The past few days have been pretty distressing for a variety of reasons, chief among them the fact that being a parent to a teenager IS truly a nightmare. It's worse than nailing jello to a tree. Add to it the fact my daughter spent nearly 7 years in Russian orphanages and learned a lot of bad behaviors that years of love and therapy haven't wiped out, and you have one stressed mama.
I don't want to go into details of the issues here publicly, but I will say this - Alesia is grounded until the end of April. So you get an idea of the stress level.
Just when I think my life and my woes are way worse than anyone else's, I read about a family struggling to adopt a precious baby girl from Eastern Europe, a baby with limb differences.
This family has a lot of what we call gumption, though. They are raffling off an iPad 2 in order to raise funds for the adoption. Pretty clever. If you want a chance to win, please see their blog. Please re-post on Facebook and help in any way you can, even if, like me, you are short of funds. The longer a child spends in an orphanage, the worse the issues are later..
One of the nicest things the government has ever done is give adoptive parents a sweet tax credit to help them pay off adoption expenses. Unless you adopt from foster care domestically, you are looking at expenses of $15-50,000 in most cases. Costs vary widely depending on the country. The tax credit really helps. The only catch is you can't get the money until after you have adopted.
There's not much else I want to say but I will leave you with a funny:
Just in case you need a laugh: Remember it takes a college degree to fly a plane, but only a high school diploma to fix one; a reassurance to those of us who fly routinely in our jobs. After every flight, airline pilots fill out a form, called a 'gripe sheet,' which tells mechanics about problems with the aircraft. The mechanics correct the problems, document their repairs on the form, and then pilots review the gripe sheets before the next flight. Never let it be said that ground crews lack a sense of humor. Here are some actual maintenance complaints submitted by UPS pilots (marked with a P) and the solutions recorded (marked with an S) by maintenance engineers. P: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement. S: Almost replaced left inside main tire. * P: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough. S: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft. * P: Something loose in cockpit. S: Something tightened in cockpit. * P: Dead bugs on windshield. S: Live bugs on back-order. * P: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200-feet-per-minute descent. S: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.. * P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear. S: Evidence removed. * P: DME volume unbelievably loud. S: DME volume set to more believable level. * P: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick. S: That's what friction locks are for. * P: IFF inoperative in OFF mode. S: IFF is always inoperative in OFF mode. * P: Suspected crack in windshield. S: Suspect you're right. * P: Number 3 engine missing. S: Engine found on right wing after brief search. * P: Aircraft handles funny. (I love this one!) S: Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right and be serious. * P:Target radar hums. S: Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics.. * P: Mouse in cockpit. S: Cat installed.. * And the best one for last * P: Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding on something with a hammer. S: Took hammer away from the midget. |
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