crunch

I'm so glad fall is upon us. I was talking with a coworker the other day and she commented on how she wasn't looking forward to fall, because to her it is such a depressing season. This made me so sad. I would imagine her reason was really based a lot on the fact that she just loves summer so much, so she hates to see it end. She also mentioned not liking watching the leaves fall, leaving the trees bare.

There are so many things that I adore about this season, sometimes I think I could live in a world where it was perpetually fall. Oh, I suppose it would get old at some point, but I look forward to this season more than any other. I love the way fall smells-so crisp. And the colors of the leaves are so captivating especially when they are the backdrop to a Friday night football game-which is a fall activity I look forward to each week.

Someday Ben and I will have a fire pit. I can't wait. I love sitting around a fire on a cool fall evening.

Another exciting change in fall-bringing out the long sleeves. I love long sleeve shirts. Not so much sweaters though. Just long sleeve shirts. I look forward to wearing long sleeve shirts and I have to be careful not to push it and start wearing them too early. The timing (the temperature, rather) has to be right, or else the experience of wearing the long sleeve shirt might be a disappointment. If it is too warm, I have to push my sleeves up, which causes the sleeve to stretch out and then when I push them back down it just doesn't feel right. So I have to be patient and wait for the time to come. It's not quite here yet this year, as we are still reaching almost 80 during the day. I have a new long sleeve shirt that I bought at the thrift store that has the potential to become my favorite shirt this fall/winter. I am looking forward to seeing if it will live up to my lofty expectations.

One of my all time favorite fall activities is crunching leaves. There is nothing quite as satisfying as finding that perfect leaf and feeling the crunch of it under your foot. Fall is crunching leaves. Crunching leaves is fall. That pretty much sums it up for me.

My hope for this year-as it is every year-is that we will have a decent amount of mild weather before it gets too cold. I guess we will wait and see.

Progress

Today I finished a project that I started over a year ago, when we moved into our house. At that time, I painted the living room ceiling white, but I stopped at the dining room, intending to finish sometime soon after. That soon after ended up being a year. So sad. I guess this really speaks to how much I hate painting. I woke up with a rare surge of motivation to finish it this morning, so I got going on it before I could talk myself out of it!

*see top right of picture-yep this is how my ceiling looked for a year.... shameful....

**oh yeah, and that's ben throwing debbie up in the air

Ben worked on the bedroom-he actually was able to use the rest of a can of green paint that we used in the kitchen to do an accent wall in our room. We are going to change the kitchen color from green to something else-not sure what yet! We had been thinking about green for the bedroom, and this morning it clicked-why don't we finish the can from the kitchen. Glad we were able to save ourselves a bit of money there. Oh, the projects never end. We are going to really try to get organized and try to finish projects a little bit at a time. Slowly but surely, as money and time will allow-that's the plan.

It is such a feeling of accomplishment to complete something! I keep looking up at the ceiling thinking, wow no stripe anymore! Ben's next task on his list is cleaning out the gutters. There are actually little plants growing in the build up in the gutters. What proud homeowners we are-let me tell you!

Debbie continues to be a huge hit at our house. We look forward to coming home to see her every day. She's still a snuggler, but if you met her you'd never guess it. She gets really nervous when other people are here, and she really doesn't act like her normal self. She gets really jumpy and sometimes she will hiss at our visitors. :o( This makes me sad. She'll be a year old in September, and we will have had her for a year in October. It's hard to imagine life without her now.

*Here is a current shot of her.

*Quite a change from her first day with us last October!

Well, I should probably call it a night. I am tired, but there is more to be done tomorrow. The laundry and my kitchen are in desperate need of attention, as is usually the case on the weekend.

Goodnight.

P.S. Sleeping with the window open tonight...loving this cool spell!

life

We had a nice trip to Columbia this weekend to celebrate with Gramps as he turned 98 today. It was nice to get acquainted with some family members that we don't see often-some that I had only met once!

We are taking Megan up to Omaha for a little mini-getaway next weekend. It should be a fun trip-none of us have been there so it will be fun to explore a new city. It will also be nice to spend some quality time with her before she moves up to St. Joe for school. We are going to miss her, but we are excited for her as she embarks on this new adventure.

We are still on track to adopt, but we are kind of in a lull right now. We have completed our required 30 hour foster care course, and all that is left is a 12 hour course geared toward adoptive parents. Unfortunately, we were out of town for the first class in July, so we couldn't do it this month. The next course isn't offered until September, so we have a bit of time to wait. We do still have some paperwork to complete (of course) so I need to get on the ball to make sure we are all set when the time comes. And we can be looking online at any time for the profiles of kids we might be interested in. That sounds weird saying that... :o)

We did score a free dresser today from Grandpa, so that makes me feel like we have something accomplished! At least the kid will have a place to store his/her clothing! It is still hard to fathom the fact that we will be parents soon. I am ready. We are ready. Their room is not necessarily ready (like I said, all the mystery kid has now is a dresser!), but that stuff will fall into place once we find out who we are getting. I can't really buy clothes for a child now, when I don't know the age or gender! But as far as just feeling like we are ready to begin that next stage in our lives-we are there. I am ready to distribute some of the ridiculous amount of love I have for my cat onto a little one that is craving love and attention.

I have a feeling I will update this blog more when we get a child, but I really want to try to keep everyone updated on the process, as there several of you that have inquired. Hopefully, once September roles around I will have more to report.

times are a changing

life has been busy as of late.  fortunately my job has not been busy lately, but ben just goes and goes for his job.  he works so hard, but fortunately with owning your own business also comes flexibility which is nice.  factoring in the season tickets has only increased our busyness but we have enjoyed watching the royals play.  then of course, there are ben's softball games on friday nights.

on top of this, our thursday nights for the past 8 weeks have been occupied with our most current life changing decision.  after much discussion lately that really begin when we were first married, we have decided to go forward with adopting a child.  the decision to do this was not difficult, it feels very natural for us-definitely the right step.  but the decision to actually take the first step to begin the process was scary!  so many questions to be answered.

we have been in our training sessions on thursday nights, learning about the foster care process, which is required for us to get licensed.  our last class is next thursday.  our next step will be to enroll in a class for adoption training,  in which an additional 12 hours of training will be required.  once we complete that course and all of the paperwork required we will be licensed.  then it will just be a matter of finding our child and being selected to be their forever family.

we are looking within the age range of 2-6, and we have no specific gender or race in mind at this point.  for some reason, when i imagine this mystery child, it is a boy, but that is no indication really of who we will get.  we will just have to see!  we would also be open to a sibling group (could not be any more than 2 at this point) if the situation were to present itself.

i have been overcome with so many feelings during this process.  feelings of joy, fear, anticipation, wonder and even inadequacy.   are we equipped to handle the special needs of a child who has endured so much trial during their short life?  i don't think God would have given us such a strong desire to adopt a child if we were not, but there is so much to learn.  some of which we can prepare for, but a lot of which will only be learned through experience, as is the case with natural parenthood.

and of course there is the question of biological children.  i still see us trying for biological children at some point in the future.  we just made the decision that we would like to adopt a child into our family first, without even having the knowledge of whether or not we will be able to have children biologically.  we wanted the decision to adopt to be 100% by choice and not necessarily dictated by our ability to bear children.  please, please don't misinterpret this as me saying there is anything wrong with adopting only when a couple is unable to bear children of their own.  that is definitely not the case.  we just decided to go about things in a different way, and we liked the idea of having this child integrated into our family first.

so needless to say, there is a lot in store for the felder family over the next few months.  our 5 years of carefree time for ourselves will soon be over, but there will be so much more to gain!

if there weren't enough excitement in becoming a mom in a few short months, i will also be adding the title of aunt for the first time!  danny and megan are expecting a baby in november and i could not be happier for them!   my parents are very excited to become grandparents twice in the same year!  but that goes without saying, of course!

bells

today i am looking forward to the pleasure of watching one of my friends get married.  amy and i met when i switched from westridge elementary to blue ridge elementary in 4th grade-but i think it was in mrs. spigarelli's 5th grade class that we really hit it off.  one of my favorite memories is passing notes to each other in a secret code that we had made up.  the notes would say things like, "will you sit by me at lunch today?"  so cute!  and the answer was always, "yes".

15 years later, though we don't see each other too often, she is one of my oldest friends.  i love the comfort of an old friend.  it's so fun to share stories from "back then".  

congratulations amy!!!

i'm also excited to go to the wedding with my lovely wedding date, sarah, who is a wonderful friend of 20+ years.   actually, come to think of it we only went to one wedding together last summer....but she is still my standing date.  sarah and i love going to weddings and have both found husbands who do not like going to weddings.  (shocker)  while some wives may choose to drag their unwilling husbands grudgingly along sarah and i delight in spending the time together without being pestered by our (wonderful, of course) husbands who will be ready to bolt as soon as they say "i do".  that way we can ooo and aah and gossip (catch up on old times...) all we want without our husbands trying to drag us out the door.  it really is better this way all around-we are happy and they are happy.  a beautiful story of marital comprimise...and we will live happily ever after.

as of late...

• we have been in our house almost a year now.  we have done a few projects, but there is still much to be done.  we are currently on the verge of a kitchen remodel.  looking forward to new cabinets, counter tops, floors, etc.  we were fortunate enough to get the first time home buyer tax credit, which will be funding our project.  we are also hoping to paint the exterior of the house soon.
• we have loved living in raytown for this year.  we have made a lot of new friends and have really integrated into the community.  we even got 2nd place in the kickball league at the park last summer!  you can see our trophey on display at benetti's coffee experience. (watch out, we're coming back this summer and anything less than first will be unacceptable!)  i love being part of a community that i can be proud to call my own.  it has also been great living close to our families, we love spending time with them.
• i have been at St. Luke's for one and a half years now.  this is actually the longest time i have spent at a job since i graduated college.  it has been good, i really have enjoyed working there.  i have made some good friends there, which always makes going to work much more bearable.  we on taking over the accounts payable for St. Luke's North hospital on April 1st, so although things have slowed lately, they are about to pick up again!
• little debbie is about to turn 7 months old!  as cheesy as it sounds, she has been such a wonderful addition to our lives.  still, 6 months after bringing her home the first thing we do every day when we get home is go straight to debbie and pick her up so we can love on her.  she survived all her baby shots and getting spayed and declawed.  she loves to find small spaces to snuggle in.  once we couldn't find her anywhere-we were both getting a little worried as we looked for 5-10 minutes; and then deb just hopped out of a box like nothing was wrong.  other places we have found her have been inside the linen closet, in a bag of trash, in ben's laptop bag, the dirty clothes hamper...  we have bought her a few kitty toys, but her favorite thing to play with is a ball of aluminum foil.  go figure!  i learned that cats should not get cow's milk because most of them are lactose intolerant, but i discovered whiska's cat milk.  debbie literally goes crazy over this stuff.  as soon as we pull it out of the fridge and get a saucer out of the cupboard she starts meowing like crazy!  well, i could go on forever about deb so let's move on!
• ben has officially been co-owner/editor of the raytown post for about 5 months.  he loves it.  he works so hard on it, and as a result he has gotten quite a bit of positive feedback from the community.  i am so proud of him!  i've enjoyed going along with him to high school games that he covers.  we followed the ray south cardinal football team to a state championship in the edward jones dome in st. louis, where ben got to cover from the sidelines.  that was so exciting!  and it was heartbreaking when they lost in the final seconds after a hail mary pass into the end zone by the other team.  :o(  more recently i enjoyed following along with the raytown girls basketball team to the sectional game.  i love watching sports, so this has been a great outlet for that.
• we are going on a trip to florida in late june with ben's family.  i am looking forward to a nice, relaxing time away from work.  ben's grandparent's host this trip for the entire family ever summer after one of the grandchildren graduates from high school.  this will be the third that i have been a part of.  we will be staying in condo with an in ground pool, a hot tub, a game room....yeah i am pretty excited.
• the trip is due to the fact that our megan is graduating from high school.  i can hardly believe this, and the thought of it gets me all teary-eyed.  she recently found out she was accepted into missouri western university in st. joseph, mo.  i am so proud of her!  and i am glad she won't be too far from us.  it has been amazing watching her blossom into a beautiful and intelligent young woman.  god definitely has great things in store for her!
• in just a few short days, baseball season will be here.  we are especially excited because this year, we made the decision to purchase season tickets to the royals.  we got a half season plan, that includes 2 seats.  i cannot begin to tell you how excited my precious husband is for this.  he has pretty much wanted to do this forever.  we are looking forward to seeing all of the new renovations that have been done over the offseason.  kaufman has always been a beautiful stadium, so we are excited to see all of the new additions.
• danny and megan are visiting in 2 weeks!  we have not seen them since christmas, so it will be great to hang out with them for a few days.  we will all be going to the royals game on saturday to see them play the yankees-should be a fun time!  it has been quite a while since i have been to a game with danny or my parents.
• well, i should probably quit now, as i have written a novel.  also, i have mounds of laundry to do and a kitchen to clean up.  i can't stand to start off the week with a messy house, so i must get these things accomplished today!