January 16, 2013…. the year begins…. tardily…

This is the longest hiatus I have ever had from MSJ.  I am astonished that you faithful readers keep coming back and reading in my absence.  Hopefully something I wrote somewhere along this journey gave you something to smile about!  At this point, headlines would not even fit the bill for the last two months of craziness in the Crosby household.

We had the Great Computer Crash of 2012 which began with a mystery download from an unnamed son (who knows better) which slowed our computer to a snail’s pace, but gave us a nice icon of Jesus wearing red head phones.  So, off the tower went to Howard, the other savior (little s).  THEN, the plug-in dealie on my laptop broke… broke right off the board (whatever that means).  We are still in denial about having to pay the same cost as buying a new laptop to have it repaired. So we have been internetless since December10th…. until yesterday.

Good thing there was a three week road trip in there!  It wasn’t our original plan, but it worked in our favor to drive up and down the western states and into Canada using our friends’ and relatives’ computers.  The Crosby Canadian Christmas Adventure was cold but quite enjoyable spending time in British Columbia… by the fire place and eating hot soup and sipping warm cocoa.  Rick and the older kids went to a spin class several times, but also took in: swimming, ice skating, paint ball, pickle ball, a glow-in-the-dark ping pong tournament, snowboarding and skiing.  The kids haven’t seen their Uncle Glen in 10 years!  Hopefully it won’t be that long next time!

Thirty-six hours after we returned from the west coast road trip, we embarked on our southwest road trip to take Larisa (our firstborn, first graduate, first everything) to Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, OK.  If you haven’t been to ORU  (or to the 1960s in a while), it is a trippy scene….. I’ve never seen so many buildings made of gold and sidewalks that are diagonal.  Seriously, if you are a film producer and need a 1960s set, DON’T BUILD ONE!  Go to Tulsa; it’s all there for your 1960s dreams to come true.

We did have a successful first launch of a child from the nest.  Rick and I had plenty of reflection time (due to him mistakenly taking three extra days off work) as we drove from OK through KS, CO and NM on our way home to AZ.  My conclusion to our happy send off is that we have no regrets.  We feel like we did what the Lord called us to do with homeschooling and pouring our lives into raising our kids.  (Not that we are done, by any stretch of the imagination…. nine more years.) Most importantly, I am thrilled that Larisa gets to go to a school still based on the foundation is started on….. Jesus Christ.  I’m so blessed knowing that she is surrounded by other kids who are sold out to the Lord and are striving to learn to be more like Him.  ORU is unusual in today’s world and it is the perfect place for our girl right now. (The JB posters were a joke…. thank GOD!)

Yes, I still accidentally set six places at the table on the first night home, but there were no tears.  Only smiles of joy and gladness.  And I can blog again.  My world is right-side up, despite a choppy start to 2013.  Happy New Year!

ROAD TRIP to Canada Day #1

Every five years, our family makes the trek north to our homeland Canada where we met and fell in love with starry eyes and warm hearts.  Crosby Family Christmas was occurring in Abbotsford, B.C. at my brother and sister-in-law’s house.  Three out of the four siblings arrived with kids in tow along with Rick’s folks…. 15 of us in all.

We never leave on time for road trips.  Various circumstances contribute to this, mostly, however, is my dear husband’s tendency toward tardiness.  Day #1 had 12 hours of driving on the agenda, but there was not an impending arrival time that we were aiming at.  This was a godsend because my great aunt and uncle are staying in our house for us and watching the doggies…. which translates to the house needing to be spotless… way beyond the normal “leaving on vacation” level of cleanliness…. causing three of my four children to roll their eye balls at their mother.

Soooooooo, departure time was chosen for 7:00 a.m.  At 9:15 a.m. dusting and mirror cleaning were still in progress.  We pulled out of the driveway at 9:38 a.m. BUT there were three scheduled stops before we could leave town.  Rick had some checks to drop off, his work truck to take to the mechanic and we still needed gas for the trip.  At 10:27 we pulled into Circle K in downtown Phoenix and Rick announced to his wife and four children, “Everyone go to the bathroom because we’re not stopping for a long time!”   Into the gas station we obediently traipsed.

11:01 a.m. we officially left Phoenix and began our trek westbound.  At 11:18 a.m. Rick mousily squeaked from the middle row of the van that he needed to go to the bathroom….. so we turned into another Circle K in Buckeye, AZ!  And thus began our 3,400 mile ROAD TRIP to the Great White North….  only 3+ hours behind our scheduled departure.  Not bad.

Christmas Creativity

My sister asked me to make an apron for her in April or May.  She sent me a picture of what she wanted…. black with tiny polka-dots and a few faint ruffles on the bottom edge.  Black didn’t seem practical for baking…. flour, butter and sugar will show up like a fly in the milk.  But black and pink are so cute together! I’ve been wanting an apron myself for quite some time, so the idea appealed to me.  My sister-in-law, Jennie, came for a visit in March and brought me beautiful Beatrix Potter Benjamin Bunny fabric…. perfect for an apron for a Miss Potter super-fan!

June rolled around and we were off to a cabin for vacation.  Before we left I gathered fabric, ric-rac, ribbon, thread and I found a pattern that looked fairly straight forward.  The creative juices were flowing…. but sewing time didn’t present itself at the cabin.  Bummer. 

December rolled around and my sister was coming for Christmas!  I had great expectations, but I didn’t actually get the apron sewn before gift giving commenced.  It was more of a last day of December gift.  She loved it and so did I.  I just had to share how cute it turned out.  Now hopefully I’ll get mine done before next Christmas baking season!

HELLO! and come in for some hot cocoa!

Many disturbances in the force have contributed to my blogging absence… including, but not limited to, Christmas, my sister and her family visiting from Washington, Christmas Eve service, an Elvis Dinner Theater double date, Jesus’ Birthday party, cookie decorating, shopping, wrapping, Chelsea (Larisa’s friend) visiting for a week, and an Amazon gift wrapping experience that made me appreciate my life. (That warranted a blog all by itself!) Oh, and I almost forgot the most important reason I have not been on MSJ…. my laptop got a virus and wouldn’t let me get online.  It’s all better now, thanks to Howard.

Many Christmas blessings transpired which I have been eager to share.  #1 (and most important) I got a text from my friend Jill on Dec. 22nd near midnight that read “A friend has two free baby wiener dogs. Did you get Larisa a gift yet?”  That was it.  I was ruined.  Have you seen dachshund puppies?  They are irresistible… even if you have sworn by the Virgin Mother and the baby Jesus child that you will never go through puppy-raising a second time in your entire life.  My 18-year-old daughter has wanted a wiener dog for years.  She has a dog.  But she wanted a wiener dog.  I’ve said NO for years.  She has taped pictures of wiener dogs on my bedroom door.  She has posted wiener dog pictures on my facebook page.  She even doggy-sits wiener dogs… and brings them over to show me how adorable they are.  I finally broke down and told her I would buy a wiener dog for her as a wedding gift.  (She doesn’t even have a love interest at the moment… and as I said previously, she’s only 18.)  I thought it was a great compromise.  Then came the text.  I didn’t say anything, I simply showed the text to my husband.  We both raised our eyebrows and shook our heads.  We were thinking the same thing….. FREE…. and our little Colombian princess would love to have a puppy to play with.  It could be a doggy for both of our girls to share.  Then when Larisa goes to college, Nora is still here to clean up the back yard of doggy doodoo.  Perfect.

I called another friend who received a baby wiener dog for Christmas last year…. and didn’t keep it.  I wanted to know why.  Her answer didn’t help me.  She didn’t have time to train him.  Well, I’m home all the time… with nothing to do.  Perfect.  I started to list off all the things we would need to purchase for the puppy…. doggy door, crate, gate, etc.  She piped in with a FREE doggy door and crate.  Perfect.

Christmas Eve at approximately 11:59 and 1/2 Rick gave his blessing for the acquisition of the baby wiener dog.  Oh, were our girls going to be thrilled.  A few glitches have occurred.  It took us so long to decide, the puppy missed ride #1 from California to Phoenix.  Ride #2 is on Jan. 3rd.  At least that gives us a week before we start school again!  Here are the girls when they heard the new puppy news:

Shocked and amazed.  It was priceless.  We only have a few blurry pictures from which to choose a new family pet… and they are from a cell phone.  We don’t have a name chosen yet, and Larisa is leaning toward the bigger brown puppy not the smaller black puppy.  I’ll keep you posted and hopefully get some blog-worthy photos.

I’ll save #2 and #3 Christmas blessings for other blogs.  Needless to say… not much else could beat a Christmas puppy… and it isn’t even home yet.  (I’m seeing this as my ticket to new carpet… in a year!)

Oh the Weather Outside is Frightful!

Really!  In Phoenix… in December… it snowed only 25 miles from our house!  We had rain … but we are not used to harsh conditions where we need closed-toed shoes… and a jacket!  I can imagine the sympathy in your heart for us!  haha.

December brought out Christmas decorations with a vengeance… lights, wreaths, trees, snowmen, etc.  First year EVER… I got the fake tree up with all the silver, blue and white ornaments… on December 1st!  A week later, we are still waiting to go buy a tree for all the non-blue ornaments.  A few years back, I came to the realization that red is not my favorite color.  In fact in the ROYGBIV list… I’m basically loving the rainbow in reverse order.  I’m a violet, indigo and blue gal from the boots up.  SO…. I went blue Christmas shopping and the blue tree was born.  I love it more each year… as the ornaments accumulate.  There are a few homemade preschool ornaments that made the cut… we have a popsicle stick Star of David with blue glitter…. and a dough star painted royal blue.  Yes, they are on the back, but they did make the cut for MY tree.

I love these stained glass snow flakes.  Rick and I bought these in Mexico two years ago at Christmas time.  Love them!

This stained glass trio was purchased last Christmas in Bogota, Colombia.  Yes, it’s supposed to by Mary, Joseph and the Babe Jesus, but I also like to think of it as Rick, me and our little colombian princess who joined us last Christmas!

Nora has loved the thought of Christmas since her first days in the USA.  She arrived to her forever home on December 22nd and it was one big blur of Christmas bliss her first week home!  Her eyes sparkled when she saw Grandma’s house all decorated in every corner!  A village with ice skaters and lights in the windows… a sleigh full of teddy bears… brass reindeer with ribbons… embroidered Santa pillows…. snowmen that play the piano and sing…. little Christmas mice climbing candles… matching wreaths on the front doors… and Santa himself waving the lantern from the top of the tree…Spendid!  All year long she has repeated that Christmas is her favorite!  We have stressed over and over that it is our favorite too, because Jesus was born then and THAT is the reason we celebrate.

We are doing the Jesse Advent Tree devotional with the kids.  We bought a little tree for the kitchen table that looks pretty lame right now with only five ornaments, but it looks a little better each day as we add to the story of Jesus!  We review every night and Nora basically gets it so far…. just a bit off on a few stories!  It is a bit alarming that of the first five stories, death is talked about three times!  (Adam and Eve’s disobedience, Noah’s neighbors and Abraham starting to sacrifice Isaac!)  I never thought of it before, but it’s all part of the story of our salvation!

So thankful for a relaxed Christmas month to share with our little girl!

Minor Victory in my Post Adoption Life

As I have confessed here before, my life is so much different now that I have four children.  This week we will have been home from Colombia with the Colombian princess for five months… also marking HALF A YEAR that she has been our girl.  My, does time fly when you’re having fun coping issues. :o)  But a light has begun to shine at the end of the tunnel for me.  I’m back on top in a few areas that I feel are worth sharing for my own cathartic needs.

1.  I am back to being a coupon queen.  With the aid of my son (who loathes de-collating coupon books, but loves his mama) my coupons are all up to date in the file box.  I spent about a half hour making a list and checking it twice and headed off to do BIG saving shopping at Fry’s grocery store.  When it all came down, I filled two carts (mainly because I stocked up on paper towel) and the total would have been $280, but after my coupons I paid $106.  My pantry was bare-er than it has ever been in the past four years, but I remedied that in one trip!  My children are much happier now that they see a supply of food that will last more than two days!  Nora could not believe how much stuff I bought!  And she doesn’t even understand the savings yet!

2.  My Tupperware cupboard is cleaned out!  This is almost a miracle.  When do I have time to do mundane chores like that?  Hardly ever!  But this week, with the help of the same son and my little new helper, everything blinkin’ plastic thing was pulled from the cupboard and MATCHED with its lid!  Whoa!  I know!  We filled the recycle bin twice with those containers that were partner-less.  It makes me happy simply to open the cupboard door and look at the tidiness.

3. My master bedroom closet is clean!!!  That means I finally hauled out all the Christmas decorations, wrap and bows that were thrown in there in early January!  I also went through my clothes and threw out items that should have been thrown out years ago.  I also put together a BIG bag for Goodwill.  And filled the garbage can twice!  This does not mean that I touched any of Rick’s clothes or junk quality paraphernalia.  But I did count his t-shirts….. 33.  Why in heaven’s name does any grown man need 33 t-shirts.  They don’t.  That is on the agenda for today! (Don’t tell!)

I’m feeling almost close to normal… about three minutes off.

Pumpkin Pie Pudding

Anyone remember when the pumpkin shortage was announced back in the Fall of 2010??  Well, I, for one, was not going to be short on pumpkin come Thanksgiving time.  I stocked up when I found the cans of orange goodness in a local store.  Then we got our adoption referral and left for Colombia the day before Thanksgiving.  You guessed it, I didn’t cook anything with pumpkin last Fall.  When Christmas rolled around, we had been home from Colombia with our new daughter for three days…. and cooking anything was not on my list.  I was in survival mode.

Fast-forward three-and-a-half months to this week, and envision me standing in front of my pantry staring at cans and cans of pumpkin.  It was raining, even hailing, outside… yes, we still live in Phoenix!  Pumpkin cooking time had arrived and I was ready to fully embrace it.  I searched through the cupboards and took inventory.  Next, I went to www.supercook.com and typed in the ingredients from my pantry.  They ALWAYS can come up with a recipe for you no matter how strange your items are!  Amazing!  Well, I didn’t have any cooking oil, so that severely limited my pumpkin choices, but one did catch my eye…. Pumpkin Pie Pudding.  Sounded divine.  I was salivating thinking that in an hour or so, I could be savoring a yummy pumpkin dessert.

Not so.  As it turns out, the recipe I found was yummy, and easy, and quick to prepare…. but it was a slow-cooker recipe.  SEVEN to EIGHT long hours in the crock pot were required before I could partake of non-shortage pumpkin goodness.  I prepared it anyway… and 10:00 at last night. 

When my husband’s alarm went off this morning at 5:00, I asked him if he could turn off the crock pot.  He replied in the affirmative…. but failed miserably to act on his promise once he arrived downstairs.  When I strolled into the kitchen at 8:15…. yes, it was too late to resuscitate the supposed-to-be-orange-now-dark-brown dessert.  Pumpkin Pie Pudding had morphed into Dark Pumpkin Brick from the HOT place.  Sadly, I got a spoon from the utensil drawer to investigate the darkness inside the pot.  To my surprise, it actually was yummy pumpkin pie pudding, encased in a thick skin.  I scraped off the top layer and removed the savory remains to a separate dish.  YEAH! 

All was not lost.  PPP was a wonderful, cold weather treat today!

Plans Gone Awry

In my perfect little world, I was sending out adoption/thank you/Christmas cards this year.  They are all addressed.  Since the decline of our referral in October, I’ve realized that they will not be sent until 2011.  Another year when I don’t have the heart to send out Christmas cards.  One of our family members is missing!  How can I send incomplete family pictures?  I cannot.  And that is the end of that.  I might do an email update for curious minds and those whom we only correspond with at the time of Jesus’ birthday celebration.  Then again, I’m sure many would be thrilled to get a Christmas card that is a few months late…. that is complete.

This morning, while whipping up Grandma’s Swedish pancakes, I put in the first Christmas CDs of the season.  Not a child came downstairs that did not comment on the yule tide tunes…. and we had two extra childs too.  :o)  BUT, then Third Day’s song came on…. Merry Christmas.  The lyrics came dribbling out of the stereo of another Christmas when your child is not home.  Good grief.  This is not GOOD grief…. this is SAD grief!  Talk about killing me softly with his song!

Staying positive is my goal this holiday season.  But, for heaven’s sake, this is the FOURTH Thanksgiving and Christmas without our baby girl.  My only hope is that we get the referral before Christmas and I can hang her Precious Moments First Christmas ornament on the tree because I’ll know her birth year!  Oh please, oh please.

On Saturday in a hearty attempt at garage saling with my husband… I did find another Groovy Girl doll for my little girl.  It’s the little joys that keep me going right now.

It’s October… already?

Pumpkin time… also, sadly, Christmas decoration selling time in the stores!!??!!  It always surprises me EVERY year! We have three more months until Jesus’ birthday.  Enjoy the Fall and Thanksgiving already.

On the adoption news front, I found out on Sept. 30th that we did have a referral in the end of July, but the child did not match our family file.  So we are still sitting at the top of the family pile waiting for our little girl to be available for us to go and love on.  It seems a November travel itinerary is still in the works.  Good news.  Wait wait and wait some more.

On the Mama-needs-a-distraction-from-waiting front, I have been reading a book titled Charting the Unknown: Family, Fear, and One Long Boat Ride by Kim Petersen.  Kim and her hockey-playing husband went to university with me and my hockey-playing husband.  Her prose is picture perfect.  Her colorful descriptions and parallel existence in her head are amusing and informative.  It’s a story worth reading because it deals with fear.  We all deal with fear, but we deal with different tactics.  After the death of their baby girl, Kim started dealing with fear head-on. It’s inspiring to read about someone who has been there, dove in deep, and came out alive.

I have read some of the story aloud to my husband, as we have laughed and laughed at the antics of his old teammate, Mike.  He was a jokester in college and obviously still is.  Some things never change.  We also had several flashbacks to university including the Sunday meal of roast beef, mashed potatoes and yorkshire pudding in the cafeteria.  The yummy memory made us both grin and smell the gravy 20 years later.

College life was sweet in so many naive ways.  If we knew then what we know now…. life would have been different.  But that’s the ol’ 20/20 hindsight deal again.  Kim’s book and her and Mike’s list of dreams from college made us take a fresh look at our dreams and goals.  Have we settled?  Have the dreams died?  No and no.  We will live out one of our pre-marital dreams in November when we go get our daughter in Colombia.

Do you have a dream or wish list from years ago?  Do you know where it is?  Have you reviewed it in a while?  Go find it.  It’s not too late.

Naked House

Since the removal of the real live Christmas tree (and the fourth or fifth dumping of the water from the stand on the carpet) and the fake Jenny Craig skinny tree with blue ornaments, the regular furniture and accessories have not made their reappearance in the house yet.  It looks quite naked in the living room and the family room. The garage is uncomfortably stuffed at the moment.  We need to bring in two coffee tables, three lamps, one chair, two silk Ficus trees and whatever used to be on the entry table and the piano. 

I think I’m liking the barrenness of it all.  Less to dust.  Not that I ever dust anymore.  I have children who do, despite the  infrequency that it gets accomplished.  Embarrassingly enough, the dining room chairs did not get their seats wiped for months… and in the dusty AZ desert, that is NOT good.  A guest in black pants, who shall remain nameless, came over, sat down, scooted back and unknowingly dusted one of the seats for me.  Yikes!  When said guest was not looking, I caught Larisa’s eye (the living room duster….) and pointed to the dust on our guest’s backside.  Good grief!

We had house guests visit for five days, so the loft/sewing room/school room had to be cleaned out.  I dusted the sewing machine and folded it back into its table.  I even dusted the elliptical machine.  It does get regular use, but the metal bars are a magnet to dust balls.  One of my helpful children loaded all the fabric from its obvious hiding place under the cutting table into a black garbage bag and to the garage. And even the loft/sewing room/school room looks bare naked at the moment.  It makes me feel lighter…. or slimmer…. or something.

All this nakedness needs to rub off in our master bedroom.  I desperately need to clean out the file cabinet drawers and file all the files on my desk.  It is a seriously organized conglomeration of files that simply need a home of their own instead of a pile… many piles… neat piles, but piles nonetheless. 

Anyway, I’m staying downstairs because it’s all naked and clean feeling down here.