Just plain rambling!

Be forewarned that I am pretty much just rambling in this post. My mind is filled with a million things to do and thoughts of things to be done. So if you're waiting for anything of substance, this post won't be it.

First, I want to say thank you, God! This morning I awoke to an email from someone who adopted a beautiful little girl when I adopted Kai. We weren't really close, but I followed her journey, and I think she followed mine. :) Anyways, she sent me an email stating how she came across my website and saw that we were adopting again. Then continued to read on as far back as the first posts on this blog from October. When she was finished, God had moved her heart to show her that she had moved away from him, but that He had never left her. Why am I sharing this? Because sometimes I ramble on about God's never-ending goodness and I wonder what people think. I know He shows himself in everyone's lives. if they are open to Him. And once they do, the wonders NEVER cease. So, N. thank you for your email. We serve an awesome God and I'm so very glad that he has used me as a tool to touch your heart.

Let's see.....aaah yes, Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year this year lands on Feb. 18. Very late. So, what difference does this make to me? Well, it's pretty big. I've had my heart set on being DTC Feb. 16, and praying hard for a very quick LID (log-in-date) so that we could standing in China on Scott & Kai's birthday this year, May 27. My plans were already made up and going as scheduled, until I realized that Chinese New Year will push us into June now. Why? Because although our agency will hand-walk our dossier into CCAA on Feb. 16, it will just sit until the holidays are over. Meaning that they will not log anything in until AFTER Chinese New Year because they will obviously be closed for a week. On the norm now, it's taking almost a month from DTC to LID, so if we're lucky, we'll be logged in mid-March.

Next, comes step 2. The average wait from LID to TA (travel approval) is about 93 days. If you calculate 3 months from our LID, we are now looking at mid June! Now, we'll be fortunate to be in China by Father's Day. Yeah, yeah...I know, a wonderful holiday...but sheesh! I am so ready to bring this baby girl home. She'll be 2.5 by then! ::sniffle:: I know things can change, and I know God's hand is in it, and if He wants us there earlier, He'll make it happen, but He is sooooooo darn good about trying to teach me patience. I'm just a REALLY bad student!

Hmm...ok, what else. Ahh..I know. Something that's been bothering me a bit lately. Have you ever felt like a "fake", but never intended to be anything of the sort? I don't know if you guys will understand any of this babbling, but it's becoming therapeutic, so I'll continue on.

You all know I have great love for our Lord and great faith in Him. My life has been transformed 360 degrees since He came into it. Actually, since I found Him. He's always been there.

So, I try to live my life with Him in mind all the time. I try to be a good person. I try to follow the "WWJD" rule. I try to help others when I could, you get the point. But, let me be the first to say, that I don't come anywhere near what He expects from me. I know I let Him him down, probably on a daily basis. That said, let me get back to my point about feeling "fake". Since I try so actively to keep God in my life, as those of you know that have been following my journeys, I speak about Him all the time and how I see and feel His presence in a lot of what I do. I think I've created this "image" of myself as being so holy and prayerful. That's where the fake comes in. I try to be. God knows I do. But, I'm not. I'm not perfect in any way, shape or form.

So, I am so very much humbled when I receive emails asking for prayer or telling me that my words have strengthened your faith. In fact, it's your words that strengthen mine. It's hearing from others that God used me. that gets me back on my knees, first to thank Him and second to ask forgiveness for not being what He wants me to be, yet for still using me to do His work. But the silver lining is that, in the end, I know He never stops loving me and He will never leave me. His word tells us so. So, I just want to say to those of you that take the time to write, I thank you. It is very much taken to heart.

And that, leads me to my last paragraph, since I hear thru the monitor AJ stirring from his nap, which in turn will wake up Kai. This I find so cool!! I've gotten a HUGE amount of visits on my Formed By Love website, over 25,000! I often wondered where and who are all these people. Of course, I knew of some friends and family, but best case scenario that's maybe 40-50 people. One day in my going thru yahoo groups, I noticed that someone mentioned that they had visits on their site from someone in Beijing. I thought, "how cool is that?!!" So, I inquired how she knew and she lead me to this great site.

Anna Grace's blog has had over 5,000 visits since I started it in October, that just amazes me. But, now, it's very neat because I can see who and where everyone is coming from! I love it! I'm thrilled and it's my latest amusement that keeps my mind off of Anna Grace when the boys aren't running me rampid. Frequent visits range from places like Hamburg, Germany; Pepperell, MA; Larchmont, NY; Mountain View, CA; Palm Coast, FL; Berthoud, CO, Becker, MN and Ontario, Canada! That, again, is soooo very cool! Thank you for the smile as I'm waving back at ya from Ft. Myers!

By the way, the two top states that frequent Anna Grace's blog? In 2nd place, the wonderful state of Texas. The number one visits to Anna Grace's blog come from ::drum roll:: Yep, the state that Scott and I hope to retire to, the beautiful state of North Carolina!

Gotta run....they're both up now, right on cue. Have a great evening and thanks for listening to me ramble!