The official USCIS approval

USCIS has officially approved us. Our agent is filling out our DS-230 and sending it off to China. China will check everything and then, in 3-4 weeks, give us our travel date. The travel date is 2-4 weeks from the date we hear from them.

We could travel as early as August 24 and hopefully no later than September.

And I continue to be worried about the renovations. I know my builder is recovering from some business-related misfortunes, and he's replaced the guy who was good at framing with another decent guy, but I feel he could be better and more efficient with our project. I know he couldn't put my roof on in the rain, and it rained every day for the entire month of June, but I'd really like a roof someday.

Mostly, I'd like to devote my headspace to preparing for the trip, and not have to divide it between adoption and construction. I'm not really getting the 'countdown to China' atmosphere I was imagining. It keeps getting interrupted by busted electrical circuits and guys using the bathroom.

But! There's plenty of prep to do, and I shall do it. We made a to-do list, even. It's loooong.

I don't panic under pressure. What I usually do is neglect responsibilities. And I've got some serious neglecting going on right now! Anything that's not adoption, construction, or job is subject to neglect. I haven't been cooking much, and I've hardly touched the comic book. My husband is worried that we won't publish it before the baby is home. I'm considerably less worried about that.

I am worried about the poison ivy in the yard. I know poison ivy is prolific, but it's discouraging to spray and spray and see it come back as lush as ever in a month.

The poison ivy is the object of my deferred worry. Deferring worry is a common coping mechanism. When a real worry threatens to be too overwhelming, you defer some of that worry to an unrelated object to ease its intensity. When I need to burn some worry, I think about the poison ivy. It's passive, it won't interfere with my trip to China, and it's believable enough so that people will sympathize with me rather than scold me. That last criterion is important. The more you obsess about your object of deferred worry, the more likely you are to want to mention it to other people. And other people may try to talk sense into you. They can't help it; they have a driving need to make sure you're sane and rational, and they'll tell you you worry too much every change they get. (Sometimes proactively. Yay, I love getting scolded before I do anything that makes people uncomfortable!)

So it's important to defer your worry to something that other people would worry about too. Poison ivy is perfect. Everyone dreads it.

(I know one guy who boasts he's immune to it every time he hears it mentioned.... ohh, I have a feeling that someday he'll eat his words. Poison ivy immunity is a fleeting thing.)