I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has reached out to me on this blog, through facebook, e-mail, phone, and in person to help me get through this past week. I’m so grateful to have all of you in my life. It’s been a hard week, thank you so much for understanding how important my Angel was to me, and recognizing the loss that I’ve felt. I love you guys.

This past Friday, Little T and I visited the Orange County Ronald McDonald House to learn about HP’s E-smile program. The Ronald McDonald House provides comfort and shelter to families who have terminally ill children at a nearby hospital. Families can stay at the home for free (they do ask for a 5$ donation a night, but this is optional), so they don’t have to commute long distances back and forth to be with their children. Through the HP e-smile program, people can send pictures, cards, and letters of encouragement to the families staying at the Ronald McDonald House. For a short time, HP is donating one dollar for every picture or card that goes through.

Here’s the wall of e-smile cards at the OC house. A few of the parents who were staying during our tour said this wall of smiles meant so much to them:

There are several ways to send a picture or a note, and it only takes a minute or two!

1. Download the e-smile app for your phone:
2. Visit the HP Esmile Website and upload a picture or message.
3. E-Mail your photo or message to: RonaldHouseOC@eprintesmiles.com

While I was there, I downloaded the mobile phone app and sent an esmile of Little T smiling for everyone to see. If you want to help volunteer in other ways, they’re always looking for groups to come and cook breakfast, lunch, or dinner for the families that are staying. They especially need volunteers who can cook breakfast. They also need gas card donations for families who have to travel back and forth to the hospital, and new toys to be given to children on their birthdays or the holidays.

What a great way to support parents who are going through a crisis, and it’s such a clever idea of HP. So please, if you have a minute, take a few seconds to send the Orange County Ronald McDonald House a picture or a note. They do great work over there.

My blog was nominated over at Circle of Mom’s for the top ten adoption blogs. If you have a moment, click the link and give me a quick vote. It only takes a second, I promise! You can vote once a day if you like. Thank you so much.

Thanks everyone who voted, but circle of Moms sent me this e-mail this afternoon:

Hello,

After serious consideration, we have decided to cancel our Adoption Blogs by Moms – 2012 contest. Our Top 25 program is meant to celebrate, connect, and support mom bloggers. Following some feedback from participants in our 2011 contest, we decided to make this year’s Top 25 more inclusive. In doing so, we unknowingly stepped into a very sensitive issue and debate, and we apologize to all the moms who have been offended, no matter what your position on adoption is. We’re committed to finding a way to give all parties in the Adoption Triad a voice on Circle of Moms. If we run a Top 25 Adoption Blogs in the future, we’ll consult with mom bloggers in each part of the Adoption Triad on how to create a supportive contest where all bloggers would feel welcome and respected by Circle of Moms and by all participants. We appreciate the time and energy every participant put into this contest during the past week, and we sincerely regret that we can’t reward those efforts in the way we had planned to when we launched the contest. 

We will be closing the contest at 3pm PST today and all blogs will be removed from the contest page.

Sincerely,
The Circle of Moms Team

In sadder news, I’m taking the day off so I can give my full and uninterrupted attention to my cat. Big T is watching Little T, and I’m hanging out in my room and showering her with tuna, catnip, and anything else her kitty heart desires. She is sitting next to my feet right now, my poor baby. I just can’t imagine her not being here anymore. Ugh, this day…it’s awful. Please keep us in your thoughts, it’s been a tough week around here.

This week has been rough. My beautiful cat, who has been my friend throughout my 20’s and into my 30’s, is dying. I was dreading this week because I knew it was time to take her to the vet, and I knew it wasn’t going to be good news and that it was going to lead to lots of awesomely expensive tests. To complicate things, I don’t have a sitter and had to take Little T with me. He made it so hard. He’s usually very good but was having a bad day for some reason. He was crying and fussy and couldn’t sit still. He wanted my iphone but he didn’t want my iphone, and being quiet was the last thing he wanted to do. He was being so loud that the vet had to take Angel into another room to listen to her heart. Isn’t it crazy how parenting can sometimes turn a difficult task into an overwhelmingly impossible one in .03 seconds?

I knew from the vet’s face that it was bad news when he came back in the room. He said Angel had heart failure, and that we had to go to the animal emergency room. I called Big T who was home sick, and asked him to come and help me with Little T. We went to the animal hospital together and they said Angel needed a heart test, so this morning I’m driving two hours out to Carlsbad because that’s where their heart doctor is on Wednesdays. How can we afford this? We can’t. Ugh.

Despite everything, I had to go to a networking event last night. I was able to pull myself together for a few hours until the way home. That’s when I lost it. I mean, mascara running down my face, sobbing-into-the-steering-wheel-lost-it. Ugh.