cleared by the FBI

We finally got our FBI clearances in the mail yesterday. We were about to go out to dinner, and I asked Tabb if he'd checked the mail. He said, no, and maybe we'd gotten the FBI clearance. This has been our standard conversation for the last two weeks - Have you checked the mail? No, maybe we've gotten the FBI clearance. I went out and stuck my hand in the mailbox and felt something thick and it was the self-addressed envelope I'd sent off two months ago.
We sat on the couch and opened it and there were two envelopes inside, one for each of us. I had my thumb under the flap of mine and about half an inch torn before Tabb said, maybe we're not supposed to open them. So we ran around looking through the adoption boards online and in our directions from our agency until Tabb finally found something that said, send a copy. So we opened our envelopes, and of course it was kind of anticlimactic because it was just one sheet of paper that said, no arrest record. Still, we've been waiting for this for two months so we were excited. I made up a little song and our dinner out became a celebration.
I know it's just one step and there are still many more steps ahead of us, but I needed a celebration because the last two months have been so miserable. I really hit a low point last weekend. We'd flown to Austin for a wedding, and on the way back we missed our flight. We were sitting in the airport with a seven-hour delay, and suddenly it hit me that I was happy to be there. I was happy to sit and wait in the airport for seven hours because it meant I wasn't back at home and working. Work has been AWFUL. It's not just about being micromanaged and having to spend every weekend writing epic lesson plans. It's also about being made to teach in a way that I don't believe in. Reading class should teach kids what reading is for - about how they can use reading to discover themselves and the world. Instead, we're teaching isolated skills with no context and no meaning.
So things are going to change. This past week I have refocused on the adoption and we got the last of the missing paperwork into our homestudy agency. We've sent the draft of the homestudy back and forth a couple of times, and now it's been sent to Wide Horizons for final approval. I've also committed to setting a time limit on doing work on the weekends, and to rebalancing my life so I have time for getting out and exercising and seeing people and thinking about things other than work. I am not going to let work take over my life like this again!

Delays

Holy shmoly, it's been a month since I've posted on this blog and way over a month since our social worker visits. I've pretty much been working non-stop, and it has consumed every corner of my life. Which stinks. In the meantime, nothing has been happening on the adoption front. We have been waiting for our fingerprint clearances from the FBI. We did finally call the home study agency last week, and that seemed to prompt them to send us a draft of our home study. We've made some corrections and will send it back. We still have to research our community resources (local pediatricians etc.), interview other adoptive families, and complete some more training. It's the same list from my post six weeks ago. With my crazy work load and waiting for the FBI, everything has ground to a halt.