My Ebenezer

• Why Ebenezer
• Category 2
• Category 3
• Category 4
• Category 5
• Category 6
• Category 7

How many times have I played the, “what would you take if the house was burning down” game? Why can’t I remember my answers? It’s hard to choose what to take and what to leave behind. Photos. I don’t want to lose photos but how hard would it be for me to take all of my albums?

Let me just say that I am so completely grateful that we have not yet been matched with a child or children. While I am very eager to become a parent, I’m glad I can weather this storm without worrying about little ones underfoot.

Of course, you know my next thought. “okay, God. I get it. Thanks for not bringing our kids to us before this storm…but right after it’s all through and we get home, we’ll get them, right?……”

Unless hurricane Rita makes a drastic turn before tomorrow morning, we’re heading out. Jana and her family have graciously offered to put us up for a few days so we’re planning to go and get out of the way of Rita. I really don’t expect to have major damage on our street or to our house, unless a tree lands on it. That could suck. Better safe than sorry.

As I was standing in line this morning at SIX AM, yes, SIX AM to purchase a generator, i realized that lots of people were worried about the storm. There were ten people in front of me and by the time the store opened at 8am, there were at least 200 people behind me. Sorry to say most of those 200 did not get generators.

If the power is out when we return, we’ll have the generator to run the refrigerator/freezer and a few fans or something. Who knows, maybe I can hook the playstation up for entertainment.

By the way, you’ll be happy to know that the instinct to buy lots of junk food in the face of an emergency runs in my family. Let’s see if I can remember all of the things my siser, TB, told me she bought in the way of “non-perishable food”:

• Pop tarts
• Powdered donuts
• cookies
• chicken in a basket crackers
• various other non-chocolate junk food

I add the “non-chocolate” there because when her husband was teasing her about not buying good food they could eat on for a few days if the power went out, she said, “but i didn’t buy any chocolate.” You see, in my family, anything non-chocolate is not considered desert or junk food. LOL

Hi, my name is Cindy and I am an impatient waiter. Read the minutes from Waiters Anonymous first meeting and this may make more sense.

About 3 1/2 years ago we decided to start a family. 3 years on the infertility roller coaster prompted us to explore the world of adoption and in February this year we decided to go forward and haven’t yet looked back. All through training we were told of waiting children – okay, so maybe we just heard what we wanted to hear – who needed homes. We believed the faster we did our paperwork, the faster we’d get our little ones. We worked hard and even redecorated two rooms. (Check the pictures from the links at the left, I’m too lazy to put them here) Anyway, we’ve been waiting to be matched for 6 weeks now and although I have not mentioned this word before……CHRISTMAS is coming. We want our kids for christmas. We aren’t supposed to say that but let’s face it, we all know we’re thinking it.

So, we’re about 6 weeks in. Don’t know if that’s considered on the wagon or off it, but we need a chip. (i prefer Pringles)

Who’s Next?

…like a woman scorned. First, there was Katrina. Now, there is Rita. While I hope that by the time we wake up on Tuesday morning, “Rita” will have turned around and headed back out towards the ocean (by way of just jumping right over Florida, of course) we had to get prepared. So here’s the list of things we bought at Sam’s tonight so you can see where our priorities are:

• AA batteries – Check
• D batteries – out of stock, must find tomorrow
• Plan to get 91 year old grandmother out of her house and someplace away from the storm – still working on that
• 2 cases of bottled water – check
• new flashlight – check
• lantern style flashlight – check
• DVDs to keep us entertained – ooops, guess we won’t be able to do that, huh?
• Chef Boy R D raviolis in a case – check
• beef stew in a can (case) – check
• Huge box of Nutter Butter cookies – check
• Chewy granola bars – check
• paper plates – check
• 500 plastic forks – check (remember, we were at Sam’s)
• Candles – oops, forgot about them
• charcoal – check
• lighter fluid – check
• matches – oops, guess we’ll get those tomorrow too
• dogfood – oops, sorry guys, we’ll get that tomorrow too
• battery operated alarm clock – what? you have to go to work if the electricity is out? – we’ll have to get that tomorrow too
• hershey kisses – CHECK
• laundry detergent? – Daddy-O: do you know how to wash clothes by hand? Me: why? are your hands broken? And NO – but paaahhhlleeeassse, we only do laundry every 2 weeks how it is, i don’t think this will be a problem

There were several things we picked up at Sam’s but then put back down ….like steaks…because if we don’t have electricity……..

I thought it was a little crazy to go to the store tonight but there were a ton of people there. You’d be amazed at how many things the stores were out of, like water. We got 2 of the last cases they had.

Anyway, I have to say that while I am very eager to get our kids, we are glad that we don’t have to worry about little ones with a hurricane possibly heading this way. And if it doesn’t come this way, anyone want some Chef Boy R Dee?

You’ll be happy to know that the ugly little Gecko that was staring me down this weekend has been relocated. Daddy-O came home yesterday morning and last night I was in the hallway squealing over that freakish looking little creature. I’ve decided to write to the makers of DirtDevil and complain that there’s not enough power to suck them up.

Anyway, these days I hate to stay around the house because all I do is wait for the phone to ring. When I leave the house, all I do is daydream about coming home to a message on my answering machine from our caseworker. The irony of that is I call to check the messages and I know there are none. Somewhere in the back of my ever hopeful mind I think maybe she called in the 5 minutes in took me to get home after checking the messages. Bleh! The life of a soon to be adoptive mother. And father.

Daddy-O isn’t much better. He can hardly wait and looks longingly at the little ones we see at church. Although it has only been about 6 weeks since we’ve been eligible for a “match”, realize we’ve been waiting for this for 3 and 1/2 years. Our dream has changed over the course of those years but the end result has always been the same: we want to be parents.

Forgive us if we are irritable or whiny. Excuse us when we respond to your questions with short, sometimes harsh answers. And please be patient when we just don’t feel like telling our story again if you’re just finding out about this adoption. You see, talking about it is getting old – we’re tired of talking. We’re ready for some action and it can’t come fast enough. You may still catch us on a good day when we’re happy, but mostly we’re just frustrated. It’s hard to even get excited about it because the wait feels like it’s forever.

I have to say, again, for the record that we believe Jeremiah 29:11 – “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord. ‘They are for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.’” We know God has our children picked out, we know He will lead us to them. We trust that His timing is absolutely perfect and we only want what HE has for us. But we are also very human and we want what He has RIGHT NOW! Pray for our spirits as we become increasingly more discouraged with each passing day. More importantly, pray that someone is hugging and loving on our children today.

We know God is in control and we praise Him for what we know He is working on even now. We thank God for what is yet to come.

On another note, my friend Karen H. (AKA: Puke) has some exciting news….. so you should pop over to her blog and check it out.

I have this thing about Geckos. They totally freak me out. Daddy-O gets a kick out of it when I come across one in the house because I usually scream and beg him to be my knight and shining armor and slay the ferocious Gecko. Did I mention most of the ones we find in the house are babies?

The problem now is that Daddy-O is out of town and there is a baby Gecko on the wall in the hallway. I’m watching it with one eye as I type this because I’m afraid it’s going to crawl in here and get me. I can’t stand the thought of a gecko crawling on me – what if it gets into my bedroom and crawls on me while I’m asleep? What if it crawls in my mouth? Yeah, well…. I didn’t want to sleep tonight anyway.

The moral of this story is that although a dustbuster sucks, it’s not strong enough to suck up a baby gecko running for its life. The real miracle here is that neither the gecko nor I died from a heart attack during this event.

This is how desperate I’ve gotten. This blog is supposed to be about our adoption – but there are only so many ways I can say that waiting sucks. Today, I really feel like whining because we don’t have our children. But I know that God already has them picked out and He’s working out the timing to be just perfect. I just pray that tonight they are safe and that someone is hugging them and loving on them. As sad as I get and as much as I miss them, I know they are worth every second of the wait.

You’ve heard it said before that “no news is good news.” Whoever made this up had not been through the process of adoption, I assure you. Waiting sucks. It absolutely, completely, without a doubt, sucks. We’re only a few weeks in to the real waiting and already I’m breaking rules. I decided that I would call S., our case worker, only once a week but I find myself absolutely living for Mondays just so I can do that. So now I’m thinking twice a week is better – I need a “fix” a little more often. So, tomorrow, unless I completely chicken out, I’m going to email her.

The problem with all of this is I feel like I need something to say other than, “just checking in”. I find myself spending entirely too much time thinking of things I could ask about. I need to get busy. But I don’t wanna get busy unless I’m busy with our kids. Bah!

Anyway, on a brighter subject, I cooked my third-night-in-a-row-yes-i’m-great dinner tonight. Beef stroganoff and it was yummy! Who knew corn starch was used to make beef stroganoff? No, I still don’t know what the stupid zuchinnis are for.

And I need a pedicure, don’t ya think?

That’s right. I’ve given myself the title of chef after only two successful meals. Lemon fish last night that turned out pretty good. I used some stir fry veggies to cover the fish and Daddy-O said, “what’s that?” “um, VEGETABLES” Guess I should cook them more often.

If I can’t cook for our kids, I may as well start practicing, right? Bleh. I’d rather be too busy with kids to cook.

Tonight, we had chicken parm. (i can’t spell it) and it was delicious! And it was so easy to make! So, the good news is that the fish and chicken turned out wonderfully. Haven’t used the corn starch yet but I think it is for the beef stroganoff (on the menu for tomorrow night). Still don’t know what the zuchinni is for.

Oh, and I have lots of pampered chef stuff – I’ve found it to be great for collecting dust. Maybe it’s time to wipe it down.

I think I’m going to start a Bounce Out support group for those of us who are addicted. Look what Stacy did this morning:

I like to believe that I am above average in the intelligence department. Notice I didn’t claim that I “am above average” just that “I like to believe I’m above average”. Every once a while – okay every day – something happens that it makes it difficult for me to hold on to my fantasy of super-human intelligence. It’s what I call an alignment problem – when my reality doesn’t line up with what I believe to be true.

Today, for instance, I went grocery shopping. I am not a cook, to say the least. I do okay with a recipe and there are a few things that I cook very well because I’ve cooked them so many times. My biggest problem in the cooking department is lack of practice, or just plain laziness. It’s not just that I don’t want to cook, it’s that when I decide to cook something, it means I have to go to the grocery store because I never have all of the ingredients on hand.

I’ve just never learned to plan ahead when it comes to groceries and cooking. Unless you count buying enough frozen pizzas and boxes of mac and cheese planning ahead. Anyway, I heard about a website that gives you a meal plan for the week and also includes a shopping list for the whole week. I figure, what the heck? So, before I even looked at the menu, I decided I’d buy whatever was on the list and cook whatever was there for one whole week – maybe try something new for a change. Anything’s better than frozen pizza, right? Well, maybe.

So I go to the grocery store with my list in hand and I did okay on most items. I only had to ask for help..once…well, no..twice……okay so it was THREE times. ASking where an item is located isn’t too embarrassing…but asking what something is because you can’t identify it is. For example, I needed to buy 2 medium zuchinnis. In my mind, I think zuchinni looks like a cucumber and, come to find out, I was correct. But I couldn’t find it and everything that looked like a cucumber was either a cucumber or some kind of squash. I called my mom, but she had me on hold too long so I decided to ask a lady who “looked like she would know”. I stood there contemplating the best way to ask, “What the heck is zuchinni and where can I find it?” I didn’t want to look totally stupid so I just asked if she might know where it is because I was having trouble finding it. She points it out to me and I see the green cucumber looking things but it says squash on top of it. “Um, is is the green things over there?” i say sheepishly. I have to give her credit…she didn’t laugh, at least not in front of me. She did give me one of those, “oh, women of your generation don’t know how to take care of a man” looks but she walked me over to the zuchinni.

Come to find out, it’s called “Squash Zuchinni”. I learned something new today.

Another recipe called for corn starch, which I thought I actually had in the pantry but that was corn meal…and what do you know? They aren’t the same thing. So I go to the flour aisle, thinking corn starch sounds like it would be the corn meal family. Of course, I don’t see it. So I ask another lady “who looked like she would know” where I might find the corn starch. She said it was right behind me. “oh. thank you.” DUH! I just kinda laughed and said, “i don’t cook very often and wasn’t sure what it was.” So she says, “What are you cooking with corn starch?” ……”um…i don’t know. It’s just on my list of things I need to cook a couple of different recipes but I don’t know which one it is for.” and I think to myself, “because I’m and IDIOT you see.”

Finally, I’m almost through. Now I need flank steak. Which, by the way, just sounds gross to me. But it is on my list so I’m getting it. But it’s not there. It is nowhere in the packaged meat area. So I ask mr. butcher, “do you have flank steak?” And he kindly said, “yes.” I stood there for a minute but he didn’t turn around and look at me or point to it or anything. So I say, “um, can you show me where it is?” He tells me I have to go to the counter and they’ll get it for me. Evidently, it’s not “pre-packaged”. How was I to know? While I’m standing there waiting for my flank steak, I’m looking at the fish. My grocery list says I need cod fish but nothing there is called cod. What’s a girl to do? So I ask the lady standing next to me who was also buying some fish, “my recipe calls for cod fish……” Luckily, she picked up on my ignorance and said, “oh, you want to know what to substitute it with since they don’t have any?” “yes…what do you suggest?” as I think to myself, is cod a particular kind of fish? Glad I didn’t ask you which of these fish – clearly not labeled cod – would be considered cod fish. Then she had to go and ask me what I was making. Lemon fish, I told her. Then she wanted to know if I was making it in some kind of creamy sauce or what? “What is this? 20 questions? Am I on trial here or something?” Ofcourse I didn’t say that, I just gave her my best “i’m an idiot” smile and told her I wasn’t sure what the recipe was but that it was on my list. She told me which fish to buy and then said, “good luck.” I know she was thinking, “you’re going to need it.”

"Samuel took a single rock and set it upright between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer (Rock of Help), saying, This marks the place where GOD helped us."

1 Samuel 7:12 The Message

Adoption

• Our adoption story from beginning to end

Search

Search for: