Branching out- Something NEW

So, I am going to make an effort to update my blog more than just every three or four weeks and in order to do so I’m going to change things up a little and talk about more than just our adoption *gasp*! One of my new (and already dear) friends Ashley S. is a fellow adoptive-parent-from-Ethiopia-in-waiting, and she has inspired me by changing up her blog by posting everything from very challenging thoughts, to witty/ funny thoughts interspersed with updates on her adoption. I’m not a funny/ witty writer in general (nor am I great at deep spiritual posts) but I’m going to challenge myself and venture out a bit.

The first thing I’m going to copy, I mean borrow from Ashley is her idea of “5 Things on My Mind”. So here goes…

1. I have to talk about how thankful I am that our yard sale went SO WELL last weekend! We were given so many items that our driveway and yard were full, plus we had a bunch of items in our garage! I wish I would have taken a picture (I’m so bad about taking pictures) but here is a picture of the signs we posted letting people know why we were having the sale. Upon recommendations of others that have-gone-before we had a donation bowl and were even given $150 in donations! SO BLESSED!

2. Our official paperwork for Ethiopia- affectionately called the paper chase- is underway! There are 25 individual documents that must be perfectly filled out (signed in blue ink, all notarized etc.) and so far I have 6 in hand. That doesn’t sound too fantastic until you consider that 8 of these documents Trace and I will just print off and sign in front of a notary ourselves, so that leaves 9 to get from others (and 2 we already received and need to re-do.) Next week I will be focusing HARD CORE on the dossier paperwork, and I think I’ll get most of what I need.

3. Next Tuesday we will be fingerprinted and “in the system” from now on. Better be extra good after that :)

 
OK- so 3 of my 5 are adoption related….



4. As of tonight we will be down to 1 dog for a bit. For those of you that know about our dogs…Dakota went to live with my mother and father in law in Houston, and now our puppy Marie is going to a new home. Dakota is already doing great and I’m certain Marie will be much happier with her brother Obi than with her mamma Savannah (mom is SO old!) The house will be quiet for a while…until we have 2 litters of puppies in October- more on that in a later post…

5. Football season is essentially here and I’m both nervous and excited at the same time. Nervous because if you haven’t noticed it is LONG season and now there are games on about 3 days a week! Of course my husband Trace can hardly stand it he’s so excited, and he believes football season provides lots of “quality time” for us.

He loves it that:

a. I am OK with him watching just about as much football as he wants (NFL that is- I sometimes draw the line at college football because then it invades up to 4 days a week.)

b. I usually will watch football with him (hence the quality time)

c. I generally enjoy football and don’t complain about it being on all the time.

I like fall and it feels like football ushers it in each year. I like coming home from church on Sunday and having the afternoons to watch games together. I like that my husband doesn’t let the outcome of the Cowboys’ games alter his mood (for the most part :) and I like having something to rally around and entertain us. This year it just doesn’t sound as fun as in years past- probably because the adoption occupies so much of my time and headspace. I wonder if I’ll ever be “normal” again? Probably not since HOPEFULLY next year by this time we’ll have a little son running around- YAY!

WOW- so now I managed to bring adoption into football. I guess you can tell what I think about most of the time!!!