Clay & Laura's Big Adventure!

I haven't said much about my decision, and many people are leaving for other platforms. I am not leaving for another platform, with the exception of a blog.  There is something called emotional contagion. As a highly sensitive person and a strongly empathic person, this is something to which I'm strongly susceptible. Emotional contagion means that feelings are contagious. It's the same thing that makes babies cry when they hear another baby cry. Or why we laugh when someone is laughing.  I feel like with the pandemic and fewer outlets, everyone's emotional responses, including my own, are heightened. As an empath, I feel not only my feelings, but other people's feelings as well. And, I feel all of them all at once - good, bad, happy, sad, angry, fearful, confused, heartbroken, suspicious. I feel them from both sides of the aisle. I feel them in addition to my feelings, and I also feel my feelings about your feelings. This can be overwhelming.  I'm not going to l...

  Never in my life did I imagine months of work from home, a pandemic, wearing masks as a normal thing, or Bernie becoming a viral meme. 2020 was a wild ride, and I'm hoping that the world starts to look a whole lot less chaotic soon. In the meantime, how do we human in meaningful ways? Specifically, I mean interactions with humans other than spouse or immediate family? How do we still human? I  still Zoom, but it's becoming tiresome. Spring and Summer are easier for me. I garden, hike, eat outdoors, try to do socially distant outdoor activities in the sun, and these things are good.  Right now, we're going to church (they have very stringent protocols in place), and I attend a socially distant (in person) dog training course for our puppy. Clay and I want to join a post card club where you send post cards to people all over the world. In the same vein, I'm still working on very belated Christmas cards (they'll probably be Valentine's Cards at this rate). I am e...

Time is flying by, but a month or so ago it stood still. We were told about the opportunity to adopt a baby with a significant medical condition. We prayed and considered, but we ultimately determined we were not financially and emotionally equipped to take this child. I expected to be chosen to consider a child, but saying no to one never really entered my thoughts. And it is harder than I thought it would be. Even now, it's hard. But I trust and pray for this sweet baby. That he will land safely in the arms of a loving home. I think of the birth mom, and her overwhelm. I think of my own. And trust that her prayers and mine will be answered for this child.

Image by mattvest from Pixabay I really laugh when I read my last post . I meant things were getting real in terms of our adoption feeling more real. But, little did I know the very next day, things would get real in a "life is a struggle" kind of way. The short version is that lots of people were in the hospital for a number of months, and Clay and I faced and are still facing some big decisions that have yet to play out. So, we're in a bit of a limbo in more ways than one; adoption being the number one realm of limbo. Our home study was completed in August, but it took us some time to get the funding together to be all the way in the matching phase. The great news is that we were awarded a grant and received some very generous donations which allowed us to move forward without pausing our adoption process.  We created a profile book for a birth mother to see. It could be shown tomorrow, six months from now, or a year from now. It all depends on how many peop...

Hello friends, It has been way longer than I anticipated before sending an update. The last time I posted was after our first home study visit. Since then, we have fit in a lot of living: sick puppy, family trips, dinner with neighbors, our first dinner at the renowned "Babe's Chicken" with Clay's uncle, and two more home study visits. As with any adventure, the plot thickens. Clay and I asked for prayer for an unspoken prayer request recently. This request involves some tremendous decision-making on our part. We are so thankful for all of you who have been praying, and we ask that you continue to do so. I have been uncharacteristically unanxious, and I know that can only be because of your prayers. So, please keep them up :-) I cannot tell you how good it feels to be through the home study process. Our caseworker was very nice, and I never felt uncomfortable or nervous around her, but the whole process is a bit overwhelming. To have your life, decisions, and fina...

A few years ago, Clay and I embarked on an adventure of a lifetime. We moved to the beautiful Central Coast of California! We loved and cherished our time there, but family brought us back to Texas. Our families and our desire to grow our own family through adoption. We first considered adoption in California after Clay's cancer diagnosis. But, as you will read from this post ( http://clayandlaurasbigadventure.blogspot.com/2015/09/part-3-we-are-really-grown-ups.html ), we weren't quite ready at that time to begin the adoption process. We were overwhelmed and far from home. A few years have passed. We're back in Texas, and we're finally on our way to adopting a child. I feel like we need to pinch ourselves, we're so excited! And so begins a new adventure! I'm so thankful for the time we've had to find a very good adoption agency. The thing that is hard to accept about adoption is that someone else's family is broken so that ours can be complete. I hav...

It was sometime in November 2015 when the fall leaves started to drop their leaves, preparing for changes to come. In my heart, I felt the imprint and significance of this season. I felt the leaves falling in my life. And the coming dormancy before big and new things. I had it in my mind to write more about California, but in winter of 2016, I stopped writing for this blog. Some friends asked me about it, and I told them it was because I was in a waiting place. I could have written about anecdotal things or posted gorgeous pictures of my surroundings. But it would have felt empty and shallow. I had no interest in writing about the surface of things or appearances. I did not want to show only the beautiful or funny or clever. I wanted to authentically represent the ebbs and flows of life. The victories, the challenges, and beauty and the heartbreak. But I did not have words for any of it then. I was just trying to understand it. I knew changes were coming but the when and how were a...