My husband finished up a project recently that has been a beautiful addition to our kitchen - a coffee bar. He purchased the cabinet for $30 at the Re-Store (Habitat for Humanity's discount store). It was an upper corner cabinet for a kitchen. With some work, he finished it, put tile on the top and painted it. Then viola - it's a mighty fine looking coffee bar. The toaster, my hubby's coffee maker and his coffee bean grinder perch on the top, which my husband loves. Below are 4 deep shelves of pantry/cupboard space, which I love!

Monday of this week we passed the final hurdle in our preparations for foster parenting - the final walk-through of our home to ensure safety standards, the completion of our home study report and confirmation that we have completed all necessary paperwork to send to the State. We were told that the State will issue us a license within 30 days - so that is how much time to have to finish preparing the room we will use for foster children. We still need at least one more bed and need curtains on the windows. Ok. 30 days. Sounds good.

Two days later we got a call from the agency saying that they had 4 siblings that need a foster home. Are we interested?!

Whoa!

We don't have a license yet, so there must be some mistake. No mistake. If you are willing to accept this placement, the State will expedite the process and grant you an immediate license.

4 siblings. A 5-year-old boy, a 4-year-old girl and 3-year-old twins (boy and girl).

We said no.

We aren't ready yet.

And we don't have room for 4 even if we were "ready." Our van's capacity would only allow us to take in 3 foster children at a time.

We said no.

Yet our hearts so want to say yes.

We're praying for a home for those siblings. Praying that a home can be found where they can stay together, to not be separated from each other during an already hard time.

There are likely 2 reasons why we were contacted to consider taking this group in. First, we have said that we will take sibling groups. Many families state on their home study that they will only accept 1 foster child. No sibling groups. Period. We stated clearly that we would consider any sibling groups. Secondly, we have the room to accept as many as 6 foster children, based on the square footage of our home / the large room we're using for foster kids.

But we're not ready at this point for even one. We thought we had 30 days.

We will work diligently this weekend to get ready so that if we get a call next week, we just might be able to say yes as our hearts so desire to!

Over the weekend, my husband worked tirelessly to install a new stovetop in our kitchen. For 18 months, we have lived without a stove (to see "before" pictures and read about the state of the kitchen when we moved in, go here) . We have a built-in oven unit but no stovetop for cooking. We borrowed a "hot plate" from our church. It had 2 burners. One worked, one didn't. The one that worked had two settings - OFF or HIGH! This made cooking all the more challenging! So it goes without saying that my husband is now my hero and I'm ecstatic to have a kitchen that has 100% of the appliances we Americans consider to be standard in a modern kitchen.

• New ceramic stovetop installed last Saturday.
• New fridge installed in July.
• New-to-us wall oven installed in May.
  
• New dishwasher installed about a year ago.

Today is a big day at our house. It's the beginning of the end of the foster parenting prep process. Today at 10:00 am we have our final home walk-through with a rep from the agency. She will confirm

• we have enough space for a foster child or two [50 square feet minimum per child]
  
• we have some safety measures in place [1 fire extinguisher in the kitchen, working smoke detectors on each level]
• the home study the agency prepared is accurate [this is a 10 page document describing our family, based on our nearly 25 pages of answers to questions about family history, childhood, relationships with parents and siblings, parenting philosophy, values, etc]
• all paperwork is in place, ready to send to the State for licensing

9/17/2010

It's Friday again. I've had a wonderfully quiet week, for which I am thankful. This is Mr. Eli - the little guy I'm watching these days. He is now 7 months old and enjoys standing in the walker to take in all the action of my two kids. Never a dull moment! We've been outside every day this week, soaking in the last rays of summer sun. My kids are all smiles during "recess" time. :-)My mom sent some small gifts for the kids this week - a cup/plate/bowl set. My daughter loved her Strawberry Shortcake set. And my son was more than happy with his Cars set. Got to love the cheesy grin of a 2-year-old!

Happy Friday to one and all!

We have been tackling our home makeover with baby steps for many months. Since my husband is not taking any classes this fall, however, we have had more time and energy to put into some unfinished projects. One project that was completed last weekend was my daughter's bedroom.


Thankfully we have an extra bedroom in our home, so she's been in the extra temporary room for many months while "her room" was painted and carpeted, a ceiling fan installed, her ceiling textured, etc. The room looks great and she's happy to be back in it, as of last Saturday.

She has hot pink curtains that she picked for this room, but they are too sheer to use by themselves. So they will wait until we put up some blinds. For now, she has some beige curtains that are doing the job just fine.


She has a little study area with a desk and lamp, where she can read or do schoolwork.

Next up: major cleaning in the spare bedroom to make it ready for foster children

What does a church secretary do anyway?

Jobs within the church are a bit nebulous. Besides Sunday morning duties, nobody knows for sure what the staff does. The secretary... what does she do all week?

Last week was my last week as a church secretary. Of course it is bittersweet, but also a relief to be free to move on to the next phase of life. I've greatly enjoyed working for my church for over 6 years.

Here are a few stats to commemorate my resignation:

• I have personally folded over 31,000 Sunday bulletins!
• I have answered the phone "Hello. Faith Community Church. How can I help you?" approximately 500 times.
• I have created and printed promotional documents for church events, to the tune of 5,000 printed pieces.
• I have attended staff meetings with our church pastors for well over 200 hours, as we've discussed, planned and prayed.
• I have been responsible for purchasing thousands of dollars worth of office supplies, Christian Education materials, ink and toner cartridges, stamps, etc.
• One job I won't miss at all - licking envelopes for mailings! I have likely licked over 2,000 envelopes for numerous mailings over the years! Ewwww!
  
• Week after week I have organized 10-15 "quiet pack" boxes that our youngsters use during the worship service (they contain crayons, blank paper, some stencils, some small books, coloring pages, etc). 10 boxes organized every week for 6 years means I handled those boxes over 3,000 times!
  
• I have printed hundreds of visitor letters - as a follow-up for every person/family that has visited our church and left contact information.
  

Summer is quickly coming to a close. We have a beach day planned for this Friday as our last hoorah of summer.

Starting next Monday we officially start a new phase of life - focusing more on home and childcare. Monday I start watching "Baby Eli" - my friend Julie's little guy - on a full-time basis.


And sometime in the next 6 weeks I will be done with my role as the church secretary. It's been over 6 years that I've held that position, so it is bittersweet to see it end. I've enjoyed it a lot and yet know that it is time to move on.

My husband just wrapped up his summer class, turning in his final paper. He will not take any classes this fall - taking a much needed break from the school grind.

Our church held its last worship service in our "old" building last Sunday. This Sunday we meet for our first worship service in the "new" building (an elementary school building that we are renting). The transition has gone smoothly overall, though that isn't too say that it's been easy! Many, many hours of hard work from staff and volunteers... and it's not done yet!

So we start a new phase, a new chapter as we finish up the old one. Exciting times lay ahead. The Christian life truly is a great adventure, with new frontiers on the horizon waiting to be explored.

Ok, if this isn't the cutest little boy you've ever seen...

Our crazy week got even crazier than we expected!


My last living grandfather passed away on Wednesday after a few days in the hospital battling pneumonia. The picture above was of me with my Grandma June and Grandpa Bert back in 1998.

Tonight (Friday) we will make a trip to Wisconsin. His funeral will be tomorrow morning and we will return home tomorrow night. This will quite possibly be our quickest ever trip up and back to Wisconsin. It's a 6-8 hour drive, depending on traffic, construction and pit stops along the way.

We are returning because this Sunday is our church's last day in our current building. It's a momentous occasion as we look back at God's faithfulness through the past and forward to what the future holds.

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers during this stressful time.

The next week will be ultra busy and in the midst of it all my daughter and I both have birthdays!

Monday night - my daughter's good friend (and next-door neighbor) Sarah is spending the night

Tuesday - a final summer fun day, at the beach with friends

Wednesday - birthday package from Grandma K in Wisconsin is set to arrive with goodies for my daughter

Thursday - my daughter's 7th birthday will involve a morning at Grandma R's house and an afternoon check-up at the doctor's office; she'll open gifts from us on Thursday

Friday - a day of recovery at home (yes, I sometimes put "recovery" on the calendar to remind me that we NEED to ensure down time gets into our schedules too)

Saturday - my birthday! As far as I know, nothing is planned by anyone. My hubby will be 2 days away from wrapping up his summer class, so his day will be filled with paper-writing and research, I suspect. I guess with low expectations, the day can't be disappointing :-)