The subject of adoption has been on my heart for a while. The only reason I'm posting this is because I know that no one reads this blog, and I get so many mixed reactions when I mention the possibility of adoption, and especially when I say something about adopting an older child. Oh the horror! You don't get to change their diaper and feed them bottles! I'd say you don't get to get up and comfort them when they cry in the night, but that's par for the course with children in general, not to mention kiddos suffering from PTSD.
Anyway, I've been indulging my desires by lurking through the blog-o-sphere on adoption and foster care blogs. I love them. It's a not-so-guilty pleasure, but one that I still keep secret. Like I said, mixed reactions. It's not that I can't stand up for myself, it's just that I get tired of "yes, I know that adopting older kids means that they'll probably have issues. Yes, I know what that means. Do you remember where I worked for two years?" I stumbled onto a blog tonight that spelled it out perfectly though, and I want to quote her words here, because they are so beautiful and spoke straight into my heart. I want to print them out on business cards and hand them to everyone who tells me that adoption is too much trouble.
"I realised there is no guarantees with parenting, full stop. Any kid, biological or otherwise, can have a whole string of issues that you didn’t plan for when you fantasise about your perfect, pink, plump healthy baby. I realised that it doesn’t matter if I can’t name my children fancy, well thought out names that sit somewhere appropriate on the Top 100 baby name list. That is not parenting. I realised that the first few weeks, months and years of parenting can be so tough regardless of how you get there, but that I would rather live through all of that with my hormones tightly regulated and with my mind in reasonable shape as a result."
http://www.nevermindthedistance.com/why-i-have-chosen-foster-care-adoption/
I don't know how to say it any better than that.
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Sunday, February 10, 2013
I hate moving
Barely started and already I'm neglecting this blog. Not a great way to begin, for sure. Once some of this craziness settles out, hopefully I'll get into a regular cycle though. or at least when the craziness becomes a regulated thing. Things are too all over the place right now.
Anyway. In 16 days I will be moving from North Dakota to Washington with my husband, two cats, two dogs, and one horse. We'll pick up horse #2 on the way. We will be moving from a 3-bedroom house that has always been way too big for us (hurray for base housing!) to a very small studio cottage. I'm excited that something is forcing us to really pare down all of the clutter in our lives, but at the same time this crap is HARD!
I went through my craft room today. That was slightly painful. I'm not done yet, but I made a pretty good dent. Threw out a lot of fabric scraps that weren't large enough to warrant saving. Kept the ones that are of a decent size that I could actually use for projects though. Went through my yarn after that. Prior to this, I had three overflowing, overstuffed large rubbermaid bins full of yarn. I'm a bit of a hoarder. But a lot of it was cheap yarn that I'd gotten when I first started getting into crochet and didn't know better. I will never use that yarn for anything because it is horribly scratchy and annoying to work with. So I filled an entire trashbag with yarn to take to GoodWill, so that someone else who is just starting out can enjoy it. I threw away all of the pieces that were honestly too small to really be worth keeping (I have a habit of holding on to anything more than about 6" long). By the time I was done with fabric and yarn and other various and sundry supplies, I had a large black bag of trash, and two large bags of donations. My yarn is also now into two bins, one large and one small. I could honestly have fit it all in the large one, but I keep my "baby" yarn in the small one, that way it's always easy to find when I have to make a last minute shower gift.
The upside of this massive decluttering? A few years ago, during one of our many moves, I lost the case that I kept my crochet hooks in. All of them. This was frustrating enough, but was particularly heartbreaking for me because it was my grandmother's case and all of the hooks that she gave me. I'm a stupidly sentimental person when it comes to things like that, and I was so sad that I didn't have my grandmother's hooks anymore, since she is the one who taught me to crochet years and years ago.
Well, guess what was at the bottom of the last bin! I have no idea how it got there, but there it was. I squealed I was so excited. Granted, I've since bought replacement hooks, so now I have a LOT of hooks, which I will need to go through eventually, but that can wait for another day.
Anyway. In 16 days I will be moving from North Dakota to Washington with my husband, two cats, two dogs, and one horse. We'll pick up horse #2 on the way. We will be moving from a 3-bedroom house that has always been way too big for us (hurray for base housing!) to a very small studio cottage. I'm excited that something is forcing us to really pare down all of the clutter in our lives, but at the same time this crap is HARD!
I went through my craft room today. That was slightly painful. I'm not done yet, but I made a pretty good dent. Threw out a lot of fabric scraps that weren't large enough to warrant saving. Kept the ones that are of a decent size that I could actually use for projects though. Went through my yarn after that. Prior to this, I had three overflowing, overstuffed large rubbermaid bins full of yarn. I'm a bit of a hoarder. But a lot of it was cheap yarn that I'd gotten when I first started getting into crochet and didn't know better. I will never use that yarn for anything because it is horribly scratchy and annoying to work with. So I filled an entire trashbag with yarn to take to GoodWill, so that someone else who is just starting out can enjoy it. I threw away all of the pieces that were honestly too small to really be worth keeping (I have a habit of holding on to anything more than about 6" long). By the time I was done with fabric and yarn and other various and sundry supplies, I had a large black bag of trash, and two large bags of donations. My yarn is also now into two bins, one large and one small. I could honestly have fit it all in the large one, but I keep my "baby" yarn in the small one, that way it's always easy to find when I have to make a last minute shower gift.
The upside of this massive decluttering? A few years ago, during one of our many moves, I lost the case that I kept my crochet hooks in. All of them. This was frustrating enough, but was particularly heartbreaking for me because it was my grandmother's case and all of the hooks that she gave me. I'm a stupidly sentimental person when it comes to things like that, and I was so sad that I didn't have my grandmother's hooks anymore, since she is the one who taught me to crochet years and years ago.
Well, guess what was at the bottom of the last bin! I have no idea how it got there, but there it was. I squealed I was so excited. Granted, I've since bought replacement hooks, so now I have a LOT of hooks, which I will need to go through eventually, but that can wait for another day.
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