Dear Anonymous Donor~

Dear Anonymous Donor~

To say thank you and that my family appreciates your donation to Paul’s fund would be one giant understatement. I keep searching my brain to find the words that would best fit how I feel, but I come up short. All I can think of is thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Yesterday was quite an emotional day for me. I think most of us, if not all of us, have had one of those days. The kind that starts off awful from the very beginning and just snowballs until you are about ready to crawl into bed for the remainder. Yesterday was one of those for me. I woke up to an email from our adoption coordinator. I used to think that those emails were the best until February. She usually had something helpful to send me, or something exciting dealing with the adoption. In February I got a phone call from her that traumatized me most likely for life. I don’t know how much of my story you know, but to make it short, we lost the first little boy we were trying to adopt. That heartbreaking news on the other end of the phone line sometimes causes me to cringe when I see anything from our agency. To my coordinator, if you are reading this, I love you and please don’t take that personally! So, I read that email and my heart sank. It was yet again news from Paul’s country that would delay us bringing him home. This time I have no idea for how long. If we are lucky, we will get our first visit this summer. As for the remaining two visits, I am not expecting anything until the fall. I started feeling like this is never going to happen. The adopting families I know get news like this all the time. It’s one step forward and two steps back. It makes me wonder what’s in store for us next. On top of that, the weather was gloomy and cold, I think I’m getting sick, and the short little men in my life were driving me crazy with their fighting!

Bedtime came for the boys and I was getting ready to pick up my laptop so I could take it to the couch, collapse for the evening, and make my “rounds” for the night. That consists of sitting down to my “control center” and monitor things dealing with Paul’s adoption for the evening. I first check my Facebook account to make sure I have posted all the fundraisers that are going on for Paul. Then I post our link so people hopefully donate to his account. Next, I check my email to see if I have anything from our agency, RR, or anyone hopefully responding to my requests to have a fundraiser at their place of business. Of course I had one from RR stating we had an anonymous donor contribute to Paul. Okay, so I have to admit, I had really high hopes. A friend of mine once told me that she had an anonymous donor contribute $1,000! As I clicked on the link to see how much the account had gone up I had all sorts of figures dancing around in my head! Maybe it would be $200, $500, maybe just maybe $1,000! Never…ever…would the amount of $5,000 ever have popped into my head.

I saw the total on the computer screen and then of course completely forgot what the total had been last time I looked. I knew that it was nowhere near what I was looking at, at that moment. After doing a quick calculation I had to ask Charlie do double check and then triple check what I had seen. Then came the tears again. This time they were tears of joy, happiness, excitement, hope, love, and restored faith in humanity.

I know that everyone knows the saying “money can’t buy happiness” but let me tell you, last night, it sure did. Your donation, along with the generosity of everyone else that had donated, or said a prayer, or forwarded Paul’s link, has carried us so far. We are so close to being fully funded that I can actually see a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. That is a light we have yet to see until last night. Our original goal for the fundraising was set at $21,000. That was because there was no way in the world Charlie and I could see us raising even that much money towards our adoption. Once we hit $19,000 I decided to raise it to $25,000. I raised it yesterday. The very day you took us right to it!

So, I want to take this time to tell you again thank you from the bottom of my heart and soul. Because of you and all the other donors we will not have to keep Paul waiting any longer than he has been. We will have all the money that is required of us. We will bring him home and love him like we love our other boys. We will love him the way that all children should be loved. I am also looking forward to having the chance to pay it forward. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I can’t say it enough!

Love,
The House Family

Not So Patiently Waiting

Today marks 1 week from when our dossier was supposedly submitted. I say supposedly because I have not been told one way or the other if it was turned over to the committee who is supposed to be assigning a travel date for our family. I didn't think that I would survive this week, but I somehow have. Staying busy doing fundraisers is a good way to pass time until I hear something! This adoption has taught me so many things. One of them being patience....sort of. Multiple times a day I feel myself getting pulled towards the computer so I can send our adoption agency a quick email...just a quick one liner...asking if there is any news. Of course there is no news! Our agency wouldn't be sitting on that information, but I can't help it. Thankfully, I don't email or call her like I want to...need to. Instead, I just sit here and stare at my phone and check my inbox what seems to be about 1-2 million times a day, depending on my anxiety level on any given day.

Speaking of fundraisers, we had one over the weekend. To me, it was a flop. To other optimistic people in my life, they would say it was more than what we had before. I was really, really aiming for double what we brought in. We had a yard sale Saturday. For anyone that has not done one...ughh...it's so much work. We were up so late getting things ready and then up so early setting them up. The turn out was less than impressive. I can't believe how cheap some people are! I understand that it's a yard sale. So...come on...things are already dirt cheap. Even after telling the "customers" why were having the sale in the first place, most of them still tried to bargain with me. Of course I had to work with them because some was better than nothing. I then thought to myself...well maybe after haggling over the price, they will donate to our cause. After all, we had the big, bright, yellow box sitting right there in front of their faces! Not the case at all! One lady asked how much I was selling a paperback romance novel. I told her $2 and she was quite but out. She said quite loudly, for everyone to hear, "$2 for a book?!" Really lady, if you can't afford 2 bucks for a paperback book, you need to go back home and search the classifieds for a job. Done venting..and moving on.

Our next fundraiser is going to be an attempt at a charity golf event. So, if any of you know anything about golf, or have any suggestions for me, or want to help, that would be more than appreciated. I have never golfed in my life. The closest I came was in high school during P.E. We had a week of golf and I hated every second of it. I couldn't hit that little ball to save my life, so I spent the whole time throwing it in the direction it was supposed to go. So, with that said, I need some help. I am hoping that the course that I end up going with helps me out a great deal. When I say helps me out...I'm actually meaning does the whole thing for me and I just have to get the people there and advertise! Again, any suggestions would be much appreciated.