• Last week was one, crazy week. I know that Monday, I mentioned having my 2 biggest projects of the year completed...and thank goodness for that! But last week really was a very busy week. If I hadn't had such a wonderful staff to help me organize & take care of things (we were putting on a small conference on Friday & Saturday), I do believe I would've gone crazy. However, since I did have some great people to work with - here, I sit, sane. We also had wonderful, interesting, & fun conference presenters (I'm not just saying that because I gave one of them my blog address! They really were fab - everyone thought so!)...and very interested participants. So in all, it was a great weekend. By Monday, I was exhausted.


• The first part of this week was spent cleaning up from the weekend, reorganizing and putting away.


• One thing lead to another, and before I knew it, I was cleaning out filing cabinets in my office and totally purging them of stuff I did not need. I figured that if I'm going to be in Russia (hopefully) soon, then my office should be organized in the event that a file is needed from in here. My desk is also much like the closets - I've posted about - at home. Every now & again, I have to pull everything out, purge what I do not need, and reorganize. Yesterday, our grad assistant spent the better part of an hour shredding stuff for me - and she overheated the shredder twice!


• One of my coworkers came in my office yesterday and said, "Melissa, we've been hearing you in here working, and we've decided you are nesting." Hmmm....so that's what this is....nesting. I can tell you now...I don't need to be nesting at work so much as I do at home! What is wrong with me?! :) But I will have one of the most organized desks in this place!!


• One interesting thing I have found out about myself through the cleaning out process is that I literally hoard pens and other writing utensils. Actually, I knew this about myself, but it really became re-clear to me as I cleaned out a desk drawer and realized that I had at least 16 highlighters, 20 sharpies, a mug FULL of probably around 40 pens and pencils, as well as probably 30 other pens in my drawer. Please tell me. WHAT can one person do with over 100 writing utensils? Who knows. But go to my house, look in my craft closet. What will you see? a BOX with at least 100 pens/markers/highlighters that I NEVER use. This does NOT include my GOOD pens/markers/etc. that I use for scrapbooking & card making. See, that's the thing. I don't use the majority of these writing utensils - at work, home, the ones in my purse. I guess I'm saving them for a rainy day, I don't know. I have about 4 favorites - and the rest I just keep, and only a small percentage of these are kept for sentimental reasons (there are a few pens from my childhood that I thought were really cool - and then the 2 pens that N & I signed our mortgage papers with...the rest of them, just random pens). It's a weird collection. Probably not one I should've told you about, because I'm almost afraid of what it says about me. But there you go!

So there's a bulleted post about me. Would you like some adoption-related stuff? No news, really, but here are a few things:

• The dossier copy that we're taking with us when we travel is finally complete and bound. I need to get a snazzy "trapper keeper" kind of notebook for when we travel. Remember trapper keepers? I had one with kittens on it, in the 3rd grade. My aunt Cheryl had bought it for me, and WOW, I thought I was cool. Till it got stolen, about 2 days into my ownership of it. BUT I digress... the bottom line is that our dossier copy is sitting, in wait of court/travel dates, and I'd like to get a nicer, notebook that will zip up - or something - when we travel.


• I made arrangements for our fresh, crisp bills, yesterday. Those should be going in the safe deposit box soon - also ready for travel.


• Our dossier has been with the Primorsky court for about a week, now. We got confirmation of that - and are now just sitting, waiting. We are praying the the judge will look at it and give us a speedy court date - though she/he technically has 2 months to review everything. Let's pray for that speedy court date...because the summer months are considerably slower & people go on longer vacations.

So I think that's it for now. Fourteen weeks ago, we left Russia - and are more than ready to get back! And since I can't think of a snappy finish - I'll just leave you with this post while I get to work...and more nesting.