The State of My Weekend

I would love to tell you I am busy paying fervent attention to the State of the Union address. No, I wouldn't. I don't even want you to think I want to watch the SOTU. Because I don't. But guess what? I was blessed to not only marry a man who loves political debates and political speeches.  Even better--I married a man who loves those things but also doesn't believe in TV in the bedroom. So here I am. Watching him watch what I believe to be the best pat-on-the-back anyone can give themselves that actually makes zero impact on our country. OK, I may be a little cynical. So let's find something else to talk about instead, shall we? Why yes.

So let's talk about the weekend, shall we? Well, great!

First, I went to my first gymnastics meet on Friday in, oh, more than a decade. As a little girl, my mom used to take me once a year to watch the "big girls" compete at the Cat Classic. It was a big meet where  universities with cat mascots came and competed. One year Shannon Miller came and I got her autograph. The Cat Classic is long gone but the gymnastics team is still doing fun, gimmicky things to get people to go watch.

And oh do they go!

On Friday, it was "Pink Out" where $1 of each ticket price went to breast cancer charities. Plus, the first 500 people got free pink shirts. So my friend Ashley and I made the trek and left Eric at home to attend a missions meeting. More on that later because it's actually a story in and of itself.

We were two of more than 3000 people who went to cheer on Mizzou. Seriously!! The shirts were just empty shells of boxes by the time we got there.  It was delightful to see so many people cheer on our young women. And we won! And it was fun. There were tons of families there. Let me tell you, the MIZ-ZOU chant sounds a lot different when the average person in your audience is a 10 year old girl than it does at your average football game.  Adorable, I tell you. And only once did I have to ask the sweet child behind me to stop kicking my chair.

Because when you are scary, once is enough.

Here, the only semi-decent picture I got of the meet.

OK well I said I wasn't paying attention to the SOTU but the president just promised that if we, as colleges, couldn't cut costs our funding would be cut. Which makes me turn into one of those cartoon characters whose head turns bright red and smoke comes out of their ears. Yeah, that's me right now. This is why I can't watch these things. Because there is no opportunity for citizen rebuttal. UGH.

Back to my weekend.

We'll continue on the sports theme for just a moment. Mizzou had a big game on Saturday, WHICH WE WON, and to show my support, I dressed up my dog in a crushed velvet cape.

Yes, it is tied with a duck tape collar. You are welcome, tigers. I am sure Super Gabby was the good luck charm that took you to the top. After all, why else would you be #2 in the nation right now? What's that? You're a legitimately good basketball team?

Well there's that.

Seriously, I couldn't be prouder to be a tiger. It's been a fun run this winter and we're hoping it stays fun for a while. 

 Saturday evening we got to do a little more trial parenting. God bless our friends who let us hang with their kids and donate to our adoption for doing it. It's totally a win.

Yes, that is my man being trampled by a herd of wild children. We listened to Slugs and Bugs and jumped on E. I can't think of a better Saturday night. Especially when we got to the part when the kids went to bed and E and I played Battleship.

Guess whose strategery managed to sink all her husband's battleships? Yes, ma'am! I won!!

And I'm not gloating at all.

And I am using strategery because of the SOTU. See? Something good has come out of this.

One final funny story about Saturday. The four year old, Little B, wanted me to double French braid her hair. I told her I would give it a try but there were no promises.

This is where you must know how very strong my left handedness is to understand the end of this story. Because after two attempts on the right side of sweet Little B's head, this is what we had:

Yes, my left handedness is strong. Sweet B has a little spunk in her and after gently feeling both sides of her hair, she looked right at me and said,

"Um, the left one is good but the right one is bad. Just take them out and give me pigtails."

And with wounded pride, that's exactly what I did.

And then I sent her to bed.

Good thing we're adopting a boy!

Happy Tuesday. May the State of the Union end soon.

Little Man Monday

Well Hello Sweet Boy!

Whew! It is chilly in our town today. It is bleak and cold and windy and about 35 degrees.  It's not as bad as it was last week but the wind definitely reminds me it's winter.  I just checked the weather in Addis and it's almost 80. It's going to be quite the change when you experience winter here for the first time. I can almost picture your chubby cheeks underneath a sweet stocking cap. We'll teach you how to bundle up--don't worry. Your dad and I have always lived where it gets very cold so we are happy to teach you the art of dressing in layers. I can't wait to put a colorful mittens on your sweet hands.

Today our friends are in Ethiopia picking up their daughter Elise. We are hoping you and Elise will be friends since we are friends with her parents and we all go to church together. Elise is finally coming home after a long, long wait.  Watching her parents deal with the tough stuff of her transition makes me think a lot about you. We don't talk about it much, Little Man, but we know the circumstances that will bring you to us will not be happy ones. We know you will experience much hurt, sadness, and suffering in the months or years that lead to Dad and I being your parents. It hurts me and gives me a pit in my stomach to think of the pain I can't prevent in your life. We're going to have a long road to trust, I know, but know that my love for you is greater than any difficulty we could face as a family. I get teary just thinking about you being in any sort of pain. Please know that we would prevent it if we could. We want the best for you. We long to see the healing our heavenly father will bring about in our family and we cling to the knowledge that He makes all things beautiful in his time.

Little Man, I must get going. I am off to work for the rest of the day. You will be in my thoughts!

Love,

Mom

2 Months DTE

We have been "officially" waiting for two months now for our wonderful Imaginary Child to become a real human with a picture and a story. Unsurprisingly, according to the "unofficial" list we have moved exactly ZERO spots in these two months.

Which we knew would probably be the case.

And so, we wait patiently. We wait on our son. We wait on the Lord. We wait, knowing it could be 10 more months or 3 more years. We wait knowing our son could be alive, waiting for us or he could not even be alive yet. We wait.

In positive news our chain is an actual chain this month--with two full links!! Woo hoo!!

                           

Our church is encouraging us to memorize a verse every two weeks. I found the verse for these two weeks completely appropriate so it went on our link for this month.

Psalm 20:7 "Some trust in chariots and some trust in horses but we trust in the name of the LORD our God."

We trust, not in waiting list or timelines. We trust in the name of the LORD our God. We know he will provide the timing best for his purposes. I won't say we look forward to a long wait but we do know it's changing us in great ways. So we are thankful for this time the Lord is providing us.

We wait... and we give thanks for those who wait with us. Including you lovely people!

Little Man Letters

Hi Little Man,

How are you! Oh how I miss you! It's been a couple of weeks since I wrote you but it's been just a few moments since I've thought of you last.

I have to say, I would have written yesterday but your Uncle Mark is in town and we were running around on my day off. Uncle Mark lives quite a ways away on the west coast so when we get to see him, it's a pretty big deal. You're going to like him--he's very funny and he already tells me how excited he is to meet you. He is a very good dancer. I hope he teaches you a few moves. I hope you teach him a few too.  Uncle Mark is actually staying in your room--you might still have to share when you get here. Hopefully you won't mind.

Speaking of sharing, I got to share one of your books with your friend Addy this week. I don't know if she likes tractors as much as you might but she was pretty excited to read your book about John Deere.  It was kind of fun to have a little one reading your books and to look forward to the day you are here to read them too.

Well, little man, I love you so much. I will write again soon.

Love,

Mom

Leaving My Pity Party

So, I don't post a lot about work. And in general, I try not to post negative comments. But recently, work has been hard. Just, hard. It's been easy for me to sit around and wallow.

Because, you know, the first thing everyone wants to hear in an economy where it's an extra special blessing to have a job is how hard your job is.

And yet, I have this group of women who love me more than anyone should. Really. They are such a blessing. And if your church doesn't have small groups (or if you aren't a part of one), well, that's a real bummer. Because these are the kind of women that I can drag my whiney self to our group, whine about my circumstances, and do you know what? They don't complain about my complaining. In fact, they love me. And support me.  And hug me. When I need it. Badly.

It's true--they are not the only ones. I tell you about them to say this: I asked them to pray for this situation this week. And do you know what?  Nothing has changed at work.

But EVERYTHING has changed.

Yes. I mean it.

This week, it's like people have joined me on all sides and just been there. And some of them didn't even know that what I needed the most this week was someone to be there.

I have made two adoption-related friends this week.  Pretty much out of the blue, two separate women contacted me and gave me all kinds of support in the midst of our walk through adoption. It's always great to talk to someone who wants to hear how things are going. It's different, though, to talk to someone who's walked this road. It was just such a blessing to hear from these women who have their beautiful children at home and can say that the Lord will provide, regardless of how stressful it might feel.

I also had a dear friend send me a support email in the middle of a rough day. And she had no idea, I am sure, that it was perfect timing. But it was.

The Lord's providence strikes again.

And then of course, there was the whole part of today where my coworkers encouraged me to listen to   crazy 70s and 80s music during some difficult times today.

So, the moral of this story: God is good.  Friends are awesome. My life is pretty rockin.

So, so long pity party. My life is full of blessings and it's too full to have you around.

And you, dear blog readers, are just one example of these blessings.

Catch Up!!

Well, hey there!! Good of you to join me. I thought I'd give you all a little photo glimpse of last week.  You in? Great. There will be words as well. Have you met me? Please. There have to be words as well.

So, last Monday, the greatest thing about January happened: The Bachelor officially started for the season. Ben F., a bunch of ladies "in it for the right reasons" (meaning? I have deduced this means they want to be reality celebrities. But maybe it means they want love??) and one Chris Harrison began a journey that is sure to end in love. And heartache. A group of us watch every week. It gives us a great reason to eat great foods, enjoy cheap champagne, giggle like schoolgirls, and (of course) watch The Bachelor. This season, we've been playing Bingo for door prizes. The spaces are filled with things you might see like Chris Harrison, girl with sequined dress, or someone playing the piano. They are also filled with things you might hear like a snarky comment, the word "journey" or the phrase "my heart is out there." Here is my Bingo card from last week. Sadly, I did not win the glow-in-the-dark wand. There's always next time, right?

On Tuesday, E and I did something we haven't done in three years--we went to a Mizzou basketball game. This may confuse you if you have been reading for a while. True, we love Mizzou sports.

But when I say "Mizzou sports" I actually just mean "Mizzou football."

You see, basketball is during the week. There are way more games. And let's be honest, Mizzou has had its ups and downs in the past, um, 10 years. But this year, to everyone's surprise, we're up! So we went to watch them lay the smack down on Oklahoma. And boy did they!!

We managed to get cheap seats for $10 a pop. I was pretty pleased with that. Plus, basketball gives plenty of opportunities for in-your-seat dancing. I am all about in your seat dancing. And the best part of the whole thing was our continued undefeated streak.

Which lasted until Saturday.

But in my defense, I wasn't in Manhattan on Saturday so you can't really blame me for that. Or maybe you can. Either way, please blame our field goal percentages. Yikes. (I say that and I haven't really looked to see what our FGP was. I am assuming it wasn't good. I watched the game. It has to be not good).

And so...here is the view from the cheap seats last Tuesday

The rest of the week was pretty chill. I would give you the specifics but that's the problem with not blogging for several days. I do not remember said specifics. I do remember there was a lot of reading Steig Larsson. And a lot of cuddling. The puppies loved it. Oh yeah, and I cuddled Eric too.

And then, this weekend, we caught up with a good friend on Friday. Normally our bed time is about 8:30. I am not kidding. I blame this on the fact that we are usually perusing the streets of our town, looking like burglars in the dark at about 5:15 am.  OK, we are running. But I tend to think when it's cold, everyone outside looks like a burglar. I mean, you have to cover almost every square inch of your skin. I have gone way off track.  Moving forward...because of our lovely meeting with my friend Jen, we got to sleep on Friday night at about 1am. 

Which is later than New Year's.

Which explains why I didn't emerge from the sleeping cave until 11:30.

It doesn't explain that? Well, then, I don't care. I woke at 10:30, read for an hour in our room, and then was treated to blueberry pancakes by the man. He's pretty rocking, you know? Waking up with the dogs and letting me sleep and then making me breakfast?! People, I lucked out.

I would love to tell you the rest of my Saturday got a lot more productive. Alas, it did not. I spent the afternoon assisting in the purchasing of Bachelor Bingo door prizes. And then the evening? It has a whole lot of Rigo like this:

And a whole lot of me like this:

Someone had to finish the leftover from New Year's and "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest." I was happy to make both of those things happen.

Til I got to the end and realized I would need to immediately read the final book.

Guess what I'm doing this week...

2012: The Year of the Settler

Yes, it's true. I am thrilled to say I rang in the new year in style--by staying at home. The College Me would be so disappointed. But then again, the college me had a lot to learn about self-fulfillment. So, I ignored her this year and Hubs and I had a delightful NYE. We met up with some friends and watched Young Adult at the independent theater while enjoying a great coffee stout. To be fair, College Me wouldn't like that either since she didn't drink beer. Anywho, the movie was highly entertaining. As was the company. The experience really combined some of my favorite things: Jason Reitman, Diablo Cody, a theater with couches, and good friends. So yeah. I will say this: it's a little hard to watch Charlize Theron's character. She's a little, um, underdeveloped personally and it really makes for some rough scenes if you don't like watching people in awkward situations. But in general, it's a great film.

We went straight from good film to good appetizers and dinner to ring in the new year.  I am happy to say I officially know how to play Settlers of Catan. Yes, I am awesome. And by awesome, I mean, a little nerdy. But seriously? The competitive game-player in me came right out. I did not win. Sadly. But I blame that on my friend who we shall call the King of Catan. We'll call him that because he required it after he won. Really, though, he's a good settler. I shall get him next time, though (insert evil/Medieval laugh). 

After I got my tail kicked in S.O.C. (I'm not sure anyone really calls it that), I went on to get my tail kicked at dominoes. It's all fun and games, right?

Here's the part of my post where I have to admit to you that we missed the East Coast NYC ball drop because we were watching PBS. Yup. S.O.C. and PBS. Just call me Old Lady Jess. Or something. To be fair, PBS was playing an amazing Coldplay concert in Austin. So, you can't really blame us. We were singing along!! I will try to fix you!! Also, for no reason I will tell you they celebrated the new year in the concert. In Eastern time. Which makes Zero sense. Because they were in Austin.

Texas.

Central time, people!!

We were able to stay awake to watch a replay of the ball drop in Central time. So I feel like all the time zone time warps evened out. And pretty much as soon we saw the confetti fly, we went home. Except, well, a few minutes after that because the confetti oddly started before the ball dropped.

This is the most discombobulated post ever.

So I'll give you this beautiful picture of my fellow partiers. I use this term loosely but seriously, we had a great time.

And for accountability reasons, I will now profess my resolutions. I believe in specific resolutions. Here they are:

1. Run a marathon. After finishing my 5th half, E has finally convinced me this is necessary. I'm not necessarily looking forward to it but I know I will be proud if I can finish.

2. Finish the updates recommended in our inspection. It has been almost 2 years after all.

3. Make photo books from my online photos so we can enjoy them in our home (both the photos and the books).

I'm sure there used to be one or two more but I can't remember. So I'm leaving it at three.

Anyone have any good ones I should add?

Happy New Year! Go settle something!