Clean Sweep!

When I first saw the introduction to the “Clean Sweep” series over on Caroline’s blog, I was intrigued, but not motivated.  I thought that surely I didn’t have the time and evergy while working full-time (and burning out fast as the end of the school year approaches!).

Then I saw her first challenge of creating a morning routine, and thought, ‘I could use that.”  Then I saw her organization of her boys’ bedrooms and thought, “Maybe I could learn how to spring clean from this challenge.”

So, consider me counted in!

Morning Routine

Rise

Eat breakfast

Brush teeth

Shower or wash face

Get dressed, makeup (except Saturday)

Walk the dog

Make bed

I tried this for the first time today and I thought it worked well!  Hopefully that can continue!

I would also like to set an evening routine, as that is the time I have a lot to get done and it’s easy to forget things.  Here’s the blueprint I followed last night, and am working on tonight:

Walk dog

Prepare/eat dinner

Dishes and general kitchen clean-up

Make a lunch (Sun – Thurs)

One hour of free time for computer, TV, or ‘fun’ reading

Power90 workout (5 days per week Monday through Saturday)

Snack, take vitamins

Shower & brush/floss teeth

Lay out clothes for tomorrow

Bible reading

Take dog out if my husband hasn’t

Free time until I crash :)

I will strive to post weekly updates here.  I will share a general list of things I’d like to do this month, and get done what I can as well as whatever else I think needs doing.  

My general goal is to get one cleaning/organizing task done per day (except Sundays and the last two Saturdays of this month when we will be otherwise occupied).  This will be in addition to regular daily and weekly cleaning duties.  My spiritual goals will be 1) to read 3-5 chapters of Scripture daily (save for Sundays) and to read a chapter of Church Fellowship by John Brug each week.  This is the book we are working through in Bible Study, and I'd love to keep up in the study.

Yesterday, I went through the refrigerator and threw out old yucky items.  Thankfully, there weren’t many, but I did toss some homemade Italian dressing from awhile back, a green smoothie that got hidden back in…January…(I know, ICK!), and ¾ of a jar of salsa that neither of us liked.

Today, I actually washed out the inside of the fridge and cleaned out the freezer!  I tossed three things that were over a year old (freezer pickles from summer 2011, bread crumbs, and something else that was in a Ziploc bag).

Other things that I would love to get accomplished this month:

Dog poop clean-up in the yard

Wash curtains

Wash bedding

Go through clothes…and actually take them to Goodwill

Put more mulch in the flowerbed

Sweep out and straighten up the garage

De-clutter movie shelf

Re-arrange the living room furniture

Figure out a better system for shoes and coats in the entryway and front closet

De-clutter cabinet in guest bedroom

De-clutter storage boxes under the bed

I think that’s a good start!

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Draining, Rejoicing, Thanking

The past few weeks have been draining.

It’s Lent, so my husband has two sermons to write and memorize each week instead of one.  I fill in as organist more often to relieve the burden on our one regular church organist.  Our church has received a request to form a dual parish with another church of our fellowship (located 30 miles away), so there’s been a lot of conversation on that. Work has been just exhausting for me.  The kids have been SO wired and loud and crazy.  Finally, of course, there is adoption paperwork.  We thought we were ‘done’ with the home study, only to have our social worker request scans of certain dossier documents before she wrote it.  Understandable, but hard for us to do in this busy season, in which we are struggling to find time to sit down together and get any sort of serious decisions made.

We may be changing our country choice, which would mean switching to another agency for placement after our home study is done and in our hands.  I don’t know what our home study (current) agency will think or do about that, but we have to do what’s right for us.  We never were ‘decided’ on country choice (just ‘declared’), can’t see how any of their country programs are going to work for us, and they have been questioning our declaration since we made it, encouraging us to continue elsewhere.  No decisions have been made – at this point, the goal is to simply get the home study done and go from there.  But it’s something needing to be carefully thought over, something else to consider amidst this very mentally full schedule of ours.

It was a wonderful day for some special friends of ours and the adoption of their baby girl was finalized in court today.  Yesterday was a grand day for the sister of an online acquaintance, as they received word that they will soon be parents of twin 3-year-old boys.  I admit, my first, knee-jerk reaction was to cry out of pure selfishness.  What wasn’t it OUR turn?  WE’ve been waiting for over six years for children; these couples had only been waiting about four years each.  When, Lord, will it be MY time?

Yes, selfish.

My struggle today is to rejoice in their triumphs.  And as both couples praise God for answered prayers, I look to focus on my prayers that have been answered, instead of whining about the big one that hasn’t yet received my desired answer.

I prayed long and hard for a significant other…boyfriend or fiancé or husband…and was blessed with my wonderful man, with whom I went from dating to engaged to married in less than ten months.  Many times, while working long, stressful hours to support my husband through Seminary, I pleaded with God that it would end.  It did.  I asked my Heavenly Father for my husband’s vicarage (internship) to be someplace warm, and his first Call to be somewhere back in the Midwest.  YES on both counts, and oh my, what joyful days those were! 

There has also been an unexpected blessing that I never asked for when we decided, rather suddenly, to get a dog last November.  I cannot even begin to express the joy she has brought us!  She has been such a loving, nurturing, healing balm to my hurting heart over the last several months.  We have asked ourselves several times, “Why did we wait so long to get a dog?” only to realize that, if we hadn’t waited, we wouldn’t have this one.

What a fitting prelude to our future adoption.

February Song

(The title of this post is borrowed from the lovely Josh Groban work, "February Song.")

Oh, February.  I think it's always been my least favorite month.  First off, there's the weather.  Gray, cloudy, slushy, muddy, and cold.  It really depresses me, to the point that I bought a therapy lamp last year.  Also, growing up, I hated Valentine's Day because I had no Valentine.  Of course, that changed when I got married.  My husband also happens to have a February birthday, which is something to look forward to.  In 2010-2011 we spent a year in the subtropics and I found I LOVED February.  The weather was absolutely beautiful.  It was quite the contrast to February in the upper Midwest, which we are now back to.  Gloom, gray, and cold.

It's kind of a fitting picture.  While it feels much better to be actually 'in-process' with adoption, it still feels stagnant.  We put so much work and time into the home study, only to move on to the more intensive dossier.  We declared a country (Hong Kong), only to still feel completely undecided about where we are adopting from.  As our social worker and the country representative have continued to constantly remind us, it is a program that only has children with moderate-major, lifelong special needs available.  I think we are both afraid of moving one step forward, only to take two steps back.

The point of my post here was to provide a bit of an update on our adoption status, as well as our mental and emotional states.  I guess I've done that.  You can see that things are moving, but we are as uncertain and fearful as ever.

God is in control, and He knows what He is doing.  His strength is made perfect in our weaknesses.  I can rest in that.

Post-Holiday

Well, it's 2013.

Every time the date changes, it's a struggle for me.  We married in very late 2006 with the intention of not using birth control, thinking that we surely would have a baby or be expecting by our one-year anniversary.

I very clearly remember being on my knees, in tears, at my in-laws' house during Christmas 2007.  I so desperately wanted a child and we had not received that blessing, despite being open to receive it as soon as God would give it.  Meantime, my brother-in-law and his wife were at that Christmas celebration with their baby girl...let's just say it hurt.

It's five years later....Five years in which I thought, SURELY, we would be able to conceive and have a child at some point.  This has not been the case.  Adoptions usually take place in less than five years; unfortunately, we were not able to start that until just this past year due to all the moving around we'd have to do.

Holidays work like that changing date - a glaring reminder that time has passed, and that desire of my heart is still not mine.  I find the period after Christmas to be especially tough.  We've had time with family, trying to save face when people hint about 'why we don't have kids yet', the year changes shortly after Christmas, and then there's the post-holiday withdrawal from the season, from family time, along with the scramble of unpacking/laundry/finding homes for gifts/cleaning/getting back to work.

This year, we're having an extra-difficult time with (STILL) trying to choose a child/country.  To make me feel even worse, that same brother-in-law and his wife had their second child this morning.  It hurts. I realize I'm being sinful and selfish, but I want to share my feelings here.  Their two children are nearly six years apart in age - the same amount of time we've been married - and it's a very obvious reminder of our failure to become parents (either by birth or adoption) in that time.  I saw pictures of the baby being held my his grandparents - my husband's parents - on Facebook, and my heart broke.  They are the joy and center of my mother-in-law's life, and I completely fail to add to her joy.

I realize this isn't a happy post :( Please forgive me.  Please keep us in your prayers, that we may soon have a decision and some direction, and that some day I will be able to read this and think, "It was worth it."

Our Christmas Letter (partial)

These were the closing paragraphs in our Christmas letter this year.  My husband wrote it :)

"That basically brings us up to the present day, as far as highlights of our year. So, we turn our attention to the future. When you reach a certain age and a certain amount of time of being married, you inevitably hear many questions about the future of your family. One of the unfortunate realities of being a clergy family is that no topic is off limits for questioning. The increase of such inquiries here has reminded us that very likely many of our family and friends are also wondering about the future of our family. That’s only natural.

            Please note that what follows is not public knowledge. Many family members and friends do not know about this and we ask that you don’t discuss this unless you are absolutely certain the people you wish to discuss it with have knowledge of this situation. Please also recognize that this is not something which we wish to discuss unless we bring it up. I hope all that doesn't sound harsh; it certainly isn't meant to! It is simply a painful topic.

            

For reasons we will never know in this life, the Lord has not blessed us with children. This is not by our choosing. We wanted as many children as God would give us. The pain and difficulty of the past 6 years of infertility have brought us to the point of actively pursuing adoption. The time frame is uncertain and will remain so for some time. We are currently working with *an awesome, truly Christian agency* in the hopes of securing an international adoption. This presents many, many obstacles – not the least of which is the several tens of thousands of dollars that an adoption costs (the reason K continues to work full-time), and the time off to travel - which I may or may not have. However, Lord willing, those things will work out and sometime in the (not too distant?) future we will be able bring a child into a loving home.

            So it is that we look to the future of our earthly life with the hopes that our little family will expand. We do this even as this Christmas season we remember the coming of our Savior and look to His final return which will end this vale of tears for all Christians.

            We wish you our Savior’s richest blessings this holiday season and always. It is our prayer that you will be strengthened in faith in Christ through which we possess forgiveness of all our sin, comfort for all trials in this life, and everlasting life in the world to come.

Love,
D&K"

Weary

Today I am weary.

I think there are a myriad of reason for my weariness.  First off, I'm simply tired.  It's hard to work a 40-hour week outside the home, walk the dog for a hour every day, keep a house in order, keep up with organ practice, run a side business (Lilla Rose),  and do Christmas prep tasks.  Of course, I've also got a dear husband and a sweet puppy dog to care for.

I'm a bit mentally drained from the home study process.  We got all the paperwork and three of the four interviews done in less than three weeks.  I'm thrilled that we were efficient, and I'm relieved that it's almost done, but in the aftermath of all that work, my mind is exhausted.

Finally, there's the emotional weariness.  Oh, I'm feeling emotions.  I'm scared.  I fear things falling through, us never becoming parents, and losing tens of thousands of dollars in the process.  I am afraid of not being a good mom.  I am scared of not being able to attach to my future child, or provide for their medical needs, or properly handle institutional behaviors. There's so many unknowns in international adoption, and the reality of them is finally settling in for me.  I'm finding them frightening, and it's tiring.

I would also like to share two specific prayer requests - well, they're kind of two-in-one.  First, that God would send us some kind of clear vision as to which country we should choose.  We are really struggling with that one. I went so far as to say the other day, "This is too big for us.  I just want someone else to decide for us."

Second - there's a precious child of God on our agency's private photolisting that has my heart.  I've known their picture for a few weeks now and have prayed for this particular little one.  Our agency seems excited about our interest in this particular child.  We've gotten their medical history and felt that, although the diagnoses were many, all of this child's needs were either correctable or manageable.  However, we then brought this medical report to our doctors.  One diagnosis has the potential to be far more involved than we imagined.  It's not a deal-breaker for me (though I fear it may be for my husband), but it makes the decision more difficult.

Please pray that the Lord would give us clear, solid direction.  I pray that I will see children through His eyes, not our human ones.

Christmas Ideas

I often get asked for Christmas gift ideas at this time of year.  It's fun to receive gifts, and I appreciate that both my family and my in-laws are big gift-givers.  Of course, it's not the most important part of the holiday, but it is fun!

It's been such a challenge to come up with ideas this year, though.  Some gift cards, a new sweatshirt, and a couple new kitchen items would be nice.  However, I'm stuck beyond that.  Honestly - yes I'd love a dishwasher, but that's a bit much to ask for.

The point is, I'm not desiring much at all this Christmas.  I recently figured out why.

It's because the desire of my heart can't come in a box wrapped in shiny paper.  The desire of my heart is living in an orphanage or foster care in Hong Kong, South Korea, or Uganda.  And I most certainly long for that blessed little desire to be enjoying his or her first Christmas with us, in his or her forever home, in 2013.