Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries

So, Sunday nite we had the worst hail storm I've ever seen in my life. Here are some shots outside our house post terror-inducing storm:It was eerie and weird and scary. And SUMMER. Not winter, as it appears in these photos. We went to bed wondering what damage we might find in the morning. But alas, God had a nice little surprise for us! We have this gigantic cherry tree in our yard that produces bazillions of cherries-none of which are reachable without a fire department ladder and/or some possible circus-like acrobatics of climbing that may or may not bring about death (and which have been used in seasons past nonetheless). I was just lamenting yesterday that it seems like such a waste to have all that fruit and not be able to get to it. Well, when surveying the yard today to see how many of my plants were destroyed and what clean up was necessary, one of my daughters called me over to look at the ground. "It's covered!" she yelled. And sure enough, the ground was blanketed with cherries, some squished, some perfect. The hail had knocked them down off the branches-woohoo! I spent an hour gathering what I could, along with my trusty little "helper" till my back just couldn't take the bending over any more and I had more than I knew what to do with anyway. (Note the plethora of leaves all over the yard-leaves that just yesterday were considered "branches". Also note the lovely attractive fence that is destined to make it onto the cover of Better Homes and Gardens any day now. Hush up-we're working on it.)

Hope your trials turn out to be "sweet" in some way, too-God is good like that!

PS-have any good recipes for wild cherries?????

Hi Y'all!

Is anyone still reading this and checking in with me? I doubt it but if so, hi and thanks! We have been running wild with the notaries of the New River Valley getting every paper known to man notarized, stamped, signed, sealed, delivered, etc! It is weird, we are very excited about this adoption and yet very hesitant all at the same time. It seems so bizarre at times-we are going to be going halfway across the world, be handed a baby, and be expected to keep it? Like, FOREVER?? What?! And then other times, it just seems like of COURSE we would do that, why wouldn't we?? Like I said, weird. Plus it is a full time job to keep "our eyes on the prize" so to speak-it is hard to see a tiny sweet baby on the other side of a mountain of paperwork!!! But God is so good, He is handling everything in His perfect timing, as always. So we are just plowing through this process, at breakneck speed because that's the way I roll, and should be ready to wait for our sweet little one sometime at the end of June/early July. Yup, be ready to wait. That's the name of the game right now. But it is ok-we need the wait, too. Thing 3 is entering a hurricane phase of toddlerhood that is just exhausting the whole lot of us and is delightful yet exasperating all at once. Thing 2 is a reading machine and daily laments that she is not at school-what a cute little nerd! I just love her :) She has such a sweet and gentle personality-such a blessing. And thing 1, my oldest, is just becoming such a tall, beautiful, intricate and intriguing girl-she is all at once fascinating, hilarious, brilliant and exasperating! Why are my babies all growing up so fast?! My knitting has all but shriveled up right now-I have been plodding away at the same silk lace scarf for several months, snatching bits of time here and there to get in a few rows. I think when it is done, it will be my memorial of a season of my life in which I kind of made a "momamorphosis"-I am not the mom of little tiny tots only anymore, I have 2 school-aged children all of the sudden, my "last" baby is on her way to becoming a big sister, we are going to be a "big" family now, we are going to be a transracial family now, the days of doing laundry in one day a week are long gone, and my knitting is the last thing on my mind most days!! What a difference a year makes. It was last summer when God planted the seed of adoption. We've come a long way, baby! Anyway, this was just a checking-in post 'o randomness so if you still ever cruise by here, give a shout out to let me know! I will leave you with some pictures of our trip last week to the beach-Hilton Head Island, SC-which was AWESOME! We go every year and it's just our family and it is a extremely important week for our family to just connect, make memories, laugh ourselves silly, eat junk food, throw the schedule out the window, play on the beach, look for alligators, and just love each other. This year was no exception: Here is Thing 3, on the attack. Hey, is that a movie star? Why, it's Thing 1!! Look at that little surfergirl-Thing 2 is a cutie patootie!And here's our whole family, minus one little "deeply tanned" cutie who will be joining us next Spring and be in our next beach pictures, for sure!! (and yeah, I don't do make up on vacation nor give a flip about my hair-and I'm ok with that :) )

Thanks for stopping by-I'll try to keep the posts a bit more frequent these days. I miss my bloggy buddies!!