Shhh, don't tell my kids...

...that I was wearing socks with my crocs. I know it's a big "no, no" but I was in my own home with no plans to go anywhere. Crocs have to be some of the ugliest shoes ever but I love them. They are so comfortable. Anyone else wear socks with their crocs?

Nothing much going on here. We're just hanging out...
...chillin'.
And willing the human with the camera to go away. Cats are so good at ignoring you.

Just relaxin'.

Hello, a little privacy please! I'm trying to veg out.

A few pics

Well, we heard from the g'parents and they are fine. They just had a little rain. Things are fine at the O too. They had a lot of rain and some wind but everything is okay. The boys were playing in the rain so it must not have been too bad. Thanks for praying. I hope and pray Gustav doesn't hit the US with a vengeance.

Here are a few pics for you. R and her bf got new laptops for college. T has one too and here they were all sitting in the living room with their laptops. The funniest part is that they were doing a 3-way Skype call with each other while they were sitting there. Bunch of geeks.

Yes, I know that the cats get the lion's share of pic exposure on here. They're so funny though. This is Dexter sitting in the sink while he's getting a sink drink. Usually they stand on the edge but he sat right in the sink this time. That's A's hand as she was snapping a pic too.

This is Sanomae behind my back. We're sitting in the office chair. For the record, I was there first and she wormed her way in there. Cats are so bendable. That's her back foot up by her face. She used to do this all the time and hadn't for a while. Now she's doing it again. I don't mind it except I have to keep checking my backside for cat hair.

Same scenario only this time she's laid out and falling asleep.

Remember how much this cat loves to root around and cuddle up in clean, warm laundry? Well, I took one thing out of the dryer and left the other things in there for a minute and when I came back this is what I found.

If the laundry pile doesn't come to Sanomae, Sanomae goes to the laundry pile.

Gustav

As we are appreciating the remnants of Fay bringing us some much needed rain, another storm, Gustav, is gaining strength and heading straight towards Port-au-Prince. The O director said they are prepared for the storm with supplies and are on pretty high ground but she asked prayers for safety for them and all the people of Haiti. I haven't heard from the G'parents yet.

Update, I did hear from G'parents and they are fine and don't expect much more than rain. Yay! Also, before Sunday's rain we had not had rain in about a month. The ground was dry and cracked, even in creek and river beds. Now we are in a flash flood watch. Go figure.

"The Remains of the 'Fay'"

Fay, Fay, come our way
We need some rain today.

I guess the rain we got yesterday and what we may get over the next couple of days are the remains of Fay. We are to get the scattered variety of rain but we're so dry here that what little we got yesterday made a noticeable difference. Maybe it just washed the dust off of things but they do look a little greener. We're hoping for some good rain out of this.

No real news

I don't have any real news (adoption stuff) to share so you'll have to settle for this stuff. Let's see. My baby turned 18 this week and next week she starts college. Wait, college?!? When did that happen? If you have little ones, enjoy every moment because they grow up fast. We all went out to eat and then shopping. R got a camera with her birthday money. I love you and I'm proud of you R. You go, girl!

My brother, nephew and a friend drove in a 4-wheel drive competition this week. Nephew was the 4th one to drive and he was in first place for a long time. They kept getting hung up in the same spot. My niece wondered aloud if her dad would let P keep the lead. I looked at her and said, "Your dad? No way." and she agreed that he probably wouldn't. My brother was the 13th one to drive and he took the lead. The friend got hung up in that same spot that a lot of people had trouble. He had to be towed off. Someone else came along and got ahead of P, so they placed first and third. Then my brother, competitive thing that he is, convinced his son to drive with him in the next class for those with the really huge tires. They should have quit while they were ahead. P bent the tie rod on his vehicle and had to be towed off and my brother did okay until he flipped his vehicle and it started on fire. Thankfully us ladies were not around to see that but T said once he knew my brother was okay it was really cool to see. My dad, being the technological dweeb he is, taped over the fire. We got to see the flip but not the fire. Can you say redneck?

The girls have been working backstage at the current play at the local theater. If they aren't in them, they are working backstage. They love theater. Anyway, T and I worked last night too. It was a good play.

Today we had an appreciation dinner for our interim pastor. We are close to calling a new pastor but our interim had some other commitments so we had to say good-bye for now. He was great and we'll miss him.

So, we've had a pretty busy week. Oh, it's actually raining here for the first time since sometime in July. Yes, July was our last rain. It's not coming very hard but it sounds wonderful.

Nothing much

No adoption news. We don't even know if our newest paper is in legalization yet. Maybe Wed. is what the lawyer said on Monday. Huge sigh...

This Sunday is our interim pastor's last Sunday with us. We don't have a replacement yet but are getting close. S.H., we love you man. He has been a real blessing to us and we will miss him.

A is back to school and driving Elvis there every morning. T says her driving has improved already. I've been praying for some improvement. Oh, did I mention that Elvis is getting 28 mpg right now. That's nearly double what the Jeep was getting. Oh, and R's bf bought the Jeep. How funny is that? Yep, T will be repairing the Jeep for the rest of it's life, barring any break-ups, that is.

We desperately need some rain here. We are on a "water alert" of some sort. Here that means Bubba can't wash the monster truck. It hasn't rained in several weeks. Everything is a brownish color, including the back of Flannery Vandango. When you close the back gate a puff of dust rises up.

We still can't decide if our dogs are hunters or gatherers. We know they raid bunny nests sometimes and that's how we end up with orphaned bunnies. The other night they had a big bunny. A big dead bunny. I suspect that they found it like that. They were still proud of themselves.

Like I said in the title, nothing much is going on right now.

Or...

...maybe this is the 200th post. Either way, it happened today. LOL

#200

Wow, this is my 200th post. I never dreamed I'd still be waiting for J to come home by my 200th post, but here I am. Waiting.

The dentist appointment was not so bad. There is definitely a crack in the tooth but it's not even where I thought it was. I have a few things to try for now and as long as it doesn't get worse, I don't have to do anything major to it. That's an answer to prayer as we don't have dental ins. right now, but we are looking into it.

I wish there was something exciting to tell you for my 200th post, but even though it's busy around here, it's life as usual. I did get to talk to J today. He was smiling a lot but not very talkative. I played piano for him this time. I don't know how much he saw/heard but I tried. He was holding his hand up to the webcam so I held mine up too and we did a 1500 mile high five. That's kind of cool.

Life

No new adoption news. The last we heard the lawyer had gotten the rest of the needed papers and was having them legalized. Only God knows how long that might take. Keep praying.

My best friend called last night. She said, "Guess where I've been?" I guessed the right town but couldn't guess where. She finally told me she'd been in the ER. She broke her wrist...while pumping gas. How do you do that? you might ask. You have to understand that this is the person who has had her hair started on fire 3 times. She's accidently killed a bird with her car antenna. She has gotten herself stuck in a dress in a fitting room in a store and had to be cut out of it. Weird things happen to her, okay? Anyway, she was in the hot sun and went to the back of her car to get out of it but she's fairly tall so she propped her foot up on the bumper to rest her elbow on it and get her head out of the sun. When she stood back up either her shoe or her pant leg got caught on the hitch and she fell backward. She said one second she was standing there and the next she was sitting on the ground trying to figure out what happened. The little girl in the station came out and asked her if she was okay. She said, "No. I'm pretty sure I just broke my wrist." This was spoken from her sitting position on the ground, squinting up at the girl. The good; the girl helped her up. The bad; said girl made her pay for the ice to put on her wrist. Friend was supposed to be meeting her hubby for dinner but they met for a nice evening in the ER instead.

Have you been watching the Olympics? I've watched some of it. The opening ceremony was pretty cool. I like to watch the gymnastics the best.

The dreaded dentist appointment is tomorrow. I'm praying that it's nothing major and will not take a major chunk of change to fix it. I'll keep you posted.

Ok. Now for some pics of life at our house. This is a nice still life A took of some produce from the garden.

Yeah, the cats get a lot of pics on the blog. They're just so darn cute, though. Here is Dexter hanging out on the steps. I hope J likes the steps half as much as the cats do.

This is Sanome with the glowing green eyes. Weird huh? The weirdest part is her eyes are actually yellow.
Oh, us three girls got our hair cut last week. I just got a trim. R got some deeper layers and a trim and A got sweeping bangs.

Apparently Misty did something bad and put herself in jail.

Yeah, I don't know about this one either. T got some seat covers for his truck for his birthday. This is one of the headrest thingys. He doesn't have headrests. Why is it on his head? We're not sure but we decided to call it his Spiderman 3 impersonation.

The cats love it when I put the ironing board up. They love to sleep on it. Aww, isn't she cute?

They like to groom each other on it.

And this one doesn't show up well but I was trying to capture the claw marks in it. You see, Misty was on it but got too close to the edge. I heard some noise and turned in time to see her back end swinging off the side of the ironing board. Her eyes and tail were huge and she was hanging on for dear life. She tried to swing her back legs up and regain the board but apparently there was too much junk in her trunk and she couldn't do it. Then she let herself slip some and her little back toes were stretched out as far as they could go, trying to find the floor. She finally let herself drop and she was only a couple inches off the floor. She hasn't been back on it since. I'm sure she'll try it out again the next time I get it out.

That's it for now.

Not much

Not much going on here. I'm getting really close to my 200th post. I thought I'd be telling the good news that J was coming home back at the 100th post. Ha! The 200th isn't looking good either. Sigh...

The stupid tooth is still sensitive. I have an appointment on Friday to have it looked at. Actually, it's a cleaning and check-up but I'm sure the tooth will be mentioned. I wouldn't worry much about a tooth but I can see a little line just above the gum line. I'm not very excited about this.

I had mentioned some time ago that Flannery Vandango is coming up on 200K miles and predicted that it might be late summer or early fall. That was when we thought J might actually be home this summer and we would take a trip to WI. But, J didn't come home and we didn't take a trip. Flannery is at just over 195K and so far, so good. Well, apart from the water pump incident.

I don't know why the name Elvis has stuck for the cheap car, but it really has. T and R can't even remember what kind of car he really is. A was backing the van up in the driveway and R yelled, don't turn now, you're going to hit Elvis!

Oh, we had a watermelon, or wallermelum as one of the kids used to call them, from our garden. It was soooo gooood. We picked two more and I hope they are as good as the first one.

Like I said, not much going on here.

35 months and counting

We are officially 35 months into the adoption process. Will it ever end?!?! We began paperchasing in Sept. '05. J was 7, about to turn 8. He will be 11 the end of Sept. None of it makes any sense. It's so hard. Do you know how many people I've heard of them bringing their kids home in much less time than we have? There are a few who've waited as long or longer but that only makes me sad for them too.

This is such a difficult journey. I try to stay positive but it isn't always easy and certainly not possible on my own strength. My arms literally ache sometimes wanting to hug our son. I even dream about him coming home sometimes. Another school year is starting without him here.

The lawyer got the birth cert. finally and the other paper but it still needs to be legalized in order to get back to where we were in May '07. We just keep waiting with no real end in sight. Please pray for us.

In other news, we convinced R to let Lillybet go live with the neighbors about 6 weeks ago. We are all happy except for R, though I think she secretly likes not having to feed, water, and tie the goat out every day. Lillybet is no longer suffering from an identity crisis. She no longer thinks she is a human, a dog or a horse. She is very happy in her new life as a goat

I better do a thankful list. I'm thankful for no further problems with Flannery Vandango. I'm thankful for the cooler temps and lower humidity here the last couple of days. I'm thankful that T got a raise this week. I'm thankful for silly pets that make us laugh.

"Rocks in the Sun"

We got our "Rocks in the Sun" book by Troy Livesay yesterday. Love it! You can go to their blog from the link under "blogs I read" on the right and check it out. It's on their left sidebar.

Cars, a toothache and a thankful list

Something really weird happened yesterday. T was out of town so it was just the girls and I. After church, we got in the van, Flannery Vandango, and A started it and put it into drive and we heard this weird noise. It was a clanging sound and then the wubba, wubba, wubba of a large round piece of metal spinning on the ground before coming to a halt. We looked at each other and I told her to put it back in park. I rolled the window down to see if I could hear anything else and a couple that was nearby told us to turn it off. R's bf looked underneath and said something definitely fell out of the engine. The friend that told us to turn it off came over and we popped the hood. Turns out there is a large pulley thing attached to the water pump. It's supposed to be welded on and in the lines from "O, Brother, Where Art Thou" it said, "That's all I got," and fell off.

T had left his car, Elvis, there and we decided to take it home. I called him and asked him if he had his van key with him because we were taking Elvis. He said his van key was in Elvis. Then I told him what happened and had our friend talk to him and fill him in with the actual mechanical words. T thought we were pulling his leg. Poor guy. He had to get home from his trip and face changing the water pump in 90 degree heat in the church parking lot.

I'm happy to say that I drove Flannery Vandango to work this morning and all is well. T continues to amaze me with his mechanical, technical and problem solving skills.

I'm dealing with a toothache. It's been bugging me for 4-5 days now. I can't chew on that side and the other side is not very coordinated when it comes to chewing. Why is that? So far it's getting worse instead of better. Sigh...

Thankful list. I'm thankful that the water pump pulley decided to give up the ghost and hop off the van when it was sitting still. It didn't even tear up the belt. The one belt that runs everything. I'm thankful T was able to fix it. I'm thankful it was $40 in parts rather than $200. I'm thankful for a swimming pool. And I'm thankful for air conditioning.

Beth Moore simulcast

Did anyone else reading this go to one of the Beth Moore simulcasts? A couple of ladies from our church were going and I had said I'd like to go if I wasn't working. I didn't have to work so I decided to go. I'm so glad I did.

I was going to meet the other ladies there so I drove in right after balancing the checkbook. There is room for improvement in the checkbook and there is not much wiggle room at all. Anyway, I got to the simulcast location and they asked if I had my ticket. I said no, that I needed to buy one and they said that was fine. Another lady walked up and handed me a ticket and said another group of ladies had come in and had an extra ticket and told her to give it to someone who didn't have one. How cool is that?! It was like God was saying, I'm still taking care of you, I've still got my eye on you. I nearly cried.

I met up with the other ladies and the simulcast got started. I've done Beth Moore studies, with the videos and workbooks but had never been to something like this. It was awesome from start to finish. I'm still processing everything I took in. Apparently there were 714 simulcast locations (plus the Louisville location where it originated from) all over the world including every state except NH, Puerto Rico, Canada, and a group of missionaries in Guatemala. They figure there were 70,000 people at these 715 locations coming together to worship God and learn how to have a hundred fold harvest in their lives.

For me personally, a lot of what I took away from it had to do with this crazy long adoption process. A few of those things are; everything from the devil is to make sure that you do not. Everything from Christ is so that you may have. One of the main points was to "expect the test". Yeah, I've noticed that one. She said testing comes in two forms; trials, which come from God, to make you stand and temptations come from satan and make you fall. I also learned that anxiety chokes the Word of God out of us and the root of anxiety is our desire to control. Also, living in defeat makes satan happy, and I don't want to make him happy.

If anyone else went to one of these simulcasts I'd love to hear a comment from you.

More of nothing

I talked to the lawyer yesterday morning and they are still waiting on a couple papers. Huge sigh...

Somewhere around the middle of this month will be month 35 of this adoption process. Today marks another week, another month and getting close to another year gone by and no child here with us. Ahhhh!! I could wallow in self pity and be depressed or I could refuse to be depressed. I'm choosing to refuse to be depressed.

Job 1:21b "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised." I'm thankful for healthy kids. I'm thankful for a good husband. I'm thankful for christian parents.