Friday I was off work, and started PT for my back. Mum watched Acer and afterwards we went out to our local little restaurant for lunch and then to the thrift store where I picked up an new toy for Acer and a few more outfits For Little Miss. Even though we think she's a size six now, I was picking up some nice eights and tens. I look for stuff with beading, embroidery or textured decoration so she can figure out what she wants to wear.
Saturday I went in to work and then left work early because of my back. I made it until the closing shift came in and then left. I went home and tubbed. Acer was napping and it was wonderful, I could just read and not worry about it.
Bill and I sing in the worship band at church, we sang for the second time on Sunday. It went pretty well, we sang the song we'd practiced and then we sang a song we'd never practiced. I was humming it to Bill in the pew during service (it was the closing hymn) and then up we went, with no words in our hands. Bill said he was reading peoples' lips to see what the words were going to be. I don't think we did too badly, but it was humorous to be 'Leading' a song we didn't know. It was good, but that was all the standing I was up to, two hymns. I even sat during the other parts of the service you're supposed to stand in. :(
After church I connected with a Mom who has two daughters, one older, one ChunBin's age, but still in larger sizes. She's now a source of hand-me downs. I'm pretty excited to find a source for her. :)
Acer gets hand me downs from two sources and I rarely have to buy him anything but shoes. We have plenty of clothes. I love hand me downs, kids grow so fast that there's very little wear on most items. Acer, on the other hand hasn't grown much and so he's staying in them much longer and so we have plenty.
Monday was my day off work and I basically played inside with Acer. We did a lot of snuggle and roll on the bed. He'll snuggle in for a little bit; he likes it when I tell him " a story about a boy". The story I make up about whatever has happened in his life, whether in China or in the recent past. After that, comes the rolling. Somersaults, rolls, up and over MaMa. You name it, I am a rumpus room fixture. He has fun, and I get to lie down and play with him without hurting my back. Monday night we had band practice and then we came home to skype Little Miss on a re-scheduled night. We're supposed to call Thursday Nights/Friday Morning their time, but since we lost power last week, we couldn't and had to wait. Skype was acting up and so we didn't actually try for video, we just used it for cheap international calling. Little Miss' voice is different than I'd expected, more mature maybe, not sure, but I don't recognize it yet, have to ask to make sure. She was less shy than the last call and I think we enjoyed the conversation more. We are starting to learn more about her, what classes she takes and how she likes them and we tried to explain our schedule for the week to her.
Tuesday I went for back PT again. I have 5 separate back strains, cramps, issues, whatever you call them, and so they're working slowly on getting the swelling down, and getting it stronger. It's too early in the morning for me, but I did have a lovely 20 minute rest (nap) on a heated mat and then a soft tissue massage before they gave me two new exercises. I guess if it's always that nice, I'll take the too early time. I actually made it through a whole day of work too. I was almost amazed. I put one of those shapers under my work shirt and I think It stabilized my back enough that I could walk and work. I now wear one all the time and my back's much happier. Much hotter, but much happier. I also hit a lovely sale at Kohls too and even manged to get stuff for Bill and Bill's brother David and my brother James on really good sale. David wondered how I knew he needed more underwear and I simply replied "you're male". Went with my lifelong friend Vicki, she's as good at finding bargains as I and we can help rein each other in or urge each other on.
Wednesday is one of my days to work late and I made it through without too much trouble. It was raining buckets and so there weren't too many people out shopping for plants. Not sure why one customer I had was shopping. She randomly picked out three plants, had me pick out two others and then didn't buy two of the three she picked out. I was confused and sopping wet because she felt the need to get plants she knew nothing about and will probably return dead because she didn't want to hear anything about them and how to keep them alive. Sigh. Too many years doing this, think I'm getting too cynical.
In Wednesday's mail, we did get our I-171H; the approval from our government and the final piece of paper for our dossier.
Of course we got this just in time to hear that China has stopped accepting dossiers from Non Hague Accredited agencies, and of course we're still waiting or our agency to get accredited. We had to turn in one form to the US gov't early so it could be grandfathered in before USCIS stopped accepting it, and now this. Prayers that this week's meeting to get accredited would be the final one and they would pass this time without having to go back once again and change something, like they did before. We only have until August 29th before our Pre-approval runs out and I don't know what we'll do if they don't succeed.
Thursday I had minor cleaning fits about the house, now that I feel well enough in the back to actually bend down and clean stuff. I was grumpy about it, because others have been helping (thank you!) and I had to figure out where stuff was, but I was working on it. Nothing too exciting that day except I found that the dryer didn't seem to be actually heating stuff up, just tumbling it. (However today there seemed to be heat coming out, so I'll have to see)
Friday was a perfect weather day and we headed off to Bill's parents with Mum for the day. Bill was working at the city parade of the city his Library's in. He had an interesting time, from tying balloons to leading a section of ten groups to directing traffic. Acer could barely stand to wait until Bill came home to go to Yeye & NaiNai's. It was the first time all four of Acer's cousins were there at the same time. They played on the new play structure a lot and Acer loved being in the water the most of all the cousins. He can't wait until our pool is running this year. Between the power outages and our back yard neighbor's spruces being cut down (she warned us so that we wouldn't get the mess in a clean & opened up pool) our pool is still waiting to be opened for the year.
Today was my birthday, and the local Lions clubs' camp open house. We slept in and the hit the road. It's a very nice camp, we toured and admired and ate hotdogs. Acer can't go for another three years, but we figure if we go every year between now & then to the open houses, he'll be ready. Not sure when Little Miss will want to go to camp; sometimes it reminds kids of their life in the orphanage too much and they don't like it. We came home, planted a few things and then headed out to dinner. Dinner and then Icecream at Erma's. Lovely weather and a lovely day.
Well, that catches us up, hopefully with my back taking less of my energy away, I'll be backing to writing more frequently.
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