Why China?

I believe I posted this a while back but this is the best I have found and it mewntions a couple things I think I had not previously mentioned

Why China? China is a country whose culture dates back to the earliest records known to man. At first glance, some of China's beliefs may seem quite different than those we hold in the western world. One example of this is the cultural preference for a male child. There are several reasons why Chinese families might prefer a boy over a girl. In rural provinces, a family's livelihood depends directly on the output of its family members. Because of this, a family with sons would be at a considerable advantage than one with daughters. Historically, it is also the son's honored responsibility to take care of his parents in their old age. A daughter, however, would be expected to care for her husband's parents rather than her own. In this regard, the Chinese believe that having a son is crucial to their livelihood, as well as a form of social security for the parents when they grow older.

Although in recent years, China has done much to change these belief systems, many families, especially in rural areas, still strongly favor the birth of a male child. This situation is further complicated by China's One-Child Policy, which prohibits families from having more than one child. As a result of this policy, there are thousands of abandoned children throughout China, with the vast majority of them being healthy girls.

China, it will be!!!

Well, we had the info meeting at Children's Hope on Thursday night. We just loved the agency! We decided to stay with our original choice of China. Our hearts are really set on that country. We both ove Chinese food and Chicago has a relatively large and active Chinatown. I don't really know much about Vietnam, other than what I've seen and heard in movies and for the most part, I really don't like war movies, so I've only seen a few (Good Morning, Vietnam and Born on Fourth of July; plus in high school, we had to watch The Bridge Over the River Kwai -- was that Vietnam or Korea though?) Yes, the wait time is increasing, but it's also high especially for a girl in Vietnam. Plus, if you are a childless couple, like we are, you need to be open to either a girl or boy, which we would be, but I just really have my heart on a girl and with China over 95% are girls. It's remarkable how quick time goes when you are on the internet. I better go, so I can put away the laundry, figure what to have for dinner (since it's only me tonight), and I want to weatch some of my Netflix DVD of the 4th season of The Dead Zone or else Working Girl. Tomorrow, Kevin will be home in the early afternoon and then my parents will be coming over.

China or Vietnam

Since we have not yet even applied with an adoption agency and the waiting time is drastically increasing for adopting from China, (the current wait is about 13-14 months and is expected to increase possibly to a year and a half or 2 years or more) and also in the past year, Vietnam has reopened after a 2 or 3 year moratorium, so we are considering Vietnam. The agency, we had decided to go with for China has not yet been approved by Vietnam for adoptions there, so we would have to find a different agency, unless they get approved very quickly. Tomorrow night, we are attending an informational meeting at Children's Hope International that has a local office in the suburbs. They also participate in Chinese adoptions and are a much larger agency. So we have a decision to come to soon. I know there are many good agencies that are not necessarily in Illinois and it is not necessary that the agency be located in the same state, but I would prefer working with an agency that can do both our home study and any post-placement studies, as well as the rest of the adoption process. If we do go with Vietnam, I will have to change to a different blog "Chinese" just can't appear in the title if we end up going with Vietnam and "princess" won't work either since a boy is more common in Vietnam, plus childless adoptive parents have to be open to either a boy or girl; kind of like a real pregnancy, you don't know until that 20-week ultrasound and only if he/she is cooperative at that.

Workhas been extremely busy, but also very productive. Kevin will be heading up to visit his dad and brother in the U.P., this weekend. I'll stay home since they are planning o going to H.S. football games, which is not my cup of tea, plus the weather is even colder up there and last week they had 6-12 inches of snow already. I'll be watching movies and DVD's, probably surfing the internet more than I should and just the usual household tasks that you put off during the work week. Also on Friday night, I should be getting together with a friend of mine from elementary and high school. We try to get together every month, but it works out to every 2-3 months, with our schedules and all. Usually, we get together for lunch, but this time, we are going to do dinner so we shouldn't be in such a rush and have to squeeze everything into an hour. Recently, she went to our 20 year high school reunion, so I am looking forward to hearing about that.

Just found out

Just found out that the company was a Fortune 500 company. I never knew that; kinda neat I guess, but actually it doesn't mean that anything is better about working at a Fortune 500 company, The other day, I had to fill out the online employee survey and was looking forward to providing some feedbackon a couple issues, as we have always been asked to do in the past. Well, this survey was through a different HR company or whatever and they did not ask us for any comments, just asking us a lot of stupid questions. Several of which no one in their right mind would answer honestly. Questions, such as do you ever give the company less than your all? do you think you will look for another job within the next year? are you actively seeking employment elsewhere? I know they say that it is totally anonymous (that they delete anyway for it to track back to you), but who is going to take the chance. Several of us were joking about it today. It's like "hello, we weren't born yesterday, like we would admit that somedays, we just waste time on the internet too much, make personal phone calls or run to the local Starbuck's everyday. And come on, who doesn't have those days, when they hate their job (last week for me)and other times when they love it (this week is turning out to be pretty good.)

BRRR ... IT'S COLD!!!

Brrr. The temp is showing almost 33 degrees, it is suppose to get down to 29 tonight! We finally turned our heat on!!!

Finally after the past few week of ever colder weather, we got back into the 70s, they are even talking 80s on Monday and Tuesday. We'll see! It sure would be nice to not freeze in the morning taking a shower and all. We just couldn't get ourselves to turn on the heat and now it looks like, we shouldn't have to for at least the rest of the week. Our tomato and cucumber plants are now dead and our petunias are close to it, but the celosia and mums are beautiful. Here are a few pictures that I took the other week thinking that the cold was going to kill everything. But, we have not yet had a frost, so we still have another warm-up (Indian Summer) to look forward to.