Boobie Babble

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgnClrx8N2k Today as was trying to soak in my small window of quiet alone time with the Lord (and without kids) something struck me. This song came to mind and I was reminded that we, in our fleshly bodies, often forget who the real enemy is. What really is behind the pandemic? The rioting? The social unrest? The political posturing? The fear-mongering? The lies? The finger-pointing? The fear? It isn't your neighbor, or your president, or your neighbor or some social justice group or another country--it is our oldest and most cunning foe. Ephesians 6:12 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. This enemy often knows us better than we know ourselves. He can be persuasive and attractive and manipulative but he VERY MUCH is the TRUE enemy. John 10:10 10 The thief comes only to steal and kil...

Here we are again, I posted this early on in our adoption Journey with A and it still holds true:  "It feels like a  Tale of Two Cities , "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times"....ALL AT THE SAME TIME." Some days are great and some are terrible, horrible, awful but the struggle is worth it.  We know that in adopting older boys we may very well be their last chance at a forever family, so we always go in knowing that the behaviors will be tough but that we will see it through.  Our resolve has definitely been tested.  However, by the grace of God and patience that surpasses all understanding,  we continue to struggle through each issue as it arises. We see massive gains yet there are still huge setbacks that require time to regain lost ground--but we are getting there.  I am 'mommy' and my husband is "daddy" and I get tons of hugs and snuggles and "I Love Yous".  A few weeks ago, after a inconceivably rough day, as I was...

Stolle party of 6! It has been a little over the one month mark since we added a new member to our family.  We are now a family of 6. The similarities between Z's story and A's story and behaviors are uncanny.  We learned a lot our first go-around with A about how best to handle discipline and behaviors of children from hard places and it has all come in handy.  I find myself to be far less exhausted and on edge this go around; there really is a huge learning curve when dealing with adding 8 year old boys you barely know to your family. Z is a joy.  He is a adorable ball of energy; full of love, creativity and butt cheek jokes (yes, I'm serious).  He calls me momma or mommy and loves sitting in my lap and snuggling.  He calls Jason daddy with ease, and has even asked to sit in his lap from time to time.  My life has become a tornado of beyblades, pokemon cards, xbox discs, sports and fart jokes--and I wouldn't change it for the world! I just c...

We are officially in month six of our matched adoption and have our finalization court date set.  Everyone is excited and relieved to be at this point.  "A" is a completely different child and so very ready to be adopted.  As far as dealing with the struggles associated with adopting a child from foster care--those have minimized almost to the point of being non-existent.  Most of our struggles these days are what I would characterize as normal kid stuff.  However we seem to be dealing with a new struggle and our foe has doubled down on the attack. Satan hates adoption.  He hates the healing that comes with it.  He hates the broken cycles of abuse and drug addition.  He hates the love and the hope...he hates everything about it. We have been under what I can call nothing short of a blitz attack.  There have been issues after issues in our personal lives; finances, housing, deaths, sicknesses, relationships... ...

So I've been MIA for a while.  We are now closing in on our adoption date and things are good.  We still have rough waters but the frequency of them is less and less.  A has now really assimilated into the family and it's like he was always here, and I cannot imagine life without him at this point.  He's a big goofy ball of snuggles, cuddles, leggos, minecraft, xbox and nerf wars.  I was, however, woefully unprepared for the tornado that is boyhood--the ruined clothes alone are shocking!  But so much of what we encounter these days are simply boy issues and not trauma/foster care issues. I will say that Jason and I are still shocked by the injustices of this child's prior life experiences.  For the sake of his privacy I won't do into detail but there are so many life skills that he just doesn't have because no one took the time to teach him, or later on ask him if he knew how to do them.  We keep stumbling into things and saying, "That never...

Wow!  Here we are, PAST the 3 month mark.  I feel as if we may have found our new rhythm of life.  Behaviors have calmed down, and all the pieces are beginning to blend together seamlessly.  We still have hard days, but their frequency continues to decrease.  If I'm honest, I can already feel the pull to do this all over AGAIN!  Yes, it is hard.  Yes, it is messy. Yes, it is stressful and conflict is inevitable.  But the benefits are so very great.  I have watched a child simply transform in front of my eyes in a very short 3 months.  I can think of no greater way to impact society, and The Kingdom, than to take a helpless/hopeless child and give them hope, love and a possibility for a future. We covet your prayers as there is still much to learn and so much ground to cover; but I have faith that all of the tears, time, effort, heart-break, frustration and exhaustion will pay off in the end. ALOT has changed for all of us th...

We are flirting with our two month mark--it is a few simple days away.  However, in adoption, no day is truly ever simple.  I recall myself dealing with an extremely petty situation at my child's school last week (one in which would have never been on my radar or high on my priority list FOR ANY of my children--let alone one with a history like, and dealing with issues like W...I'm a fan of simple, natural consequences) and this situation prompting me to say to my husband, "There are only so many things that I can possible say out loud (if you are a teacher think in the world of Think Alouds) every day and this just wasn't one of them".  However, for the other parent  involved, and the school, it was important so we did everything we could to comply.  But I distinctly remember myself thinking, this just isn't high on my priority list.  You see folks, when you are dealing with a child who has come from trauma you deal with the BIG issues first, and sometime...

So, many people have asked about our adoption journey--from the outside it most likely seemed like a sudden decision.  In reality, it was light years away from that.  God laid adoption on my heart about 4-5 years ago.  My family was blessed to be surrounded by family and friends who blazed this path long before us.  Through witnessing these stories, God softened my heart towards the plight of children awaiting adoption; specifically children who have lived through trauma and have been removed from their biological family for reasons outside their own control.  I approached Jason about 4-5 years ago and asked what he thought about adoption.  I had always wanted a larger family, but for him this was a bit much to process--you see, Jason is an only child.  We were stopped dead in our tracks after  the birth of our second child because I became seriously ill with an autoimmune disorder and having our own was no longer an option.  My heart i...

Well, we started this journey after our decision at the end of December 2016 and here we are.  It is September and W has been with us for a full month.  We knew the potential struggles and joys going into this matched adoption--but nothing can really prepare you.  It feels like a Tale of Two Cities , "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times"....ALL AT THE SAME TIME. Our hearts are full, our plates are full, our schedules are full and slowly but surely our little arrow is getting more and more comfortable in his new quiver. I'm not going to lie--some days are just plain hard and others are fantastic. On any given day I can find myself crying from exhaustion one moment (I used to think teacher tired was the worst, but new adoptive parent tired trumps it every time), and laughing with joy the next.  No matter what we are on this roller coaster for the long haul. I want to thank those of you who have supported us in help with his transition...

So I met with my rheumatologist today, I am going to be brief because the drive and visit completely wore me out.  I must say that I am so very thankful for an understanding and patient physician.  He listened while I walked him through the whole schpheel, asked a few questions and this is the answer I got. Having the flu in March suppressed/messed up my immune system to the point that I became more susceptible to infections.  The parade of infections that followed have now culminated into a super-infection that is no longer responding to basic antibiotics.  He instructed me to remain off the methotrexate because it will only worsen my healing and gave me a new antibiotic RX to get me through til Monday.  Monday I will see an infection disease physician to come up with a long term treatment plant to eradicate the underlying infections.   Continued prayers are welcomed.

Let me tell you a story.  I haven't 'babbled' in quite a while and when I get really low it seems that, along with God, writing gives me great comfort.  It is extremely cathartic.  So I will begin at the beginning.  Last summer I suffered sever sprain in my left ankle, the 6th total. I had to have surgery and the details of that are a story for another day. But long story short, I have not been well for any long period of time since the surgery. I could walk through all of the insane ins and outs of it all but I will focus on these last three to four weeks simply because otherwise it is simply too much to try to convey in one post. So to begin with, I started having severe headaches, to the point that my teeth hurt and pretty constant nosebleeds.  I headed in to my GP who diagnosed a sinus infection and prescribed a round of cephalexin.  Because of my methotrexate use due to my psoriatic arthritis I can only be prescribed certain antibiot...

Our group discovered just what we expected.  Many companies market their products as green with labeling etc without actually having been held to any green standards.  The only products that have been tested to meet green chemistry standards are those with the EPA safer choice label. So this last day of MoDRN at Baylor University was great.  All the groups worked on their platform presentations that morning and presented after lunch.  As far as the findings go, they were very interesting and unpredictable between product groups.  We found that the insect repellent marketed as green was indeed less toxic,  however, in the case of body wash green marketing did not exactly mean less toxic (to D.magna) For example, we showed these two examples of product marketing and asked the audience to pick which one they would buy if they were looking for a green product.  Everyone chose Simple Green, however, Odoban actually has the EPA safer choice logo meani...

So I will start today by reiterating how much of a blubbering goof I am. To begin with, I broke the salad tongs at lunch, apparently I do not know my own strength.  Then after halfway filling my soup bowl I dropped my entire bowl upside down back into the soup serving bowl...my true colors are showing!  Then to top it all off--today I rocked a new Hawaiian style maxi dress that my husband picked up for me yesterday.  I did a double take in the mirror this morning and briefly thought the cut was kinda weird so I threw a cardigan over it and went about my day.  It was only after spending a full day with normal, legitimate, intellectual people that I realized I had gone ALL DAY with my fabulous new dress ON BACKWARDS!  Needless to say I AM RIDICULOUS! Now, on with the science! Just For FUN! Adult Daphnia in beakers So today we began with a lecture over poster presentation and then had about 2 hours to begin working on data input using EXCEL and ...

So it hit me today in lab that I should be blogging about my experiences with MoDRN at Baylor University.  I am 3 days in but I will try to cover days 1-3 here and henceforth blog daily. So back in the 2014 school year I applied for the MoDRN teacher lab experience and research opportunity with Baylor University, Yale and 2 schools out of Washington.  I was chosen for the program and started this Monday July 6, 2015. Of course I can't just do something like this program gracefully and/or at 100% so for good measure I went ahead and sprained my ankle Thursday after the last day of ECHS at La Vega.  So I've been hopping around all week.  It honestly, other than being an annoyance, hasn't caused any issues for me. Monday was spent predominately on paper work and background lectures with Dr. Brooks from the Environmental Science dept at Baylor.  Tuesday we began again with a short lecture and were divided up into our lab groups and assigned to our PhD students....