These last few months.

In the Yard and Garden:

Planting of 4 trees

Blueberry bushes

Tomatos

Bell peppers

Cucumbers

It is a far harder thing to do with the shoulder issues so few gardening projects for me, just enough to cushion the grocery budget through summer.

The wildflower bed in the front is very pretty with lots of bachelor buttons.

On Education:

Third Quarter grades

 Five to six days a week at least 5 hours a day and my dream of giving an education to the children has been hard won. Dash will continue next year and want to attend Jr High, Dove wants to return to Jr. High next year.
My hopes for a firmer foundation are being met.

I have been earning a new skill in my beading now I am able to better knot and string.

Around the house:

LAUNDRY

Letting go of clutter and passing it on gives space to the bikes.

Just trying to keep up

Parenting:

My days are full of school, fixing three meals a day from scratch and being available to the kids and my husband.

Adoption day 14 for Dove

Dash had his 11^th birthday yesterday.

 It was a different more mature day. All these many years of making a party and spending a budget on that was changed to all of the budget onto one item. His desire an Itouch, not a phone but a tool for filming and correspondence/media.

 Happy Child. The sweet Grandparents took the children out to lunch yesterday and I dashed up to the grocery and purchased a small cake. Due to my arms making one was not doable. The injections the afternoon before left me far too tender.

 Big sister get to share her knowledge for she had one given to her last year for Christmas. All I do mean all kids these days have phones. Mine DO NOT. We much prefer to have the control over contacts and do without incurring monthly bills. I do not even have a cell. We really hate any bills except what must be to have utility and mortgage, insurance.

Daddy Man set up the new tool

It was hard to allow such an expensive item but we kept to the limits. It was wonderful to see Dash so happy and not begrudge his choice to forgo a party (I had to buy a small cake :)

Boundaries have been a huge focus in the training of the last 3 months. My desire is well able young adults, functioning as successful independent people. We are really focusing on responsibility and reality thinking. When you throw a ball up it will come down and one must consider what they will do about catching it or letting it get away to be lost.

The things of the spirit:

For the last several months my spirit has been healing the wrongs done me during the knee replacement. Those feelings left me in a real struggle filled with anger and pain. I really felt that God had abandoned me, or had asked just too much of me. Endurance is a hard thing. One day I will understand when comforting another where only those experienced intimately could. I think that perhaps the pain medication might of actually been stolen by employees. It is a common issue in nursing homes.

Health and self care:

Shots in each shoulder two days ago allow me to sit here and type a while. Although still tender the level of pain has resided significantly. Avoidance of any further surgery left me all but lame in both arms so pain was insistent and tasks stacking up. I was under the false understanding that no further cortisone injections were available that my limit had set me up to have corrective surgery as the next step. So for several months unwilling to go there I have been in pain unable to do much that required me upper body strength. The surgeon has ordered an MRI and surgery will occur on my right shoulder eventually, but today my pain is greatly improved! Bless GOD!

Creative outlets:

Sun catcher

 Mixed media, those are beads (of course) for the back ground. Sorta starry night image. I have yet to do the highlight in the eyes.

 My heart is my offering.

I have been working on a painting for our anniversary as a gift to my husband.

 This is so fun for Dash and his buddy. Imagine two 5th grade boys loving pix-elation the precursor of pointillism.

 Keeps the iron hot every day.

Relationships:

Our 30^th anniversary is in two weeks and we will get to go on holiday.

The children have sleep over’s every other weekend. My house is most often full of children making U tube videos’. They have such fun writing scripts and filming each other.
All of you have been so neglected as has my writing been. Just dealing with the levels of daily pain , slowed by it, I have all I can do to tend to each day. Now that my shoulders feel a lot better due to the injections I have been able to type! However I should stop soon.

Last night Dove and I spoke until well after midnight. She opened her heart up. Best hours spent listening.

Finance and Budgets:

We much prefer to have the control over contacts and do without incurring monthly bills. I do not even have a cell. We really hate any bills except what must be to have utility and mortgage, insurance.

Taxes are done! YA!!!!

We have been saving for our two day stay in Sedona AZ, a Hot Air balloon ride over the red rocks. We were able to match a goal for Dash and gave him a gift that excluded any party. The amounts spent in times past were not too different. We are now partially retired, well at least the checks will come monthly on our years past employer. It really will help us to have a little ease raising the kids into the teen years.

Goals ahead:
In May we hope to have enough saved up for a new refrigerator. My current one is 25 years old! Still works but it is hard on my back to bend now that my knee is now able to be knelt on. We hope to get one with the freezer on the bottom.

The Memories of 911 were very personal to me. (a repost from 2007)

Red Square

First Sight December 2001

I took great pause in posting yesterday on that day of dreadful remembrance.
That day, for me, was made a very memorable personal day.
After the start/ stop/ start of the adoption of our son, a match was made on a child who was born that March. At six months of age the children were released from the Russian data bank to anyone who was certified and who wanted to adopt them.
That day I stood there in my kitchen just a short week after we accepted the match of our son who was starving and abandoned in the un-adoptable side of a Russian orphanage. I stood fixed at the kitchen set at the first blow to the towers. I was on the phone to my husband as I gasped at the blow to the second tower. I wept knowing that lives were lost. As I saw the souls leap into eternity, that day, my dreams were possibly going down with them. I had waited 20 years for this son.
I fell to my knees in horror knowing that the world would never be the same and that possibly the little boy half a world away might loose his chance for life as well.
I am sobbing now just remembering this... I knew that God had made a promise to me. I had lived in that promise for most of my adulthood. I saw the promise of so many lives lost that day as I wept, As I weep now.
We were kept on standby as the new President of Russia was changing all the adoption laws. We had poured out financially to our limit and did not know how we could possibly make this happen. It was out of our hands. My husband was in the process of his plant closing and he watched 6000 people loose jobs around him. We never knew if the next day may bring a pink slip for us as well.
My Son was half a world away starving, languishing and I could only pray for him not knowing if he might be as our little Natasha ( an infant we had to turn down, she was far to ill to survive and our Miss Fiction came home to us instead three years prior) will always be, simply a child of my heart never to have a Mother and Father. That child is most likely deceased now.
We watched as our troupes entered the Northern Afghanistan boarders. Our Sons orphanage was only 500 miles as the crow (or bomb) flies. We just prayed for peace in the region. And wept at night and longed for him in my arms. We were having so many things (battles) during those few months. I had to face a Radical Hysterectomy because they could not stop the bleeding I had. The doctors wanted to put me on a type of chemo tho stop my cycle and the internal bleeding. It was an injected rod that would have to be surgically removed if the side effects were to bad.Thank God for Wisdom I said NO> we could not risk being in a third world country with it in me. Only to find out it was Bad stuff that was being used as a lucrative pharmaceutical extortion plot reveled on national T.V. the night before I made the final decision (God kept me safe). They planned surgery for early December. I had a child half a world away and I was about to have my own reproductive system removed form me with empty arms (save that my sweet daughter was in them), yet I could not hold my daughter due to the internal bleeding and several surgeries to remove the adhesions so I could stand up straight. I had end stage endomeitriosis.
The date was set for surgery. A week later We were called as one of the first families to get to fly out internationally. We were at great threat of kidnapping however. We made a trust for our daughter and had to choose. To go get our son out, or be safe and let him go. HE WAS MY/OUR SON!
There are many dangers I can not speak of due to those who travel after. It will not be as doable now the laws changed that spring. We were under the wire by 2 weeks and so we were able to do only the one trip. Since then families have to make two or more trips to adopt.
We got there in great danger we were to not even have our voice heard in public. We screamed "American" just by our dress. But to voice in public could be life threatening. We were in Russia three weeks after the secret service entered the Northern Afghanistan region. We were there just over two weeks without my girl in my arms and a very sick infant who was at risk for retardation and dwarfism.

So 9-11 is a very personal time for me. It reminds me of great loss yet of great hope and promise for the future.

Post script. The day the judge said yes was the day I was to have surgery. It was performed 6 weeks after we got our Son home from Russia. I was post menopausal with a 3 year old with special needs and a 10 month old Who was very ill all with raging hormones.
Our Son recovered from the hypothyroidism 3 years later. and the threat of retardation passed as well as the dwarfism..He has special needs however don't we all :)
Our daughter stayed here in the states with her elder Paternal Grand Parents who risked so much right along with us.
We were able to receive an adoption reimbursed of $6000. from our employer only months before the 25+ year carreer was over.

Adoption day #9 for my Dash Hawk

 My sweet Christmas baby. 

It was actually on December 8th that the Russian Judge said "Yes"!

The joy overflowed as we all exited that court room on that cold winder morning. We were so head spun at the favor and mercy we were shown that day. We were given the favor by people who were so very poor. They would step aside as if we were royalty. Humbly my eyes filled with tears. We who were the least of all people were placed as if we were at the the head of the table.

We walked back to the orphanage and on the path there was a snowman along an open space where some apartments were.It was made by a child, sweet and innocent. Living here in the desert it was a special sight for us. In my memory there is the sight of it. Every day as we went to visit him at the orphanage it would shrink melting. Just like the time line of the trip every day getting closer to being home with our daughter. Our whole little family home for Christmas.

Our Whole family. This family, my family. Waiting 16 years for dove and for Dash ...

I waited 20 years to hold a son, my son. My son.

We got a Russian truck. He was so funny, phonetically reading the package. He had us all laughing.

Our son brings us so much joy every day. One of his nick names that I call him is

"SUNNY MAN"

when I saw this cake it was perfect! On the way to the store to get it I saw myself going elsewhere. I walked into the store and right to this cake. IT WAS Perfect!

On another note...

Amrita my dear friend asked an important question.

Please don 't min d me asking , I don 't wan t to offend - but I am just curious to know in America how do people cope with house dust - you all don' t have maids to do your dusting an d with all the decorations, ho w you manage everyday dusting? I suppose American cities don' t have dust.

Oh we have dust! Water and a wrung cotton cloth that's it. With the wood I'll dry it after. With trinkets an old tooth brush. Again only water is used. If it is oily dust a pan with dish soap added to water works for me. Baking soda and vinegar are two other favorite tricks. A half of lemon on the kitchen counters with baking soda.

Well you all have a good evening. As for me I had a sick kid on Monday. Today I had to go in to the doctor with Bronchitis and sinus infection, caught it short of pneumonia bless God. I have sat still resting all day.

Tomorrow at 7:30 a.m. I have to testify in a trial as a witness. See this old post.

Please pray

Infusion on Saturday so I am really in a dangerous state to have to go. My doctor said sit still 48 hours, NO Crowds~  I will ware a mask to protect myself.

I have to read over that blog post.

This is the same trial that has been postponed every 3 months sense 2007!  I am the ONLY witness left!

He gave me a Marriage

" All I wanted was a man that loved God and a home of my own", I cried.

A place to be safe, to learn who I am.
A place to belong and to grow and help another the same.

A mission to gain through mutual growth and sacrifice. 

Now seeing 28 years to the day I said yes that God heard me.

God answered my call.

For two weeks later set to wed a man who had asked the same of Him.

He said "all I want is a wife, a woman to love, a place to be safe, a woman to belong.

One who would accept me and mutually grow into life for all of our years".

He married us only a month into our meeting. 

Although this man saw me a thousand pews aside. 

Watching weekly for a chance to say hello.

It was God who set time into HIS plan.

Now some 28 years later we roll over asleep and clasp each others hand.

Our toes touch under the covers and night by night 365 times 28.

We raise two wonderful children not bone of our bone.
They have grown under our hearts. 

"A Man that Loved God not a religious man" was my plea.

With mercy my dear precious Lord heard and supplied this for me.

Religion has stumbled us throughout the years here and there.

Those zealous new years when emotion was high and passion ran wild.

Mellowed us into friendship with our God and each other.

He loves God just like I had asked for.

I tried to belong in so many a congregation, yet I always did, to our Lord and our God.

This man who loved God was so patient and pulled me into "being".
Setting the generational familial and religious "doing" aside.

He freed me in so many ways.
Yet I have drawn him like honey to friendship
a vibrant place to live and abide.

Now many a year later, battles struggles trials aside.

I am  treasured as his ageless bride.

He is still handsome, I have always love that sparkle when he looks into my eyes.

Reflecting to me how perhaps God sees me through my darlings eyes.

A wonderful Anniversary to you my Beloved Husband and Friend.

Adoption Day

 

image at Russian orphanage

Wow ! it was 12 years ago today that the greatest blessing of my life occurred.

The adoption of our daughter.

Eternally grateful am I of the wonderful woman who carried and gave birth to her.

Funny now I find myself a little tiny bit intimidated.

 

This wonderful child a daughter of God who I have been allowed to raise.

My daughter.

His daughter.

Mother am I.

Mother is she .

Mother of heart.

Mother of womb.

All under the Father God. 

It is only a privledge to raise our children.

If we are fortunate they are within our charge not truly ours.

If we are fortunate to remember these things.