So today I was thinking about my blog. I started it to muse about motherhood, life and love and it’s become some sort of glorified baby book. I’ve never been very good at keeping those up anyway, and so I thought let’s just combine powers. As my sister-in-law quoted somebody (sorry, sis, forgot the name) “Writing is like living life twice” or something to that effect. And I believe it to be true, my blog has become somewhat theraputic and the imaginary people reading it out there have become my confidants. So I thank you for that.

Our worship leader at church was talking about how God didn’t make us to go at this life alone. I believe that with all of my heart but I also believe we, as mothers, as women, as humans try to do too much alone. We internalize things and put on our happy faces. I’ve been at points in my life when I’ve been without someone other than my husband to divulge intimate feelings and it is the very definition of miserable. I love having women in my life who I can be true with, who I can be real with. Happy or sad, disappointed or frustrated, it gets progressively easier when I’m sharing it over a cup of coffee with my girlfriends.

I don’t think it’s any surprise to my faithful followers that I am all about women connecting and coming together rather than tearing each other apart. My days in the women’s studies department taught me something, right? But I guess even my best of friends would be surprised to know that sometimes it’s still very hard for me. That even though I try to live life as a mostly open book to my friends, there are still days when somewhere inside is screaming that it’s really not as okay as I’m letting on. Those days are few and far between, mind you, but they are still there. I’m trying to let those go a bit more at a time, not for anyone else’s sake but my own. It just feels too good to tell someone and get the hug that was most needed or a shared tear or a look that shows me I’m not alone regardless of how alone I feel.

One thing the adoption (and perhaps motherhood in general) has taught me is that the ONLY way I can get through it is with a little help from my friends. So thank you to those that have been there all along, those that are new on board and those that will be coming very soon. I thank God for you each and every moment.

On a somewhat side note (not so side…it is about my very talented sister-in-law who is one of my biggest confidantes and also a mom to my nephews and also a female warrior) she is now a columnist on www. pregnancy.org. PLEASE go check out her first 2 articles. http://www.pregnancy.org/article.php?sid=3335 Copy and paste that into your web browser. You can click on her September and October articles. Do it, it will change your life. 🙂

So my hubby figured out how to make the pics smaller res so they can post on here. Here you go mom. 🙂

Hey all faithful followers of the Klipsch blog…I am happy you are here.

Just a few quick notes..I would encourage all to visit my friend Jody’s blog..if you go over to the right of my blog you’ll see the link under “Landers” or you can go to http://www.landersadoption.blogspot.com. Her husband is our worship leader at church (the best one at that) and when they say behind every man….they are referring to the Landers. Anyhow, they are adopting from Sierra Leone, which for those geographically challenged (hey, I’m not a hater, I would consider myself one of those) that is also in Africa. They are the proud parents to 4 boys already and are now going to have twin 2-yr-olds from Sierra Leone. I’ve mentioned them before, but wanted you to go to their blog to a) see pictures of those beautiful babes and b) pray for them that they may be able to go over there VERY soon to meet their newest kids.

Also, was on our forum just a few minutes ago (as mentioned previously, it’s a heinously addicting guilty pleasure of mine). One of the forum members has so generously donated her time to create what’s called “The List”. This list includes everyone on the forum waiting for their referral. It’s fairly accurate as far as the forum goes, but there are still many people going through CHSFS who aren’t on the forum/List so we have to take that into account as well. Anyhow, was just peeking through out of curiosity as to how long people have been waiting for siblings, how many are waiting for siblings, etc. There is only 1 other couple waiting for a sibling group 3.5 yrs and younger and they’ve been waiting for 5 MONTHS!! There are many others (7) others who are waiting for sibling groups 3 yrs and younger and range from wait times of 7 MONTHS and down. Oh, so I’m going to settle ourselves down for a bit and get comfty with our sibling group we have now. 🙂

On another note, we are continuously keeping our eyes on the WIC list and praying over the children on there. Please keep them in your prayers as well (they are kids on what’s called the waiting international children list who are waiting for various reasons, i.e. medical, age related, etc). We know if God intends us to have one of these angels He will reveal it to us in due time.

Enough for now, my eldest has his last soccer game tomorrow, sniff sniff. Our time as coaches is almost officially over and I enjoyed it immensly. Hope you all have great weekends!

Well, I think we passed. At least, our SW kept referring to the kids we were going to have, etc etc. She did mention she would like to see progress photos of our house (hey, you and me both, babe) so that’ll be an ongoing deal I’m sure.

So now, we wait until our SW writes up the formal homestudy (she says about 2 weeks). Once we get the approved homestudy, we will get our dossier (I think it’s French for crapton of paperwork, but can’t be sure) together. We send the dossier off to CHSFS, they send it off to Ethiopia and oila! we will be officially waiting for our referral. No real concrete idea as to when that will be, but I’m planning on telling myself that I am now officially paper pregnant. That way, I can settle in for 9 months of waiting to hear word on my children. This one will, of course, be different than the last two. Firstly, this one will be a *hopefully* a bit easier on the scale. Secondly, I won’t be feeling them kick or see pictures of them in the womb. I will and do love them just as sure as they were growing in there because as most adoptive parents would tell you, they have been growing in our hearts as our biological children grow in our womb. Unfortunately I won’t be able to talk the doctors into inducing me this time, and there is literally nothing I can do either real or imagined to speed the process along.

Now we get to the constant worry of the financial issue of adoption. Obviously this is where the money starts hemmoraging from our wallets to CHSFS so that will be interesting. Please pray that we will figure that part out.

After waking up early and steam cleaning our carpets in his underwear, my husband waited until the SW was gone and started demolition on our house, what wonderful site that is!

Best be getting off to snuggle with my hubby before he goes to Biscuits (the essence of small town bar) to watch the Cubs game. Go Cubies!

So today reminded me of the days when my mom would come home and say to herself while going up the stairs, “I had me such a hard day today.” Because “I had me such a hard day today.”

To set the stage, Zach got offered the Director of Camp position in April of this year. I had heard how gross the Director’s house was before that but didn’t really have a picture of it. One of our friends went through it and said it needed to be condemned and torn down. I went through it and had to plug my nose, wear my shoes and not let my kids get down to play. It really was that bad. We accepted the offer after they had said they were going to renovate the house for us. A couple months later, the bottom floor was being renovated (it houses the two kids’ rooms and the kitchen). So I was excited by the progress.

We’ve now been in the house for 2 months and virtually nothing has been done since then. It’s been SO hard for me, as the top floor hasn’t been touched and that’s where most of our stuff is. I hit the wall tonight because Dailah’s head got stuck in the freakin’ railing. Plus, I was cleaning for over 3 hours to prepare for our last homestudy tomorrow and I would be willing to bet the layperson coming into the house would not be able to tell I spent so much time doing it.

Sooo, I’m a fairly laidback person. I don’t get worked up over much but I’m officially worked up over the homestudy tomorrow. I guess the reason is because I’m honestly not sure if I were the social worker, that I’d be able to okay the family living here to bring in more kids until conditions improve. I’m just plain upset I suppose.

My always amazing husband sensed my frustration (and by sensed, I mean heard me bawling uncontrollably) and asked what he could do before tomorrow to make me a little more comfortable. He hung up the phone, called back a few minutes later and announced he was getting himself and the guy working on the house together to work on it from 8-12 tomorrow. What oh what did I do to deserve him?

So I’m trying to get in a positive place. Living here (did I mention it’s free?) has made it possible for me to stay-at-home. My day consists of working out, training a few people and laughing uncontrollably with my kids, do I really have the right to complain? I struggle with that so much because on one hand I praise God for giving us the opportunity to live at camp, on the other I ask how I’ve constantly put my kids in a position where they could be injured, perhaps even seriously.

Ok, I’ve got to stop dwelling on this and get back to more serious things like The Bachelor. 🙂 If you’re reading, Lindsay, I’m thinking of you, can’t wait to hear possible baby news!