Garage Sale, Chickens and some other stuff...

You’ll notice that the happy little thermometer to the right has inched upwards just a tad. :-) We had our 2nd (and hopefully final) garage sale yesterday. It wasn’t nearly as grand as the first one, but we still did pretty well. Luckily we also had an early morning visitor that turned into a helper…Thank you Gemma!! We had steady traffic all morning and made about $250. Plus, most of the stuff is gone and the guest…I mean BABY…room is cleared out. We still have a few boxes that will need to find homes at local shelters but once those are gone we will finally have our house back!! Woohoo!!


On the adoption side, we are still waiting for one final piece to schedule our home study, but we have the rest of the paperwork for our file complete. I’m attempting to wait patiently, but that is very difficult. I have never been a patient person when it comes to doing things that I want so this process is definitely trying my patience. I keep trying to remind myself that it’s not our timing but God’s timing that we are working with and that God’s timing is perfect. He has already chosen the baby for our family and me tapping my foot and sighing like a spoiled teenager is NOT going to rush this along any.


In the meantime I am considering a couple lifestyle changes. The first (and probably the most sane out of the two) is switching over to a new line of body-care products. A good friend of mine from church, Elizabeth, has recently started selling Ava Anderson products which are amazing. I always kind of knew that there were scary things in the products that I was using but chose the ostrich-head-in-the-sand approach to it, what I didn’t know couldn’t possibly hurt me…right??? Anyway, this Ava Anderson stuff is non-toxic and a LOT healthier than the stuff we’ve been using. Lots of the products that I’ve been using contain chemicals that have been linked to infertility (hmmm…..sensing a connection perhaps?). In addition to this I am also considering switching from deodorant (which is chock-full of icky stuff) to the spray-on toner they have. Fingers crossed on this one as it is a little scary for me.


The second lifestyle change I’m considering is chickens. Yep, you read that correctly…chickens. (See, I told you the first one was saner!) I should probably fill in the back story on this one so here ya go….


In addition to attending Elizabeth’s Ava Anderson launch party we also went to a birthday party for our friend Jenn. (Don’t worry I’ll get to the chickens in a minute) We celebrated Jenn’s birthday and the fact that she and her sisters Erin and Tiffany completed the Disney half-marathon in under 3 hours. Way to go guys!!! It was nice and relaxing to hang out with our extended “family” and Mackenzie had a blast despite a couple attitude issues. While we were hanging out their neighbors were working on putting up a kick-butt fence. So, we all trooped over to take a look. Turns out the people catty-corner to them have chickens…yup, honest-to-goodness chickens. Complete with a chicken coop (and a really awesome garden that I must admit to coveting...Lord forgive me). I have in the past mentioned to DJ that I would like to have chickens but being the steady, level-headed husband that he is, he ignored it. Well, turns out DJ has also caught the I-want-to-raise-chickens bug as well. (Don’t worry, we are NOT running out to get chickens!) We have put it on the list of things we would eventually like to do, following building a fence, building a covered porch and adopting a child (not necessarily in that order).


I feel like there is more that I was wanting to blog, but it is late and I am tired so I will bring this to a close.


Post again soon!
~Jeny

Garage Sale...revisited...

Sad but true. We have an entire guest (technically baby) room of stuff left over from the last garage sale so after much internal debate (and some mild verbal disagreements) we have decided to have another....and hopefully final...garage sale. We're shooting for a week from this coming Saturday (Feb. 26th) in order to get everything out of our house in preparation for the home study. (I'd like the social worker to actually be able to see where this kid is going to sleep) Most of what we have left is kid/baby stuff and clothes so if you know of anyone in need of those, please pass this along. Also, if you know of a good charity in need of these items let me know as we plan on donating whatever is left.

I'll post more details in a few days.

Post again soon,
~Jeny

Random Ramblings

The silence over the last week (or so) is due to the fact that we were partying hard in the big easy last weekend. We had such a fabulous time with our extended family celebrating the kick off of the Mardi Gras season. I tried to get some nice formal pictures of DJ and me from the ball, but the best (and only) contestant is below. I like it other than the fact that DJ is wearing a paper chef’s hat and I have a plastic crab peeking out of my dress.




The rest of the weekend was more low-key. We spent some time just hanging out and taking in the sights. New Orleans is a city we lived in for a little over a year right after we got married and still love to visit and wander around in. We were also super lucky to meet brand new baby “M” (Congratulations K & G!). Mackenzie was totally enamored and loved holding her and “helping” change her diaper. I am also very proud to report that I held a brand-new baby (twice) without crying…and I didn’t even cry when I realized I had done it. Ok, doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, but tiny babies still get me weepy. A few months ago it would have upset me to be holding such a reminder of Jack, but I am happy to note that the healing process continues.

In addition to holding a tiny baby, I also got a hands-on lesson in cloth diapering. It’s something that we (ok I’ll admit mostly “I”) have been toying with lately. I’ve done a lot of research online but it was so great to get an in person break down. Plus I think it went very far in helping convince DJ. The only drawback may be daycare. I need to talk to them and make sure that they are onboard with it. Fingers crossed that conversation goes well.

On the adoption front things continue to plug along. We are waiting on the last of our personal references to trickle in and then we’ll be ready to schedule our home study…hopefully our home will be ready for it. I am seriously considering “cheating” by bringing in a professional. Most people get around to “Spring Cleaning” but we never seem to have the time…or maybe it just isn’t that big of a priority for us. Yeah, sad to admit that I may be missing that domestic gene…

Post again soon,
~Jeny

Self-study...

Is done and ready to be emailed!!!!! Woohoo!!

(Just thought I'd let y'all know :-)

Post again soon,
Jeny

Home Study Bound!

We we had an appointment on Friday at the adoption agency to turn in our homework packet...well most of it. There was a bit of a computer issue with my self study and I lost a good four hours of work somewhere around midnight on Thursday night :-( So we turned in the rest of the paperwork without it and I will have to recreate it and email it in. I'm trying to look at it as a chance to better have my answers reflect my true self...or something like that....

On a good note, we now have a better idea of how the money end of this is going to work and it looks a lot better than we originally thought. We found out that we will be able to move our way through the initial steps while still working on our fund raising.

So the next step is our home study, which is kind of overwhelming for me because I am seriously not Suzie Homemaker (pretty sure I am missing the domestic goddess gene). At one point I started a list of things that I wanted to get done before we had our home study. I got about 3/4 of the way down the page before I got depressed and threw the paper away. The good thing is that I'm very motivated to get this step done so hopefully that will light a fire under my butt to get me going.

Plans for the Pighetti Dinner are moving forward slowly. We are still trying to find a location to actually have it at, so pray for us that it will work its self out soon. We have had lots of volunteers which is awesome because there is much to be done. I am so excited about laying the groundwork to have this become something bigger than just our little family. I hope to one day continue this to help other familes that also feel called to adopt.

On another note, I thought I'd take a quick moment and share a rather amazing story with you guys. I have mentioned before on my blog Mackenzie's friend "Bird". Her mother called me yesterday evening to share with me that Bird (4) and her baby brother "Guy" (just over a year) were in an accident while the family was bike riding that evening. Both kids are fine, but they were actually run over by a car while in a bike trailer (one of the that you pull the kids in behind the bike). Bird has a goose egg on her head along with a couple of scratches and Guy was perfectly untouched. They were crossing at a crosswalk and a women turning right didn't even pause as she turned before running them over. The bike trailer was entirely under the car but the kids are perfectly ok. I see no explanation other than God was truly watching over them. Praise God for this wonderful miracle!

Post again soon,
~Jeny

Pighetti Dinner and Silent Auction

We have created an RSVP widget for the Pighetti Dinner and Silent Auction scheduled for April 2nd. Please RSVP if you plan on attending so that we will make sure we have enough food for everyone :-) There is a list on the Fundraising Website (www.calledtoadopt.org) of items that we will have for bidding and also for donations needed.
Post again soon!
~Jeny

January 14th....and some other stuff

Wow, so much to post I don't even know where to start so I'll start with the depressing and move towards the positively uplifting :)

Friday was a very difficult day in our household. January 14th was the day our precious Jack made his abrupt and unexpected entrance to the world. DJ and I both took the day off and just kind of hung out. We ran a few errands and had a quiet little day together. Thank you to everyone who prayed and offered their support. It is so comforting to know that we are surrounded by such wonderful friends and family. I won't go too much into what Friday felt like, I'm pretty sure you can imagine....it sucked....but I got through it.

Ok, enough with the heavy.....

Mackenzie's ice skating lessons went very well. Although she didn't do much "skating" she did thoroughly enjoy herself and wants to do it again. This is my book is a HUGE victory!! I have a few pictures but none of them really turned out that great. Hopefully I'll get some better ones on Tuesday.

Things with the adoption seem to be picking up speed. We are mostly done with our homework packet and the agency has started collecting their paperwork. They have sent each of our "contact people" a lengthy 4 page questionnaire about us. Wow - I guess they really do want to know know everything about us.

Fundraising is moving right along. We have started planning for our next big fundraiser - The Pighetti Dinner and Silent Auction! (I'd love to take credit for that little play on words but I'm not that clever - Thank you Ade!) We have set a date for April 2nd. It seems like it's an awful long way off, but I know there is so much that we need to do before we are even close to being ready for it.

I have also launched a new website: http://www.calledtoadopt.org/. It is very basic right now but eventually will be the go to site for our fundraising stuff. Also, I will be adding a widget so that you will be able to RSVP for the Dinner and Silent Auction.

Well, I think my newsbox is empty now.

I'll post again soon,
Jeny