It starts to become real when other people are involved...

Sorry for the lack of updates. While the adoption front has been quiet, our life just went from crazy to insane in the blink of an eye. Actually, it was more like in the click of a mouse.

Life updates - I've been trolling realtor.com for about 2 years now. Ever since we made the concious decision to take jobs in Urbana. We knew, at some point, we would be living here permantently, but that was the hazy, distant future. But since the past year and 1/2 the only thing in our viewer was apartment, so our consumption of that site went way down. In the meantime, we decided that enough was enough and it was time to move on to something bigger than a dog house. Hubby is frothing at the mouth about his lack of project space and Boo has outgrown her bedroom, our living room and Miss Hollywood just needs 1 or 2 more product to take over our bathroom completely. I don't even have any space to call my own - so we started planning for when our lease is up in July, it was time to rent a house. Renting because we didn't want to rely on selling the home we own in Chenoa. Renting because we are quite frustrated with the housing marketing. Renting because, well, we just assumed that was the way it was going to go.

The problem with living in a college town is the landlords don't like to rent outside of the August to August time from. Your choices are severely limited if you go outside that window. And looking at what was available through most of the management companies here in town - oh boy. One place actually grossed out my daughter. She opened the fridge, when "that's disgusting," and promptly closed it. Do you know how hard it is to disgust a 9 year old? This was becoming an issue that wasn't going to be solved by the normal path. And when the normal path comes less of an option - I turn to craigslist.com! Placed a "family with cat looking for house ad" and waited to see what came up. A few wrong turns, but we ended up with a least 2 possibilities - neither were ideal, but again, we were thinking renting. And both were larger than what we have now. One of the houses we looked at was actually for sale, but the owner was having a hard time selling, so she answered my ad. That got us looking at realtor.com again. And that's when it happened. One evening I heard my husband say "I love this house." I NEVER hear something like that come from Mr. Conservative's mouth. Love something he only saw a picture of on the internet? Really?!? Must have been something special because he continued to talk about this house. We figured we could go see it and ask about renting to own - what did we have to lose. Well, we went from let's see if they'll accept a rent to own offer to OMG HAVE TO BUY IT NOW! We fell in love with the place, so we put an offer in. And wouldn't you know - it got accepted. Then, as our luck sometimes goes - the house we have for sale in Chenoa got an offer and we accepted it. Oh, wow - just what we needed in our lives - MORE PAPERWORK! What the hell was I thinking!!??!! So, now, this summer is going to be focused on packing and moving our ton o' stuff into storage and then moving it out again into (hopefully) our new house.

But, ultimately, this puts us in a good position. Since we knew we were looking to get into a house by the end of this summer - moving into one in June helps us with the DCFS certification. And, since we'll be just moving in - it'll be clean for the inspection!

While all this focus on a new home is putting things in perspective (we're planning for bedrooms and bathrooms for more than the 3 of us), what really hit home was a phone call and a text message from this weekend.

My sister called me to say she had good news. I assumed a number of things but what she told me was surprising. She had gotten the reference paperwork. My friend texted me with a similar statement - she needed some piece and quiet so she can work on the requested novel that is my husband and I. And that's when I realized just how real this all is. Other people were involved. They've been asked for their opinions about us. They are being asked to vouch for us. This, more than the 3rd bedroom we will soon possess, makes the adoption more of a reality.