This is only a test

This is just a test, if this had been my real life I would have gotten a text.

Freedom

Awhile back I posted a profile picture of a child in my blog a talked about how much I missed that child..at the time I thought that I broke no major confidentially laws anything since the picture was much less revealing than picture that are posted by State agencies of children in foster care... I also know that I am not the only blogger who blogs about being a foster parent or about adopting kids...goggle it.

Here is a few I found:
Foster Care
The journey to my child
Lauren Christianson
Adoption by Grace
Foster care Log !this one is written by a grown man who was himself a foster child.~~~
Lisa's Website ~~another site by a former foster child, now a grown woman
Janet


Even being involved in Royal Family Kid's Camp has taught me that pictures of children and even their full names are scared things that are to be protected with the fierceness of a lioness protecting her cubs. (The above picture is an example of a picture we CAN publish on our RFKC website of a child from camp, one that protects the child's identity but still shows a child being a child at camp. It shows more of the face than the picture I posted which showed only the underside of a chin.) When we are at camp we create memory books for our campers and we go to great lengths to ensure that no campers receives pictures of others campers but yet still appears to have been at camp with lots of other kids. That means there are profile shots and scrap booking things going on with the pictures to make sure you can not really tell who a person is UNLESS you are completely intimate with them.

Back to the picture thing, it caused me to loose the ability to write and I almost lost my blog in full because someone complained about the picture to my agency. (That is what I have meant by the blog police.) Anyway, threw process of elimination, I pretty much know who it was and now, because my adoptions are done, I am now free to write again. YEAH!!!!

That means I can blog again without constant fear of my words being used against me, even though I have not ever truly done anything wrong. Pettiness is a bitter root and I have been working hard at not being petty about this whole situation but I have been oh so bitter.

Bitter that some of my best writing and stories have been left unshared. Bitter that I have lost touch with my online friends and lost an outlet that I have cherished over the last four years of my life; a public blog. Bitter that another person's actions can in fact impact my freedom of speech and freedom of expression. I have always tried very hard to honor and respect any family member that I write about because I want to be able to look them in the eye and never, ever be ashamed of myself. Whenever I share things in my blog I am very sensitive about the nature of my life, the nature of my illness and the overall public life I live in a VERY small town. It is, in fact the main reason I have more than one site tracking system on my blog...so that I can tell who is looking. So that I can be wary of people who may be out there, lurking, seeking what they may use against me.


I digress, a little.

So I will write again with more regularity and less fearfulness. I will still not write about the children that are not mine is a way that would ever reveal their true gender, age or name but I can hardly hide the fact that I am a parent or even that I am a foster/ adoptive parent. I was told that for a short while I should not even mention the fact that I am a parent...all because I mentioned that I loved and missed a child that had been in my care and posted a picture of a baby chin and tummy. I use to talk often of Alexis, my teenage daughter who is not a foster child, but had to stop even that because my agency was not sure if how I parented her would be used against me. An example? One day she missed the school bus and I joked that I was going to make her walk, seems that state workers may not find that funny. Or blog police. First of all she has chosen to walk from school on her own several times before and second of all I was joking. I DID pick her up from school that day and every other day she chooses to miss the bus. (Do not bother looking for the entry because they told me to delete it.)


Over the last few days though I have been able to share my joy and show pictures of my life, without putting my children at risk or revealing confidential information that I would not ever share in such a public forum. I looked in the mirror today and Stupid was not on my forehead.

I love my kids, the ones we have adopted, the ones we will not adopt and the ones we are keeping until they can be reunited with their families of origin. It is those children I end up missing the most and grieving for the most...the ones that are returned home. When you consider that my husband and I are long term, adoptive foster parents that means we get the "lost cause" cases that the state feels there is little hope for. The kids who have been asked to have new placements found for...we adopted the first three "placements" we got and they had been in multiple homes in a short time before getting to us.

Here is the God part of the story: He had His hand in it all and led us to the right agency for He had the right children for us. When we were READY neither He or they were READY so he had to sabotage it the only it could happen.

Life is good, if you let it be.

All children deserve to be cherished and loved without having to earn the love. Thankfully we have had our greatest dream fulfilled despite all the things the enemy threw at us.

A happy New year to you...this one trumped watching Hanana Montana all night only because this year I knew that there would not be a kindly social worker showing up and moving the kids to a new home. And they knew it too so they were completely relaxed and fully at home.

xxoo

The wind

our boat is in the waves
full cream sails are just beginning
to bloom with wind

the thrusting is delightful, powerful
deep fears are not realized

while salt and seagulls perch, at the ready
and water whips at seven taunt backs

praying with diligence that ne'er do wells
and swelling pride do not capsize us
the newly formed and painted bow

declares our sailboat freshly christened

The Browns

the big world

What a strange place we live...it has been snowing here.

And it is so cold (below freezing for the highs) but I saw a kid in SHORTS!!!

It was not because he was lacking clothes since I heard his mama yelling for him to get his tush back in the house and put on clothes...she was muttering about having the sense of a horse or something.

I just giggled and drug in my non-shoe wearing little things inside too.

Not that I let them go without shoes; they escaped the house in a flurry, they were excited by the snow.

Fantastic news

We will be having another party soon....for the same reason that we had on November 30th!!!

(This time just one though.)

When we do it, we really do it.

Yippee skippee...


One of these days I will get to tell ya what I am alluding to too.

xxooxxooxxoo

mailed

They hit the mail on Monday....

those who received one know....

those who read the private blog know too...

those who REALLY want to know who to find can e-mail me...

What a shame that I can not tell you here...

I am living a watercolored life in a brilliantly colored oil painting.

My life has the fingerprints of God all over it but I can only tell you that God has been here at my house today, for fear that the small minded blog police may tattle-tell.

The sad part is that it is like eating a banana split and telling someone who has never tasted ice cream what that is like.


But oh my GOSH I can not WAIT UNTIL FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


I will cry, I will dance in the streets, I will party with my babies.

I will catch bubbles and run circles to feel the earth spin.

I will laugh too loud.

And one day I will tell you why FRIDAY is the very best day of Charley & I's life to date.

Long time reader's may even be able to guess and may be wise enough to piece together the story...the people I have addresses for got invites to the much waited for, much prayed for, much life altering event!

I am dancing on the stars and the cow is jumping the moon.

I tell you a mother of five (opps did I say that?) with MS really can dance. ~~~Yeah, I still have that old MS too. ~~~~ I even run people.

(The astute are counting on their fingers and going when did she get five again?)

Pretty fast too, the running that is.

Fast enough to chase after a loose German Shepard if I have to.

Anyways we are having a HUGE party Friday and Saturday.....but I can not tell you why.

My first amendment rights and all will be reclaimed since that day I was told I can not talk about that super secret thing I do, but one day, one day I will be able to. One day I will no longer be living under the RULE of the blog police and will be free to be a regular mother, a regular writer of my old blog and I can tell my story like I use to.

In color.

with breathing words.....and love.

and humor. and more clarity...less alluding...

and sometimes saddness...but always with what I had hoped was dignity.

xxoo

LIFE

Sometimes it seems that the greediness of life overwhelms me. Sucks me into the ordinary day of everyday and I wonder where is that girl?

The one with big dreams; who never, ever listened to "you can't and you shouldn't."

She grew and expanded her life with pure dreams that should not have ever happened. But life is a series of new dreams or even old dreams with new endings.

Happiness settles on me like sunlight in a dusty room, it is filtered and I only see it when I look away.


xxoo

MS

Wow!



Where has time gone....soon I will post a long and detail blog post, promise.

Got asked by a bratty five year old if I was "Grandma" yesterday, haven't these people in this nowhere town heard the new trend that women are actually waiting to have their families now?





I AM NOT a grandma.



My Mom can barely deal with being a grandma, geez. I mean, I am only forty and a half for pete sakes.



xxooxxoo

Enough about me, I miss you all.

mistakes

The other day I was traipsing into my favorite box store (Wally World) to purchase a few of the things a family of seven needs.

And we NEED a whole lot of things, let me just put that out there right now. I digress.

So you know the place, they usually have elderly greeters at the door to Google over your kids and to tell you have fun spending your moola. Not this morning, this fine morning there was a thirty-ish man of Hispanic distant manning the door. He smiled at me and the newest addition to our home, who was appropriately decked out all in baby blue from head to toe. This nice youngish man then proceeded to inquire just how old my granddaughter was.



I considered slapping him.


Then I remember that I am nice woman and simply smiled sweetly and said:

"My SON is two months old."





The nerve of some people.

Does the above face really look like a grandma?



And if it does bite your proverbial tongue and keep it to your damn self.

not fallin off

I have NOT fallin' off the face of the earth....


we have a NEW member of the family.....a very TINY one.


Blog police be damned!


(Insert stuck out tongue here cuz it could be a puppy ya know.)

Anyways, I have been busy, busy, busy and busy.

We are also getting ready for the count down to camp! Royal Family Kids Camp is the best thing we do all year besides that "other" thing we do. Camp is not just a bunch of work but is truly a reward for us! This year our 15 year daughter is going as a C.I.T. (Counselor In Training) and we could not be more excited for her. She is not so sure but is doing it anyway because she is tried of hearing us talk about camp and not having her own stories to tell.

We pray she catches the services bug.



xxoo

unfairness of life

There are so many wonderful things happening in my world, things that people who have been reading for years would do a happy dance about.
Rich and deeply happy things but the blog police prevent me from sharing it here.

Sad really, that I can no longer just share my happiness without the fear who or what is lurking in the shadows. Then again, that is real life, always someone out there waiting for someone to stumble.

The joy that I have been brought is unmeasurable.

Truly.

Sent by my favorite Caregiver, Daddyleer on aol

Our Royal Family Kids Camp used this music on last year's video, which, of course, made all of us volunteers cry like little babies. The cool thing about what Charley & I do is not only do we get the camp side of the experience but we also see the child's side and know that the staffers at camp make a huge impact on the kids in foster care.

If you are so inclined visit the Royal Family Kids Camp link here.



Thank you Patrick for your own care-giving too!

I got tagged!

White Lighenting tagged me for this Meme ...and he is probably wondering if I will even find the time to play...

INSTRUCTIONS: Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot, like so:

1) I'm Not Carrie Bradshaw
2) Behind Blue Eyes
3) BrainCheese
4) White Lightning Axiom: Redux
5) My journey with MS by Some Nameless Chick

Select five people to tag:
1) Tinka
2) Lisa
3) Lori
4) Jenn (she is new to me)
5) Cynthia

Q:What were you doing 10 years ago?

Ah, this brings me back full circle to Gil. Ten years ago in June I had just started noticing this really weird thing about my feet and how they kept falling asleep. A.L.L. the time. The would not wake up. It felt like pins and needles all the damn time. Becasue I was living in total blissful sin with Gil, who at 34 was dying of termminal Pancretic Cancer at the time he kept pushing me to go to the doctor about it. So in June 1997 I did.

It was the very first time in my life I had ever had a doctor say that I either had a brain tumor OR Multiple Scerlosis. It took months to get an appointment with one of the best Neuoplgist in town and thus a week before Thanksgiving I was told I had one very large braint tumor. That is how I know I look ok bald. (Ironically enough Charley rolled into Phoenix the same day I had my surgery.) Gil died in February 1998 and I don't remember meeting Charley until April of that same year but he remembers meeting me and he remembers me as the brave bald girl.

It would not be until October 2003, during a routine MRI, that a new doctor would inform me that I also had MS. This was two weeks after my total hysterectomy that left us childless.

I cried for about an hour because I did not know what MS was and then got on the internet and started to research it. I called foul because gosh darn it, in 1997 the man said brain tumor OR MS, not both. Damn the luck.

God had a plan....it included things I am not allowed to talk about anymore here.

Q: What were you doing 1 year ago?

One year ago I was in Florida hoping that my Grandma was not going to die of lung cancer. And something else huge that has changed my life forever...the joy of life moved in on the 25th.

Q: Five snacks you enjoy:

1) Fresh Cherries
2) diet Pepsi
3) peace & quiet
4) cheesecake
5) Summer's Dream Ice Cream

Q: Five songs that you know all the lyrics to:

1) Jesus Loves Me
2) When I get where I am going by Geoff Moore
3) Twinkle Twinkle little star
4) Theme song to Royal Family Kids Camp
5) The Blessing by John Walter

Q: Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:

1) Start a homeless shelter for families
2) Invest so I could do more with the money...
3) fund RFKC in my area for several years
4) open a daycare
5) adopt more kids

Q: Five bad habits:

1) fear
2) procastination
3) envy of those darn Jones
4) forgetting lessons learned
5) stubborn as a mule

Q: Five things you like doing:

1) reading
2) wrinkling the sheets
3) writing
4) playing with children & making up silly, silly stuff: like telling them we are having spider soup for dinner.
5) going to church and being with my friends

Q: Five things you would never wear again:

1) bell bottoms, my hips are too large, my thighs are too large
2) itsy bitsy bikini...I have, um, back and bruises from those lovely interferon shots.
3) the guilt of sins past
4) blue eye shadow
5) a bandana on my thigh, it just would look right.

Q: Five favorite toys:

1) bubbles, amuses the daylights out of me
2) my eyes and my imagination
3) books, all books. The good ones and the bad ones.
4) my pretend Ipod
5) computer...duh

words

Sticks and stones
may break my bones
but words will
never hurt me

Kids learn this little poem very early on and adults encourage them to believe it; however, it is a lie. Words are weapons. They can seriously injure if wielded in a careless or random fashion, willy-nilly over the hearts and lives of others.

What we say is just as important as how we say it. That one kind thing may be the glue that holds someone life together for the next twenty four hours. Our words may be the light that guides someone out of despair into a better place where there is hope and joy.

Words.

I have a few flung at me that haunt me even now, long after the echos have faded. But in my mind's heart the canyons run deep holding those injurious words there in the stream, ready to bubble up whenever I feel low enough.

Our family makes an extra effort to use kind words and to encourage one another. To lift up and build up rather than tear down and speak death into one another's world. We believe that words spoken in the home have a lasting effect on the rest on forever.

One powerful gift that cost almost nothing, is a nice statement about a person with several positive affirmations about the person followed by several prayers for the person's future, printed on nice paper and framed. It is a tangible gift that they can hold on to whenever they feel low and unloved.

Words. Yes they hurt and they can kill slowly.

And quickly.

Be careful with your weapons today.

Comforting noise

The wildness of my life is something that I can only label as Joy.

It is my true Chazown.

It is what God made me for, the rearing of young human beings. Steadiness and structure with just a dash of child like humor.

Chasing tadpoles or rounding up imaginary dragons in the backyard are the very things I have been doing since I was able to walk. A vivid and flavorful imagination is, perhaps, God's greatest gift to me.

The one thing I have to offer.

The one truth I live for.

The part of me that knows that rainbows contain a certain taste that makes all people smile and agree, "Yes, life is good indeed."


PS: I decided today to start a new blog that is by invite only...if you want to read you will have to ask because it will be very, very private.

other fun stuff I have been up too...

the kid I watched for a week while her Mom was out of town and the pet she insisted they would let her buy...
me watching a baseball game

Lexi in pink

Lexi riding a Lama when she was five...







Life has been so good to me.

Ladybugs

this is my hand....

notice the one with lots of spots???

A few days ago we had the privilege of chasing ladybugs, which of course isn't much of a chase. It is more of a causal event like drinking tea on a porch and watching the sun set, calming and nice.

Doing things like this has always been second nature for me, even as a small child I remember talking all the other small children into catching tad poles because we would be able to raise frogs from them. The other kids were not sure if they could trust me or not but by golly clomping around in the stream sounded like good fun anyway.

We caught the tad poles in paper cups and raised them into frogs in an old claw foot bathtub in the yard.

The was dirt, plants and an old cake pan full of water. When the frogs got big enough we covered the tub with screening to keep them in and to keep the stray cats out...I do not know what ever happened to the frogs, I moved back in with my Mom.

Chasing ladybugs makes me feel like a little girl again...that and the musical laughter in the air as it was being done. I love springtime and am awaiting the butterflies.


xxoo


PS: Go watch this Utube about Patrick and Patti! Really, since we didn't do the MS walk this year I did not talk it up like I usually do. I could not do it because on the Saturday it was held I had a T-ball game and a baseball game to go to....And a birthday party to throw.

Anyway, go watch this, it is funny and sweet.

Goodtimes