My Life- it's as fun as puttin' lipstick on a squirrel

So...it's been a while. Life has been hectic and we are getting ready to launch our oldest to AFRICA. He will be volunteering for a year in Malawi at Heaven House Ministries. So my therapist. O yes...my therapist! haha! said. Write him a blessing. A blessing? wow. never thought of that. so two weeks ago she said that. Here I am two weeks later and 45 hours before he leaves sobbing over some notebook paper putting my blessin' on paper. I will tell you that she also asked if I had read a book called The Blessing  . I urge you to check it out. It's good stuff. By now you all should know that I am pretty transparent. So I am going to share what I wrote with you today. Dear Zac, I have been prompted to write you a blessing. Having known your departure was approaching I have pushed aside writing this day after day. This is not a good bye letter, nor is it meant to be advice. It's simply a Blessing. My blessing letter to you is to let you know that you hav...

Many many moons ago, in a A.A. meeting somewhere...I learned an interesting Acronym. H.A.L.T.   H is for HUNGRY... lately I have been hungry. Sadly for "comfort foods" . Junk. coffee. ice cream. chips. spoons of peanut butter. cookies. cupcakes. gross stuff. stuff that does not GROW in the ground. all joking aside. I have found that my life is RUNNING so fast...I skip breakfast. Then it's lunch time and I am STARVING------and being starving makes me ANGRY. look, I get up at 6:30 am every morning. I FEED the dogs, I FEED the guinea pig. I medicate myself and FEED the kid. Then I pack the kids LUNCH/SNACK for camp....all this food flying by and I do NOT take one hot minute to FEED myself. This is my fault. So when I am hungry I get Angry.... A is for Angry... when I am angry I do NOT honor people around me. shoot, I do not even honor myself. My potty mouth comes back, I ask more WHY than WHY NOTS. I become small and petulant like a toddler. Imagine that. A ...

Can I ask you a personal question? Well my friends when you are sitting in a salon chair with sharp objects fluttering around your cranium this is always an interesting question..... Let me back up a bit...yesterday was a scheduled "ME" day. Do you have ME days, or shall I say YOU days? You know days that a person takes all to themselves and just gets all refreshed and renewed etc?  OK....well once a week I take a me day. It's not a whole day but from 10-2 I get to be ME! So I got the children off to school I started to make my plans. I wanted to get a haircut, eat something and maybe hit a thrift store. This may not sound very exciting to you but for me this is divine! So out I go to accomplish task number one. Haircut. I had a hard time choosing a salon, I normally go to a friend but today I was workin off the cuff so I chose a fancy schmancy new salon right up the street. Lesson Number ONE: never judge a book (salon) by it's glossy, chevron and turquoise ...

Hang on, it's going to be a bumpy ride. - Bette Davis in All About Eve (1950) So it has REALLY been 3 months since my last blog. I have a great excuse. We have been growing a child. Adopting an orphan. But most of all we have been walking with the Lord. We were called and we showed up. We have learned that we are ENOUGH. We are REDEEMED. We cannot change Ambriel, BUT we can change the way we react to Ambriel. So I will break it down a tiny bit so you can understand what it has been like in the Niles household for the last three months. First some photos...so you really get the picture! Yes. When you parent a hurt child you pull your hair out a LOT...sometimes they pull your hair out. But most of all at the end of the day...you feel like a tornado hit your hometown. Where do you start. Where do you start? I am not a professional....but I play one every day in my very own home. Here is where I start: Cry out to Jesus. Yes. I do NOT call my Mom. I do NO...

OK folks, it has been a while since I last Blogged. Nearly a month. So welcome, Happy New Year and I pray that you all had a great Christmas and were blessed in many ways. Many of you know we are smack dab in the middle of an adoption. We have a 12 year old young lady from VA Foster Care placed in our home and we will adopt her in March 2013. She has waited over 7 years for a forever home. This placement has been awesome, scary, nuts, ridiculous, tiring and super all at once. When accepting a child into your home that comes from a "hard Place" you ask for nothing. You LOWER the Bar- this is the favorite thing I hear at my therapy sessions with a great man who specializes in attachment therapy. What is attachment therapy? well I am so glad you ask.... you see...there is this koala ....just kidding. here is the lowdown: http://attachmenttherapy.com/ad.htm  read that! :) Our dear daughter to be suffered from RAD- which is this: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/reactive...