Life in the Bend

Our wonderful principal’s gift to her staff this year was a half day off for each of us. Mine was today and I bolted out of school at noon with a list of 20 things to accomplish regarding the adoption. I was so excited – I was going to get it all done!

I did talk to the adoption coordinator, drop off the mail, pay the car payment, stop in at the local neighborhood association, prepare and take gifts over to my mom’s house to be transported to family in the East, visit the county tax assessor (They nearly doubled the assessed value of our house and since the property tax here is calculated at 5% of your assessed value our taxes doubled too. We did not take to that news happily), and call about whether Paul needs to have his passport renewed (he does). Then I talked to British Airways for two hours. It’s a long story that involves the friendly representative quoting me a price that was nearly half of any other fares I’ve been able to find. I asked her if that included taxes and fees and she said yes. Insert two hours of hashing out details, trying to get ahold of Paul while on hold with BA because the tickets weren’t refundable… Anyhow, two hours later I’d already given her the credit card number when she announced that with taxes and ticket fees the fare would be exactly what I’ve been quoted by other airlines. So, I didn’t buy tickets today. The good news is that February is a comparatively cheap time to fly to Ethiopia so I should be counting my blessings on that front.

I’m reminding myself that we originally didn’t think we would even have a court date by now, much less have already had a successful one. In terms of complications, we have had a very easy process and I have no right to complain.

Our wonderful principal’s gift to her staff this year was a half day off for each of us. Mine was today and I bolted out of school at noon with a list of 20 things to accomplish regarding the adoption. I was so excited – I was going to get it all done!

I did talk to the adoption coordinator, drop off the mail, pay the car payment, stop in at the local neighborhood association, prepare and take gifts over to my mom’s house to be transported to family in the East, visit the county tax assessor (They nearly doubled the assessed value of our house and since the property tax here is calculated at 5% of your assessed value our taxes doubled too. We did not take to that news happily), and call about whether Paul needs to have his passport renewed (he does). Then I talked to British Airways for two hours. It’s a long story that involves the friendly representative quoting me a price that was nearly half of any other fares I’ve been able to find. I asked her if that included taxes and fees and she said yes. Insert two hours of hashing out details, trying to get ahold of Paul while on hold with BA because the tickets weren’t refundable… Anyhow, two hours later I’d already given her the credit card number when she announced that with taxes and ticket fees the fare would be exactly what I’ve been quoted by other airlines. So, I didn’t buy tickets today. The good news is that February is a comparatively cheap time to fly to Ethiopia so I should be counting my blessings on that front.

I’m reminding myself that we originally didn’t think we would even have a court date by now, much less have already had a successful one. In terms of complications, we have had a very easy process and I have no right to complain.