I'm going to open an Etsy store so that I can sell my adoption blankies! They will be a snuggly material on one side and a flag on the reverse side for the country that the child is from. I'm going to start with Ethiopia, but hope to branch out to other countries as well. I might also sell some other miscellaneous children's items as well eventually.
I was going to name my store "Stinky Pete's" because that started as a term of endearment between my husband and myself (somehow) while we were dating. But would you believe it, someone stole my name, but doesn't even have anything for sale! The nerve! :)
So, I need a name. I don't want something cutesy. I like clever sounding names. Something "cool". For instance, there is a very AWESOME STORE called "Uproar" that sells beautiful and unique homemade wool hats & booties for kids. It has a great name, the sale of the items are going toward adoption proceedings, and it has quality products. It's exactly what I'm going for. (Okay, full disclosure) It's also one of my sister's shops and was named by one of my other sisters... :) But it's still totally rocking and you should buy her stuff...
Uproar
Here's the point though! If you have a suggestion for a store name post it in the comments with some way for me to get back in touch with you...a name if you're on the Holt group, or your blog site, something... and then if I choose your name for my store I'll give you an ADOPTION FLAG BLANKIE FREE!!
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Lull
This next month is going to be a period of lull adoption-wise, I'm afraid. There's just no getting around it. We're a family in limbo. We spent last night in a hotel because our house is empty of furniture, we'll spend tonight in the hotel as well and have our "final out" Friday morning and then we'll be on the road.
We're not going to our next house quite yet though. First we have to drive across the country stopping in Colorado, Kentucky, and Ohio to visit family and have a vacation of sorts before settling into our new house in Maryland. We're talking about being "homeless" for a solid three weeks. It will be almost the end of September before we're in a house again.
It's a bittersweet thing. I'm SO excited to see family, mine & my husband's. I haven't been home in (by the time I get there) over 14 months. I haven't seen my Dad in 14 months!! We're really excited to have a chance to stay with our families to give our kids time to be loved on by their grandparents, aunts and uncles. They have cousins they need to play with and we'd like a chance to go out to dinner and see some movies while leaving our children worry-free with people who love them almost as much as we do. But, at the same time, this is another month that we're not getting our homestudy done, we're not making progress on the dossier, and my little girl is in Ethiopia without a family.
These are the adoption things I'm going to try and do:
We've been talking to Peanut about having a sister and showing him her pictures and telling him who she is and what kind of things they can do together, etc. It's the same way we prepared him for Pickle. So, first of all, he still thinks she's coming from Target (I think I put that in a previous blog) but then he'll talk about going to 'Thiopia and Africa (which he knows from "Madacascar") and then that sharply veers off into talking about Gloria and Melman and Marty and Alex and we loose him from there... We had a friend over briefly the other night who took our fish home with them and I showed her our little girl's picture and when Peanut saw it he said, "It's Hanet!" A sister!" It just made my heart happy. (I can post what he called her because that's not her name, but apparently that's what it sounds like to 2 year old ears...)
We're not going to our next house quite yet though. First we have to drive across the country stopping in Colorado, Kentucky, and Ohio to visit family and have a vacation of sorts before settling into our new house in Maryland. We're talking about being "homeless" for a solid three weeks. It will be almost the end of September before we're in a house again.
It's a bittersweet thing. I'm SO excited to see family, mine & my husband's. I haven't been home in (by the time I get there) over 14 months. I haven't seen my Dad in 14 months!! We're really excited to have a chance to stay with our families to give our kids time to be loved on by their grandparents, aunts and uncles. They have cousins they need to play with and we'd like a chance to go out to dinner and see some movies while leaving our children worry-free with people who love them almost as much as we do. But, at the same time, this is another month that we're not getting our homestudy done, we're not making progress on the dossier, and my little girl is in Ethiopia without a family.
These are the adoption things I'm going to try and do:
- Lots of adoption reading!
- There are some documents that we need to get to Holt with our official application & $$$ :)
- Get in touch with our home study agency and see if we can apply without actually being there yet.
- Try and start collecting various birth/marriage certificates
- Work on our adoption budget & fundraising ideas
- Try and get some time with my mom to start making our adoption blankies for Etsy (see next blog!!)
We've been talking to Peanut about having a sister and showing him her pictures and telling him who she is and what kind of things they can do together, etc. It's the same way we prepared him for Pickle. So, first of all, he still thinks she's coming from Target (I think I put that in a previous blog) but then he'll talk about going to 'Thiopia and Africa (which he knows from "Madacascar") and then that sharply veers off into talking about Gloria and Melman and Marty and Alex and we loose him from there... We had a friend over briefly the other night who took our fish home with them and I showed her our little girl's picture and when Peanut saw it he said, "It's Hanet!" A sister!" It just made my heart happy. (I can post what he called her because that's not her name, but apparently that's what it sounds like to 2 year old ears...)
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Garage Sale Update
Well, the garage sale was yesterday. We did sell a good amount of stuff, but not $250.00 worth. :( We made just under half that amount. Not bad for three hours though.
I have to say that I'm a little bit surprised about some of the things that sold. We sold a lot of the children's books and assorted toys and stuffed animals that I had put out and more of the miscellaneous things that I didn't really expect to sell. We did manage to sell a few of the bigger things that we didn't want to deal with moving: the grill, firepit, an old bike, an old tv, etc.
What did not sell was the baby clothes! The baby clothes that I spent probably three hours pricing. Ugh. I thought that was what people came to garage sales for! I'm slightly insulted (in a not serious way) because my boys wore nice clothes! The stuff was in good condition, was cute, and a lot of it was name brand stuff. I'm still surprised even when I'm typing this. The other thing that didn't sell was the baby carseat/stroller combo, oh and the baby bouncer seat. If those things had sold we would have gotten a lot closer to our goal.
I'm only slightly discouraged. I wanted to sell that stuff. On the other hand, we did make a good amount of money. Those nicer things we kept and I'm going to list them tonight on Craigslist and see if I can sell them that way before we leave. Otherwise we'll move them with us and we'll try again. I'd like to get in to one of those BIG garage sales, like a church-wide one or something like. Or maybe have another one with a little more publicity. The way I think about it now is that when I do sell those baby items (and I'm confident that I will, one way or another) we'll still get to $250.00 so I'm counting it as a success. :)
The stuff that didn't sell that we didn't want to deal with is going to Goodwill. Some of it is pretty nice, adult stuff, kid stuff, house stuff, but I figure that we can bless other people with it by making it more widely available by donating it. We also had an old computer desk and end table that didn't sell and we didn't want to deal with loading into the Jeep to take to Goodwill. We put them on the curb and within a few hours someone came for them.
It's actually a nice story because we just expected someone to take them. However, these two Latina women came up and rang the doorbell and they were so excited about the items. They were very nice, very friendly, and just had huge smiles as they asked about them. They wanted to know if they could buy them from us. I think they were both priced at $5-10. Since we put them out there for people to take I wasn't about to charge them for the items since they were polite enough to come up and ask so I told them just to take them free of charge. You would have thought that I had just offered them a winning lottery ticket. They were so sweet. So, that was all around good and made feel pretty happy that they found something that they needed.
On a random note, there was this other older man that stopped by our garage sale. He was very chatty. He bought a few things and then asked my husband if we had, and I quote, "A VEHICLE FOR SALE?" Who goes to garage sales and asks for a car?! First of all, he DROVE to our sale so he had a car and secondly we only have one car. It might not be much and we're going to have to sell it eventually (we can't put three carseats in it) but we still need it! Sorry, buddy.
Oh, hey, did I mention we're getting a daughter? :) It's so stinking awesome!
I have to say that I'm a little bit surprised about some of the things that sold. We sold a lot of the children's books and assorted toys and stuffed animals that I had put out and more of the miscellaneous things that I didn't really expect to sell. We did manage to sell a few of the bigger things that we didn't want to deal with moving: the grill, firepit, an old bike, an old tv, etc.
What did not sell was the baby clothes! The baby clothes that I spent probably three hours pricing. Ugh. I thought that was what people came to garage sales for! I'm slightly insulted (in a not serious way) because my boys wore nice clothes! The stuff was in good condition, was cute, and a lot of it was name brand stuff. I'm still surprised even when I'm typing this. The other thing that didn't sell was the baby carseat/stroller combo, oh and the baby bouncer seat. If those things had sold we would have gotten a lot closer to our goal.
I'm only slightly discouraged. I wanted to sell that stuff. On the other hand, we did make a good amount of money. Those nicer things we kept and I'm going to list them tonight on Craigslist and see if I can sell them that way before we leave. Otherwise we'll move them with us and we'll try again. I'd like to get in to one of those BIG garage sales, like a church-wide one or something like. Or maybe have another one with a little more publicity. The way I think about it now is that when I do sell those baby items (and I'm confident that I will, one way or another) we'll still get to $250.00 so I'm counting it as a success. :)
The stuff that didn't sell that we didn't want to deal with is going to Goodwill. Some of it is pretty nice, adult stuff, kid stuff, house stuff, but I figure that we can bless other people with it by making it more widely available by donating it. We also had an old computer desk and end table that didn't sell and we didn't want to deal with loading into the Jeep to take to Goodwill. We put them on the curb and within a few hours someone came for them.
It's actually a nice story because we just expected someone to take them. However, these two Latina women came up and rang the doorbell and they were so excited about the items. They were very nice, very friendly, and just had huge smiles as they asked about them. They wanted to know if they could buy them from us. I think they were both priced at $5-10. Since we put them out there for people to take I wasn't about to charge them for the items since they were polite enough to come up and ask so I told them just to take them free of charge. You would have thought that I had just offered them a winning lottery ticket. They were so sweet. So, that was all around good and made feel pretty happy that they found something that they needed.
On a random note, there was this other older man that stopped by our garage sale. He was very chatty. He bought a few things and then asked my husband if we had, and I quote, "A VEHICLE FOR SALE?" Who goes to garage sales and asks for a car?! First of all, he DROVE to our sale so he had a car and secondly we only have one car. It might not be much and we're going to have to sell it eventually (we can't put three carseats in it) but we still need it! Sorry, buddy.
Oh, hey, did I mention we're getting a daughter? :) It's so stinking awesome!
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