Not much

Not much is going on here today. R and bf had a date last night. They called for directions a couple times and then still got lost because they were talking. Goofy kids.

A has had a friend over and is now going over to that friend's house.

The driving (remember, A got her learner's permit) continues to be a hair raising and hair graying experience for all involved. She drove us to church and then home again today. It was T's first time riding with her. T and R sat in the back seats and gave her all kinds of directions and cringed as the side of the road came to close for comfort and yelled as A decided to swerve around a turtle at the last second and over reacted and over corrected. At one point T yelled get on the road and I had to remind both T and R that I was sitting right there watching very closely. I could grab the wheel if needed. She knows if I say to stop, she better stop. She knows that "ease up" means to let up on the gas and "slow down" means use the brakes. I assured them that "I've got this." They don't seem to believe me. We are all still alive anyway. I think when the kids get their learner's permits you should automatically be given a large magnetic sign that says "Student Driver". We do get a lot of strange looks from people as they pass us in a huff.

The "weight of the wait" of the adoption is starting to get me down again. We've heard absolutely nothing and it's so very hard. Please pray for us. I just don't understand why this has to be so hard.

Maybe I should do a thankful list. Let's see. I'm thankful that we are still alive even though A is learning to drive. I'm thankful for some rain that we had. I'm thankful for a quiet day to just hang out.

Pics from trip

We are back. We had a nice time and it was good to go but it's good to be back. We've kind of jumped right back in to things. We still haven't heard anything from anyone about the adoption process. This is very hard to deal with. Huge sigh...

Well, I promised pics from the trip so here they are. We don't have tubing pics yet but I did take a "waterproof" camera with me so when I get them developed we'll see if we can scan any of them in, if they are worth the effort. Most of the pics were taken by T and the girls.
Old barn. I really like this one.

Cabin in the woods.

Path in the woods. I really like this one too.

Here's an old mill wheel. I love the moss on it. Oh, the stories it could tell if it could talk.

This is a bridge over a little waterway.

An old church.

Just some scenery.

My mom wanted me to take her pic with this old heater. She said her and her brother used to race each other down the steps to see who could get closest to the bottom of an old heater just like this. I guess the bottom is where the heat came out. They grew up in WI so who got the prime heat location was a big deal.

And of course we did the go-carting thing. A of course beat us all. This is me in the purple cart and the son of some friends in the other cart.

Here is A, the little speedster.

We have not fallen off the face of the earth...

...we are vacating with some family and friends. Pics to come. We are having a nice time, mostly relaxing. Just wanted you to know we are still here. We still know nothing new about the adoption process. Pray for us, it's so hard.

Life

It's really quiet here right now. The girls are gone and T is at a meeting. I just finished baking 3 loaves of sourdough wheat bread so it smells really good. I'm a bit melancholy with this being another "no news Friday". I'm so sick of them I could scream. Sometimes it feels like this whole process is driving me crazy. I keep asking God to work it together for good, but I just don't see the good. Maybe I'll just do a thankful list and show you some pics. Let's see, T just got home and we can spend some time together. It looks like rain and we really need some. I got a bunch of scrubs donated for the nannies at our O. They are in great shape and there's a lot of them. I'm thankful for a job. I'm thankful that A has not crashed our cars, yet. My hair turns gray by the second when I ride with her but the cars are all still in one piece and so are we.

Okay, pics. A wrapped Dexter's head up in a scarf.

It looks like a turban and he looks real pleased, don't you think?

I recently had 4 teens in my kitchen baking for a bake sale.

Baking, baking, baking and having lots of fun.

Here are a few of the things they baked.

And I have no idea what that face was for but I thought it was funny.

Stay off the roads...

...A got her learner's permit! You have been warned. Actually, she did pretty good on the way home. We were in R's car and R is a backseat driver if there ever was one. I finally had to say, "R, I've got this. Let me talk to her." She only got two wrong on the written test and she never even really studied. She just did the practice tests. She said, "It's pretty much just common sense. The little pictures helped me out too." Goofy kid.

R had a little cyst or neuroma thingy cut off the palm of her left hand today. She's had it for several years and we thought it was a wart. We tried all the over the counter wart stuff and it didn't work. She finally got enough guts to have it taken off. She said it wasn't as bad as she thought it might be.

No adoption news. Huge sigh...

Father's day and the waiting game

Happy Father's day (a day late) to all you dads out there. I feel blessed to have a dad and a husband who strive to be Godly men. We had a nice time at my parent's house with my brother and his family. We had just finished up dinner when J called. We all got to say hi to him and we sang to him in Creole and he sang to us in English. We were with him last Father's day. I never in my life dreamed that he wouldn't be here with us this year.

The waiting is getting to me again. A month and a half ago I was just happy that they declared our file lost and were working on it again. Now it's back to the same old waiting game that I am so weary of. There is not much communication as to what is going on with the file. It's all very frustrating. Please pray for us.

Pray for Tricia Lawrenson too. You can see her updates on CFhusband's blog.

I think I should do a thankful list. I'm thankful for the rain we had over the weekend. It was much needed. I'm thankful for a great family. I'm thankful for great friends.

Another "no news Friday"

Here we are, 33 months into this crazy adoption process and no news. Fridays are hard with no news because you know it will be at least 3 days before you have a chance to hear something again. Huge sigh...

You might be a redneck if...

...you use duct tape to hold your shoes together. These are T's work shoes. So far, it's working. Although, there are a couple of places where he has actually worn the tape off the bottom.

R got her car today. So far, so good. She has it all cleaned up and smelling much better. So far the only real issue that we've noticed is that the door locks lock themselves all the time. It reminds us of our old van and has already earned the name "Herbie". It's an 8 year old car with 147K miles on it. The sad part about that is, it's newer and has less miles than anything else sitting in our driveway. As long as they run...I'm not complaining. I'm thankful.

It's been hot and dry here, just like last summer. It's kind of scary as we were still behind from last year's drought. We need a little of the rain they've gotten in the midwest. My cousin sent some pics of the floods in Racine. Wow.

Please pray for Tricia. She's had a setback. There will be a prayer time for her tomorrow (Wed.) and you can read more about it on CFhusband's blog.

Nothing new adoptionwise. Huge sigh...

Saturday

I finished "The Shack" and recommend it. I borrowed it from my SIL and it had her dog ears and highlighter marks. I want T to read it next. I have found some joy the last couple weeks. We haven't gotten any official word on the status of our file but I am happy that they are working on it. I grieved the other night when we were in the pool because I was thinking that J should have been here last summer and here it is summer again and he's still not here. "The Shack" has helped me deal more positively with some of those feelings.

It's been hot here and we've spent a lot of time in the pool. More than one of us (not me, not yet anyway) are sporting sunburns in places that they didn't realize weren't covered with clothing or sunscreen. C'est la vie.

R has been working a lot these past few weeks. She is looking for a new laptop and an economical car on her limited budget. T is helping her find a computer and I've been hunting cars.

I'm sure I'll share more of my feelings about "The Shack" over the next few posts. I just wanted to let you know that we are still here and have not melted away in the heat.

Not a "wordless Wednesday" but still a lot of pics

I've seen some blogs that do a "wordless Wednesday" post. I am not feeling wordless at the moment.

I've learned some things in my life. Some things I learned a long time ago and some things the Lord is working on currently. Here is a list, in no particular order, of some of the things I've learned.

~ Time flies whether you are having fun or not. Make the most of it.
~ There are ALWAYS at least two sides to every story. Get all the stories and figure the truth is hidden somewhere in the middle.
~ Absolute truth is absolute truth. All other truth is clouded by our own perception of it.
~ You can not rely on what happens to you or doesn't happen to you to make you happy. Happiness is a choice. Joy is a command.
~ Life is one big adjustment. Get used to it. (a "pearl" from my mom)
~ You're not that special, everyone has their problems. (another "pearl" from my mom)
~ Don't make decisions based on emotions. They will lead you astray. Get Godly advice from the Word and from people you trust.
~ Forgiving someone doesn't mean you're letting them off the hook or not holding them responsible. It means making your own heart right.
~ There will be people who offend you. A lot of times the chances are that they didn't even realize or mean to offend you. If this happens, see above line about forgiveness.
~ Don't be a blind follower. If something doesn't seem right, question it in an appropriate, respectful way.

I don't know why all that was in my head but there must be some reason. Some of it is definitely because the Lord is working on me. Some is because I'm trying to instill these things in my children. Some may be because I'm reading the book "The Shack". Anyway...

Here are some pics. The animals get a lot of photo ops around here. I think this one of Lillybet is cute. My mom offered R $50 to find Lillybet a good home, one very far from here, when she discovered some of her geraniums missing. Who knew geraniums where a delicacy to a goat?

This one just makes me think, aahhhhh.

Yes, it's just the staircase. But it's to help you visualize the next pic.

This is Dexter sprawled on one of the steps.
He's just chillin'.

Apparently all that chillin' made him very tired.

He loves to get in T's lap. For some reason T has the "magic touch" with the animals. Dexter loves the way T rubs, pets, and scratches.

Oh yeah, he's enjoying that.

Okay, one more story. We took the truck for a drive yesterday evening. It has tags and insurance, even though we wouldn't need proof unless we were stopped (see previous post). We drove it over to my brother's house and it started missing about half way over there. I said I smelled something weird and T said he smelled something like electrical burning. Whatever I smelled was not electrical. We got to their workshop and jumped out (because it's either jump out or fall out) all smiles. My brother said, "That's a pretty cool ride." My nephew said, "I smell brakes." T mentioned that it had started missing on the way over so they popped the hood. My brother immediately noticed that one of the plug wires had melted on the manifold. Nephew checked out the wheels and dxed brakes were sticking. So, we now know that we need a new plug wire and a slightly different routing plan for the wires, a brake adjustment, and the steering is loose so that needs a small part. Not too bad for the maiden voyage.

Nothing much

Thanks for the prayers. I'm feeling a little better about the whole adoption process today. Keep praying though.

T has put a "tag" on the truck. I called the clerk's office this morning and asked if we needed proof of ins. to get a tag and they said you only need proof of insurance if you get stopped. What?!? If you are required to have ins. why would you not need proof of ins. to get the tag? Talk about retro-active.

We just put flea stuff on the cats. They act like we are torturing them and then they run around like they are trying to get away from themselves. It's so funny. We all decided that Sanome looks fatter now that her tail is shorter. A wondered out loud if we would look thinner if we grew tails. She is hysterical. She cracks me up all the time.

The real story of the Spiderman shirt

Okay, I got the real story behind the Spiderman shirt. Remember that I mentioned that I had not given him that particular shirt, but another T-shirt a while back. I said how the kids share everything. Well, the mom who took the stuff down told me that she had told the kids at church that their parents had sent gifts and that she would be over to the boys house later to give them their things. Well, the boys apparently couldn't wait and they came over to the girls/babies house and she had to dig through all the suitcases to find the gifts. She found everyone's except J's. She could tell he was kind of bummed but he understood. So she gave him a Spiderman sweatshirt that was sent down with her for the O. When she found his stuff and brought it to him the next day, there he was in the sweatshirt, in 90 degree heat. So here is a pic of when he got the sweatshirt.

I've been reading the book "The Shack". My SIL recommended it to me and even let me borrow her copy, even with the dog ears and highlighter marks. I feel a lot of emotions and a long post coming on after I finish it. I don't know when it will be as I don't have that much time to read. So far it's very good and I recommend it.

Please pray for our adoption process. It feels so painfully slow. It's been almost 33 months since we started the process and no end in sight that we can see. It's been over a year now since we've had forward movement. I struggle. I personally know of at least 3 couples who have waited longer but it doesn't make me feel better. It just makes me feel bad for their wait. It should not be so difficult to adopt a child. Thanks.