Last Meeting

Yes, you read it right. We had our last meeting with our social worker. Yippee! (No offense Kim!)

We did find out Princess has to get fingerprinted. Our state hasn't implemented the Adam Walsh law but by the time we get our little one it might so it's better to be prepared.

So other than that, which we'll get done Tuesday we're done with our home study and now just wait for our social worker to get everything written up. But she told us that our agency's social workers can still show our profile to expectant moms, even though our home study isn't done done. We don't have any new news about the mom that's due in January. Our social worker was going to check and let us know if she is still working with our agency.

Ok, I guess I lied-we're not completely done. We still have to raise the rest of our funds for the adoption. Once our home study is finalized then we can apply for grants. I've been thinking about and praying about different fundraisers we could do too.

We ask that you join us in praying that God would provide the funds needed.

Perspective

Although I don't have the Jeep Grand Cherokee I would really like, I do have a reliable Chevy Malibu to get me where I'm going.

Although I haven't been have to conceive a child, I do have two wonderful step-children.

Although I don't have the most stylish clothes in town, I do have a warm coat and shoes to wear when it's cold.

Although I haven't climbed Mt Everest, I have climbed the trails of the Rocky Mountains.

Although I can't take any vacation I'd like to, I can spend every night with my husband.

Although I can't afford laser surgery to fix my eyes, I can afford glasses so that I can see.

Although I'm not a size 2, I can see myself through God's eyes, as a child of the King no matter my size.

Although I don't know what tomorrow holds, I know Who holds tomorrow.

Now that's strange

We had our last meeting with our social worker tonight for our home study. This one was at our home and she also wanted to meet with Princess.

Me: Kim will want to meet with you by yourself tonight.

Princess: Ok

Me: Are you nervous?

Princess: No

Me: You don't get nervous meeting with strange people?

Princess: Well, I get to meet with you every day.


Ha ha. I meant "stranger". Princess is cool as a cucumber, at least that's what she tells me and Hubby. Hopefully she's like that inside her heart too.

Our meeting went well - as far as we know. I guess we'll find out in a few weeks when we get the home study report back. I didn't even go crazy cleaning. I was so proud of myself. I did the basics and put as much clutter away as I could but not too much wacko cleaning. It's a good thing to - we did a quick tour that took about 2 minutes and that was it.

Speaking of strange - it's a strange feeling to be close to having this done. I really haven't allowed myself to get too excited and neither has hubby. I suppose that's natural and probably good for us to guard our hearts. I shouldn't really say that we're close to having it done - our wait could be a year. Lord willing, it won't be but only He knows and we're trusting in His timing.

Another strange thing happened today. I had the ultrasound and other test that I can't remember the name of and if I wasn't so lazy I'd look it up but I am lazy so too bad! Anyway, during the ultrasound the technician says, "do you still have your ovaries?" (yes) and then a little while later she said, "do you still have your appendix?" (yes). I politely said yes each time but on the inside I was saying "HELLO! You are the one looking at my insides - you tell me!!" So that made me wonder what she was seeing and unfortunately I'm not privy to that information until the doctor calls. For the other test we got some more, I guess you can call it strange, information. The doctor said my fallopian tubes are open so that's great. But then he said there's a mass in my uterus. "It could be an air bubble but you should probably have it checked out."

Now that's strange. Kind of in the make you want to puke, worry like crazy, what in the world is in my uterus, kind of strange.

What blog?

Jeez louise, you'd think my brain exploded. These last few weeks it's like I've completely forgotten I had a blog. That's weird! It's probably cuz we have alot of stuff going on and I'm just plain tired. So here's an update...

We had two amazing Thanksgiving meals. Hubby and I prepared one here at our house for his family. That was at noon. Then we packed up the car and drove two hours and had another amazing meal with my family and stayed there for a day. Then we came home and worked like crazy on our house, finishing up little things like trim, outlet covers, etc.

Icky icky. I haven't been feeling well. Remember my wacked out, psychotic, hormonal, pain inducing reproductive system? Well each month it's gotten worse. I've been seeing a gazillion doctors and such and until we get something figured out I've just felt icky and some days it's real hard to get out of bed.

Adoption. So close. THIS WEEK we have our last meeting with our social worker and then our home study is final (I know, it's about time!). Then we wait but it's a better wait because we've done everything we have to do, other than wait. Actually I'm also working on our background check information. For those of you who have never done this you have to write down EVERY address you've every lived at. EVERY ONE. Yes, the farm that we lived on for 6 months. Yes, that apartment in Colorado we lived in for 9 months. These people are crazy, that's all I have to say. But thanks to Google Earth we've found our past addresses and I just have to get that typed up.

Icky icky. A little bit more about this. I went to a specialist today to see what our options are. Option #1 have a hysterectomy (this from a doctor who does very few of these). Option #2 take narcotics to relieve the pain I'm experiencing (99% sure from endometriosis and poly cystic ovary disease). Option #3 take Lupron which will put me into menopause. Will relieve the pain but give me all the menopause symptoms and of course no pregnancy. If we still want to pursue fertility options then there's option #4, continue charting with the Creighton Model for 2 months and then go back and decide if we should have surgery (would be my 5th).

So in order to help us with our decision tomorrow I'm having an ultrasound (both regular and pelvic) and another test (can't remember the name) to see the extent of the endometriosis and other things that might be in there. I gave about 2 gallons of blood today and those results will be back in a week. They put both me and Pat on two kinds of antibiotics to get rid of any bacteria that may be messing things up. And if I don't want to take the narcotics she gave me some other options, like how much Motrin I can really take without overdosing. We really like this doctor. She has a strong faith, is easy to talk to, took as much time as we needed and is honest about our options. She's worked and trained with the doctor that created the Creighton Model so that's encouraging. She asked us if we've considered adoption. Uh, ya :-) She encouraged us to continue with the adoption, even while looking at fertility options.

So that's it in a nutshell. Why I've been absent from the blogging world. I've sure missed you all and hopefully life will eventually get back to some sense of normal - whatever that is, I'm not sure.

How amazing are Your blessings, God!

Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done. Psalm 105:1

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today we shared in two Thanksgiving meals. At noon we had dinner with Hubby's family at our house. Then we loaded up the two vehicles with our bags, Princess and three dogs and drove to my parents house where we had another Thanksgiving meal. They were both amazing and I couldn't help but think about how fortunate and blessed and spoiled we are! Not only to be with family and loved ones but to have a warm home and enough food to feed an army. We are so blessed.

Lord, help us to remember every day, not just once a year, the many many blessings you have bestowed upon us. We thank you and we love you!

One down, five to go!

It's a miracle. It really is. We've finally finished one of our profile books for our adoption. I say "one" because we have to make SIX of them! Yikes! But really the other 5 will be easy because now we have everything set up.

Anyway Hubby is a graphic artist and a perfectionist. I love to scrapbook and am a perfectionist. That is a deadly combination. Needless to say we've been working on this one profile book for about 2 years now. Well, maybe it's been more like 2 months but it's seemed like forever.

It also made it difficult because we know at least one of the expectant moms that will be looking at it. The one that we met last month and is working with our adoption agency. She'll be the first to see it to help her with her decision of what family to choose for her baby. Yikes! That made us question every single picture that we were going to put in the book. And question every single thing we thought we should say. So we finally decided we cannot think about the expectant mom, we have to just be real, be ourselves and not worry about it.

So last night about 10:30 we finished. I've been feeling horrible and was crabby. Hubby was crabby. Honestly it wasn't the funnest project we've worked on together but when it was finally done it felt so good. It felt like we'd climbed Mt Everest.

And then I had the weirdest feeling: I didn't want to mail it. I wanted to keep it. It was so pretty and amazing and made me cry every time I looked at it. Even this morning before work I stopped at the post office and sat in the car and had to look at it two more times wondering, should I mail it? I love it so much!

Wow, that sounds really weirdo now. But I guess it's because I love my family so much. I love how God has blessed us and how I look back over the past 5 years and see how He has changed us and molded us and brought healing and love to our family.

But I did mail it. And I love how God has brought us on this new journey. Even though it's really hard and sometimes I just want to throw in the towel, I love that the mother of my child will look at the pictures and read it one day and say "I want them."

Wow, that's interesting!

You should have heard what we heard! We heard alot of good stuff. It was amazing!

We went to the Weekend to Remember marriage conference last weekend and we learned so much. We heard some things we didn't expect to hear (lots of sex talk) and some things we were hoping to hear (Committed to Christ=strong marriage).

We knew we'd probably hear some things about sex. But we had no idea it would be to the extend that we did. But it was good sex talk - for both the guys and ladies. Anyway, does this make you uncomfortable, me talking about this?

Well too bad! If you're married you should be talking about it too so we thought we'd share with you the books we purchased. We highly recommend you attending a Weekend to Remember conference (if you are married) but until then these books would be good purchases for ya!

Enjoy!

Simply Romantic Nights (not really a book but good too)
Intended for Pleasure
Coffee Dates for Couples
Intimate Issues
Rocking the Roles

WHAT IS THAT SMELL?

So we stayed at this amazing, plush hotel this weekend for the Weekend to Remember marriage conference. Did I say it was amazing?

We are sleeping soundly on Saturday night, having sweet dreams about our wonderful marriage and all we've learned this weekend. At about 4:00 AM I wake up to the most disgusting, awful smell I've ever smelled. I wake up Hubby...

"Is that you"

"What are you talking about" (except he said it all sleepy like)

"That smell! Is that you"

"No"

It smelled like dog poop. In our bed. Right next to our face, like on our pillow or something. I was tempted to start feeling around but wait, we don't have a dog in the room so how is it possible that a dog could poop on our pillow?

I continue to complain and Hubby starts snoring again. He obviously doesn't have the amazing smell detecting nostrils that I do. I get up, go out into the hallway. Hhmmm, doesn't smell so bad out here.

WHAT IS GOING ON????

I start thinking out loud, "Maybe God is trying to tell us our doggies are in trouble!" (We left them home alone for the weekend.)

Hubby awakes from his so called deep snoring sleep and says, "Maybe God is trying to tell us to clean up the poop in our back yard."

Ya ok, that must be it.

We never did find out where the horrendous poop fumes were coming from. Being the loving Christians folks that we are, we didn't even complain to the manager.

Ok, it's probably not cuz we're loving Christians (although we are), it's probably more like we didn't want say to the manager "We woke up at 4 am and smelled dog poop! We want a refund!" How stupid is that!

Home

It's good to be home. Even though we stayed in a plush, comfortable amazing hotel this weekend it's so good to be home.

Some days I'm so homesick. Not for my earthly home but for my heavenly home. To be in the presence of our heavenly Father, Jesus, my Savior, my Friend! To worship God and no longer have tears or pain or sadness. Talk about amazing!

Do you have a reservation at the Father's House? Are you 100% confident that when you die you will be going to your heavenly home? If not, send me an email and I'd love to visit with you more.

I'll share more about our weekend later.

Beating the Odds

Sorry for the scary picture. That was me and Hubby last year at his work's Christmas "Prom" party. Ya! 80's all the way!

Anyway, I'm so excited for this weekend. Hubby and I are attending the Weekend to Remember marriage conference AND we splurged and are staying at a hotel even though the conference is in our home town.

Our marriage didn't start out so hot. We were both unbelievers. I was running from my first marriage and Hubby was running from being alone. We were hurting which caused us to be hurtful and low and behold getting married didn't solve anything. About 6 months after getting married I recommitted my life to Christ and things just got worse. About 6 months after that Princess got saved and then Hubby was really in a bad situation (or so he thought!). I eventually learned to keep my mouth shut (most of the time) and show Hubby the love of Christ instead of my own selfish love. It was actually a fight between me and Princess that brought Hubby to his knees and he accepted Christ as his savior.

And things didn't get better. Not right away anyway. I remember hearing Dr Phil share that marriages that start the way ours did, only about 10% of them last. Sorry Dr Phil, you got nothing on us because our God is bigger than 10%!

On New Years Eve we'll be married 5 years. Every year since we've gotten married has been better than the one before and God has shown His mercy and grace to us in so many ways. So I'm thankfully able to say we are not attending the Weekend to Remember conference because we're struggling in our marriage. However, we both learned the hard way that marriage takes work. It takes committment. It's not about feelings - it's about being committed to each other through anything and being committed to Christ makes that journey alot easier.

Plus we figure that Lord willing we'll have a baby soon so we won't have a chance for a weekend getaway for awhile. Hope y'all have a great weekend. I know we will!

How To Make A Fleece Blanket

I was struggling through trying to write out the directions for making fleece blankets when I figured someone must have already done all the hard work. So I googled something about fleece blankets and found this cool site...

http://users.pld.com/rbriggs/blanket.htm

Go there and it gives you pictures and everything. You can make your very own fleece blanket. Have fun!

100 Things

I can't believe I missed my 100th post! In bloggedy tradition I've been preparing my 100 things about me for my 100th post. And then I missed it. Oh well. For my 101st post here are 100 things about me.

1. I was born in Redfield, South Dakota
2. Most of my growing up years were spent on farms
3. We raised sheep for many of my childhood years
4. I wanted to be a veternarian when I grew up
5. I have a step-daughter, Princess
6. I have a step-son, Prince
7. I have a God-child who's 3 1/2 and lived with us for one year and now he lives in FL with his mommy and it's way too far away!
8. I love drama
9. I was Sandy for a community production of Grease
10. I help direct our church's drama team
11. I have 3 dogs
12. This is my second marriage
13. My hubby's name is Pat and he's my best friend
14. I went to college at SDSU
15. I have a degree in Sociology
16. My first job was at Alco
17. My second job was Dairy Queen
18. I worked at DQ for 6 years through high school and college
19. I also worked at Dominoes (for 4 days)
20. I also worked at Blockbuster Video (for 2 weeks)
21. I love animals
22. I delivered a lamb when I was in 5th grade
23. My favorite childhood memory is butchering chickens and other disgusting farm chores
24. My second favorite childhood memory is spending summers at Gradma Harriet's house
25. My favorite color is blue
26. My eyes are blue
27. I have naturally curly hair
28. I played the french horn in high school and college
29. My senior year of HS I went on a band/choir tour to Europe
30. I wish I still had my french horn
31. I gave my life to Christ my junior year of college (1994)
32. Hubby and I were married on New Years Eve (5 years this year!)
33. I currently work for our church as a ministry assistant
34. I used to work for JDS as Training Manager/Assistant Manager in the call center
35. My best friend from high school and I held the record (unofficially) at our high school for the most consecutive bumps (volleyball) in a row (over 1500).
36. I punched my sister when her and her friends tried to initiate me when I was a freshman in high school
37. I love crab legs
38. My favorite movie of all time is Anne of Green Gables
39. My brother and I applied to be on the Amazing Race (we were denied!)
40. I have a tatoo, a "nice" dragon on my ankle
41. I drive a Chevy Malibu, which I hate. Ok hate is a strong word. I don't like it at all because it's so low and I'm already short and it makes me feel shorter.
42. We recently sold my Jeep Cherokee, which I miss dearly.
43. I'v written a number of skits and human videos
44. My favorite football teams are the Washington Redskins and the Green Bay Packers
45. I ran a 1/2 marathon in Green Bay, WI
46. My mom and I started a ministry for women called A Day Spa for Women
47. I absolutely hate doing dishes
48. I type 60 wpm
49. I've bungy jumped
50. I've always thought I was 5'4" but recently found out I'm 5'3" (Tragic! Am I shrinking or was I just wrong all this time?)
51. I like chips (plain) and dip (french onion), preferrably together.
52. I had back surgery when I was a sophomore in high school
53. I'm a speed reader
54. I have this little problem of stealing Princess's Dove chocolates
55. My favorite book of the Bible is Psalms
56. My life verse is Ephesians 3:14-21
57. I wear size 9 shoes
58. I like to sing worship music at the top of my lungs in the car
59. I like raw carrots but not cooked carrots
60. My favorite soda is Mt Dew although I've cut back alot and now mostly drink just water
61. I love to jump in puddles (and preferably splash Hubby or Princess)
62. I sleep on the left side of the bed
63. I prefer showers to baths
64. I love to cook and bake but I'm not a good griller
65. I talk to my mom or dad almost every day
66. I have one sister, Danelle
67. She's the oldest, then me, then my two brothers
68. My youngest brother is 5 years younger than me
69. My other brother is one year younger than me
70. He lives in the same town as me so we get to see each other alot
71. My mom, dad, sister and youngest brother all live 2 hours from us
72. We love to drive the Jeep to visit them and go muddin'
73. I have double jointed elbows
74. I'm an early to bed, early to rise person
75. I hate the dentist
76. I love to garden
77. I don't have a garden, hopefully next year
78. I don't sew - well maybe buttons, but that's about it
79. I do enjoy making fleece blankets
80. Our family has "family night" every Tuesday night
81. My favorite color of clothing to wear is black
82. I've been to every state on the west side of the US
83. I raised my hands on a roller coaster for the first time at DisneyWorld this year
84. My favorite card game is Shanghai Rummy
85. My real name is Melissa
86. My dad's nickname for me is Miss Muffet
87. When we were kids my uncle would call my sister and me Ding Bat and Doe Bird
88. I taught myself to plan bass guitar when I was in high school.
89. I no longer play bass guitar. I can kind of play piano (that means I don't play well!)
90. Ten to go - I'm normally a patient person but this 100 Things list is driving me crazy. It's really hard!
91. I write on 4 blogs (this one, www.dayspaforwomen.com, the youth group blog and the staff blog where I work)
92. I have a very good memory
93. I spend every Sunday night with 8-10 teenagers (and I love it!)
94. I can fall asleep just about anywhere
95. I learned to drive a stick shift when I was a teenager
96. I was in volleyball, basketball and track in high school
97. I once scored 13 points in a basketball game. I think that was the only game I played
98. Every day I'm thankful for the amazing faithfulness and mercy of Jesus
99. I'm so thankful I have such a wonderful husband, step-kids and family
100. I love Jesus with all my soul. He is my all and all, my everything and my life would be nothing without Him.

I Just Can't

I tried. I really tried. Just couldn't do it. Not even a pair of socks or some candy.

I've talked to so many people that say they have already started their Christmas shopping, in fact some that are done with their Christmas shopping. So I told Hubby last night ...

"I'm going to do it. I'm going to start shopping now for Christmas, a little bit each week."

Hubby responds, "ok".

Gee, thanks for the encouragement!

So I went to Wally World tonight bound and determined to purchase some wonderful Christmas treasures. I couldn't do it. This little person or something kept yelling in my brain "IT'S NOT EVEN THANKSGIVING YET! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? ARE YOU CRAZY?"

Yes, I am crazy. But that still doesn't explain why I can't shop until Christmas Eve at 2:00 pm. Laziness? No, I was out there, in the trenches, trying my hardest. Procrastination? Maybe a little of that - but again I tried.

I think I enjoy the challenge. It's Christmas Eve Eve and I've bought nothing. I have about 143 things to buy and I enjoy the thrill of accomplishing that ridiculous task. For some reason my brain hasn't figured it out yet that I'm probably paying twice as much but ya know I'm still young, maybe some day I'll figure it out.

Until then - Happy Thanksgiving folks! There's no shopping going on in this family!

I Hope I Didn't Say Anything Stupid

We had our first meeting with our social worker yesterday - working to complete our home study. It went well. I asked Hubby afterwards if I said anything I shouldn't have and he didn't think so but I've spent all night going through our conversation in my head... did I give too much information, not enough information, how will she interpret that, did I talk too much?

Hubby is so calm, cool and collected - it's really annoying. I wish just once he would freak out and start crying and question every little thing he says and does. Hhmmm, that would be scary - then there'd be two of us!

We have two more meetings with our social worker, one which will be at our home. We're working on our profile books - we have to make 6 of them! Trying to figure out what pictures to use is overwhelming sometimes but again I need to follow the example of Hubby and try not to worry about it.

My Amazing Rooster Fleeing Brother

My brother has been running since he was 3 years old. You see, we lived on a farm and we had this psycho rooster. My older sister and I would throw rocks at it and run away before getting pecked to death and then when we couldn't find it we would send our little brother out into the yard to try to find it. He'd come back running, hollering and screaming for his life. It was hilarious!

Every since then he's been running. Running from the rooster. Running from his two older sisters. Running from his younger brother. In high school he put that running to good use and joined cross country and the rest is history!

Today he finished 127th place in the New York City Marathon with a time of 2 hours and 43 minutes. That's just riduculous running for over 2 hours! Anyway he was the 60th American male to finish. We're so proud of him!

We never dreamed that the rooster torture we inflicted on our brother would help him get where he is today. You're welcome bro! It was the least we could do!

I don't have a pic yet of him at today's marathon but here's one after he finished the Seattle marathon last year. He ran in memory of one of his students.



p.s. Lance Armstrong finished with a time of 2 hours and 49 minutes. Hee hee. I love Lance and all but it's sweet to say my brother beat him! :-)

It's About Time

All this talk about adoption and we've never even completed our home study yet! Well, finally we'll be starting the process of 3 meetings with our social worker. The first will be tomorrow and we'll meet at our church. One of the meetings has to be at our home but we thought we'd postpone that as long as we could considering all the little things we still have to do.

The thought of getting our home study done is exciting, something tangible we can actually say we've done to work toward adoption. At the same time it's nerve racking and frustrating knowing how our lives will be an open book in order to be parents. Our social worker is an adoptive mom herself so that brings my heart peace in knowing that she really has been in our shoes.

We appreciate your prayers and we'll let you know how it goes!

This Bloggy Giveaway Closed!

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Fall 'all Bloggy Giveaway. It was a blast!

The winner of the fleece blanket is Emily. Congrats!!! I'll send you an email with some other fleece designs for you to pick from.

A few requested instructions on how to make the blankets - it's sooo easy! - I'll post that tomorrow for ya.

Have a great night!

Bird On A Wire

So I'm on my way to work this morning enjoying the beautiful day the Lord had given me. I'm sitting at a stoplight looking around at God's marvelous creation. My eye catches some birds sitting on the telephone wires at the intersection. Then I see this one little bird farther down on the wire sitting all by himself. As I watch him I realize he keeps scooting closer to the other birds sitting together farther down the wire.

What in the world!? Seriously, he scoots, looks around, scoots again. I even say to him "What are you doing little birdy?" Unfortunately he doesn't tell me or if he did I couldn't hear him. He keeps scooting, looking at his birdy buddy wannabes farther down the wire.

I say to Mr Bird "Uh, you can fly over there ya know!"

Then it hit me. Not only am I an idiot for talking to this bird but I realize that we do exactly what Mr Bird was doing. We sit on our little wire and we have this goal in mind or some place we think God may have called us to. But instead of using the gifts God has given us and flying right on over we take little baby steps, fearful of what will happen.

I wonder if God's looking at us saying "Uh, you can fly over there ya know!" Nope, we have to scoot scoot scoot and miss out on the many blessings that spreading our wings and leaping off that wire will bring.

Ok, this whole birdy talk is getting creepy. Morale of the story: don't be such a chicken! :-)