I couldn't believe it yesterday when I walked to the mailbox and my passport had arrived! I had only applied for it 11 days ago and it is here already! Immediately I copied it and mailed the copy to our adoption agency. I THINK we have everything turned in to them now...I HOPE so, anyway!

She told me a few weeks ago what we still needed for our "Dossier" and I quickly gathered the rest and sent it to her.

So hopefully...our application for adopting a little girl...or two little children...will be finalized and sent to the Lesotho Government.

It could still be as long as a year, but Lord willing, it might be sooner than that!

It seems so strange to have this little girl deeply embedded into our hearts yet not really have her at all. We don't have a referral yet...I think I will just go crazy when we do get the referral!! But we refer to her as "Grace" and Becca said the other day, "I put the book on Grace's bed."...
(She will share a room with our little adopted girl and it is already set up for her.
It's like she is here already. She is certainly in our hearts!!!!)

Can you imagine it if God gives us two little children to love and nurture? I've started writing in my journal to include two children, possibly a girl and a boy, or two girls, or just one girl. I don't EVER want the 2nd child, if God gives us a 2nd child, to feel unwanted or left out. I've tried to convince Roger that if God DOES give us two little girls, BOTH of them should have the name Grace as their middle names. I'm not sure that I am convincing him, though. (Hope and Faith are also good names. He suggested Mercy but we already have a "Marci" and I often say, "Mercy, Marci!!")
Depending on the age of the child, we may keep her/his African name. I think it depends much on how cumbersome it sounds to American ears. I'm fairly confident that we will keep the name in some way, though. It will be that child's heritage, after all!

Well, have a lovely day,
Blessings!
Beth

The Misadventures of Soapmaking....

On the few mornings that I stayed home last week while babysitting little Brody, I made soap. It was so much fun and I had really good results...for the most part. The lavender soap is made with a goat's milk base and has lavender scent and seeds within it. The brownish soap is an oatmeal/honey soap made with a glycerin base. I love the oatmeal soap and it makes my skin feel so soft and comfy...especially as the air in our home tends to be dry! I haven't yet used the lavendar soap because it looks too pretty to use!! (And they're supposed to be Christmas presents this year!)

WELL....I didn't say EVERYTHING was a success, did I??? We don't really use our dishwasher because it tends to throw nasty things back on the dishes. However, I decided that it would be a good tool to use to get the excess soap off of my pans, spoons, and soap molds.

Harmony the cat can't figure out exactly what is happening to the kitchen floor...."Since when does soap have tails??" We piled towels up next to the floor to stop the increasing flow of bubbles!

Oh well....it was pretty funny, anyway!

I told Roger that it reminded me of "I love Lucy" and he said it reminded him more of Bobby Brady on the Brady Bunch. I seem to remember an episode about soap but I'm not sure!

Marie....I've been trying to leave comments on your blog but not having much success so I will have to try to have another sign on...hope to talk to you soon!!

Blessings!!!

Beth

Fun with Homeschooling...making soap!

There's usually not nearly as much time this year as there was in the past years for fun projects in our homeschool day. After all, Becca is now in high school and takes ALL the required classes plus a few more like Logic and art history. She's doing well in Algebra, Biology and Spanish...classes that I would certainly have difficulty handling if she did not go to a "tutorage" two days a week with other Christian families.
Anyway, I drew her away from Literature this morning to help me "make" soap. (This will be little Christmas presents for special people this year.)
It is very easy to do and something I think would be fun for people of all ages!

First, figure out how many ounces you need for your mold and then just cut the purchased base into small pieces. We used Michael's to buy goats milk soap and used a 40% off coupon...of course!! We also bought the oil, molds, color, and seeds there. (Some candle making supplies were on clearance sale...that's a project for another day!!)

The instructions say to use a microwave OR a double boiler...but since we have neither of those right now, we improvised using a big pan and a little pan. (I also use these pans to make "Buckeyes" when I need to melt chocolate and parafin.) A little Yankee ingenuity...also known as ..."Poor folk have poor ways." Yeah, whatever.....

We added color drop by drop until we got a lovely shade of lilac. Becca and I dropped scented oil into the melted mixture until we arrived at the wonderful scent we liked. We used lavender. Then she added lavender seeds to the mixture until she was happy with how it looked.

Three little bars of lovely soap for Christmas gifts...all lined up and waiting to cool!

(I have to go paint woodwork at the house we are going to sell or I would stick around and show you the product out of it's mold...and I'm too anxious to blog about it right now! I know if I waited, it would NOT get posted!!) Hopefully I can finish up some more molds and get a pretty little country stack of soaps to show you later on!

By the way, I am having a terrible time commenting on people's blogs...some of my favorites that I really consider friends. It tells me that I have to log off and log on using another sign on. I use Google. Does anyone know what the problem is?

Blessings!

Beth

Living with Boys....

Sometimes I just don't understand the opposite sex-especially when they get together to gang up on a certain female. It makes an otherwise fairly normal 40 something man turn into a 12 year old.
I'd been having a fairly difficult weekend. My black van's gas gauge doesn't work so I have to constantly guess at how much gas I have. Makes for interesting outings.
I ran out of gas a few miles from my house on Thursday and Roger had to come and rescue me.

We have been working sooo hard finishing up the house and I'd ripped up vinyl, carpet, tack strips and staples for days. I will wake up and my hands still hurt.

I'm not asking for any sympathy here...sometimes hard work is a good thing and the accomplishment can be a wonderful feeling. I'm just tryin' to lay the ground work to TRY to explain the dumb boys I live with.

Saturday dear husband Roger killed a snake and draped it on my car side mirror. Nasty.
Sunday I wrecked the car.
Sunday I ran out of gas. Again.
Sunday-immediately after running out of gas, finally driving to the other house to meet said boys (a.k.a. hubby and step son...) WHO, by the way, are fully aware of the kind of day I have been having....and getting back into my van to head to church, I find a NASTY DEAD DRIED OUT SKULL OF SOME LONG DEMISED CRITTER on the dashboard of my van.

WHAT MAKES BOYS/MEN THINK IT'S A FUNNY THING TO DO???? I do believe that they are missing some key ingredients in their DNA and that's why God created women.

I picked up the nasty skull with my bare hands and handed it through the window to my 14 year old step son who was standing there grinning like the cat who swallowed the canary. (Yes, I actually picked the dead thing up, examined it, and handed it back. I WAS NOT GOING TO GIVE THEM THE PLEASURE OF SEEING ME FREAK OUT!!)

"Yuck." I said rather calmly...and might I add...I was rather proud of myself for my composure...

Icky Boys. I am sure they have cooties.

Fender bender...

Yep, I did it. After church, I was driving home with just Becca because Roger drove seperately so that he could practice his solo after church. I was driving down a road and decided to show Becca where a little hidden park is near our house. I backed up my van and B A M!!!!! I backed right into the tailgate of a parked Chevy truck. His truck isn't too bad but the tail light and right fender of my van is completely messed up.

I cried. And cried. And cried.

The owner was a nice guy and told me to take a breath and that it would be ok.

Roger was wonderful and told me that now it matched the front of the van where he did the damage a few years ago. (But he did point out that I didn't leave as much paint on the van as he did...yeah, I took it down to the bare bent metal...)

Sigh....

Sneaky Snake and Adoption News...

Yesterday Roger killed a snake while doing some gardening. First, however, he sent me a picture on my phone since I wasn't there. I called him and told him not to kill it but it was too late. So later on, I decided that it would be great fun to coil up an old leather belt and place it in the grass where he was working. I thought it would scare him but it failed miserably. So, in retaliation, he put the nasty dead snake on my side mirror on my van! (One of my daughters warned me so HIS plan failed as well!) Now I have him wondering where the dead snake will turn up....heh heh heh heh...........we'll see, won't we? I really think I need to get rid of the real dead snake and get a fake one...that one was just too yucky.

I received an email yesterday from our adoption agency and it seems that we just need a few more documents to send them to complete our dossier! I am so excited. I know that it will be a while yet before we are placed with a child/children but at least it is really in the works.

We are having a man finish up installing the new flooring in the other house today. Wow does it ever look beautiful. Kind of makes me wish we weren't selling it...but not very much!! It will be so nice not to have a house payment and with this comes the ability to finance our adoption a little bit better. We are also hoping to have some fund raisers to help out with that!

It's a bit nippy here in Indiana today. It is 64 degrees in the house but I don't mind it being chilly. I can always put on a sweater. I'd rather it be chilly than hot. I HATE HOT......

The trees in central Indiana are beginning to turn colors. Daughter Jennie has a very good friend coming from England with his family and I was hoping that the trees would still be in all their glory when they get here. I'm afraid that they will miss it by a few weeks but they will be just in time for the "dreary" weather that comes when the leaves finally fall. We do have some wonderful fall festivals, cook outs, and pumpkin patches that would be so much fun to go to with our guests! We are getting pretty excited about them coming!

Lots to do today! Roger is finishing up decorating a cute "Monster Truck" cake for a set of twin boys whose birthday party is today! He is so talented! And adorable...when he doesn't have a dead snake in tow.......

Blessings!
Beth

The End is in Sight!!

We are nearing the end of the work on the big house we are readying for sale. We are having a very nice Christian man come to the house tomorrow to start working on the new flooring that we just purchased, repair a bit of shingles that blew off recently and do some other minor repairs that are beyond what we feel comfortable doing. We will be soooo happy JUST to have it listed...and THRILLED when it sells. The realtor assures us that it is a very "sellable" house. We hope so. We have come to the realization that we are losing so much money on it...probably about what our smaller house is worth will have been lost in the sale of the large house. But is is like carrying around a huge backpack full of good but heavy stuff...after a while, you just want the weight of it off your back and you're happy to have less on you.

I am just so grateful that we have this little house and it doesn't belong to the bank! I can look out my windows...old and drafty as some of them are...and see the yard, flowers, and trees that are ours. Out our back windows we can see the beautiful woods behind our house and the soybean fields that connect to the corner of our yard. They are not ours...but it doesn't cost anything to LOOK at them and we don't have to pay taxes on them since they belong to someone else! We now have a little white arched wooden seat, a wishing well and our clothesline here! Can't wait til we get our chickens and chicken coop!

I purchased a beautiful set of curtains for our living room. We like the look of toile fabric but have hesitated to buy the fabric that I would make curtains with because of the cost. We had looked at cream with the blue old fashioned pictures. I almost bought it but decided that it was something we could do without. Then I went to the world's best store-Goodwill-and found cream and burgundy toile full length curtains that exactly match our couch and still look nice with navy walls. They were $4.99 each! Quite a bargain! I was very excited about it!! They are so pretty!
I was just thinking how pretty our Christmas tree and decorations will look with the old fashioned curtains!

I've decided to just hang a rod in the corner of our bedroom so that I can hang up our clothes since we don't yet have a closet. That will be a very good thing and will substitute well until God sells our other house and we can do the things we would like to do to our "cute little blue house in the country!"

Things are looking up!!

Blessings!
Beth

Did you ever feel like not praying? Confessions of an overwhelmed Mom.

I know, I know, that's a terrible thing to feel like...not feeling like praying. It's not that I am mad at God, it's not that I don't LOVE God!
But the last few weeks I just have felt so defeated and just plain mean inside.
THAT'S A KIND OF AWFUL THING TO ADMIT BUT I AM REALLY FEELING TRANSPARENT TODAY.

Oh, yes, I've prayed at meal times, prayed for someone to get well, prayed for safety on the road...all the things that are fairly easy to pray about.

But when it comes to our "couples" devotions or prayer time, I just haven't felt like praying.
So....I "pass" and let Roger do all the praying. I just felt like I couldn't "really" pray in a personal way. I have felt pretty discouraged and felt like I didn't deserve to pray.

Today, we discovered that I had LOST all the really really really important papers that people have to have...birth certificates, several years' tax statements, ALL OF OUR ADOPTION PAPERWORK AND OUR HOMESTUDY!!! I was just absolutely desperate and literally sick about it.

Since we have moved, we are very disorganized and incredibly overwhelmed. We are finishing up with the work that needs to be done at the other "big" house that we are selling. (Errrggg....the realtor told us to repaint the rooms that I had JUST repainted. I guess lavender is just too bright for it to be attractive for bedrooms. The cutest nursery ever also needed to be repainted and have the wall stickers removed from the walls. That just broke my heart. Even though we are selling the house, I decorated that room for our future adopted child. )

We still don't have a closet in our new/old/little house (which I LOVE LOVE LOVE...but wish it had a closet for us!) Our file cabinets that we usually have kept all the important information in are not moved here yet so I somehow had misplaced all those papers that we sooo badly needed.

Roger told me last night that he really had to have our tax statements TODAY before leaving for work so we went all out looking for the folder in which I had all those things. Finally this morning he left but asked me to continue searching and to bring them to him WHEN I found them.

So all this morning I have spend looking for a little file amongst piles and piles and boxes stacked around our bedroom. I tore the old vans apart looking for it just in case I left it there after a meeting with the adoption agency. No luck.

So....my grumpy old self decided that it was time to PRAY. To pray EARNESTLY....with TEARS!! (The tears were easy in my current mood.)

Then I searched again...no luck.
Finally I cried out to Him...asking why this was such a hard thing to answer for us?? I know, I sounded like a spoiled child, didn't I? But how many times does it feel like it's not too hard for HIM...just a simple request...and "If He LOVED me,.....He would do this for me."

How many times do our children say, "If you loved me, you would do this for me!!" We know WHY we can't do this or that for our kids and that it would be better for them to wait for their request. Maybe they had something to learn??

So, there I was, telling the Lord that He doesn't really love me. After all, He ONLY died on the cross for me, right? Gave me SALVATION, right? That's all......yeah.

But at least I was praying...communicating with my FATHER...even though it wasn't how I should have been doing it.

I continued searching. I moved a huge box of picture frames waiting for a wall that has not yet been built. I knew it wasn't in there. I was sure I wasn't searching in the right spot. There was another box, I went through it, and under that, I found a laundry basket.
"Hmmm....I've been looking for those clean clothes..." I thought....and low and behold, the green folder I had been crying over was at the bottom of the small orange laundry basket.

"THANK YOU LORD, THANK YOU LORD, THANK YOU LORD!" I prayed. I had been ready to give up. He kept me going.
There was NO reason that file should have been in the laundry basket....AND I'M KINDA...NO...REALLY EMBARRASSED TO ADMIT THAT WAS WHERE IT WAS!!

I think that sometimes we just get overwhelmed with THINGS and take our eyes off of God.
The things that we are doing right now in our lives ARE very very important and nothing can be taken off the "to do" list. Roger's illnesses these last few months were unforeseeable. Our adoption process is a very long and drawn out one. Working to sell the big expensive house is absolutely a crushing weight on us. Difficulties in families stress us to the point of breaking.

But nothing is as important as our relationship with God. Even though I haven't felt like praying or having an earnest relationship with my Lord right this very minute, He has not forsaken me! He will never forsake me.

He leads us through things, holding our hands like we would hold the hands of a precious child.

He never lets go.

I BUILT A CLOTHESLINE!!!! (with a little help...)

There it is, amongst the raindrops, in all it's glory stands my long awaited clothesline! Once I set my mind to it, it wasn't very hard to build at all!

I made this "T" thingy with brackets.......

added an adorable and willing toddler....(Not necessary for the completion of this project but it makes it a WHOLE lot more fun....but it just MIGHT take you a little longer to finish....just sayin'....)

and used this handy dandy electric drill/screwdriver....don't try it without it....with those wonderful bracket thingies and some eye screws......

on top of these really MUCH too long posts..........

Throw in a willing husband and step son to dig the holes.....

And there it is....DONE!!!!

Hurray!!!!!!

And today....it rains.......