"Adoptive Placement"

As of today, Mikey is no longer our "foster child."  For the next six days he is our "adoptive placement."  Then on the 7th, he will just finally be our kid.  Phillip and I went today to the Angleton CPS office to fill out paperwork to prepare for the adoption.  We were given Mikey's file, which is a pretty decent stack of papers.  His file is tiny compared to many of the kids in the system.  We were also given his original birth certificate (no longer just a copy) and his original social security card (which will have to be redone in a week).  So, I think it's almost done.  Now the judge just has to bang her gavel and that will be that.  We are all so ready for that day.

Count down to going public again....I think

I'm *pretty sure* I'll be making this blog public again after the adoption.  I don't really know why that has to be the magic time.  I've written a few things on here that might not be terribly pleasing to a few of the workers we've encountered during this process.  And after the adoption is final, I won't really care.  I initially went private because of prying estranged family, but they have moved to another state and I'm not very concerned about them anymore.  

But I'm not sure if this blog could interfere with my photoblog or photography business.  The stuff I write on here isn't always "professional" because this is just about my life and me and I want it be real.  So I'm not all that guarded and perhaps I should be more so.  Anyway, I guess I'm just wondering if it's reasonable to expect people to be cool with me having a personal blog completely separate from "professional" blog.  Like if they want to know about me, the real person or whatever, they're welcome to find out.  But if they just care about the pictures, then this isn't the place for them.  And if the "real me" want to use the word "crap" or call someone an idiot, will that cause them to feel uncomfortable with me photographing their children.  Of course I would never call a four year old an idiot, at least not where they could hear me.  What do you think?  Right now the stuff I write just has to be appropriate enough for my mom and mother-in-law to read and not be too offended or embarrassed.  BTW, if I end up making this blog public, I may delete this post.  Not sure.

A writer in the making

For as long as I can remember I have been writing stuff.  Whether it was long, rambling stories about invisible people or dragons, silly poems, dark teenage "woe is me" type poems, or songs, I've just always written.  It's always been an outlet for me to kind of purge whatever is going on in my head.  I'm not here to talk about the quality of the stuff that was written, because that's another thing entirely.  But I am and always have been a writer or one who writes.... stuff. Anyway, I was just thinking about a poem that I wrote when I was about 9 or 10.  I'm guessing at the age but I know I wasn't older than ten because I remember writing it and I remember the house we lived in.  Anyway, it's kind of funny so I'll share it with you along with some preseng day commentary.  For some reason I'v never forgotten it.  Be kind.  This was written by a child.

Fall

Fall is full of leaves and soft, sweet gusts of wind.

Fall is full of happiness, laughs, and soft, sweet grins.  (Notice the soft, sweet usage)

Flowers are growing, people are gayly singing (I no longer use "gay" in this way)

all throughout the season.

I love Fall.  Everyone should.

And if not, you have no reason. (30 year old translation: you're an idiot if you don't like fall)

But as Fall slowly passes by, I'll just walk away and sigh.

There's nothing left for me to do

Except wait another year with you....  (So dramatic.  I guess I've always exaggerated my woes.)

Isn't that just one of the sweetest (and gayest) things you've ever read?  This was before my cynicism kicked in.  I was a big time rhymer until probably 14 years old or so.  I once rhymed cobbler with gobbler in a Thanksgiving poem.  So anyway, I just thought someone might get a kick out of that.... or not, whatever.    

Jackson is just too cute! And Mikey is WILD!

Here are a few Easter pictures of Jackson.  The last two are from his school Easter egg hunt. He's just cute.

That day was kind of crazy.  If you can, imagine me pushing a stroller, holding a camera that's too big for me and 26 pounds of Mikey writhing and screaming in my arms,  trying to take pictures of Jackson.  (For all of you grammar people, I know that sentence is bad and I don't care.)

I asked Jackson later if Mikey embarrassed him at his egg hunt.  He seemed completely puzzled by the question and said something like, "No, of course he didn't embarrass me.  Why would he have embarrassed me."  Oh, to live in such a state of obliviousness!  How wonderful would that be.  Is that even a word? 

I think I lost a couple of pounds during that half hour event.  We left way before it was over because Mikey had simply had enough.  I think the rest of the crowd was really glad when we left too.  The looks I get when Mikey is doing his temper tantrum stuff are pretty funny.  They range from understanding to pity to annoyance to flat out contempt.   And to top that off, I walked from our house to the school with the stroller and the camera.  So I had to walk back after I was already fatigued from wrestling with Mikey.  We live about 1/4 mile from the school at the most so now I'm just being whiny.  Anyway, I needed a nap that I didn't get.  Such a martyr, I know.

So, anyway, here are a couple of pictures of my relatively calm child.  Very soon I'll be putting pictures of my tornado on here.  His eyelashes are still enough to make up for his craziness.

Adoption date

I put this on my other blog and e-mailed it to a bunch of people but I forgot to put it on here. 

We have an adoption date.  It will be Monday, April 7th @ 9:00 a.m. at the Brazoria Court House. And then I can put as many pictures of Mikey wherever I want.  I think just for kicks I'll put a naked shot....just because I can.

Wedding update

My first wedding "gig" is behind me.  It was a really LONG day.  The wedding was in Hemphill, Tx and it took about four hours to get there.  It is seriously in the middle of nowhere.  It was fun and I'm glad I did it.  There were no major mishaps or catastrophes.  

I almost killed us driving on the way home but thankfully the person I almost ran into was paying closer attention to the road than I was and didn't hit us.  Phillip thinks we would have lived; we just would have been horribly disfigured.  Personally, I think we would have been toast.  It scared me to death!  

Anyway, about the wedding..... I put a few pictures on my photo blog.  I don't think I'm going to be in any hurry to do anymore weddings.  It's a lot of pressure and extremely time consuming. Now I've got about 500 pictures or so to go through and adjust.  I really don't even want to think about that right now.  

I wish that I had written down some of the funny things we saw on the way there and back.  We just saw lots of funny names of people, churches, sign, etc.  But it's past time to go to bed and I don't feel like trying to remember any of them right now.  

But here's one thought to leave you with.  What the heck is mayhaw jelly?  

Wedding tomorrow

Tomorrow I will be photographing my first wedding.  It will be a small outdoor wedding by a lake.  I'm hoping the weather is nice but not too sunny.  I'm a little anxious about it just because you've only got one shot with a wedding.  There are no re-dos.  Anyway, hopefully it will go really well and I'll have some nice wedding pictures to add to my other blog.  I don't plan on doing weddings regularly or even advertising for weddings.  It's just too much pressure for me right now.  And I don't have the adequate equipment to do an indoor wedding or the money (or desire) to buy it.  So, I guess we'll see how it goes.  

Adoption frustration.... beware of rambling rant

We were hoping to finalize Mikey's adoption on March 24th or the 31st at the latest.  But time and time again in this process, what I thought was the plan was actually not the plan.  You would think by this time I would stop even trying to make any plans.  

Anyway, the judge who is doing our adoption goes to our church and she said we could tentatively set a date and then nail that down once the 90 day waiting period is over.  But the agency we're going through needs more time get all of their stupid ducks in a row so it could take a few weeks longer than I thought.  So maybe we'll be shooting for the first or second week in April.  And to further complicate things, Mikey's CPS worker has dropped off the face of the planet and we don't know when she'll be back and who (if anybody) is handling her cases.

Is a few weeks a big deal?  Maybe not to anyone but us, but we've had this baby for 14 months and we're ready to be done with this process.  I'm tired of filling out the daily paperwork and having to constantly fax stuff to our agency.  I'm tired of people dropping in unannounced to "visit" my child.  I'm tired of kissing up to these people so I don't rock the boat.  I'm SICK of my son being referred to by his birth name at doctor visits and CPS visits.  Is it all worth it to have Mikey in our lives?  Absolutely!  And I would go through all of it and more again if I had to just to keep him in our lives.  

Our situation with Mikey has gone very smoothly compared to many other cases we've heard about.  I know we should just consider ourselves lucky.  And we do feel very fortunate that we got him from birth and that we didn't have to go through several other babies before we got to him.  Even so, this has been a very frustrating process.  We will not keep up our foster home license once he's adopted.  And we will not try to get anymore children through the foster care system.  And I think it's really a shame that the process, the paperwork, and the red tape keep solid families from even stepping foot into this circus.  There are hundreds, probably thousands of kids in Texas alone who need to be adopted.  I can pretty much guarantee that the process to adopt these kids is much more of a pain in the butt than the kids themselves.  And that says a lot, trust me.

So once we finally have a date that works for everybody and their mother, I'll let everyone know.  

Photo biz

I have a pretty busy month ahead of me and I'm really excited about it and a little bit overwhelmed.  As of right now for March, I have 6 shoots and a wedding.  I'm also doing a couple of different things for the church during March that won't bring in much money but will take up some time.  I realize this is not a crazy amount of projects, but it's more than I've had so far.  I just need to concentrate on each thing as it comes rather than trying to think of it all right now.

We're also going to have to find time to adopt Mikey and plan his adoption party during all of this.  The judge who will be doing the adoption has put us down (tentatively) for 1:00 on Monday, the 24th.  I can't officially set that date with my attorney until the 90 day period is up on the 11th.

I have a new (used) lens, grip, and battery in the mail.  I was hoping the order would be here in time for a new baby shoot on Friday but I don't think it's going to happen.  I decided to get a used Canon 28-70 mm f/2.8 L lens from Adorama.  It is several years old but in excellent condition.  I hope I don't regret buying a used lens.  It saved me about $350 over the newer 24-70.  This is a tank of a lens and is regarded as one of the best all around Canon lenses ever made.  It was still pretty dang pricey and I just hope it holds up for several more years.

I'm looking at Canon point and shoot cameras and I may be buying one in the near future.  I've got my eye on a used Powershot Pro 1.  It sports a nice L zoom lens and it's supposed to be a pretty great point and shoot.  I'm beginning to realize that hauling around my SLR and lenses to family functions and other such events may not be the wisest thing to be doing.  I can protect my investment much better by leaving it safely at home for those kinds of things.  Also, it would be cool to have a good little camera again with a swivel LCD to use from time to time.

I've taken a few pictures above people with them laying on the ground and I can't do that kind of shot with my SLR without a ladder.  

It's kind of a silly novelty shot, but it's fun anyway.  

It's amazing to me how quickly I've accumulated respectable equipment.  Most of what I've made so far has gone back into equipment so I'm hoping soon I'll be making some actual profit.  There will probably always be thing that I want or "need" but I should be set for while.