Tonight Mihiretu received a collection of gift cards given by his Wednesday night Sparks leaders and friends.  They wrote him such a sweet card and reminded him of one of the Bible verses he learned this year.  

"Be strong and courageous; do not be terrified, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you."  Joshua 1:9

Just as I was getting choked up over the kindness and generosity of all these people, I opened Mihiretu's backpack and in it found a card from his school, which simply stated, "Thinking of you and hope this helps."  In it was another very generous gift card.  This made me tear up all over again.  I really don't know who it is from and who to thank.  I think tomorrow we just might need to take a trip to Target to get the boys some toys or books.  We are so blessed by you.

Well, it is official...we must wait to until our house is complete before we pursue our next adoption.  There was a little girl who we thought...*maybe*??  So I called our agency, CHSFS to ask if we could possibly move ahead.  The answer is not now.  If we were to begin the process now, because we live with her, my mother-in-law would have to undergo a background check and we all know she'd never pass with her extensive ties to the mob.  Hahaha, sorry Joani.  I couldn't resist that one.  But seriously, we'd incur another expense with that and also because we'd be moving, we'd have to update our home study and that is another step.  They also thought we were going through a lot of transition now and it would better not to take on too much.  So we're to call a couple weeks before we move in and get the ball rolling.

I'm a little sad about this but I must admit, also a little relieved at the same time.  Filling out adoption paperwork, getting fingerprinted, background checks, notarizing everything, etc. takes a LOT of time and right now I'm not sure where I'd get the time to do it.  If I had all the inventory done, it would help.  But I have a long way to go with that.  God knows what we can handle and has the right timing so we trust Him.  But I'm still a little sad...

Right now I have 50 pages of inventory with about 40 items on each page.  So that's 2,000 items so far!  I have at least that many more to go, then must look up each item for it's replacement price.  Ughhhhh.  Can you imagine?  

I did finish inventory-ing the damaged clothing the other day.  The dry cleaner's did sort out a big stack that was damaged but when I went through the other clothing that was cleaned, I found quite a bit more that was damaged.  Due to the heat from the fire, many of the pieces of clothing have color that bled or actually completely changed.  Like spots on a purple shirt would turn to blue, green turned yellow.  Anything that was in the boys' closet that was white is now dingy grey.  The weird thing I'm also finding is that shirts that were hanging on a hanger have some spots that actually look like the fabric disintegrated and there is now a hole.  That makes me concerned for the clothing that looks fine now.  What will it look like after a couple washings?  It is amazing what they can do and we're thankful to have some of our old clothing.

I'm really going to try to learn patience through all of this.  Detail oriented I am not.   Everything about this inventory process is wrought with those dreaded details.  This is what I have to write down for one of Blaine's shirts - Claiborne 100% Cotton Mens solid color dress shirt 15 1/2-34/35 wrinkle free collar.  Seriously, it stresses me out just to read that!  Probably by the time I'm completely done, I will have written 5,000 items like that.   I like everything done yesterday.   So I hope I get it right this time.  The patience thing, I mean.  We'll re-assess after 2,000 more items.  I have a LONG way to go, don't I?? :)

Blessings,

Laura