I love the country....

Even if I can't live there (although I would love to) I find such peace driving there.... Last time I drove through this area, a couple weeks ago, I just cried. I said, "God you know my hearts desire and you know what restores my soul."

Heaven knows it is not cement, parking lots and shopping malls!! (oh a good scrapbook store can inspire.....but....)

Another Barn... 

Sprinklers at dusk....Scholls, Or 

An Old Cemetary....A freind of mine said" Why do you want to move to Oregon, they just have animals, old barns and dead things up there!" 

A barn...around Scholls, Oregon 

bbaaaaaa....Scholls, Or 

Italian Ambiance and Blurry-eyed computing....

The color of lasagna... My two chefs treated me to star class service and candle-glow ambiance, as we feasted on lasagna at our local favorite Italian Restuarante....Dean Martin's rendition of AMORE, brought rounds of dancing and giggles. Dinner was topped off with ice cream ala cookies and whip. :)

Blurry-eyed computing. ...Sometimes I am just tied to the computer so much through work and research, that I want to throw up. I know what a time saver it is, in one sense, but what a time waster it can become as well. Today involved far too much staring at the screen. My eyes are tired and my mind is overloaded. As I spend too much time at the laptop...I can feel my spirit dragging....

A need a fresh word, a couple of chilled cucumbers and some non-tech time....

The Chefs in the Kitchen 

The ambiance of candlelight 

Chef Antonio...unsure of the ambiance 

171H

I got my 171H from the immigration services in the mail today!!!! I cannot believe it! I was expecting it to arrive around April 11th Normally they say it is 60 days! But I got it 11 days from when I was fingerprinted!!

Can you believe it!!!!???? I am beside myself!!! Big grin! This jumps me up about 49 DAYS on my time line. My dossier is all finished and being translated and should be sent to China in early March! This means travel could be as early as June!!!!!! Much better. God is good.

YipPeeee!!!!!!!!

Yippee...another Adoption Milestone..

Surprise, surprise!! My homestudy was sent to the INS last week and I thought it would be 30 days before I had my fingerprinting appoint....

Today I got the notice of my appointment!! That is 6 days, including weekends!! What is funny, is that the notice was dated Feb 6 and the appointment was for January 25th....odd. But ...I called and I get to come in next Wenesday! Yipee!!

I don't know WHAT that does to my time line, but I think it may knock 3 weeks off of it! I hope! :)

I also got my dossier sent off to the translator to translate into Chinese. Yippee!

WBB in CS...

...stands for"Whiney baby butt in cyberspace." Be warned..I am going to whine a bit. :)

Have you ever been so tired, physically and even more mentally, that you feel like you could sleep for a week? A friend of mine (you know WHO YOU ARE) won a $300 spa day. I would pay her $299 to give it to me! I need one...in a bad way.

ok my whines:

Clutter...I have layers upon layers of papers, stuff, mail, this and that covering every surface of my home. All stuff I need to deal with...or just don't have the guts to toss ("there may be something in there I need to read, look at, use...") and clutter in my home also clutters my spirit.

Meetings, deadlines, and to dos: I have such a long list of to dos, deadlines I need to meet and then meetings, that I could do nothing but work on these 24 X 7 for four weeks, with nothing new added, and still not be done! EEEEEEK!

Tired: I did a day trip, work related in and out of Portland Oregon yesterday. The flight to Portland was late leaving and the flight coming home was even later...so 10:30 at night, I am finally home trying to get two little guys to bed. We were all exhausted this am....

Food: My diet started at 8 am this morning and ended at 5:36 pm......sigh....failure is not tastey to eat.

Ok. those are my current whines, there are probably many more layers, textures and embellishments to my whining list, but the gist is there.

So that's what's new with me. Hopefully by next cyberspace blogging will be more upbeat.

Gotta whine to somebody and I do not want to wear my friends out.

Addendum thought...safe

I was just thinking as I looked at a previous post
about safety....I can trust God to keep my boys safe.... Amazing that He
showed me that so soon...after.

Nicholas said, "I am so glad we are saved, because we
could have been killed. It's a miracle."

Joy of Cookies and Chocolate Kisses

Valentine decorations are up in our household.....after grocery shopping, bathtime...while the boys were playing, I made a treat. Sugar cookies with hearts and a melting chocolate kiss on each. Nicholas and Anthony were delighted and "goo-endowed" with the treat.

"I love you mommy" Big hug, "You are the best".

----worth every second of it...

God protected my little ones today, as they were spending Saturday with their dad and coming down the hill from Loomis 70 miles an hour (yea...my eyebrows were raised as well when I heard that piece of the story)...and the suv had a major blow out on the back tire...the kind that leaves no trace of a tire! God's angels must have been holding the sides of the car to keep it from rolling.....

All were safe, although a bit shaken up as I drove out to pick them up from the side of the highway!!

...no wonder I baked sugar cookies! Thank you God....for protecting my little earth angels.

Not Sleepn....

It is 2.43 am and I am not sleeping....I dislike nights like this as I end up tossing and turning all night and am exhausted the next day. Woke up from a dream about a flood and rising waters and trying to walk my way back to those I love...and my cell phone not working. Amazing how technology will now work its way into your nightmares...the modern age.

The dream made me think about safe and not safe. The quote from Narnia, on Aslan not being safe, but being good. That is hard to handle. You want your family to be safe. I don't mean no trials, or challenges....I am not asking for mutant, undeveloped catapillars vs butterflies, but a mom's heart wants to pray for her child's safety and think it has an impact.

"If I should gain the whole world (safety) and lose my soul..." I guess safety of the soul is more important...even there we have guarantees. We can share, pray, have an environment that encourages our children to choose God, and yet, it is still up to them. Scary thoughts, that there are no guarantees...

So what is a sleepless mother to do?

Realize that God loves my dear child even more than I. That He place my children in my care for a reason. That even though I will pray, guide, provide, protect, correct and build a legacy of God for them in every way possible, the God of the Universe, all Sovereign, all loving, all knowing, has much more resources at His disposal to orchestrate the wooing of my children to Him.

Ah, Aslan....you are good.

Isn't that just like God?

So Nicholas has fallen in love with soccer at school. Not being a “soccer mom” and not understanding how it all works…I was clueless on how to get him on a soccer team. After talking to a few folks, I went by the indoor soccer place a month ago. It was very exciting, but very discouraging. Only teams can join there, not individuals. And all the teams are set in the summer, when the park and rec league does their soccer signups..so we missed it until next summer. The guy mentioned there was a sheet to put your name on, in case a coach is looking for players. I did that, but not with much hope. Especially after I talked to one coach and he more or less said, at 7 yr old, he would be looking for kids that played for a couple years already, vs a beginner, if he was looking for anyone. L Then, I was thinking how would I even get him to the practice when I work all day….anyway….

I had a very disappointed little boy. But as we left I prayed…God here is a little boy that would LOVE to play soccer, if you could work it out….

Well a month has come and gone and I told Nicholas that we would get him signed up this coming summer, but knowing of our trip to China, and our move…I was worried whether it would happen or not…..

Having put it out of my mind, I got a call yesterday. A coach is wanting to get some more boys on a new team. No problem that Nicholas was a beginner…J I was ecstatic!! So was Nicholas when I told him…now here is where God went over the top! The first game is this Saturday (indoors) and the time is just recreational so NO PRACTICES to try to get him to!!! They were the same uniform that the summer Folsom league wears. He said I could check with Off-side Soccer, here in Folsom, to see if they had any left.

So I went down there. They had ONE shirt left for kids. Nicholas’ size!!!! And the grand finale…the coach wanted me to call back and give him the number of the Jersey. At school, each of the kids in Nicholas’ class has number they use all year long for papers, getting in lines…etc……. Nicholas school number is 17. oh…the number on his jersey? 17! That was just the icing on the cake for Nicholas.

Isn’t it just like God to love his sons like that? Right now Nick is trying on his uniform…so excited!

God answers this little boys prayer.... 

Soccer Boy is Ready....Nicholas.. 

What to do while you are waiting for your little sister from China.... 

...Go Shopping for Books! 

The 100th day...

Today is Anthony's 100th day of school and he made a hat with 100 feathers..with a little help from me of course....see the picture below..isn't he a cutie?

Other thought rolling around my cranium: Watched the movie, The Constant Gardener, and it made me sad, the lack of value placed on a life. Sometimes it is so overwhelming, the amount of need and just the amount of people in the world, and then the element or cross-section of people that somehow get so tainted as to not value another human life. It just amazes me. Saddens me. How God must weep at the passing of just one of these lives... How He can resist not coming down and putting a stop to it all, I do not know... His timing on his kingdom calendar that decides the point when he says ENOUGH!!!... is mind boggling. Is it His compassion that one more, just one more...would understand the way He has made and choose life?..that keeps Him from coming now? It is a mystery, hard to comprehend.

On another note...Cottage Industry...isn't that an intereting thought? In the age of high tech, plastic and steel, mass manufacturing, global markets and dollar stores, is there room for cottage industry? Not just the financial compenstation of a product sold, but the soul compensation of creating something of beauty, by hand, in small amounts, impacting a few. I have been thinking about it. Reading the current issue of Country Living and several women's stories on their entreprenuer ideas (probably mispelled that..one of those challenging words)...it resonated with me. It won't match the compensation of my "DAY JOB" and being a single mother, sole provider, I can't walk away from that...but I am going to do some research and see what it could become.

Hmmmm...interesting.

Another family has met their daughter, at least on kodak paper. One of the China adoption forums I belong to, a family had a referral that was lost and it just arrived yesterday and they posted photos of their little one. How excited they must be for the vapor imaginations to become a color kodak moment. It is an interesting phenomenon, that being matched to one of these precious children starts a seed of love in your heart that begins growing and blossoming before you ever meet them face to face. I wonder when I do finally meet and touch the skin of my daughter, will she feel like a stranger to me, or feel like a piece of home?

the 100 feather Hat...Anthony