Thankful

I am thankful for life

For my awesome parents who encouraged me to be me

For my Christian upbringing that makes me feel whole and complete and in the will of God

For the sweetest little girl God could have ever given us

For a husband who loves and understands me and adores our little girl

I am thankful to God for a wonderful family, life, home, health and an overwhelming joy!!!

Sending pictures

I was mentioning to someone I was sending some pictures and I'm working on a DVD with a fun slide show for J's biomom and the girls shocked me when she said "do you think you should really do that?, Do you really want to be so involved with her?" I was shocked. This girl knows I'm adopted too....why is it so scary for people to send pictures?

AND>>>>>HOOOORAY for Becky who is bringing home little Julia next week. I'm so happy for her, she has suffered seven miscarriages and got to be in the delivery room with Julia's biomom....how special is that? Congrats to her, hubby and baby!

November 17th National Adoption Day 2007

Plan to celebrate National Adoption Day at many of the events in the area where you live. Some local libraries are having readings....some, I have read, are reading "Forever Fingerprints". Even the President has written a proclamation for National Adoption Month, encouraging caring people to adopt children (including children in foster care). He mentioned www.adoptuskids.org .

Juno- an Adoption Movie

I will have to see this for myself, either it's light hearted and will have a good ending or it's all about making fun of birthmothers and adopted parents....

BUSY BUSY

I feel like I don't have anytime to do anything anymore! I have been so busy taking people on trips and having big gala affairs that I have not been able to do anything much less post anything or have time to think about what to post.
-I took 75 people three hours on two old buses to "the Lake" and we got on a big, beautiful yacht and had a tour of all the big beautiful mansions as we ate a lovely lunch.
-I put on a big dance at the Hilton Ballroom with 350 people, an eighteen piece orchestra and $2000 worth of prizes given away (people are selfish pigs by the way with buffet food)
-I am organizing an Ice cream social for 200 people for next week
-My In-laws came and I had to clean my house and make dinner for them, and my SIL and her family
-I took 40 bingo players and hour away to a smoky bingo hall to play 4 hours to win $100 jackpots....I HATE bingo
-I had a dog with diarrhea for three days who destroyed my carpet downstairs every time we left. So, I went through 3 rolls of paper towels and two bottles of Spot Shot and then steam cleaned the carpets when she was well.
-I have to smell everyone with perfume that smells like vomit and coffee that smells like death
-and much much more - boy, I have a head ache just from writing it all down!

In the middle of all of it I have to hear about Hillary Clinton and all her idiotic ideas, listen to Nancy "freak" Palozi and all her loser cronies talk about war (yeah, they think they know a lot about war and foreign policy) . They refuse to listen to people who have actually studied about and understand war and tactics...... boy I am just so grumpy. If Hillary does happen to win, because people are stupid enough to listen the media instead of the people who know what is what, I will be forced to move somewhere - God knows where because Europe (as beautiful as it is) has Universal Health care and everyone knows it hasn't worked for them (or Canada) so trying to find somewhere that is a great place to live (which the US is now until we have to get away from Hillary's version of the country) won't be easy.


LIBRALS ---- PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT TERRORISM CAN DO!
http://attacked911.tripod.com

okay....rambling over....

The Note

Oh my goodness, my daughters biodad is the sweetest thing. He wrote a note, ...he did. He talked about how much he missed his other two kids growing up (they are still young) because he worked too much and now they are number one...
He said J was so beautiful and how happy we always look in the pictures that they love getting. He also said even though he is NOT an emotional person he still cries when he looks at those pictures. He's going to ask J's biomom to marry him this year (she doesn't know that) and he said he got another job so he could be with his family more. He ended with "give her a kiss for me and for N, we both really miss her".

It broke my heart but made me so happy to know how much J is loved and she came from such sweet people. One day I will be so proud to let her read those letters....

I Remember

To the memory of all those lost this day six years ago...You will NOT be forgotten

A Letter

My agency invited me to speak at an adoption conference about our domestic adoption. Unfortunately, I'll be on vacation but when I e-mailed her back I asked about J's bioparents.
They e-mailed me back saying they just mailed off a letter that the biodad had dropped by the office. She said it was a very sweet letter and they love getting all the pics of J....I'm so excited to go home today and get the letter!

S*x Has a Price Tag

Pan Stenzel is an adoptee whose fifteen year old biomom was r*ped and place her for adoption in 1964. She is the oldest of 8 children… 7 adopted…1 biological, and her extended family includes 38 adopted children in all. With her degree in Psychology, she began work, right out of college with young girls who were planning to place her child up for adoption.

"After being approached by a group of concerned parents, she was asked to develop a two-hour program for the Rally for Life 1992. The rally was about s*xual abstinence. She developed the program by mixing media and music, her own talk, and the testimonies of young girls. The response of students, parents and the community was so overwhelming that Pam began to get numerous requests to speak all over the Midwest."

In 1993 a video of her presentation was made and it took off. She got so many requests for engagements that she went on a speaking circuit full time. Read more of her story HERE.

I heard her in an interview and she is funny, warm and a wonderful Christian woman who understands the heart of an adoptee. She believes she was something beautiful that came out of something bad and she wants to someday meet her biomom to thank her for choosing life.

Adoptees should know

John A Lepper, a Representative from Massachusetts, drew up an amendment to open birth certificates for adoptees born before 1974. It passed but was vetoed later....at least it's a start.

They did consider that women after 1974 thought their identity would be kept a secret ....huh? My biomom in the 60s was told it would always be a closed adoption - that no one could open the records..... I do think the adoptee should be over 18 when they get a bc or identifying info....but that's nuts.... no wonder it was vetoed ---they need to word this better.

Arthur Premiers 11th Season...
Including and Adoption Themed Episode

This coming Friday will be a big day for Binky Barnes, one of Arthur's good buddies. His family is adopting a baby girl from China and the special two-part episode is set to air September 7th on PBS (check your local listing for show times). I was able to get a sneak peak of this episode, Big Brother Binky. I must say that I'm impressed with the way the topic of adoption was handled which isn't a surprise as Arthur is an Emmy-Award winning children's program.

For those of you not in the know, Arthur is an eight-year-old aardvark. He and his friends have been learning and growing together for 10 years on PBS and are back for their eleventh season on PBS KIDS GO!. PBS KIDS GO!, which provides educational, non-commercial entertainment for early elementary school kids, will kick off its fall 2007 season September 3 though 7.

I feel that this episode of Arthur was very well thought out and researched. Many adoption experts were interviewed including Adam Pertman, the executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, who consulted with the creators throughout the project.

From creator Marc Brown,

"What the series does best is reflect the lives of kids in an authentic and fun way that resonates with both viewers and their parents. Because adoption is so important to so many families, we thought it was a great opportunity for ARTHUR to explore this subject."

I couldn't agree more, this is one you don't want to miss.

Image of Binky's baby sister. Mei Lin © WGBH/Cookie Jar Entertainment 2007

Important....or not

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GEN-E-AL'O-GY, n. [L.genealogia; Eng. kind] 1. An account or history of the descent of a person or family from an ancestor; enumeration of ancestors and their children in the natural order of succession. 2. Pedigree; lineage; regular descent of a family from a progenitor. -Webster's American Dictionary, 2nd ed., Chicago: G.W.Ogilvie Co., 1890, p.497.

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Genealogy has its roots in the earliest forms of society. Initially, genealogy was most likely used to avoid consanguinity, or marrying blood relatives. Early societies, as well as some surviving today, used genealogical methods to trace their ancestries back to gods, animal totems, or legendary heroes. Lineage was traditionally passed down orally, in the form of oral histories or narratives of a clan or tribe. These often were lists of names or stories of important events. Kings and heads of state in ancient Sumeria, Babylon, Egypt, India and China used genealogy to trace their rights to the throne, a practice that continues today. The Old Testament contains genealogies tracing lineage back to Adam, Abraham, and Noah, just as Muslim genealogies help to link descent to Mohammed, and the ancient Greeks and Romans endeavored to link their ancestry to gods.

During the Middle Ages, monks began to record regal pedigrees. As property became involved, genealogy became closely tied with rank and the inheritance of wealth and land, tax collection, and lawsuits. Also during this period, as serfdom gave way to villenage, it became important to record the descent of more of the common people. This practice increased in the 1500s, with the rise of mercantilism and the middle classes and the emphasis on individual religion generated by the Reformation.

The history of genealogy records a regrettable episode when family research became a State mandate. Under the leadership of Hitler and the Third Reich, German citizens were forced to prove their Aryan origins. Family heritage had to be traced back 4 to generations. Without this documentation, citizens could not receive working papers and they could be subject to imprisonment. The pedigree was called the Ahnenspass.

One website states: The study of genealogy can help people to better understand their heritage, can strengthen family ties, and may, in some cases, help to reduce racism by demonstrating common ancestry.

Many angry adoptees complain that they had their "heritage stolen from them". The importance of studying your past in this day and age is not to prove a royal lineage or prove you're origins to a dictator but it is to see where you have come from so you can know what your family did to get where they are.

So what has been stolen? Just the fact that a great grandmother may have come from Russia and your great great grandfather was a Polish Jew?
How does that change who you are? How does it affect who you are with your family? Will you now learn Russian or read the Talmud?

I found out I had some French in me... (i can't stand the French, so it was quite a shock and a shame actually... lol). It's interesting to know, however, and I'm not saying you shouldn't be curious....but why is it SUCH a major point with them? I would really like to know what they think they are missing out on....