chicken and black bean soup

I go through food phases. Current phase, beans. Over the weekend it was Indian spiced vegetables with chick peas, really good!! Today it's a black bean soup. I found this recipe in my favorite Rachael Ray 365: No Repeats cookbook (thanks Audrey)

ingredients
-2 tablespoons olive oil
-1 pound of chicken cut into bite size pieces
-1 tablespoon of cumin
-1 1/2 tablespoons of coriander
-1 chipotle chili pepper in adobo sauce, chopped (add more if you like the heat)
-1 large onion
-10 oz package of frozen corn
-1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
-3 tablespoons of flour
-1 quart of chicken stock
-can of black beans
-juice of a lime

1. Heat a soup pot over medium high heat and add the oil.
2. Add the chicken, cumin, coriander, chipotle pepper, salt and pepper. Cook for about 4 minutes.
3. Add the onions, corn, and red bell pepper. Cook for about 3 minutes.
4. Dust everything with the flour and cook for a minute then add in the chicken stock and black beans.
5. Simmer for 15 minutes. Squeeze in the juice of a lime right before serving.

I like to eat this soup with a toasted tortilla. Just brush a tortilla with some oil, add salt, and bake until it looks crisp and delicious.

weakness

I go shopping on black friday. Not crazy Thanksgiving night shopping, or line up at 3am shopping, no running and pushing shopping, more like non aggressive 7am shopping. I visit my favorite places then go home and make breakfast.
This year I picked up a few good deals, a printer, some fleece lined pants for our kid, and a mop (thrilling). However, no shopping trip is complete without a trip to Banana Republic. They were having a 40% off everything sale, which is good because the store is so very over priced. Of course I found a skirt, I can always find a skirt, I have so many many skirts. But listen, it was $79.50 marked down to $12.97 with 40% off that equals $7.78. Well it is a size too big but nutella was on sale at Target, so I'm sure everything will work out.

happy anniversary

Today, our little blog is celebrating it's one year anniversary. I started our blog, not because I have anything very exciting to say, but because when researching adoption I poured over blog after blog. Regular people just writing the stories of what happened to them, how their journey went, how to pack for the trip, the joy, the pain, every detail with no reason to fabricate. Regular people not representing anyone but their family and their journey willing to share and help others...a wonderful thing. A thing that I wanted to be a part of.

This first "blog year" was adventurous to say the least...
-decided to adopt
-switched from Kazakhstan to Russia
-learned as much Russian as my brain could hold, an on going process
-became a master a paperwork
-psych test says I'm a pollyanna, it's all good
-got a referral
-Jim got a new job
-2 canceled trips to Russia
-our first referral was adopted by Russians
-got a new referral
-added insane amounts of adoption jargon to my everyday vocabulary
-decided not to be a teacher this school year
-became a tutor, nanny and cook
-moved to Kansas
-missed Nebraska
-learned that I'm not a criminal in Nebraska or Kansas
-sold our house (in 5 days)
-went to Russia
-figured out the Moscow Metro and Airport Train
-visited our kid at his orphanage
-bought a new house
-cheered for the Chiefs
-started a little cookie club (the most fun ever)

I'm still positive that next year is going to be even more exciting.

let's just calm down

Turn on the news and at some point in the broadcast you will get to hear about TSA body scanners or pat downs. People are angry, outraged, protesting in their underwear. It's all a little crazy to me. Part of the adoption process involves me trusting that I am on an airplane filled with people as boring and threat-less as me. Come on, wouldn't you be upset if your adoption was finalized and you just had to make it back home then some foolish angry person did some crazy thing with a bottle of water, a nail file and more than 3oz of toothpaste? I'm not willing to risk it. Scan me, scan our Russian, scan Jim, scan everyone.
Now I have no idea why on earth you would choose the pat down option. That is nuts. I don't need people that close. If the pat down was the only option I would be unhappy. But people this scan takes less than 5 seconds and I'm pretty sure these TSA workers could care less about anything on the image accept that long list of highly dangerous forbidden airplane items.
Walk in, arms up, next...it's just that simple.

cranberry bliss bars, order some soon

The cranberry bliss bar is how Starbucks welcomes the holiday season. These things are delicious. A chewy ginger spiced brownie filled with crasins and white chocolate topped with a cream cheese frosting, just perfect. Well mostly perfect. Downfall...over priced.

Instead of supporting Starbucks consider supporting our adoption through this excellent holiday offer.
-24 delicious cranberry bliss bars
-delivered to your door or your mother's door, or your grandmother's, or your friend's door, etc..
-$20

How to order
-send me an email at trisha.tylick@gmail.com

today, not my favorite

Went out to Topeka this morning to get our documents apostilled. Was feeling very optimistic. However, Georgia the lady from the secretary of state's office tells me she can't take care of documents from other states. Well of course she can't. How did I let that slide? Whatever, I figure it can't be too hard to fix. Our letter from the realtor was notarized in Missouri. I drive from one Secretary of State's office to another keeping in mind that I need to pick up a three year old kid I nanny from preschool at 11:20. Cranky lady in Missouri doesn't like the wording on my document. I tell her "Russia told me to do it" then I start crying like a crazy person, which is pretty uncommon. She takes the document and says she will see what she can do, I calm down, she returns, they can't do it. Turns out they can't do it because the notary had a bad certification number. Annoyed.

I break the news to our realtor that her notary girl is no good and I would like her to please print the document out again and find a different notary. She gets it done, but I can't make it back to the cranky ladies office because I have to work...sending Jim to do it tomorrow because I have to drive to Lincoln after work tomorrow to visit their Secretary of State.

Dossier in the mail, hopefully Wednesday. Social worker seems to think travel is not going to happen until February or later. Annoyed.

but blue is my favorite and my best

When you know what you like, why would you switch to something else? Today we met with our painter. I thought it was going to be a fun time and easy time. Man, I was wrong. When we bought our first house, in Boston, the whole thing was builder beige. I like beige because it's a nice neutral and very easy to change and change we did. Bold blue in our tiny living room. A fun green in the hallway. Sunny yellow in the office and Russian Blue (actual name) in our bedroom. Colorful. No one said it looked bad I guess my friends are just nice. In Lincoln we kept most of those colors. However, our living room was very large so we moved on to a nice green/grey. (Fisherman's net)

I'm okay with change, but again when you know what you like why would you. The painter guy stops by today and asks if we thought about colors. We say yes but we would like his input. He mentions green is very popular these days, great I like green. Okay this painter guys definition of green is much different than mine. His green is brown trying to dress up as green, and I'm just not a huge fan. I show him our Fisherman's net sample. He says it's too light and if you're going to have light trim you need to have dark walls, but I don't want dark walls. He has forgotten I'm in charge and now Jim is starting to agree with him. It's going down hill. Somehow instead the lovely net color "we" end up picking relaxed khaki for the main living areas. Okay, could anything sound more lame or boring than relaxed khaki? Clearly this man does not know we are young and fun 20 somethings. People in their 20's do not paint their house relaxed khaki. He mentions that due to our "track record" we need to keep resale in mind. Well we have sold two house so far and the last one sold in 5 days. I'm not sure our paint choices held us back.

Moving on. Some other green dressed up as brown is chosen for the dining room. Yeah, anything is better than the santa red that the room is currently rocking. At this point I'm still okay, but not nearly as happy as I had hoped to be. We go up stairs to the under two year old's room. I show him the paint sample that I want. It's a nice light blue color called atmosphere blue, sounds lovely...right? He tells me that no one here paints anything blue. No one likes blue and your house will not resell if the rooms are blue. But I love blue. Blue is my favorite. I've been looking at this paint chip for months. Just do what I say! He can tell I'm getting upset and finally says well if we go with this blue I should change the curtains. Well I'm not.

Some other awful earth tone color is chosen for our bedroom and guest room. I have given up and am clearly out number by the earth tone loving men in the room. Finally, the painter leaves and we carry on with the day. Watch the Chiefs loose, have bible study, watch a little of the Patriots game, go to bed, and then I loose it. I don't want stupid mid west earth tones. I like blue and back home in Boston that was always okay.

Wow, a whole entry about paint. Sorry.

kansas question

Monday I'm going to drive out to Topeka to get our dossier documents apostilled. I am hoping to wait for them to do it but I have to be at work at 11:15 and it's about an hour drive Any idea how long it takes to get the documents apostilled?

I figure if I have to leave for work I can give them a FedEx envelope to mail it to me, but I prefer the instant gratification, who doesn't?

big leap....forward

Our updated I-171H arrived today, our documents have all been approved by our caseworker, and a trip to Topeka, to get everything apostilled, has been planned for Monday morning. Granted everything goes well I'll be able to submit our court dossier Tuesday or Wednesday.

Here are the next few steps...
-submit court dossier to our agency in IL
-dossier gets sent to Russia to be translated
-dossier gets delivered to our judge and she reads it
-hopefully the judge takes one glance at our dossier and thinks "I need to meet those people. Get them over here, now."

the database

The Russian database for orphans is a huge Russian website that lists many many children that are up for adoption. I find this a little odd since Russia is so fussy about not leaking photos of the orphans. I guess they think if the site is in Russian we will leave it be. However, google translate can help you read anything! For a large number of parents adopting, from Russia, this is where you will find a photo of your child at their youngest...unless you are lucky and get one from court or the orphanage.

When we received our first referral, last February, I went straight there to find a picture of his younger self. It was sweet and I recognized him right away. I'll admit I was a little jaded after we lost our referral. I was thrilled he was adopted by a Russian family that also adopted his older brother, but it was still a little of a loss for us.

When we received our current referral I didn't go search for him. When we arrived in Kemerovo, this summer we were taken straight to some adoption worker at some important office building (jet lag and lack of sleep make the details a bit foggy) I can't remember her title, but her job is to look intimidating in a tweet suit, not smile, and check through your paperwork then decide if she is going to give you a referral. She decided we were good enough to be offered a referral then went rambling though his brief medical history and flashed us a small grainy photo and asked if we were interested....um yes!

Tonight, I finally decided to go search for him on the database. I wanted a closer look at that grainy image of his younger self. Besides a photo they have a section that says character. His character description says lively and smiling, well that was the translation according to google. Man, if only the U.S. government could get it together we could be on our way to our seeing our lively and smiling under two year old before he turns eight.

no, just do what I say

I hate doing paperwork. It was, in my mind, always the worst part of being a teacher. For almost the past year my life has revolved around perfecting paperwork. Each adoption document needs to be treated as it is the most important paper you have ever printed and carried around, or is that just me? Anyway, everything needs to be just so...spelled properly, formatted as instructed, signed the right way, blah, blah, blah. This is all fine when I'm in charge of the papers, but when I need someone else to do something it is such a production.

Last week we got our medical forms filled out by the doctor. His attitude was wonderful, and he
"jumped through all the hoops" just like I needed him to. He only mildly complained about Russia's requirements. Perfect.

Fast forward to today. I take a stack of 6 cover sheets to the bank that I need to get notarized. I get Jim to leave work for a little while so we can get this taken care of. I've made a bunch of these cover sheets before and gotten them notarized. All the notary needs to do is fill in the date, sign, stamp...it's not rocket science. Well this guy has taken notarying to the next level. He is a notary guru, in his mind. He does not like our cover sheets. What? It's not for you to judge. Russia says this is what they like, this is what we do. Not notary guru, he cares little about Russia. He starts writing all these extra things on our papers, Jim looks at me like "yeah I know print them all again and try a different bank" This had not happened to us before but now when we go we will bring multiple copies and be more forceful and certainly not go back to that particular bank of america branch.

Still waiting on that promise of a rushed I-171H...say a prayer it comes this week.

don't save it for good

As a kid I played with all my toys. I never collected anything and left it in its perfect packaging with hopes of scoring big on ebay sales. I'm the same way now. For our wedding we got some pretty Spode Christmas china. It's lovely and really should only be used from after Thanksgiving until New Years Day. That's a short time frame, so I better use it for every meal between those two holidays....Jim has a different view on the Christmas china. In his mind we should "save it for good" I say well, I cooked you dinner so it seems like a good day for you!

Finally, Jim gave me my birthday present. Gift day = November 2. Actual birthday = August 18....better late than never? I guess. Anyway, it was a new cookbook. If you know me, you know that's a good gift choice. It's a Top Chief cookbook that shares recipes and lessons from various Top Chief contestants. The book is signed by Rick Bayless. Rick Bayless is a great chief. I enjoy his thoughts on food and like watching his show on PBS. I'm just not sure him signing my book is going to improve my cooking in any way. I only mention this because the other day I was watching a TV show that said you should photocopy pages out of your cookbooks...especially your signed cookbooks, so they don't decrease in value. Value? The value in a cookbook is how many pages have olive oil stains on them. The value is how much fun you have when you make the food and share it with others.

Stop saving for good! Today is as good a day as any.

can you love him like your own?

This time last year Jim and I traveled back home to Boston to see our friends and family. Adoption was on our mind and we talked to everyone about our idea of possibly adopting from Kazakhstan, wow a lot can change in a year. Most everyone we talked to supported the idea and seemed excited. People who had previously adopted gave us advice, our pastor said why wouldn't you, and our friends seems excited. Overall it was good.

However, there was one couple that questioned our thoughts on adoption. Besides wondering about common things like speech, language, and attachment they wondered about our ability to love this child "as our own." Forget about the "as your own" language. It hurts when people say that, but I understand what they are saying. I know they mean as your biological child (which we don't have). The problem is questioning our ability to love a kid, our kid. What? This "issue" never crossed my mind, should it have? A year has gone by since encountering this question and it has always been there in the back of my mind. I brought it back to the foreground and decided it is a non issue.