Keeping Busy

If idle hands are the devil's playground, then he ought to be nowhere near our house. After we submitted our dossier, the excitement of paper chasing came to a grinding halt. We no longer had to make excursions around the tri-county area to get the signatures of doctors, notaries, social workers, employers, former employers, and the WV Secretary of State. We no longer waited with bated breath to jump the _____man (insert mail, UPS and/or FedEx here) when he pulled into the driveway.. And most disappointing, we no longer made exciting trips to the post office and forced the innocent employees to take embarrassing pictures with us. (See Exhibit A)

Exhibit A. Me and Jules with the. most. awkward. post employee ever.

Naturally, we wondered what the heck we were supposed to do with our spare time. Our case worker sent us a very helpful email suggesting that we "keep busy" during the wait. She still occasionally makes the same helpful suggestion in her monthly update emails.  As if I wasn't "keeping busy" enough chasing Miss Thing around (See Exhibit B)

Exhibit B. Miss Thing

But in all seriousness, there's a lot of empty hours between her bedtime and mine.  So I've been keeping busy with projects around the house (read: Pinterest ideas) First up: A new big girl quilt for Miss Thing - twin sized for her new bunk beds, which I single-handedly assembled, along with the matching pink ceiling fan.

Next, I thought it would be fun to build a chicken coop.

Look for pictures of its inhabitants during the 2nd week of May.  We are also open to suggestions for naming our 4 Golden Buffs - my only requests are no chicken anatomy or delicacy names, and that one is named Madea.

During said chicken coop building, in which I enlisted the carpentry expertise of my patient and understanding father-in-law, I learned how to use power tools, including this bad boy:

Once I learned the basics, I even used it by myself to build the bottom part of the chicken coop door.  Apparently, I wasn't ready for a solo plunge cut, though, so I made due with a screwdriver and a big hammer.

Next, I moved my ambitious self back inside and rearranged and enhanced our bedroom decor:

I about burned off my fingertips making this Pinterest idea come to life, which would have been unfortunate since we need to renew our FBI fingerprints next week.

This evening, I thought I would bring things down a notch and make the Pineapple Princess a dress.

And, of course, finish off the night with a little light reading and the original Karate Kid on Netflix.

Throw in a home study update and 10 hours of work. and that, friends, is how a waiting adoptive mama keeps busy...for a week.