Spoke too soon....

In my last post I suggested that we'd be off to Tallahassee soon to get our documents apostilled and sent to Russia. The last background check was supposed to arrive within days, and I thought that once we got that our social worker would send our remaining documents immediately.

I forgot to "figure in" the fact that I was asking the social worker for 8 documents, and inevitably there would be a glitch in the first attempt at the documents. The social worker is not here in Gainesville, but elsewhere in FL, so everything is also delayed because we are sending these things through the mail instead of doing them in person (didn't realize there's be so much paperwork for them; thought it would just be the home visit, so we didn't realize the advantage of going local). So we are doing another round with the social worker, hoping to get everything next week. THEN we will be off to Tallahassee.

This is very frustrating, but (fortunately?) no agencies have been reaccreditted in Russia yet, so we aren't worried about losing our place in line while our paperwork is getting finished. The line simply isn't moving. There's no clear word on when it will start...the Russian government simply hasn't gotten any of the agencies' applications processed yet. The good news is that we know they are working on it -- some people who have gone to pick up their children recently (who are with the few remaining accredited agencies) have gotten more of an inside scoop. Sounds like some people think April will be our lucky month. I am not holding my breath.

I, for one, am trying to plan for fun things that we will be doing in the next few months, without assuming there will be a trip to Russia anytime soon. I've got a conference later this month, then we'll go to a wedding in early May, then I have another conference mid-May, then my brother will be visiting in late May, and then we will be going to Wisconsin (for a conference) and hopefully Minnesota in June. You may notice that conferences qualify as "fun" to me :)

And of course there is plenty to be done at work, so I am not at a loss for things to do! My ability to focus at work is sometimes a little lacking (don't know if I can blame that on the adoption or not!) so your prayers are appreciated as I try to prepare some more research for sending to academic journals. I'm happy to report that I passed my "3rd-year review", so I get to stay here at UF and keeping working toward tenure. I won't be evaluated for tenure for another 4-5 years, but publication cycles are SLOW in economics, so now is the time for me to be as productive as possible!

We'll let you all know when we have actually sent our documents to Russia - no false alarm this time!