A Time For Everything

National Adoption Day comes around on the Saturday before Thanksgiving each year.

A Coalition of national partners including The Alliance for Children’s Rights, Children’s Action Network, Freddie Mac Foundation, and Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption started National Adoption Day in 2000.  In November of 2000, the sponsors worked with law firms, state foster care agencies, child advocates, and courts to complete hundreds of foster care adoptions in nine jurisdictions nationwide.

Why am I sharing this? Not because I'm adopted, nor are any of my kids, but I have an online friend who adopted a five-year-old last year. Not in November, but earlier. End of summer maybe. This child was just entering school. Now for a whole year, this friend and her husband had to keep the identity of the child to themselves due to the legal proceedings.

But they'd still share anecdotes along the way. This kid is a riot.

Then this year, once things became legal and the little girl was legally theirs, they shared her with the world. I get to watch this reality show via Facebook. And it's amazing. It's not scripted. But it's real. It's heartwarming. And it's inspirational.

Now the reason I'm sharing this is because recently, this friend, the mom, shared one of the downsides to adoption--the emotional trauma response of her girl. Anger. Deep sadness. Shame. I don't know the backstory as to why this child ended up in foster care, and it doesn't matter, but things affect us. All of us. Especially a little girl who may not understand things.

This online friend also shared that adoption is often looked at through a lens of sadness--what the child may have lost, i.e. his/her real parents.

But those parents may have been pieces of trash who hurt and abused the child or been struggling with issues of their own and not fit / able to care for a child of their own due to reasons beyond their control.

So this friend's plea--and this is from her FB post on the matter:

"HOWEVER, if you have a kid? Why don't you use this post as a sign that you need to sit down with them and give a better explanation on adoption? Maybe ask them some questions and see how they explain it to you. Then point out the fact that every family is built differently and while there might be some sadness in how some are formed, that's not the main takeaway.

"Like we told XXX: Adoption is all about gaining. She gained two new families, countless friends, and lots of love while we gained a wild child daughter who loves fake blood and calls us bro on the daily.
She's not embarrassed about adoption and we aren't either. So maybe take some time to talk to your littles about it too, even if you don't personally adopt a kiddo. Because, believe me, whether you know it or not you're probably already around someone who has been in foster care or gone through adoption.
Be kind to them by not assuming adoption is some sad, pitiful thing."

This saga has been amazing to watch from afar and the main reason this person hasn't been purged during the great FB culling of 2022.

This child they got seems to be the perfect fit for their family (as my friend alluded in her own words). I know that's not always the case. But adoption gives a lot of people a chance.

Your PSA for the month.

Have a great weekend.

My emotions, of late, have been a bit a lot like a roller coaster. It's been quite the year and it stands to reason that I'd be feeling a lot of things.

Some of those emotions, in no particular order, are: sadness, relief, overwhelm, resentment, frustration, and longing.

Add in the current on-going saga of the dog with cancer...

Add in misc (minor) health issues...

And the end of the year is not going the way I thought it would, either from before Mom died or after she passed.

I'm looking ahead and forward to 2023 much like many of us did after the first year of COVID as well as after the second...

As if the transition of one year to the next will magically mean better things. If nothing else, it means leaving behind the drama and/or trauma of "last" year.

Some of it is mental, absolutely -- the old year passes and the new year equals a fresh slate.

That mostly works for me. My fresh start goals each January are for the new / current year.

Doesn't work so much for emotions. They aren't ruled by the calendar as so much of life is.

Some of my current emotional disquiet stems from Rayna's illness, and some of it stems from a general worry over the economy and global strife.

Eventually, I'll find my emotional footing and things will look a bit rosier.

But for now, I'm not 100% okay. And I know it's okay to not be okay for a bit. :0)

I'm giving myself grace, but it is time to start thinking seriously about my goals for next year and beyond.

Take care and have a great week.

Yup, I'm gonna attempt this again in 2023. :0)

As I read back through my posts related to my Strengths, I promised twice to explore them, once for 2021 and once for 2022. And twice my intentions were derailed for one reason or another. You all know what happened in 2022. Not sure what the hurdle was in 2021. Not that it matters.

At some point in the fall, I compared DH's and my Strengths, to see if we have top-ten overlap. And surprisingly, we do. We share three Strengths: Relator, Restorative, and Focus, although not in the same positions.

Two of his other top-ten Strengths come in at 13 & 14 for me, one other of mine comes at 17 for him, with everything else in each of our top tens falling to the bottom half for the other. Oof that's tough.

For a few years, we really had trouble communicating. We'd go round and round about something until one or the other of us would say something and we'd realize that we meant the same thing, but were coming at it from a different direction and, of course, using different verbiage.

We've been able to work around that particular issue a lot better since the realization. But since taking the Strengths test and knowing the results, the communication issue all made sense. 

One of my goals, I think, for 2023, is going to be studying Strengths a bit. Finally. There are a couple of books specifically about the Clifton Strengths, so I'm going to do some reading. I want to work on growing and leaning into my (top-ten) Strengths a little more, especially the ones that I struggle with.

The plan is to share a few tidbits here along the way.

Short and sweet today. Have a great weekend. Take care.

Decluttering's been kind of slow going due to other things going on, but I'm still working on it. I'm up to a total of twenty-nine items now. Only seventy-one more items to go!

*Should I set a random goal of accomplishing this before the new year?

And I've successfully resisted bringing more unnecessary items into the house. I've seen things I've wanted, but absolutely didn't need, and I didn't buy them.

I've also been on journey to not spend money and to funnel any extra funds I scrape up toward some credit card debt, so that goal helps me not buy stuff. :0)

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Let's Recycle

I discovered that my toothpaste tube is now recyclable! I'm very excited about this because in an effort to keep my chompers in as good a shape as possible, I go through more toothpaste than probably most people.

Did you know that only 10% of recyclable items makes it to the recycling center!! I was really bummed to read this.

I've also been trying to reduce my usage of plastics as well as recycling everything I can. Toward that goal, I switched to using paper lunch bags for disposing of cat poop when I scoop the box instead of the plastic grocery bags.

And did you know a lot of misc packaging is recyclable at the store drop-off?? So things like bread bags, grocery bags, and bottled water packaging can be taken to the store and put into their recycling bins usually found at the front of the store.

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Snoopy!

Several months ago, before my crackdown on spending, I splurged on a shirt for my beloved Snoopy. I've had Snoopy since I was a kid and he needed something on. He sits next to a Dallas Stars Build-a-Bear and was feeling a little under dressed.

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Halloween Costume Idea

 

The Iron Man moniker belongs to the hockey player who's played the most games in a row. Without missing a single one. And that doesn't include playoff games.

There's a new Buc-cee's coming to Texas... and it'll mean the largest Buc-cee's resides in Texas once again. There's currently a store in Luling, Texas--the first ever Buc-cee's as a matter of fact--but they're building a brand new one right next door and will be adding 200 new jobs. :0)

And you can bet that DD and I will be making a trip there at some point to check it out...maybe even a before and after...

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Have a great week!