Catching up

I apologize for my absence lately. It seems like February always gets away from me... not just because it's so short either.

Some interesting things are happening around here as of late. I applied for a super cool and exciting Summer Writing Institute and had my interview yesterday. I'll share more about it if/when I am accepted. For now, suffice it to say that it's a huge opportunity which would give me an entire month to give myself over to the creative process of writing. Not to mention I would be working with some incredible people within the literacy and language field.

Steve and I have also begun the process of modifying our home to accommodate the adoption process. What I mean by that for the most part is preparing our two spare bedrooms to actually serve as bedrooms. One of them is currently an office and the other serves as our version of a guest room. It has a dresser, an air mattress, and my super awesome 1970s paisley covered chaise. It also has all of our Christmas decorations in the closet. Clearly, some rearranging must be done before children can occupy that space.

Our first step in making this change has been to move the office downstairs. We have a space in our living room which has been kind of empty and unused since we moved in, so we decided to put a desk there and make it an office nook. After all, we don't really need a whole room for an office since neither of us work from home. I'll post pictures of the office nook once it's finished. Ok... I lied. I'll post a pic when stage 1 of the office nook is done. I imagine it will have a few different stages as we determine our true office needs. For now we plan to have a desk, computer, and our printer there. We will see what else we end up with.

My plan is to keep track of all the changes by posting about them here. We will see how successful I am with that.

That's it for the positive stuff keeping us busy. Unfortunately, there have been some not-so-positive issues happening too. Our pipes burst downstairs and completely destroyed the downstairs bathroom and entry hall. The bathroom needs to be gutted and the ceiling needs to be replaced in the entry hall. We are having a little communication issue with our homeowners insurance at the moment, but we hope they will get it together and get things done really soon.

We also did our taxes and found out that we owe Uncle Sam quite a bit of money. We have never owed before in either of our lives. It was quite a shock. Turns out, my new job as a teacher (and the sad little salary that comes with it) was enough to push us into a her tax bracket. And I can only claim a maximum of $250 in classroom expenses on my taxes. I literally laughed at our accountant when he said that. My mother has spent more than that on my classroom this year. We won't talk about how much I have spent. Let's just say it's a multiple of $250 and leave it at that.

Today is not the day for another teaching related rant. :)

Besides all of that, we are all healthy and in one piece, so we really can't complain. I'm looking forward to March and the fun times up ahead. Our parish is a very proudly Irish parish which means we are looking forward to an epic Saint Patrick's Day celebration as well as the Saint Joseph's feast. This month is also my last month before spring break and the last month before we begin our adoption classes! I don't have to tell you how excited I am for those things. :)