Paperwork patience and dining out

So it's been a while since I've updated....sorry!! We had a GREAT meeting with our caseworker, he was super nice and we basically just had a get to know you meeting. He did a cursory walk-through of our apartment and spent most of his visit (just over an hour) talking with us about everything. Where we're from, what kind of music/movies we like, where we work. That kind of stuff. He forgot our paperwork because it accidentally got mailed to us, so I got it the Wednesday after he meet with us (more on that later). We found out that the reason he hadn't gotten ahold of us, and why we'd seen no forward motion mostly likely had to do with our fingerprints...The way those work is they take a digital scan of our prints. Then they are sent to the state for processing, if they don't get a good enough scan than they send them back once a week for 4 weeks. After that point they bring someone in who can digitally clean up our scans, if that doesn't work we have to get printed again. The way our caseworker works it that usually he waits til the scans our back in case something is in our past that would need to be addressed. But because I'm so persistent he agreed to meet with us and trust us when we said we aren't criminals!
So now on to the paperwork! HOLY COW!! Between the two of us there are 25 pages worth of paperwork in this step. Each of us has 12 pages of paperwork that is all details of our own childhood, relationships with family, ideas on discipline, how we think our lives will change with a kid that kind of stuff. So it's not paperwork that is super easy to fill out, it requires a lot of introspection and writing! I think the hardest question for me was what was my favorite childhood memory and worst memory. The favorite wasn't hard, I have great memories of playing with my cousins as a child.
It was the bad memory that was harder for me, not because I couldn't think of one, but because I couldn't choose the worst one. Do I choose the memory of going to my friends funeral as a freshman, or my grandpa's, grandma's? Do I choose moving away from family and friends to a HUGE new school? How bout my relationship with my dad? Never easy things to deal with I didn't know what to choose... so it was stuff like that in these questions. Nothing real easy, other than the describe your house ones haha. But I got mine done, now I have to wait patiently for Mark to do his, he has a HUGE family which makes his so much longer to fill out, and he doesn't have as much time as I do to fill out paperwork. So I'm lucky if he can get 2 or 3 questions a night done. So I have to be careful not to push him to much to do them. I want him to want to fill out the paperwork.
So now on to dining out, we use this budgeting website called www.mint.com this is a site that takes all the information from all of your banking/loan/credit card's and complies that for an easy to read graph. I realized that our food budget was pretty evenly split between groceries and dining out! Not that I'm worried about our bills, or anything we can completely afford our dining out habit, but what would I be able to do with that money if we ate at home more? Would I be able to buy more organic, but less pre-packaged/unhealthy foods? As I get closer and closer to being a mom I wonder more and more about how am I going to feed my family. I would love to be one of those super organized mom's/people who plans out a weeks worth of meals, and goes grocery shopping for just what we need. But I'm so not! I go grocery shopping and buy whatever I 'feel' like getting, dinner is whatever I 'feel' like making, and on those occasions (which are pretty frequent) when I don't 'feel' like making dinner, or nothing 'sounds' good we go out, or order Panera Bread. I REALLY need to work on that. I want to have it planned, so Mark can just throw dinner in the oven, or so that I can know that my kids/family are eating something healthy and as a result have something for Mark to take to work for lunch. SO I just wonder what everyone else does. I know where I learned my habits, it's exactly what my mom does, no fault to her it's not a bad way to live, but I have always dreamed of being one of those super organized, graceful, generous people and well I'm a total klutz, will never be considered graceful. I think I'm doin ok on the generous part, but is there hope for organized? That remains to be seen.

Patience is a Virtue

So not a whole lot has happened on the adoption front, we haven't heard yet from our caseworker and I called the other day but didn't hear back. So will be calling them again today. So we're basically just waiting, and I don't do that well. We're going to have to figure out when there are PRIDE trainings available, I know that will my school schedule I will not be able to do Saturdays, but I should be able to do the evenings ones during the week. Mark has been working a lot of hours, which is good, but they've been working a lot of Saturdays and so he probably won't be able to do the Saturday class either.
I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, scary I know. Mark and I have both agreed that we are going to continue to try and have a baby. So we needed to have a serious conversation in regards to what we would do if by some miracle we get pregnant. What we've come up with is that if we get pregnant before we are to far in the adoption process than we will focus our efforts on the baby and re-evalute for adoption in another year or two.
Because adoption is something we are planning on doing regardless of how many kids we have biologically. If we get to the point in adoption where we're looking at specific kids and our homestudy has gone through and all that then we will stop trying to have a baby and focus all our attention on our new child. (as it should be). ANd if by some chance we find out we're pregnant the same day we sign for the adoption, or have started talking seriously with the worker of a specific child, than we won't pull out on the adoption cause that would be cruel, so we'd just make sure the new child would be ok with a baby on the way and trust God to provide for us and help us be good parents to both. But the problem I'm having a hard time with is deciding which one do I hope for more? Of course I want a baby more than anything, but I also have always felt such a calling towards adoption and every time I look at the MARE website my heart breaks for these kids and I would love to bring all of them home. So while we are completely happy with however we start our family in my mind I struggle with which one do I hope happens more? Cause it's not as if we don't have some say in how much effort we put towards both, I'm 2.5 months away from the 6 month period my doctor reccommended before we go to a specialist (which for us would merely mean taking oral hormones since we won't be doing in-vetro).
So do we make that appointment, or do we continue with the adoption, how can I put my mind 100% towards both? I think it is easier for Mark because A. he is so laid back and B. it's not really his body that will be doing all the work. I'm just so torn right now. So my prayer every night is for God to show me which is his will, because I'm so not sure. I want a family, and know that is in the cards for us, but if He could just give me a sign as to which one is for us right now I'd really appreciate it!! I don't want to be like Sarai and not trust God for a child, but I do know that adoption is such a great thing. So welcome to my mind, and keep me in your prayers so I don't go crazy trying to figure this out. And don't think badly of me that I sorta hope we get option C. (baby and adoption) haha cause I want my cake and eat it to!!!