Motivational Speaker

I am not a motivational speaker. But something big happened last week. As I have been pondering it and pre-writing this post in my head I keep using cliches that motivational speakers build their lives on. So I sorta feel like one. Hence the title.

On Friday, August 17th I had an epiphany. I experienced a major paradigm shift. My life will never be the same. (See what I mean?) I was kneeling on the floor to change my baby's diaper. More than the diaper was changed by the time I stood up, though. (Ugh. Even I groaned at that one.) As I was doing the very routine duty of caring for my son a thought landed so squarely on my head that it slammed all the way down into my heart. Here it is: "I am no longer trying to adopt a baby. I'm just getting ready, in case God wants me to."

It sounds simple, but it is dramatic for me. My heart and mind have been so filled with peace since that moment.

I've known for awhile now that I have no control over my family. Both times my husband and I decided we wanted a biological child a major refusal from God reminded us that He is the author of our lives, not us. When we chose to adopt a child we thought we knew what we were getting ourselves into. But after two years, mucho dinero, piles of papers, no baby, and returning to square one, it is confirmed that we can't even redeem our children.

When we moved we discovered that our previous home study was only worth "the paper it's written on." So we are starting that all over. Starting the home study all over means new reference letters, background checks, physicals, fire inspections, etc. Our family profile is two years old. We have a different house, different job, different family members. So that needs to be re-written. The agency that we had been working with is closing. We are starting all over. Again. But with less money. So much less money that we can't throw our hats into any rings.

We have the money to raise children, but not the gigantic chunk required to adopt them. Though my ability to find loop holes and strategize my way out of tight spots is pretty fine tuned by this point in my life, I can't do it here. It is not possible for us to adopt a baby. I've known this for about 6 weeks now. Those days have been spent thinking, worrying, plotting, pleading, stewing. We can't do it.

Perhaps the impossibility of the situation is what caused my sudden clarity of thought. Maybe it was because we renewed our passports the day before, "just in case." I'm not sure why God granted me the grace to finally understand my role in my family. I'm grateful He did, though. I'm not going to keep trying to orchestrate it. I'm going to do my part to get ready to adopt, "just in case." I'm going to love the ones I've got. If God has a baby (or two) for us, He will bring that/those child(ren) and the money needed to adopt him/her/them.

Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”  Matthew 19:26 NIV

Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. Isaiah 40:30-31 NIV 

Cartoon Credit:  Frank and Ernest by Bob Thaves: “Paradigm Shift”, originally published on February 26, 1998. © 1998 by Thaves.

copyright (c) Elizabeth, Bug's Beef. All rights reserved.

Kansas City Recommendations

Since we are no longer living in Kansas City, we're not there to point people to our favorite things. (obviously) But thanks to the handy dandy internet, I can still tell the people who are blessed to live in the KC metro where to go for excellence. This post is meant to be informational, unlike my other ones that tend to be more emotional. Though thinking about all the delicious food I'm missing out on now, I am feeling a bit weepy. . . .


Personal chef:: Sarah Stears *Not a hoity-toity luxury. Cheaper and more nutritious than eating out. Call her today*

Pediatrician: Dr. Grimes. Everyone in the practice is wonderful, though. The only time I have cried from loneliness is when we went to a pediatrician here. If they are only accepting newborns and their siblings (as was the case a few months ago) then it is TOTALLY worth it to have another baby just to get into the practice.

Indian food:Swagat. Go at lunch time so  you can eat a variety of things from the buffet. Have a cup of masala tea for me.

Church: Church of the Open Door. Even if you can't attend, you can listen to the messages on-line. But you should attend. A church is so much more than a pastor. Though Pastor Efta is a treasure, he is not the only one. This whole church rocks.

Quilters: Vicky Beasley andTheresa Ward. Vicky makes tops. Theresa quilts them. Gor-Geous!
Artist: Eric Hoins

Dermatologist:Dr. Menser. I trust her with my baby. The car she provides is extraordinary. Send anyone to her for any skin thing.

BBQ: Well, pretty much any hole in the wall place is going to rock. It is Kansas City. It's hard to go wrong. But, there is a reason why Jack Stack's is famous.

Grocery service: Door to Door Organics

Naturopath: Dr. Farhang Khosh

Pumpkin patch: Louisburg Cider Mill. Eat a donut for me.

Dentist: Dr. Blaha

Dim sum: Pine and Bamboo Garden. Their website isn't up right now, so no link. They are on Shawnee Mission Parkway. Go on a Saturday or Sunday at lunch time for carted dim sum. Delicious! And a cultural experience. Here's the sure-fire sign that it's good: the place is filled with Chinese people.

Appliance repair: Dennis' Refrigeration and Appliance. Based out of Leavenworth. The man knows what he is doing. And he doesn't just want to take your money. When he fixed my crazy oven door he took the time to show me how to fix it myself  in the future.

Race: Run for Mercy. Hosted by Oceans of Mercy. 5k or 10k. If you've ever wanted to race, or are looking to add another to your spring routine, this is for you. Even if you don't want to race, you should still do it. Exercise, helping orphans, a fun family activity, pancakes, a cool shirt. Do it!


If there is anything else you would like to know about, or if you see a glaring omission, please tell me all about it!

copyright (c) Elizabeth, Bug's Beef. All rights reserved.

A jumping jaunt

Much has happened since my last post. But I have little time measured out for blogging today. So I'll give a brief glimpse into various subjects that have been rolling about in my head. I hope to go into greater detail on some of them in later posts.

The Older Brother

The Bible records for us a parable that Jesus told. It's rather famous. Usually it is referred to as The Prodigal Son.  The story revolves around a father and his two sons. The younger son is a spoiled brat. So is the older one. Many people (myself included) focus on, and relate to, the younger son. I've been thinking about that older son lately, though. I'm pretty sure I have transitioned from the younger brat to the older one.  There are people in my life that are walking in rebellion, totally disrespecting God and otherwise trashing up the planet. And they just keep on keepin' on. And it ticks me off. I want them to get their heads out of their backsides. I want God to do something.

The parable hangs a bit at the end, sort of like the you-choose-the-ending-books that you read as an elementary school student. The interesting thing about the story that Jesus told is he resolves the younger son's life. He leaves the older one's unresolved. How are you going to resolve it? What will you do, O older brother with the cranky, self-absorbed heart? (Brilliance is not what revealed this aspect of the story to me, I was reading a blog that pointed out the unresolved ending. No clue which one, though. Sorry.) And the fact that Jesus was telling this story to the muttering Pharisees and the teachers of the law reinforces to me which son was being dealt with.

To read the story again, click here.

Brothers

The other day N was encroaching on T's space. T put out his chubby, 9-month old elbow. It looked rather intentional. I pointed it out to my husband. A minute later M said, "Oh, that was on purpose. He just put up his hand to push him away."

What thrills await us as our sons work out their relationship?

Watchman Nee

Is one of my favorite authors. Perhaps my absolute favorite. I'll give it a few more years to see if anyone else rises to the top. I was reading "The Character of God's Workman" the other day. He gives a suggestion for something to say when people begin providing you unnecessary information. (The nice way of labelling gossip and emotional vomiting.) It cracked me up. I wonder if I'll ever get away with saying this to someone?

"What you have said is enough. You may stop now."

Imagine if someone were to start ranting about their work situation, as usual and you say, "What you have said is enough. You may stop now."

Or if the person on the other line starts complaining about their day. Two words into it, you know enough to pray for them. Which is Watchman Nee's point. Once you know the scenario, you don't need anything more. "What you have said is enough. You may stop now."

Emotions

In the spirit of the Olympics, I feel like I am in the emotional starting blocks. With the least provocation I can be off and running on a variety of tracks. If undisturbed, I am at a pretty mellow baseline. But I have found myself rather angry, lonely, despairing and sad in recent weeks.

I know this is only a season. It will get better. But it will be a bittersweet ending. As awful as some of the alone-ness is, it causes me to run to Jesus. I have thoroughly enjoyed my times with Him.

Dermatologist

Saw some dude on Tuesday. Did not go well. Quick, narrow, rude. Not helpful.

Later on in the day as I was washing T's puke out of M's pocket I realized that I would rather wash out another pocket than see that doctor again.

Allergist

Saw an extraordinary physician yesterday. Went well. Patient, kind, treated T (and me) like whole people. Helpful. Informative. Did testing.

T is allergic to:

*milk*
*peanuts*
*eggs*

And by allergic, I mean allergic. Not intolerant. Anaphylactic allergic. We carry epi-pens allergic. Signs hang in my kitchen and on my diaper bag allergic. Gonna make some shirts allergic.

But at least we have answers.

copyright (c) Elizabeth, Bug's Beef. All rights reserved.

PROMISED and-recap-of-whirlwind-crazy-month PICTURES

Hello beloved!

I have internet access! Woot Woot!

There are not enough exclamation points to express how happy I am that my life just got a lot easier. It is tough to manage my home from my phone. So now that I am done paying bills, I can post some pics for you. I am also going to give a brief update on our wild lives. We slept in six different states in ten days! My man and I have exchanged looks a number of times these past couple of weeks and declared, "Never again!"

June 1-16: Pack, welcome a new niece into our hearts, pack, disperse furniture to friends & family, pack, sing happy birthday to lots of folks, pack, survive major overhaul of bathroom with lengthy visit from plumber, pack, tow car, pack.

June 17-27: Here is a super brief summary of the places we stayed and (thrills we experienced.)

June 17: KS house (pack)
June 18: MO Papi's (everything loaded in truck)
June 19: OH hotel
June 20: OH apt (everything unloaded from truck, welcome in-laws)
June 21: OH apt (unpack, blow house breaker at new place)
June 22: WV hotel (play in pool)
June 23: MD house
June 24: MD cottage (shatter window in car - vicious tree)
June 25: MD house (catch grandmother from falling down the stairs)
June 26: PA hotel (rush T to ER)
June 27: OH apt (zoo, move boat after fire to neighboring apt)

*for those of you counting - yes, the longest we spent any one place was two nights in a row at the apartment when we first moved in*

*explanation on T - we went to eat at a restaurant in Pittsburgh and allowed T to have table food for the first time. He had a little bit of bread. We went to the mall after dinner. When we got there he had a large, dirty diaper. About five minutes later he vomitted. Soaking his backup outfit sent me dashing to a store for a new onesie. About five minutes after that he developed a rash on his chest in the area where his clothing had been wet from vomit. Thinking we had another eczema flare on our hands we continued on to play & buy me a non-wet, non-vomitty shirt. About ten minutes later M sent a text saying his skin was getting worse. He stripped T's new clothes off. I focused more. About five minutes later he called to say it was getting really bad. But his breathing was fine. I hustled. When I got to T he was one giant hive. When M handed him to me he crumpled in my arms. We power walked/jogged to our car. I prayed outloud. We flew towards the hotel to get to our antihistamines, all the while scanning for an easy access pharmacy en route. I sat in back. I had to keep shaking T and saying his name to get him to stay awake. He wasn't crying. At the hotel M flew inside before me to draw up a double dose of meds. His phone fell, popping apart in the parking lot. He kept moving. I ran behind with both boys in tow. T woke up enough to take his medicine, but immediately started fading into unconscious again. A friendly man returned M's phone after reassembling it. I slapped a cold wet cloth on T. He woke for about two seconds. He still didn't cry. His skin was so red his pink/red eczema patches were yellow in contrast. We decided to run to the E.R. The concierge gave us a map. M ran red lights. The hospital was only two blocks away. T quit responding to all my irritating stimulants.  I ran in the E.R. saying we had an eight month old male with allergic reaction, unresponsive. The registration desk got his name and date of birth from me. A nurse grabbed him from me. M & N ran in. I asked if I could follow T. She said yes. The nurse who had him ran into the Peds trauma bay. The room filled with personnel. When the nurse set T down he woke up and started to cry. He vomitted again. He cried for the next hour. He was stable. He survived three IV attempts, oral medicine that made him violently ill & being up way past bedtime.

The doctors were trying to understand how he could have such a severe reaction & go into shock without his airway being compromised. They asked lots of questions to figure out if I was forgetting to give any details. A number of nurses chimed in describing how sick he was. One described him as "a limp, red bag of potatoes." When we were checking out a few hours later a number of people checked to see how he was doing. Several E.R. staff stated how scary it was when he came in.

Emergency health care providers were scared.

I was terrified.

I think I am still in shock. I've been running too hard to slow down & process. As of right now I am deeply grateful that I have been allowed to keep my son. I am also recommited to being neurotic about his food. Until Tuesday night he had only eaten organic baby food with new foods being introduced every three days. We're going back to that. I will check with the pediatrician next week about getting him allergy tested. His flares find me much more watchful. His silliness delights me even more. His eyes melt my already liquidy heart. Everything is "more" now.

But enough words. Here are some photos:

T's response to the Arch.

N's reaction to the St. Louis Arch. Notice the half eaten sandwich.

What the roadtrip looked like. The view caravaning behind my man.

The boys' new room. I've removed the changing table since taking this pic. The rest of the apartment is still a box-strewn mess.

Except our patio. This is put together.

Your eyes do not deceive you. Gus made the trip. And he's ready to celebrate Independence Day.

Hanging in the back seat with my N

Chillin with T. I could not get a steady picture for anything. Blame my man's driving.

The boys decided to take over the wheel.

Tired, but stable in the E.R.

Hives & Failed IV site. The hives had already been resolving for an hour when I took this.

Guess which parent thought a meatball sub in the car was a good idea. Almost home, though!

copyright (c) Elizabeth, Bug's Beef. All rights reserved.

One Week In

It almost feels like I should write this post next week. I am not in my new home. We landed at our abode last Wednesday. We unpacked ~2 per cent of the stuff we brought, then hightailed it to my husband's native land. I stayed the night in my home just two nights. Now we are staying with M's beloved grandparents. They are beloved by my man, my boys and me. What an absolute blessing to receive more grandparents from God!

This week's prayer requests:

*May God reveal our new church,  grocer,  mentors, doctors, friends, mechanics, etc.
*May God's will be done in our family as it is in Heaven.

In the weeks leading up to the move I shared some of the things that I am going to miss. Now I want to put a positive spin on this future laid out before me. Here are some things that I am looking forward to:

*No weeding

*More family time

*Exploring a new town

*Awesome exercise facilites

*Being a day-trip-away from some really cool places. We are living in an area of the country that I have never visited before. There is much to experience.

*Making new friends

*Bike trails everywhere

*Having a garage

*Being close-ish to a safari adventure park

*Creating new healthy habits

*Ministering with my man. Actively supporting him in his work.

*Less toilets to clean

*Less floors to sweep

*Less everything to maintain

*Watching my man flourish

copyright (c) Elizabeth, Bug's Beef. All rights reserved.

oh-my-o!

i am writing from my phone. so i can not capitalize or use contractions. the only punctuation that works is the period. yes i am having chest pain. shudders of horror convulse through me as the voices and faces of my high school english teachers materialize from the recesses of my memory.

but i want to keep you posted.

here is another indication of how wildly i love you. i had to download an app, then upload all two hundred pictures from my phone to post the images that follow. it is taking forever. and i compromised my soul by giving google permission to store my photos. sigh.

but here is a brief summary of the trip.

the house of my dad. hashbrowns. yum.

missouri. here is a photo of n reacting to seeing the arch.

and here is t.

illinois. when i think illinois, i think chicago. turns out chicago does not take up a whole lot of the state. now when i think illinois, i think farm land.

indiana. traffic. trees. pretty roadside art in indianapolis. traffic.

ohio. a fun, random bridge to welcome us.

it still feels like we are on a trip and just packed very thoroughly. we will see if reality settles in deeper tomorrow.

though it vaguely feels like vacation, the view should not be turned into a postcard. here is what i saw for the last six hundred fifty miles...

dude. nevermind. stinkin technology. i have been trying to load pics for twelve hours. i will just have to wait til my computer is set up. sorry.

more updates to follow once our pc is up and running. i am developing a twitch.

copyright (c) Elizabeth, Bug's Beef. All rights reserved.

Moving Day!

We did it! We actually made it through moving day! And everyone is alive. And at peace with one another. Woo hoo! I refuse to dwell on the thought that we are going to be unpacking everything tomorrow that we just spent the last two weeks packing up.

Being the neurotic girl I am, I developed a system for keeping our boxes organized. (Of course I did!) Towards the end, though, the system sorta fell apart. It disintegrated largely because we started running out of time. But my husband being an artist at his core contributed, too. His boxes make me smile. He started out trying to conform to my system. By the end, though, he said, "We have to have a little fun." Can you see the drawings of the box contents?

Here's a close up:

The truck got to our home at 0830. The packers got there at 0915. They started loading things at 0930. They finished loading at 1630. Why on earth did it take three grown men six hours (subtract an hour for lunch & breaks) to pack our already boxed things? That would be because we had 10,220 pounds of stuff. Ten thousand two hundred twenty! That's five tons. RI-DIC-U-LOUS! 

We were waving good bye to the truck at 1700. We hopped in our own cars and headed to my dad's house at 1830. He is a good stopping point on the journey. We will likely be spending many nights with him throughout the years as we travel between our new home and the old one. We pulled into his place at 2300. We fell into bed at 2345. We then woke up again at 0400 because T's top teeth decided this would be a great time to break through the gum line. Simultaneously. Seriously. 

Here are some ways to pray for us this coming week:

*Smooth transition to new time zone & culture. (Yes, it really is a different culture. Though our new area refers to itself as the Midwest, it is wrong. Having lived in the Midwest the first 33 years of my life, I believe I am qualified to identify it. We aren't there anymore.)

*A continued sense of security for our children.

*A deeper knowledge of Jesus through this next chapter of our lives.

A prayer for today:

*Safe trip as we journey throughout the day in separate cars, hauling a boat, a toddler & a teething baby.

And because the other posts involved lists with stars marking them, I have created another one. Here are some lessons we learned throughout the process so far:

* You fill whatever space you have. So for the sake of your sanity, your marriage & your physical health don't ever, NO NEVER buy a house with 3500 square feet. Plus basement. It will be stuffed so full of stuff you will get nauseated as you contemplate having to deal with it all.

* Find one type of lotion that works for everyone in your family. I discovered seven different types of lotion in our house. Come on, now. There are only four of us who live here.

*Don't put maps on the wall with tape. If you do, have new drywall available when you remove them.

*Cook ahead and freeze. The chef clocked out when the packer-girl clocked in. Our GI systems are most unhappy with a diet of restaurant food for a week. And the worst part? We're staring at two more weeks of the same.

*Try to move before having children. If you can not avoid it, then duct tape them to a chair far away from whichever spot you are working in.

*Contact paper sticks to nothing but itself.

*Caffeine is your friend. Sugar is, too.

*If you ever find yourself saying, "Look at all the storage!" when contemplating buying a house: RUN! Flee temptation.

*You need about 500 more boxes than you think you do.

*Invest in your relationships. That way the folks that love you will bring you food & company. Even when you leave them. 

Here are some more pics from the day to brighten yours:

copyright (c) Elizabeth, Bug's Beef. All rights reserved.