I had started a post on the nostalgic fog I've been living in for the past couple days...but who wants to read about me sobbing my eyes out, every night? The littlest thing will set me off. Last night, I had some music playing while I worked on putting some of Little I's things away. All the music on my computer was on shuffle, and it jumped to "Rockin' Song" by Acapella. The song starts out with a mom singing about rocking her baby girl to sleep...and as the song progresses, her daughter grows up & has a baby of her own to rock. It's a very sweet song. But of course, it made me think of my own wonderful mom...and the fact that my birthday is today...and the fact that I'm about to have my own baby to rock. You can see where the tears came from last night.

But then, I also teach a children's class on Wednesday nights at church...last night was an especially crazy fun night with the kiddos, and as I left the church building, I thought, "the next time I am here, I will have a child...my child... on my hip." And you can imagine it was a downhill slide from there.

Y'all are probably already pretty sick of hearing about my anxiety & tears - and are ready to see me bouncing off the walls, in anticipation of our court date! Frankly, I'm ready for that, too!

If I went back and looked at all my posts in the past year, I wonder how many times I said, "I am a worrier." I bet it was a lot, and if you have more time than I do, you are welcome to go back & count for me. But I will say it again. Hello, my name is Melissa and I am a worrier. Anyone who knows me well will attest to the fact that, when I worry, I become very serious. It's like my sense of humor takes a hiatus from my body - and when the event (or whatever I've been worried about) passes, my sense of humor will come back. This, in my opinion, is one of my great shortcomings, and something that I should really work on.

But I think that's where some of the tears have originated, lately. Yes, it's been a fog of nostalgia (though nostalgia is not quite the appropriate word - I'm looking for a more all-encompassing word, but it'll do for the purposes of this post)...but it's been exacerbated by the fact that I'm anxious about that HOUR (give or take) that we will spend inside a courtroom next week.

Another blogger said that the court experience is like one big homestudy...which is something I need to remember. The questions they will ask us should pertain to what they read in our dossier. And remember all the times that I've mentioned the fact that our dossier is our life! Who else knows it better than we do?

So why should I let the anxiety over an HOUR of time (albeit very important time) ruin the excitement and anticipation that this HOUR actually will bring us in the longrun?! We have waited much too long for this moment, to let it be ruined by anxiety and fear!

'Cause guess what...less than 3 days, and Part Two of our journey physically begins!

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In other news (also known as "random thoughts"):

• I am getting my hair trimmed tomorrow. I have given serious...I mean s-e-r-i-o-u-s... thought to cutting the mop off before we leave, only to have been sidetracked long enough (by Nathan, Sarah, & Ginger) to keep me from actually going through with it. The older I get, the less manageable my hair becomes. It used to hold curl like you wouldn't believe. Now? On a good day, one side of my head has nice, freshly rolled hair - and the other side of my hair is flat as a board. If that's a good day, you can only imagine a bad day! So I think I am going to get it trimmed up so that all I have to do is blow it dry, and not have to worry with rollers or other heat-producing styling devices while we're in Russia.


• Today is my birthday, if you didn't figure that out from another source! Nathan started the day off for me in a wonderful fashion, by making homemade waffles and bringing them to bed for me. I know I've said this before, but somehow, someway, I ended up with one of the best husbands out there. Not sure what I did right, but I'm awfully thankful!


• Yesterday, I had my final baby shower... girls at work threw it for me and I had a wonderful time! Little I got a lot of great gifts, including some clothes, diapers, wipes, a potty seat, some great toys, a Radio Flyer racecar and a Radio Flyer wagon!! I work with some really great people!


• Remember the grant I was stressing over a month or two ago? Just found out today that we got it!


• Seems like I had a couple other things to say, but I was just distracted & so now I can't think of them. If I do, I will come back later.

Now for my list of things...I've added a little to it:

• the wonderful garage cleaning (which is really a matter of loading up stuff & taking it to the HH donation site)
• buy a vacuum cleaner
• buy dog & cat food
• set up the dogs' appointment with the vet for baths when we come home
• call the cell phone company
• have an extra key made for our housesitter
• schedule payments for all our bills from now to the first week in August
• get a suit for court
• CHILDPROOF!
• Make dossier/passport/visa copies
• Finish packing.
• Get travel prescriptions filled
• Get ped letter apostilled
• Install carseat
• complete thank you notes.