So you are out there...

Hello people...and a big shout out to all my new friends that have been reading the blog. You all are funny people. You read for months but never say hi and just when I think nobody is out there listening you leave me the sweetest comments! You guys are awesome! Your just like me..a lurker... I read blogs but never comment! LOL! What a funny thing we have in common.

So, no baby related things happening to tell you about. The only thing going on is at work. it's a terrible mess as usual. The admin needs a total overhaul! It's so true that you should be careful what you pray for because God just might answer. I prayed that I would recieve the promotion I got in July but now, most days, I think supervising is for the birds! I love my staff but the admin is awful!!! Oh well, I am just thankful to have a job in these hard times and I shall hush complaining.

David is in the study mode as he is preparing to take his CPA exam. I am trying to learn to be quiet so he can study. The two hours a night where I sit around alone and try to be quiet is difficult for me. I don't like hanging out by myself much. Maybe I should write my autobiography! Anybody interested in my life story? LOL!probably not although it is soap opera-ish! Could be good!

Bella got a new doggie bed today. I will have to take pictures for you. It actually matches my recliner so we can lounge beside each other and look stylish at the same time! I need to get to bed because I have a long day tomorrow! God bless you all..lurkers included...peace be with you and have a safe weekend!

Feeling Cold

For those of you that read our blog which I often don't update like I should...well, I felt like writing to you today. Actually I wanted to last night but was feeling to cold to do so. Not literally but emotionally. Yesterday was a wierd day... sort of. I went over to the Bethany office to deliver some paperwork so that we may have our profile put online for birthparents to see. For me that office is a hopeful place. I feel good when I go in there. Everyone is upbeat and friendly and encouraging. The work they do for children and families is awe-inspiring. I feel closer to our baby when I go there. However, lately I have been feeling far from baby and I felt empty leaving there yesterday as I passed the family room where so many placement ceremonies happen - while feeling that my day is so far away. I am attributing this from feeling lonely over the holidays because our baby isn't home. This child, be it concieved yet or not, is real to me and part of my family already and I missed him/her desperately over Christmas as you would any absent family member. So instead of feeling hopeful after leaving the office yesterday I just felt sadly cold and a little empty.

On the way home I was thinking that we should have heard from the grant we applied for by now to help with the adoption. So I ran my errands after work...got home...went to the mail box...and there it was an answer to my prayers - the letter we have waited for from the grant agency. I opened it in the dark cold of the drive way and could barely read the words under the streetlamp. The words that I had imagined were there were not. No grant. A line about the high volume of applicants. A few lines later encouraging us to still be faitful to God's call and then a Bible verse that I don't remember because I was to disappointed at the moment to really pay attention.

Long story short... we are bummed. David handles everything better than me but I am bummed, cold, lonely and apathetic a little. I know others have waited a lot longer but the desires of your heart start way before your "paper approval date". So I wanted to share with you. I share the good, the common and now the disappointing.

I taught a class this morning as I often do for work and on the break I was listening to a girl saying she goes to the doctor tomorrow to hear her baby's heartbeat for the first time. I wanted to run from the room. I was thinking...thanks for letting me experience this one God, I really not feeling sad enough already. So I am sad today and just feeling cold.

I hope all of you are healthy and happy and I thank you for letting me share with you and for those of you who read and remember us.

For the love of dogs...

Ginger helping me read the comics!


Bella resting behind the pillows on the couch.


Ginger taking a snooze beside her daddy.


My baby...Roxie Foxy!

Especially for Gavin!

My good buddy Gavin Richardson has this thing for dressing dogs in clothes. If you asked him about it he would deny it but that's only because Coe and Crimson don't have any cool clothes like Roxie Foxy! The following string is for you buddy!

Random Christmas Pictures

Kenzie rocking her Aeropostle shirt!


Kenzie after opening her Mario Kart game for the Wii. What a face?!


My best buddy Ashley gave me this idea to put up multiple trees. She divides hers into themes. I loved the idea and I have more ornaments that can fit on one tree so we divided them up and did three! I love Christmas and all the lights and trees are awesome! Thanks for the inspiration Ashley!


This is ous our "blue and white" tree


Our beach tree all lit up!


Our beach tree...my favorite tree!


David and Roxie Foxy in front of one of the trees

We are alive!

No excuse for not posting except that we have been just busy busy since Thanksgiving. I have been off of work since December the 18th and it has been superb!!! I get depressed just thinking about the stress of going back to work but I am so thankful to have a job right now! I know it's tough out there right now for many folks.

I have had a wonderful Christmas full of little joys that made the season special. The empty nursery thing is hard. Way hard! I hope that 2009 finds us bringing our baby home. I am just so beyond ready that I have no words. Tomorrow marks the fourth month of official waiting.

Long time...no posts

Well...it's been a long time since I have posted. (It's Jen...you know David does not post!) I have thought about my lonely little blog many times but I have not had any inspiration to write. I have been sick off and on for a few weeks. It's seems like alot of people have had this lung funk and I have got it. I feel like things are just the same old same old. I am getting excited about the holidays but I'm sort of in a weird rut.

The closer we get to the holidays the more I am bothered by our empty nursery. Why is it that when you are missing somebody it is worse during the holidays? We went to New Friends Dinner with our agency a few weeks ago and one of the couples that started our class with us were there with their new baby. I'm happy for them but sad for us. Don't get me wrong...we have only been officially waiting for 2.5 months but I am missing baby. We also met new friends (no pun intended) that have been waiting for 13 months! Oh my....I will be worth nothing if our wait is similar. I know God has a plan but I am impatient.

I'm going to wrap it up...I'm ready for bed. I will try not to be a stranger in the future... :)

Gas Buy Down - Showing God's Love in a Practical Way

I am very perplexed. I am home sick today as you know and I was surfing the net.I was reading a post on my buddy Gavin's web page where his church got an unfavorable review at Google. So it got me thinking...I should check our church. So I did and it was fine. We got props for our organ, our fellowship hall and our beautiful stone church which we refer to as the "rock church."

Then I was thinking about this church that I see sometimes from the road that has a digital marquee. If you live in the Gallatin area you also can't help but see people in T-shirts from this particular church. The church in question - Freedom Church on Harris Lane. So I decide to check them out. They have a very busy web page with lots of rolling graphics and such. The pastor also has a blog that you can link up with. But what caught my eye as I was exploring their page was this "Gas Buy Down" Event. Apparently, they were able to knock .25 cents off gas and they stood on the street with signs that read that they were showing God's love in a practical way by doing so.

WOW! I am just so perplexed over this. I am saying NOTHING bad of this church or it's people but I just don't get it. Knocking .25 cents off the price of gas is showing God's love in a practical way? I just don't know that I agree with that. I was thinking back to Matthew 6:1-4 which reads, "Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do you will have no reward from your Father in heaven...But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."

This brings me to an aspect about my own church newsletter that troubles me. On the back of our weekly newsletter it displays a list of people of who have given monetary gifts in memorial or in honor of someone. It displays the family name and what their gift was in honor of or in memorial to and what they have directed their donation to. Sure it lets everybody know who has done a good deed by further supporting the church in a way other than tithes and offerings but I often wonder if this is in "violation" of the above verses from the book of Matthew. I often wonder how other people feel when they read this who would love to be able to give but can't do it as often as they like. We need a way to showcase God's love given through others in a practical way so as not to highlight only our monetary givings.

I don't know about knocking cents off gas or publishing givings is the right way to show God's love in a practical way. I would love to hear your thoughts. I am still percolating this one...

Revival

So we had a short revival at church last week and it was wonderful. We had a guest speaker who I know you would love. His name is Andrew C. Thompson and he is a methodist pastor who is currently leading a church in North Carolina while working on his Doctorate at Duke University. He and his wife Emily live in the Raleigh-Durham area. He was just awesome! You might want to check out his writings. He blogs at Gen X Rising for the Methodist Reporter. Check out his column at www.genxrising.com

SICK! SICK, I Tell You!

Okay... So I am experiencing my usual fall sickness. It's like clockwork that I will be miserable at least twice between October and mid January. I don't know what it is about those few months but I tell you it leaves me feeling yucky everytime. So, today I would love to be at church. David is there right now singing his heart out at a casual benefit concert to help pay for Christmas Cantata. Where am I you ask? Home. I did get in the shower and put on fresh jammies but that's all the energy I could summon. I made it out yesterday to buy some things that needed to go to church today but that wiped me out. You see...I have bad lungs in the sense that every head cold I get ends up there and since I also suffer from asthma it makes a nasty combination. Walking across the house feels like running a marathon. However, my mind is just going non-stop so I have to channel some energy. Since I have not posted in a while I thought I would catch up while I hold down the couch.