To the ring From hell (you know who you are):

After three entirely too late nights of trying to perfect you, I’ve decided that I seriously hate you. However, you shall not defeat me. In fact, you best stop trying. Or I will rip you apart and send you to the refiners.

You’ve been warned.

That is all.

I read this quote on a blog today:

“Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so. One day, I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return.”

It spoke to me deeply, as it is so applicable to my life at the moment. For the past couple days, I’ve been really wanting to learn to savor each and every day for the good it brings. Life is so fleeting. Years go by all too quickly. I look back at my nearly-30 years and wonder to myself… what have I accomplished? Have I truly appreciated each moment?

So I ask you… what do you do to make sure you savor each day as though it is the gift it truly is? And looking back… what in your life would you change, given the chance?

Signs you’re a metalsmith:

You visit the bathroom. Out of the corner of your eye you catch the glint of a shiny thing. You bend down to get a closer look at the mystery item. You wonder how that 3/4″ piece of 16 gauge sterling silver wire ended up behind the toilet.

The world may never know.

That is all.

November 2008 is when our home study was completed and we were put into our agency’s pool of families waiting to adopt. If you would have asked us then, we would have told you that we would surely be parents by now. We were naive. Even though they told us to go into it expecting a two year wait, we had no idea WE would actually have to wait this long. No way. Not us. We’re great! People will love us! How could they not? Dustin is incredible, and I’m not too bad. Who wouldn’t pick us?

A lot of people, apparently. There have been several placements in our agency since then. We’ve been in the top three favorites for some, but never the #1. It’s a little hard to not take that personally. I won’t lie… the past 15.5 months have been so much harder than I ever could have imagined. When we finally decided to adopt and signed on with our agency, I was stupid enough to think that the hardest part was over. The pain of infertility and trying to conceive yet failing, and the uncertainty of it all… I naively thought that was the hardest part. Surely it would get easier, knowing that this path has a definite end that will make us happy. Right?

Not so much.

It turns out that there is a whole new set of feelings with this leg of the journey. It’s incredibly hard to keep the faith and not start to doubt the path God put us on. It’s horribly difficult to not question the decisions we’ve made. It’s painfully tough to hold back the anger that wants to creep up towards the One that could put a stop to it all with just a blink or a sigh. But here I am, 15.5 months later… still alive. Still trusting (though barely, at times). Still knowing that there is a happy ending to this story…. someday.

The other families in our group are wonderful too. Just as wonderful if not more so than we are. We all have something wonderful to offer, and each birth mother’s reason for her choice is so individual and so personal and so different. I can’t imagine the gravity of that kind of choice. Where would you even start? But it still hurts, and it still sucks, and it has definitely aided in stripping me of the innocence I once had.

But as hard as the journey is, something amazing has happened along the way. Even though not being chosen hurts, the more time that passes, the more confident I become. A few years ago, I was terrified to be a mom. I had zero confidence in my ability to parent. Now I’m still scared and know I’ll be far from perfect, but I believe in myself and I believe in Dustin. I know we’ll be great parents. Something else has happened too. The more time that passes, the more I realize how much more I’ll enjoy parenthood now than I would have almost 5 years ago when we started this whole ordeal. I don’t think I’ll be able to take one day for granted… not even the bad ones.

Almost 5 years ago, when we first started trying to become parents, I thought we were ready. Not really totally ready (because who ever is, so they say), but ready enough. Almost 5 years later… and 15.5 months into the most frustrating part of this journey, I can truly say I.Am.Ready. Not just ready, but ready. Honestly and truly and completely.

So God? You listening here? Nearly 5 years later and 15.5 months into the adoption, I’m finally really ready!

Bring it on.

*sheepishly* Please?

my handsome man asked me to marry him. He was halfway around the world, stationed in South Korea. He sent a video proposal and I watched it while on the phone with him. I know that probably sounds odd to you, but to me, it was super creative and great! I love that we will be able to share the memory with our kids someday.

Happy valentine’s day!

Have you ever entertained yourself by blogging in your head while doing a mundane task? Then find when you get the chance to actually sit down and write, the urge has passed, the moment spent? That happens to me a lot.

Somewhere in the confines of my brain, scattered among the silver dust and copper particles, live the most fabulous blog posts. Hidden from the world by just a fleeting moment, my brain keeps them all to itself.

Selfish pig.

This photo was taken for the photography challenge topic “Time, how it affects things”.

A sad, little periwinkle that lived a full life hanging from our front porch.

I think if we look hard enough, we can find beauty and intrigue anywhere.

If you eat beef, you should read this. It’s an article published in the New York Times several years back.

Discover How Your Beef Is Really Raised

As a current vegetarian, I assure you that my motive in sharing this is to not discourage you from eating beef. Definitely not. In fact, someday, I plan to eat beef again myself. I do love a good steak. However, I think here in this country and some others as well, we are too far removed from our food sources. All we think about when we eat is what we see and what we taste. Our hamburgers either come from a tube of ground meat we buy at the grocery store, or a fast food joint. Either option provides little to no real information about where our food comes from and how it reached us. Since health is something I care deeply about, and you are someone I care deeply about, I wanted to share more about why I feel so strongly about it.

I’m not an animal rights activist. I’m not a vegetarian for moral reasons. The above article is written by Michael Pollan (I’m sure by now that name is familiar as the author of the books In Defense of Food and The Omnivore’s Delimma) and is a biography of a cow he bought and watched grow from the rancher all the way to the slaughter house and his very own dinner table. I know, it sounds boring, and to some of you it really might be. But it offers insight into not only where our food is coming from, but also the ever growing problems associated with the industrialized cattle industry. You know that whole mad cow thing? And the e.coli thing? And the antibiotic resistant super-bug thing? Those would not be the massive killing machines they are today if it were not for the way cows are currently fed and raised.

I’ve been labeled “extreme” in my views of food. I’ve actually put a lot of thought into that recently because I like to constantly examine and re-examine what I believe and why. It helps me grow and keeps me open-minded. However, the more I think about this topic, the less open-minded I become on it. It only makes sense for cows to eat what cows were designed to eat. Who can truly argue with that? It’s not only for the sake of the cows, but for our sake as well. As Pollan says in his article, “We are what we eat, it is often said, but of course that’s only part of the story. We are what we eat and what we eat, eats too.” I’m far less concerned with labels such as “organic” as I am with getting back to common sense as it pertains to our food sources. What makes more sense for the food industry? Screwing up over and over and scrambling to cover up those mistakes and put bandages on them, or doing what we should have been doing all along? “Organic” shouldn’t be a concern. It needn’t be a regulated label. I hate that it’s a buzz word an the “in” thing right now. Give me a break. Let’s get back to real food grown the way it really should be grown. The way God designed this planet. It shouldn’t be hip and cool and “in” and a topic up for debate. It should just be.

If believing cows should graze on and eat the grass they were designed by our very Creator to eat (or if you don’t believe that way, then think of it as the way they “evolved”) because it’s good for them and, in turn, good for us is “extreme”, then what, exactly, is “normal”? The industry’s position that money and cheap food are more important than human health? Isn’t it funny how “extreme” used to be the norm and what is now the norm would have been extreme just a few generations ago? Are we better off with our new norm? With the ever rising health problems in this country, I think the answer to that is glaringly obvious.

So go forth and read the article. Then go buy yourself a nice, grass-fed steak. Just the way God (or evolution, or whatever)  intended for you to eat it. Yes, it’s pricey. But so is health care. Isn’t it better to pay a premium for that steak than pay for a triple bipass surgery? Or a hospital stay for MRSA? Or an e.coli infection?

Is that truly extreme? Well then, bloggy buds, “extreme” never tasted so good…

I dare you to try something new this week. Pick up a new veggie or fruit at the market.

I did.

I bought a starfruit.

See?

I did not like. It’s… weird. But at least I tried it. What new thing will you try?

This blog post is in response to a photo challenge group I joined on facebook. It was started by a few friends and I. We have a couple topics each week and post photos pertaining to the topics. Got a camera? Like to mess around with it? Want to get out of your shooting comfort zone and expand your shutter horizons? Think about joining!

One of the topics this week was “fruit”. I couldn’t decide, so I took two shots. This second one is much more tasty.

See?

Though still not my favorite fruit. I think that is reserved for those tiny little clementine oranges. Or sun kissed summer strawberries. Or seedless black grapes. Or…

What’s your favorite fruit?

I was standing in line at the post office earlier this week, and in walked a man with a wee little girl I am going to assume was his daughter. Cute little thing. Young. If I had to guess, I’d say maybe 4. Maybe. They took their place in line right behind me. About a minute later, I hear a conversation that went something like this…

Dad: *annoyed* Your nose is all green. What did you do at school today?!

Girl: *defensive* I didn’t do nothing!

Dad: Well, your nose and fingers are green. You did something.

Girl: *After long pause… shrieks* I was smelling the marker!

Dad: *freaked*  Ooh. No. Don’t do that. You really shouldn’t do that! Smelling markers is bad! It can… it can make you sick! Really sick! Your head will… get all dizzy… and you could pass out! And get really sick! And you could… you could… you could even die!! Don’t do that!

Girl: *defensive* But all my friends were doing it!!

Dad: Still! You shouldn’t do that! It can make you really, really sick!

Girl: *blink, blink*

Dad: You’d have to go to the doctor. And you know how you’re really smart right now?

Girl: U-huh…

Dad: Well, you wouldn’t be smart anymore. You… you wouldn’t be able to walk. Or talk. Or read.

Me: *trying to not bust out laughing*

Dad: You’d be like a baby!! And you could DIE!!!

Girl: *apprehensive* Okay… I won’t do it anymore….

Dad: I mean it!! You could die!!

Girl: OKAY!! I won’t do it!!

Me: *done with business, practically run to car to relay conversation to mom who is waiting*

Me & mom: *laugh butts off*

I wish I could have been a fly on the wall at her school the next day.

Little Johnny: *sniffing purple marker* Commmee oonnnnnn, Girl!!! Mmm, so yummy. You know you wanna smell it! Purple! YUM!

Girl: NOOOOO!!!! Dad says you’re gonna turn into a baby and DIEEEEE!!!!

Random kids, innocently playing in corner, sniffing yellow marker: *sniff* *bawl* don’t… wanna… die… waaaaah!!!

Boy, they sure do start young these days. Peer pressure is harsh.