Weird day

Today has been a weird day. It started off this morning when R came back in the house saying there was a possum in the driveway that was totally unaffected by her being out there and could daddy come and do something with it before the dogs got it. I watched out the door and sure enough, it never even flinched as R walked by it, got in her car, started it and drove away. Possums are nocturnal so we've been told to beware of one out in the daytime. This one just stood there. It was weird.

They are changing our hours of operation at work. That felt weird today. I also found out not long after getting there that one of our dealers passed away last night. It was sad and made me think about the last time I had seen him and what we had said.

My bf/boss called me at closing time to see if I could give her a ride home as she had a flat tire. She was trying to put air in it and yet each time she checked the pressure it had less in it than before she put more in. Weird. On the way out after I dropped her off, their horses were standing in the middle of the driveway, just standing there looking at me. Our first van bore the hind end print of their big quarter horse in the side of it so I didn't want to get too close. I tried beeping and they didn't even flinch. So I rolled the window down and hollered that funny, nasalized word that all rednecks use, "H-yah!" That didn't faze them either so I clucked to them and told them to git up. They did at least acknowledge my presence at that point. I thought I was going to have to get out and move them out of the way. I hollered once more and they finally started moving-right down the middle of the driveway. Weirdos. I finally maneuvered around them and headed home. See, it was a weird day.

That last step is a doozy

Ok, T is home. After a week of sleeping in the whole bed by myself, he's back. I didn't have any trouble going to bed and going to sleep while he was gone. He's back. He is now snoring even with the CPAP on, no matter which way he lays. Ugh! I stayed awake reading a book hoping that he'd finally quit. No luck. I finally got up and went up to J's bed. I don't like to go up there. I laid there and wondered if the kid would ever come home. We've had his room all finished and ready for him for 2 years now. I wonder if we'll ever have all three kids under the same roof together. It's depressing for me to go in his room. I think about all the stuff we've gotten for him and wonder if he'll ever use it.

Anway, the bed is not as comfortable as my own either. I did finally manage to fall asleep but Dexter woke me up wanting to go outside. I figured I was probably pretty lucky for succesfully navigating the spiral staircase in the dark one time and I didn't want to do it again. He persisted. I finally sat up and found the cat in the dark and snatched him up and carried him down the steps. I slipped slightly one time but I made it with no problems. I managed to climb back up there and fall back asleep again. Next time I woke up it was getting light out and it was just about time for my alarm to go off back down in my bedroom anyway, so I got up.

I gathered up my pillow and headed down the steps again. I did fine until Misty decided to sit on one of the steps. I managed to get around her without stepping on her. The problem was, I thought she was on the second step and I only had one more to go and she was actually on the third step. That made that last step a real doozy. The floor came up real quickly. I landed hard on my right elbow which swelled and turned blue immediately. I also hit both knees, right hip, and left big toe. Go figure. Slowly, each family member stumbled out of their rooms and stood over top of me as I laid on the floor. A was the only one who bent down to see if I was ok. She's a sweety, that one. Then they all stumbled back to their rooms. I was fuming. T did get an ice pack for me and helped attach it to my arm.

I got ready and went to church and played music and sang but I had to be real careful about getting the guitar strap over my head and into place. Now I'm starting to get sore too. I'm too old to fall like that.

clarification

Looking back at the last post I sound pretty wimpy and depressed. Yeah, waiting for 3.5 years for an adoption process is very depressing, if you let it be. I'm not happy about the wait but I have to believe that God has a plan that my finite mind cannot fully understand. I have to believe that even though there is the human element involved, that if J was supposed to be here by now, he'd be here. I have to believe that God is in control and could work a miracle if He chose to, regardless of the human element. By "the human element" I mean the humans who are involved in the paperwork, etc. that has to be done for the process to be complete. I have to believe these things because otherwise I would be crazy or depressed. I choose not to be depressed. And on that note, how about a thankful list? I'm thankful for the nice weather we've had the past couple of days. I'm thankful for the rain that fell overnight. I'm thankful that T was able to take A to FL. I'm thankful for friends, families (and pets) who bring joy to my life.

42+ months...

...and still waiting. Our file is still stuck in the "extra step" that they added to MOI while I was in Haiti. I have a closet full of clothes that I'll probably have to give away. It feels like the kid will never come home. 3.5 years is much too long to wait. Unfortunately, it has really turned us off of adoption. Pray for us.

T took A to FL for the week. My parents are down there right now and he's also able to spend some time with his aunt and uncle. They have been shark tooth/fossil hunting and have also been to the beach. Nice for them. I'm staying busy though. A couple people are out at work so I'm working a lot.

R and I watched "I Am Sam" last night. It had been quite a while since I've seen it and she had never seen it. I know it's just a movie but the part where father and daughter are clinging to each other and people are trying to pull them apart just hit too hard, too close. I know those feelings that they were portraying all too well and they were very fresh in my mind. I could feel J with a death grip on my arm saying, "Please. Please. Please don't leave me here. Take me with you. I don't want to stay without you. Please." But I still wouldn't trade the time I had with him to not have to go through that. Anyway...

I broke a string on my guitar today. I'm pretty sure that's the first time ever. I guess I was really into it. Or the strings were wimpy. Because I've never broken a string I don't keep extras on hand. Now I can't play until I get new strings. Sigh...R's new keyboard is sitting about 12 feet away from me though. Hmmm.

Well, that's about it for now.

Caramel eggs

Oh, how we love these things.

Cadbury caramel eggs. They have to be caramel. We don't like the creme ones. For us (the girls in this family) it's about the whole experience, not just the chocolate and caramel. Otherwise we could just eat a caramelo candy bar. Nope. It's everything from trying to peel it without ripping the foil, to the "pop" sound that it makes when you first bite into it, to trying not to drip caramel on anything. Whhoooo boy, we do love our cadbury caramel eggs.

Jelly beans and "grand kids"

I do not like jelly beans. But I do like Jolly Rancher jelly beans.


Just your average jelly bean makes me cringe to think about putting it in my mouth. I don't like the taste or the texture. But Jolly jellies are not your average jelly bean. The taste is excellent and the texture is tolerable. I love them. We love them-the girls in this house love them. T is not big on sweets. However, we do not like the orange ones. Nope. Not at all. None of us. They all get left in the bottom of the candy dish. Always. R has certain colors that she likes, A has certain colors that she likes, I love the blue ones and will eat the red and pink ones but no one likes orange.


We used to give them to our friend, CN, but now he lives on the other side of the world. They are coming home in the summer but I didn't know if the jelly beans would last until then. I saw his grandmother today and asked how long it took a package to make it to the other side of the world and told her the orange jelly bean story. Turns out she is sending a package soon and has offered to add the orange jelly beans into her package. So, do not fear. The lonely orange jelly beans will soon be on their way to someone who will truly appreciate them. (Starburst jelly beans are okay for the girls but they in no way compare to Jolly jellies. I don't care for them.)

Do you remember Lillybet, R's cute, confused goat? She was so much fun but she had peculiar eating habits. She liked my mother's flowers and ornamental trees. She hollered every time we walked out the door because she wanted out of her pen. She wasn't sure if she was a dog, a horse or a human but she knew she wasn't a goat. Then we gave her to the neighbors and her identity crisis was over. She could finally be the goat that she was destined to be. There were other goats there to show her how to act and what to eat. She now had friends who looked like her. And she settled down and started a family. She had twins a couple weeks ago. We walked over to see them this evening. This is a pic of the sky/field on the way over.

Here is R with one of her "grand kids". Get it? Baby goats are called kids? Lillybet was R's kid so here she is with her "grand kid."

Here are each of the girls with a baby.

Apparently it's kidding season at the neighbor's farm. Here is another little cutie who was born this weekend (I think).

This is "Main Fred" eating my coat. I guess most of the goats were named by the 4-year old daughter and they all have some form of Fred in their names, except Lillybet who was already named. "Main Fred" is the biggest and the father of a lot of the babies. All the other females are "Freds" and then there are a couple of new ones who are "Bubba Freds". Yeah.

Here is Lillybet with her twin daughters. The one is chewing on her collar. Someone suggested to the 4yo to name the twins Hanna and Miley, but she informed them that that was the same person. Duh.
I love how they are standing on the rocks.

And here is the little black and white cutie again.

Aww, Lillybet is a good momma.

P.S. Go to the Livesays blog for a pic of Haitian ceiling fans. Too funny. Link is on the right under blogs I read.

Snotitis, fish, art and a new baby

We're still here, just having a hard time blogging these days. Not a lot of time and some junky things going on here that we're working through. Pray for us. Our adoption file is still in the "extra step" that they added to MOI while I was in Haiti. Are you surprised? Huge sigh...it feels like he'll never come home and I spent a month with him so I know what we're missing and what he's missing and it breaks my heart. Again, pray for us.

R and I and a friend of hers went to the Atlanta area this week for a few days. We visited with Mrs. H, saw her new grandbaby, shopped, went to the Georgia Aquarium and to the High Museum of Art. We had a good time but it went by really fast. R is not looking forward to going back to school on Monday. Oh well.

On the way home I started getting a sore throat. I've been having what I call "fibro-flu" a lot lately where I get achy and feel like I'm coming down with something. Sometimes it includes a sore throat and even a low-grade fever but after I sleep I feel better. I had that last Wed., Fri., Sun., and Mon., but this felt different. The sore throat was worse. Now I have snotitis too. Sigh...lots of people around here have it right now. I hope I can sing tomorrow.

Okay, pics from the trip. There are no art museum pics as you are not allowed to take any there. The Aquarium was a great place for pics though. When you first walk into the building they have tanks on either side of the hallway and these fish just keep swimming by. It must be circular tanks because they just keep coming, over and over.

They had several "touch tanks" where you could actually touch the animals. Here, we were touching stingrays and sharks.

The colors never cease to amaze me.
These otters were too cute.

Here is another "touch tank" with starfish and sea anemones. That's R's arm.

They had some beluga whales there. They just kind of float around in their tank. This guy was there as part of a breeding program. He spent a lot of time upside down. Goofy thing.

Here he is, right side up. We learned that the males are bigger and their front fins are curled and the females are usually just flared straight out.
This is a whale shark. (or was it a shark whale?)

These guys were pretty cool looking. They were iridescent and nearly see-through.

R called this guy the "buck-tooth bunny" fish. His front teeth kind of stuck out. Isn't he cute?

The penguins were not in their regular enclosure because they were building a new dolphin exhibit next to them and the construction noises freak them out. We had to take a special little side tour to see them. They weren't the arctic kind. These guys were from Africa.

Oh, these were the weirdest things ever. They were called garden eels. I don't like eels anyway and these were just kind of freaky. Most of their bodies stay below the sand but they can go up and down easily. Bizzare. Every time a larger fish swam by they would go below and then they would push right back up when it left.

It looked like there were two different kinds, striped and spotted. They kind of interacted with each other too. That included an altercation.

This is my "floating jellyfish pic".

These jellyfish kept changing colors. We're not sure if they were changing color or if they were reflecting the light somehow. It was interesting either way. Here they're blue.

And here they're yellowish. They also turned a green color.

Look at this spiny character. I wouldn't want to accidently step on him.

Here is Mrs. H's daughter and new grand daughter.

Here is the baby sleeping on one of her big brother's chest.

We had never been to an art museum. They had the terracotta army display which was quite interesting. To think that we were looking at pieces that were only recently dug up after being buried for over 2,000 years was quite remarkable. Thousands of life size soldiers made out of clay along with chariots and horses and each man and horse was a little different. Just amazing. It was made by China's first emperor in his quest to live forever and rule from the after-life. There was trench after trench of terracotta soldiers. I'm so glad I have the assurance that I can live forever in Christ.

No real title

This post is not a real post, so it doesn't have a real title. Not much going on around here that is blog worthy. Lots of junk, some of which we are beginning to heal from, but not much that's blog worthy. No adoption news. We seem to be stuck in the "extra step" that they added to MOI process while I was in Haiti. Pray for us.

Last week we had snow and this week it's 70 degrees. It looks like it could rain/storm any minute.

I could put up new pics of the cats but Dexter still spends most of his time staring at the cabinet that holds the treats and Sanomae still spends every moment that she can curled up in warm, clean laundry.

T did something really funny with the brakes on Big Momma but I've been forbidden to talk about it on the blog. If you know me in person though, you might want to ask me about it. :-)

R and I are taking a little trip this week and T is taking A on a little trip in a couple of weeks. That's how the spring breaks fell this year.

That's about it for now. I guess I'll do a thankful list. I'm thankful for my hubby and kids, pets, chocolate (oohh, it's Cadbury caramel egg season) jobs, vehicles that run-for the most part anyway.

Snowman vs. potato

Winter wonderland

We woke up to a winter wonderland here this morning! We had 4-5 inches of snow last night.
It was the wet snow (of course-it always rains here before it snows) that sticks to everything. It was just beautiful. A's friend E was here. They were chasing each other with snowballs.

It was still hazy and snowing just a little bit when we first went out.

Hmm. The house looks small here against the backdrop of snow.

We had enough rain yesterday to make the wet weather creek run.

The dogs seemed to enjoy it.

We got the horses out. I don't know why it's so fun to ride in the snow. Growing up in WI we didn't think much of the snow but here it's such a rare treat that it makes everything special.
This is at my parent's house.
Then we decided to do some "redneck open sleighing". Dad and R are on the horses and A and E are in the sleds.

Dad's horse and R's horse didn't like the sled being pulled behind them so we had to put them up and just use Lady. She's a good old horse. That's R on the horse and me in the sled.

This one is A in the sled.
Yup, Lady's a good old horse.

Then we came in and warmed up with coffee, cocoa and the fireplace. Oh, that felt good. Later on, T and I went for a walk with the dogs up into the woods.

It's already melting off quite a bit.

At first the snow wouldn't pack well at all. Once it started melting we were able to make some snowmen, which were actually more like slushmen, and because they picked up everything they have a few horse apples in them too. Just thought you'd like to know that.

We did get the potato cannon out and decapitated the snowman. R had to go to work so she was not able to joust. T pretended one was a linebacker and attacked it. We have some videos of these things but vids don't post well from here. I'll try to get one of them on here anyway but we'll see if that works.

I was able to talk to J already today. I started singing some of the songs that we sang together when I was down there and he was all smiles about that. Oh Lord, please let him come home. Of course he asked when we were coming to get him. I gave the usual answer-when the passport and visa are done. I don't know how much he comprehends of that but I have no other answer for him. Keep praying.