News!

The investigation into the abandonment cases is over and abandoned children will now be referred and court dates for previously referred children who had been referred will now be getting court dates. But for the next 2 weeks, MOWA (Ministry of Woman Affairs) will be closed for 2 weeks for training; hopefully once this is over, everyone will be well-trained and things will gop smoother. More good news is that court will not be closing for the rainy season this year from August to October. Once MOWA re-opens the backlog of those waiting courtdates should be processed. Also last week, there were 3 referrals. One for a 3 month old baby boy, another for a 9 month old baby girl and a sibling referral of a 3 year old boy and a 5 yr. old girl. These families waited 11, 12, and 5 months. We have moved down the list to about #86

Anyone Say Couponing Doesn't Save One Enough Money

I just figured out my June coupon savings, which was $60.14. That brings me to half year point of $234.75 on coupons used. That's more than I saved in either 2006 or 2007 and I only need to save about 40 more dollars and I'll have saved even more than I did last year. I thought $303 dollars was good, but I expect that I will blow that amount out of the water. And I am not as compulsive as somepeople about coupons. I don't even count restaurant coupons, but I try to use even them as often as possible. We'll be up in the U.P. and expect that this weekend will probably be sadly a coupon-free weekend. Well better go pack.

Referrals

Last week there was a sibling set on the waiting child list that was placed and today there was a referral of a sibling set and also an infant boy. So we moved down 3 more spaces and are about #89 on the waiting list.

Basically $2 for John Frieda in Shampoo, Conditioner and Detangler

Another big sucess today; this time at Walgreen's. They had John Frieda hair products on sale and if you buy 3, you get $5 in Register Rewards. Well last week, I think, the Sunday coupons in the newspaper had coupons for $3 off John Frieda Root Awakening Products. And since my parents and a friend gives me their coupons, I had several, so I was able to use a coupon on each of the 3 coupons, which even with my mediocre math skills comes to $9. The total came to $7.05 and if you count $5 off that I will be using in the next 2 weeks, that would make the purchase like $2.05, about 68 cents each; SWEET! Well, maybe I should actually see how I like the shampoo, etc. after I use it tomorrow. With the month 2/3 over, I have used $43.14 in coupons. That means with the year almost half over, I have saved $217.45 with coupons and am just about $15 dollars shy of my coupon and rebate savings for the entire year of 2006. I am astounded!

Another Referral

This week a family on the list accepted a referral of siblings from the waiting child list. So we moved up one on the waiting list to about #92.

Another reason I Love CVS

During lunch today, I went to CVS and bought the above, plus some lotion which isn't shown. Everything I bought was on sale; had it not been on sale it would of cost $72.78, but since it was on sale it $51.16, plus tax, but Kevin doesn't call me the coupon queen for nothing. I used $23.25 in coupons, so the everything came to $29.96 with tax. Plus since CVS gives store coupons and extra value bucks, I received $13.00 in extra value bucks. plus $15 worth of store coupons. Wow, I can't wait to see what is on sale next week.

This week there was a referral of 7 week old twin girls. The lucky family waited a record-breaking 15 months. The wait for siblings is the longest of the waits. I think the wait for a baby girl is about 11-12 months and for a baby boy about 10-11 months. There were also 2 families who accepted referrals of waiting children, a boy age 5 and a 7 year-old girl. So we should have moved down three more places on the list and be about #94.

Officially Added to the Waiting List

This post is long overdue.In fact, I thought I posted here, but I must have done it on Facebook only. On May 22nd, our dossier returned to our agency from D.C. all authenticated. That means we were added to the waiting list. We started out approximately as #98 on the waiting list and since there was one referral this week of a baby boy, we are now down to #97. This waiting list is all-inclusive and includes everyone, regardless if they are waiting for a baby boy or girl, toddler boy or girl, older child, special needs child or siblings; so our waiting list # does not represent exactly how long we will wait. When I was sent the e-mail that we are on the list, I was told the wait can be anywhere from 6-13 months. Based on what the waiting has been lately for a baby boy, it should be about a 10 1/2 month wait. Could of course be sooner or even later. The wait for a baby girl is about 11 1/2 months, but many more people are requesting girls, so I'm guessing, we'll have a son, but who knows!

Our dossier was sent to Washington D.C. for authenication. It should get back to our agency in 2 weeks!

Happy day!

Today was a really good day for alot of us in the Ethiopian program. There were 4 referrals at our agency 2 infant girls and 2 infant boys. Other good news is our dossier arrived at our agency, this morning. They will review it and then it will be sent to Washington D.C. for authentication. This whole process is expected to take 2 and a half to 3 weeks and once the dossier is returned to our agency, we will be added to the waiting list.

Here are 2 updates regarding the aband children issue in Addis Ababa. The first one is from a couple days ago and this one is from today.

St. Louis Bound

The last few documents for our dossier were state certified today and at lunch, I FedExed the whole dossier to our agency in St Louis. It should arrive Wednesday morning and they will ready it to be authenicated and send it to D.C. for authentication. It is such a relief to have this part out of the way. Now let's all keep our fingers crossed and pray for no more problems.

Getting close

Most of the documents for our dossier have been notarized and all we need is our police clearance letters. We will be stopping in at our police department in the morning and hopefully, we will receive the letters early in the week. Also, I need to get the pictures developed that we may use in our dossier. Hopefully by the end of the week, I'll be able to get everything certified. I need to first e-mail copies of all the notarized docs to my adoption consultant at the agency.

But I Do Love CVS

My last post was more-or-less about hate, but this one is about love, my love for how much I can save at CVS. This week I made 3 shopping trips to CVS (that's a record for me) but even better I saved $54.00. Last Sunday, after having to chuck all my make-up and buy new stuff, because I became allergic to something in my current make up, I noticed they had a buy one get one free sale on Almay Cosmetics (which is hypo-allergenic, which my doctor recommended)I bought Almay Foundation, Blush, Mascara, Eyeliner, and Eye Shadow. I had 4 $1 Almay coupons, I had a CVS coupon of $4 0ff $20 and another CVS coupon of $10 . I saved 30.00 on that shopping trip, plus I got a couple CVS coupons back to use later. Friday, I bought some mouthwash and some personal female products. It should have cost $24 plus tax, but I had 2 $2 coupons and $1 coupon, also I had a $4 off $20 CVS coupon and a $3 CVS coupon, so I saved $12 and paid just 13.82 and also got a few CVS coupons, including $8 extracare bucks that you can use on anything. But I had really wanted to buy some Neutrogena face powder, which was advertised as being 40% off, so I decided to stop at another CVS a block away (I was in downtown Chicago, so there's a CVS or Walgreen's, it seems on every other block) So, I got the Neutrogrena powder, which is usually $10.99 , but was 40% off . Since I wanted to use that $8 off coupon, before it expired and I knew I'd be a buck or so under $8, I grabbed some breathmints (always comes in handy) for 1.99 and went to the cashier. It came up before coupons $8.59, so after the $8 extracare coupon, I spent only 59 cents. I wish I would have had a Neutrogena coupon, but I had not clipped any coupons for this before, because I was happy with my brands of make-up, but that was before I developed a makeup allergy and needed to splurge on all new makeup , but I am extremely happy with my savings. At this pace, I am going to beat last years record on money saved on coupons and rebates (I don't count store sale price differences or anything, like some do. Maybe I should but that would be too time-consuming and it is much easier to just jot down savings from coupons and rebates.

Another Reason to Hate My Employer

My company was bought late last year and this year when those of us who kept our jobs started working at the new company, we were all in consensus that we were not a bit happy and if it wasn't for the economy, we'd have been out of there. Well, I like the others are hanging in there and was in fact having a surprisingly good work week. Well, WAS is the operative word. Since Kevin and I have decided to move forward and continue our adoption to Ethiopia with the same agency, were also told that us having to re-do our entire home study was a misunderstanding; it would not need to be redone. We could just get a new employment letter discussing that the current company I work for is "the company" that bought my "old company" and my salary as of 2007-2008 was "X" and my benefits included such and such. Well, with the old company, the office manager and later the managing attorney signed the letter stating my income and benefits, but this time when I talked to the office manager. She said she'd have to check what the company policy is regarding this (okay). I gave her a copy of the actual letter that was everything that must be included in the letter. Well, she came back to me the next day (Friday) and gave me a letter. All she could provide me was my salary and my current salary. My agency says the salary in the employment letter must match the home study EXACTLY. Doesn't matter that it is more, it has to match to a "T". She said that since I am no longer with "the old company", she does not have access to such information. In addition, she also said she is not able to include benefit information, because she does not have access to that information. I did say I could provide her with that information and she still said she couldn't do it, because my benefits are none of her business. After I called my husband (who luckily was on his way to work since he started work late that day), I totally ranted and raved to him. Of course, I went out of the building, where no one could hear me from work and to get a signal for my cellphone. Now, of course, Kevin said we'll work everything out, and that we've had so many hurdles and this is just one more we'll get over. I have no idea what we'll do, I've got to send my adoption consultant as well as my home study social worker an e-mail about this major problem. I so cannot wait for the economy and especially, the job market to improve, so I can get out of where I am. What's a shame is before the company I was working for was bought, I was extremely happy with my job. Nowadays, my co-workers who were also my former co-workers realize that our complaints we had before with the old company were nothing compared to our complaints now. We really had it good before.

Things Are Looking Up