Last Home Study done! (and an unexpected game of 20 questions)

I spent most of the morning cleaning up the residue from the fire yesterday.  Despite the fact that the coffee Dave brought me yesterday was regular and not decaf, I just didn't have the energy to deep clean the whole kitchen last night, so we cleaned up the really bad parts of it, and saved the rest till this morning (although we did go to Wal-mart to replace the fire extinguisher, just in case it came up.  Which it didn't).

Turned out it wasn't anymore fun this morning that it had looked last night.

But, since we had our last home-study visit today, I was pretty sure we should get the residue from the fire extinguisher cleaned up.  I didn't think that a kitchen covered in post-fire messiness would really make us look like the safe, responsible type.  So, I gritted my teeth and tackled the oven.

Unfortunately, Easy-off is a slightly mis-leading name for the oven cleaner stuff.  It was not easy, nor is it all completely off the oven.  I also inhaled copious amounts of the cleaning chemicals during the process, which I did not enjoy. And at the end of it all, my house smelled like a cleaning supply warehouse.  Not exactly inviting.  So, I did what any normal slightly obsessive person would do:  I opened the windows, turned on fans, then baked brownies to cover the last of the chemical smells.  Worked like a charm.  Plus, now we have brownies to eat.  

Actually, back when Dave and I were dating, sometimes I would put cookies in the oven about 20 minutes before he would arrive to pick me up so that I could feed him warm cookies and the house would smell nice.  They say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, but I also think it's through his nose.  You know, good smells are attractive and such. 

But back to the homestudy. It all went well!  Well, except for one part.  I had been making coffee for every visit, just in case she was interested.  Today I found out that she hates even the smell of coffee.  Oops.  Lucky for us I don't think any points were deducted for all the coffee smells she's had to endure.

During one part of the study, she asked if there were any "other" things we thought she should know.  She said it with sort of a questioning look on her face, so I wasn't sure what to say.  Then, she reminded us that back in class #6, we were told about a question that DHS cannot ask us, but if we want them to know the answer, then we are free to tell them.  That sparked a memory, and I knew there was something that I had wanted to mention, but I couldn't figure out what.  So, I asked if we could play 20 questions.  She said yes. 

That was question one.

     Question 2:  "Does it have to do with religion?"

     "No."

     Question 3: "Does it have to do with race?"

     "Yes."

Then, I just said the first thing that popped into my mind (always a bad idea):

     "Do you need us to tell you we're white?"

     :::head in hands. "Um, no." 

(I guess that's pretty obvious when you look at our pale complexions...)

     "OH!  We are able to tell you at this point if we have any racial preferences 

       in the kids we'll adopt!"

     "Yes!"

     "Oh, we'll take any race."  

And thus ended our game of 20 questions.  

To be clear, she definitely stayed within the rules of not asking.  Mostly it turned into a game because I had that nagging feeling that there was something that we should say, and I pursued the subject.

Our social worker said she's working on our study next week, because we had all our paperwork done first.  Score!  She even showed it to us on her planner, which just warmed my heart. And, she said that the reference letters she received from my doctors answered her questions concerning my cancer history.  In the end, it's not her that approves the case study, she just creates the case study and gives a recommendation, but she seemed very optimistic.  So, if all goes well, we should be hearing back sometime in February.  

Hooray!