Just Slightly Stressed

To say I'm just a little stressed is an understatement! I talked with Katie, my social worker, on Friday at 5 PM about time for travel. I was hoping to leave the first week of September. My mom is not allowed to take off from her job at the school district in the month of April because it is the end of their fiscal year (she is assistant director of financial accouting), I am in the middle of a couple of patients at the outpatient clinic that I need to follow up on bracing for the children, I could begin my first two weeks at the schools, Konnor could attend his first week of second grade, etc, etc, etc.

Katie said I had to leave the first week of August because my immigration paperwork expires at that time! Yikes! I knew it expired soon, but thought it would be no big deal to get an extension. For those of you not familiar with international adoption information, you must get preapproval from the Citizenship and Immigration services to bring a child back into the country. It depends on your completed homestudy, fingerprints from the Dept. of Homeland Security, and other things. I would probably be able to update my homestudy and get an extension with no difficulty, but she didn't want it to cause any problems with the US Embassy in Delhi. Vijay, the orphanage director, schedules our Embassy appointment to obtain Shepherd's visa to come into the US. She wants to schedule it right away because of the dates on some of my paperwork, including my 171H (immigration paper). Katie says the embassy appointment will probably be on August 10th. She wants me to leave for India on the 8th. Since I want to see the Taj Mahal before we pick up Shepherd, I will be leaving earlier!

I am so not ready. I have sooooo many things to do to be ready to leave work, and have the house ready for me to leave, and find boarding for the dogs. My grandmother is going to be watching Marmaduke, but Daisy is a runner and so she has to be boarded. That means of trip up to Gainesville to drop off the animals. Sometimes I feel like I am about to lose my ever lovin' mind! I can not believe that in three short weeks, Brudder will be home! Yikes!! I need to get off this computer and start getting stuff done!