I Have a Tick... Or Maybe a Few?

Before I get into my ticks, I want to thank you guys so much for all your encouragement, prayers, and advice for us since my last posts!  We appreciate every one so much!  It means more than we can ever put into words!  With the suggestions many of you have offered and much prayer and patience, we are making some progress, but I will do that in another post. 
 



No! These can't be found in MY garden!

I do have a lot of ticks, when I start to really think about it.  One of my worst ticks is that I like to have things done before the weekend comes.  I want the laundry washed, folded, and put away; the house cleaned; the lawn mowed; meals and desserts prepared; the car washed; the house in order and all the projects done so that I don't have to do any of that on the weekend.  Well, as we added more children to our family, I have had to learn to let some things go because my girls are only going to be little for a short time, and my house can always be clean and my laundry pile can always be gone and my yard can always be beautiful twenty years from now when they are all grown up. 


Hey, these weeds can be beautiful, too!



 So, I have to walk through the house with blinders on my eyes and play with the girls in the yard with my eyes closed or I get overwhelmed by the projects that I can find there.  :)   I remember getting angry seeing 10 workers working outside on beautifying the yard where we adopted Eliisa from and yet watching kids strapped into wheelchairs or sitting on benches without any toys to play with or anyone to give them any attention for hours.  Yes, sure a nice appearance to the orphanage or institution is important, but is it important enough that children get even more neglected in the process?  NO!!!  So, I have tried to ignore that tick I have since bringing home Eliisa.  But like most things that we try to ignore, there comes a time when I see the weeds growing in my flower beds and the grass growing taller than my two-year-old or from the sidewalk into the street from lack of edging even when my eyes are closed. :)  There comes a time when I can no longer tolerate walking barefoot in my house because there is so much dirt on my floor, my feet are always dirty. :)  And a time when I can see the soap scum turn a deep brown around the bathtub rim from little girls who love to play outside and need to get clean sometime before the whole house will get sick.  And a time when I can't walk through the house early in the morning without tripping over half the toyroom spread all over my house and thus waking up the whole house.

So, this week, we only had one doctor's appointment, so I decided to attempt to get one or two of those things done every day of this week.  On Monday, I had to pick up a prescription for Eliisa, so although I really DISLIKE Wal*Mart, I decided that I had to face it in order to get the prescription filled the cheapest.  :)  So, I decided to ignore all the looks I knew I'd be getting and take all five girls and get it done and hopefully a couple other errands along the way.  We were gone all morning, but I am proud to say that we successfully stocked our pantry, fridge, and medicine cabinet and I didn't even pull all my hair out (only the gray ones!:)).  And I made sure that those people who were in the stores that we were in, will NEVER go shopping on a Monday morning again.  :)  On Tuesday, we recovered from Monday, and then tried to go outside to do a little work in the yard in the evening.  It did not go so well, so I had to abandoned my efforts in the middle of the edging. 

On Wednesday morning, I decided to try again, and was able to get much of the yard done while the girls were happily entertained on the swing set and in the kiddie pool and later finish it during nap time.  Why, oh why did we ever buy a house with a corner lot?  It increases the amount of edges exponentially. And then I discovered that while so dutifully taking care of my yard, I really got a REAL tick!  Praise the Lord, I was able to remove it's full body from where it had tried to make a new home, BUT let's pray that it did not give me any diseases while it tried to make my body its home!  I cannot get sick at such a time as this!  :) 

Why would anyone ever be afraid of all of us?! 

 On Thursday, I took all five little girls to a doctor's appointment in the big city.  When the nurse saw all six of us coming into the office, she quickly ushered us to a treatment room and shut the door.  :)  It was a quick and easy appointment anyways.  Since I can't let all that gas go to waste, I made a couple of other very important stops on the way home including picking up a new frame for my glasses which did not survive the last tantrum.  Although I said I was walking around with my eyes closed for fear of seeing the projects, I need to at least see the road while I am driving.  :)  And we made it home all in one piece! 

And then came Friday.... Today, I was able to at least get the surface dirt in my kitchen, bathrooms, and floors cleaned up.  All of the girls had an awesome day-the best day since coming home.  I am so thankful and know it was all of your prayers for us getting us to this point!  And now, I am sitting here to complete one other tick that I have-to update the blog so that you all don't think that life is all terrible around here.  It is NOT!  We do have a lot of good times together along with the tough times.  But we also wanted you to know that, yes, it is not always easy, which is one more reason to go and bring home one of the 147 Million orphans in this world!  And now, for one last tick of the day... I am going to sit here for the next five minutes and enjoy my "clean" house before five little monkeys get up and turn it upside down.  :)  Ahh... too late already!  Off to the pool we go because at least there, I am not responsible for any projects.