Out, damned egg! Out I say!

vacation - meant to be spent alone

In just a few minutes we'll be leaving the beach house in Florida. It's been a loooooooong week. The mister and I are headed south to the keys for some nice couple time (and to celebrate his birthday) and a chance to regroup from all the family time.

Did I mention it's been a long week?

I have survived and have not said anything too bad. Yet. There has been wine, much lovely wine, and long 2-3 hour trips to the gym that have both helped me maintain my sanity.

I think this post is likely to increase those "bitchy daughter-in-law" hits to my blog. Here are just a few observations I wish my in-laws had had before (or during the trip):

• If you like to plan many activities a day then renting a beach house may not be the best vacation option.

• Doing nothing is a perfectly valid thing to do at the beach and it will only irritate people if you propose 10 activities after people tell you they want to relax.

• Unless you are SURE of their answers do not ask your children to share childhood memories at the only nice dinner out you have all week. The middle child clearly needs many more years in therapy to recover from the fact that he had to briefly share a bedroom and wasn't allowed to play his loud musical instrument 24/7.

• When you're out at said nice dinner do not get loud and obnoxious at the end of the evening and start comparing the service to your beloved Fr@nce. The wait staff heard it all. While you might not be generous your bitchy daughter-in-law certainly is and she and your youngest, sweetest son had already taken care of the bill. If only you stopped being pompous enough to let them explain when they said it had been handled.

• Not everyone likes birds as much as you do. Do not ask your bitchy daughter-in-law who is trying to be nice to go and watch even more birds after she already spent an excruciatingly long day going around a 2.5 mile boardwalk. It really should not take 4 hours. She walked it three times and still saw more than you did.

• When your son and his wife want to go visit friends another island up they do NOT want to go to another bird place. Enough with the birds!

• Don't continuously talk about how you and your granddaughter are the competitive ones in the family and then get all pissy when you find out that your granddaughter cheats at board games and certain people think that shouldn't be allowed. Clearly your daughter-in-law still doesn't know her place because how could she ever say anything negative about someone who is "flesh and blood" like you love to point out.

• Don't continue the whole "flesh and blood" and "genes are so important" conversation with your youngest son who is excited to be adopting.

• If you are a super competitive person (like it turns out my mil is) don't challenge your family to a word game thinking you will beat them all. Don't choose a game that uses Scrabble principles and get upset when one person knows all their 2 letter words and q's without u's. You really don't have to know the meanings of words to play them and good Scrabble players don't know the definitions. Don't keep score and delight in telling everyone how much you're beating them. Until the last round when said daughter-in-law seemingly comes from behind to whup you. Do you really think it was happenstance that she beat you in the last round to shut you up? Do you really have to be such a poor loser at your age?

• Do be thankful that this trip happened because it will be a very long time until you get another chance like this.

I can last the next half hour, right?

Please come to Boston for the springtime

What excuse can I come up with for not posting recently? Hmm, I know I overuse the old standby of "work" but that's all I've got. Millie is one dull girl. All I do is work out, work, go home.

The working out part is going well. I'm in Week 6 of my intensive training program (although I was sick all week last week so I suppose technically it's Week 5 for me). I am truly working my ass off. I still don't like getting up at 5 am and I don't think I ever will but I am really enjoying the results of my hard work.

The working part is going pretty well too. It's amazing how I have taken my skills in copying, pasting and the occasionally saving to new levels. It's truly a career! I guess the true skill is know what to copy and paste but many days I think a trained chimp could do what I do. My current job site is a fun one, though. They treat contractors amazingly well and there are hundreds of us. It's looking like my contract will be extended through June and that is very sweet news to my bank accounts.

Let's be honest: none of you came here for these particular updates. You wannna know the important stuff, right? I'll finally cut to the chase.

We haven't ever heard back from the NPL in Portland. We sent her a lovely card wishing her well (and we truly do wish her all the best). We think she likely decided to parent and also think she'll make a great mom.

Shortly after we got back from our trip up north we got some new leads. One came as a phone call from the mom of a NPL. We've talked several times and the mister has talked to her as well. The NPL is in the process of moving back in with her mom. We are headed to their state on Monday for an overly long family vacation with the mister's entire family. I'm sure you can imagine my joy at the prospect of many long days (and nights) cooped up in a rather large house with all the mister's folks.

Don't even get me started on how the original plan was Hawaii (then Puerto Rico) but now we're going to The Sunshine State. In high season. Which will cost more than either of the other options. And - here's where you see how you can take the girl out of the South but not the South out of the girl - will be full of Yankees. There's a reason Southerners don't go to Florida in the winter. It's not all that warm, the water is too cold for sane people to swim and it's full of Yankees. You're all jealous, aren't you?

Back to our story. The plan was to meet up with NPL and her mom but I'm not sure that's going to happen. We've only talked to said mom and not the actual pregnant person yet. I don't know about any of you but I'm not sure when I was 21 that I'd want to just go along with my mom's plan for anything, much less let her find a family for my baby.

In this midst of all this fun planning we also received an email from another NPL. In fact I'll call her NHL because 1) there are too many NPLS; 2) it'll be easy for me to remember that because of her state and 3) it's hockey season.

There have been many emails back and forth between NHL and us. OC thought she might not be legit because she wrote an awful lot in her first email and sent a ton of pictures. She also used some British phrases and a yah00 email which is commonly associated with both Cameroon and Nigerian scams.

Turns out she likes to write a lot and uses some British phrases and spelling. And since I have several yah00 emails myself (and they've paid me a lot of money over the years) I'm not going to hold that against here.

There's a lot more to say and I'll be saying it. I PROMISE! I really really really mean it this time.

She's not very pregnant (not due until August) so we have lots of time to get to know each other and I have lots of time to blog about it. IF we match, that won't happen for several months. OC, the mister and I believe very strongly in not matching until the 3rd trimester. No exceptions. Period.  There is just too much concern about manipulation and coercion - even if it's just her getting to attached to us and not wanting to let us down.

We really, really like her. She really, really likes us. She also really, really likes OC and is doing lots of work with her. She's educating herself about adoption and asking herself and us great questions. OC really, really likes her as well. It's a total love fest!

For now we're planning a trip to see her in about 7 weeks. I'm much more excited about that trip than the one next week.