Half of 20 Things

I've mentioned recently that I'm reading "20 Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adopted Parents Knew," by Sherrie Eldridge.  This morning, I read the 8th, 9th and 10th things.  The 10th is: "I may appear more 'whole' than I actually am. I need your help to uncover the parts of myself that I keep hidden so I can integrate all the elements of my identity."  

A quote at the end of the chapter is attributed to Drs. Thomas Malone and Patrick Malone in their book, "The Art of Intimacy."  

"I love you" means something very special and very concrete.  It means that I surround you with the feeling that allows you - perhaps even requires you - to be everything you really are as a human being at that moment.  When my love is fullest, you are most fully you.  You may be good, or bad, or both; tender or angry, or both; but you are you, which is the very most I could ever ask or expect.  And so I experience you in all your beauty and all your ugliness.  But you, not what I expect, or want, or what you feel you should be, or were fashioned to be, but really you.

Sounds intense, huh?  Not so much.  I'm reading this book, thinking I'm going to gain some great insight to be able to be the best adoptive parent I can be for our children but I haven't really learned anything yet.  To me, it seems like common sense.  But then maybe I've been blessed by wonderful parents who naturally parented me in the ways that I'm reading about.

It seems so profound that we need to love our adopted children in their entirety, for who they are completely, good and bad, angry and tender.  Then I started thinking about it (not for too terribly long!) and realized that all true love is exactly this.  This is the way I love my parents and the way they love me. This is the love that I share with my closest friends and, hopefully, they with me.  This is the exact kind of love that I waited so long to be able to share with Gil and I am so blessed to be loved so completely by another human the way he loves me.

Most importantly, this is the way my God loves me... and I'm discovering it's also the way I love Him.  I love Him for showing His love to me by the blessings I have in my life.  I love Him despite how I feel He has abandoned me (He hasn't) in our struggle with infertility.  I get angry, I throw my tantrums, I don't always tell Him I love Him, but He's always there, waiting to throw His arms around me when I run to Him crying, or laughing.  

I have so much of this unconditional love in my life; it seems like a "given".  I wonder why it has to be put into a book telling me this is how to love my children.  Like, DUH!  I realized this has been the greatest blessing of all in my life; that I have been the recipient of this kind of love since the day I was conceived until this exact moment as I write about it.  I have also been blessed to be a giver of this kind of love.  Yes, it is a blessing to give... you are a blessing to me and I am blessed to love you. 

As much as it has been a blessing in my life, I also understand that not everyone chooses to accept certain life blessings and children suffer because of it.  These babies in the foster care system don't know this kind of love.   That's where Gil and I come in... I can barely wait to give our children all that we've been given by you.  

Thank you.

Oh Little One

Oh little one, wherever you are,
Near to our hearts yet distant so far.

Have you already had a birthday? I wonder each night,
Or have you yet to experience that journey of might.

We’ve waited so long to share our blessings with you,
Our hearts ache with joy of the thought coming true.

I want you to know how excited we are,
To meet you and love you; our precious little star.

Thrilled of the thoughts of watching you grow,
Teaching and learning from each other you know.

Please never forget this one promise to you,
We’ll always be your parents and unconditionally love you.

written by Debbie Hutson, March 26, 2002

Classes are Scheduled!

We received a letter in the mail Thursday evening with notice of the first set of our adoption "training" workshops. There are 3 class times for this first session, which is the session for all potential foster parents, I believe. We start on September 11th for a full evening and then all day Saturday on September 13th and September 20th. It's my understanding that we'll then have additional hours because we're adoptive parents specifically, not foster, and there are different classes to go through for that. So I ran down to CFS yesterday to turn in our registration form. We're finally on our way! I have absolutely hated waiting all summer long with nothing real to do in the way of our adoption. Yay!

Olympic Memories

My favorite sport to watch during the summer Olympics is gymnastics. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to watch much this year so I get my updates online. One thing about gymnastics, though... watching the sport always takes me back to a time when I was in the 5th grade. I was staying over at my friend, Christy's, and there was a movie that came out called "American Anthem" starring Mitch Gaylord. I think we watched that movie 5 times in the span of time that I stayed with her (in between sneaking out to ride double on her horse and getting bucked off!). We thought he was so hot... guess he was for the mid-80's! I look back at it all now and just laugh. Anyway, at the time, I liked the movie for the gymnastics. I think about it now and think, critically, that it really wasn't a great film. I will always remember it fondly, though. I also knew then that Mitch was a "real" gymnast but didn't know that he won gold at the Olympics and also didn't know that he a couple of high bar moves named after him.

Below are two videos: one showcases one of his moves and the other is the movie trailer. There was another video on youtube that I liked but it was 10 minutes long. If you're interested, you should go there and do a youtube search on Mitch Gaylord. It highlights the Olympics for that long ago year of 1984. I was 9... I would've been 10 going on 11 when the movie came out.

THE GAYLORD II


AMERICAN ANTHEM

Happy Anniversary to us!

Today is our 2nd wedding anniversary! I was telling my mom last night that it feels longer than that... but I mean that in a good way, in that it feels as though Gil and I have been together forever and that's a great thing! Every day with this man is better than the last. We are so in love and so happy... we are so blessed by God in our union. November will be 5 years already since our first date... now that time frame feels more realistic!

We are treating ourselves to dinner at the "posh" restaurant in town tonight. I'm excited to get dressed up and go out... we usually just go to the Te.xas Roa.dhouse because we love it and it's where we had our first date.

Gil shocked me with the gift of a new camera! Oh my goodness! I have dreamed of this camera for a couple of years and wasn't expecting to get it for another year or two so I was literally shocked breathless when I opened the box. It's a Canon EOS 40D Digital... I took a picture of it so I could show you our particular camera but forgot the camera chip and don't have the picture so you'll have to make do with the link. I no longer have to wait 30 seconds between pictures; I can now take about 50 pictures in that same amount of time! (Actually, I could potentially take 6 pictures a second but neither my finger nor brain work that fast!) Yeah, we already tested it out shooting pics of the puppies. I absolutely LOVE it!

BTW, Mom, I'm taking your phone number away from Gil so you can stop planning and conniving things behind my back! :) Jks!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!

Busy, Busy Weekend

Wow! Talk about a busy weekend. Friday night, we met our friends B & F at the fair. It was the 2nd to last night of a 9-day event. We had fun... we walked around, splurged on fair food for dinner, caught the free side-shows, and just had a good time hanging out with great friends. There was an Extreme Canines dog show... mostly tricks and agility. We paid a few dollars to go into the White Bengel Tiger exhibit. Gil and I are both HUGE tiger lovers and we spent more time here than elsewhere. There was a petting zoo of "exotic" animals... a kangaroo, a Scottish Highland cow, water buffalo, funky goats with 4 - not 2 - horns, zebra, etc. There was also a group of 3 guys that walked into the center of the "food alley" with kitchen stools that had metal dog bowls and water bottles attached to them. Turns out they were drummers. If you know me well, you know that I have a BIG weakness for drums - of any nation, any sort - I just love drums. One of the things on my ultimate "to do" list is to see the show Stomp! Just the thing I love. So I was fascinated listening to these guys perform. Here are a few pictures from our time at the fair.

Gil & Sara at the Fair

Sara being silly... nothing new!

Saturday morning, we woke up and hopped on the Harleys. The plan was to ride south and ride over a pass in Northern WY but just getting through the reservation was trouble enough to keep us from crossing state lines. This is some desolate country. We're at the point in summer where everything is really hot and really dry. With weather conditions like that come the grasshoppers. I don't know if you know this about me, but I absolutely HATE grasshoppers. Almost - probably - worse than spiders. I absolutely despise them. They totally gross me out and give me major heebie jeebies. Let's just say that for two of our initial three hours on the road, I was riding so tensed, stressed, and grossed out, that - for the first time in my life - I completely disliked being on my bike. We stopped in the middle of nothing and nowhere to re-group and stretch our aching tense muscles and took the following pictures. When we finally got to the interstate, we decided to just go straight home (not by the same way) because we weren't having fun, we were more than covered in hopper guts, we were tensed and aching and disgusted with the ride. We expect to get hit with bugs when we're riding but this was horrible... the road actually looked alive and moving multiple times along the way. The sting of one hitting my leg would barely stop hurting before another one hit. The impact was so hard that it would literally make me jerk a little bit, so I'd be tensed and waiting for the next one. Ugh.

As you can see here, there's nothing behind us but flat, open land. That's what it looked like in front of us, too.

This is my leg and you can see the bugs on my highway bar.

This hopper accumulation is on Gil's bike above the transmission.

Gil said this is what my face looked like for the majority of the ride... I was thoroughly disgusted and grossed out the entire way.

We got home and took the bikes to the car wash to use the power washer to get most of the bugs off. It was a horrible mess. I had plenty of house to clean and laundry to do and was starting on that when Gil left to go pick up our new fridge (yay!). He called me about a half-hour later asking if I wanted to go the rodeo in less than 2 hours. It was the last night of the fair and a friend/business associate of his offered free tickets. So, I jump in the shower right away to allow my hair time to air-dry, then vacuumed and picked up the house enough to satisfy me until mid-week, started some laundry, washed some dishes, then ran back in to finish getting ready and we were off at it again. We had a good time at the rodeo and then visited with D and his wife for awhile afterwards. We got home at midnight knowing we needed to wake up early to ride off again.


We woke up this morning knowing we were heading a few hours' north and had previously been planning to ride the bikes but after yesterday, we didn't want to encounter the grasshopper thing again and were still so tired after yesterday's trip that we didn't want to risk it. So we took the car and Karma and went to visit Gil's grandma (his dad's mom). His aunt and uncle were there, too, and we had a nice picnic lunch and visited for a couple of hours before coming home. Once here, we had to clean the car inside and out, move the new fridge into the house (yikes!) and then let it cool before moving all the contents of the old fridge into it. I'm just now getting ready to put my 4th load of laundry into the dryer and then we're off to bed.


I'm tired. Goodnight.

Cavities are BAD for you!

UPDATE at the end of this post.

In December, my new dentist discovered my first cavity.  At the age of 32, I had my first cavity.  It was a very traumatic moment in time for me.  More traumatic than the cavity itself was thinking about having it fixed.  To say that I have a fear of needles is a bit of an understatement.  Fortunately, that first cavity experience was superficial enough not to require any anesthetic.  

My second visit to this new dentist was double the trouble... two cavities.  In the six months since my last check-up, I now have two cavities!  What the heck?!  I don't eat a lot of sweets and actually have eaten less in the last year than ever before in my life.  Then to be told that in addition to my extra deep crevices, age, AGE can bring on cavities!  I think hearing that makes me feel older than the grey hairs that are beginning to sprout on my noggin.  Yikes!  I told Dr. W. that I was going to stop coming to him because I never had problems with cavities before him.  

Yesterday, I promised to keep that threat.  I went in to have my new cavities fixed.  The thought of that tiny needle in my mouth... ick.  Anyway, Dr. W. came in and injected the anesthetic then left while it took effect.  I was chatting with the assistant about different things but then got to talking about the anesthetic.  I said I wasn't feeling very much on the left side of my mouth.  You know what she said?  "That's the point!"  Made me laugh but I was meaning that I wasn't feeling numb on the left side so we told Dr. W. when he came back and he said that there aren't many nerves around the upper back teeth so he wasn't concerned.  I said, "If you hurt me, I'm going to hold true to that promise to never come back to you!"  When it came time to drill on my left tooth, I felt just the slightest amount of shock so he shot me a few more times with anesthetic, even going around the tooth in front of the one he was working on.  He was really taking precautions to protect me from any pain.  I think it my have caused more in the end...

Now I'm not one to normally experience a lot of side effects (unless Nyquil is involved) but the first thing I noticed when I got out of the chair - other than feeling like a lopsided chipmunk! - is that my hand was shaking when I was writing my check.  I never shake.  I tried so hard to write smoothly but in looking at the carbon duplicate, it almost looks like someone with Parkinson's or multiple sclerosis wrote my check yesterday.  

Then I got home.  I was really hungry because I didn't eat much for lunch and I ate early so I wouldn't have food remnants for the dentist.  I tried to eat something soft but because the left side of my mouth was so swollen, I bit my cheek pretty bad.  I couldn't feel anything but I realized what I'd done when the blood started pooling in the back of my mouth.  Ugh.  I did a light swish and gave up the idea of eating for the rest of the day.  I started to feel a bit dizzy - more lightheaded - and slightly nauseous.  I promptly fell asleep until Gil came home just after 6:00... that's over two hours of nap! 

By 8:00, the left side of my head was throbbing and I was having difficulty controlling the saliva in my left cheek.  I woke up this morning still feeling lightheaded, nauseous, and with a massive headache.  It's now after 9:00 and I still haven't had breakfast... not because I'm not hungry (I'm starving!) but because I can't open my mouth very wide and my jaw aches.  I'm thinking it's more due to biting my cheek but I have to wonder about reactions to the anesthetic.  I'm normally made of stiffer stuff but maybe that's something that changes with age, too!  So I'm home today, sitting on the couch so I don't have to hold my aching head up without support.  

If you have a moment, please say a quick prayer for my mouth.  Thank you!

Update, 3:40 pm:  Well, I braved some cereal for lunch and my nausea and dizziness is gone.  My jaw and head still ache but I'm thinking that it's mostly due to me biting it yesterday while it was still numb.  Gil looked at it today when he was home for lunch and said that it's about an inch long.  Molly, thank you for your comment!  I can't begin to tell you how much your experience makes me feel a little less crazy about my reaction to cavity restoration!

The Wait Poem

WAIT

by Russell Kelfer

Desperately, helplessly, longingly, I cried;

Quietly, patiently, lovingly, God replied.

I pled and I wept for a clue to my fate...

And the Master so gently said, "Wait."

"Wait? You say Wait?" my indignant reply.

"Lord, I need answers, I need to know why!

Is Your hand shortened? Or have You not heard?

By faith I have asked, and I'm claiming Your Word.

"My future and all to which I relate

Hangs in the balance, and You tell me to wait?

I'm needing a 'yes', a go-ahead sign,

Or even a 'no' to which I can resign.

"You promised, dear Lord, that if we believe,

We need but to ask, and we shall receive.

And Lord, I've been asking, and this is my cry.

I'm weary of asking! I need a reply."

Then quietly, softly, I learned of my fate,

As my Master replied again, "Wait."

So I slumped in my chair, defeated and taut,

And grumbled to God, "So, I'm waiting for what?"

He seemed then to kneel, and His eyes met with mine...

And He tenderly said, "I could give you a sign.

I could shake the heavens and darken the sun.

I could raise the dead and cause mountains to run.

"I could give all you seek and pleased you would be.

You'd have what you want, but you wouldn't know Me.

You'd not know the depth of My love for each saint.

You'd not know the power that I give to the faint.

"You'd not learn to see through clouds of despair;

You'd not learn to trust just by knowing I'm there.

You'd not know the joy of resting in Me

When darkness and silence are all you can see.

"You'd never experience the fullness of love

When the peace of My Spirit descends like a dove.

You would know that I give, and I save, for a start,

But you'd not know the depth of the beat of My heart.

"The glow of My comfort late into the night,

The faith that I give when you walk without sight.

The depth that's beyond getting just what you ask

From an infinite God Who makes what you have last.

"You'd never know, should your pain quickly flee,

What it means that My grace is sufficient for thee.

Yes, your dearest dreams overnight would come true,

But, oh, the loss, if you missed what I'm doing in you.

"So, be silent, My child, and in time you will see

That the greatest of gifts is to truly know Me.

And though oft My answers seem terribly late,

My most precious answer of all is still... Wait."

(c) 1980 Russell Kelfer. All rights reserved.

Nothing Much to Say

Not a lot has happened in the past few days. We were supposed to go to a baseball game last night but Gil came home from work with a really bad headache and was asleep within 1 minute of arriving and laying down on the recliner. As bad as I felt for him, I was also a tad bit distressed at not being able to go. Sooo, it was a bit of sweet justice when every time he started to snore, Mojo and Karma would go over and start licking his arms and face! It was so funny. When my stomach started to really rumble at about a quarter after 7:00, I woke him up and made him take me to dinner.

So we went to Applebee's and then went and rented a couple of movies (21 and 10,000 BC - guess we had a thing for numbers!). Both were good. 10,000 BC was so not what I expected... I actually liked it. When we watched the one by Me.l Gibs.on about the Mayan civilization (sorry, can't remember the name right now) I cried and actually had to stop the movie because I couldn't take the gruesomeness. I'm so sick of war movies and needless killing... I have a really hard time watching it anymore. I was kind of expecting a little more of that with 10,000 BC; the previews sort of relayed that but didn't do it any justice because there was no real gore. It was actually a sweet love story... with enough action for men to like it, too! 21 (about counting cards to win blackjack) was really good, too... I was actually captivated through the whole thing.

Today, Gil replaced the handlebars on my bike. They're a bit taller so my hands are at about shoulder height. Compared with what I had before, they look like mini ape hangers! We went out for a test drive tonight and I really like them. My wrist is really hurting today (I have chronic pain due to a ganglion) and riding didn't make it worse. It actually leans through the curves easier and I feel much more bada$$ than before! I love them. I also love having a husband who can do all of these things. He's so good to me.

I called CFS yesterday. I'm getting so impatient just waiting and doing nothing about the adoption. It's been two months since we turned in our application and background check releases. When I called last month, I was told that our "training" classes would probably be scheduled for September and that we'd receive a letter in the mail. I called yesterday because I wanted to see if there was anything we could do while waiting to start the classes, like an initial homestudy visit or two or something. The news is no... no visits until after the classes. They'll be scheduled for sometime in mid-September to early October and we should be receiving the letter/registration form within the next week or two. So, we're back to where we were... waiting. Gil and I talked and we're going to work on doing the rest of the home projects that we need to do, smoke detectors and emergency escape plans... that kind of thing. We've been waiting this long, we just need to keep on keepin' on. Ugh.

So that's where we are. I hope all is going well in your life. Don't be afraid to post a comment to say hi; it'd be nice to know who's reading up on our lives.

Beartooth & Chief Joseph

Here are some pictures from our bike ride this past Saturday over the Beartooth Pass and Chief Joseph Scenic Byway. There were five of us total... a friend of mine from work and her husband and one of Gil's coworkers, J. Yes, S and her husband, T, ride "crotch rockets" and yes they rode with us. We're not Harley snobs! A bike's a bike, right? Right... it's a little strange but this couple is just too cool not to hang out with! Anyway, there were fires burning on all sides of the area that we were riding through and we were fortunate to have "smokeless" air to breathe. The only time we really encountered it was on the east side of the Chief Joseph highway from a fire burning near Cody; it was raining ash but the smoke was high enough not to breathe. It was a beautiful day to ride, cool enough to keep our jackets on until we hit Belfry on the way back. We were gone about nine hours but we stopped frequently for pictures and lunch.

This picture was supposed to be at the end but this stupid uploading function won't allow me to place my pictures where I want them; it always places them at the top! Anyway, this is the smoke I mentioned on our way down Chief Joe.

Here's Gil and me at the first vista look-out on the Red Lodge side of Beartooth.

This is near the top of the Beartooth side, just across the border on the Wyoming side. The pass was delayed in opening this year due to excessive snow pack... about a month later than usual.

We always encounter Rocky Mountain goats in this area and we weren't disappointed this day.

While we were looking at the goats, this curious little marmot was checking out T's Suzuki Hayabusa.

The bistro where we ate lunch in Cooke City. Gil is standing by his bike, my bike is second from the left, T and S are by her Ninja, and J is in the back near his bike (the blue one).

Gil snapped this pic of me while we were at a rest stop getting ready to ride up the Chief Joseph switchbacks. (See, Mom, I do wear my helmet!)

Looking out over the west side of Chief Joseph Highway.

We had a really great ride. It was so good just to get out... riding is really therapeutic for me. Gorgeous weather, good company, hardly any traffic on the roads... what more can you ask for?

I can't think of a title...

I’m feeling better emotionally after this weekend... my heart is still sore after the intense ache it went through last week but I’m not slipping downward like I feared I might. I hope you’ve had a chance to read my last post; it really explains a lot of how I was feeling... not all of it, but a lot of it. Another part of the hurt was in feeling so extremely and utterly alone... both at work and in my support group (heck, sometimes even in real life). I was feeling that I could disappear and no one would really notice my absence. That’s a horrible, selfish and utterly unfounded feeling, but that’s how I was feeling.

I haven’t noticed a lot of action here on my blog so I don’t know who’s following my story or not. For extra feedback, I also felt the need to share my last post at HP (my IF support group), especially since these are women who are experiencing the same issues. God was really working through them last Thursday and Friday. Not only did I receive a lot of replies to my post, but I also received a lot of personal messages emailed privately to me. I’ve made better friends there than I was giving myself credit for... or giving them credit for. These women are wonderful, Christ-filled vessels. They reached out strongly toward me at a time when I really needed it and I’m still trying to thank each one of them individually. I also am developing a really good friendship with one of my coworkers; our husbands get along really well with each other, too, which is a huge plus! We’ve gone to dinner with them and on bike rides a couple of times... we just went out for hot wings last Thursday night and for a bike ride on Saturday (more on that in a separate post later!).

God’s timing is perfect... I was feeling so alone and He worked so hard to prove me wrong on Thursday with my HP sisters and social time with this very special coworker friend of mine (you know who you are – THANK YOU!). I know in my head that I’m never alone... God's always there... my husband’s always there... my family and friends are just a phone call away... but struggling with IF makes you feel very, very alone and isolated – especially when no one else in my life has shared the experience – and Satan was capitalizing on that last week. I was trying not to let him and I thank God I had the strength to recognize it and reach out – granted, only through posting here and on HP, but reaching out nonetheless.

One thing that really bothered me is the knowledge that I should not be feeling this way... that it’s wrong, that I’m allowing myself to wallow, that I’m not thankful enough for my blessings or my life. My HP sisters validated my feelings and I know that I’m just going through the normal cycle of IF. It really stinks when I think that this will never be over... it may lessen in time, but the grief will never completely go away. I feel bad that I’m not seeing this trial as a gift, as a way to praise God. I feel like I’m being a selfish little child, stomping her foot at Abba because she can’t have her way. An HP sister made me think about it a bit differently; here’s a portion of what she wrote me:

“Sara, I think God is blessed by your candor. I think you reverently speak
your heartfelt thoughts to God and open your heart to Him, and isn’t that what
He wants from us? Not for us to understand, not for us to be okay with
platitudes, but to be real with HIM. He’s our Father, He already knows it,
but He wants us to know Him and bury our hearts in HIM. You are open and
you are seeking Him and He is blessed by that.”

I am feeling better. I just need to stay busy. I’m so tired all the time and I’m not sleeping well, but I need to force myself to stay busy. I shouldn’t have a problem with that because we have so much to do around the house before Christmas... and as fast as August came, Christmas will be here next week!!!

BTW, today is my parents' 35th wedding anniversary! HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, MOM & DAD!!! I LOVE YOU!!!