Blog challenge – Getting to know me

\ 1 Comment

Hello there!

I haven’t posted in so long that I thought it would be a good idea to introduce myself again. I found a 30 day blog challenge with prompts that help readers get to know the person behind the blog. Sounds like fun! So here goes…

Day 1 – post a recent picture and 15 interesting facts about yourself

Hanging out at the Bellevue Botanical Garden
  1. I LOVE coffee. Depending on the season, my favorite drink is either a pumpkin latte or a peppermint mocha. Yum!
  2. I adore black cats.
  3. I love to travel.
  4. I am trying to start an editing business.
  5. I am hoping that my editing business will pay for loads of travel.
  6. My favorite colors are pink and purple. Can you tell?
  7. Chinese is hard, but I’m sticking with it! I’ve been learning Chinese for six years and hope to return to Taiwan soon.
  8. Books are my solace, especially character driven classics or memoirs.
  9. Dark chocolate is my friend.
  10. I’ve been happily married for the past 13 years. My husband is a saint!
  11. We have a 17 year old daughter, adopted from Taiwan.
  12. I’ve finished a novel for National Novel Writing Month that will never see the light of day.
  13. My favorite actors are Dwayne Johnson and Benedict Cumberbatch.
  14. I sing at the top of my lungs in the car but don’t like to sing in public.
  15. I am an introvert!

That’s a little about me! What about you? Will you share a couple interesting facts about yourself?

Posted in: Adoption

Open for business, but…

\ Leave a Comment

Last winter, I started my own business. I’ve always been the kind of person who yells, “hey! They misspelled this word!” when reading books. It drives me crazy! Often I will read a blog post or a book and wish that the author had hired me as an editor before the work was published.

So I thought, “why not start my own editing business?” I know I still have a ton to learn about the English language but I have a pretty good eye. I love editing and thought that it would be a good business idea.

In November, I applied for a business license. Since then, I’ve applied for a tax ID, built a website, started a LinkedIn profile, listened to an audio book on building a business, and have joined several Facebook groups for women entrepreneurs.

I am open for business, eager to get started, but… no official clients! I’m pretty sure I know what my biggest difficulty is. I have no niche. My business website is very generic. Pretty, but generic. I don’t feel that a potential client would look at my website and think that I am the perfect fit to help with their writing.

While talking briefly with a business coach, I was also reminded of a pithy piece of advice – write what you know. In my case, that would be “edit what you know.”

I don’t know what that looks like yet. What am I passionate about? I’ve been making a list.

Books
Homemaking
Cats
Language learning
TRAVEL

These are the things I get excited about, that truly make me come alive. Can I niche my editing business into one of these topics? I’m not sure yet! I hope to figure it out soon.

Posted in: Adoption

Thoughts and dreams

\ 2 Comments

Today I met with a couple of dear friends over coffee and we had a thought provoking discussion. The nice thing about being an introvert is that when you get together with someone who is open to deep discussions, you can skip a lot of the small talk and dive into thought provoking topics.

One of my friends asked me what my dreams are. Over the last two years or so, I’ve completely stopped planning for the future. Our adoption and parenting journey has been so rocky that the future is unpredictable. I could make plans at this point but it is highly unlikely that they would come to fruition. There’s just too much trauma and the effects of trauma in our home.

In addition to a lack of planning for the future, I’ve forgotten how to dream. Because I feel so out of control in regards to the day to day, I don’t know how (and lack the emotional energy) to dream about the future. We have to parent based on our daughter’s current emotional status and that leaves little room for planning.

But maybe I should start dreaming again. Maybe that will provide some hope in the day to day. I worry that dreaming again will frustrate me if I feel like the dreams are completely out of reach. But maybe they will be motivational to make some changes and encourage me to control the things I can control.

I’m not sure if anyone is reading my blog anymore but I want to start posting again. Maybe sending my thoughts out into the world will help me connect with others. As my friend Julie says, we need to be willing to ask. So here goes – I need bosom friends. Maybe my words will touch someone and we’ll share our thoughts about life. If not, at least I started reaching out again. That is encouraging.

Posted in: Adoption \ Tagged: ,

Epiphanies

\ 1 Comment

What do you do when you suddenly realize that you are the catalyst when it comes to your children? My husband and I were talking over our daughters’ behavior and belief systems this morning. They treat each other nasty and then both lash out at me when I try to address their behavior. Jeff pointed out that they can speak calmly to each other at night right before bed. I suddenly realized – that’s when I’m not longer in the picture (I go to bed before they do), when I am no longer physically present.

How are they when I’m gone on Sunday mornings? Fine.
How are they when I’m gone on Tuesday evenings? Fine.
How are they when they are getting ready for bed and I’m already asleep? Fine.

So if I’m not around, they will either ignore each other or interact fairly good natured, but still harass each other some. When I am around, they are nasty to each other. Then when I try to interact with one or both, they are disrespectful to me or are so completely engrossed in tearing each other apart that it’s as if I’m not even there.

I followed this thought process. If I am the cause (Jeff thinks I need to reword this to something more positive) of their negative attitudes, behavior, and disrespectful relationships, no wonder my anxiety skyrockets. No wonder my anxiety climbs all afternoon before I pick them up from school. No wonder I can’t relax when they are at home. My body realized this long before my mind did.

Now what do I do with this information? I’m not sure.

Posted in: Adoption, Parenting \ Tagged: , , ,

Nightmares

\ Leave a Comment

I think my brain is processing some stuff. I’m not exactly sure why it’s happening now. Either I’m so tired that I can’t defend myself against the nightmares, or the things we’re discussing in therapy are triggering them, or maybe it’s “calm” enough in our house these days that my defenses are lowered. Either way, I’ve woken up three nights in the past week with my heart rate accelerated, my breathing out of control, and sweating profusely. The nightmares are horrid.

I’ve been having nightmares about rages. It’s been awhile since we’ve had one. I think six weeks or so. But we’ve gone through so many rage experiences in the past two years that my body definitely remembers exactly what they feel like. In my dreams, I can’t tell that I’m dreaming. I dream that I’m sleeping, that I wake up, and that my daughter starts screaming at me. For hours. In one of my dreams, I lashed out at her because I couldn’t take it anymore. In all of my other dreams, I’ve just stood there and taken the abuse. Eventually I wake up for real and realize that everything was a nightmare, not my reality. But it feels so real because sometimes it is my reality.

This week I’ll tell my therapist about it. Hopefully she’ll have some suggestions on how I can combat the nightmares. If I can realize it’s just a dream while still asleep, maybe there’s something I can do. I’ve been practicing breathing exercises right before bed but that’s obviously not helping alleviate the nightmares. I’m not sure what to do but I feel more tired than ever. Not even my sleep is restful.

Posted in: Adoption, Parenting \ Tagged: ,

Mother’s Day

\ 2 Comments

Today is Mother’s Day, a day that is often fraught with extremely conflicting emotions for adoptive families.

For my eldest – grief over the loss of her birth mother combined with the love of her adoptive mother, a love she has not yet learned to trust.

For my youngest – grief buried somewhere extremely deep over never knowing her birth mother and probably wondering why she wasn’t wanted. Not even close to letting her adoptive mother into her heart.

For me – occasional moments of hope that raising these two teens will change their lives for the better combined with a whole lot of grieving over the loss of my dreams for my family. Trauma makes it almost impossible for us to be anywhere near “normal.”

I don’t remember last year’s Mother’s Day. I know it was a terrible day but I’ve blocked out the specific memories. So far today has been much better, but the day is still young. I’m at a coffee shop, holed up with my computer and a good book, which is my habit on Sunday mornings. My daughters complained that I was going out on Mother’s Day, but I explained to them that Mother’s Day is supposed to be about making mama happy. What makes mama happy? Some time spent with her family and some time spent in quiet, alone. This morning I’m embracing the quiet. This afternoon and evening will be spent with my family.

I can only pray that we will have some semblance of regulation and calm. My expectations are low but I always hold out hope that this is the holiday that will be low on drama. One can always hope.

Posted in: Adoption, Parenting \ Tagged: ,

New Years

\ 2 Comments

I have very little time to write tonight. I spent most of my alone time taking a bath and then journaling. But I did want to take a moment to just acknowledge that it is a new year. A new start. 2016 was the worst year of my life. I hope and pray that 2017 will be better. I know that I’m willing to work hard to ensure it will be.

Happy New Year!!

Posted in: Adoption

Surviving Christmas

\ 1 Comment

We survived!! Woohoo!!

We have officially survived Christmas. No rages. No real meltdowns. Just two whiny, extremely clingy children. I’ll take it.

Personally, I experienced very little joy in the holiday. I wish I had found some joy in it but I didn’t. Survival is good, but I feel empty.

I want to write a blog post soon about what I’ve recently discovered to be my biggest challenge in life – my complete lack of self-confidence. I used to have some, though I’ve never been a confident person by nature. Right now I have absolutely none. I feel like a shell of a person. Everything is a projection of confidence, a facade. I haven’t had the emotional energy to write the post just yet, but I am exploring the idea. After all, knowing is half the battle, right?

Posted in: Adoption

Christmas Eve

\ Leave a Comment

It’s Christmas Eve. It’s been an interesting day. We made it to church this morning, for which I am very grateful! The day has been a bit tense but no major issues, another thing I am very grateful for. I know to take one day at a time, even one hour at a time, because the mood in our home can change so quickly. But right now, things are peaceful.

My husband and two daughters are upstairs watching Star Trek. I’m downstairs on my computer, putzing around with reading lists and dreaming about the possibilities for next year. I find it encouraging that I can dream just a little bit. Realistically, I know that I’ll accomplish very little of my dream list as life is just too traumatic right now. But I’m an ambitious and motivated person. Over the next week I’ll put together my new year’s resolutions and my year’s reading lists and hope for the best.

Posted in: Adoption \ Tagged:

Being real

\ Leave a Comment

It’s been ages since I’ve blogged. I simply haven’t had the time or the emotional energy. I miss blogging. I miss sharing my thoughts, hoping that my words will reach some potential adoptive family. I miss connecting with others who are considering adoption or have adopted themselves or are homemakers and share some of my homemaking interests.

Life is hard. Really, really hard. Since I last posted, I traveled to China by myself to adopt a 13 year old girl. My husband and I now have two daughters, a 14 year old from Taiwan and a 13 year old from China. Both have documented physical needs but their most pressing need is to overcome all of the trauma they’ve endured.

But they aren’t the only ones who have daily challenges. Both my husband and I have been heartbroken in the past two years. We have emotional scarring, some of which has healed and some of which is still raw and bleeding. We have a family therapist now. I can now claim an acronym of my own – PTSD. Daily life is a huge struggle. In the past few months, I’ve had two panic attacks and have fought off many others. I now have ongoing anxiety and am trying to get medical support from my doctor.

Hopefully I can start sharing some of the struggles I face and lessons I’ve learned as an adoptive parent. This is not easy. I’m sure that some children come home and meld right into the family. Neither of my daughters have had that experience. It has been a rough road and I often lose hope that everyone in the family will heal.

This is life. My life.

Posted in: Adoption \ Tagged: