Prayers Without Words

Wow!  It's been a long time, but here I am again!  I must say that the last several months have been a flurry of Orphan Annie activity which took off waaaaaaayyyyy more than I ever intended!  We are now sharing a little shop in Dysart where we are continuing to create and sell our fundraiser items.

But, the real purpose for this post?  My heart needs it!  I have had a LOOOONNNNGGGG four months of traveling about 3 hours each day to see patients at a wonderful nursing facility that I enjoy very much while I'm there.  It's the thought of hitting the road AGAIN and getting home late AGAIN that is wearing me down!  So the other night, I sent the kids to bed early for no good reason...only because I was tired and crabby and they were laughing...how dare people laugh when I'm tired and crabby, right!?!?  So I spent yesterday feeling like a pretty rotten Mom, but then I got a phone call that reminded me this rotten Momma has room for giant hugs, a lap for snuggling, and a heart that's ready for more!  Oh boy,  I feel a bunch of disorganized thoughts coming on, so bare with me in this post!  Disorganized seems to be the theme around here anymore and its wearing on me!

During the last four months, I have allowed myself to feel irritated by little things...just making the crabbies worse.  I'm usually much better about patience and about brushing things off my shoulder.  One thing that had been bothering me was this entire adoption thing.  We had first inquired about this journey a year and a half ago, but last fall Haiti came to a screeching halt for awhile.  They were not accepting new dossiers as they were preparing their systems for Hague Accreditation.  The beginning of March, I emailed our agency to see what the status was in Haiti.  I learned that day that our agency was one of a few that was chosen by Haiti to be an accredited agency.  Great!  Except I also learned that Haiti will currently only allow one adoption per agency per month.  What I didn't know, was whether we'd be one of those families or not.  So the wait began again.

There comes a point in the process when it isn't even real anymore.  When I started questioning God about whether this is really what we were suppose to be doing or not...because if it is, surely we would be moving a little faster, wouldn't we?  We met some wonderful families along the way who were in the midst of adoptions, and both have brought their families together this year...yet we wait.  My standard answer to people's questions has become, "we're at a standstill." 

God seems to know when we need a standstill, even if we do not.  I have felt the world on my shoulders in the last few weeks, only compounded by that darn 3 hours seemingly wasted each day doing nothing but driving when I have so much to do.  I must say, there is no sugar coating that dreaded drive...I still see it as nothing but a giant stresser to me.

But it was during that drive yesterday that I received that phone call.  I really needed a rainbow in my rainy "rotten Momma" day.  It was a call from our agency that I had been not-so-patiently waiting for since the beginning of March.  We are the family being selected to submit our dossier in September (remember, one family per month).  That means we HAVE TO BE READY.  We were ONE WEEK away from being required to pay for another FULL home steady (a couple thousand dollars...so its a big deal), but that phone call yesterday was just in time for us to squeak in with a simple update.  It's still an expense, and its still re-doing everything we had previously done, but we feel like the ball is rolling again and we feel like it was a blessing in the midst of what I have felt has been a storm of stress.

That same phone call went a little farther as well.  She told us that she would like to match us with a different orphanage than she originally had chosen, this one is called Children of the Promise in Cap Hatian, Haiti.  It is said to be an "oasis" in the midst of this third world country.  I have been very impressed by everything that I have seen and read so far.  She also talked about a specific child she would like to match us with and is going to get the development and medical info for us to review.  The problem is that Haiti has made a change...they no longer allow the agencies to have any say...their social services department will choose.  There are a few exceptions and this little one MAY fall into that exception, so we are waiting to see.  Children of the Promise has a website with photos of  their kids, and I'm pretty sure I know which child she was referring to.  So while I'm very much aware that this may NOT be our child, it is exciting to know that this one MIGHT be ours! It at least makes this process seem real again!

Now we are starting a flurry of activity once again as we are having to re-do almost everything.  This time it MUST be done by the first half of June or there will not be time for translation before submitting in September.  My recent prayers have been filled with pleas for patience and guidance and removal of the load I felt I was bearing.  I still feel like I'm bearing a heavy weight...that drive is my nemesis that I feel pulls me away from my family and I'm struggling with viewing it in any other way...it brings me to tears, quite honestly!

So, I need prayers.  I need to find some peace in the midst of what feels like chaos right now!  I need to find the right speech therapist to take my place, so I'm not "wasting" my drive any longer, so I can be here to pick my kids up from school and not be a crabby Momma any longer.  We also need prayers for our Orphan Annie's business, as this is the driver of dollars for this adoption and we are going to need LOTS of it by September!  I have prayers right now that have no words, but thankfully, I have a God who knows what those prayers are, even when I'm not sure.

Orphan Annie's: be-YOU-tiful in the making!

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!  We have been working like crazy over the last two weeks, and our laundry piles show it!  Two weeks ago, we decided to take our creative juices to a new level and raise some money for our adoption.  We have been dappling here and there in various creations that we have sold to raise money; however, the last two weeks have been intense!  We decided to purchase a space at the Little Prairie Girl Barn Sale, and feel like we were incredibly blessed to get a great space inside their barn...we had expected to start with an outside space, hoping to find room in the barn "some day."   Prairie Girl just started her sale weekends in March, and has wildly successful shows! 

Friday night was literally shoulder to shoulder at times...crazy busy!  Saturday was also amazingly busy...slowing down just a bit at the end.  Morgan was along for the duration both days, and LOVED being a shop "owner."  As people would purchase items, Morgan would help re-arrange and straighten things up a bit to keep our space looking good.  Then, despite pure exhaustian afterwards, the two of us teamed up for a "junking" Good Will adventure where we found several orphaned treasures that are beauty-waiting-to-happen!  Our new business adventure is called "Orphan Annie's"...with 100% of our procedes going toward our adoption...and once we have funded our own, we will be raising funds for others who are wanting to adopt.  Thus the concept of "Orphan Annie's"... orphaned items re-created to help actual orphans.

We sold the last of our Haiti fundraiser bracelets...pretty amazing to have sold 250 of them in less than 4 weeks!  We will be sending off those funds to The Apparent Project this week, and will request more in time for Prairie Girl's October sale. 

Here is a peak at some of our favorite items...some of them are still available, so let us know if you are interested in these pieces!

I do love this little desk...perfect for a boys' room.  It says, "Work hard. Play hard" on the surface and comes with the little stool.  It was an ugly little thing that I picked up at a used furniture store in Sheffield.  I had a different vision in mind when I bought it, but after I made a mistake in my painting technique, it turned into this rustic little thing...I love it...there are truly no mistakes in this biz...only re-direction & re-invention!  And paired with the gigantic, old, wooden "No Parking" sign donated by a friend helping our cause...it is even more cool!

Oh, yes!  This is my favorite dresser ever!  It was an ugly find from a used-treasure store in Hampton.  He is now called "Dapper Dan" and is filled with classiness.  Morgan wants to keep it! 

"It is Well with my Soul" signs are another of my favorites.  They serve as a gentle reminder that

"when peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll...whatever my lot thou hast taught me to say, 'it is well, it is well with my soul'.....no pang shall be mine for in death as in life thou wilt whisper thy peace to my soul."

And here is an old pallett-turned-wall shelf.  With its yellow background and water spicket flowers, it is its own little piece of sunshine!

Speaking of sunshine...I found this little rocker at an estate sale filled with dusty, dirty, rusted out goodness!  She did not look very sunshin-y when I found her, but what a cutey she is now!

My favorite garage sale find?  A pair of water skis that Bruce skillfully turned into a leaning ladder-type shelf.  It's pretty cool, I must say!  Oh, and the Pepsi crate on the top shelf...matchbox car storage...perfect!  I went out of my way at this sale to create cool things for boys, because it is so very easy to create cool things for girls, and I think those little guys get left out!

Somehow, someday, I will get better at this blogging thing.  For instance, I don't know why my photos are little, and I don't know how to fix it!

Take care...I'm off to tackle the laundry pile!  (in between putting a first coat of paint on one of my latest finds, of course!)

A girl named "Lovely"

Bruce and I brought the girls to Missouri for a wedding we will be attending tomorrow night.  Carson had NO DESIRE to drive 8 hours to go to a wedding, so he is hanging out with Grandpa...the girls on the other hand, are excited to see the princess-like vision of a wedding they have in their minds come to life!  So, knowing that we are pinching pennies as we save up for our adoption, we settled for a hotel that looked like it would be clean and that had a nice-ish looking pool.  Of course, online photos don't tell you that the room smells like an old grandma house that has been shut up for years.  It doesn't show that the 1982 "gold" plated lamps are tarnished or that the hunter green carpet is torn by the door.  Oh, and the funny thing about the pool...that is actually kind of decent...its in a huge open area with a wedding set up for tomorrow...facing the pool!   And there is a teddy bear wearing a wedding gown on the guest book table.  Its kind of funny.  I'm pretty sure the wedding we are attending tomorrow will not be amidst a bunch of strangers in swimsuits splashing around in a cheap hotel pool.  Actually, by the looks of it...we will be attending two weddings!  One just happens to be one we were NOT invited to...and we will be attending in our swimsuits!  Egads...I already don't want to take off my swim suit cover-up, and now I have aisles of chairs lined up to watch me take off my swim suit cover-up.  Oh boy.

I was really going to try not to complain in this post, but there is this human part of me that just cringes at the thought of touching my bare feet on the carpet below me.  Why am I like that???

So where does the perspective come in?  The gentle reminder that I should appreciate what I have no matter what?  It came in a box.  A box marked "Priority Mail."  It arrived just as we were leaving home...our big comfy home that is pretty.  We don't have lamps from 1982 and our carpet was freshly vacuumed last night.  (although I DO have a problem with my cat opening the door of the armoire in our bedroom, then opening the drawer that's inside of the door, and then shoving all of my socks onto the floor.  Basically, my house is bigger and prettier than my hotel room, but at least the hotel room doesn't have a naughty cat)  In fact, I wouldn't even CONSIDER having this ugly lamp on my end table at home.  If my carpet looked like this ugly hotel carpet, I would not sit on it or touch my bare feet to it...in fact, I would pull it up and get rid of it right away.  These are the thoughts running through my head as we are searching for cancellation information on this tacky, icky, not-as-cheap-as-you-would-expect hotel room.

So, we open our Priority Mail box, excited to see the treasures inside!  We have been waiting for this box to arrive...so much so, that I brought it with us!  I opened it at home and had a sneak peak, but didn't really look it over good until I sunk into the lumpy hotel mattress that is sure to leave me with aches and pains in the morning.  Bracelets...250 of them!  Bracelets made by the people of Haiti.  Hard-working people who are trying to keep their families together and put food on their tables.  I started reading the information about the various artists on the individual bracelet tags.  There is Vesline.  She lives in a tent and is hoping to earn money from her bracelets to go to school and become a seamstress.  Marise lost her husband in the earthquake, and she now lives in a tent with her 2 kids.  She is saving money in hopes of sending her oldest child to school.  Blondina lives in a tent with her mother and two babies.  She is hoping to earn enough to be able to rent a house.  And then there is Lovely.  She lives in a tent with her husband and three children.  She wants to earn enough money to rent a house and buy a bed & some furniture...she steals my heart.  Even as a kid, I would go straight to the back of the Sears catalog...to the section with bedding and furniture.  I would dream of having my own house with my own bed and furniture.

Thank-you "Priority Mail" for putting things back into perspective.  Reminding me of my priorities...I had no idea that was what Priority Mail was for!  Right now, our priority is saving our money to bring our adopted child home.  Our child who probably once lived in a tent, ate a mud cookie, and slept on the hard ground.  I look forward to bringing that child home to a soft bed, a CHOCOLATE CHIP cookie, and a naughty cat...but to do that...I have to stay in this ugly hotel and appreciate the fact that I have something more sturdy than a tent overhead.

So I'm now going to climb into bed and be thankful for the lumpiness of a hotel mattress while Lovely is sleeping across the ocean...with the lumpiness of dirt and rocks beneath her...just hoping that I will sell her bracelets so she can buy a bed.  I will give it my best, Lovely...I really will.

Faith & Foresight

Oh my goodness...we thought the Haiti door had closed loud and clear when we heard back from USCIS that there was nothing we could do about sending the wrong amount of money with our Orphan Petition.  But that door opened back up on Monday after talking with our agency.  We are still okay in Haiti...don't totally understand the details, but apparently the final step to becoming Hague accredited has not yet gone through the proper channels.  Once that is received in the U.S., there will be a 90-day window that allows adoptions to procede as usual.  So we are still okay!  Praises, praises, and more praises are being sent to our faithful God!

So what was the purpose of the many bumps along the way?  Roadblocks that seemed to be pointing us in a totally different direction?  Well, Bruce and I spent four days thinking we had to choose a different country, potentially an entirely new agency.  That led us to several other agencies' websites, searching again through listings of "waiting children."  These waiting children are kids who are harder to adopt...either because they are older than what most adoptive parents are looking for, or they are part of a sibling group, or they have some sort of special need (medical, developmental, behavioral, etc).

Previously, we applied to adopt a "healthy" child between the ages of 0-5.  While searching for the right answers in those four days of limbo, we found ourselves being drawn to a couple of little boys who would not have met our "healthy" child standard.  These little boys are not from Haiti or another country that our agency works in, so they are not going to be ours...but these little boys made us search deep within ouselves to find out what we really do think we can handle.  Each of these boys had developmental delays related to medical complications as infants...both were three years old and receiving speech and physical therapies.  Well, goodness gracious!  I AM a speech therapist!  And we DO own a therapy company, for crying out loud!  We have our very own physical and occupational therapists.  Why WOULDN'T we consider special needs? 

Gosh, when we hear that everything happens for a reason, it is so very true.  Hindsight is so clear while foresight just requires faith.  Faith that God knows EXACTLY what He is doing, even when we have no idea why.

Cheeks & Drool Flapping in the Wind

Oh boy! We have been riding the adoption roller coaster the last 24 hours, and if any of you know us...we do NOT go on roller coasters!!  I am not sure what is worse, the slow ride up the first hill when you are hoping the roller coaster is going to stay on the track or the moment you get over the hump and your stomach leaps up into your eyeballs...of course, it could the ridiculous whiplash as you go around the curves, the blood-curdling "I think I'm dying" scream while you hang on to the medal bar, and of course the cheeks and drool flapping in the artificial wind.  Yep.  That's it.  That's what I feel like.  Cheeks and drool flapping in the wind.  For me, I think that's the moment where I surrender to the idea that I'm probably not going to actually die on the roller coaster.  I can see the station where the controller-person stands and I know I'm getting close.  It's the moment when you know it's been scary, but there's just one more head-jarring, cheek-flapping corner before your know your fate.

So...this is our story.  The door to Haiti appears to be closing, but there is still a crack.  Our cheeks are still flapping, but I should know by the end of the day tomorrow what is around that corner.  A few weeks ago, we were urged by our adoption agency to get the dossier (big pile of legal documents & other documents required by Haiti) compiled and submitted as quickly as possible, in order to beat Haiti's switch-over to becoming a Hague country.  We have had several roadblocks in the last few weeks, but they all seemed to be minor, fixable issues...just little things that slowed the process down.  Yesterday morning, I emailed our agency to let her know where we were in the process and we had one roadblock that couldn't get resolved until August, because the man we need for some notorized info is out of state until then.  I told her I didn't think we would be able to finish the dossier prior to Hague being implemented.  (Hague Accreditation is an international adoption standard...most countries are accredited).  My assumption was that we would just have more hoops to jump through.  I was wrong.

4:00 yesterday afternoon, we got a call from our agency.  Our I600a (the approval needed from Immigration in order to bring an orphan into the U.S.) had to arrive at a "lockbox" location in Texas by Friday in order to have "a pretty good chance" at being grandfathered-in to Haiti's old way of adopting (pre-Hague).    The problem is that Haiti itself (not us) will have many more hoops to jump through in order to meet the adoption laws, and our agency does not think Haiti is prepared to handle that.  If Haiti is not able to meet those standards, they anticipate that the U.S. will stop accepting orphans from Haiti. 

We flew into action last night.  We prepared the documents, read the instructions over and over which are quite particular, figured and re-figured the amount due for processing the form and for a biometrics fee, made sure our various records were all in order and ready to go.  Then, this afternoon, I had to drive all the way to Hampton to get a money order from our business account.  I double-checked the amount due on my business partner's computer before getting the money order, and then double checked the address.  I mailed it out from Hampton, guaranteed to arrive in Dallas, TX by 3:00pm on Friday.  Whew!  Done.  I thought.  As I pulled into our driveway this evening, a huge weight came over me.  I picked up the receipt for the money order to file away, when I saw the total on the check.  It was $100 short.  I had double and triple checked everything...except the amount on the actual money order.

After being on hold with U.S. Customs for 40 minutes, I offered to send an additional check, and even cancel the current one and re-send an entirely new application.  I was told there was nothing I could do.  Feeling defeated, I said "So I'm just not going to be able to adopt from Haiti, am I?"  He then gave me the phone number and email for the USCIS Adoption Center.  They are not open until tomorrow, but I did email them already.  I will be calling in the morning.

So...our cheeks are flapping in the wind and we can see the Controller standing around the corner.  I am looking forward to arriving at the Control Station tomorrow.  My prayers have been filled with wonder...what is it that our Master Roller Coaster Controller wants us to do?  Will our cheeks keep flapping as we round the corner just to find there are actually a few more curves with Haiti as the final destination?  Or is this the end of the Haiti Coaster?  If so, which one does He want us to board?  Ethiopia?  Congo?  We may be afraid of roller coasters, especially ones that take us so far away from home, but we have surrendered.  We know that the Controller has a plan, we just have to be quiet and listen (and take along a kleenex to wipe up the drool). 

Happy Paintbrushes!

This "Sweet Teal" table makes my paintbrush happy!  I love to find good deals on ugly little things and make them cute again, so this little table is kicking off our next wave of fundraising!  I am working on several projects to pull together for a "show" in July.  I am weighing a couple of options, but seriously am thinking my own front yard on the 4th of July is not a bad idea...this town is flooded with people, and 90% of them walk right in front of my house on their way to the park.  In the meantime, if anyone is interested in this cutie, she is $48...all to bring us $48 closer to our next goal.

I was quite excited to turn in our "adoption fund" to the bank last week in exchange for a cashier's check to send off to Love Beyond Borders.  Now the compilation of the dossier will be underway...we are closer to being matched which gives me butterflies in my stomach!  Our next financial hurdle is the largest one we've had yet, so my paintbrush and my sewing machine will be running in full gear...I will continue to post items, so please share the posts with friends and family who may need some awesome, unique, reasonably priced cool looking "stuff".  I will also keep everyone up-to-date on when/where I will have my projects displayed for a Home from Haiti sale.  Thanks for stopping by!  :)

Oh, by the way, if you really "stop by", I apologize for the piles of laundry folded on my coffee table and the fingerprints on the windows, and the massive number of weeds along the walkway, and the dining room table piled with fabric...I am too busy painting and sewing to keep up!

Garage Sale Success!

We had our "Home from Haiti" garage sale on Saturday, and it was great!  But I must admit that I have never stressed out to the point of hyperventilating until Saturday morning.  It was crazy, but I had been up until 12:30am the night before...went to bed knowing there was still TONS to do.  Alarm went off at 5am...and at 5:09, and at 5:18, and at 5:27...you get the idea...snooze is a wonderful feature!  Then, just as I'm listing furniture pieces and boxes for Bruce to haul up from the basement, he gets called into work.  Grrrrr!  So then I started to freak out just a bit...chin quivering, eyes filling with tears knowing that I had furniture to haul upstairs, pricing of pretty much everything in my garage left to do, emptying clothes out of my own closet, and of course, I had listed "garden perennials" in my flyer...yet they were all still happily rooted in the ground all around my house.  Not to mention I had four kids inside (yep...friend over) still sleeping, but knew they'd be up and needing some attention sooner than later.  So then I started to hyperventilate...it was quite ridiculous, really.  Then the phone rang....hallelujah!  My aunt was calling to see if I needed any help.  I started crying and said, "Bruce just got called into work."  That's all I had to say...thank you Jody!!  :)  We sold so much stuff...it was busy all day, and several people were very generous in the process...I cried a few more times throughout the day, but we made it through and it was all good.

The planters have been a huge success as well!  We've delivered 3 of them so far, and have 7 more to go.  Now we just have to find enough old, weathered pallets...I've never paid so much attention to those silly things before, but let me tell you...there's quite a variety of them & I keep pinning more and more ideas on Pinterest that we can make from pallets.  I'm pretty sure you can never have too many pallets!

Knowing what we can do with a seemingly ugly, worn out pallet, I have been looking at everything a little differently.  I got inspired (or should I say distracted) today for a new project while folding laundry....yep, laundry.  C had ripped the knee out of a pair of his jeans & just as I dropped them into the garbage can, I snatched them back out again.  I may have several loads of laundry in baskets waiting to be folded, but I have two cute new denim wall pockets made out of holey jeans!  I will try to get a picture posted soon.