Progression of a Day (Told with the Help of Peanuts and Arrested Development)

I thought that receiving our travel approval two days ago would put an end to all of my anxiety about our future trip to China to adopt our sweet Minsy girl.  Oh how wrong I was!  It was only the beginning of even more anxiety.  I have seen countless numbers of adoption blogs where everyone posts how long each step in the process takes, and no one, NO ONE, has ever had to wait more than a day for their consulate appointment after getting travel approval.  The consulate appointment is the final bureaucratic hurdle that we have to jump to get Minsy back in the United States.  Once there is proof of a travel approval, our liaison, Sabrina, has the ability to go and set up a consulate appointment so that we can get Minsy's visa and get her home.  There are a limited number of appointment slots, but it isn't too difficult to get something set up in the day after a travel approval is received.  I waited to hear from Sabrina or my agency all night on Wednesday night.  Well, actually I just waited until about 1 am, but I heard nothing.  I thought that maybe I might hear something yesterday during the day.  My China adoption buddy, Tara, who is on the exact same schedule as us got her appointment, but I heard nothing.  I figured that last night would be the night.  Once again I stayed up past midnight waiting for some sort of email.  Nothing.  Now I was starting to freak out a bit.  China is 13 hours ahead of us, so last night was actually Friday daytime for China.  If nothing was set up last night, then we would be out of luck for a week since it appears that all of China takes next week off to celebrate their national holiday.  I was done waiting.  My supply of patience had run dry.  I needed to hear that I had a solid date to work with.

That leads us to the events of this morning. I woke up and found that there had been no communication during the night.   I was totally dejected.  What had I done wrong that could cause all of these increasing annoying delays?  It is frustrating to sit around all day waiting for someone else to contact me.  I needed some sort of distraction, I guess, but all I really wanted was this appointment date.


If ever a moment in this process called for a Charlie Brown moment, it was this one.  I was totally bummed out.  This was me all morning:



By the way:  I love Arrested Development!

Like I have every few minutes for the past month, I once again checked my email.  I was in the living room while Laney, Herman, and Spencer were all in various stages of computer work nearby.  All of the sudden they heard a loud squeal from my mouth.  This was me at that moment:



Did we get notice of our consulate date?  No.  But I did get a sweet email from an author I follow on goodreads.  She is Courtney Cole, and she writes the wonderful Bloodstone Saga.  I have read the previous three books in the series and really enjoyed them.  She contacted me and asked if I would be willing to be a beta reader for her new book, the last one in the Bloodstone Saga.  She chose two people to be beta readers for this book, and she wants me to be one of them.   So, I screamed, "Yippee!" and did a little happy dance.  I forgot that Herman, Laney, and Spencer were in the room.  They thought that I had gotten our CA notice.  Alas, no.  But, I was really excited for this opportunity, and I was happy to have this little piece of news to distract me for a few minutes.  Courtney will email a copy of her latest book, and I'll get a chance to read and review it.  I'll post my review here on the blog when I finish.  Yea!

So, after this little bit of happy news, I went back to worrying about receiving this consulate appointment.  I sent a quick email to Sabrina early this morning to see if she had any info, but I wasn't expecting any message until late in the evening because of the difference in time zones.  I decided to just relax and not worry for a bit.  Just at that moment I heard the happy beeping on my iPhone letting me know that I had a new email.  It was from Sabrina!  Hurray!  She shot me off a quick message from her phone to let me know that she had just received it, and we are scheduled for a consulate appointment on November 15th.  Yea!  It is a bit later than I was hoping for, but I'll take it.  At least now I could make some solid plans. 

I've been working with a travel agent to get the main travel plans set up.  We've just been waiting for some solid dates to use.  I sent a quick email to our agent, Sandy, and she got right to work.  By the end of the afternoon she got back to us with tickets for all of us for less than a thousand dollars round trip.  That is a HUGE blessing for us, especially because we have to purchase so many tickets to get there and back.  And an added bonus is that the tickets are from St. Louis, so we don't have to drive all the way to Chicago like we thought.  That will especially be helpful when we get home.  I was ready to accept things right away, but Herman wants to play hardball and see if we can get an even cheaper price.  Normally I really appreciate Herman and his bargaining skills.  He can get lower prices almost everywhere.  That will be a real blessing when we are haggling in China.  But I just want to get these tickets, and I know that this really is a great deal.  We'll end up getting them.  It is just that Herman needs to feel like he has done everything in his power to get the lowest price.  I just want to get them soon so that at least this part of the process will be over.

So, if all goes according to plan, here's our itinerary:

•  October 28th -- Leave St. Louis
• October 29th -- Arrive in Beijing
• October 30th -- Rest/Get Used to Time Change
• October 31st -- Tian'anmen Square, Forbidden Palace, Drum Tower and Bell Tower
• November 1st -- Great Wall at Mutianyu, Beijing Opera
• November 2nd -- Behai Park, Olympic Stadium, Wanfujing shopping, Da Dong dinner
• November 3rd -- Temple of Heaven, Confucious Temple
• November 4th -- Lama Temple and Summer Palace (old and new)
• November 5th -- Free Day
• November 6th -- Train or Plane from Beijing to Wuhan
• November 7th -- GOTCHA DAY!!!  We get to pick up Minsy!
• November 8 - 10 -- Adoption work and sightseeing in Wuhan
• November 11 -- High speed train to Guangzhou
• November 12 - 14 -- Paperwork stuff in Guangzhou
• November 15 -- Consulate Appointment
• November 16 -- Pick up Minsy's US visa
• November 17 -- Take train to Hong Kong
• November 18 -- Half day Hong Kong tour and Harbor cruise in the evening, visiting Victoria's Peak, Aberdeen Fishing Village, Repulse Bay, Stanley Market, Buffet dinner and light show
• November 19 -- Disneyland Hong Kong
• November 20 -- Full Day Tsing Ma -- Lantau and monastery tour visiting Tsing Ma Bridge, Tai O Village, Po Lin Monastery and Ngong Ping Cable Car
• November 21 -- Fly back to St. Louis from Hong Kong

Way fun!  Way exciting!  Way scary!  This will definitely be an adventure for the Blau family.  I hope it all goes well.  I hope that Minsy will soon feel comfortable with us.  But, we'll be very adaptable once we meet Minsy.  We'll let her be the guide for us.  If she doesn't feel like seeing the sites we'll lay low for the day. 

So this is it.  We finally have a plan.  Hurray!  I'm ready to get things finished.

FINALLY -- The Travel Approval Has Arrived!!!

 

Hurray!  We are doing the Blau Family Happy Dance today because FINALLY we have travel approval from China, so now we can finally make real plans to travel to China and pick up our little Minsy.  Who would have thought that such a big deal would work itself out in such a mundane way?  I was sitting by my computer, like I have been almost constantly since I expected this TA, waiting to get some sort of email communication from our adoption agency, letting me know that our TA had arrived.  But I think that Marilyn realized that receiving the TA was a really big deal, so she wanted to call me personally to let me know the news.  I was really restrained when she called.  I don't think she could tell just how neurotic I have been for the past three weeks.  I just said, "Sweet!"  and then went on to figure out exactly what we have to do next.  

I contacted our China liaison to work on getting our consulate appointment so that we can make definite travel plans.  Travel to China for our family is a bit more complicated than it would be if it were just Herman and me going, because we have to get three hotel rooms wherever we go.  We have to find eight or nine places on planes, trains, and automobiles.  So it is a bit more complicated for our agency to arrange things.  It can be done.  It is just a bit more of a hassle -- but way worth it for us to be able to take the whole family and share in this experience together.  I wouldn't trade this for anything.  

I expected to hear back from our China liaison (I'd better just refer to her as Sabrina from now on because I'm getting sick of typing the word 'liaison' a hundred times a post) in the middle of the night.  I planned on staying up all night until I heard from her.  She's working in China, so all of her communication with me takes place in the middle of the night.  Well, I made it until 1 am without hearing anything.  At that point I decided to head to bed and trust that my Spidey sense would know if I got an email in the middle of the night and I would automatically wake up.  I woke up this morning with a killer headache, but no email.  So I guess Sabrina was not able to set any appointment up for us today.  I'll wait again for tonight which is actually Friday daytime in China.  That will be the last chance for her to set up an appointment before the big Chinese holiday week, so I'm fully expecting to have a date by this time tomorrow morning.  Then we can get this show on the road finally.  

Last night Herman and I did another session playing on all of the travel sites online, seeing how we could get the best price for flights.  When you are traveling with nine people, even getting tickets for as little as $100 cheaper makes a huge difference, so we've become experts in how to find the best rates for this China trip.  It seems like it will be cheapest for us to fly round trip to and from Chicago and into and out of Beijing.  Chicago is a bit further from us than St. Louis, but like I say, to save a bunch on tickets will make the extra five hour drive worth it.  It will make it complicated to have to leave from Beijing to get back to the US because we will be ending our trip in Hong Kong, so we'll have to either take a train or a plane back to Beijing.  The train sounds kind of cool, but it isn't one of the high speed trains, so it will take 24 hours.  The idea of taking a 24 hour train ride right before getting on an 18 hour plane ride with a brand new adopted little girl doesn't really make me giddy.  And then we have the whole issue of trying to find nine available plane tickets on one flight.  You would think that this would be easy, but not so much.  So far I haven't found anything, but we're letting our travel agent worry about this.  Worse case, we'll have to divide and conquer.  I don't mind this so much on the trip to China, but the thought of being on a plane with a little girl who might be having major meltdowns because she is terrified and cannot communicate with these strange people who are traveling with her worries me a bit.  I think it would be best that all of us are together to handle that situation.  Of course, I'm hoping for the best there, and hoping that Minsy will have an easy adjustment to our family.

So, today I'm going to try to get the house super clean.  It's not going to happen, but a girl can dream, can't she?  I'll wait by my front window for the FedEx guy to show up.  I'll run out and freak him out by asking if he minds if I take a picture of his runway walk as he brings me our original copy of our travel approval.  I've got to have the picture though -- It's for posterity!  Then after I encase the whole thing in some sort of titanium alloy so that it doesn't get folded, dirty, or torn I'll head off for a nap so that I can be ready to pull an all-nighter waiting for our consulate date.  

For now, I'm headed to my living room for a well deserved happy dance.  It's been over a year of bureaucratic hoops, paperwork galore, and waiting, waiting, waiting.  It's time to celebrate.  We deserve it!

Things Must Really Be Bad When Shopping Actually Does Make Me Feel Better

I love this picture because it is so not what Herman and I look like when we are shopping together.  If we were carrying that many packages I guarantee that Herman would have a grimace on his face while he rolled his neck around and around, begging me to please be good to him and stop shopping.

I've commented before on how much I hate to shop in  A Sad Tale of Purple Corduroy and Leg Warmers.  That is what made yesterday so extraordinary.  We have been so blessed to have so many girls showing up for Activity Days every Wednesday, and I underestimated what our attendance would be.  A few weeks ago I had the girls make some super cute prayer bears that they could put on their pillows to remind them to say their prayers when they go to bed.  We ended up being short five bears, and I promised the girls I would get them to them soon.  Of course I couldn't find any of the things here.  (St. Robert Walmart -- you are sadly lacking in any real quality crafting items!)  I had to go back to Springfield to get the bears at Hobby Lobby.  So Laney and I decided to take a little road trip yesterday to Springfield -- The Land of Opportunity.

We started out at the mall because as Hyrum was getting dressed in the morning I discovered that his little body had the audacity to grow three inches in the last two months.  All of the pants that I bought for him at the beginning of August (refer to the previous linked blog post) were already too short for him.  Thank goodness that JoJo is right behind him in size so that those purchases won't go to waste.  So I headed to JCPenneys to pick Hyrum a new crop of jeans to wear this winter -- just as long as his body doesn't decide that it wants to just skip boyhood and go straight to adolescence.  Picking out jeans for Hyrum was a piece of cake, and we were done in a jiffy.  But the little boys section was right next to the little girls section, so Laney and I decided that we should go through and see if we found anything cute for Minsy.  Find anything cute in the little girls section?  Is the sky blue?  The entire section that was previously occupied by young mothers shopping for the girls they were pushing through in strollers was now invaded by a close to middle aged woman and her teenage daughter, constantly stopping at each rack to let out a loud, squealy "Ohhhhhh!  Look at this!  Look at this!"  We couldn't help ourselves.  Things were so adorable!  I had previously made a guess about Minsy's size and bought a 3T outfit for her.  After seeing some of her newer pictures from China I think that I may have overestimated her size, so I decided to grab a few things in 2T.  Worst case, if things are too small we'll have something cute to pass along to another family.  We bought a super cute set of jammies, a pair of jeans, and a couple of tops.  Then I found this:

 

This is the exact same dress that Katie got for Christmas last year, and it had a matching dress that her American Girl doll could wear.  This one was in Minsy's size.  We had to get it.  Love it!  But I knew it was time to get out of that store before I did something crazy and planned an entire winter wardrobe for a little girl about whose size I was still only guessing.

Next I was at the mall, so I was obligated to stop by the booth that does eyebrow threading.  Have you ever seen this?   The picture at the right gives the impression that this is some sort of relaxing procedure that leads to serene beauty.  Maybe for someone out there, but for me this can be a bit excruciating.  I hate messing with my eyebrows.  They are the bane of my existence.  How is it that I have the thinnest, straightest hair on my head, but I can grow these long, thick, luxurious eyebrows?  I hate them (but not enough to devote the time to really keeping them as trimmed and manageable as I should).  Any time I get the chance I stop by the booth at the mall and have them thread my eyebrows.  It does create a nicer shape than waxing does, and it lasts a fairly long time.  It is worth a few minutes of pain.  I think if I were to do it more regularly it wouldn't hurt so badly.  Oh well!  This time it wasn't horrible, and now I at least don't have to deal with a giant forest of Melissa brow on my forehead for a few weeks.

And so the day went on like this.  I discovered the world's most wonderfully comfortable bra.  The sales lady actually told me that I needed a bigger bra size because I have cleavage.  Really?  I told her that she may be the only person on the planet to ever say those words to me and my flat chest.  Then I told Laney that she was also probably one of the world's best sales people because I bought the bra.  We sampled fall smells at Bath & Body Works.  We bit our cheeks to remind us not to go nuts and overspend at Hobby Lobby.  We stopped and purchased our last minute travel items so that we could be ready to pack for China.  We finished our shopping in Springfield with the obligatory trip to Sam's Club where I purchased loads of bulk toilet paper.  I am planning on hoarding toilet paper and using it to barter for fancy things when the world comes to an end.  People will be happy to trade for soft toilet paper, I'm sure.  Then we headed home.  On the way we stopped by Redmon's gift shop which is on I-44 about halfway between Springfield and Waynesville.  It is the store that advertises with those super giant signs for miles about being the world's largest gift shop and chocolate factory.  I needed to get some Missouri postcards to give to the orphanage workers in China.  Apparently postcards are a hot commodity.  I couldn't find some around here, but I knew I'd find something at this gift shop.  We picked out eight cards that were fairly representative of things you would see in Missouri that you wouldn't see in China.  I decided not to get anything showing hillbilly humor because I wasn't exactly sure how that would translate in China.  There were lots of "hillbilly" gifts, and I knew that they wouldn't make any sense to someone in China.  They barely make sense in America.  I told Laney about how I remembered that my Grandpa Landis once had a corncob hanging in his bathroom with a sign that said "Hillbilly Toilet Paper."  I was little, so I didn't understand that that was supposed to be funny.  I thought that I really had to use the thing, and wouldn't that hurt? (Don't worry world -- I didn't use it.)  (And just think about how much people would trade for toilet paper if they had to use scratchy corncobs.  See?  I'm planning ahead!)  This little shop was full of items like that, but I avoided purchasing them.  I did find a super cute set of threading boards from Melissa and Doug that I thought would be great to have on the plane.

Isn't this cute?

So the retail therapy ended, and we weren't too worse for the wear.  I got a few things that I needed to get before we head to China -- which we should do soon.  We should.  Right?  Last Friday after my meltdown I sent an email to our China liaison to figure out where our blasted travel approval was.  I was tired of waiting.  She sent me a message soon after to say that she believed that it had been sent from China last Thursday.  She told me that Wasatch should be receiving it on Monday or Tuesday.  I never fully trust that she is giving me solid information.  I sometimes think that she might be placating me a bit.  I don't have any real reason to believe this; it's just a feeling I have.  So I took this info with a grain of salt.  I would believe that my travel approval was on its way when it showed up on my front porch.  So today is Wednesday, and still no travel approval notice from my agency or on my porch.  Oh well!  I'm just going to pretend that it is on its way while I pack some bags today and clean, clean, clean a bit.  If it isn't here by Friday, then I'll decide that it's time to start making a lot more noise about these delays.  In the meantime I sent Minsy one last package from us to let her know we would be on our way to meet her soon.  It's super cute.  I'll post a picture when Ann sends it to me.

Until then, here's a cute Hyrumism that he shared with us on Sunday as we were driving home from church.  We have been lately talking with Laney about whether or not it is important to kiss other people before you find the guy you're going to marry.  Laney believes that she needs to wait to kiss anyone until she finds her future Mr. Wonderful.  (And we love her for this!)  Herman (and me also, to be honest) believe that you can't say that you won't kiss anyone until you are ready to be engaged because then you'll feel this pressure that you put on yourself, feeling as if now you are somehow obligated to marry this guy simply because he was the first one to inspire you to kiss him.  It's actually too complicated of a discussion to adequately explain on this blog without going into all kinds of psychoanalysis involving Herman, me, our families, our friends, and every other situation (both good and bad) that has led us to feel the way that we feel about this.  Suffice it to say, we are just talking about these sorts of things as Laney is in the beginning phases of her dating life.  So on Sunday as we were coming home Laney was sharing how another lady from church disagreed with Herman's philosophy about this and the reasons for this.  In the middle of this discussion Hyrum (who is almost eight) says:  I kissed a girl once.  The whole van got silent, and we turned around to look at him (except me -- I was driving).  Hyrum just looked at us and explained in his Hyrum sort of way:  I did, but I wasn't in my right head at the time.  I love that boy.  He is so good and sweet in every way.

So for now I'm off to clean, hoping to find some sort of email today with notice of this travel approval.  I'll post when it happens.  Fingers crossed!

The Day in Which Patient Melissa Completely Lost It

The picture above is an excellent representation of what my face looks like at least twenty times a day as I have checked my emails over and over and over again.   I expected our travel approval from China to arrive sometime in the second week of September, maybe even earlier if we were lucky.  I have been patient --- so patient.  I figured that it would get here when it was supposed to get here.  And yet it never arrived.  Travel approvals aren't supposed to take a lot of time to get to us.  Three weeks waiting seems to be highly unusual, and yet, here I am, still waiting after more than four weeks.  I contacted our liaison in China last week to see if there was something wrong that was holding up our TA.  She assured me that things were okay, and she felt like this week would be the week that we would receive our approval.  I am not exactly sure who will let me know when the TA arrives.  If it is our China liaison, she is working in China, so she would send us a notice in the middle of the night.  If it is our agency, they are in the US, so we would find out during the day.  So every day this week (and really every day for the past three weeks) I have woken up around 4 am each morning, rolled over and grabbed my iPhone, checking my email immediately to see if anything from China had come for me.  Nothing.  So then I carried my phone with me everywhere I went, even propping it up on the shower edge so that I could hear if I got the bleep letting me know that I had a new email.  By the end of this week I was cursing the names of Victoria's Secret, Oriental Trading Company, Bath and Body Works, Lands End, Gap, and Sears for their constant emails.  Every time I heard the beep it was just another solicitation from one of these companies.  Grr!   A few weeks ago I would check my emails about once an hour.  Then last week it was about every half hour.  This week I have been absolutely neurotic, checking it at least every 15 minutes, and sometimes more.  Why oh why would this thing not just get here?

I feel like I am in adoption limbo -- hanging out and waiting for someone else to do something without being able to do anything to speed the process up.  I can't call my congressman or my senator.  I can't call the Chinese government.  I feel like I just have to sit here and wait.  There seems to not be any rhyme or reason to the awarding of these TAs.  People who got their Article 5s after me are already in China, yet I have heard nothing.  What is going on?  I have done my part.  Our little Minsy is there, just waiting to come home, and yet we can do nothing to get her here sooner.  I try to talk myself through this and say that maybe there is some higher reason for our delay.  Maybe it is necessary that we wait to head to China.  But I'm just not feeling that.  At one time I was worried that our cost for traveling to China would be way higher because we would have to travel during the trade shows in Guangzhou that raise the costs of travel and lodging.  Now it looks like that won't be a problem at all.  We kept our girls out of marching band this year because we were certain that we would be taking them away to travel to China right in the middle of the competitive season.  Mr. Stockmann even moved up the fall jazz band concert to the beginning of October so that Savannah wouldn't miss it.  Now it looks as if that won't be a problem at all. 

I have been trying to plan my life around our travel to China.  First I thought that we would be leaving in July, and that was going to be perfect.  When that didn't seem likely I planned for August, wondering how that would mess up the kids with the first days of school.  That was going to work out, but then that also seemed unlikely to happen.  I hoped for September so that we could avoid the problems that would occur with traveling in China in October because of the national holiday week and those trade shows.  September didn't work out.  Now I'm wondering if October is even a possibility any more.  I just need to know.  As long as I had a solid date in my head I could wrap my head around waiting for that date, but having no idea at all of a date is about to drive me to distraction.

Well, today I hit my limit for patience.  I had gotten it in my head that this week would be the week.  I gave it until today, and once again -- NOTHING!  As the hours passed today I found myself getting more and more upset.  I hate feeling helpless in this process.  I sat down at the computer, and I decided to google and see if I could find out some reason for the delay in our travel approval.  Maybe there was some sort of national hiccup in China that was holding back some travel approvals.  I wanted to see if there was any scuttlebutt on the internet about delays.  I didn't find anything at all, but I ended up being directed to a blog written by some lady who just returned from China last week with her new son.  She had gotten her Article 5 the week before me, and yet she had already gotten there and back.  As I looked at all of her sweet pictures of their travel, their Gotcha! Day, and their time getting to know their new son I just lost it.  This is how I felt:

 

I felt that burn letting me know that a torrent of tears was on its way.  I wasn't interested in freaking out the kids by breaking down in front of them unexpectedly, so I ran back to my room and collapsed next to the bed.  I felt like I needed to pray or something, appealing to Heavenly Father to get this show on the road, but as I knelt there I couldn't find any words to say.  I just sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.  I'm pretty sure Heavenly Father got the gist of what I needed.  I wasn't quite sure.  I felt angry, frustrated, and sad all together.  I got all of my pent up feelings out there, and then I felt a bit better -- not exactly calm, but resigned.  It'll be okay, I'm sure.  I just needed to have a little freak out. 

I pulled out my phone and opened up all the pictures of Minsy that I have.  I just sat and looked at them over and over for a bit.  I am just super grateful that she seems to be with such a loving foster family in China.  I am glad that they will have a few more precious days with her.  If she cannot be with me yet, I am glad that she can be with them.  I stood up and headed to my window, looking out over our backyard.  The trees are still green here, but they are getting that color where you can just tell that the leaves are itching to turn.  It won't be long.  I had always hoped that there would be leaves on the trees when Minsy got home.  I never had any problems with winters until we moved to Waynesville.  There are so many trees here.  Our house is almost in the middle of a forest, so when winter arrives the world looks so barren.  Unless there is snow, the land is just empty of any color.  I've never really liked that.  And now I was contemplating bringing my new baby home to Missouri to that barren landscape.  Now I know it will be fine.  It is mostly that I am just in a bummed out kind of mood, but it made me a bit sad to think that she wouldn't see the beauty of our trees when she gets here.  I sat and watched our trees for several minutes until I felt like I could return to the family as a reasonably happy mom. 

I managed to salvage the rest of the night.  We headed to the high school football game.  Katie was cheering with the future cheerleaders tonight.  It is always fun to see so many little girls cheering their hearts out.  Bonus -- Waynesville actually won.  We played Joplin High School, and our school donated all the proceeds from the admissions tonight to Joplin's high school to help them after their school was devastated in the huge tornado last spring.  It was nice to see the cups lined up on the fence that said WHS loves JHS.  I think all of the schools in the district actually are doing this this year for Joplin, and it is nice to see that sportsmanship and love from other schools to Joplin.  It was also fun to see the marching band.  I just love marching band.  The girls were a little sad to not be a part of it this year, but we were good cheerleaders for the band on the sideline.  They seriously need another tuba player to balance out their sound.  I'm sure they will love having Savannah with them next year.  And, since almost all of the French horns are graduating this year, if Laney decides to go back to the high school next year, they will be happy to have her playing her horn.  We are super lucky to be in a place with such a great music program.

As a fun adoption side note -- while we are waiting Laney is getting revved up for Minsy arriving.  She has made loads of bows for her hair, and today she decided that she was going to make her a dress without a pattern.  It is this cute little dress that I can't really describe.  I'll have to post a picture when Minsy actually gets to wear it.  She has also decided to learn some Chinese children's songs so that she can sing them with Minsy when she arrives.  The big one she is learning is called Ni Wa Wa, and I posted a youtube video of it at the end of this post.  Laney is pretty good at singing it, but it can be grating to hear it hour after hour after hour all day long.  But, if it helps Minsy to feel more at home, I'm grateful to Laney for her efforts.

So that's it for my blog therapy this evening.  Typing out my experience of today helps me work through my feelings in a way that doesn't involve throwing heavy objects around my house uncontrollably.  It's probably healthier to just type my way through this.  Now I'm going to throw all my prayers to getting this travel approval next week.  It has to come.  It just has to.  If not, the entire Chinese society basically shuts down for the next week as they celebrate their national holiday.  I don't think my fragile heart could take it if I didn't have some sort of solid travel date until after that first week of October.  Fingers crossed!

And now enjoy a little Ni Wa Wa with English translation, set up with some scenes from Mulan for some reason.  (There is actually another video using a doll that better shows the meaning of the song, but I think it is pretty creepy, and I have some fear that if I watch it too much I would start having nightmares of this song).



Breaking Up is Hard to Do -- But Still Kinda Awesome

Today was a historic day at church for the St. Robert Ward.  Today we split the ward into a St. Robert 1st and 2nd ward.  It has been obvious for several months that this would be necessary.  Our building is just not big enough to support such a large number of people.  But another concern has been that with such a large ward it is difficult to reach every person as we should because it is too easy for people to get lost in the cracks when there are so many people attending.  Splitting the ward would not just give us added room to maneuver, but it would also give us a better chance to help those around us who are in need. 

But, even though the split might have been necessary, that doesn't exactly make it easier.  There is something exciting about coming every week to a large ward with such vibrance and enthusiasm all around.  It is wonderful for my children to attend primary each week with so many children, and I absolutely love having such a large young men and young women organization for my youth.  They are able to find others their age who believe the things that they do and will support them as they try to make good choices in a sometimes difficult world to grow up in. 

I remember when we first moved to Waynesville in 1997 and came to church.  It was a very small ward at the time, and we were used to the bigger wards in Springfield where we had lived for the past four years.  But still, it was a very friendly ward, and we loved it.  At that point Fort Leonard Wood was a lot smaller, basically only having the Engineers division there.  With the growth of Ft. Wood the ward has grown also.  When Herman got called to be bishop almost four years ago (has it really been four years already?!?) the ward was still kind of small, but it was larger than when we first moved here.  But that first summer I remember that almost a third of our members left because of change of duty stations or deployments, so while we had been opening up the back curtains to seat some people in the overflow section, now we had to close that up and just use the main chapel.  At that point Herman was talking to me and he said that one of his goals as a bishop was to get the ward to the point when we could split it.  At the time my thought was, "You dear, sweet, overly optimistic man!  Aren't you sweet?"  I had tons of faith in Herman's enthusiasm, but I just couldn't imagine it happening.  Despite the large population of the area that we get due to the presence of Ft. Wood, this area still has such a rural feel, and it seemed unlikely that we could grow to get to the point when we would split.

But I guess I should always have a bit more faith in these sort of things.  It was interesting to go to Salt Lake City last April so that we could take Spencer to General Conference.  While we were there, Herman's mission had a reunion.  He went to the Brazil Fortaleza mission from 1990-1992, and his mission president, Athos Marques de Amorim was in town for the weekend.  Herman hasn't seen him since the mission, so it was wonderful to see President and Sister Amorim there.  They are such wonderful people!  But the part of the reunion that was really neat to hear was when President and Sister Amorim spoke to us as a group and spoke about the growth of the Church in Fortaleza since the mission.  I will get all of the statistics wrong for this since I wasn't taking notes or anything, so I apologize in advance for any readers who get hung up on facts being absolutely correct in random family blogs, but here's an approximation:  When Herman served his mission there there were only a few stakes and one mission for the city and a few outlying areas.  Today there are two missions and many times more stakes than there were.  In addition they will soon dedicate the Fortaleza temple.  (Fingers crossed that we can be sufficiently recovered both mentally and financially from our big trip to China so that we can travel to Brazil for this!) 

But anyway, I mention that because this work is growing all over the world, including in St. Robert Missouri.  If you would have asked Herman twenty years ago if he expected that there would be a temple in Fortaleza, he would have expressed hope for that, but he could not have imagined it.  It is the same for our own area.  Too many of us are quick to tie the Lord's hands and immediately dismiss any thoughts of sustained growth in this area.  Yet it still happens, and it has been so fun to be in the middle of this.  We have not only enjoyed the blessing of having Ft. Wood grow, but we have been blessed with a tremendous number of kick butt missionaries who have served here in the past several years.  Herman has always had a love of missionary work, and he has wanted to give them the best environment to serve in.  He has wanted for missionaries in the Tulsa Oklahoma mission to always be hoping to end up serving in our ward.  He wanted for our ward to have a reputation as being the best place to serve in the mission.  I think that that is what is the case today.  Our missionaries have been the top baptizing area in the mission for a few years now, and even more importantly, most of those who choose to be baptize continue to come every week.  It has been a wonderful thing to witness so many lives changing because of the influence of the people in our ward.

So all of that leads to the events of today.  I admit that it has been exciting to think about this happening for the past few months, but last night I got this little flutter of worry about changing everything.  Things are going so smoothly, and it is always a risk to change things.  I have been teaching the activity day girls (ages 8-11) for the past month, and last Wednesday when we had 15 girls show up and have such a fun activity I was so sad to think that in a few weeks we would have to split this group up.  Then today the actual split happened.  I could tell by looking at his face while he sat on the stand today that Herman was full of emotion, and that always makes me emotional.  But, I'm not usually a big public crier.  I can feel myself starting to tear up, but with a big clenching of my teeth I can usually push the tears back.  I used to think that there was something wrong with me because I didn't seem to be as teary-eyed as most women around me, but now I think it is just that I am more internal about things.  It probably means that at some point in my life I will explode because I haven't let all my emotions out, and then I'll be a gooey mess for someone to have to clean up -- probably my kids (so start arguing now, Blau kids, over who the lucky child will be who has to clean up afterwards when this happens).  I managed to make it through most of the meeting without crying.  But then the primary and youth organizations got up to sing "I Love to See the Temple."  It was amazing to see all of them on the stand.  How many were there?  There were definitely more than 100 kids -- maybe over 150.  I don't know.  It was a lot.  There really wasn't any room for any more kids to stand.  It was beautiful, and before they began Herman came down to sit beside me since he had to vacate his seat on the stand to make way for all the children.  He leaned over to me and said, "I'm getting ready to do something that is all kinds of wrong."  Then he pulled out his iPhone and prepared to record their singing.  I took the phone and recorded everything from close to my chest so that it wasn't totally obvious, so I'm not sure just how high quality the video is, but I think we got the gist of the experience.  It was so touching to see all of the children singing together for one last time as a gigantic group, and then I looked over and saw Jenny Lykins crying while she was directing, and that was really touching too. 

So, after the song Herman gave a small talk about his feelings about the split, and it was so neat to hear him speak.  Actually it was nice to hear from all of the men who are serving in the two bishoprics of the two new wards.  Bishop Tripp is going to be a great bishop for the St. Robert 1st ward.  I thought it was funny that both of Laney's dads are serving at bishops in our area.  Herman is obviously her bio dad, but Brother Tripp was Laney's dad when they formed families for their pioneer trek last summer.  Jarrett and Sam of course will be great as they have been, and I'm super excited for Bro. Albrecht to be in the bishopric of the other ward.  He will do great.  So will Brother Brown, I'm sure.  But, I just loved Herman's talk.  He just has a way of teaching true principles while using the scriptures in a way that makes those stories come to life.  He has a gift of being a great teacher, I've always thought. 

By the closing song I was feeling full of emotion, and as everyone sang "Love at Home"  I burst into tears.  I kept thinking about how that was the last song we would ever sing together as a ward family.  I thought about how things were going to totally change now, and I was sad to see the change that would separate so many of us.  I just couldn't stop.  Where were the tissues when I needed them?  Poor JoJo kept looking at me while I was crying and wondering what in the world was wrong with his mama.  He doesn't normally see me sobbing in the middle of church. 

I only heard one youth griping about the split, and that was it for complaints.  Pretty good considering how hard it is for most people to handle change of any sort.  What I mostly noticed was people sad for the change that had happened because it would separate so many of us from regular interactions with the good friends that we have made.  That makes this split hard for us, but I have noticed that the large majority of our ward are people who are willing to do anything that the Lord asks, even when it might be hard.  We just jump in and do the best we can with the situation in which we find ourselves.  It'll all work out for the best. 

So now it is finished.  St. Robert Missouri officially has two wards.  It has been an amazing ride so far, and I fully expect the blessings to continue into the future.  It has been such a privilege to have Herman serve as a bishop for these three and a half years.  It has required a little bit of sacrifice from our family, but it is wonderful to see so completely how much the Lord loves each of us individually.  This will all turn out to our benefit.  We just have to throw ourselves into making it work with enthusiasm.  Great day!

Savannah cried during our picture at the end of the day, and she never cries.  She explained that they were simply "sympathy" tears.  It was an emotional day.

Herman directing traffic right before the picture.

New Birthday Pics of Minsy!

Minsy holding her birthday panda and wearing her birthday dress.
I just love this picture of her.  We call it Sassy Minsy.

I woke up this morning at 4 am.  It felt like my left arm had been hit by a truck.  Holy Cow!  I thought I must have had some sort of crazy walking dream and gotten in some sort of accident or bar fight or something.  Then I remembered.  Yesterday I went to Dr. Karls and got a booster shot -- my first one since I was a freshman in high school.  I thought I better be up to date before we head to China.  I do not remember immunizations hurting like crazy though.  Yikes!  My good friend Amanda gave me the shot, and she did marvelous.  She is a pro at it, and when she finished I thought, "Well, that wasn't bad at all."  Then I got the after kick, and it was a doozy.  Yesterday it felt like a bad bruise, but early this morning I thought I had been shot.  ((tears)).  I wonder if this is how all my kids have felt after immunization shots or if this is just another one of those bonus features of turning 40 -- extreme pain after shots.  Or maybe I've just become a big baby about shots. 

I hope that my arm can function today because Herman and I obviously are in need of some good procrastination projects, so we decided to tear up our nasty basement carpet today.  We'll just leave it as a cement floor until we get back from China.  Then we will probably tile the main area and put new carpet in the two bedrooms downstairs.  We just aren't a carpet in the basement kind of family, I'm afraid.  I'm too laid back about rules that would allow us to keep a pristine looking carpet anywhere in the house, and I'm not willing to change.  So, we'll compromise with tile and an area rug in the family room.  I think that we'll be happier that way.  We'll see.  For now we get to rip stuff up, and that's always fun!

But the best news I got today was that Ann from RedThreadChina, sent me some pictures of Minsy's birthday party from the 1st.  They are wonderful!  Ann apologized because Minsy's foster family did not have a digital camera, so they used their phone to take pictures, so the quality is not that great.  But I don't care at all.  The pictures are absolutely darling!  I can see a bit of Minsy's personality come through in them. 

We also got some more information about Minsy.  I sent some questions along with my pictures.  I found out that Minsy's best friend is Wu Teng Feng.  I hope that we will be able to have some pictures of Teng Feng to bring home with us so that Minsy can remember her.  Minsy loves sweet food best.  That's no surprise.  She loves to play with her friends and be outside.  Her foster mom asked that I give her lots of hugs and kisses.  I can promise her that.  She also said that Minsy is a very kind and caring child.  Yea!  She is not in school right now, so she must spend lots of time with her foster family.  From the answers to my questions I can tell that they truly love her.  I love them for that!  I just want this travel approval here now.  I'm ready to travel and bring her home.



Minsy giving her Peace Out sign.  Look at that cake we sent her!
I hope she loved it.  That will probably be the nicest cake she ever has for a birthday.  Birthday kids at the Blau house have to settle for a homemade Mom cake, and my decorating skills do not match this one.  It looks yummy!
I wonder who her buddy is with the matching outfit.

Herman loves this picture of Minsy. She looks so sweet!
Notice how big her birthday dress is. I debated about what size to get for her.  They had sizes 3-4 and 4-5. Since she was turning 4 I went with 3-4, but I was worried that I had chosen something way too small. Obviously not! It looks like this dress is huge for her. They've had to roll up the sleeves and in other pics I can see that the neck hole is gigantic compared to her head. Oh well!  She can wear it when she gets home. Herman thinks at her size she will probably be able to wear it when she gets to third grade.

Here's another birthday cake picture.  I wonder who the lady on the right is.
Is this Minsy's foster mother or just a worker at the orphanage?
Who are the children?  Are they from the orphanage, or are these
friends from the neighborhood?  I wish I knew these things.
Maybe when Minsy gets here I can find someone who knows
Mandarin Chinese and ask her to identify everyone.
Or maybe I'll try using Google Translate.
So far all I am good at saying in Chinese is "I love you,"
and "I am your mama,"  but I'll keep working on it.

A Story of Three Mothers

Still waiting.  Waiting can be pure madness at times.  I think that I am a relatively patient person, but when I have some sort of expectation of a timeline in my mind, I start to make plans in my head.  My plans for this adoption travel to China are not going according to schedule.  But, oh well, what can I do?  I hoping to hear something by the end of this week.  If there is any good news to come from the delay in getting our travel approval from China it is that we will be traveling to China after all of the major holidays and trade shows that will raise our cost of travel.  With taking the whole family on our trip it is going to cost a pretty penny to get us there.  Any amount of money saved on the trip will make Herman happy.

Lesson for today:  Any Pennies Saved = Happy Herman. 

Still, it is time to get sweet Minsy home.  At least I am super grateful that while she is in China she is being cared for by a loving foster family.  But I'm super ready for us to start our journey with her as a family.

While I have been waiting during these last several months I have often found myself thinking of Minsy's three mothers -- her birth mother, her foster mother, and me, her adoptive mother.  The chances are fairly slim that we will ever know anything about Minsy's birth mother.  That makes me sad for Minsy because I know that she will probably one day be curious to know about her birth mother, but there will be little that we can do to help her find more information.  China doesn't really have the sort of open records that would allow us to do any good investigation to find this mother.  However, I have my own ideas about this woman.  I believe that Minsy's birth mother loved her deeply.  In my research I have found that many children with special needs who are abandoned in China are abandoned at a very early age.  Minsy, however, was abandoned around the age of 16 months.  Someone obviously cared for her in those early months of her life because when she was found she was well-nourished and happy.  This little world is only inside my head, but I sincerely believe that Minsy's mother loved her dearly and only abandoned her when her ability to care for her became impossible.  Although medical care to help Minsy with her club feet is available in China, it is not always accessible to the general public.  The cost of care prohibits many from getting any medical care that they may need.  If Minsy's mother was poor, as I believe, she may have believed that Minsy would have a better future if she was abandoned to the state.  I don't believe that this decision was an easy one for Minsy's birth mother.  I believe that she held on to Minsy for as long as she possibly could, and that is why Minsy was so much older when she was abandoned.  This mother didn't just abandon her anywhere.  She made sure that Minsy was at the local police station where they could take care of her.  When Minsy arrived at the orphanage, they found that she could say the word "Mother" over and over.  I know that Minsy knew and loved her birth mother.  She called her "Mother."  I believe with all of my heart that I have a solemn responsibility to Minsy's birth mother to love her and care for her in the best way that I know how.  I believe that one day (probably in the hereafter) I will have the opportunity to meet this woman and account for how I have cared for Minsy.  I believe that when I meet her I will be able to tell her just how grateful I am for her giving birth to Minsy and trusting that I would be there to give her all that she needs to grow up to her full potential in this life.  I honor this birth mother, and I will continue to honor her each day of my life as I care for her sweet daughter.

Minsy also has been blessed to have a second mother -- her foster mother in China.  I knew from the moment I read Minsy's case file just how much this mother loved her.  We had read several files which introduce a potential adoptive child to a potential adoptive parent.  They are all pretty nice, but most that we read were relatively short, only giving the basic information about the child.  But Minsy's description was long and detailed.  You can read the whole thing here:

http://merrymeditations.blogspot.com/2011/08/for-those-who-havent-heard-yet.html

Minsy's foster family provided detailed information about little things that she did each day to show her love and concern for her family.  It was heart-warming to read this story about Minsy.  I could feel the love that this couple had for this little girl.  There are so many terrible things that can happen to young children who are in some orphanages throughout the world.  I am so grateful that Minsy lives in a province where so many foster families are available to care for these children.  I believe that it will be a positive influence that Minsy has had, being in a family where she can experience the love of a family unit.  It may be difficult for her at first to come to our family because we will not be this family that she has grown to love, but I think that ultimately she will come to see the same positive family relationships in our own family, and that will help her to form a strong bond with us.  I know that in Wuhan they do not allow adoptive parents to have contact with foster families.  If I want to communicate with them I will need to send a message through the orphanage.  I am pretty bummed out about this, because I would really, really love to meet this wonderful woman who has not only given of her substance to aid Minsy, but she has given her love to her.  She has given Minsy the opportunity to know what it is to grow up in an environment full of love and security.  Minsy will be the child that she is because of the love and sacrifice of this wonderful lady.  I will do whatever I can to help this family to know everything I can about Minsy's life as she grows up in our home.  I feel this connection to this woman for some reason, and I want her to know that I will love Minsy with all of my heart.

And then there is me.  I believe with all of my heart that Minsy had two mothers in China who loved her and wanted the best for her.  I believe that they both found that, for whatever reason, they would not be the ones who would raise Minsy into adulthood.  I believe that they were praying that somewhere in the world someone would come who would be able to care for Minsy and love her eternally.  I still don't know exactly why we were the ones to be inspired to do this, but I do believe absolutely that Heavenly Father inspired a father in Missouri to pursue adoption and add another child to his already large family.  I believe that when Herman approached me with his feelings, Heavenly Father then let me know without a doubt that I was supposed to be an adoptive mom.  He led our adoption coordinator to Minsy's file, and she led us to Minsy.  I believe all of this.  I'm positive that I'm not the world's greatest mom -- not in a long shot.  There are lots of ladies out there who could do this much better than me, but I believe that in some way I was meant to be Minsy's mama.  Her two other mamas needed me to be her mama.  With all of this difficult waiting, I still know that this will be the easy part.  The hard part starts when Minsy comes home and we get to spend time figuring out exactly who we are in relation to one another.  I am sure that there will be some bumps in the road, but I just have this feeling that we will connect to one another naturally.  I don't think that is just wishful thinking.  It might be.  But I feel like Heavenly Father has given me a responsibility here.  I'll have things that I need to learn, but I also have a wealth of knowledge and experience that I can share as well.  I want to be the very best mama that Minsy could ever hope for.  I want to not only do it for her, but for her two mothers who will remain in China.  I owe it to her (and to them). 

I know that lots of readers will already know this song, but I heard it again today, and it hit me as a future adoptive parent in a way that it never did before.  It is well known in LDS circles, I think.  For those who haven't heard it, Michael McLean is a gifted songwriter, but not so great of a singer.  However, his poor singing somehow makes this song almost more touching.  The words don't exactly match this experience for me, but they are close.  This is a song called "From God's Arms to My Arms to Yours," and it is a song that Michael wrote for a young woman who was unmarried and found herself pregnant.  After some soul searching she decided that she wanted to give her baby up for adoption so that a family who was able and willing could give her child a good home.  I have heard him sing this a few times at Time Out for Women, and it is powerful every time I hear it.  Today as I heard this song I thought about my Minsy's two mothers in China.  I thought about what a difficult decision it is to give up a child, and I thought about how they were depending on me to let Minsy know just how much they cared for her.  I think this song paints the picture better than I ever could.  I thought that there would be a lot more youtube videos of the song, but it was slim pickins.  This was the best video I could find.  This was Michael performing at an adoption conference in Utah a few years ago.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

I consider myself truly blessed to be one of three mothers lucky enough to have the opportunity to share my life and love with Eliza Ruth QingMin Blau.  I know that Heavenly Father knows her.  He knows me.  And He knows Minsy's birth mother and foster mother.  He's looking out for us.  And now (hopefully very soon) I will be looking out for a precious daughter for Him.

A Day to Remember

When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always."
— Mahatma Gandhi

In the past I have avoided all the 9/11 anniversary programs on television like the plague.  It has always bothered me to see the events of that day played out on screen while an announcer with a voice full of gravitas tells me how I am supposed to feel.  It has just bugged me, so I have chosen to avoid those things and just concentrate on my own thoughts and memories of that day.  Well, when I am folding clothes by my lonesome down in the basement I always turn on the television to play in the background so that I have something to occupy my thoughts.  Things get too crazy if I'm alone with my own thoughts for too long.  Trust me.  I usually just have it on MSNBC because I can listen along without having to be invested in some sort of program plot that would be in a regular TV show.  Normally I do my laundry Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but this week I decided to go whole hog into organizing all of our financial information so that I can finally get our files in to our accountant so that he can complete last year's taxes for us.  That put me a day behind, so I ended up doing laundry on Saturday.  There is no way on earth that I would ever turn on MSNBC on Saturday because they fill their programming slots with shows about life in jail.  Ugh!  Who watches that garbage?  But, anyway, yesterday they abandoned those horrendous shows to instead show a 9-11 show put together by Rachel Maddow and Richard Engel that looked interesting to me.  My apologies to those ultra conservatives of my acquaintance, but I really love Rachel Maddow, so I was interested in her show.

It turns out that I just missed the last presentation of that show for the day, and instead MSNBC was showing a real time replay of the NBC coverage of the 9-11 attacks from ten years ago.  I found myself watching despite my past avoidance of these shows.  At first my mind took me back to where I was when I heard about the attacks.  I think everyone who was old enough to remember that day does the same thing.  I was in the car driving to an OB appointment in Rolla.  I was pregnant with Katie at the time.  I was listening to a local music station on the radio, and in the middle of a song the DJ interupted to say that he felt like we would want to hear what was going on.  The station switched to a live feed from CNN that was describing the chaos.  At that point the Pentagon had just been hit, so everyone was sure that there had been some sort of coordinated attack against our country.  I was horrified at what I was hearing, but I couldn't really process everything.  I remember showing up at the doctor's office and seeing everyone just going on about their daily business, having no idea what had just happened on the East coast.  I didn't feel like I had enough info to say anything to anyone at the office, so I had my regular appointment and then came home so that I could watch the ongoing coverage all day, all night, all week.

Yesterday when I was folding laundry batch #1 the coverage was just at the very beginning.  No one knew what was going on.  Several thought it was still just a freak accident, but others were questioning if that could be true.  At that point the Pentagon had not been hit, and only New York City airspace had been shut down.  It was interesting to hear everyone postulate about what could or could not be happening when I know exactly what was happening and how it was going to affect our country for years to come.  I sat and listened for about ten minutes, but then I had to turn it off.  I was just feeling such overwhelming anger about the whole attack.  I didn't want to hear all of the television announcers talking about trying to call the offices of companies located in the upper levels of the Twin Towers and hearing chaos and screaming.  I didn't want to relive all of that.  There was just too much emotion, and there was no real outlet for that.  It is in moments like that where I am truly grateful that there is eternal judgment for all of us.  Horrible violence against innocent people -- it was just hard to sit and rewatch it happen over and over.  So I turned it off and came upstairs to regroup.

I should have just turned it to a college football game when I came back for folding Batch #2, but I was feeling too lazy to find the remote, so it was still on MSNBC.  This time the Pentagon had been attacked, so they knew this was something horribly serious, but the towers had not collapsed yet.  There was a reporter located about ten blocks away from the towers, and he was commenting on all of the fire fighters who were heading to help save people from the towers.  As he spoke you could see large groups of fire fighters, maybe close to 200 of them, walking past him as they headed into the smoke and debris field.  They looked amazingly brave, but what I knew that those reporters or fire fighters did not was that the towers were getting ready to collapse.  I was horrified as I watched these brave men and women headed into a battle zone that was going to eventually take many of their lives.  I wanted to scream into my television for those people to just turn around, but there was nothing I could do.  It was such a complete and total feeling of powerlessness to change the past.  I was done.  I couldn't watch any more.

Since then I have been thinking a lot about how our country has changed in the ten years since that horrible day.  I remembered how our entire country came together to rally our spirits in the aftermath of this tragedy.  There were no liberals and conservatives in those early days.  We were united as a country.  I see the horrible political discourse today -- from both sides -- where we are so quick to label those who differ in opinion from us as evil or un-American, or whatever.  Agreeing to cooperate with one another is seen as a weakness rather than a strength.  We are quick to assign blame to others and slow to forgive and treat others with the respect we should show to one another.  I wish that the unity of those first few months after the attacks  could have continued -- not that we have to always agree with one another, but that we can respect each other for our differences. 

I have my own feelings about what direction the country has headed in response to those attacks, but I won't waste a bunch of space here to debate it.  I will say that I am so grateful to live in a community right next to Fort Leonard Wood.  I have been blessed to see the amazing sacrifices that soldiers and their families are making for our country.  Too few of us really see and understand just what sort of sacrifice is being made in our behalf.  This morning when I woke up I got an email from goodreads.com with their quote of the day.  It is the quote from Gandhi that I put at the beginning of this post.  I just loved it so much!  It is true.  There are times when it seems as if evil is getting the upper hand, that horrible tyrants are winning the battle, and that hope is failing, but in the end good will prevail.  I have absolute faith in that. 

I was looking through a notebook I had used when I went to Timeout for Women a few years ago, and I found a statement from S. Michael Wilcox that I jotted down while listening to his amazing talk that day.  As a side note -- S. Michael Wilcox is absolutely brilliant.  I love listening to his words and thoughts each time I hear him.  But anyway, the statement I wrote says, "Hope only can exist as we look forward."  He was talking about the danger of becoming hopeless if we only focus on the mistakes of our past.  Instead we have to look to the future and all of its possibilities.  That's why I put the picture that I did at the beginning of this blog post.  9-11 is not just about the tragedy of that moment in time.  It is about the resiliency of the American spirit.  It is about reaching out to one another in times of need and finding the good around us.  It is about rebuilding our country and ourselves better than before.  I am grateful to be American today.  We have endured and we have overcome the events of that day.  The battle isn't over yet, but I have hope that we can unite together as a country to continue to grow and prosper into the future.

Finally -- A Smiling Minsy!

Minsy in China holding the monkey and the book
we sent to her.  Who is that lovely family on
the back of that book?  Why, it's the Blau Family!

We are still waiting.  Waiting.  Waiting. Waiting.  It has been more than two weeks since our Article 5 was delivered, and usually families receive their travel approval by the end of two weeks.  The only person I have ever seen who had to wait longer had to wait three weeks because things were delayed due to Chinese New Year.  Is Chinese New Year in September?  No!  Nothing is going on -- at least no national holidays or anything like that.  Still, we sit here waiting on this last bureaucratic document so that we can finally head to China and bring Minsy home.  It is sooooo frustrating to just sit and wait.  All day long I clutch my iPhone and rush to check all new emails whenever I hear the telltale beat letting me know that I have a new message.  And each time I look I find that it is not from my agency to let me know that my travel approval is on the way.  I have been very laid back about this entire adoption, feeling like things would happen when they were supposed to, and everything has gone really smoothly for the most part.  But this last piece of the puzzle is about to drive me to distraction.  I just want to be able to finally make some concrete plans. 

I think that our agency and the people in China must have heard my frustrated sighs across the miles because this morning I got a new set of pictures of Minsy.  They are pictures of her with the contents of the care package that we sent to her.  I started an account with heritagemakers.com and created a 5x5 book with pictures of our family and our animals so that she could begin to get to know us.  It turned out super cute, at least considering that it is my first book.  I am done with traditional scrapbooking.  I'm doing this online publishing from now on.  It is so easy and fast.  I loved ordering this little book.  When it arrived in the mail it looked just like something I could have bought from a store.  Super cute!  Then we sent this along with a stuffed monkey to Minsy.  I sprayed the monkey with my perfume and Herman's cologne, and then we slept with it for about a week so that it would smell like some good strong Blau.  Seeing her sweet picture holding the monkey and smiling was such a treat for me.  It connected me to her in a way that nothing else has done.  She was holding items that I had held.  She seemed to love these items that I had loved.  I just couldn't stop smiling. 

So for a couple of hours today I was distracted from my waiting.  I'm still impatient with the whole thing, but I am so glad to have a new look at my baby.  It was nice to see a good picture of her feet.  They do not seem to be turned too severely.  I liked getting the picture of Minsy in the AFOs that will help correct the club feet.  I am used to those because my brother Ryan, who has cerebral palsy, had to wear those a lot when he was younger.  I think this is looking very manageable. 

Now I am going to take a bit of time to throw my voice to the wind and hope that the powers that be will hear my cries and get this travel approval here.  We're ready!

Minsy with the corrective AFOs on her legs

She loves that monkey!



Gritting My Teeth and Taking the Plunge

When I was in fourth grade I read Louisa May Alcott's book, Little Women.  I absolutely loved it with all of my heart.  I decided right then and there that I wanted to be a writer when I grew up, more than anything in the world.  I had a wonderful teacher for 4th grade -- Mrs. Brockmeier.  Looking back at my elementary years I have to say that I had some absolutely horrible teachers.  I'm sure that they did okay with subject matters.  After all, I can read and write and do basic arithmetic okay, so I know I was learning something.  I was a great student -- or at least I think that I was.  But, I was a complete social nitwit, and great teachers are able to work with students intellectually as well as socially.  I just have some really pointed memories of my teachers treating some of my social mishaps very badly, with sarcasm or humiliation.  And, to make matters worse, I was certainly not the most troubled student in my classes.  As bad as my experiences were, some students were treated much worse.  I cannot even fathom any of the teachers of my children acting in the way that some of mine did, but it was a different time.  But in the midst of some terrible experiences with my elementary teachers, I did have a shining example of greatness in teaching.  Mrs. Brockmeier was so kind and considerate.  She really nourished and encouraged my love of reading, and once she discovered my desire to be a writer she encouraged that as well.  She encouraged me as I started my very first novel.  All I remember about it was that my dad, who was a high school English teacher, always had tons and tons of leftover test papers that were lying around the house.  I would grab those papers and tear them in half.  Then I would staple a bundle together and write my novel on this "book."  I wish more than anything that I had kept this book so that I can see it now, but memorabilia doesn't always make it to another day in my parents' house.  I'm still a bit sore about them throwing out my high school yearbooks.  But, anyway, I don't remember much about this first novel of mine, except that it was very much like a Nancy Drew novel with mystery and an awesome group of friends who help solve crimes.  Mrs. Brockmeier heard about my novel and she agreed that we could put on my book as a play for the school.  I remember writing a "screenplay" adaptation of the book which the fourth grade teachers edited for content (I had a very naive PG-13 rated mind for a 4th grader -- probably due to too many explicit movies in my youth).  The play never came to pass.  I only remember that I wanted Amy Lock to play the lead in the play because I thought she was perfect for the role because she was so smart and beautiful and talented and popular.  So 4th grade ended without my novel seeing any performance dates, and soon after I became much too busy to think about writing again.  Also, I became much more self conscious about having others see the things that I wrote.  It seemed like I would be opening my heart up to the world so that they could openly trample on it, and I wasn't strong enough to handle that.

So last night I had the worst time sleeping.  It isn't unusual for me to struggle to sleep, at least not lately.  It hasn't been that restless sort of sleep where you toss and turn begging your body to relax so that you can sleep.  No.  I just wake up and lay there, listening to the silence around me while I am comfortable thinking the thoughts that are running through my head.  Sometimes I am thinking about Minsy and the changes that will come to our family when she arrives.  I wonder how good of an adoptive parent I will be.  I wonder how I will be able to comfort her when she is undoubtedly terrified about entering a competely foreign situation -- not just foreign as in American, but foreign as in joining a giant, loud, and mostly unorganized family life.  

But, for the past couple of months I have also laid in bed and had a running slideshow going through my head of a book idea.  It started last spring when Laney headed to prom with a nice young man named Ryan.  For now I won't go into details about exactly what this has to do with my novel, but I joked to Laney a lot that I was going to write a book someday with the lead characters named Janey and Bryan, and those characters were going to be working through some of the same issues that Laney and Ryan had, but with a different result.  That got my head to thinking a bit about a story idea.  It ended up having nothing at all to do with either Laney or Ryan, but it just kept developing on and on in my head.  I would find myself thinking about my two lead characters a lot when I was just sitting around with nothing to do.  I would dream about different scenes while laying in bed at night.  I could picture the progression of this book perfectly.  The images stayed with me, and they weren't just images of pictures and words, they were images of emotion.  I even went so far as to write down every single scene idea in a notebook for me to peruse later.  As a scene idea developed more fully I would add to the notebook. 

I knew that someday I would take the time to fully write this book out so that I could have a finished product, but I am in the midst of this Chinese adoption, and I just could not imagine ever finding the time to write everything out.  But last night as I lay in bed and re-examined my story scenes I just thought that maybe I should find a way to make the time to get this into a novel form right now.  The scenes are just so concrete in my head right now.  I almost feel this drive to get it done.  I thought that if I were to just take one hour a day I could throw out a chapter a day and have a rough draft done by the end of September.  Then I could devote all my energy to completing Minsy's adoption and then take some time to edit and improve my draft.  It could be done.  I know I could do it. 

Now that my mind was wrapped around the idea of actually jumping in and completing this book I started to panic.  The book idea I have is a niche market kind of idea.  It would be a contemporary romance, but one that was specifically geared to the LDS audience.  I'm sure that others could appreciate the romance of it, but the particular struggle that my lead character would be facing would seem confusing to a non-LDS audience, I think.  Maybe not.  Probably it would just seem like a ridiculous problem to be facing, but I know that even at 16 Laney is facing similar dilemmas as she dates different young men, so it is something that I recognize easily.  I don't want to really explain more in depth because I want to get my ideas into a novel before I try to debate it in any other forum.  But thinking about writing this down where others can critique it gives me a major case of the heebie jeebies.  I can't just send a manuscript off to Deseret Book without having some other people at least read it and give me some feedback.  But who could I ask to do this?  I could ask Laney and Savannah because they love reading so much, but I'm convinced that Savannah wouldn't care for it.  She isn't a big fan of romances.  Laney is more inclined to like this type of book, but something holds me back from sharing it with her too.  I think I just don't want to let her read something that I wrote and then see in her eyes that she thinks that it is terribly hokey.  That actually goes for anyone I know and care about.  I hate the thought of putting something out there and then having my friends read it and give me that "Bless Her Heart" look.  You know what that is -- the very indulgent look people give one another when they are just giving it their all and failing miserably. 

And that doesn't even count what terror enters my heart when I think about strangers reading something that I wrote and writing reviews of it.  I have been writing reviews of the books I read on goodreads.com for the past year.  I really love the chance I have to get my thoughts on books out there for others to see, and I also love to have them for me to read later because my opinions and feelings about books evolve as my experiences in life change.  But I have to say that some book reviewers are downright mean.  They are cruel as they explain just how much they hate particular books.  I try to be nice in my reviews, even of the books I don't like so much, because I know that the writers have invested some of themself into the books they write, and it isn't fair to rip them to shreds.  However, others don't have that sort of filter.  I can't imagine writing a book, getting it published, and then having to read someone berate me for my lack of originality, cheesiness, or something like that.  It would hurt, and I'm not sure if I could handle it. 

But last night as I lay in bed thinking all these things I kept thinking that I was feeling almost an overwhelming drive to do it.  I don't know if it was some sort of heavenly push or if it was just my own determination, but I felt like I had a duty to jump in and complete this task.  I know better at this time in my life than to try and understand exactly why I am moved to do things.  It might be because there is a great market for this story out in the world.  It might be because I will learn something about myself as I craft this tale.  It might be because this book is only meant to have one audience, and that is the audience of my family.  Maybe they have something to learn in the message that I write.  Who knows?  I certainly don't.  But I'm ready to take the plunge and put myself out there.  I feel just like the guy in the picture above.  I'm leaping out into a situation that seems terrifying, having some faith that I will land softly at the bottom of the unknown.  But I'm going to stand tall, having some courage for once, knowing that even if all of this fails miserably, I still have a wonderful loving family that will support a failed writer in their midst.  Here's to an exhilerating jump!