Burning Houses and Resolving IF

No, they're not related... My sister left some oil on the stove and failed to turn it off yesterday. The whole house didn't really burn down or anything, but she needs a new stove, cabinets, all the food is fried, the ceiling and walls are black, there's a lot of damage throughout the house. So much for cleaning my house and getting organized and all that jazz. Last night, I was watching the 5-month and 5-year-old nephews at my mom's house, while making homemade lasagna for my sister-in-law and her kids. Whew. Shout out to all the Mama's that do such stuff on a regular basis. Insurance should cover most stuff, but they're rather displaced for a while. The important thing is everyone is okay.
Resolving IF.... This has been on my mind for a while.And Mel from Stirrup Queens has been blogging about it. I told my sister-in-law months ago that before I became a Mama, I wanted and needed to be okay with NOT being Mama. My initial thought when given hubby's D'x was, "Well, we'll just adopt!" It didn't take me long to learn that "just adopt"-ing wasn't going to "fix" alllllllll those other issues with our lack of reproduction. And not that "just adopt"-ing is as simple as I would like. Ha. haha. hahaha.
Regardless of how smooth adoption goes, the adoption experience comes with its own matching set of luggage. If you start out on a trip with a lot of baggage, knowing you'll be adding more on the next leg of the trip, you're gonna get bogged down. You can't make it through the airport. Or maybe you can make it, but it will take multiple trips through the same winding hallways. Or maybe some important things get left behind. Or trampled on. It's so much easier to keep the baggage to a minimum from the beginning.
So we have less than 11 months before we can start any paperwork. We're not making any major decisions this soon. I think my time would be better spent not on keeping up with every little change in every little country, but in working on myself and getting rid of some baggage. Ideally, I'd love just one trip with no checked luggage, please. :)