Lots of News

I'm going to start this post off right away with complete and total honesty.  The past year has been rough.  The highs have been incredibly high and the lows have been incredibly low and emotionally I have felt tossed around like a boat thrown into a hurricane.  I don't like to sound dramatic, but this has been the truth in my life. 

A lot has happened.  There are a lot of details and reasoning that I could add to make people understand why it's been an overwhelming year, but I think I'll just do a bullet point list of the things that have happened.

-We joined an adoption agency well over a year ago that to this day I'm not sure I trust.

-After reading "The Lucky Few" by Heather Avis, Jim and I prayed a lot and opened up our preferences even further to allow for all drug usage, etc.  It was a pretty big deal.

-I trained for and ran a 50K with Danielle, and falling in love with running again has been a slow, painful process.

-The court case regarding Josiah's finalization (he IS finalized, but the court case we were involved in) is ongoing and is a constant source of surprise stress because we keep thinking it's finally over then receive an email.

- I caught a cold that turned into the worst sinus infection of my life.  I'm 10 weeks in and I might finally be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel?  I've been functioning at maybe 85% for the past few weeks, and much lower than that before.

-We had some difficulties with Josiah's birth family, and I stuck a big foot in my mouth, and probably caused the most crying in my life and my first ever panic attack.

-We had an adoption situation fall through.  It was like a death.  

-The music store is closing it's retail doors in less than a month so I'm saying goodbye to 9 years of my life.  It's been hard to know goodbye is coming.

-Gray, one of our little dogs, officially went blind and is becoming harder and harder to care for.  It's sad, because he really is such a sweet dog.

-My dad is still cancer free, which is awesome news. 

-My little boy is amazing every. single. day.  It is seriously a joy and honor to be called a mother.

-Jim and I are almost half way through our 11th year of marriage and it certainly doesn't seem that long.

-One of my students was accepted into the Honors Performance Series in Sydney, Australia, and I was accepted as a chaperone, so I will be in Sydney for a week in July, which is both exciting and absolutely horrifying.

-We are visiting Josiah's birth family this weekend and are excited to see them all but a little nervous as this will be our first visit since he was born. 

- And of course, the big news.  We have been chosen to parent a little boy due September 10th.  If all goes well, Josiah will have a little brother later this year.  It is a wonderful thing filled with excitement and love for this baby boy I've never met, but I am also filled with fear over it, too.  

There was probably more, and there are a lot of details left out, but if you need more details than that we can do coffee sometime and make an actual human connection.  For now, if you were wondering what was going on or why I hadn't written in a while, this list is the answer to both in a nutshelll.  More posts to come soon, as I do believe I'm healing from the sinus infection and can actually concentrate long enough to write a blog post!