Well, well, well...

I'm alive. Kicking, even. :)

And I DO miss you girls... and I miss this outlet. So here I am, making another feeble attempt to check in on you all, my friends and comrades that helped me get through some of those dark days a few years ago... oh, how I don't miss those days! It's amazing to go back and read through the old posts, remembering the thoughts - feelings - frustrations - hopes - everything we were feeling... and think about how those have impacted who we are today.

We celebrated seven years of wedded bliss yesterday. Seven years! Isn't it old people that have been married that long? Funny how one's perspective changes... when you are leading a church full of people your parents' and grandparents' age that look at you like "the kids," suddenly getting a little older doesn't seem so bad! Seven years. As I contemplated what all has happened in these past seven years, how our relationship has changed and grown, where we've come, what we've experienced, what we're still waiting on and what we've achieved, I just have to smile. It's not a smile that doesn't know pain... I smile because it's amazing to me to think that what we've been through in the past, and being in the place that we are today has given me such a deep appreciation for Who God is... and developed a trust in Him that I may have never otherwise had. To know that God's plans are SO much different than my own, and even if I don't know if I'll ever understand His timeline, I know that I can trust Him with it because He is SO much more infinitely wise than I am. I truly believe that even if things in life don't go the way I think they will.... it's okay. It's okay because I don't have to be in control of my life. It's okay because I know that God loves me and will always do what is BEST for me - whether it seems like it in my eyes or not.

We are still waiting for baby #1, and it's okay. It's okay, because we are living right now for the job that God has given us to do... His church, His people - and we are able to serve Him in a way that we never would have been able to with the (wonderful) distraction of children. He has shown us His grace, over and over and over again, and the moment I am even tempted to give in to discouragement, He reminds me through some small or big way that He hasn't forgotten about me. Does it still hurt sometimes? Yes. Badly. But I'm learning, ever so slowly, that even when I hurt, that if in some small way my not having children yet brings me closer to Christ - makes me more like Him - points others to Him through my life - then I am okay with it. Even more than that, I can thank Him for it, rejoice in it, and tell Him that if He NEVER chooses to bless us with children, that's okay. Because my only other option is to get angry at Him, and I have seen the effects of an angry, bitter heart, and they are not pretty - it's a poison that effects everything else in life. Anger is not an option, and the moment I even sense it creeping in I've tried to kick it right back out.

So, in a nutshell, that's where I am in life. I can't help the fact that God is so intertwined in where I'm at... because, of all the things we've learned and done in the past seven years, He is the glue that holds it all together.

I could go on about the other details of our lives... the church (amazing!), my job (eh), my family (crazy), our dog (so sweet!), the house hunt (offered and waiting), upcoming vacation (exciting)... but I'll save those for another day.

Thanks for checking in on me, friends. I do still plan to pop in now and then. :)

Life is good. God is great.

Inspired, Once Again

So, I'm going to be totally honest here. Up until about half an hour ago, I was ready to be done blogging forever... er, at least for the next couple of years, or however long it takes to get our baby. I had been thinking about the concept of blogging in the past couple of weeks, and why I did it, and what it did for me, and if it did anything for those of you who followed me, and honestly I couldn't really put my finger on anything good that came out of my blogging. Not to mention I had started to get tired of posting yet another "Nope, nothing has happened yet. We're still waiting" type of entry, when most of the people that I follow here have their families and moved on with their lives. And then, this afternoon when I found myself with a few extra minutes and a computer on my lap, my fingers found their way to the old blogger account... and that is when I realized why I blog. Besides the fact that I love being able to "journal" this way and look back a year ago, 2 years ago, 5 years ago, etc. and see what I was thinking, feeling, experiencing... all of that aside, I realized that I went from "having a blog" to "being a blogger" for one reason and one reason only. And that reason is why I will continue to be a blogger, although probably never as often as I used to. That reason? You. My friends. With interesting lives, encouraging words, funny stories, and, when I logged on today and read one of your comments... actually missing me? And still praying for me? Even though I haven't posted regularly for over a year? How crazy of me to think that I could just leave and never come back! Isn't that terrible of me? Not completely forgetting you, but easily pushed to the back of the mind, not wondering what was going on in your lives or really caring about your challenges or accomplishments or every day happenings. And then... then when I read about them, that is when I remembered why I did this. Not just because it was therapeutic for me during a time that I needed it. Not just because it was a way of journaling what was going on in our lives. Not just because you all kept me riveted with interesting stories and the many similarities in our lives... but because we were friends. Really, truly. How silly of me to forget! So here I sit, ready to rekindle some old friendships and apologize for being gone so long. I can't guarantee a post every day, or even every week, but I do hope to post something at least a little more regularly, and I have every intention of continuing to follow - and care about - what is going on in your lives. Sentimental? Maybe. But true. I mean every word. So thanks, friends. I'm looking forward to keeping up with you in the future. ;)

My, oh my...

I'm not even sure where to start. It's been too long! First things first - nope, no baby yet. But we ARE officially waiting... so I've been trying to stay busy and not think about it much unless I have to - I'd prefer to be pleasantly surprised if it ends up being a short wait, rather than expect it to be short, and be disappointed if it isn't. Of course I can't help but pick things up here and there - we now have the crib, bedding (I decided to go with a completely different one than the one that I got your opinion on below - I'll have to post pictures when I get it all put up :), the walls are painted, there are onesies and a few little outfits in the closet... oh, and I'm thinking about cloth diapers! Any input there??? Pretty much everyone I talk to about it thinks I'm crazy, but I really think it won't be too bad - I got some all in one diapers from someone who had gotten them and decided not to do it, and they're really nice, so I'm thinking that I'll at least give it a try. What do all you moms out there think? I just think that if I'm going to be the one home with the baby, and since we're going to be paying for formula, I might as well save the money and do my part to be "green" :)... right?

I really thought last year's Mother's Day that it would be my last without a baby, so this year was kind of hard, although the people in our church were absolutely amazing. We have several adoptive families, so those couples are always so sweet and understanding. Have I mentioned here how amazing it is that in our small church we have 4 other adoptive families, besides us? When we discovered that I was so excited, because it was just such a "God-thing"! Only He could put those families in our church and surround us with other people who understand and totally relate to what we are doing! 

I'm so thankful that we have the church to throw ourselves into right now. I love it, and God is so good! We're growing (we're running around 60 on Sundays), and my husband is an amazing preacher! Right now we're looking into another building that we might be able to rent - it would be so great to have a place of our own that we could have all the time, not just an hour on Sunday mornings. If the one that we are looking at right now doesn't work out, we know there will be another better option out there! Hopefully before too long, too!

It's a little hard right now because we are still very involved in the church that helped us to get started, and yet we're also becoming more busy with our new church, so we're staying pretty busy these days. This week is VBS at the "old" church (for lack of a better word) - so my mornings are busy there, and afternoons I'm cleaning or working on things for the new church. But like I said, I do love that I'm busy.

Oh, and we have added a member to our family through another kind of "adoption." :) Keebler came to live with us in March - he is a SWEET 6-year-old Golden Retriever who we just adore! The cat - well, not so much, but she's learned to adjust, once she figured out that he wasn't going anywhere, and that he won't do anything to hurt her. :) He has fallen right into life here with us like he's always been here, and we just love having him! I told Troy I thought it would help to fill a void, but actually I think it has just made me more aware of the fact that I don't have a little one to nurture... ah, but it IS nice to have a walking buddy, someone eager to see us when we get home, and another warm (although hairy :) body to share the couch with!

Well, supper's calling! Hubby's cooking steaks on the grill - anyone want to come over? :)

Input, please?!

You girls are always SOO sweet and helpful, I thought I might enlist your help on my newest quest. With the adoption moving along (we're ALMOST paper pregnant - just have to put the finishing touches on the profile and submit it this week!) I've been working on the nursery! So I got the not-so-beautiful wallpaper border down that was in there, and now it's painted a light yellow and next I'll be painting stripes - the wide ones in a shade darker of yellow. So, my question is this: is toile fabric (this one to be exact) too girly if we were to get a boy? I'm thinking I would bring in the blues and greens with a boy, the reds and pinks with a girl. Oh, and white furniture. Unfortunately, I've kind of already fallen in love with this set... but if you say yes, it's absolutely too girly... then I'll move on, but only if I have to! I'll post pictures of the nursery when it's done!

This is so much fun!!! :)

And thanks to all for the sweet well-wishes - the homestudy went wonderfully, and we are more excited than ever! I might post a link to our profile when it's done if I remember to! ;)

Homestudying...

HERE WE GO! Last Monday was our first official homestudy with the adoption agency - the first of three - and I'm pretty sure we passed! I have to admit that I was a bit nervous when we first sat down with our social worker and she started talking about what would happen if we didn't pass... but after she started asking questions, I relaxed a little bit. Her questions were really not as in depth as I thought they would be - they were actually pretty basic - I'd almost say easy! I think the worst part about the whole thing was worrying that she didn't think we were being real with her, but we just tried to be ourselves, so hopefully she knew we weren't just trying to say what she wanted to hear. So we've got 2 more to go now... the next one will be individual interviews of Troy and I, so I'm a little nervous about that, too - I think that they may do a little more digging as we progress, but I'm sure it won't be anything we can't handle. It's scheduled for Dec. 4th - next week! - and we're still hoping that we'll be all done with everything and paper pregnant by Christmas!!! Yay! 

I have to admit that now that we're ACTUALLY DOING this, I've been a little bit obsessed with baby thoughts. The nursery, names, the cute little clothes, baby stores! - I feel like I can actually go into stores like Babies R Us and not feel like an impostor!

We are SO excited. But now I have to keep reminding myself that once we ARE paper pregnant, I'm going to have to hold back and remember that it could be a long wait. But it's such a wonderful feeling that we're actually DOING this! I get more and more excited about it the closer we get! And we are surrounded by such supportive people! I was afraid that most of the reactions we would get throughout the process would be like the ones we got initially... about as much excitement as announcing that we had cancer or something... but now that we are going forward, most people are truly EXCITED for us. Of course there's the occasional "Oh. We thought you had some REAL news for us" comments (yes, someone really said that when we told them we were adopting), but for the most part, it has been great to see people's excitement about it. 

*Sigh* God is SOOO good. We are SO blessed in so many ways, and this year at Thanksgiving I'm reminded that I have so MUCH to be thankful for. We're feeling more hopeful about our prospects of having a family than we have in quite a few years. We're hoping and praying that next year at this time we'll have a little baby "B" to hold and love and let grandparents spoil. I can't wait!!!

Well, for our anniversary #5 (hard as it is to believe we're at that one already!) we decided to take a little trip to Niagara Falls, since I had never been there, and for some reason my husband likes to do things that I want to do! :) Because of everything going on, we had very limited time in which to take our little trip... so we opted to just make it a one-night, one-day thing, and travel through Canada since that would be faster than going all the way down and around. So, Thursday night we left the church at around 9 PM, and despite some heavy rain, made it to the Canadian border by about 10. Now, in our haste to pack up the car, we had forgotten one little thing that had been riding around in our trunk since we were in Wisconsin last... 

A chainsaw. 

And as we pulled up to the border and handed the guy (who appeared to be about 12, by the way) our ID's and birth certificates, unbeknownst to me, Troy decided that it would be better to tell him the truth when he asked us what we were carrying with us in the car, rather than try to cover it up. Which was a swell idea, right?, but for me, with no warning, and no hint of an idea that we actually even HAD a chainsaw in our trunk, it just so happened to strike me as HILARIOUS that we would be attempting to cross the border with a chainsaw in our trunk. Here we are at the border, a young pastor and his wife, headed to Niagara Falls for our anniversary, and we have a chainsaw in our trunk! Maybe it's not as funny as it was to me at the time, but when Troy said the word chainsaw, I started to get the giggles, there was NO stopping it! So this guy thinks that obviously SOMETHING isn't right with us, so he asked us to pull over to the side to be searched. Ugh. So we pull over, get out of the car, and stand in front of it as 3 or 4 guys - trying desperately to be as intimidating as they possibly could - go through our seats, suitcase, my purse, and the entire contents of our trunk as we stood there feeling like criminals!!! Seriously, they did everything short of frisking us. But obviously, they didn't find anything else to be questionable, and within 15 minutes we were back on the road again with nothing taken from us but a little bit of our pride. Note to self: next time traveling over the border, take the chainsaw out of the trunk first. Other than that little rendezvous, we had a wonderful time at the Falls, took some BEAUTIFUL pictures, and just enjoyed being able to spend some time together without having to think for a day about the big things coming up! And after a great time of sightseeing, one of the best parts of the day was the less-than-one-minute stop on the way back into the US, where we were very heartily welcomed HOME!!!

Life has been SOOOO busy the past month or so getting ready for this church-plant. I'm startin to think that it's actually going to happen! We're 4 weeks away from our first service, and almost every day it seems we hear of someone else who is interested or is looking for a good church in the area. It's so exciting to think that soon it will be more than just an ambiguous idea... that it will actually be a real, tangible, functioning, THRIVING church! We have great faith that it really will be thriving, too! God's going to do something awesome!!

As for the adoption, we have an official invitation to begin orientation with our agency on October 7! I can't wait to see how our lives are going to be different one year from now! :D So excited!

Well. Where to start?

The adoption? Still waiting to start. Still tired of waiting. It feels like literally all of my friends are mommies now. And I'm feeling sad again that I have yet to join the ranks of mommyhood. I've been so distracted by everything else that I hadn't been thinking about it much, but the past couple of days I've been thinking more again about things. It's almost starting to feel like it's not really ever going to happen. Like for so long (5 years next month!) it has been just the 2 of us, that I can't even imagine what it will be like for our family to be 3... and eventually more. When I talked to our social worker at the end of May, she told me we'd be getting started by the end of summer... so I hope she's right. Sigh. I just really want a baby. :*(

The church? It's going well... we're getting SO close to the church-plant! The first service is September 28th, and I can hardly believe that my husband is going to be a pastor!! He's so ready, which is awesome to see. God's still working on me about my job as a pastor's wife, too, but I'm getting a little more comfortable with the thought. He knows what He's doing, even if I don't! :)

Life in general? Busy! But good. We got to go "home" to WI last week, and spend time with lots of both sides of the families, which was really good. It was hard coming back this time, though, for some reason. Guess just with my sister's new baby and all, it was a reminder that we're not 5 minutes away anymore. Any time spent with them is precious. And as great as phone and email and all that is, it's just not the same as being there. But it does help to know that we're here for a good reason! :)

Well, my time is limited. God is good. Life is good. Just can't wait to be a mommy.