I dropped by the AO office during lunchtime today to review my homestudy. It was finally approved by the manager on Tuesday. Other than a few minor spelling errors and a couple of erroneous dates/ages, it was pretty much spot on. So with the corrections it will be sent up to Edmonton today for Alberta Children Services (ACS) to approve. And after that it goes to CAFAC.
I spoke to Liz and thanked her for writing such a great report. It was a bit bizarre to read a 9-page report written all about me. And boy was it flattering! I had to reach for my hanky a couple of times. I haven't seen my written references yet but some quotes were pulled out and included in the homestudy. All I can say is "Wow - thanks again everyone!" Those references, along with the other originals of my documents, are being mailed to me so I can include them in my dossier. It requires all the originals with their seals & stamps, etc.
I hope to get the dossier complete and ready to go by the end of the month or the first week of April at the latest. I will have to take pictures of the house and I'll need to get that done either right away or after the drywall/paint contractors have come through and repaired the home deficiencies. They won't be finished until the 27th, at which point I will be able to list my townhouse for sale. I told Liz of my plans to move and she said it's no problem, I won't need to notify CAFAC until the sale is complete.
BTW, I'm working on a timeline of the stages of my adoption journey that I can keep up-to-date here. However, the Blogger templates don't make it easy to create tables and I'm no HTML expert so I'll probably have to change my format.
In other news, I started a baby blanket during Tuesday night "Stitch n' Bitch" at M1 last night. I'm using Blue Sky cotton yarn in 3 colors: Thistle, Orchid, and Shell. Franki got me started on a log cabin pattern. I'm going to send this blanket to Ethiopia once I have my referral so "M" can sleep with it and get used to my scent - I guess it's imprinting.
An adoptive mom I met the other day sent her daughter a blanket when she received her referral and she still loves it a year later and talking about the experience still brings tears to the mom's eyes (actually there wasn't a dry eye around the table as she shared her tale with us).
This blanket will have my blood, sweat, and tears infused into it (and I'm not even kidding - endurance knitting is still a bit of a struggle for me). Later, I'm going to make a second blanket which will stay here, maybe using a cashmere/cotton blend - the really good (i.e., expensive) stuff. This will also be a patchwork but regular squares. I would like to add ABC patterns to it. AND, I'm going to knit a baby sweater - my mother will be proud!!
