Fearless

***Updated to say: Sorry for the goofy formatting!*** I'm experimenting with a new journal... my computer. It's a new idea I had the other night and one benefit is that I can copy stuff and send it to my blog. Which I might do on occasion like tonight... or whenever I think God wants me to.

(FYI... the "Bill" I'm talking about here is our neighbor who is a professional musician with a connection in Nashville. Bill wants to hear "my tunes" (as he calls them) one of these days and has told me that he'll send my stuff to his guy out there if I want--even though he hasn't heard any of them yet.) Anyway, here's what I wrote. And now I'm off to bed. Ciao!

8.13.2007 10:10pm

I'm waiting for Lowell to come home from a Ranchwood HOA Board meeting and was just enjoying a few moments of peaceful, quiet contentment when my thoughts turned to turning 35 soon. I was thinking about how You, Jesus, accomplished so much in your 33 years here. You fed thousands, You healed and taught and established a church that has stood the test of time like no other, and been tested like no other. All history and time on earth is defined by YOU and those simple 33 years. I started to think about how bold and fearless You were, but realized that You weren't completely fearless. But You didn't ever, EVER, let Your fear stop You from doing what God told/called You to do. You must have at times been afraid, because You were human, and You were tested in every way, yet every time You obeyed the countless commands to FEAR NOT. Help me, Jesus, to push past my fears every day. To obey You whatever the cost.

What am I afraid of right now? Sharing my songs with people? With Bill? Lord, open my eyes to see the truth about what my music is for. Help me to know how to be faithful with it. I don't want what You've given me taken away because I buried it in the ground. Help me to be brave and to believe in Your ability to use me even though there are thousands of songwriters in the world. You have done mighty things for me, Lord, and I DO want to tell as many people as I can about You and who You are and about Your truth and freedom. Don't let me listen to the enemy's lies telling me that my stuff isn't so great or unique or special or that Bill's company/friends don't have the right connections or whatever. Lead the way Lord. I want to follow You. Fearlessly.

On a More Positive Note...

I took these pictures a couple days ago because I thought they gave a glimpse of some sort (what sort, I'm not sure) into my life or at least my house and some of the messes I'm currently dealing with. (See, I told you you'd be getting more pictures!) First, I give you the fridge magnet display which isn't really messy but it does have a picture that is probably 2 years old of my nephew Matthew, the word "fox" (which Mikaela wanted to spell with an "a" in the middle because in Spanish the "a" makes the "ah" sound. Please don't panic... she'll be just fine, I promise.), and up on top I'm just sure one of my brilliant children was trying to spell "ingenuity" (which, I might add, I didn't even spell right the first time.)


Next we have the state of my almost new bedroom. We just have to clean it out and get some laminate flooring down and we'll be ready to move in. (Yes, I know... it's huge!) It should only take us, oh, another few months at the rate we seem to go. Well, hopefully just a few weeks. Maybe by my birthday!



But it is very, very exciting. And we really need to get in there quick because I keep thinking of stuff to put on the walls (like blown up versions of these pictures I took last week... I'm doing a beach theme)
And I might just keep buying more and more stuff if we don't get in there soon.







Lastly, I give you Mikaela's kitchen.

This is actually a workbench that she uses as a desk--or kitchen, or whatever her imagination (or whatever is piled upon it) dictates that day. So a couple days ago she called me in to give me the tour of her new kitchen. It included dishes, cookbooks, food, salt and pepper shakers AND EVEN balsamic vinegar and parmesan cheese. Apparently we've taught her some things well... And though cleaning up is still almost always a BIG challenge, today something miraculous happened. Toby--all by himself, although clearly with Divine inspiration-- discovered that he could pretend his arms were BIG STRONG CRANES! (He was very loud during this process.) And he was looking for stuff to pick up and put away. This is my Toby who normally whines and cries about not being able to clean anything up because it's too hard... I have no idea how long the BIG STRONG CRANES will be around, but I'm gonna do everything in my power to keep them as long as possible because he cleaned up more with them than I've ever seen him clean up with his hands. Ever.

And now I'm going to go help my daughter go to sleep because she keeps thinking about the spider that jumped on her leg today and feeling like it's there again. I'm sure you understand. : )

The Ups and Downs of a Paper Pregnancy

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah!  That's how I'm feeling about all this paper stuff right now.  Wed. of this week I was all gung-ho about getting our dossier stuff together.  It amounts to more than 20 pages of documents telling everything about us like our birth and marriage certificates, letters from Lowell's employer, our bank, our Dr, our friends, a copy of the 1st page of our taxes (and a copy of our extension form since we haven't actually filed our 2006 taxes yet...  ahem...), our home study, a Thai adoption application (in English, not Thai!!!) some other licenses and stuff from our adoption agency and whatever. 

 

Some of it we had to have notarized.  I was REALLY excited when I found out there was a Regional CA State Dept. office in Fresno because that meant we didn't have to send everything to Sacramento to be certified.  SO.  Lowell took it all down to the office and found out he had to take it to the county clerk first to verify the notary's license and signature.  Then he took it back.  Now we have a state seal certificating the county clerk's seal certifying that the notary was certified to verify our signatures on our dossier.  You'd think that was enough, right???  Well, now we get to send it all to Washington DC for the US Dept. of State to certify and then it will go to the Royal Thai Embassy (also in DC...  we'll hire a courier to walk it to these places for us) to have the US State Dept. certification verified.

 

Are you confused yet???  It's just making me tired today b/c I thought we were going to be able to skip the DC part of it until I discovered today that the Thai law changed LAST MONTH saying now it does.

 

Interestingly enough, God and I wrote another song over the course of the last couple of weeks and it's all about "counting it all joy."  I don't have time to type out all the words right now (and I've already made you read enough!) but whenever I think about the song, it reminds me to count everything as joy.  EVERYTHING.  Even the fact that if we'd gotten this done a month ago it would (supposedly) be a simpler process.  Who knows?  (God.)  I have been trusting God all along to help us get our paperwork done at just the right time so that we will be in just the right place on the waiting list when our child's name is at the top of the other list.  And this is probably just part of that process.  Or maybe it's just developing perseverance.  But no matter what, I can count it all joy. 

 

So if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go find some joy and praise God He's gotten us this far down the road.  We're almost done with the paper part (I think) and will soon start just waiting.  And I'm sure I'm gonna need some perseverance and joy for that.  : )  Bye!

So Much to Say! (But then, what's new about that???)

Well, hello my faithful friends!!! Life around here has slowed down a bit. (Sigh. I'm SO glad!) So I thought since it's been (GASP!) almost a week since I added anything to my blog it was time! So here I will share with you some pictures (worth several thousand words you should be grateful you don't have to read) of our camping trip to Morro Bay, CA where we spent several days playing, laughing and getting sunburned even though it was overcast for all but maybe 15 minutes.

This first one is MOST of the group we were with. It's missing one family (who didn't come with us to the museum) and one crying child (Caleb Parra) who refused to be in the picture. I don't have any pictures of the Ebury family, but I do have pictures of the crying child when he was playing with Toby at a different time with our fabulously stylish tent trailer in the background. : ) Dontcha just love it??? (And Carlos, your picture is officially on the internet on somebody's blog.)

Here is a picture of Lowell at the beach with his girls. They didn't pose this way for the picture. They were already sitting on him when I got there. : )

This is Mikaela and Toby with their adorable cousin Caleb who lives in San Luis Obispo (not to be confused with Caleb Parra who is missing from the group picture above). Caleb brought his parents (Lowell's brother Matt and Matt's wife Anne-Therese) to Toby's party because he'd never gotten to hit a pinata before.

We took care of that.

And last but not least... THIS is Toby's cake!!! And Toby, of course. It was his birthday we were celebrating after all. : )

So there you have it. 6000 words worth of pictures and only a few hundred to read. I call that a bargain! I wish I had video of the ROARING (thanks, Duane) campfire and the singing we got to do the last night. It was so sweet. But we were all too busy enjoying ourselves to take any pictures, so (unless you were there) you'll just have to join us next year and experience it for yourself, okay???

Wow! It worked!

You'll have to read below to know what I'm talking about...  but you can now fully expect to see more pictures on my blog b/c I just figured out a really easy way to do it.  

 

(And by the way, that's Toby's new Hot Wheels bike he got for his birthday.  It looks even cooler with the stickers on it.  It's very much like the one his Daddy had when he was a little boy which is why his Daddy wanted to buy it for him.  Our generation is SO being taken advantage of by the toy manufacturers who are now remaking all the toys from our childhood!)

 

(I'm really going to go pack now.)  (Really.)

 

 

Happy Birthday Toby! and some other ramblings

This is partly an experiment to see if I can post something via email WITH a picture!  (Did you know I can send an email to my blog and it will automatically be posted?  Hmmm....  I wonder if other people could do that too.  I'd better keep the email address a secret so you all don't start posting unauthorized stuff on my blog.  Cuz you just might do that...)  Ummm...  where was I?

 

Today is Toby's birthday and he's 4 and we're partly celebrating tonight with the local grandparents and tomorrow with the pinata and coolest cake I've ever made (you'll have to wait to see pictures of it when we get home) (because I know you really want to!) at the campground with all our friends.  It will be memorable I hope and fun even if tricky to get the (really cool!) cake there. 

 

Which reminds me that I left the family room a few minutes ago saying I needed to go pack.  And I ended up here, of course.  This will probably be the last post until after we get home Sunday.  (Unless I'm all packed up early and have time in the morning with nothing to do.  HA!)  And for those who are wondering, my appt. this morning with my new Dr. went well.  He said I do seem to have many indicators for ADD and he wasn't suprised I was there (looking for help.)  I go back a couple more times for some testing and then we'll see what happens after that.

 

Have a great week everyone!  While we're in Morro Bay camping I'll be thinking about stories to tell you.  Now I really do need to go pack so I don't repeat the packing disaster before our Hume trip.  Because we're leaving in 18 hours and have a birthday to celebrate tonight yet and I really need to stop procrastinating.  NOW.

 

OK.  Bye.  : )