NaBloPoMo, here I come!

Happy Halloween! Our little monkey and I are going to be trick-or-treating at Daddy's office, a nursing home, Mommy's old office and Grammy & Grampy's house today. Talk about busy! And the weather has warmed up, so I'm sure I'll have a sweaty, unhappy child on my hands by the end of the day. *Sigh*

Tomorrow is the first day of November, which is apparently National Blog Posting Month. I heard about this last year and thought I'd give it a try this year. The idea is to post at least once a day, all month long. A challenge, yes, but I'm going to try. And I did sign up, which makes me eligible for prizes if I meet the daily blog challenge, or so I hear.

So I hear there's a monthly theme, although it hasn't yet been posted. I'm not very good at themes...I pretty much write whatever comes to mind that day. So stay tuned and we'll all see where this goes.

If you really want to know

*Warning: Political talk. If you don't care, you can visit my photo blog and see a couple videos of Olivia. I can see how that would be more fun.*

I am sick of political ads. I am under no illusion that either party's candidate (in any political race) is going to achieve or attempt to achieve half of what he is promising. Many of these promises are made in an effort to buy our votes.

What I care about are the candidates' ideologies. What are their world views? How do they compare to mine? Will they help us become the country we were founded to be?

For the most part, I try to stay away from politics. However, as a lifelong pro-life advocate, I've had to get involved now and then. I'm a firm believer that you can't eradicate abortion by simply legislating. The more effective approach is to change hearts and minds of those directly affected by the decision. That is done by taking people by the hand and helping them find the resources they need to choose life. And, occasionally, legislation does help (by requiring ultrasounds, counseling, etc. to help women recognize that there is another individual involved). But it is the people in the pregnancy centers, maternity homes, and adoption agencies who are making the real difference.

I realize, though, that there are other forces at work...forces that have a financial interest in destroying embryos and promoting abortion. That is why, no matter how much I dislike the political process, I must stay involved. Too many lives are at stake.

That said, my overall view of government is that it has become too big. There are too many taxes, too many failed programs, and too many hands in the cookie jar. I'm a firm believer that a free market provides the best opportunity for improved products and services because of the forces of competition.

What about the lower class? Christ said that the poor will always be with us. And I don't think government handouts have improved that situation. I believe it is up to us to help those in need. We've become a country of people looking for government to save them. It's time we start saving ourselves and helping our neighbors. Government can't solve all of our problems.

If you really care about what I think, this article sums it up nicely.

The outfit in question

This is the outfit mentioned in the previous post. I think she looks like a girl, don't you?

Mom, would you PLEASE stick a bow in my hair?

This morning, we visited Daddy at work. I had dressed Olivia in a blue outfit (and no, dang it, I didn't think to bring the camera) that has flowers and butterflies on it. It was matching pants, onesie and sweater. And several people (those who don't already know her) mistook her for a boy. *Sigh*

I guess I'm just going to have to start carrying a white bow everywhere I go. The problem with that is that she will pull it out immediately if she realizes it's in her hair. It's not that she doesn't like bows, it's just that she's very into doing things herself, so she'll pull it out and then try to put it back in her own hair, or in my hair or Daddy's hair. She's into equal opportunity for bows.

We are going back to Daddy's office on Friday to "trick-or-treat" around his office. I've heard that his department is really looking forward to it. I was too until today, when I realized how totally uncomfortable it's going to be for my warm-natured girl. See, Daddy works in an old building that is heated with a boiler or something, and it is like a sauna in there during the winter. Olivia is going to burn up in her monkey costume. I think I may let her be n@ked under the costume just to make up for it, instead of putting her in a onesie. The less clothing under there, the better.

C-c-c-cold!

After a very warm September and an unseasonably warm beginning of October, it has finally turned cold around here. We decided to turn the heat on Sunday night and set the thermostat to 65 so it wouldn't kick on unless absolutely necessary. It was necessary.

Olivia seems to be unaffected by the change in temperature and the fact that her room is the coldest in the house. She still kicks off all of her blankets. Granted, she is dressed in a sweatsuit and house slippers at the moment. But so am I. She's napping now as I sit here and type with numb fingers and frozen toes. I just went into her room to cover her back up. I don't know how she manages to sleep comfortably sprawled ON TOP of her blankets, limbs far away from her body, with her belly peeking out from under her shirt. If I were napping, you can bet that I'd be doing it with hands tucked under my pillow and at least two blankets piled on top of me. She MUST be very warm-natured.

Cold weather? Bring it on!

In other news, I think I'm going to try to blog every day in November. I couldn't participate in NaBloPoMo last year because we were living in a hospital and hotels for a couple of weeks and picking up a baby and all that jazz. This November is going to be quite low-key. I'm not sure if I'm going to participate in an "official" way, but for the three or so of you who keep up with me, you'll at least have something to read daily. That is my promise to you.

A funny thing happened on the way to the zoo...

On Saturday night, my husband and I took Olivia to Boo at the Zoo.

Where Grandma gave me my first sucker...yay!

Grandma and Aunt Lori came with us. We were prepared for a fun night of seeing animals and collecting candy. We didn't realize that we'd spend our first hour watching our own little monkey take delight in all the other children's costumes while we stood in line to get through the gate. Thankfully, Olivia LOVES other little kids and was pretty well entertained watching them as they danced around in their pirate and dinosaur costumes, impatiently waiting for their turn to get through the gates too.

We'd been standing there awhile, and I remember that I was looking at some little girls in line ahead of us and thinking, "I wonder why they didn't come in costume". That's when my husband turned to me with a look of surprise and said, "Those are her sisters."

"What?" It didn't register right away what he meant. And then I looked closer.

We were standing behind Olivia's birthmother's three little girls (OH YES we were).

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Let me back up a little. A few months ago, I blogged about talking to Sarah* about parenthood and milestones and such. At the time, she was still living in the city where Olivia was born and she sounded relatively content. She talked about coming to visit our Nearest Large City, her hometown, in August to celebrate her birthday and spend time with family. We made plans to try to meet while she was in town so she could see Olivia.

She did come to her hometown, but she never returned to Olivia's birth city as planned. We had tried repeatedly to meet up with her, but some crisis always came up to keep her from meeting with us. I think she really wanted to meet with us and see Olivia. Unfortunately for her and her kids, her life seemed to be spiraling out of control. We never got the details on what, exactly, was going on with her, but it was evident that she was living crisis to crisis. A few weeks ago, I tried to call and found that her cell phone was disconnected. So I figured that was that.

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So here we are, standing in line behind these three little girls. We recognized them from the photos Sarah had given us for Olivia's lifebook. We had met the oldest child before Olivia was born, and my husband saw her again when we tried to meet with Sarah back in August (the girls and their father were at the apartment where she told us she'd been staying, but Sarah was, well, detained elsewhere). It wasn't until one of the adults with them called her name that he realized who they were and recognized the oldest girl. But Sarah was not with them.

We were sitting there discussing whether or not we should approach them to find out how to contact Sarah, and every minute I could feel my Mom getting more and more uncomfortable. She has been VERY protective of her granddaughter from the moment we brought her home, and she has never liked the fact that we kept in contact with Sarah. She always felt that it somehow put us in some sort of jeopardy of losing Olivia (it doesn't, but try telling my Mom that). But we couldn't help ourselves...we needed to know. After a few minutes, we got up the courage to go up and talk to the adult who seemed to be in charge of these kids. She looked at us warily until we explained who we were. We told her we'd been trying to contact Sarah and didn't know where she was.

Well, as it turns out, the woman is a foster mom who has had these girls for the past three weeks. She has never met Sarah and doesn't know the situation that caused her to lose custody of the girls. She said that, to her knowledge, Sarah is still living in town.

It was very strange and surreal. My husband thought it was Providence. "There are no coincidences." Maybe these girls will meet again someday. At any rate, I am glad that the girls are safe. And I hope that Sarah is safe too. I have no idea what is going on with her, but it makes me very sad to think that this girl who was trying so hard to turn her life around (placing Olivia with us, trying to reunite with her girls' father to put a family together, trying to provide some stability for her girls) has had her life spiral so far out of control that she's lost custody of her girls less than a year after giving birth to Olivia.

*Name changed.

One-year preparations

I've been thinking for a long time about what to prepare for Olivia's birthday. My sister-in-law had a scrapbook all made up for her son's first year for party-goers to peruse. But let's face it...since I haven't even STARTED her scrapbook yet, chances of completing it in three weeks are pretty slim.

So I decided to go with the much easier-to-create and more visually stimulating DVD photo montage. I can add my own music, text and effects and load up photos from her first year. Since many of her best photos have been posted here or on my photo blog, I already have them loaded on my computer which makes this pretty easy.

Unfortunately, I haven't yet been able to find downloadable software for anything other than trial versions of programs that can create this kind of DVD. I am willing to spend money on it if I HAVE to, but first I thought I'd throw the question out there and see if any of you know of any kind of free programs online that create a nice, quality photo montage. Something that can be loaded on DVD.

Bring on the suggestions. And if you've used a program that you paid for, what was it, how much was it, and how did you like it?