And we had to get paperwork signed and faxed because we are refinancing our home.

The refinance will save us oodles of cash from our first loan, which we will promptly use to pay off high-interest credit cards and start the Other Main Project, which is the greening of Turning Tide Cottage.

It took a while, but we at least have a plan now.  Our energy audit by Midcoast Green Collaborative pointed the way.  Even though we had started out with visions of sexy heat pumps and solar hot water systems, we learned ... quick ... that the house needed a lot more basic stuff.

Before we can do much of anything, we have to get the electrical system updated, so the first step is to schedule our electrical work.  It is a scary endeavor, because nobody really has any idea what it will entail in the end.  However, the longest journey begins with the tiniest baby step, as they say. 

Part of the refinance is for energy efficiency, a very nice feature to the loan, as far as we are concerned.  This will help to pay for the costs of insulating and plugging up our leaks, both in the ceiling and the walls, and replacing the nasty vinyl siding with more historically and environmentally correct clapboards.  Then, we have to do the chimneys, deal with the furnace, and do some minor repairs throughout the sublevel of the house.

Even though it will likely be chaotic around Turning Tide Cottage for a while, the benefits will be absolutely wondrous in the end. 

But the signing ... oh dear.

When you know you’re putting yourself on the hook for a lot more money than you make in a given year, it should be a scary thing.  Even though Turning Tide Cottage was and is a bargain, we are willingly agreeing to put ourselves in hock for three times our combined annual salaries.  Now, we had already done this, obviously, when we bought the cottage initially.  But even so, it’s scary.

What was even scarier was finding the address of our previous house in California on a lot of the documents. Hopefully we corrected them all, because I have no desire to own that house again.

The DHS paperwork was a lot more fun, and certainly more thought-provoking.  We had spoken to three dear friends to become our references, took pictures of our house, dog, cats, and parrot, and found a family portrait to send.  We also had to think about the issues we would and would not be willing to consider in a foster child, or adoptive child.

Frankly, I had not really thought about many of the issues at all before.  We were obviously aware that foster kids came with their own sets of personal problems, as do we all.  But then, most of us aren’t being asked to adjust to living in a family not our own, with all of the new family’s quirkiness of habits.

And trust me, we’re quirky.

We were also asked to think about things we liked to do, things we might do with kids, like camping or swimming or baseball or watching television. Presumably they will use this to help match us up, interest-wise.  They gave us a list of ideas, and although we certainly checked off a lot of things on the list, many of the things we love passionately aren’t even on the list.  Things like miniature golf, and candlepin bowling. Things like going to art museums and nature preserves and aquariums and planetariums. Things like taking long train trips and going window shopping for t-shirts and Christmas ornaments while on vacation on Cape Cod. Things like finding as many sand dollars as we can on Popham Beach.

They didn’t even include things like, “What’s your favorite theme park ... Disneyland or Six Flags?” (Yeah, Disneyland, that was easy.)  They didn’t ask, “Which do you like better for breakfast out ... International House of Pancakes or Denny’s?” (Denny’s, you know it.) They didn’t ask, “Okay, best board game in the world ... Monopoly or Clue?” (Clue, without a doubt.)  Those are the questions, if I were a child considering a family to adopt me, that I would want to know the answers to.  Because those are the things that are really going to impact my life.  So while we filled things out, the thing seemed unfinished somehow. But we have sent the things off, now, and feel a bit free.

And now the fun begins on all fronts.