A First Name and a Birthday

Twenty seven years ago last Friday, I gave birth to a baby girl. There is a long, rather uninteresting story that led up to this event. Suffice it to say, at age twenty, I was in no position or in any way prepared to raise a child, regardless of how much I wanted to keep her.

So after much soul searching and many tears, I knew what I had to do. Giving her up was the only option that was best for her - for everyone. My family doctor knew a couple who had been waiting to adopt for many years. They had their attorney. I had mine - they paid for everything. I crocheted a blanket and a hat for the baby, but have no idea if she ever saw them. Otherwise, all I had to do was keep myself and the baby healthy and show up. Then I held her for a little while before they came to get her. She was so beautiful.

Shortly afterwards, my mom came home with some interesting news. One of the women she worked with knew the family. She said they'd named the baby Nicole. Later, when mom asked if she knew anything else, she hemmed and hawed and said little. Apparently she'd been told to keep quiet on the subject.

So, for the past 27 years, I've only had a first name and a birthday. I hired a hobby PI three years ago to see if he could find her. He was no help. During the past month or so I've started to frequent Facebook. Her birthday was last Friday, so she's been in my thoughts more often. Last night I took a chance - and did a profile search with a first name and a birthday. I knew it was a long shot...

I believe I've found her. She's still beautiful and looks very happy. According to her profile, she's very well educated, employed, popular, and appears to be thriving. It's all I ever hoped for - and couldn't have given her. Maybe that's all I really need to know...

There's more, actually. She's got a nose like Hayley's and my eyes. She likes historical fiction and a doesn't seem to think anything of driving halfway across the country for a weekend vacation. It doesn't seem possible that it's not her.

Of course, there is the possibility that the first name, the birthday and the rest are coincidence.

But, since I've found this young woman, my gut is telling me that it would be too much of a coincidence - that maybe, just maybe - a missing piece of my life - of my heart - has been found.

Tee hee....and I thought I was out of work for a long time!!

So Much Drama.....

As you may have seen, since Stevie's been quicker on the blog than I, we have come up with the seed of a plan (and said it out loud!). A celebration of Springtime in New York 2013, a first 'reunion' of those of us whose lives have touched through Blogger.

Considerable cultural drama has been growing up around the idea that the world as we know it will come to an end on December 21, 2012 - Cults are starting and it's not hard to find people posting their plans on the internet, as if they had been told by their doctors that their lives would end on that day! Cowards, I say.

Headlines say "Scientists Predict" and "The End is Near", but nobody knows what form this 'end' may take, how it may come about, or how much of an 'end' it will be - if anything happens at all. Much of the speculation combines a lot of different manmade and climatic phenomena that would change world geography - things like pole shifts, global warming, increased vulcanism, nuclear holocaust or rogue asteroids - the usual suspects. Others believe this 'end' will involve paradigm shifts of some kind and/or revolutions in religion or governments. Regardless of the form of the change, it is generally agreed that civilization will enter into a new era after 12/21/12. We'll see.

The crux of all of this speculation revolves around the historically accurate, astronomically based Mayan calendar. A major segment of which ends every 256 years, usually with some type of paradigm shift, cataclysm or disaster. This is what all the 'end of the world' fuss is about. Actually, the majority of said cataclysms or disasters have occurred on a local scale, as civilizations go, ie. the fall of the Aztecs to Cortez.

Frankly, I think there are Mayan astronomers looking down on all this drama and ROFL at all of us - to think their little calendar is causing all this drama in the 21st century!

So, the current segment ends December 21, 2012; and assuming that New York City is still there afterwards - let's get together to finally meet, and celebrate the beginning of the new era!



...still...maybe we should keep Toronto or Chicago on standby....

...and now for something completely different

Welcome to the Iowa State Fair!

You just can't write this stuff!!!

Enjoy.

Hayley's Home!!!

And she loves her room...

(which is, by the way, now finished... finally)
















...and her lamp...

















...and her dog, poor thing (Honeybear, I mean)
She is also enjoying having her computer in her room, but she does venture out. The girl is wasting no time and has a boyfriend now, her first 'official' one. Donovan's a good kid and she's known him for about three years. Yes, he knows about Mellow Yellow. He has also walked the approximately eight miles from his house to ours to see her! They don't 'date', but they 'hang out' and go to movies with other friends, one of whom has guitars and a theater size tv in his basement!













Hayley and her friend Lindy went 'cos-playing' last Friday. Lindy's parents presided over that evening's activities. An explanation of cosplay may require its own blog, and I'm bad enough about maintaining this one! Suffice it to say that they dress up like characters in anime shows and go out in public. They're such geeks! (but in such a good way)













It just does my heart good to see her happy and having some summer fun with her friends. Hayley hasn't spent most of a summer here.....ever. She's usually with Ian for six to eight weeks of the 11-12 weeks between school's out and school's in, so this is new for us, and much more normal for her, I think.

Anyway, she's been home for two weeks now and so far, so good! It's absolutely wonderful to have her back! There was a great big empty in my soul while she was gone and now it's been filled.

It also appears that my evil plan has succeeded. Hayley definitely seems much more emotionally mature and grounded than she was before - more so than can be explained by simply being a year older...and a couple of inches taller...

Remodeling Progress...

Just a few photos to share our progress. Blogger isn't cooperating very well and I can't seem to upload any more!

The popcorn is off all four walls now. We stripped off the last of the underlying paint today.

A few patches and a lot of sanding and these last two walls will be ready to primer, too. Then the ceiling...I painted those clouds myself about six years ago. You can see them better in the first picture on my Happy Holidays post.













You can't really tell in these before & after photos, but the formerly white walls had the texture of (very hard) cottage cheese.

The brown (?) walls sure are ugly, but they're very smooth!

Happy Holidays...

Just in case any of you were wondering how Randy and I have been spending our (mostly) childless holiday season, here's your answer.

We also spent time with family and friends and we did go see National Treasure and we have just taken time out to relax, so it's all good, but we have this humongous task to tackle; and I made a promise to a certain fourteen-year-old with purple hair who shall remain nameless. So we've been up to our butts in plaster dust for the last couple of days. We tackled one of the big walls this afternoon.
Our house was built in 1942 and has slateboard walls. Lovely aren't they? (Yes, that's a towel on the door. That's another story that I may need permission to tell....)

One of the former owners decided that it was too much work to patch up a few holes in the bedroom that is now Hayley's (oops!). The solution they chose was to spray ceiling popcorn on all four walls... I just thank our lucky stars that they didn't put it on the ceiling too!

Anyway, our task is now to take it off the walls. We would have started sooner, but I had to have the stuff tested for asbestos first. The test was negative, so off we went. Some of it got done before Christmas, but unfortunately it's not quite as simple as just taking off the popcorn. Underneath the popcorn is a hodgepodge of finishes - most of which have to come off so we can properly prepare the walls for paint.

I can only imagine what this room has looked like in the past....yuk.