Curtains

For my birthday, I received some money. I've been holding onto it, just in case we needed it for foster care, but after we had the home inspection, I felt like it was safe to use the money.

So, I purchased new curtains. I'm super excited about it. We've had the same front room curtains since we moved into the house, and I've never really liked them.

 Since this picture was taken, they actually were in much worse shape. There were much worse gaps at the top, and it was pretty nasty.

So, I ordered new curtains. When I ordered them, I wanted them to match the one I put on the back door. My mom had bought that one for me last year on my birthday. However, when the curtains arrived, I quickly pulled down the old one and Grig and I put up the new ones.

I was dismayed to quickly find out that they were too narrow. I had measured before purchasing, but evidently I hadn't counted for the ruffles in the curtains.

They were also a lot smaller than the one my mother had purchased for me the year before. Gaps showed on both sides of the curtains. It was pretty distressing to me. I had already thrown out the old curtain, and I couldn't return the new ones without it being a lot of effort and having a complete lack of privacy in our living room. I also didn't want to put more money into buying two new curtains, but I didn't know what to do. I just knew I couldn't handle having them look like this.

 I called my mother, and asked her to send me the link to the curtain she had purchased for me the year before. As she looked for it, we talked about possible solutions, and she suggested that I measure the back door. The back door turned out to be much smaller than the front window, and my mother suggested that I switch the front two curtains with the back curtain. Then, she suggested that I buy one more curtain the same size as the back one, and use the older curtain and the new curtain to cover the front window.

I felt good about that plan. It would make it so we wouldn't have to return the two new curtains and we'd only have to buy one more. She sent me the link, and I quickly purchased a final curtain.

Two days later it arrived. I was so excited when I put them up. They look awesome!

 I switched the front two to the back door and was pleased to find that they fit there as well. Now, we have blackout curtains on our front and back windows that match. There are no more gaps, and the curtains look nice.

I'm pretty excited about my birthday presents. It's nice to have total privacy.

Also, for those of you who have been wondering about foster care, we still haven't heard anything yet. I'll keep you posted.

Home Inspection

Today, we had our home inspection for foster care.

I think it went pretty well. We passed off everything on the safety checklist. In fact, we may have gone a little overboard. I think the inspector commented a few times that our home "was the safest she'd ever seen," or something along those lines. She seemed pretty impressed with how in-depth we had been about things.

Honestly, both Grig and I were worried that we were going to miss a bunch of stuff, but I guess we did alright.

She was pretty impressed with how well-trained our dogs were too, especially after they'd calmed down. That pleased me. I really appreciate when people notice that. We've put a lot of work into training our dogs. She was especially surprised when I just pointed at the bed and they went and laid down without me saying anything.

After the home tour, we sat down and had an interview for a while. First she interviewed me, and while we were talking, Grig came home from work. It ended up going from 2-6. She was really pleasant and easy to talk to, and I feel like things went really well.

Kevin was his typical amazing self. He was a bit loud and showed off a bit, but he also was pretty cheerful during most of it. We talked a bit about him and what he's like around other kids.

My favorite part of the entire day was Kevin. At one point, we were talking, and suddenly Kevin spoke up.

"Excuse me," he said, with just a touch of snark.

"Yes, Kevin?" the inspector replied.

"I thought you were going to bring us a baby?" Kevin demanded/asked.

We all burst out laughing. The inspector quickly explained that she was there to get to know us so that we could be matched up with the perfect children, and Kevin seemed satisfied with that response. She told us that she gets asked that question a lot, which surprised me, because I certainly hadn't been expecting that to come out of Kevin's mouth.

I loved it.

She's going to talk things over with her supervisor and submit her paperwork, and within the next 2-3 weeks (it usually is less than 2, but next week is Spring Break, so she said she may not be able to work on it next week) we should be qualified to be foster parents!

That's pretty exciting.

So, now it's a waiting game again. Baring any unforeseen complications, we hopefully will be having some more children join us in our home soon. We're excited to start helping!

Siff's 2nd Heat

About two weeks ago, our dog Siff began to bleed again.

This is her second heat. She turned one in January, but we won't be breeding her until after she turns two.

Siff in diapers

This one has been much easier than her first one. The first one ended up lasting around four weeks. The blood flow was much heavier, and lasted a lot longer. This time, the blood has been fairly light, and it only lasted just over a week.

She's really funny when she's on her heat. Usually, Siff is friendly, but not overly cuddly. She gets warm quickly, and so when she wants attention, she'll just come and sit in front of you and give you the option to pet her.

However, when she's in heat, she is super cuddly. She plopped down on top of me the other day and just laid there. It's pretty cute. She's always sweet, but she's especially funny at this time of year.

She's going to be a great mom. She's really sweet to younger dogs and is friendly to everyone. She's really pretty too. She was really easy to train and she has a really good temperament.

During her first heat, her tail became really limp. It's a condition called Limber Tail Syndrom. She has had a little bit of that this time, but not nearly as bad as last time. This time, her tail is just a little more floppy when she runs and swings more loosely back and forth across her back.

It's added an extra layer of complication this week, but it hasn't been that much trouble. Our home inspection is tomorrow, but I think it's going to go well. I'll try and blog tomorrow night to let you all know how things went.

Home Inspection

This is just a short announcement. Our home inspection is set for Thursday at 2:00 p.m.

If you want to pray that it goes well, we'd appreciate it. Thanks!

Home Inspection and Surprise Visit

For those of you wanting an update on our foster care situation, we finally got our screen window fixed on Wednesday. 

Grig did a great job repairing it. It was looked awesome when he finished it. As soon as we put it back in the window, I sent in our checklist for the home inspection.

We've now been assigned a home inspector, and she's supposed to get in touch with us soon to schedule the home inspection. It's supposed to take a few hours to go through, so hopefully we can find a time that works for all of us.

We're waiting again, but this time it shouldn't be quite as long. I'll keep you updated. 

Yesterday, we got a surprise text from Grig's father. He's been on a trip delivering cattle for the past week or so. Last Friday, while we were on our anniversary date, he texted us and told us that he was in the area, but we weren't. We were sad to have missed him. 

We told him to drop by on his way back east, but he told us that the people he was with were planning on taking a different route and that he wouldn't be nearby. 

However, yesterday he informed us in that due to snow in the north, they were going to be passing nearby after all and he wanted to drop in to visit. That was pretty exciting. We haven't seen him in person for over a year, and he's never been to our new house. 

Grig was disappointed that he was going to be at work when his dad came by, but Kevin was pretty excited that he was going to see his grandpa. 

A little after 1:00 today, Kevin's grandfather dropped by 

Kevin was pretty excited. He drew a picture for his grandpa and waited at the window until he arrived. We fed him some food and then showed him around the property. He and Kevin had a great time smashing horse chestnuts and playing outside. 

Kevin was pretty excited to play tic tac toe with his grandpa. We'd learned how to play it at preschool the other day, and Kevin's been pretty excited about the game ever since.

After we came back inside, Kevin's grandpa began to teach him the finer points of the game. They had a really good time, and it was fun to watch them interact. It was really good to see Grig's dad. He's a great guy, and he loves his grandson a lot. 

Thanks for coming to visit, Grandpa! It was so much fun to see you!