Lost Weekend
2005-04-25,

Snow-- goddamn freaking snow, all weekend. How in the hell?! If I hadn�t been so busy, I would have been raving mad about it. I realize that it�s shortsighted to judge climate on one season without looking at weather history, but snow at the end of April? It�s just not supposed to happen like this. I guess it was revenge for he two beautiful weeks we had during the first two weeks of the month.

Then again, if I had to pick a weekend where it had to snow, this would have been as good as any. This was another weekend of wall building. Luckily the frames are now all up. With them all in place, I'm realizing just how Big our room is going to be. It's almost to size-- the drywall is only going to take another half inch of depth from each wall, so the frame gives us a pretty accurate view of how massive our suite will be. Floor space! Dressing space! Walk-in closet! It's going to be awesome, and, most importantly, it's actually going to happen. With the frame up, I'd guess that we're about 1/3 done with construction. The next sixth (because it won�t take nearly as long as the rest) will be electrical, half of which we won�t be doing ourselves. We need to get our breaker box extended and have wire run for new outlets and switches. The last half will be the drywall and drop ceiling, which will be more mentally than physically taxing, and definitely more tedious. (Not as tedious as hearing about it, you may say.)

Anyway, I ended my Sunday feeling like I didn't have much of a weekend other than busting my ass on this room (again). And the forecast looks like it's going to bring the same for quite a while. I feel like I've just realized that I'm on a slope that leads inexorably toward the adoption, non-stop, no turning back, speed increasing, I have passed the Adoption Event Horizon. All Roads Lead To China. Everything I do from now until returning home is now unquestioningly revolving around the adoption. My free time has suddenly disappeared, and I wasn't quite ready. Not that I ever would have been ready. And it's not that I'm feeling regret over the prospect or aversion to the inevitability of the process. I'm just suddenly very aware of my direction, and I'm wondering whether I'm up to the challenge of all this juggling I'm doing and about to do.

This is reminding me to some degree of readying for our wedding, way, way back in Twenty-Aught-One (which seems more like a decade ago, instead of just under four years). At some point, everything became wedding-based, down to when we were able to sleep, eat, whatnot. Of course, there aren't as many legal and/or paperwork issues involved in a wedding as there is in adoption. And you're not suddenly adding a brand new person into your life. And loss of sleep is due to sex, not the crying of a child adjusting to a new environment. Okay, maybe they're not all that similar after all. But hey, there's a gift shower involved in both, so that's something.

Looks like I'm finally going to be getting my 90-day review today, maybe tomorrow. Naturally, I'm expecting the worst, especially since I'm having a slow day today, which surely everyone knows about and will be ready to accuse me of slacking off continually. Never mind that they felt I was valuable enough to send to Germany on their dime just to exchange testing concepts with the home office, or the fact that I have repeatedly heard positive comments on my performance so far. Nope, it'll be the last two workdays of less-than-completely-filled time that will be in the forefront. Doom, I tell you. Doom.

What have I done for them lately? Ooh, ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh yeah.

-- End Transmission --