Where, Oh Where Have Your Readers Gone?

Oh where, Oh where can they be?

I think I might know.... I mean, after someone else totally told me and explained it all to me in really simple, easy terms..... It doesn't explain where I've been, but....

Lately, I've been pretty far behind in my reading and commenting on ya'll's blogs. I know, I know. I heartily apologize. It's not cuz I don't love ya. Really, it's mostly cuz I'm trying to sort out the new normal that is hopefully very, very temporary, all while trying to manage a couple big things that are going on here at home.

Things that are fairly "every day real life" stuff for The Gang, but still big projects. Things that are BEYOND the big huge employment issue that is looming over the regular every day real life stuff.  Things like seasonal clothes change-overs. Inventorying who needs what for spring and summer once the clothes are changed out. Running the on-line yard sale (prayers for continued sales would be appreciated, thankyouverymuch), and managing the calendar for 7 busy, active Gang members. Phew. I'm tired again, just typing it all.

And in the middle of all that, I'm falling behind on the things that aren't connecting to hungry little (and big!) eyes begging me to find them a snack (again!) or naked little hineys asking me if their pretty brown capris are clean yet. Sheesh, don't these darned kids know how much I miss catchin' up with ya'll?! The nerve.....

Anyhoo, I found something today that I think many of you will really appreciate. It doesn't affect me in my READING of blogs and commenting. No, I already gave you all my whine and excuse for that above. Rather it should help all of you who are wondering where your readers and commenters went.  It's a techy-schmecky kind of thing, particular to those of you who do your reading on a smart phone. I'm still pretty old school. I do all my reading on my desk top. With a big mug o' hot coffee flavored with the sugar free hazelnut creamer cupped in my hands in the wee hours of the morning while the kids are getting themselves up and dressed for school. When I'm really only capable of being an adult presence in the house and not much else. Not that you really care how I read your blog... I know, I'm sorry. I'm working on it.

But this little gem of a post might help you explain why OTHER folks have stopped commenting frequently on your brilliant, witty expositions of life, love, liberty and disco

Oh, wait. That's a Newsboys tune. Sorry. I got caught up in the moment.

Anyhoo, again.  Go HERE and read. It's so easy. I changed my settings and I'm hoping that helps those techy friends of mine to drop me a line a little more often. And if any of you know of a magic pill that would settle things down to a dull roar around here so that I can drop YOU a line a little more often, I'll considered it a fair trade. Got it?! Good.

Can You Hear Me Now?

Our church has been in a season of fasting and prayer during the month of January. Normally, I don't talk to many folks about our fasting decisions, as they are really individual per person and per family. But most of you who come by here regularly know that one of the things that is regularly on my heart and in my "sights" spiritually is the plan and vision that God may have for the next season of This Gang's life. This year, our fast is no different.

The Boss and I have been praying for clarity regarding our home's vision and mission. Specifically, we've been praying about things that can make us more like Christ first within the walls of our home and then to the others that we encounter in our daily lives.  We've also been praying about our next adoption. It's never far from my heart or my mind, the deep-seated knowing that there's a little girl on God's heart that will be just the right addition to this big, loud, crazy Gang. I think about it all the time, really. I pray about it, I talk with the kids about it, I read all I can get my hands on regarding adoption and special needs. And I try to listen. To the Lord. To my husband. To the kids. To those who have traveled the journey before us, both in adoption and in life. The listening is hard for me. (yes, snicker away, go ahead... okay, composed and ready to resume? Good. Let's move on.)

The listening is hard for me for many reasons.  But in the last week or so, as I've been contemplating the ways in which we need to tighten up our home environment to provide a good listening environment for Li'l Empress, I've been struck by just how important it is that we be creating a good listening environment for The Gang. So that we can listen to The Lord.

Yeah. Let that one sink in with ya a bit.

I've been struck more strongly in the last week by just how hard it is to create and maintain a good spiritual listening environment in a busy home like ours.  In this culture of ours.  We do like our background noise, don't we? Radio on in the car. Morning news blaring in the background. Fancy ring tones for calls and different ones for texts. Songs stuck in our heads, leaking out our mouths (no matter how badly sung!) from this morning's radio alarm. Cell phones permanently attached to our fingertips for constant access to incoming texts. Immediate answers back to said texts. Laptops open in every room. Multiple tv's to avoid the noise of dissension over channel choice. Come on now, I know that it isn't just The Gang's Headquarters that sounds like this. You probably got some noise goin' on in your house, too. Don't ya?

Hearing lots but not really listening to anything.

Really. We can't handle the quiet can we?  And as the old saying goes, when I'm stepping on your toes, I'm bruising the bottoms of my own feet as I tromp. (Or something like that, anyway... I swear, I heard it somewhere.)

I was struck Wednesday afternoon by the utter silence and still in my home for all of 30 minutes or so. The Boss and Dr. D were at the gym (no doubt with iPods blaring in their ears to drown out the noise of the gym tv's!). Shaggy was in his room working on a school project. Li'l Empress was sleeping. And LadyBug and Baby BlueEyes were playing in the snow at their cousins'. I was alone (GOSH, that felt so weird in itself!). And IT. WAS. QUIET.  Just me and my book. Oh, and my Tigger mug o' tea, of course.

In that quiet moment, I realized that I could hear the snow falling outside the window.

I could hear my cat snoring.

I could hear.

I could hear.

I'm coming to the end of this season of fasting and prayer with a new-to-me revelation of my spiritual listening environment. It needs to be a lot quieter, a lot more often. It needs to be peaceful. It needs to be free of spiritual clutter. And purged of the white noise of my life. I need to hear Him. But in the hearing, I need to listen.

So when HE asks me, "Can you hear me now?" I can say, "YES, LORD! I hear YOU. And I'm LISTENING."

Wordless Wednesday

Family bonding time.

Tech-style.

For more Wordless Wednesday fun,

head over to 5 Minutes for Mom.

Scared Straight

I was running LadyBug to band camp this morning and saw a funny thing.  Well, at first it was funny. But when I watched longer, it got less funny.

An SUV next to me was manned by a elderly gentleman. This gentleman was chatting quite animatedly on his hands-free headset. WHILE he was juggling a steaming cup of morning coffee. AND trying to fit his G*P*S into it tiny bracket on his dash. All this as he was sitting in the left-turn lane at one of the busiest intersections in our neighborhood.

The funny part was watching him while we all sat at the red light, his hands flying everywhere. It also slightly amused me that the hustle-bustle frantic pace of life so often associated with my age-stage of life seems to be infecting the older generation.

Until the light turned green.

The not-so-funny part came when I watched him gun it at the green left-turn arrow and keep doing all the stuff he was doing while he waited.

I'm sure glad I was in the middle lane. I was scared straight.

Technical Difficulties

Or, "Where the Heck Has The Gang's Momma Gone?"

We've been experiencing some extremely frustrating and time-consuming computer issues for quite a while now, and it all came to a nasty, ugly head on Saturday. After a delightful impromptu lunch with my parents, The Boss started to install the printer that came with Dr. D's loaner equipment for his on-line school. The system crashed. It all went speedily down hill from there.

For the past two days, The Boss has been planted on his b*tt in front of our PC while saving data files, cleaning hard drives, restoring functions, and some such gobbedly gook. He logged more than 5 hours of on-line time (on hold, on the phone, on live chats) with representatives of Dell, Microsoft, Verizon, and so on. He spent HOURS saving pictures and documents on cd's, just trying to mitigate the damage. He still has several hours of restoring and re-loading ahead of him, but the most critical operations are up and running and we're back on-line.

This could not have been a WORSE weekend for the crash to occur, with Shaggy's on-line schooling scheduled to begin tomorrow and Dr. D's scheduled for Tuesday. While they both have laptops to use for school, we need the home PC to allow me to log-in to their systems and record attendance and so on. I also have several parent orientations to work through and can't use their laptops during their school day.

The upside of that is our PC is moving along very quickly now. The downside is that tons of bookmarks, passwords, and other miscellaneous account information is lost. All my forums, all my adoption resources, all my shopping haunts, everything. I'm trying to see the upside of that. At least all my favorite blogs are in my Reader, right?! And maybe the inherent "cleaned up-ed-ness" of it all will inspire more purging and cleaning? My family is already afraid of my annual "it's September, let's start purging!" frenzy. This will NOT endear me to them, I'm sure.

So, if you have sent an email to my personal account (not through my blog here, not through my gmail) in the past 48 hours and it requires timely attention, please resend it. If you sent me a link that you think I needed to see, please resend it. In the meantime, I'll be digging in first thing tomorrow morning to a brand new school year and a brand new way of life for The Gang. Wish us luck - and pray for smooth sailing from here on out . . .

Game Review

Recently, I won a Build-A-Bear game for the Wii gaming system. I was elated: the older boys had spent Christmas money stocking up on "boy games," replete with Lego light-saber violence and football madness. The little ones were easily frustrated by the complicated maneuvers that these games required. It made for some ugly debates about what to do on Family Nights.

From the moment that package arrived, we have been entranced! (At least, those of us who are easily amused by bright and shiny colors and adorable stuffed animals come-to-life have been entranced!) So far, everything I've experienced about this game is delightful. The music is light and cheery. The choice of animals is varied. The narrator's accent is lilting and lovely in its British tones. The directions are simple to understand and easy to execute. The plots of each little adventure are fun and the challenge of unlocking puzzle pieces hasn't lost its intrigue yet. I am the least gaming person you are ever likely to meet, here in the blogosphere or in person, yet I still found my game time fun and not too stressful or inane at all. Yes, I said inane. I, for the life of me, do not see how people can spend hours upon hours playing a game on a tv or monitor. I find it numbing. Except when I'm riding a pogo stick through the Build-A-Bear countryside, dodging shrubbery and jumping over roadblocks. Then it's all good. Really. It inspired not just a couple giggles from all of us to watch me ride. I mean, to watch my bear ride.

I haven't played the game yet in both modes, as my LadyBug really wanted me (I mean my bear!) to participate with her cute little bunny in the Adventure mode. But I've had the pleasure of watching my kids and my niece and nephew have a barrel of fun in the Playground mode. And I did get over to the "store" to deck myself, I mean my bear, out in a snazzy little outfit earned with my winnings in the wild dash on the pogo stick. I rocked that little number, I must say. I mean, my bear rocked her outfit. Sorry, got a little caught up in the excitement. I can't help it really, it's contagious every time the game is on. The music draws me in, the narrator lulls me to deep and easy breathing, and that pogo stick calls me. It calls me. I mean, it calls my bear. Yeah. My bear.

So, thank you to 5 Minutes for Giveaways for the great game package. We are loving the sweet innocence of the Build-A-Bear for Wii and the giggles it elicits are all music to my ears!

Please Pray With Us NOW!

I just got an urgent phone call from our special needs coordinator, Ashley. In the process of entering the final data on our files to the new on-line special needs program there was a serious glitch in the system. For some reason, Aidan's file could not be accessed and the message was given that her file would not be available to Living Hope for another 15 days. This IS NOT how it's supposed to work, and we are being called to stand in prayer together against any attempt of the enemy to thwart this adoption!

The staff has gone to extraordinary lengths to assure that our information and Aidan's file have been sent to China by fax, by email to several high level connections, and to our Director of Living Hope (who is BY GOD'S PLAN in China right now).

Additionally, there is a former government worker who is now a Living Hope employee that has accessed some of her connections in order to assure that our information RELATED TO THIS CHILD has been sent to the appropriate people. Finally, the staff all banded together in prayer for our family and for our daughter before calling us.

Please stand in prayer with us that the appropriate measures are taken this next 24 hours to ensure that Aidan will continue upon the path to becoming our daughter. We firmly believe that the enemy wants to mess with our peace and we will NOT have it. Please pray with us. Please also pray for Ashley - this has shaken her up a good deal and I desire to see that the Lord release her from feelings of guilt or "what did I do?"

Thank you for your love and support thus far. We KNOW that He hasn't spoken this clearly this far along to leave us OR AIDAN now.

We'll post updates as we receive them!

*Updated 9:45 p.m. - In case I wasn't clear enough in the above posting, this "glitch" is one that could potentially shut down the process to adopt this little girl. After speaking with some people, it became clear that I may have not expressed myself clearly enough. Additionally, until this is resolved, I won't be posting any pictures of her. Please continue to pray - it is 9:45 a.m. in China right now, and we are trusting the Lord to move on the hearts and minds of the officials involved, on behalf of Aidan and our family to continue the process of declaring our intentions to adopt her, regardless of technology glitches!

Favorites Friday (not)

We interrupt regularly scheduled Favorites Friday to bring you an important message. Favorites Friday will (hopefully!) resume its normal programming next week. :)

I'm taking today to brag on The Boss a little bit. Last night, he and his team won the prestigious Human Resources Department Of The Year award for Excellence In Technology. This award is given by Human Resources professionals in the Philly region each year, to acknowledge significant HR advances and innovations and we are very proud of The Boss and his peers.

The award was given to recognize the HR Information Systems Department at Children's Hospital for their conversion to a more paperless and more user-friendly database (among other more technical gobbedly-gook that I really don't understand!). The team spear-headed the project to place kiosks all over the CHOP campus, allowing employees individual access to their own information (benefits, compensation, etc.) and giving managers/supervisors access to updating and managing their employees' information themselves. The Boss's team has gone from a data-entry environment to a database management environment and they are all to be commended on the very long hours, the new things they've had to learn, and the ownership they all share over this innovation. It's improving the lives of all the employees and helping CHOP do more to support the people who are all there to save kids' lives.

So, huge kudos to the HRIS team and the IT team at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Your hard work and long hours of planning, scheming, strategizing, and troubleshooting have been greatly appreciated and now widely recognized! You should all be very proud of yourselves and your efforts. And to The Boss's team: a very special THANK YOU from me, for all your support and participation and "buy-in" - you make it pleasant to be the wife of such a hard-working, focused and motivated Boss :)

The Gang Has Gone Digital!

Some of you may remember my fledgling attempts at blogging, in which I broadly hinted to The Boss that I would love a digital camera. (You can read that here!) And several posts ago, I hinted that we had some answered prayer to report (here). Well, you guessed it! Through the hands of my in-laws, the Lord has answered my wanna-be techie heart's cry and blessed us with a digital camera! YIPPEE! The Gang has gone digital!

I'm not totally grasping all that The Boss tried to teach me in that first lesson, but I have on at least one occasion today successfully uploaded two or three pictures on my own and sent them off to a friend. (Promises Fulfilled, did ya get those pics I sent?!) I was seriously motivated to do so, because Baby Blue Eyes has agreed that it is time to part with a select few of his Rescue Heroes collection (don't worry, it's mostly duplicates that are waving bye-bye!) and we are selling them on our local craig's list. We're planning on putting the money into our Adoption Jar. And after BBE agreed that his 4th Billy Blazes and 2nd Jake Justice would do well to serve and protect in another little boy's home, he cheerfully agreed that maybe it was time to sell his Geo Traxx train set. So I snapped some photos of both sets of toys, posted the classified and added photos. All by my lonesome. Well, mostly today by myself. Last night The Boss gave me that quick run-thru lesson.

There's only one problem: I am terrified that in the uploading and storing of our new pics, The Boss and I will have completely differing ideas of where to store, how to label said storage, and what to store. I mean, already he took a picture of Dr. Doolittle and labeled it Whitney Pics in a little album on our software. Honestly, did he think that I needed to know that this was a Whitney Pic as opposed to, say a Walker Pic? Or a Smith Pic? a Jones Pic? Come on, aren't all of them essentially Whitney Pics? I mean, SERIOUSLY?!

Our conversation last night about what to do with the photos once I upload them was all too reminiscent of the night we bought our first file cabinet. I had visions of neatly labeled, alphabetically placed files hanging in a row, top drawer filled first. The Boss just started stuffing things that "looked like they belonged together" into files, scribbling titles and putting them in both drawers. My eyes started twitching and I developed this weird tic in the side of my neck when I tried to patiently explain that this must be done in an orderly fashion. "Kitchen Appliance Manuals" must be printed neatly and all successive titles should be similarly printed for consistency. Cut to 15 or so years later and this venture into the digital world has me twitching again. Can you feel my pain?

I made The Boss promise me last night that we would try to do this uploading and storing thing in some semblance of order. The thing I didn't nail him down on was who's order we were talking about! I think that I need to go back and clarify exactly what I mean. After all, the family photos have traditionally been my domain to sort, maintain, file and utilize. If left to his devices, The Boss would probably never even take the camera with him for family trips, birthday parties and other important outings. He worked so hard to pick just the perfect one when he bought our last camera, and I have had to work twice as hard to get him to BRING it anywhere. And actually displaying or framing any of the photos we take? That's all me, baby; all me! I know the novelty of this digital answer to prayer will wear off and family photos will return to my area of responsibility. I just need to clarify that I need a system. A system that makes sense and is easy to use. After all, isn't the new digital age supposed to make our lives easier?!

Thank you Mom and Dad W, for sharing your camera! It really is a blessing to have, and all of us really appreciate the thoughtful generosity. Enjoy your trip to Alaska, take lots of pics with your new one and tell the polar bears hi for me! :)

I Am Techie, Hear Me ROAR!

After several frustrating hours last night, followed by major connection problems with V****** and several more phone calls and troubleshooting with the V techs, I finally cried "Uncle" and called my blogger guru, Natalie. She patiently walked me thru the process and I've successfully enabled my comments. So have at it, gang! Drop me a line and let's start sharing our thoughts.

I'm not a competitive person, but I just had this unrelenting need to figure this world out, and conquer it. I've come to learn about myself that if I think I should be able to do it and I can't quite figure it out - watch out! I fell asleep last night thinking of ways to improve this blog and conquer the comments issue. And I woke up, obsessed with finding the solution. And with finding other things to learn about it as I go.

On another note, I have to tell you: this whole experience has The Boss and I shaking our heads and laughing. Let me give you the background: my little brother was for many years a very successful up and coming radio-frequency engineer for a large cell company. As part of the perks package, he was able to get great phones and cell service for many of us in the family. At first, I resisted - loudly, and regularly! - I finally relented and requested the most basic, no frills, no bells and whistles phone he could get me. Then we moved to "the suburbs" and my trusty dinosaur phone died. My next phone was only a slight improvement in technological wonders, and again, I had no extras. Boring ringtone, basic voice mail and for heaven's sake - absolutely NO TEXTING!

Then it happened. My brother responded to the call of the Lord on his life, left his company and prepared to head off to Pastors' College. Before he left, he informed me that the new "Razr" was on sale and if I wanted a great phone that would last for a lot of years, I'd better move on it before his last day at C*******. I caved. I didn't just cave: I jumped in head first! On the day that my phone was delivered and my service was set up, I actually felt high. (Or what I can only assume was high, having never been on anything but pain meds for a c-section!) I ordered a media bundle, bought ringtones (if you call me, I get to hear Keith Urban crooning to me!), and taught myself how to text. I even started taking pics of my kids, my cat, and the polar bear at the zoo. And swapping out my wallpaper every couple days. (A girl's gotta have variety, you know?!) I even cancelled all long distance on my home phone and my cell became my constant companion.

And several months later . . . in order to be faithful to do ALL we can to save money and funnel all "non-essential" funds (ha, LOL!) toward the adoption account, I cancelled my media bundle and contented myself with occasional pics stored for my own enjoyment. I determined that I could live with just the ringtones I'd already purchased. After all, BonJovi and Jennifer Nettles sing to me when the kids call from home and Keith sings . . . .well, you get me. Anyway! I bit the bullet and even pulled back my free minutes plan when we switched to unlimited long distance with V******. The problem is, I think the song I chose for The Boss's ring is too sad. It doesn't totally capture the essence of the love story between us. It's not "me."

I know, it's the most frivolous and ridiculous thing I've ever heard. If someone else complained to me about this, I'd quirk my brow and wonder. Maybe mutter some less than encouraging things under my breath about the marshmallow-y-ness of it all. But it's getting under my skin. It's bugging me. How stupid is that?!? I have the coolest phone, Keith sings to me daily, and I'm irked about my dh's ringtone. Come on! And now that I see this in print, I see how utterly vain and trite it is. And how completely BESIDE my original point it all is,too.

So anyway, the fact that I have begun my very own blog (embracing all its technology and terminology!) created quite a stir here in the house last night. The kids were buzzing, helping me create their names, asking me to post about the adoption (I will, I promise!), and begging to read what I wrote about them. And The Boss? He just keeps looking at me as if he's thinking, "Who are you and what did you do with my wife?!"

But now I'm thinking, once I get rolling, he may just be the most grateful man you ever met - I'll be using my thousands of words on you all and he won't have to duck at the deluge as he comes in the door any more :) And my next frontier to conquer is the digital camera - hint, hint, BossMan <3