Aren't These Little Quizzes Fun?

You Are an Excellent Cook

You're a top cook, but you weren't born that way. It's taken a lot of practice, a lot of experimenting, and a lot of learning. It's likely that you have what it takes to be a top chef, should you have the desire...

Are You A Good Cook?

Food for Thought

I attended a workshop the week after summer break started. As workshops go, it wasn’t bad. I actually got some useful information. The facilitator passed out several handouts that were for us to read later. This was one of them. I had seen these statistics before, but I still find the information quite interesting.

The Global Village

If the world’s population of nearly 5 billion people was reduced to a village of 100 people, this would be the result:

Area
58 would be Asians
12 would be Africans
10 would be Western Europeans
8 would be Latin Americans
5 would be North Americans
1 would be an Australian or a New Zealander

Language
17 people would speak Mandarin
9 would speak English
8 would speak Hindi or Urdu
6 would speak Russian
6 would speak Spanish
4 would speak Arabic
The rest would speak Bengali, Portuguese, Indonesian, Japanese, German, French, or any of the other 200 languages

Religion
29 would be Christians
17 would have no religion
14 would be Muslims
13 would be Hindus
12 would be Buddhists
9 would be Confucian and Shinto
5 would be Animist
1 would be Jewish

Education
70 would be illiterate
1 would have a college education

Unheard Voices: Celebrating Cultures from the Developing World

Sleepless Night

Last night, at about 10:30, I decided to take one last peek and see if anything new had developed. I was so excited that sleep was no longer an option. I was awake for hours lying in the dark and making to-do lists. The last few months have felt like a limbo while we waited. Some days I was optimistic. My agency had never had a dossier rejected...that is good. Other days, I would think, "but the CCAA is getting stricter. What if we're the first!" That was bad. Up and down. Now the roller coaster ride hasn't ended, but we've just come down a really big hill. This means we've passed through the second of three stages at the CCAA. The first was translation. The second is when they review the dossiers and make sure everything is okay, and the third is matching! Our dossier has now passed review and been sent to the matching room.

The matching room is still pretty full, so this isn't going to affect the timing of when we receive our referral. It's just really nice to know that we've been officially, and finally, approved by China to adopt. I feel like I can move forward on so many things that I had just put to the side. It's a beautiful day, and I'm going shopping! First, to the Farmer's Market, then on to buy some supplies to get the nursery started. What a great start to the weekend!

Referral News for Rest of June

This is good news. I was hoping to see the rest of June in June. Getting to the 28th is great. Now we need the second part of my best-case scenario to come true. That would be for July to get through most of July. It's been stated that China wants to get the wait to approximately 12 months. If July gets most of July, then we're there. That would mean we could start to plan on getting our referral around October. Keep your fingers crossed for us and everyone else who's waiting. The only thing that would have made this better is if the review date had changed to October 31, 2005.

I am a Verbal Chameleon

And here's the proof. I knew that my accent changed depending on where I lived, but here's the proof that I have a little bit of everything in my accent. I guess living "up North" for seven years has had an impact, too. I am curious about the missing 5%?

Your Linguistic Profile::

40% General American English

25% Dixie

20% Yankee

10% Upper Midwestern

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

8 Months

Not much to say today. Just wanted to note that it's now been 8 months since our dossier was logged in. I hope I can honestly say that we should be well past the half-way mark.

School's Out for Summer

Sing the title doing your best Alice Cooper impersonation!

I'm officially off until August 14th, and I am exhausted. I'm also excited. I have some projects lined up for the summer and hope it's a good one. I plan to finally break in my new sewing machine by piecing together my 100 Good Wishes Quilt. I'm still short a few from 100 squares, but I still have plenty to make a quilt. I can also put together the scrapbook of wishes. I'm also going to reorganize my pantry and linen closet and make some changes to the master bedroom. Jealous yet? The project I'm most looking forward to is next month. My three sisters will be visiting and we're going to work on the nursery. I can't wait.

I put the guestbook link back in because I've had some complaints about having to register with Blogger in order to comment. Feel free to comment in either place.

And Which One Are You?

You Are Pecan Pie Soda

Sweet, but totally nuts

What Jones Holiday Soda Are You?