boys and 6 healthy girls. *sigh* Also, 12 boys and 8 girls on the waiting children list. a total of 24 boys and 14 girls so far in 2007 -- which is good, but of course not enough for all those waiting!
that's all for now.
