Sarcasm in the Sanctuary

The last adoption update I gave was a while ago, and it was that we were waiting to find a new agency. Our original one was Shady McShaderson, so we quit them. We found a new agency, but they needed a representative in Moldova before they would sign us.  This summer was a very emotional time for me- you might want see the previous post for an insight into my mindset before reading the rest of this.  At the beginning of August I was leaving the hospital when I got a phone call from our "new" agency. She told me how they tried multiple times to find a Moldovan representative, but none of their candidates ever felt comfortable with the Moldovan government, AKA Grandfather McShaderson. Because of this, they wouldn't be able to facilitate any adoptions in Moldova. And just like that our adoption was over. Again.   Kyle and I didn't talk about adoption for a long time. School started, school sucked, and I hated it. This semester was the worst I have had in the 5 ye...

Four days after my last blog post (end of July) I was having lunch with my really good friend from work and her daughter. She usually gets the raw end of the deal and has to listen to me ramble on about the goings-on of my life. She has seen me cry more often than someone should cry at work. She also gets to hear all my completely hilarious jokes, so I think we are even. Anyway, we were having lunch and my brother called me. He usually only calls me to tell me some contrived reason he thinks our mother loves him more than she loves me, so I was expecting something light-hearted at the Cheddars table that afternoon. Nope. He was calling to tell me that our dad had a stroke.  The next month was a ridiculous roller coaster of emotion.  My parents were divorced when I was in high school, and my dad and I didn't have an awesome relationship. He was always still close with my brothers, but we lost our connection. I had a lot of anger toward him, that I slowly dealt with in v...

A couple of months ago one of my favorite Pre-AP students (yeah, all teachers have favorites and they are liars if they tell you they don't) came up to my desk. I saw him walking up and figured he needed to use the restroom or wanted a piece of lead for his mechanical pencil (because regular pencils won't do for us math nerds). He pulled up the only chair in my room that isn't connected to a desk and asked if I had a second. Now this kid has a history of asking things like "where did the quadratic formula come from" and "will we get to do any Trig this year"? This is the kid who was late to class one day because he was watching Calculus videos online in the library and didn't hear the bell ring. So when he said "Mrs. Jackson, I heard a rumor about you" he had my attention.  My stomach felt like it was going to fall out of my butt (that's two blog posts in a row with a Mean Girls reference for those who are counting). Oh crap. Are y...

So when we found out from our agency that we couldn't adopt because of my seizures we were devastated, but we vowed to fight. We were told that our agency did everything they could and it was over. We knew our daughter was in Moldova and weren't willing to switch countries as suggested by our agency many many times. I am going to be pretty vague about the goings on between us and our agency because I'm trying this new thing where I don't talk about people behind their back (if you don't get that Mean Girls reference then you can't sit with us).  We were financially and emotionally invested in this agency, and we really wanted it to be able to continue with them.  We tried our absolute best to work it out and continue our relationship with them. All I am going to say is that we didn't feel their choices were in the best interest of us, our situation, and our daughter. Therefore, we decided to change agencies. We found a new agency, and I feel...

So you need to know that I have epilepsy. Not the kind where I have a seizure when I see a strobe light, though. I had 2 my senior year of high school and one my sophomore year of college. After a ton of tests I was diagnosed with having a scar on the right side of my brain. No telling how it got there- but I suspect Voldemort… Anyway, my condition is completely controlled by medicine now. I take two pills a day and don't even give it a second thought. Honestly, sometimes I forget that I ever even had a seizure. So we are in the middle of our home study and we were told by our social worker that we should run my condition by our agency just to make sure everything was fine. It didn't even cross our mind since it's not a big deal to us. The day before our four year wedding anniversary we got a phone call from our agency. Kyle took the call at work and told me it was a lot of information so we would just talk about it at home. Once we got home he told me to sit down- I am su...

So sometimes I get these ideas but it is rare that I execute them. I am trying to get more crafty, more often- keyword "trying".  I've made a couple of wreaths before, but they were for my classroom.  I really wanted to make a holiday-something for my front door at home. I knew that it would probably take a longtime for this idea to actually come to fruition, so I knew I had to pick a holiday that was far away. I mean, I could always buy something from Etsy, but something of the size I wanted would be pretty expensive and I am sure would cost another arm and leg in shipping.  My sister-in-law made this for me, so I got the idea that it didn't have to be a traditional wreath, but could be something made out of wood.  I love love love chevron and got the idea to make an American flag out of wood and let the stripes be chevron. My friend Morgan was on board and wanted to make a bunny for herself, so we spent all day Sat...

So I have been trying to get better at keeping secrets, and I feel like I have. For instance, I am taking over as one of the National Honor Society advisors next school year. It was pretty hard not to tell my students until the current advisors announced that they were stepping down. I'm not going to lie- I'm pretty proud of myself.  I have had this blog since this past summer, and only a handful of people know about it. And not that it had to even be a secret or anything, but something inside of me always wants to tell a secret when I have one, so this was kind of a way to test myself.  So Kyle and I are taking another team to England this Friday. What we get to do there is pretty awesome and I am so thankful to be a part of it. Every class period for a whole week we get to sit down at a table with 5-10 teenagers and share the Gospel with them. It is one of the most spiritually exhausting, and at the same time, refreshing things I have ever done. Bec...

Before reading this, make sure you go back one post and read how we first came to hear of Moldova. First of all Moldova is not to be confused with the fictional country of Genovia from the The Princess Diaries starring Anne Hathaway. I'm not saying someone has already asked this, but I'm not saying they haven't *cough*mom*cough* Moldova is a country sandwiched between the Ukraine and Romania. It is about the size of Maryland and 20 Moldovas could fit inside of the great state of Texas. Moldova declared independence from Russia in 1991, and has had economic trouble ever since.  Not only is Moldova the poorest country in Europe, it is also considered the number one supplier of the sex trade.  When I was researching Moldova, I couldn't find much, and everything that I did find was about sex trafficking. I knew sex trafficking was a very rampant thing, but I think it is one of those things that isn't real if you don't think about it- I mean, it can be ign...

The Monday before school started back I was in a meeting when I got a text from Alex, one of our students in the youth group. It was a group message with my husband, Kyle, and she said she wanted to ask us a favor. Her family is hosting a foreign exchange student from Germany and their student's friend had been placed in a bad home. She was being forced to clean up after them, babysit their kid, and they were being mean to her. She was uncomfortable in the home and wanted to know if we would be open to hosting her.  Kyle and I texted back and forth until we got home and could talk face to face. My immediate answer was "no". It would be so inconvenient for us. Honestly, I did not want to have wear pants around the house, shuttle her places, or cook for her- I mean I barely cook for us as it is! Kyle, being as level-headed as he is, said we needed to pray about it. Tuesday I was on the way to another meeting and Kyle and I were on the phone. We realized all the reasons...

The past week or so has been pretty tough on me- I cried more days than I didn't. We told our moms about adopting.  I was so worked up about it- I backed into the door of Kyle's truck. That's right. My first "wreck" in the 10 years I have been driving was 30 minutes before we were supposed to tell my mom about us adopting a child. I went and sat in the car and cried. These were tears of embarrassment and frustration. I have no idea why I was so nervous while we were telling my mom, but I made Kyle do the talking and I just sat and cried. Kyle asked why I was crying, but I didn't know why- and I couldn't stop either. These were tears of nervousness.  I guess I was just nervous about what my mom would say. I love her so much and need her on my side, the thought of her not standing behind me made me sick. But it was not that way at all. She was completely excited and on board. I cried some more. These were thankful tears. Kyle and I are startin...

January 11th. This is the day my friend Haley was born. She is currently in England with her husband who is in the Airforce, and I miss her sweet laugh so much. It is also the day my precious nephew Brayson came into this world. A third birth, our adoption process, happened January 11th. It is the day we submitted our application to be adoptive parents. We have been talking about adoption since before we were even married, but we never had even considered starting the process before we had biological children-at least I hadn't. I had it in my head that we would look into adoption when our two and a half children were around six or seven years old. Kyle and I have tried (obviously unsuccessfully) to have a baby since May 2013. After a few months of unsuccessful trying, Kyle and I went on a walk for a couple of hours. We talked about how much it sucked that I still wasn't pregnant, but that we were going to trust God's timing. We talked about adoption, where we would ado...

So, let me start off by saying that I have no idea what I am doing. Any craftiness I have can be directly contributed to my friends and Pinterest. My sweet friend  Alissa  has told me recently that I have good ideas, but I think my shaky hand and lack of ability to take risks when it comes to color choices doesn't make me the most crafty person ever.  My friends Heather and Morgan lovingly refer to me as "plain," but I prefer the term "basic." Enter from stage left: a free table. I have been wanting to do something with my entryway for a long time now. We just had it painted the same color as our living room, which put me in middle of Operation De-Brown the Jackson Home. That's right, my whole house is brown. I may be exaggerating, but I feel my house is dark and brown. So when Morgan and Travis gave me their old table, I knew I had to do something with this darling.                             ...