45 posts tagged “adoption”

I finished up baking the wedding cake… in a range that now has a (temporary I hope) wooden handle, that’s right ladies and gents, my kitchen range is sporting a 2x4 where the handle should be.  One side of the handle came off yesterday as I was putting the first cake in the oven.  Later, the other side came off as well, right in my hand.  With the new chunk of wood, I can get in stuff in and out of the oven much easier.  And that was all that mattered while I was baking the wedding cake.  Tomorrow I will ice the wedding cake, Saturday morning I will deliver it and then enjoy my cousin’s big plain Mennonite wedding.

Just about the time I was headed off for a nice leetle nap, I saw that the USPS had delivered my box of broken NASA glass… which sent me downstairs to the kiln.  I played with the pretty bits of dichroic glass and put a round in the kiln to fire up.  I spent some quality time with the whammer, making broken glass into more broken glass, managed to wham my own finger like the genius I am.  Owie!  I just finally pulled that batch of glass out of the kiln just now, they were still 102 degrees, but that’s better than 1500 that they were earlier.  I think they turned out beautifully in spite of the fact that three of the six have crack marks in the center.  I’ll ask a glass friend what that was about but I’m pretty sure it’s because I opened the kiln door to peak at the wrong temp and the glass just couldn’t contain it’s joy at seeing me and it's heart just burst right there in the middle.  Or something like that.  Temperamental stuff, peaking in the kiln at the wrong time is a bad idea.

I was serious about getting that nap so I tried again.  This time the phone rang just after I had dozed off.  The hubby was on his way home and bringing the father-in-law with him.  He was just passing through but we managed to talk him into staying the night.  I would have cooked but he just wanted food, a shower and off to bed with him.  He’s driving some kind of big rig through the area.  We ordered a pizza and that was that.  I like to cook, and I would have loved to cook for them but they were looking for something a little more instant.  To bad, their loss. 

I managed to put some glaze on a series of wine glasses.  It seems like wine glasses were good for me this month in sales.  The second round of glazing will come tomorrow and then I’ll get a feel for whether or not I like them… so far myeh.  That's how they always look after the first round, the second round is what makes them beautiful.

While I was working on the glaze my friend Michelle called.  She was here for a few nights last weekend and I made home made hot poppers.  She was making them and trying to remember what I'd done.  Just cut the peppers in half, remove the seeds and membranes.  In a microwave safe mug put half a block of cream cheese in the mic for 30 seconds.  Stir in some salt and peppa, onions, paprika, garlic and some swiss or sharp cheddar (in fine chunks) or whatever your favorite cheese is.  Stir it all together and put in a pastry bag (or a ziploc bag with the corner clipped if you don't have the other) and pipe it into the pepper halves.  Line a pan with foil, put cracker crumbs in the pan so the peppers don't stick, top the poppers with more cracker crumbs and some parsley.  I popped them in my toaster over at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, served with cold sweet n sour and duck sauce and YUM!  Michelle was trying to remember what I'd done, she'd been watching while I made them when she was here.  She'd found a recipe online from Emeril... but she said it was too complicated.  Michelle liked my recipe better than Emeril's!!  *wistful bits of happy joy and smug self approval*

I just put another round of glass in the kiln and set it off.  By morning I hope it is back down to a temperature that I can get in there and see what they look like.  I love working with glass, you never know what is going to come out of the kiln, but honestly, waiting to pull them out after they are back down under a hundred degrees is really hard.  I am curious and impatient.

It’s time for full tilt production for the holidays.  I want to get my work into a few more galleries and see if I can rock this holiday season.  I hope so.  That would be cool. 

Then maybe the first of the year I can work on transforming my kitchen.  I’m thinking a new floor – which I think means the old vinyl will have to come up.  And since it’s been down there since 1975 I don’t know how hard it will be to get up.  And everything needs a coat of paint.  The walls, the cabinets… everything.  It’s going to be a really big job but it will turn out fine, if I can ever make up my mind on the colors.  I fear that I don't really want to live with the gray I've chosen.  It would be beautiful in someone else's home, but other people can live with colors I can't handle and the opposite is true.  (I remember well my fuchsia bedroom - it rocked - but to be fair it was mostly concrete, steel, glass and hardwood... but still the one fuchsia wall ROCKED!)  Hmm... 

I still hope that we can get the adoption in by the end of the year, mainly for tax reasons but honestly, hope is waning for that.  And the possible financial repercussions of that kind of suck.  But whatcha gonna do?  There isn’t anything I can do but wait.   Well... I can blubber over it, but I've already done my share of that.  Honestly I don't know whatever possessed me to say that I'd pay thousands of dollars and wait hundreds of days for something I'm not sure I can handle when it comes.  I'm just sayin.

That's a day in the life of an artist.  Never a dull moment.

Do you have any money?  Can you make your bills this month or are things a little tight?  Are you wealthy or poor?  Does a bank think you are a good risk?  Do you have good credit?  What is your net worth?  What are you worth?  (Ok, so that one isn't a money question)  The strange thing is that though these questions seem to all aim at the same thing, they are actually vastly different questions.

Net Worth is what you’d have left over if you sold everything you own.  I don’t think anyone has asked for this information on a credit application and it’s not considered in coming up with my credit score.  And it has little to do with how much money is in my purse (a buck two eighty) and really has little to do with anything… although it’s important information if you want Colombia to let you adopt their (poor, hungry, orphan) kids.

So here’s the process.  On a spread sheet make a list of everything you own that is worth something.  The house is usually at the top of the list unless you rent.  The autos, the furniture, the other assets.  The bead collection and the piano.  All of it.  Estimate the values of each item.  How much is your house worth?  (Easy if you are a renter.)  And fill in figures for the autos - www.kbb.com is a good resource for that.  You’ll have to know the year, make, model, miles and features of your ride.  Add it all up.  Add in the balance on each bank account you have, add in your investments (what’s left of them after the stock market quits tap dancin on the total today at 5 pm)  Add that list up.   Yeah, just remember this isn’t YOUR worth we’re looking at… this is about the junk you own.  All that stuff that would be gone if Katrina visited in the night.

Start a new column and start listing the liabilities.  How much do you owe to the bank who lets you live in their house?  How much on the autos?  Any credit card debt?  Any revolving credit?  Add it all up.  Yeah, we are not makin any judgments here, just doin the math.  If you are young and just bought your first house, ouch!  Old and nearly paid off that sucker?  Score!

So, which is bigger?  The plus pile or the minus pile?  Well, shuck my corn!  My PLUS side is BIGGER!  *Does a happy dance!*  I CAN HAZ ADOPTION!  Whooo Hoooo!

Here’s the irony… owning two houses would seem like a liability since I owe an astronomical amount of money to Janet the Banker.  On the other hand, since I owe less than the appraised value on either house, it puts me in the black.  (We got house B for considerably less than its appraised value!)  And when I took house A off the spreadsheet, my net worth went DOWN.  Ok, that seems really counter intuitive, right?  Well to me at least.  Owning two houses means it’s harder to make my commitments, but it makes my net worth higher.  Is that some twisted mojo or what?!

And this is why this economic situation has been such a bitch to so many folks.  My net worth hinges mostly on the estimated value of my home (which in recent years has departed to some degree from an appraised value since most of those lovely folk had a few years of collective insanity that we are all paying for now.)  Now I’m not going to say this VERY loudly, for the purposes of my math, I’m using appraisal values from sometime this year, not today.  (Markets have had a downward trend lately so the longer ago my appraisal - the better my math will look)  So where this gets really tricky is when someone just buys a house and is just starting to pay the loan, unless they made a hefty down payment, there is little wiggle room in the net worth department.  If the market shifts and that individual owes more than the house is actually worth, that creates a negative net worth… but it doesn’t mean they don’t have money in their pockets and it doesn’t necessarily mean they can’t pay their bills.  It can mean that, but then again it might not.

Here’s where I think this gets really funny.  Let’s say Joe the Plumber lives in the house he grew up in, so what if he shares the place with a six bear hunting dogs.  His pappy paid $9,452 for that place back in the day and ol Joe inherited that baby when he turned 48 (along with the ancester to all these dogs running around here.)  It needs a coat of paint and “Extreme Home Makeover” would certainly rip that crap to the landfill, but it’s a house with a warm fireplace and it’s paid for.  And it’s got a few acres out back with some nice views of the valley where he played as a child.  He’s paid off his five year old Ford F150 duely and doesn’t have much else but doesn’t care.  He thinks the “Stock Market” is the place you’d go to buy a coupla cows for the pasture out back.  And he pays his bar tab at the end of each month, so that’s not much of a liability depending on which day you do the math.  And as long as he doesn’t hit the credit cards and doesn’t have a girl friend, well, his net worth looks pretty darn good. 

On the other hand, Sarah the Soccer Mom may live in a big house in the ‘burbs.  Let’s say she bought her McMansion a year or so ago at the height of the market, but now two homes in her neighborhood have been foreclosed on and so the value of all the houses in her neighborhood have gone through the floor.  Even though Sarah and handsome husband make plenty of money and have a little left over at the end of the month to go to Neiman Marcus and shop for clothing… she could have a negative net worth.  And if they experienced a medical meltdown, or one of them lost their job, or they wanted to borrow some money to buy matching snowmobiles, well… then it might start to matter.   Appearances mean nothing, ability to earn money or borrow money is not the issue.  Net worth is simply a way to estimate what would happen if Joe’s and Sarah’s assets sold at auction tomorrow, all the bills were paid up… what would the figure be on the check the auctioneer handed them or would have have his hand out?  That’s net worth.  And though Joe and Sarah may lead very different lives, you can't tell by looking which one has the higher net worth. 

And I have come to the conclusion that net worth means very little to me.  It says nothing of my character, or kindness or my relationship to the world I live in.  And it has nothing to do with our ability to be parents.  It has nothing to do with staring down two home mortgages when you only want one house.  It’s deceptive because the numbers can change considerably based on many things beyond my control.  And it really doesn’t have that much to do with whether or not I pay my bills on time.  And yet it is the difference between being able to adopt, or not.

I’m happy!  I can haz offspring!  SCORE!

Well, it appears to be official.  Our adoption agency has confirmed that yes, we do need a positive net worth in order to adopt from Colombia.  And apparently when we filled out the first paperwork we had a positive net worth.  That was more than a year ago before the economy tanked and things got tighter.  A show of hands please, who has the same net worth that you did a year ago today?  What?  No hands?  Why, I just don’t know how that could be!  I am just so SHOCKED!

That was back when we lived in a tiny house that was worth considerably more than we paid for it because of all our renovation work.  We had a truck that was paid for and a Civic that only had a few payments left.  I don’t remember how I valued the worth of my business assets, I’ll just have to go back and look at that and see how those numbers even came together!  LOL!  To my knowledge there has been nothing in the material that said that a positive net worth would be a requirement.  I haven’t taken the time to look through all the adoption material again and make sure, but I’m fairly confident of that.

So… in preparation for the adoption we bought a minivan knowing that our truck was terminal and we wanted to get as many of those van payments behind us as possible before we brought home/purchased our children. 

And then there is the bigger house we purchased because of what our Social Worker said about our eligibility based on the space we didn’t have.  Now we own TWO houses, though hopefully that won’t last forever.  But seriously, there is no way around the math of THAT!  (Though I'm guessing that in a wierd twisted way that could help?  Must do math!)

Apparently everything we’ve done to prepare for this adoption is now the same stuff that currently makes it impossible.  So I need to sit down with the numbers and figure out exactly what the damage is.  If we had known, we could have waited on the van and not purchased the house… but then we would only qualify for adopting one or maybe two children of the same gender and not the three that we want and still be stuck in that tiny house.  (Well, we are still stuck WITH that house, but not IN that house.)  And adopting them separately is seriously more expensive than getting them all at once.  It’s the difference between paying $30 for something or buying it for 3 payments of $25 each.

There is a way around this, we just need to figure it out.  I’m thinking that we may need to find someone who will purchase our van from us and then sell it back to us soon.  As far as I can tell the paper needs to be legally true the day we sign it, after that?  Shaa!  I don’t know where the adoption file is now, in a box somewhere.  I need to (find it!) get it out and see those early numbers.  And I need to run today’s numbers, I don’t even know how close we are but I don’t see it working from here.  I don’t exactly know all the miracles are going to be required to make this work but I’m living in a house that is nothing short of a miracle anyway.  What’s one (or a KaZillion) more?

It's for the kids... for the kids... (grumble grumble blasted adoption agency grumble grumble) it's for the kids... for the kids...

No seriously, this IS GOING to work!  It's just a little demand of mine.  That I'm deadly serious about!  This adoption IS GOING to work!!! 

My husband and I will celebrate our 19^th wedding anniversary on December 15^th.  And for at least a decade of that time we used no birth control but never had children.  And as long as we’ve been together, we’ve had “other” friends.  That is, since we never had children we were never included in gatherings with the families who had small children unless it was our own family.  If someone with a few kids was thinking about who to have for dinner, it wouldn’t be us because there would be no one for their kids to play with.  Our friends have always been pre-kid couples, or adult-kid couples.  And in most cases if we had pre-kid couples, we pretty much knew that once they started having children we’d drift away because they would want to hang out with people who had children to play with.  There would come a time when we were left out.  I have not minded this often in our ten years, after all, it is my “normal.”  But there have been times along the way when I’ve found it to be one of the unintentional painful aspects of infertility.

On the flip side, there is a woman at church with at least a dozen children.  It’s not really that many but it might as well be because they are unattended from the moment they get in the door till the time the family goes home.  (Ok, that’s an overstatement, but not by much.)  I’ve never had a conversation with her that she didn’t turn to something about her children.  She has no concept of my life and I find spending time with her to be an exercise in annoyances.  It wouldn’t occur to her to converse with me about something else, she may not have anything else to converse about.  So I wouldn’t be real interested in having dinner with their family, unless I was up for an evening at the circus.  Even then there would need to be an exit strategy for such an evening as loud projectile children cause me to seriously consider losing my pacifism.

Here’s the thing.  We’re planning on adopting some children.  Two, maybe even three.  Nothing like an instant family.  So I’m going to go from being the woman who doesn’t hang out with the young mothers to being one of them.  Well, except for the young part because the people around me with young children are usually quite a bit younger than I am by now. 

I happened to be standing in a hallway of church witnessing a conversation between two young mothers.  There was some talk of whose kid would marry who and I was surprised to find that the children were jokingly paired off.  And at least one of the little ones was talking to her parents about who she would marry.  It was a surprise to me, I don’t live in the world of young children.  I don’t know what happens there.  Then one mother turned to me and said that they were waiting to find out about my adopted children and to see how that changed the mix.  That struck me as very strange, and VERY funny!  No one in that group is into arranged marriages, but I am certain that none of them would mind if their children ended up together just because they knew and loved the other families so much.  Ok, that is a strange new thought in my head, but why not?  I was standing on the edge of that conversation joking with those women, knowing that I was on the outside getting a glimpse into a strange world.  I felt a little alien at that moment.  It made me curious about what else I may be missing.

I know that I’m going to need to do something to cross over before my children come home.  No doubt it will be a bit of a challenge to break into a strange new world of Mommies and their small children and their comfortable little social network.  I have no idea of the actual ages of the children of these women, much less their names.  The only ones that even exist on my radar are ones that are exceptional.  Exceptionally interesting or exceptionally annoying.  So I am wondering how this will evolve.  Am I ready for a world of cupcakes, parties where the average age is in the single digits and the chaos and noise level that seems to come with that?  I don’t know.  But my kids deserve a chance at a “normal” life, not MY "alien" normal of being on the outside observing… their normal – whatever that is.

It feels like tomorrow should be Sunday.  We went over to the other house and got the Christmas stuff out of the attic plus a little more furniture.  I put up the Christmas tree, and besides the lights that came on it – it is otherwise naked.  It may stay that way, I lack motivation right now.  It really is something how the light of a Christmas tree brightens up a room!

I had a lovely Thanksgiving day.  We got a lot of work done that made our family room look much better and my kitchen is now much more organized.  Now I move with more certainty when I’m looking for the utensil or bowl I want rather than walking in circles and opening door after door.  Plus we had some family here in the evening and it was a casual and nice time.  They actually stayed into the evening playing Rook with us for a while.  That surprised me more than anything but I guess that was because my sister-in-law and the nephews were not there, so there was no one thinking that the kids needed to get home to bed.  I had the lowest score of them all, which was very strange.  And my brother won despite his protest that it was too late for thinking and being engaged in a card game.  It was a lovely time, and our decision to serve breakfast (waffles, home made blueberry syrup, sausage, potatoes, apple/caramel cake, etc) seemed to be a hit.  I’m all for Thanksgiving, but let’s face it – Turkey is a boring tasteless meat that is difficult to cook in a way other than dry dry dry and there are no real surprises with the rest of the fixens.  I was glad for the change and breakfast is something we do pretty well.  And waffles, who doesn’t love waffles?!

I’m fighting depression.  Moving is always a challenge for me, it takes me a while to settle into a new surroundings.  I’m very visual and the chaos drives me crazy, and it’s a huge help to me to have everything where it goes.  We've never hired a service to do that, so achieving order just takes time.  So it’s a process, and I’m ok with that.  The good news is that I’ve moved so many times since 2000 that now I understand why I am feeling the way I am and can deal with it without being too freaked out.

Secondly, we stillllll own the first house.  And I’m really tired of that.  No recent showings.  And there is a couple from Las Vegas who is planning to move back to the area.  We have been told that our house might be just right for them, and we saw them in church Sunday.  I know they need jobs here before they can make any house decisions at all, and I don’t know if their home in Las Vegas is on the market or sold or anything.  So I don’t know if anything will come of that or not but I’m so tired of owning two houses!  It is such a financial drain.  And seriously, we just don’t need that.  Not now.  How long is this going to take????

Most of the time I’m doing ok with the big question looming about the adoption.  It’s possible that since we don’t have a positive net worth that the whole thing is over.  We won’t know until the folks at the agency are back in the office Monday.  And maybe not even then.  But we’ve sunk a serious amount of money to have it end this way and I’m trying to stay positive about all of this.  I do know that if we can’t adopt as we thought, that it will be another round of grieving.  I would not be looking forward to that.  But along our 19 years of married life (life without birth control) we have faced other losses.  We survived, and we’ll survive again.  And then there would be the question of how we handle the agency.  Which would be worse, the grief or the anger at the agency?  Everything I’ve read says that all these fees are non-refundable.  I think there was one $500 fee that was refundable – I remember thinking how strange that was when I saw it because it was one of the smallest fees of all.  But I don’t think we have paid that one yet.  LOL!  So I’m hoping it’s not over.  But we’ll see.  He gives and takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.

My mother talked more about her work situation and the bully she has for a boss.  I have worked some behind the scenes to see if I could get something to change there.  And it doesn’t look like anything has changed yet and I don’t know how far to take it.  Should I take it to the press?  Should I talk it over with Dad?  He’ll try to stop me because they don’t need her to lose her job right now.  I don’t think it’s too much to ask that she not be bullied at work.  But just how often do I need to call her boss and remind him that he needs to be more reasonable with my mother?  It makes me feel like something is reversing – like I’m the mother and she’s the kid.  I don’t need that kind of crazy mojo.  My life is weird enough already.

I’ll be turning 40 on Groundhog’s Day.  And I’ve been noticing the lines on my face more recently.  I’ve got laugh lines and I think laugh lines are great as long as one doesn’t wear make up on them.  Sadly, I also have dark circles under my eyes, so there will usually be makeup in the laugh lines.  NOT the best combo.  I also have frown lines, exacerbated by two scars I have from two separate childhood accidents.  I don’t think those are so great.  I usually don’t even notice my broken nose but I’m seeing the flaws right now more than usual.  And I can see in the faces of family members where my face will sag and grow tired looking.  My brother’s wrinkles look great on him.  All of it looks fine on them, but I can’t imagine looking in the mirror and seeing some of those things happening to me.  Not when I don’t think I’m all that old.  So suddenly I’m all conscious of taking care of my skin.  It’s strange.  I skipped having children (which I always thought of as the symbol that I was a grown up) and moved right into aging.  I’m not impressed.  Oh come on!

And the unsettled feeling from the move is leaking into my work again.  I have no passion for anything right now, I remember this from last time we moved.  I used to find such pleasure in my work but sometimes now I just find it one more boring job of an isolated and lonely life.  I saw a fascinating man on a youtube clip the other day.  He said the first time you do something you’re an artist.  The next time you repeat it you are an engineer.  And the third, forth and so on… then you’re a technician.  That’s my problem.  I’m an artist, and even an engineer.  But I am no technician.  Unfortunately, I fear I am no marketer either.  I need a staff (or something) and I can not afford them as long as we have too freakin many houses!  And so I’m kind of languishing again.  It’s nothing terribly dangerous, it’s just uncomfortable.  But it leads me the same place I always seem to come back to.  Am I in the right place or should I be getting a job?  I’ve given some thought to a Master’s Degree this time around, maybe teaching art.  I think I might enjoy High School students for a (short term) while, but I’d be much more interested in teaching college.  I don’t know if it’s worth it though, a Doctorate might be fun/helluva lot of hard work.  Or it might be another big financial drain.  And in the end, would I like the job?  Would I even be able to get the job around here?  Having the degree would be cool, aspects of having a paying job would be cool.  Would it be right for me?  I don't know.  It can be a cool age group though, young and idealistic, exploring a brave new world...  (and druck off their little asses.)  

I wish I could just get away from it all for a while but there really isn’t a place to go.  So here I am.  It will pass.  I’ll get settled and the snow will come and I’ll build a fire in the fireplace and watch the flakes fall and listen to some great music.  Spring will come and then I’ll find all the bulbs that the previous owner planted in this yard.  That will be lovely.  And my children… well… God only knows if they are more than figments of a vivid imagination.  But they are so real, their names and aspects of their personalities are right there in my head and heart.  I hope it’s not much longer.  I hope it doesn't get much harder.

Ok, I’ve been struggling with this over a week now and we haven’t gotten any answers so I’m losing my battle over trying not to get really depressed.  Hubby was told in a phone conversation with our adoption agency that if we don’t have a positive net worth, that our application to adopt will not be accepted by Colombia.  We don’t have a positive net worth, and the years it would take us to get one would pretty much royally piss me off make me too old to raise a kid.  Secondly, they knew our financial situation and that we did not have a positive net worth going in, so how could they turn around now (after we’ve paid THOUSANDS of dollars – ALL non-refundable) and turn us away?  (Heads would ROLL!)  And who has a positive net worth in this country right now anyway?!

I’m trying really hard, but honestly, if we don’t get this sorted out, life is going to get really unpleasant around here. 

Our Social Worker (who is separate from our adoption agency) would not approve us for the number of kids we wanted until we bought a bigger house.  And the old one has not sold yet.  Ok, no kidding – we didn’t have a positive net worth before that but right now it looks even worse while we own two houses.  And selling one won’t take that number into positive territory.

We need a miracle.  We’ve seen so many along the way.  The purchase of this house was a whole string of miracles.  We just need a few more.  I’m committed to trust God that something is going to break here.  And between now and then I’m caught on the edge of a rather large cliff, trying desperately not to lose my footing.  Prayers welcome!  (Please God Please God Please God...)

There is an interesting article on adoption in our local paper today.  I don’t actually get the local paper, but I do check out the website nearly every week day.  This newspaper has a comment policy where anyone can post comments on the articles after they are posted online.  It’s not uncommon to read a great article followed by something horrible by way of response in the comment section – further proof that “free speech” is a royal pain in the ass.  So the marvelous article about adoption is followed by these remarks from “Jim Morrison.” 

“Thanks for qualifying your message to target American children. I fear too many people are adopting children from the "Heathen Country du Jour" in order to show them off as acquisitions and status symbols at their off-brand churches.

Hopefully, there's enough interest out there in our own suffering that an American orphan can find a good home without qualifying as a piece on someone's charm bracelet.”

Well, there’s a new one by me.  Usually adoptive parents get halos in the press (which feels a little strange also if you ask me.)  This time, I’m the Angelina Jolie wanna-be.  And won’t my sweet little church be surprised to find out they are “off-brand!”  And what would happen at a Name Brand church?  People wouldn’t be allowed international adoptions?  Uh… hmmm…

Our home study nears completion and then we’ve got a few other hoops before we send that stack of information off to Colombia, otherwise known as the “Heathen Country du Jour.”

We’ve joked with close friends about some of the crazy requirements for adoptive parents.  Our DMV record is checked, I suppose because someone had a wreck with an adopted child in the car, or else got a DUI.  The news also had a recent story about adoptive children found in the freezer, so we joked that now none of us would be allowed to own freezers.  Next they’ll want to search my jewelry box for children on my charm bracelet.

My husband and I will have been married 19 years in December, no birth control, no children.  Yes, I’m in the process of an international adoption.  It will likely take somewhere between 9 months and 2 years.  (It’s already been about a year)  We are not made of money, so far we’ve worked really hard and put together lots of fund raising events that have actually been surprisingly successful and we are very grateful for the generosity of our friends as well as people we don't even know.  We even bought another house so that we could qualify for more children.  This is my normal.  I’m no hero, so spare me the adulation.  I’m no Angelina Jolie, so spare me the judgment.  This is my life.  And “Jim Morrison,” go take a long walk off a short pier!

“He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”  Micah 6:8

I’ve been pondering this verse for a while.  What does it mean to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly in an election year?  I think it means that we need to be careful and discerning when making the important choice of how to vote.

ABORTION

Some would say that abortion is the single issue that determines a person’s vote this year.  I think abortion is wrong and I could not and would not ever abort a child, should that even become an option.  Personally I would not even abort my child to save my own life.  I would just have to trust that God knows what He is doing when He chooses who lives and dies.  But those are my personal beliefs and values.  I would not and could not impose them on a nation!

I have five main issues with the abortion debate.  I believe the Democratic party is too beholden to the portion of the party that wants to keep abortion legal for any woman, for any reason, at any point in her pregnancy.  Each party could stand to shake its more radical elements in this debate. 

I find it disingenuous that the Republican Party speaks strongly against abortion and yet did nothing about it at the point when they controlled both houses and the white house for six years.  I am also surprised that the party that wants less government intervention really wants to intrude on the sex lives of Americans.  These are incongruous thoughts in my opinion.

It is never enough to be against something if you ignore the reasons the problem exists.  The abortion rate fell under the Clinton Administration because of a proactive approach to the reasons women wind up in crisis pregnancies.  And I’m impressed by Hillary Clinton’s suggestion that the right number of abortions in this country is ZERO.  I respect her plan to cut the abortion rate through sex education, money for family planning and requiring health insurers to cover contraceptives.   (http://www.slate.com/id/2112712/)

Finally, the debate on abortion should not go without a conversation on adoption.  Adoption in this country is difficult, over-legislated and obscenely expensive.  John McCain is the only candidate I’ve heard speak compellingly on the issue of making adoption easier and less expensive.

If I were voting on this sensitive issue alone, my vote would go to Hillary Clinton.  Too bad that's not an option. 

While I was away at the women’s retreat this weekend, hubby and a few friends cleaned the heavy furniture out of my rented art studio for me.  I am so grateful to have this project done and thrilled that I didn’t have to bend my back to that task!  To see that space with none of the familiar furniture and equipment in it is a little strange.  It was my home away from home for two years.  Sometimes I found it confining, sometimes I found it a haven.  And I got a tremendous amount of good work done there.

There were three huge windows that drenched the studio in natural light in the afternoon.  Those windows face the alley and the brick building next door.  I became well acquainted with that facing brick wall and it became symbolic of the internal place I found myself for much of these past two years.  My equipment and furniture is all now in a house on the golf course.  The views from the house are beautiful, with lots of green grass and tall trees.  It is a quiet and peaceful location.  Soon there will be the noise of children and dogs.  My new home may not be as quiet as this studio has been, and even though I may miss my brick wall to some degree or other – I’m satisfied that my new home will be a perfect fit for my work and my family and whoever else God brings to us.

It is the end of a chapter, but I am not sad.  I won’t even bother with much nostalgia.  It has been good.  And I will leave it open ended.

Hubby and I would welcome your prayers for a Joanne & Duncan and with their baby adopted daughter Megan.  Joanne and Megan are in Colombia now, and they are stuck.  They need a final adoption degree, a document from the Colombian courts.  But the courts in Colombia are on strike.  The negotiations only look at one proposal a week, so progress is impossibly slow.  And there is no end in sight.  And one or the other parent is stuck in Colombia with the baby in their custody until this mess is resolved.  If they come home before they have the proper paperwork, they risk losing the chance to adopt their little girl along with all the money they have invested.  If they do not come home they put everything else at risk financially with endless weeks of no income and costs in Colombia at $1000 a week.  Their financial situation is difficult.  Help from their agency has been rather disappointing to put it mildly.  The agency apparently knew this was possible before the parents traveled but did not tell the adoptive parents.  (NOT same agency that we are using!)  They are getting information from a bunch of different sources, but often it turns out that what they are told is false and there is not much they can do.  To top it all off, a beloved family cat is horribly ill back home and it’s terribly difficult to be separated from her at this time.  Mother and baby are living in a hotel with no working shower in Colombia.  Unfortunately Joanne and Duncan are not the only ones in this situation.  There are quite a few couples in Colombia wrestling with this situation.  The Europeans get a year of family leave but the Americans do not.  Your prayers are most welcome.  I have not figured out how to send them an email but I’ll keep trying.  Please pray for this dear couple and others like them.  Our hearts go out to them in this horrible struggle and we pray that the strike would be lifted right away or that the American Embasy would grant temp visas to the children.  Something, anything!  This is an expensive tragedy!