10 things: He and I

Brianna did this on her blog today, and I liked it so I'm doing it too.

Here are 10 facts (we'll go ahead and loosely call them that) about The Mr. and myself.

1) We can, and do, make anything and everything possible into a game of some sort. From me having him guess the dollar figure I spent on items I have just purchased at the store, to trying to decipher the scents of various candles in the house with closed eyes, to taste tests to see if Blue Bell really IS the best ice cream on earth, to speaking in acronyms and having the other person figure them out, to just about anything else under the sun, if we can turn it into a game, we do. This is especially fun for me when I am privy to information unbeknownst to him and he gets to guess what it is. I'm giddy just thinking about that last scenario. It's not a power play on my part at all. Really. Not at all.

2) When we met in 1995 at Gart Sports, I was dating someone else. Can you say s c a n d a l o u s?

3) He is not overly forward in social settings in general, but was in fact, uncharacteristically assertive in pursuing his bride-to-be. {Be still my heart}

4) Although if you had to categorize us he would probably be more of a spender and me more of a saver, we rarely ever, ever, ever disagree about how money should be spent.

5) We rarely ever, ever disagree about decisions concerning the children.

6) I am more liberal theologically and politically than he is. I *favorably* call myself a *mild* moderate and him a conservative extremist. (He happens to love that.) (Although it is not really true. He's not actually all that extreme.)

7) Raised Roman Catholic, he wanted nothing to do with religion when we first began getting to know eachother. This prompted a genuine ultimatum because there was no way I would date him if he would not attend (my crazy Christian cult) services with me (which he did, for many years.) That makes me laugh now. Right idea, wrong approach I'd say.

8) We like to watch t.v. series from Netflix after the kids have gone to bed. Our current one is Lie To Me. (Does anyone have any suggestions for what should be next? We wondered if Prison Break is good? Lost is too scary!)

9) We are both only somewhat social. Neither of us is hugely extroverted with an overwhelming desire to hang out with people all the time, although neither of us is at all shy either. We just don't enjoy crowds or feel the urge to socialize all the time. Sometimes, it is nice. Especially with really good friends. But we can easily go for months without having any get-togethers as a couple or with other families. (I do see my girlfriends much more regularly (hello - therapy!) while he stays with the wee ones and he has his buddies at work.)

10) He is completely, utterly, absolutely unreserved and he never, ever, gets embarrassed. Even when I ask him at an upward basketball game to start asking (shouting out to) the crowd to "give me an L, give me an I, give me a G.....what does that spell? LIGHTNING!!" and everyone gives him a blank stare which totally cracks me up, he'll do it. For the most part, he does.not.care.at.all. what people think of him.This one of my favorite things about him. He is really, really fun and makes me laugh nearly every single day.

Would you believe....

That some friends of ours gave us a free Wii, complete with a handfull of games, as well as drums and guitars for rock band? Yes they did. And yes, we were officially the last family to not own a Wii. The kids are in Wiieaven. Not only that, but they delivered it to our way-out-in-the-boonies house and set it up! We are very thankful. I only wish I could bowl so well in real life.....

Or that while sitting at the Denver airport, *innocently* reading a romance novel Good Christian Woman Magazine, a sweet woman approached me (causing me to abruptly hide in my bag put away my smutty godly reading material) and asked if I happen to know so-and-so (Angela Dormish). I said, yes, I do know her. She proceeded to tell me that our mutual friend, so-and-so (Angela Dormish) had at one time linked to my blog and she recognized me from it. They are in process to adopt an HIV+ little boy from Ethiopia, awaiting court right now. They were headed to Vegas also to attend a friend's wedding. (This is exactly the point that I began humming "It's a Small World" in my mind...)
We had a fantastic conversation with her and her husband, talking about all kinds of things. They are such a great, interesting couple. Too bad they live so far from here. We would love to have them over one day.

 **Sidenote: I had to laugh at myself as I tried really, really hard not to be whatsoever offended when she said she *used to* read my blog....and appreciated my honesty. What do you mean used to? At what point did I lose you? ☺

Christy, if you're there, Hi! It was so nice meeting you. Thank you for deciding to take a chance and come over to say hello! We are praying for you, your girls, and the adoption of your little man.
______________________________________________________

My darling daughter sent me this note in the mail today. She gives me letters regularly, but this one is definitely a favorite of mine. It made me smile. Thank you sunshine. I love you Jayla girl. You're a little bit "goofie" yourself!

Viva Las Vegas Take 2

When I couldn't get picasa to work I grew tired of trying to figure out why, so I thought about saying forget it. But then I realized our highly-romantic-once-a-decade-trip would go undocumented and that just seemed terribly sad. I do think the photos should be visible to someone besides me now, after (many a grueling hour of) uploading the old fashioned way. If you can't see these, you will (unfortunately) never know how *absolutely incredible* they were. ☺

Trying this again:
Home now, Bobby and I had a great time away from life on the prairie and the myriad of daily responsibilities. We enjoyed some seriously good conversation and a lot of fun.

Two major discoveries were found during this trip:
1) We still enjoy one another's company and can get along quite nicely for 4 consecutive days alone.
2) We are very quiet and, I think, very dull.

It turns out, without our children around, the flurry of commotion and volume that typically surrounds us was dramatically reduced. {Shocking!}
We happen to sit rather still in our seats and speak to one another in a rather normal tone and eat meals and snacks rather uneventfully with very little mess or whining or fighting or complaining. We generally spend exactly zero hours crying and we even use the restroom an average, expected number of times/day as opposed to every 6.2 minutes, around the clock.

~ The most extraordinary bliss is often found in the most unexpected places. Like, Dullville. ~

Our room wasn't ready when we arrived so they upgraded us to this suite for the (rest of - it was already 1:00 am) night. Um, ok. I ♥ The Stratosphere.

Saweet!

The exact dollar amount we planned to use in claiming our substantial gambling $$ fortune $$

The wolf running away with every last cent of it at Slots O Fun in under 120 seconds flat. {Tragic}

Shaking off the {devastating} loss with a huge {WIN} on Ms. Pac-Man. High score setting in the making happening right there, yes indeed. It was just too bad she didn't pay out.

My favorite hotel.

What??? This must be my cool pose. Maybe I was in need of a restroom. I don't know...
Bobby was determined to snag a few photos of me since I.am.never.in.them.
I think this look has something to do with the reason why....

Um hmmm, sure....this is how you pose with a stone ram.

Riding the bus. Don't let the relaxing look fool you. I'm quite certain my internal pedometer told me we walked exactly 800 million miles that day.

Without our *precious* bus passes it would have been double that.

Can you believe that underneath that red nail polish my toes are still black and blue from the 1/2 marathon in NOVEMBER? {Pretty}

At the airport, ready to head home, talking to the sitter, who was still alive!

We were thankful for the chance to get away, tired from the millions of miles of the Vegas strip we covered, fortune less, and ready to return home to our loud, exciting life full of little lovelies.

Thank you to my mom for capably caring for the Deutschlets!

Just think, 10 years from now, when we go away again, they will be 13,14,15,16,17,18 & 19.

And, that makes me want to cry....

Would love to blog - but picasa won't post pictures. They won't manually upload either. I have no idea why! What's a blog post without photos!? When I figure out this *major* technical difficulty, I'll be back. Thank you for your patience.
☺

I'm headed to the Desert of Clark County Today...

Vegas baby!


But, I've got water in India on my mind.


It's World Water Day and The Adventure Project has an amazing opportunity today to partner with The Prem Rawat Foundation who is generously willing to match donations up to $10,000 for a program that trains local people to repair broken wells in their own communities, and beyond. This could make for a $20,000 day today folks. Big money.

Did you know?

*One third of all handpumps installed in the last twenty years in developing countries are now broken. And 4,000 children die every day because of lack of clean drinking water. Unacceptable.

*Instead of drilling more wells, we can use our charitable gifts as well for something revolutionary – to train and employ handpump mechanics. The mechanics earn an income, bringing themselves out of poverty, and they save lives – turning water back on for thousands of people each year. ~Taken from Jody Landers' blog

You can read more about it, in really simple, easy to understand terms, here. Go on, it won't take long!

Then, when you're all excited and convinced, you can go here and donate. I am!

☺

Learning to wait

When Bobby and I were dating, we belonged to an *ahem* unusual religious organization. This particular sect was keen on micromanagement of its assemblage. You may remember me mentioning before that because of this, we were engaged for 3 years before we were told the date we would be married by their minister.
(No, we did not select our own wedding date. Can you spell w  e  i   r  d?) I could go into the intricate reasons we subjected ourselves to this particular brand of strangeness, but that's another  story....

That 36 month period of time was extremely trying for me, as we waited for word pertaining to our own holy matrimony. In my hypersensitivity to all things marriage related, it seemed that there was a continuous stream of news shared about friends and family members who were tying the knot. Witnessing other people, seemingly easily, gain what you long for is not necessarily the most pleasant sensation that can befall an individual. I may have turned physically green with envy. I spent a great deal of time bemoaning my (obviously, wickedly unfair) lot.

It's funny now, almost a decade and a half later, some of those marriages that took place in the years just prior to ours, the ones that I was so jealous over, are not even still standing. Each one of the couples has certainly endured their share of hardships and joys, trials and sorrows, high mountain tops and low valleys. Marriage, of itself, the institution I heaped my praise upon when I wanted it so badly for myself, did not automatically ensure some golden ticket to life long happiness.

Would you believe, that from my vantage point today, as I look back on that (extended) spell of time that was our engagement, it is with extraordinary fondness. Fondness! Of all things! What sweet memories I hold of dating my beloved husband-to-be, when we were both young and free, full of energy and adoration. What fun we had together. What precious moments were shared as we wrote the beginning of our story, which would one day become our sacred history.

Now, I am beginning to see that over the years, there have been a variety of stages throughout our lives where we have been in waiting, for various events that may or may not take place - seasons where we just didn't  know what the outcome would be of this or that. Times that we, beyond our own control, were forced to simply wait. Waiting for things we desperately wanted. Waiting for things we were ferociously trying to fend off because we did not yet realized their utter inevitability. Waiting.

Waiting is hard to do.
It can cause the heart to grow faint.
It can elevate the godly desire into an idol.

Yet, there always seems to be something new to wait for. The immense satisfaction of the arrival of what we hoped for lasts only for a while, before we find ourselves waiting for something else, something new, something next, once again.

So, as I wait now for my heart's desire during this chapter of my life (one that I do not know if I will ever obtain or not) I pray to God that I am learning to wait more maturely. I ask that I will see His glorious face in these days. That I will know His presence and that He will use this time to build character, trust and surrender. That I would learn to loosen my hands and relinquish the angst and the grief I can all too easily burden my hours with. I pray that I would find sufficient strength and humility and reverence to praise and rejoice and worship and offer sincere gratitude for all I have at this very moment whether or not I ever gain what I long to have.

That I may learn to recognize and savor the sweetness of these special, fleeting, waiting days....before they are gone.

Teach me Lord. I am waiting.

Reading Together

It is my single, solitary most favorite thing on earth to do with my children, which, I think, is part of the reason I am continued a fan of homeschooling. We have the opportunity to spend countless hours curled up with good books.

Yesterday, we finished our 4th book by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I can't speak highly enough about this one! It is definitely my favorite so far. There are abundant lessons to be found in The Long Winter which provided ample teaching and discussion opportunities for our family. I know it is supposed to be written for children, but I found myself personally moved and inspired by the heartiness, positive attitudes, joyful natures, industriousness, selflessness, ability to "make do," and gratitude of the characters. It's fairly suspenseful, so we cruised through it because we couldn't wait to see what was going to happen next. I'm moving The Long Winter to my short list of favorite books for families. I give it 5, big, fat, golden stars and 2 enthusiastic thumbs up. It's that good.

Enjoy it with your family today. (Just seemed appropriate to end this blogfomercial with those words.)

*And no, I'm not singing its praises simply because I am a known, hopeless LHOTP junkie.

Thanks to my friend Courtney, who inspires me all the time by being such a fun mom, and to my generous friend Sandy who happened to give me a great big giant bag of pancake mix yesterday, the kids had these for lunch. At least for today, my children think I'm cool. I can't thank you ladies enough. ☺

My hot date last night

...with his cold drink

Randomocity (according to the urban dictionary, it's a real word)

Because I can think of nothing worthwhile to say and reading seemingly insignificant tidbits about other people's lives is one of my favorite things to do.....

Random fact #1) I do believe I could eat nothing but sugar (in various deceptively masking food-like forms, of course) for several consecutive days before missing true sustenance. Which is funny, because I am not a junk food junkie per se. It's simply that I maintain a passionate affection and intense craving for sweets.

Random fact #2)  My story, The Art of Allowing Time did not win February's contest. But, it did receive a nice shout out, which is reward enough for a non-writer like me.

Random fact #4) I delusionally sincerely thought that taking a couple weeks off blogging would propel me into the forefront of the race for Mother of the Year Award. How could all that free time on my hands not effortlessly translate into exemplary motherhood? I don't know either! But, it did not. Alas, this is when I discovered I must actually be kind to them during our ample hours in one another's company if I plan to gain any Maternal Accolades. (Or at least go to bed at night without shedding tears of regret over my many, many, many mothering mishaps.)

Random fact #5 I can not count. Because I skipped Random fact #3.

Random fact #6 In my hard core pro-adoption days, I used to be less than completely for invitro fertilization. There were so many children awaiting parents after all! It has only been through the inability to conceive a child after undergoing a sterilization reversal (a SIXTH biological baby for goodness gracious sakes) that I have come to develop an overwhelming compassion for couples who desire a little one with their own DNA and continuously fail to see their dream become a reality by natural measures. This serves as yet, another example of how I can not seem to make myself draw hard lines about issues the way I once so easily did. This is black, this is white, this is right, and this is wrong. Life is so full of nuance and exception and simplicity and complication and areas of heavily shaded grey. I hold the utmost respect for couples who choose adoption exclusively. And for those who choose fertility treatments. My hat is off to both.

Random fact # 7 I'm thinking of getting another tattoo. I really like this one. What do you think?

Random fact # 8 For the first time in 7 years Bobby and I are getting away for more than one night sans Deutschlets. We are going to Vegas for a few days next week. Alone. Oh yes we are. ♥

Onyx will be 8 tomorrow

And so, this marks the time of year during which the Deutschlets' ages line up. I have absolutely no idea why I derive any excitement and pleasure out of this completely inconsequential little fact. But I do. Maybe it's because it is *slightly* uncommon and I'm *slightly* easily entertained.
As of tomorrow our kids will be 3,4,5,6,7,8,& 9.
If that's not outrageously fun, I don't know what is. ☺

It's been nearly 2 weeks

Since beginning this process of telling people more than they ever wanted to know online journaling in late 2007, I have never taken a break from blogging for as long as this one.

Here are some things I learned while on hiatus:

1) If you are going to become ill, it is infinitely more pleasant to find yourself horrifically nauseated with an incredibly sweet pint sized companion to keep you company, cuddling on the couch and dozing off at will between trips to the porcelain bowl, as you fight against the urge to purge all day long, together. As they (the people  full of wisdom) say, 2 are better than one (especially when the small one has the face of an angel!) It is also super nice to have a daughter who is mature well beyond her 9 years that is able to hold down the fort while mom and baby (yes, my dolly is still a wee little, teeny tiny, itty bitty baby) lie around watching episodes of Sesame Street and Dr. Oz, crying out from time to time that ooooooooh their stomachs hurrrrrt.

2) At this stage of life, it is better not to have a scale in the house at all. I don't know whether it is post adoptive stress, or age, or a combination of both, but in my 35th year, things began not working exactly as they used to. Despite the same eating and exercise habits, which include plenty of fitness inducing activity, my body just wants to hold onto a few more lbs. than it once did. This realization has riddled me with anguish, (as I buy larger pants) which in turn has caused me exercise more profusely.....and become more discouraged when the ridiculously disobedient scale wouldn't reflect my hard work. So I threw the thing in the trash. Selavi. I am now focusing on overall health, not numbers (including jeans size!) Freedom. Tastes so sweet.

3) I may need an "enhancement" to correct vision in my still blurry left eye. My eyes did not respond overly kindly to lasik the first time, so I am NOT looking forward to another procedure. Poor, poor me and my great big huge problem.

4) With rumors of gas prices rising to upwards of $5.00/gallon, I am really glad that over the years I have learned to find great comfort and contentment within the walls of my own home. Because that is where we, and our 12 passenger van will be staying.

5) Thoughtful women dining together can, in one seamless conversation, cover topics ranging from the role of church in our lives, to placentas, to the glass ceiling effect that seems to keep some individuals at a certain level, to labor and delivery of precious babies, to *romance* in marriage, to the existence (or lack thereof) of hell, to our rights and/or abilities to claim old testament promises as our own. In case you weren't already convinced, ladies are some gifted, gifted individuals. I am completely thankful for excellent friends.

6) My husband is an amazing man. I am humbled and honored to be his wife. Marrying him was, by far, my wisest choice to date. (It doesn't hurt that he swears he can not tell a difference in my *new larger* size. He is a smart one indeed!)

7) Whether or not I am blogging or spending little or much time on the computer or playing games with them or doing all the right things with the each of the hours in my day, one thing is of primary importance if I am going to be the type of mother who can go to bed at night and rest easy in the assurance I have given my best. I must show my children abundant, pure, honest, plentiful, benevolent, kindness. No matter what we are doing or how busy we are or are not, if that single simple element is lacking as I relate to them, both while disciplining and while having fun, all else fails. My best efforts to engage my kids by giving them my time and attention will fall short if I do not do it with an extraordinary amount of kindness toward them. It works as a powerful, healing, connective agent, binding mother to child, soul to soul, heart to heart. It tenderizes, purifies, and motivates intentions. Both mine and theirs.
After nearly a decade of mothering, this is what I believe to be true.