1. It's raining so hard outside right now that I actually had to turn on the office light to see the keyboard. If you are my mother or sister reading this, you are shocked. For the rest of you, I'll fill you in. We (L and I) rarely turn on any lights in our house. This is because we are cheap, not because we are mole people, as my family is wont to believe. Hatchling hasn't been able to sit through the entire orientation session yet, so he turns on every light he can find and wanders away as I frantically try to keep up behind him turning them off. Just to give you an idea, we have 54 canned lights in our house. This does not include ANY of the pretty fixtures. Oh yes, our electric bill has great upwards potential.

2. My goal is to keep my house clean enough that we never have to spray for bugs, at least INSIDE. So far, I have managed to do this since I was pregnant with Hatchling. Now that we have moved so far out in the country, it is harder. I'm trying though! My Dyson and I knocked out several new spider homes just yesterday. I've found that if you continually suck the little deviants up, the word gets out and the rest of the population moves on to the next house. Word to the insects- there's a new girl in town, and she's kickin' spidey tail!

3. I have been unable, in the almost 15 years I have been wearing make-up, to find a lipstick color that suits me. Instead, I wear chapstick flava-craze with everything. I find that it really makes the transition from day to evening with little trouble. After I had been married to L for a few years, my MIL once asked me, "Do you own any lipstick?" I think she wasn't asking because she's mean (which she isn't), but because she was truly baffled. To a woman who has an entire set of jewelry and a purse and shoes to match every outfit in her closet, I may be something of a disappointment as a daughter in law.

4. I'm an artsy person, but I cannot tolerate asymmetry in my household. This anomaly confounds and irritates my dear husband, so I don't really do anything to try and get over it (just kidding, honey! Seriously, I can't help it!).

5. I get totally freaky if my plans go awry. If we have a weekend of doing nothing planned, I am totally incapable of believing that we have nothing planned and therefore proceed to make up things that need to be done, just so we have something planned. And if we have something planned and L decides we aren't doing that, I'm totally thrown off balance. I mean, we planned it, how could we not do it? And I'm loads of fun on vacation... I once forced L to go to so many castles in the Irish countryside over a 5 day period that I will be lucky if he ever takes me to a country sporting castles again.

6. I can't think of a sixth one, so I'm going to let you, my favorite readers, submit the sixth weird thing about me in the comments. Be nice, I'm fragile!

For the next order of business, several kind people have asked where we are at with the adoption-smoption. Well, we decided not to go with the agency we were going to use who was closing their S. Korea program. Also, we decided against the only other agency in our state we could use for S. Korea as they won't let us choose the sex of our child. We really feel like a boy is what we want and need to complete our family. We think Hatchling would be closer to a brother as he grew up and as an adult, and we really want that for him. So, now we are leaning towards adopting a boy from Guatemala. As is generally the case in any decision we make, Guatemala is more expensive. Fabulous.

I have narrowed down a couple of agencies I would be comfortable using for a Guat. adoption, so I am gathering their information and doing copious amounts of internet research, as is my habit. That's how I cope, you know. Also, we have a friend who is adopting a little girl from Guatemala and he is going down to see her in a couple of weeks. We are waiting until he gets back to talk about the agency he is going through and get all of the specifics. Because of this, it will be mid- May before any real decision is made. Prayer requests, should you feel inclined to pray about this, are

• that we will feel sure this is the country we are supposed to adopt from
• that we choose the RIGHT agency
• that we pass our homestudy! (I'm terrified of this, I'm sure you'll hear lots more about it when the time comes!)
• and of course, that God brings the right child into our lives, and that we are the right parents for said child

If you're really lucky, I'll take a picture of Hatchling for you later. He had a collision with a rock hearth this weekend, and it wasn't pretty. Thank goodness we don't have to meet with a social worker this week... it looks like we took a bat to his face!