Yes - it was cold. But fun!
Records. 33's, 45's, 78's and some other oddities. Many evenings, many days, thousands of hours, lots of dust, sneezing uncontrollably, sore backs, tons of cardboard, tons of plastic sheeting, tons of boxes, 2-3 trips a week to the post office, paper paper everywhere and finally vinyl, vinyl everywhere. And as of this month: Everywhere but here. "What did I get myself into?" A common statement that was made earlier this year as we stood in our living room surrounded by boxes full of dusty, dirty vinyl records. There we even times when we walked in the house & could smell the musty cigarettes of days gone by. (Grandma Cookie) The stacks were huge & sometimes very unruly. Stacks were 4 boxes high, by 3 boxes deep, by 6 boxes long. And that was just in one spot of our living room - because they were in 2 other spots in the living room PLUS our family room downstairs! Truly a project and a half. Started in January of this year & finished in November. And it wasnt all business - many times we were caught singing along : ) A few moments ago we received our official email notification: "Your eBay Store Bud's Record Shop, has been closed." Grandma Cookie & Pappy Bud made music that made us all sing and brought us all together as a family. Now, Pappy Bud's music collection has crossed the oceans and spans the globe. Bringing more happiness to people & bringing us more friends & family members. We've even received an invite to meet a fellow in France should we ever pass through. Where did it all go? Better get your map out... United States: Wisconsin, California, Florida, Illinois, Virginia, New York, Oklahoma, Kentucky, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Texas, Indiana, North Carolina, Tennessee, Oregon, Georgia, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Hawaii and maybe more. Internationally: Germany, Netherlands, Canada, Spain, United Kingdom, Sweden, Slovenia, Japan, Finland, France and maybe more. Of course, we didn't get rid of it all... We still have a few boxes here hanging out & we kept some for ourselves too. We ended up purchasing a reference book specifically for this project & we'll be donating it to the library here in Donora, In Memoriam. Thank You, to Pappy Bud for sharing it with us all. And Thank You, Grandma Cookie for all the fun. Well things have moved quicker than we thought they would. Our home study is completed & is on its way to the US immigration office for final approvals, our dossier is on its way to Russia and so is our Russian registration. We had hoped to have our paperwork in before the Christmas holidays, but this is a month earlier than we anticipated! Once the paperwork arrives in Russia - it all has to be translated. And once our home study arrives at immigration, we'll be sent for fingerprinting again. So now - we wait. And wait. And wait.
On another note, if anyone wanted piroghi or rolls for the Christmas/New Year's holidays - speak up now or forever hold your peace. We are fully booked with orders for Thanksgiving & are now working towards the December holidays. We do have some orders already but there's still room for more - just don't wait until the last minute, or your liable to miss out! We also have some other news - but we'll hold off on that until our next post. Not all of the info is together yet. It does involve other countries, but not the one we're headed to! And we're not planning any more tripsStay tuned... Lots of people have asked us how in the world we've been able to pursue this project. The truth is - it's just like anything else. If you want it bad enough, you'll do whatever you can to make it happen. Here's an article I stumbled upon in a magazine at work... it will help explain a lot better.
http://www.oprah.com/money/Martha-Becks-Financial-Planning-for-Happiness-Strategy We've almost completed our paperchase... we're just waiting on a few things to come in. Our 2nd social worker visit is coming up next week. Then onto the next step of getting all of our documents notarized & apostilled, prepped for submission to Russia. |