I got some new pics

One of the other moms went down to visit her kids and I sent a viewmaster and some little cars along with her for J. I asked her to show J how to use it if she had the time. She really took some time with him and I'm so thankful for that. She also took lots of pics. Here is his first look at the viewmaster pics. Notice his Spiderman shirt. I did not send that one to him. I sent him a blue one quite a while ago. They all share everything.

She showed him how to change out the discs.
And how to switch the pics. I wonder if it's still together and working. The boys especially are rough on their toys.

And here someone else has the viewmaster and J is showing us the cars we sent.
This is a bunch of boys giving us the "I love you" sign. J is towards the right in the red Spiderman shirt.

Here he is at church.

And another one at church, or at least in church clothes. He buttoned his collar all the way up in 90 degree heat. Silly boy. Our live in fashion police, A, will get him straitened out-if he ever gets home that is.

Congrats to...

...it seems like a lot of congrats going out for a lot of people. Family by Love bought the plane ticket for their son to come home. Congrats to them. Tricia and Gwyneth (CFHusband blogspot) are both out of the hospital and will be heading home to Outer Banks soon. Congrats to them. The littlest Johnson-McCormick finally made her appearance. Congrats to them on the birth of Meera Grace. You can check them all out on their blog links to the right.

Boy, I feel left out. Nothing new under the moon in our adoption process. It feels like he'll never come home. Sometimes I wonder if people think this is all a hoax or that we've been duped. Sometimes it's very hard to trust-people and God. I'll do a thankful list so I don't get too down. Let's see, I just picked some wild honey suckle and two different kinds of roses (off the same bush-go figure) and put them in a vase on the table. They smell sooooo good. For that simple pleasure, I am grateful. My house is mostly clean and T took the hairball out of my bathroom sink. I'm thankful that I didn't have to take the hairball out and it is draining properly again. A friend had brain surgery today. They wanted him to be able to recognize his family by tonight or tomorrow morning. He recognized them an hour after surgery. God is good. Another friend had a safe trip from the other side of the world. For that, I'm thankful.

Catch-up and the Meme game

Wow, R has officially graduated from high school. What a range of emotions that sweeps over you while you watch your baby walk across the platform and get her diploma. The ceremony was to be held outside and it rained in the afternoon but stopped long enough for the graduation. We had lots of friends and family here to share the joy with us. The party was awesome but I am glad it's all over. Lord willing, I will be the mother of a college student this fall. Zoiks! I feel old. The graduation, guests, preparation and the party are why I haven't posted for a few days. Wonderful stuff going on, just too busy to post.

I got "tagged" by Chapter 2 manmi while I was in the midst of the graduation week. So here it goes. 1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. 2. Each player answers the questions about themselves. 3. At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read the player’s blog. 4. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

What were you doing 5 years ago? Finishing the construction, moving and settling into a new home. T was unemployed. We were seeking God and seeking employment.

What are 5 things (that were) on your to-do list for today? Work, prayer list for O, this post, recover from weekend, make cookies.

What are 5 snacks you enjoy? chocolate (the darker, the better), crackers and peanut butter, yogurt, chips with cream cheese and salsa, carrot sticks.

What 5 things would you do if you were a billionaire? Buy a couple hundred acres and build a house smack in the middle of it. Give money to our church. Give to organizations who give grants to people for adoptions. Make family members lives easier. Travel.

What are 5 of your bad habits? Worrying too much. Procrastinating. "Giving something to God" only to take it back again. Letting things "get to me". Sarcasm.

What are 5 places you have lived? WI and TN, multiple places in each state.

What are 5 jobs you have had? Kitchen work at nursing home, babysitting, grocery bagger, daycare, puppet making.

What 5 people do you want to tag? Family by Love, Karen, Our Life, Praisin' and Tellin', Beth's blessings.

American Idol and mystery rash unmystified

I wasn't home in time to see Idol but I was on the phone with a friend getting the play by play complete with a (sort of) British accent when Simon spoke. Too funny. I was very happy for David Cook. Give Archuleta a couple years and look out world. He's got a big career ahead of him too.

For about a week and a half I've had a rash, mostly on my trunk. I kind of thought it would just go away. It didn't itch much and didn't hurt. Since it was still here after a week and a half I decided to have it checked by a doc. I had looked in a medical book and found what I thought it was and then googled that and was pretty sure that's what it was. I had it confirmed today that I have pityriasis rosea. The good news is that it doesn't hurt, doesn't itch much-just occasional prickly heat type feeling, and I'm no longer contagious. Apparently you're only contagious for a couple days when you first get it and if my family were going to get it, they'd already have it. The bad news is, it's a virus that has to run it's course and it take 6-8 weeks to run it. Sigh...at least most of the spots are hidden by clothes. I have a few spots on my neck, a couple on each arm and a few on each leg. Other than that the spots are kind enough to stay hidden, especially nice since they hang around for so long.

American Idol anyone?

Ok, I don't like the name of the show but I think what they do is awesome. Taking unknown, raw talent and turning them into true artists. Anyway, who do you think will win? A is predicting that "one of the Davids will win". Smart girl, that one. I think either one of them are deserving. David Cook is already an artist and David Archuleta has an amazing 17 year old voice. He's an old soul.

Still stuck on the cat bathing topic

Well, we upgraded the internet some and I tried to post a video but it still time's out on me. Pics are loading pretty well though, so here are some pics of the poor cat. I must say that we feel real bad for her but at the same time she has been a constant source of comic relief for us. Her tail alternates between open and slightly oozing to scabbed over so we are continuing with the cone for now. I don't know how she does it but she occasionally does get a hold of her tail. We seem to be making gains on the fight against the fleas. Yay! Oh, and we did take the cone off for her bath. This is right after the bath. No matter how much she licked herself, she just couldn't get dry. Hmmm.

Yes, still licking and licking and not getting dry. Look at her toes. She has some long toes.

Yes, she did eventually dry off and we put the cone back on. She was exhausted after all that licking.

Oh, the look on her face here is priceless. If looks could kill, we'd be dead.

We haven't heard anything yet this week about the adoption. People sometimes remark on how calm I seem. I'm just happy at this point that they finally decided to call the file lost and start re-doing it. We've taken so many steps back that I don't feel like we're going forward but at least we're not just spinning our tires anymore. For that, I'm thankful.

Got this from a friend

Apparently we bathed our cat the wrong way. I got this in an email from a friend. We'll try this next time. :)



How to bathe a cat;



Take cat into bathroom and close the door behind you.

Pour liquid soap into the toilet.

Place cat in toilet, and quickly slam both lids on it, you should stand on the lids at this point.

Cat will make soapsuds by the quick movement of body.
(Despite the noises coming from the cat, she is actually enjoying this).

Now flush a couple of times to rinse cat.

Quickly lift both lids while jumping into the bathtub.

Cat will dry from the speed of departure.

Love the Dog

Much ado about nothing

I had to work today so I didn't get to talk to J, but T and the girls did. That's always interesting. R sang a song for him this time and he sings back to us.

This last week was a crazy week and this coming week is looking pretty crazy too. We finally got our fingerprinting appointment. It's for Friday morning, like we didn't have anything else to do. Oh well, at least it's free this time. Third time's the charm, as they say.

Did I mention that we gave Sanome a bath this week? Have you ever bathed a cat? A held her down in the water, I held her tail up and R soaped, scrubbed and rinsed her. I love the whole foot shaking thing that they do after a bath. We have some funny videos if we could only post them. Our internet is to slow at this point. We have to post them from T's office and there are just too many other things taking precedence this week.

T and I worked in the front yard yesterday. Now we're so sore we can hardly move. After several years of living here we are finally working on landscaping the front yard. I sure hope the grass grows. I'm tired of mud and weeds. We decided to put a low electric fence around it to keep the dogs off in order to give the grass a chance. At first they were stepping over it or going under it but Oreo finally met the fence. I do believe she will stay off the grass for a while.

R's cat has a cone on her head to keep her from attacking her tail. R's horse has a grazing muzzle on her head to keep her from eating too much and foundering. We were teasing R about the fact that half of her animals have something on their heads. We decided to give R's horse a break and put the grazing muzzle on my horse. She constantly lives life on the edge of foundering. She is quite put out with us for putting that thing on her. She won't even try to eat. Goofy thing. Bridget however is chowing down. We'll probably end up switching back and forth between the two horses every couple days.

A took some really cool pics. I'll try to post them when I have time. It will probably be over a week from now before that happens.

T has poison ivy on his arm, R has a couple of canker sores in her mouth and I have some strange rash (doesn't hurt, doesn't itch), mostly on my trunk. I was mentioning this to A and she said she has a rash on her face. But her's is called acne. Silly girl.

And now for "much ado about something". Have you checked out CFhusband's blog lately? Both Tricia and Gwyneth have been released from the hospital! Our God is an awesome God.

Please pray with us that the "new original" court papers get done this week with no problems or mistakes. I've been told that they will go back to MOI after that. Oh please Lord, let J come home. 32 months is a long time to wait.

Yada, yada, yada

The girls are exempt from their finals so they are out and about today. Actually R went on a field trip with the physics and calculus classes to a theme park. They were to ride rollercoasters and take notes. Apparently the class built a model roller coaster. R is not in either one of those classes but they had room and she had time so she went.

Lillybet just about did herself in Wed. afternoon. I thought she was a goner for sure. She got so tangled up that even her collar twisted and was cutting off her air. She was still making an awful noise but her mouth was white. I managed to free her and she practically crawled in my lap and soaked up the loving. I don't know who was more scared, her or me, but she is fully recovered.

Misty attacked Sano today so she had to go in time out. So far, she had been afraid of the cone but I guess she got over it. Sano had a bath last night. She didn't really like it but she feels a lot better now.

No adoption news. Huge sigh...

A little news and a couple of pics

Well, we got the news yesterday that our "new original" IBESR (Haitian social services) papers are completed and now it's on to the court papers. I guess everything has to be done in a specific order and that's why they can't all be dropped off at once to the different offices and then picked up. I guess they have to have the right stamps, signatures, etc. in the right order. At least it's progress.

Here is a flower from my rose bush that A gave me a few Mother's Days ago. It had these beautiful lavender roses all over it and they smelled so good. Now, most of the plant has cross pollenated with some other species of rose and they are bright, deep pink and much smaller and less fragrant than the lavender ones. Sigh...
These are some bulb fowers sent to me by a friend when our papers were discovered MIA. They arrived as puny yellow shoots that were green the next day and bloomed in a few days. I used them as a centerpiece for Mother's Day. Aren't they beautiful? Thanks R!

And you know how we love the crazy cats in our lives. This is my Dexter. I found him like this the other day and had to snap a pic.

In other news, Sanome has managed to get her tail bleeding again even with the cone on her head and T is snoring even with the CPAP on his head. Ugh! I didn't get much sleep the other night between Sano scratching and T snoring. C 'est la vie.

Happy Mother's Day

We had a nice day with my family all coming over here. My parents and my brother and his family all live close by so it was nice to get together. The older the kids get the harder it is to get everyone together. We ate and talked and watched Funny Home Videos. It is good to laugh.

R is trying out for another play tomorrow. We're encouraging A to try out too. I've toyed with the idea. The last time I was in a play we got out of IBESR. Maybe we'll get some forward movement if I'm in another one. We even tried to get T to audition but he is still saying no. I thought it'd be something fun to do together. Oh well.

I got the grad announcements and party invitations out this weekend. I'm glad that is done. Now we have to gear up for the actual graduation and the party. Whew!

J tried to call today but the weather somewhere between here and Haiti was causing problems. We heard him briefly and then that was it. We never did get a hold of him again. This is my third Mother's day without him here. That just hurts so bad. We're at 32 months in this crazy process, 11 1/2 months since we've had forward movement. It's so hard.

Maybe I should do a thankful list; I'm thankful for my family-the dads and kids prepared and cleaned up the meal today. I'm thankful for my mom and I'm thankful for my kids. I'm thankful for chocolate (A made a chocolate swirl cheesecake for today).

Saturday already?

Wow, time flies whether you're having fun or not. Nothing new on the adoption. It's not for a lack of asking questions, it's a lack of getting answers. Have I told you that I'm sick of this process? Anway...

R and I did a little shopping yesterday. She's been a bit stressed this week with taking two AP tests (English and History). I guess it'll be July before she finds out anything about them. She has been trying to finish up the paperwork for college and finish up school stuff. She said she is so ready for school to be out. So we took a couple hours and did a little shopping. She found two pairs of jeans and a top.

For some reason the cats have been "eat up" with fleas. I hate bugs. The cats are now sporting grease spots on the backs of their necks where I put frontline plus on them. They HATE to have that put on them but it's rather funny to watch. Sano didn't care too much but she's wearing a cone anyway so what's a litte frontline? Misty was the funniest as usual. She was all lovey at first until she realized that I put the frontline on her. Then she started with the eye squinting and stuff that she does. Then she and Dexter were running around the house trying to get away from themselves. Too funny.

R helped me put some on the dogs last night. They'll come to you when you call but they run as soon as they figure out what you're doing. Then they act like you're torturing them. R noticed one of the plants while we were on the front porch. She thought it needed water. I said it has a droopy look to it anyway and that was part of it's charm. At that precise moment a blossom fell off. For some reason that cracked us up.

I worked all day yesterday getting grad announcements out and we bought party invitations while we were shopping in the evening. R helped me get those ready to go and she said filling out the invitations reminded her of write offs in third grade. That reminded her of a time that they had to do write offs in art class in high school. They were supposed to write something out of a book. Never the one to conform, she filled most of the page with commentary on what she read. That's my girl.

Nothing new under the moon

I didn't realize it has been 3 days since I posted last. We've been busy with graduation stuff, animals, Mother's day plans, etc. I need to get announcements and invitations out and we need to get the house and yard cleaned up for my family coming over Sunday for Mother's day.

There is nothing happening with the adoption right now. Well, I should rephrase that. We don't know of anything happening right now but hopefully they are busy replacing photocopies of our file with "new originals". Yep, I hope they are busy, busy, busy. I cannot fathom how the Lord will bring good of this. This has been a rough journey, like Lewis and Clark parking at the bluffs thinking they were close to the ocean only to find the Rocky Mountains. Zoiks! Please Lord, let J come home quickly.

Sunday stuff

There is so much stuff in my head I don't think I can get it all out. I talked to J today and played guitar and sang to him. That brought big smiles and his buddies listening in. The first thing he said was, "When you will come to get me?" And I had to tell him the same thing I've been telling him for what feels like forever. When the paperwork is done. I don't know if he knows that some of the papers got lost. It breaks my heart to think about it. I want to scream why, why, why but I know it wouldn't do any good. Some days it's so hard to deal with. R told me a few months ago that this doesn't strengthen her faith, it kills her faith. That breaks my heart too. She's going to college in the fall and won't get to be the kind of big sister that she wanted to be to him.

We chose "Blessed Be Your Name" as one of the songs for today's service. It's so hard to honestly say those words, "You give and take away. My heart will choose to say, blessed be Your name." But I sang them honestly. Our interim pastor told us last Sunday that he was going to call us the "Job family". I was like, thanks a lot! But he said that Job found favor in the eyes of God. And I thought, yeah, and everything was given back to him at the end of the book. Hmmm.

I told the congregation today that we did find some light in the darkness this week. I emailed DHS in Port-au-Prince and they assured me that they would hold our file until we can get the documentation to them. That means that we don't have to re-file the I600 at nearly $800. We're thankful for that. We planned on having our fingerprints re-done, again, on Wed. I found out that they no longer do walk-ins and that we have to request it in writing and go when they say go. But, since this is our 3rd time having them done we are eligible for a one-time only free fingerprinting. That's $160 we won't have to pay. We're thankful for that.

We don't have good, clear info on what exactly needs to be done with our file. I guess they are making new "originals" based on the photocopies that they had. Go figure. Isn't that an oxymoron? A new original. Hmmm. I'm not sure which papers are affected either. Pray for us.

The girls and I watched the movie "Martian Child" last night. Good movie. I would recommend it.

On another note, A has lots of hair. When she took out her pony tail holder the other night, this is what she looked like. We all should be so blessed. My hair is very wimpy and T is bald.

Sano is dealing with her new appendage pretty well. She can eat and drink okay. Sometimes she fits the cone over her dish and sometimes the cone works as a scoop for her. The scoop thing works pretty well when she is eating or drinking, however, it also acts as a scoop when she is in the litter box trying to cover up her deposit. Yeah, that isn't pretty. Then we chase her around and have to catch her and wipe the cone off. Goofy cat. This is a pic of her with the cone fitted over the dish. You can see what's left of her tail, too.

Close up of the same thing. That's a leaf beside her.

R still loves the crazy cat anyway. When I was a kid I had a Little Bo Peep figurine that had a huge bonnet on and that's what Sano reminds me of. Our current nicknames for her are "Coney", "Poopy Coney", or "Little Bo Peep." We're also still calling her stubby now and then.


I guess that's all for now. Please pray for good news for us this week. Thanks.

Sanomae

The cat seems to have resolved herself to the fact that she will be wearing this cone on her head indefinitely. She's on antibiotics and some kind of nerve/pain pill. Whatever it is, I could use some. LOL. She is a happy camper. It's totally pathetic and yet absolutely hysterical to watch her. She has to line up her cone and fit it over her dish to eat. She has crusty stuff on the side of her mouth that she can't clean off. She bobs her head side to side when she walks. She's a real live bobble-head toy. We can't tell if it's because her shoulders hit the cone and push it side to side or if she's turning her head on purpose in order to see where she's going. She still bumps into stuff now and then but she's getting pretty good at maneuvering herself with her new appendage. Another plus is that the other cat who used to beat her up is now afraid of her. And her tail looks great at this point. So all in all the cone is a good thing so far.

No news on the adoption front. Somebody told me that this process would drive them bonkers. I told them it had already driven me bonkers and I was flattered that I hid it so well. Please keep praying. It's so, so hard.