It's Raining Cats and Frogs

Friday night it "rained cats and dogs" (and some frogs...yuck), but all our belongings were moved to our new home on Miner Rd in Parma, MI.  THANK YOU...THANK YOU to all who have helped us in some form or fashion to get this accomplished.  It has been a hectic week since we are not only moving, but also renovating the home.  On the day the keys were handed to me...we tore out all the flooring.  Then, over the weekend we (not just Brad and I....friends too) tore out a couple walls...tore down wallpaper and border...my dad worked on electrical issues/ additions...we're building extra closets and one and a half more bathrooms.   And, we moved an ISLAND...in the kitchen...Fun times!   I thought I would give you a couple before pics...these were the ones on the real estate listing.  I will be much more excited to post pictures in about a month of what we will be doing with it...but, you have to see the before for the after to be shockingly terrific...right?

It will be a lot of work, but I think we will be very happy with it when it is finished.  I love to choose the colors, the lights...etc....I love the smell of Lowes :-)  I will be starting to paint trim soon and I will be painting a lot of it, so I chose a color called Simply Irresistible....I think I will be singing that song a lot for a few weeks.

We had some disappointing and sad news Monday afternoon.  Our adoption worker let us know that they have decided to approach the other family for the two girls we were hoping to adopt.  I knew it could go this way and although I am happy for the other family and for the girls for this exciting time in their lives...it does hurt that we were not chosen.  Some people have asked me if the emotion is like a miscarriage and I honestly don't know...I never experienced that pain, so I can't compare, but I don't think it is that intense because there was no loss of life and I did not carry them for months and have time to bond physically and emotionally with them.  I did create "future" memories with them...that sounds really weird, I know, but in my mind I imagined them as a part of our family and it all made sense to me...it felt complete.  I was also bonded in that I felt so proud of them as I was able to know their story and how they have handled their past...they have had to make decisions that no 5 or 11 year old should have had to make and, to me, their actions have been pretty heroic.  I would have loved to know them.

Our girls are handling the loss very well.  They made sad faces when we told them the news, but there were no tears.  Kassi (leave it to my middle child, right :-) was actually a little relieved...she really wants a brother to play Star Wars with...we'll see.  I know God has a plan for us and I know that going through this disappointment was a part of His plan.  He is Good.  We will still be working with our adoption worker to identify a sibling group that will make us a bit more Fosterrific :-)

"The funny thing is"..."and then some"

Weird title....I know, but I met this delightful old woman after church today and it so intrigued me that she began every thought with "The funny thing is..." and ended with "and then some."  I loved her!  You know those interesting people that just put you in a trance....I just wanted to listen to her tell me all her stories because I was so giddy inside that she could use these two phrases for every sentence.  I have laughed about it all day....(I probably should get out more :-)

I have to catch you up a little bit on the happenings of this week.  We finally closed on the sale of our home on Thursday (though not without some major anxiety that it would actually happen...our buyer is quite a character...but that is a whole different story).  Then, on Friday, we closed on the purchase of our new home.  That scene was quite awkward because the sellers are in the middle of a divorce and there is a lot of tension and emotion involved in this sale for them.  Our realtor gave us a head's up about the divorce and I was grateful for the knowledge, but still was unsure of what to expect as to how they were handling it.  Through our brief interaction with them...we gathered...not so well.  This weekend I have been asking God if I fell in love with this house in order for me to fall in love with these people and lift them up in prayer.  I am pretty sure that answer is yes...we stopped by the house today to pick up some paperwork and she was very emotional.  I always have a hard time knowing when is the right time to hug a stranger, but this was one of those times.  Please pray for me because I have a feeling God wants me to give some kind of support to her and I need wisdom to know what that is.

So, there was some very good news for us this week, but also some challenges and opportunites to love and cry with someone.  The funny thing is life is such a mix of this....my friends ask me how many kleenexes I use up in a day...I probably go through a whole box and then some :-)  I had too!

The Waiting Games

How are you at waiting for things?  I am an absolute failure...I would much rather be taking some sort of action than waiting for something.  I don't wait well...I get irritable and grumpy and hard to live with...The last couple weeks have seemed like water torture for me as we have been waiting for the paperwork to be ready for both house closings, waiting to move, waiting to make more plans about the work we will do for the new house, and waiting for some word on the progress of the adoption.  I would never choose to vacation in Limbo :-)  I often forget in my frustration about waiting that these are mostly times I should be learning to wait on God...the moments of non-action are as important and beneficial as the decisive and active parts of my life if used wisely in prayer and meditation on God's will for me.  My word for the week (or my lifetime) is PATIENCE.

Over the last few weeks our Sunday Night church services have been viewing a series of videos from Louie Giglio tours...Indescribable...How Great is Our God....and they have been outstanding and insightful.  Last night's topic was on suffering and how in our suffering it is like a megaphone gets passed to us to see what we will broadcast.  He talked about how most of us live our lives in self-preservation mode..."am I and my closest relatives/friends safe and sound?" But, that if we live with this as our driving motivation...our world will crumble when suffering gets in our face.  Instead, he challenged us to see suffering as an inevitable, but to see Christ as our OVER COMER and thus make our driving motivation to Glorify Him in all circumstances.  Even suffering and death cannot steal this goal from us.

So you are wondering if I consider waiting, suffering...though sometimes it is like Chinese Water Torture for me, that isn't all...I had an interesting drive home after work the day I found out the Adoption Agency was down to our family and one other.  I was totally in self-preservation mode as I gave God an earful of my wants... I basically told Him I did not want to be the family NOT CHOSEN...I did not want to experience that loss.  GULP...sometimes I forget I am sitting at the grown-up table now and I am to submit and "get what I get and don't throw a fit" (I commonly use this phrase with my girls when they are disputing my dinner selection).  So (matter-of-factly) He told me if I experience the loss...it is because He wants me to...then the flood of revelation came...what about the other family that is waiting?...what about the extreme loss the girls are experiencing right now?...what about God's ultimate plan...which may involve me understanding this hurt in order to help someone else? what about getting outside of myself for a minute to consider these things?  Crow doesn't taste good...no matter how many ways I attempt to prepare it!

So, what am I broadcasting through the waiting or suffering in general?...well, I hope I am broadcasting the Supremacy of God in my life...even through my rebellious, self-absorbed moments...I know these are the things He is trying to teach me right now.  I get a lesson on something else and then a lesson on patience...and this pattern repeats throughout my life.  Will I ever win the waiting games? Though it pains me to admit it....I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

What's a FANCY word for CHAOS?

A lot has happened since my last blog...Our appraisal came back at the amount we had hoped for, and the couple we made an offer to has accepted our counter-offer...so the sale is on (as far as we know at this moment)...we are set to close on the sale of our home and the purchase of the new home sometime within the next week.  Though some of the details are still being worked out, this is an incredible praise considering what homes in Jackson are selling for right now.

I have been packing and remembering why I do not like moving.  I have to, so gradually, reduce the clothing and toys in our home so the girls will not notice...I liken this task to the scene from Shawshank Redemption where you realize Andy has been filling his pockets with dirt and emptying them out in the yard everyday.  From noon-2pm I "dig" and then make a trip to the Goodwill. So far, my "tunnel" to simplification and consolidation has not been noticed.  I have also been listing items on Craigslist that I do not plan to move.  On Friday I took a picture of the girl's swingset in order to list it because we are thinking of getting them a bigger one once we move...but, on Saturday...this is what it looked like...

I learned a new Murphy's law...when you are just about ready to close on your house a neighbor's tree will fall onto your property and completely wreck your privacy fence...haha!  So we have added fixing the fence to our "to do" list.  No big deal...I am just glad no one was injured and it did not hit the house or the garage when it fell.  Anyone still want to buy the swingset?  How about this deal....It is free if you remove the tree from the slide..haha!

We had a terrific time at the end of February celebrating Karly's 4th birthday...we had a Fancy Nancy Party and everyone was invited to dress up like a storybook character...here's Karly dressed like Fancy Nancy and some other "characters" who attended her party...she was thrilled it was finally time to celebrate...I think she asked me for about 8 weeks if it was time for her party yet!

Brad and I never miss a chance to be in costume...haha!  I was proud of my mom and dad who came as Anne of Green Gables and Bob the Builder.  Here's Bob showing Karly how to use her new tools.

Fun Times!  Four is such a great age!

On the adoption topic, we heard from our worker this morning after a couple weeks of waiting and she said that they are down to considering two families and we are one of those two.  Please keep praying that God's will would be evident for these two precious girls and for the future of our family.  Also, pray for Brad and I as we are working on so many things all at one time...it is a bit overwhelming to have so much going on.  We love and appreciate you all...thank you for your thoughts, prayers, love, and support for us.