I Am as I was Prepared to Be

I never was one for testing the waters for very long, usually, I jump in with both feet and trust God to hold me up.Well, in this picture, I rode the slide, but you get the idea.

I think I have written here before about how blessed I am to have had a heart for adoption long before I was married and even considering having kids.  Adoption was definitely going to be part of my life story and even though I didn't know the particulars, I was prepared (as much as a child can be prepared) for that chapter to be written.

The thing I've been pondering lately is just how the Lord prepared me, not only for adoption, but for many things I've had to face as an adult.  When I was a child and later, a teenager, incidents happened in my life the way everyone has happen.  I don't think I ever imagined how much impact those moments would be for my life in the long-run.

At a Loss for Words

Since our daughter left home so suddenly just over three weeks ago, I have found myself at a complete loss of words for something to write here at Mama Flock.  I am moving through the grief and loss process one day at a time.  Some days I can do this more gracefully than others.  But often, I am just truly sad down to my bones. The process has taken much of my energy and leaves nothing much for creative and thoughtful blogging -- so I write nothing.

Here my blog sits ... silent.  Waiting. 

Guest Post: Head Over Heels

Today, my husband offered to do a guest post here at Mama Flock.  It is S's 18th birthday today and he offers a unique perspective on our lives with our daughter that I enjoyed reading.  I hope you do, too...

Head Over Heels

I knew this girl once. She was eight years old and had just come to live with us. She was a foster kid and we were foster parents. A good match at least on that count, I suppose. Her two younger brothers lived with us already so, you know, it seemed like a good idea to keep the family together. They’d already lost so much.

Less Depressing

Word on the street is that my blog posts and Instagrams lately have been a little depressing for people.

Okay, I'm sorry about that.  This is my real life and I'm trying to remain as hopeful as possible through something with which I'm really struggling.  But sadness and frustration are emotions that, as humans, we all have. 

That being said, I don't want anyone worrying themselves that I'm going to throw myself off a bridge or something.  My hope is in the Lord.

Changing Dynamics

We have been a family of seven for so long.  Now that there are just six of us in the house, it seems like we have to rethink how we do everything.  This would have happened whether S left suddenly or not (eventually), but now that we are faced with this situation as it is, there are a lot of things that just seem both harder and easier, as well as different.

Almost My Last Hope

I stumbled upon S's pink Bible today.  It was a bit of a heartbreak for me since I was holding onto the hope that she had brought this with her amongst the limited belongings that seem to be missing from her room.  But no.

A New Day

So much has happened over the past week or two that I haven't been on my computer much.  Most of the "stuff" has been little and insignificant, but there has been one major change that has affected us all and until we notified our family and closest friends, I was reluctant to say anything here.

I could still say nothing here, but then I wouldn't have a good explanation about my distraction from all things blog.  Also, as Christians, I think it's important to share our joys and our burdens so that we can understand each other better as real live people and not just text on a page. 

"Hey Mom... Breathe."

The title encapsulates the most recent reminder our son, Z, said to me moments ago as I sighed heavily and plopped into my chair at the computer.  I have about ten things I need to do while sitting here and I just barely walked in the door from the last thing I accomplished on the to-do list today.

On Monday (was that only yesterday?!), Z was having a rough morning and so I spent some time talking to him about stuff and then I enlisted his help. 

One Week To Go

One week from today, we will be graduating our daughter, S, from high school.  I am still in shock over this.

There's a lot to do this week, too.  The house needs to be readied for the celebration, we'll be picking up my mom at the airport Thursday, making lists and schedules to be sure it all comes together as well as possible.  We definitely don't want to be late to the ceremony!

It's all very challenging.  I'm also on a last minute cram to finish up transcripts for her and my, oh my, what will we give her as a graduation gift?!

They're Coming to Take Me Away

I've frequently quoted the phrase, "Sanity is way overrated," in response to how I deal with my life at times.  Today, was another testament to why that philosophy is a good one. 

Z was having some trouble and I was getting frustrated.  He'd already bitten a brother (yes, he's still 11) and made the other kids pretty upset and so I sent him outside to play.  I did go out and talk to him a couple times to try to get him to calm down, but nothing was really working.

My friend, KF stopped by (for a quick three-hour visit ... I do like her for sure!) and she helped me cope with my frustration over Z's building temper.  He doesn't like to be forced to be outside even though he's my most outdoorsy kid.  But sometimes, I feel like it's better to put a door between he and I when he's acting up -- Mama needs some time out, too.

Counting Down to Life

I've always been a big fan of countdowns.  I love anticipation even more than the actual thing or day we are counting down towards.  I enjoy Christmas Eve (the pinnacle of anticipation) better than Christmas Day.  But lately, our life has been overflowing with countdowns and I feel like I'm in this constant state of anticipation without much focus on the actual reveals.

The Bag Lady

I have a confession to make.  I am a bag lady.

Yes, I do love bags of all kinds -- cute tote bags and the like.  It takes a lot of self-control not to buy every cute bag I see at every store I visit.  I just love them, but don't have enough uses for them (or storage to keep them).

But the real problem is that when I come home from a store (Walmart, Target, Dollar Tree, Hobby Lobby, Marshall's, etc.) there are often a couple items left in the plastic grocery bag that I want to save for later after I put away all the stuff for now.  I stick the bag someplace for safe keeping and then when "later" comes, I forget where I put it.

To Love Another

So I promised a followup post once we had some resolution to what caused my Tuesday to be extremely stressful.  Today we got some good news, so I wanted to write this up soon.

I've mentioned before how my sister, D, who lives nearby with her four daughters, is a single mom.  She has some incredible strength to be doing the job of two parents, basically on her own.  The father is not involved any longer.  The girls still have so much promise and joy in them even though their mom is tired so much of the time.

I know how tired I am a lot of the time and I have a partner in this crazy life.  So as well as things continue to go over there at their house, I have admiration for my sister's ability to keep doing and giving to those girls.  Money is always tight, quality time is limited and it's a house full of five females with nobody to kill the bugs or repair things.

We do our best to help D and the girls as much as we can.

Lent, My Days 13-15

I can't believe I am posting three days of Lent Thankfulness in one post.  This is so unlike me.  But it's been that kind of week so far.

So here we go...

Day 13, Monday: I'm going to borrow my sister's answer for this one and tell you that, I, too, was thankful this day for our son, Z.  He turned eleven!  I've even updated my side bar three days later.

Lent, Day 8

There were several moments today where I felt like tearing my hair out. 

I've got the sorrows of a friend on my heart today and have spent all my spare moments breathing prayers to our God on her behalf.  It's been about to rain all day, so the weather has given me a really awesome headache.  I try not to take pain medication since learning that the more I take, the more likely I'll have Alzheimer's -- so I just suffered through it.   N was sick today, so we had two extra little ones running around the house and I decided today was the day to do some housework.

What was I thinking?!

However, in spite of all the distractions and challenges, somehow, the Lord helped me bring everyone together to help out and we got all the listed to-do items accomplished except vacuuming because apparently there is trouble with our vacuum.  The list also included clearing off my PC desktop and my actual work desk top.  I posted a picture of them weeks ago in Instagram and I hadn't gotten around to fixing the problem till today.

Lent, Day 5

Today was one of those days that made it a little bit tougher to think about thankfulness.  That's why it was so very important that I stayed alert and watched for joy moments!

J woke up, feeling sicker than yesterday, still running a fever (and by this evening, she started vomiting -- to tell you how bad she's feeling).  C was already at church for worship team and needed to be there to sing for both services.

Meanwhile, due to sickness, I've missed the last few weeks at church.  Today, C had a special song he was performing, so I definitely did not want to miss that.  I asked for a volunteer to stay with J so I could go to the service.

Well, Z volunteered immediately.  And then decided he wasn't up for the job.

Tuesday Results

So I went to the doctor this morning and lo and behold, I do not have Strep throat.  Hallelujah and Amen to that.

Sadly, I do have an ear infection, my sinuses are all jammed up and my throat is bright red.

A Little More About My Monday

So we just got home from the doctor's office.

I took the girls who both had fevers and throat pain.  The nurse didn't even want to test J because she said she didn't really seem to have the same symptoms as S.  But I insisted (even against J's protests) because I wanted to be sure.  So she did it reluctantly.

My Weekend... and Monday

Hello Everybody!

I hope you all enjoyed your weekend and maybe had the chance to check out the guest posts.  If not, make sure you do, it's a good read and good insight from my wonderful husband, C.

My weekend was quite the mixed bag, so I thought I'd tell you about it and let you know how today is going so far.

Some Writing First

I was kind of sick over the weekend and still don't have my usual voice back (don't think the kids aren't celebrating my inability to yell for them up the stairs), so I did not get my entire lesson plan down on paper as I'd hoped.  While we made it through yesterday -- which I'll post about separately -- today has been more difficult.

My dear, sweet, loving husband could hear in my voice how frazzled I was this afternoon when he called to tell me he was on his way home, so he offered to take the kids out for the evening (dinner and a movie?) so I could finish up my lesson planning and just refocus a little.

You know it's been a great day when your husband says, "Hey, I'm on my way home ... how are things?" and my response is unintelligible because all the words are spoken through blubbering and tears.

Yes, it's been one of those days.

So anyway, I decided to use my "write down the lesson plan" time to blog first.  How wise am I?!  (Please hear my sarcasm in that question.)

But I think if I clear my head first, I'll better be able to do the job at hand in this nice quiet house.

Why?  Why was today so tough?  Are you ready for a long-ish story?  Here it goes (if not, you'll probably just want to skip this post)...