MOVING DAY IS FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We are FINALLY going home! Carpet went in on Monday, and looks awesome! It is amazing how much flooring makes a difference. The upstairs went from being a work zone to looking like a home just from the carpet going in. I forgot to snap a few pictures when I was over there, but I will get a few taken in the next few days and hopefully get them posted here soon.
The first time we moved into our house was in mid to late October, and now we are moving back in in late October. I'm sure we made God chuckle out loud when we bought that house. He we were, a young naive couple, thinking we could remodel the house ourselves and then fill it with children. We all know how that story played out. We are NOT "Do It Yourself" kind of people, and seven years later, the only "children" to roam the house are four legged and furry. I can't believe we moved there seven years ago. I also can't believe how great the house looks. I told Gus yesterday that it is hard to believe that OUR house is that beautiful. We can't wait to get back in and enjoy it!!! 2 more sleeps!!! The restoration company is giving it a good cleaning today and tomorrow and then they will be there Friday morning with our stuff. I'm a little afraid how the animals are going to react. I'm not sure if they will remember and put two and two together or not. If I was stuck in a burning house thinking I was going to die, I would remember. But hopefully their little pea brains have moved on to much nicer thoughts since then.
We plan on having an open house once we get settled, especially to thank everyone who has helped us over the last 10 1/2 months. There are so many people who gave us their time, knowledge, skills, connections, resources, and meals. Some of which we didn't even meet until they showed up to help out. There have been so many times through this whole journey that people have simply amazed me and restored my faith in humanity. I've also realized what I've taken for granted. That two story house is more than a building, it is our home. I haven't exactly been in the holiday spirit the last couple of years, so Christmas decorations never came out of the attic. But you better believe that our home will be decorated this year, with whatever survived the fire and the decorations that have already been donated to us.
Gus had someone recently tell him that the day of the fire must have been the worst day ever. We both thought about it and said that it was up there, but definitely not the worst day ever. It was scary, especially before I knew the pets were okay. I found out before I got there that Noah was alright, but I was still on edge until there was a Nigel sighting. We had other things on our minds that day. Things that mattered more to us than if our belongings were gone. Perhaps both situations acted as a numbing agent for the other. God works in mysterious ways.
On a side note, do you think the Lifetime Network would be interested in purchasing our story? I think that would be one heck of an adoption fundraiser idea. :)
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Sunday, October 23, 2011
One Nervous Puppy
Well, it has been a little while since I've given an update, but that is because we have been BUSY!
About a week and a half ago, I got Depo shot number 2 and so far it has been a wonder drug. All of the side effects I wanted, I got and I haven't had any of the ones I didn't want, yet. Hopefully, it will stay that way!
All of our home study interviews are done! We just have to have the home safety check once we get back in to the house. Which means I really need to get moving on our profiles. The short profile is done. Most of the pictures for the long profile are set in the format in our book on shutterfly, I just need to write the captions for the photos and write the "Dear Birthmother" letter. But, every time I think about writing it, my mind gets too active about how it needs to be perfect and how so much is riding on it that I get writers block. I know I just need to get the rough draft done and work on tweaking it. So hopefully after the move it will just all fall in to place.
Did you catch that? I said after the move!!! If everything goes to plan, we will be moving this coming weekend. Carpet should go in tomorrow, the restoration company should be there to clean on Wednesday and Thursday, and then hopefully move our stuff in on Friday. :) I plan to start taking some time off of job #1 to get us settled, as Gus has been taking all of his time off to get the house ready to move back in to. My hours have been cut at job #2, not sure why, starting this week, but it is working out perfectly with our time line for moving, so I'm not complaining too much yet.
That brings me to my title for today. I've been packing up our hotel room and taking boxes over to the house. The poor dog doesn't have a clue what is going on, but it is making him extremely nervous. And to be honest, it is making me sad. Not that I'm sad to be leaving the hotel, but now that I've taken the things that have made this room "home" for the last 10 months back to our real home, I guess I'm just sad that we had to live in a hotel room for that long. It feels as weird as it did the first week to think that "home" was a hotel room.
We also got another large donation last week, so we are now really close to being 30% of the way to our goal!! Once the move is over, we should have more time to work on planning the fundraiser. We are hoping to be able to pull it off in January.
We are also starting to SLOWLY accumulate some baby things. That cold call scenario really opened our eyes, so we decided we should have a few things on hand in case it really does happen that quickly. I won't want to be stopping any where on our way to pick up our child to get a car seat instead of heading straight to meet him or her. I don't plan on setting up the nursery yet, but I think it would be good to have a few things on hand.
Hopefully, the next blog update will come from our HOUSE!!!!! :) :) :)
About a week and a half ago, I got Depo shot number 2 and so far it has been a wonder drug. All of the side effects I wanted, I got and I haven't had any of the ones I didn't want, yet. Hopefully, it will stay that way!
All of our home study interviews are done! We just have to have the home safety check once we get back in to the house. Which means I really need to get moving on our profiles. The short profile is done. Most of the pictures for the long profile are set in the format in our book on shutterfly, I just need to write the captions for the photos and write the "Dear Birthmother" letter. But, every time I think about writing it, my mind gets too active about how it needs to be perfect and how so much is riding on it that I get writers block. I know I just need to get the rough draft done and work on tweaking it. So hopefully after the move it will just all fall in to place.
Did you catch that? I said after the move!!! If everything goes to plan, we will be moving this coming weekend. Carpet should go in tomorrow, the restoration company should be there to clean on Wednesday and Thursday, and then hopefully move our stuff in on Friday. :) I plan to start taking some time off of job #1 to get us settled, as Gus has been taking all of his time off to get the house ready to move back in to. My hours have been cut at job #2, not sure why, starting this week, but it is working out perfectly with our time line for moving, so I'm not complaining too much yet.
That brings me to my title for today. I've been packing up our hotel room and taking boxes over to the house. The poor dog doesn't have a clue what is going on, but it is making him extremely nervous. And to be honest, it is making me sad. Not that I'm sad to be leaving the hotel, but now that I've taken the things that have made this room "home" for the last 10 months back to our real home, I guess I'm just sad that we had to live in a hotel room for that long. It feels as weird as it did the first week to think that "home" was a hotel room.
We also got another large donation last week, so we are now really close to being 30% of the way to our goal!! Once the move is over, we should have more time to work on planning the fundraiser. We are hoping to be able to pull it off in January.
We are also starting to SLOWLY accumulate some baby things. That cold call scenario really opened our eyes, so we decided we should have a few things on hand in case it really does happen that quickly. I won't want to be stopping any where on our way to pick up our child to get a car seat instead of heading straight to meet him or her. I don't plan on setting up the nursery yet, but I think it would be good to have a few things on hand.
Hopefully, the next blog update will come from our HOUSE!!!!! :) :) :)
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Just What I Needed to Hear This Morning
Found this in my inbox this morning. Cried while reading the whole thing.
October 18, 2011
Tired of Waiting on God
Tracie Miles
"Isaac was sixty years old when Rebekah gave birth to them." Genesis 25:26b (NIV)
Do you ever get tired of waiting on God to answer your prayers? Recently, I began to feel a sense of frustration with the wait, and also a little bit tired.
Tired of saying the same old prayer day after day, month after month, year after year. Tired of telling God about the same old problems still going on. Tired of hearing myself pray about the same old problems, leading me to wonder if God was as tired of hearing my prayer requests as I was of praying them.
So I bowed my head and admitted to God that I was simply tired of the wait.
In a heavy state of emotional tiredness, I turned to the crisp, white pages of my Bible. I was hoping God would illuminate a few verses that would jump out of the book and straight into my heart.
I began reading about when Isaac's wife Rebekah gave birth to twin sons. One particular sentence caught my eye and I read it again and again. My heart leapt as I realized God was using this one little sentence to speak hope into my spirit. He used His spiritual highlighter just as I had wanted.
Genesis 25:26 tells us that Isaac was sixty years old when his twins were born; a simple Bible fact, yet profoundly meaningful to me on this specific day. You see, Isaac had been patient for the Lord to provide the perfect wife; he was forty years old when he married Rebekah. If you do the math you realize Isaac waited twenty years for Rebekah to bear him children! He could have chosen a concubine to bear him a son. But he was a man of great patience who waited on God. Eventually his patient faith was rewarded.
Isaac never gave up hope that his Lord could make the impossible, possible. He had learned that his Lord would provide. So he continued to pray the same desperate prayer for a son, day after day, month after month, year after year. In fact, we learn in Genesis 25:21 that "Isaac pleaded with the Lord" (NLT), meaning he earnestly and strongly prayed about his problem. He did not half-heartedly ask God for a son, he pleaded! He begged. He poured his heart out.
I can envision Isaac passionately pleading to God throughout those twenty years, with out-stretched arms and a tear-stained face pressed against the hot, dirty soil, begging God to answer his prayer.
Isaac was surely tired of the wait, but he never stopped praying or believing that his dreams could come true. And in God's perfect timing, they did.
If you are tired of the wait, you may be pleading to God just like Isaac. It may take twenty years for God to answer our prayers, or it may only take twenty minutes. But today, let us find comfort in remembering Isaac's patient faith and take hope in believing that God is not tired of hearing our prayers. Instead, He is simply waiting for the perfect time to answer.
Dear Lord, please help me have patience and faith while I wait to hear from You. Help me live in excited anticipation for the day when I will see how You answer my prayers. In Jesus' Name, Amen.
Power Verses:
Psalm 27:14, "Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD." (NIV)
Isaiah 40:31, "But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." (KJV)
October 18, 2011
Tired of Waiting on God
Tracie Miles
"Isaac was sixty years old when Rebekah gave birth to them." Genesis 25:26b (NIV)
Do you ever get tired of waiting on God to answer your prayers? Recently, I began to feel a sense of frustration with the wait, and also a little bit tired.
Tired of saying the same old prayer day after day, month after month, year after year. Tired of telling God about the same old problems still going on. Tired of hearing myself pray about the same old problems, leading me to wonder if God was as tired of hearing my prayer requests as I was of praying them.
So I bowed my head and admitted to God that I was simply tired of the wait.
In a heavy state of emotional tiredness, I turned to the crisp, white pages of my Bible. I was hoping God would illuminate a few verses that would jump out of the book and straight into my heart.
I began reading about when Isaac's wife Rebekah gave birth to twin sons. One particular sentence caught my eye and I read it again and again. My heart leapt as I realized God was using this one little sentence to speak hope into my spirit. He used His spiritual highlighter just as I had wanted.
Genesis 25:26 tells us that Isaac was sixty years old when his twins were born; a simple Bible fact, yet profoundly meaningful to me on this specific day. You see, Isaac had been patient for the Lord to provide the perfect wife; he was forty years old when he married Rebekah. If you do the math you realize Isaac waited twenty years for Rebekah to bear him children! He could have chosen a concubine to bear him a son. But he was a man of great patience who waited on God. Eventually his patient faith was rewarded.
Isaac never gave up hope that his Lord could make the impossible, possible. He had learned that his Lord would provide. So he continued to pray the same desperate prayer for a son, day after day, month after month, year after year. In fact, we learn in Genesis 25:21 that "Isaac pleaded with the Lord" (NLT), meaning he earnestly and strongly prayed about his problem. He did not half-heartedly ask God for a son, he pleaded! He begged. He poured his heart out.
I can envision Isaac passionately pleading to God throughout those twenty years, with out-stretched arms and a tear-stained face pressed against the hot, dirty soil, begging God to answer his prayer.
Isaac was surely tired of the wait, but he never stopped praying or believing that his dreams could come true. And in God's perfect timing, they did.
If you are tired of the wait, you may be pleading to God just like Isaac. It may take twenty years for God to answer our prayers, or it may only take twenty minutes. But today, let us find comfort in remembering Isaac's patient faith and take hope in believing that God is not tired of hearing our prayers. Instead, He is simply waiting for the perfect time to answer.
Dear Lord, please help me have patience and faith while I wait to hear from You. Help me live in excited anticipation for the day when I will see how You answer my prayers. In Jesus' Name, Amen.
Power Verses:
Psalm 27:14, "Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD." (NIV)
Isaiah 40:31, "But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." (KJV)
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Guilt & the Word 'No"
First of all, let me start by saying that the great carpet fiasco of 2011 appears to be over. We have been to 3 places and picked out carpet 3 times, and we have finally got it ordered. It is scheduled to be installed next Wednesday. So all we will have left are loose ends and the final cleaning from the restoration company, and it looks like we will be back home by November 1st!
Secondly, I'm not sure if I have fully explained how the adoption process is going to work from here. Once the home study is done, we will start receiving scenarios of birth parents looking for adoptive families. They will give us some background information, we can decide if we want more information and then give them a "yes, show them our profile," or a "no, don't show them our profile." If we opt to have our profile shown, we will then obviously be contacted on whether or not the birth parents have chosen us and the next step from there. They also have "cold calls," which means a baby has already been born, is at the hospital, and is in need of an adoptive family.
I've already mentioned that our social worker told us that this was going to be a bumpy road emotionally, and that she has told us that a cold call leaves you with zero time to prepare. Well, we got a taste of both last night. We received an email with a cold call scenario. We are far enough along in the home study process, and due to the situation, they wanted to give this baby every opportunity possible, so they added us to the scenario list. This baby is at the hospital waiting for a family so it can be discharged. The baby has some major medical complications, is terminal, and isn't expected to make it more than 2 years. Now, when we filled out our preference sheet for the adoption agency, we had already said we would not be open to taking a child with major medical issues. And just by checking the box, we had guilty feelings associated with our decision. Now, put an actual child in the mix and my guilty feelings sky rocketed. We went through the excitement of getting our first scenario to extreme quilt in about three minutes flat. We know we do not have the resources to be able to care for such a child. I know deep down in my heart, I don't want to intentionally fall in love with a baby that will be gone way too quickly. We feel we are not the best match to handle this baby's needs. However, in the back of my mind, I keep saying, if we were able to conceive and give birth to this exact baby, we would take it home, love it, and LEARN daily how to handle the baby's needs. We are not able to conceive, so we are plagued with the power to choose.
I have been praying for peace for the birth parents decisions...I think I need to add peace for our decisions to the list. I'm beginning to understand a world few will ever experience first hand, and it makes me extremely sad.
Secondly, I'm not sure if I have fully explained how the adoption process is going to work from here. Once the home study is done, we will start receiving scenarios of birth parents looking for adoptive families. They will give us some background information, we can decide if we want more information and then give them a "yes, show them our profile," or a "no, don't show them our profile." If we opt to have our profile shown, we will then obviously be contacted on whether or not the birth parents have chosen us and the next step from there. They also have "cold calls," which means a baby has already been born, is at the hospital, and is in need of an adoptive family.
I've already mentioned that our social worker told us that this was going to be a bumpy road emotionally, and that she has told us that a cold call leaves you with zero time to prepare. Well, we got a taste of both last night. We received an email with a cold call scenario. We are far enough along in the home study process, and due to the situation, they wanted to give this baby every opportunity possible, so they added us to the scenario list. This baby is at the hospital waiting for a family so it can be discharged. The baby has some major medical complications, is terminal, and isn't expected to make it more than 2 years. Now, when we filled out our preference sheet for the adoption agency, we had already said we would not be open to taking a child with major medical issues. And just by checking the box, we had guilty feelings associated with our decision. Now, put an actual child in the mix and my guilty feelings sky rocketed. We went through the excitement of getting our first scenario to extreme quilt in about three minutes flat. We know we do not have the resources to be able to care for such a child. I know deep down in my heart, I don't want to intentionally fall in love with a baby that will be gone way too quickly. We feel we are not the best match to handle this baby's needs. However, in the back of my mind, I keep saying, if we were able to conceive and give birth to this exact baby, we would take it home, love it, and LEARN daily how to handle the baby's needs. We are not able to conceive, so we are plagued with the power to choose.
I have been praying for peace for the birth parents decisions...I think I need to add peace for our decisions to the list. I'm beginning to understand a world few will ever experience first hand, and it makes me extremely sad.
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