Howdy!

Hi Everyone,
I hope you had a nice weekend!

This weekend we spent most of Friday working around the house. I also got a chance to build the new website and I filled out the LONNNNG (30 pages!) packet of information for the new clinic. They should give some sort of discount for every hour we spend on that stuff ;)

Sunday we went to church, had lunch with our BFFs and had supper with our Grandparents. (Technically they're DH's-just so no one gets confused. I didn't marry my cousin ;) But they've always treated me like family so they're mine too :) Anyway, we hadn't seen them since Thanksgiving so a visit was long overdue and we had to drag ourselves away last night so we could get home in time for DH to get to bed at a reasonable hour. It was great though.

Yesterday was the first time we'd seen most of our church family since informing many of them over email about our upcoming adoption. Most people have been so sincere and congratulatory. Poor DH--he didn't connect the dots between the email and what people were saying so he had all sorts of people walking up and saying "Congratulations!" and he didn't have a clue what they were talking about initially. He figured it out but he was caught off guard. Whoops...guess I should prep him ahead of time next time!

I've been so grateful for our friends and family. Hearty "congratulations" and sincere well wishes are so validating of the fact that we're taking the "road less traveled." We've had a few people who've responded in such a way that indicates that they don't consider this a "real" adoption, which is frustrating, but overall most people have been enthusiastically supportive. I guess I didn't know what to expect but it wasn't the degree of warmth we've received because it has pleasantly surprised me. I didn't really expect the hesitation of some either...so I guess I'm surprised all around.

Our Pastor is so sweet and has been so encouraging. He goes on sabbatical this summer and one requirement of the Homestudy Agency is a Pastor's Reference. Since he's the only Pastor at our tiny church and whomever they hire to be the interim pastor wouldn't know us at all, we're submitting our application here soon so they can contact him, even though after that the application will have to set with the agency a little while before we move on to the actual Homestudy Process. We will start classes in April so that will be something to do too.

I guess my head is swimming at all the things to do, but pretty soon here we will be back in to a holding pattern, so I guess I'm just grateful that there are so many concrete steps and things to do. So much of our IF journey was "wait and see" and so much of our adoption will eventually be "wait and see" that I'm just grateful for the things I can tick off the "to-do" list, even if that exercise is short lived.

Today I had lunch with a blog buddy and member of the Christian IF community I joined. Friends I WISH I could share all the details about how similarly God has knit the fabric of our lives. So many things from our marriages, to the actual process of our IF journeys, to our husband's silly quirks (and our own!), to our favorite types of foods, to people from our past in common to our church upbringing, to things we're considering now in our IF journeys is SO SO SO similar. It was so affirming and encouraging to sit with a sister whose heart is so much the same and yet so different as to teach me much. A book I'm reading says to watch out for "God Sightings"--divine "coincidences" and circumstances that can only be explained by the presence of the Holy Spirit at work in subtle ways. This new friendship with her is definitely a "God Sighting."

DH has a LONG week in front of him. It's his audit at work so I'm praying it goes swiftly and smoothly for him and we're both looking forward to the relief of his stress! If you think about it, we'd appreciate your prayers for him. He's having a little bit of a tough go of things in adjusting to his new medication and we didn't think far enough in advance to put off starting it til after the audit so on top of being stressed, he's just not feeling like himself, which stresses him more. We're praying that everything stabilizes soon and he'll start feeling like himself again soon!