And this is what your file will eventually look like...

This is what your file at the CCAA will eventually look like. This file is in the post placement department at the CCAA. All the papers including your homestudy and post placement reports are placed inside a neat slim cardboard filing box and archived. Your child should be able to access the file when they reach 18 yo.

This photo was taken during a visit to the CCAA's previous premises in September 2005.

(it has taken me ages to upload this photo to the blog - I have been having problems with Blogger photos and had to do a work around - unfortunately I can't seem to get a larger size uploaded - hope you don't need a magnifying glass)

Zhōu Nián Kuài Lè !

Zhōu Nián Kuài Lè ! means Happy Anniversary.

Well the one year anniversary of our LID has passed. It is of course a bitter sweet milestone - one year down, another one or two to go - but at least that is one year we don't have to do again.

So how did we celebrate this milestone?

Well our dog (he is 9 months old so really still a big puppy) had planned a 'fireworks' display for us - I caught him chewing through the electrical cable to the external hot water heater - one more bite and it would have been BBQ Labrador! Fireworks averted. So I spent the anniversary waiting for the electrician (who assured me that it wasn't as bad as I thought - just needed to be reinsulated and replacement conduit added). Water heater is now barricaded and I am trying to think of new and exciting things to keep the dog occupied.

xū - Chinese word of the month

I was looking through some cards given to me for my birthday in 2006. One of them was from a close friend - it has a Chinese character on a floral background. The character (pictured) is xū. The card says that it is the I Ching character that means 'to wait' - it then says:

'If you have the patience and endurance all your dreams and wishes will be realised. Trying to hurry things along will result in disappointment'.
Now that is something to ponder!

I have checked my Chinese dictionary and the standard (non-I Ching) meaning of the character is:
需 xū - to require / to need / to want / necessity / need
(BTW if you can't see the character in this line - only symbols, you haven't set up your computer to read Chinese characters)

And really that is so apt as well.

If we add another character to the mix we get:
需索 xū suǒ( v. ) look for urgently

I think we are all doing a bit of xū suǒ with the wait - looking urgently for it to end.

By the way according to Wikipedia
"I Ching is the oldest of the Chinese classic texts. A symbol system designed to identify order in what seem like chance events, it describes an ancient system of cosmology and philosophy that is at the heart of Chinese cultural beliefs. The philosophy centers on the ideas of the dynamic balance of opposites, the evolution of events as a process, and acceptance of the inevitability of change.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Ching