Acquired Tastes

I've been thinking a lot lately about acquired tastes.  A lot of things in life can be considered an acquired taste.  Foods, activities, drugs and alcohol... there a lot of things that aren't generally liked the first time they are tried but they grow on you after a few attempts.  My question is, what makes us so willing to acquire tastes for things that are bad for us, but so unwilling to acquire tastes for things that are beneficial to us?  Let me give you a few examples.....

There are a LOT of people who hate alcohol or coffee the first time they try them... or even the 2nd and 3rd time, but they KEEP trying them till they like them.  But at the same time, there are a LOT of people who won't drink water or milk because they don't like them.  Why are we so willing to work so hard to like alcohol and coffee but so unwilling to get used to milk and water?  Social acceptance?  Rebellion?  What is it?

Cigarettes.  Who actually likes the first cigarette they smoke?  I'm guessing very few people think, "Oh yeah this smoke is delicious!"  But they keep at it till they can't do without it.  Going for a run or doing any type of exercise is also something that once you start, you begin to enjoy after a while but less people are willing to doing those activities.  Why is that?  We have a huge obesity rate in this county because people would rather get used to being fat and unable to move around or shop at the stores they want to than get used to a little physical activity.  Why do we do that?

Maybe it's a motivation problem.  Maybe we are motivated to fit in so we do things we think are cool at the time.  Maybe it's a rebellion problem.  Human nature wants us to like the negative stuff and despise the good stuff.  I don't know what the answer is but it's an interesting thing to ponder.

Think about it.  What things in your life have you gotten used to that you didn't like the first time you tried?  What have you acquired a taste for?  Look at the healthy/good things compared to the unhealthy/bad things you've forced yourself to get used to.  Are there more negative ones?  I challenge you to think about this and pick a couple of good and healthy things to force yourself to acquire a taste for.  You would be surprised at what you can end up enjoying.

Sweet Child of Mine

I've always had a heart for children.  I can't stand to see children suffering or hurting or being mistreated.  It literally brings pain to my heart to read the horrid stories in the news about things people do to their own children or about children suffering or starving in far away places.  I grew up with several families around me that did foster care and I always admired them.  I thought that one day I would like to do something like that.... take care of children that had experienced so much pain and show them how life could be different.  But my husband has never been too keen on the idea of foster care.  He always gives me the "that's something we can talk about later" response.  If it's meant to be, he'll come around.  God will change his heart.

But recently I have felt tugged in a different direction.  This is how it happened....

I am away from my family right now for a year-long class.  I have started using this time to get closer to God.  I've started reading my Bible daily and praying and as I've spent more time with God, the topic of children has been more on my heart than ever before.  I know my purpose has something to do with kids... I just haven't been sure what that is.  Then I started to feel like God has been showing me how lucky I am.  My husband has been steadily getting better and better jobs making more and more money in the midst of a time where the economy is crumbling around us and I feel God telling me that this isn't happening to us because we are just special.  There is a purpose for our life going this way and that purpose isn't just so that we can live a life of ease.  So what is that purpose?  Kids.  Maybe it's kids.

Then a friend send me a blog she is writing about the process her and her husband are going through to adopt a child from Ethiopia.  I was immediately intrigued.  She, much like me, had always felt a desire to help children... but she knew she wanted to adopt and her husband did not like the idea.  So she never brought it up again... she just prayed that God would change his heart and he did.  Her husband decided he wanted to adopt and now they are doing it.  As I finished reading her blog with tears streaming down my face, I thought, "Maybe Hubby and I could do this.  Maybe we should adopt a child."  I started praying about it right away and the feeling hasn't dissipated... it's only gotten stronger.  But if Hubby didn't like the idea of foster care, he certainly wouldn't like the idea of adoption right?  So I prayed.  And cried.  And prayed some more.

About a week ago, I decided to bring the idea up with Hubby.  I told him I wanted to talk to him about something that was on my mind and I just wanted him to think and pray about it.  I told him everything that had been happening in my mind and heart over the previous few weeks and he just listened.  I was completely shocked at his response.  He actually sounded excited about the idea and he said that as soon as I said I wanted to talk to him, he knew it was going to be about adoption.... a topic I hadn't really brought up before.  He's the one that said one OR TWO!  Two???  I had just wanted him to think about the idea and he's mentioning two?? Maybe God started working on Hubby's heart long before mine... after all, I would be much easier to convince to help a hurting child!  I had tears streaming down my face when I hung up the phone.  The first obstacle.... what I thought would be the most difficult one, isn't even an obstacle at all!

So now what?  I feel almost sure that we should do this.  But when?  Where will the money come from? Do we have a 4th kid?  Do we skip the 4th kid?  Do we wait till our kids are older?  What about all the other plans we had for our life?  Do those change... do we stick to them?  I have so many questions.  I am a planner.  Maybe God is trying to remind me that my plans are not my plans.  My plans need to come from him.  He has the perfect plan but how do I know what that is?  This is the biggest test of faith that I have ever had because we really need to trust God completely with this decision.  I am a doubter.  What if I'm not hearing Him right?  What if we do this at the wrong time?  What if I get pregnant right when we are supposed to adopt?  Will our house be big enough for all these kids?  How will we buy a new house when we owe so much on ours?  I feel like God is telling me not to worry about that... he will take care of it.  But the obsessive planner in me has all these questions.  How can I be sure we are doing the right thing?

If you are reading this, and you pray, please pray for us.  I don't know what else to do right now besides pray.  I was dead set on having a 4th baby but I'm not even sure if that will happen now and that is a hard decision for me.  I don't know if God is trying to work on me to give up that last child or if we will still have another.  I feel like I don't know anything... but I know I want to do this.

So child out there (or two), I don't know your name, I don't know where you are, I don't know how old you are or if you are a boy or a girl but I am praying for you.  I pray that Jesus wraps you in his arms and gives you peace.  Whoever you are, we will love you like our own child.  I have already started to love you.  Once God gives us the go ahead, we will come for you with open arms.  

Goals for 2012

I normally don't do the "New Year's Resolution" thing because I think it's a crock of crap.  Everyone makes promises to themselves that they don't keep, or they create elaborate goals for themselves that are impossible to accomplish.  Waste. Of. Time.  But this year, I've decided I'm going to give it a try.  After all, I make goals for myself throughout the year anyway, maybe it's time I start thinking a little more long term than, "Today I need to clean my living room or I don't get a cookie."

So here's what I got. (They are not in priority order.)

1. Run a 10k. I'm also considering a half-marathon but we'll see what the year brings.  Last year I did my first 5k.

2. Do 45-50 push-ups consecutively. Right now I can barely do 10 without resting. Pathetic.

3. Become more fit overall. Vague, but I know what I mean. :)

4. Pay off all our credit cards... Which is totally doable.

5. Have over one month's worth of income in our savings account... Also doable but will take some self-control.  I hate self-control.

6. Read the whole Bible in a year.  I haven't read it much at all this year.  I've tried to read it in a year so many times and I always crap out around Deuteronomy.  Not this year.  I WILL read the whole thing... a little bit every day.

7. Read 5-10 more classics.  I love the classics.  I read about 5 in the last half of this year and loved them.

8. Read one whole book entirely in Turkish.

9. Finish 3 associates degrees and start working toward my bachelors. I know 3 associates may sound excessive, but I have so many credits from different programs that with a few classes, I could knock out 3 all at once.

10. Learn photoshop. I bought the program early this year and have no clue how to use it. Also get better at photography in general.

11. Switch to purchasing as much organic produce and meats as possible and lower the amount of processed foods we eat.

12. Learn to cook more so that Hubby and I can take turns making dinner and he can have a break once in a while.

13. Get my yard looking good and plant a garden.

14. Paint most of the rooms in my house and do some minor upgrading.

15. Learn to quilt and finish one before the end of the year.


I feel like I'm forgetting a thing or two but since can't remember them, and I don't want to end up forgetting about this post and publishing it in June, this will have to do.

A Homeowner's Paranoia

     I am completely ignorant about what it takes to really take care of a house.  I don't mean cleaning and laundry and mowing the grass.  I mean the really important stuff like how often you have to redo the roof, who to call to clean and inspect the heating ducts or the furnace, or how to clean out gutters.   Growing up, my family never owned a home; we always lived in apartments.  If the toilet got clogged, you called the landlord.  Heating problem?  Landlord.  Stove broke?  Landlord.  And as for the yard, somebody took care of it and it wasn't us.  My husband lived in a house that his mom owned for his whole life and although his mom is a carpentry and house genius who did most renovating and home repairs herself, he is more into math or cooking and never paid attention to what she was doing.  He is probably more clueless than I am.  So when we bought our first home, I was a little scared. Especially after I realized just how clueless my husband was when he got REALLY excited and proud of himself for fixing the water knob in the bathtub.  I had been sure that he was downplaying his handyman inabilities.  He wasn't.
    Every once in a while I panic and run a bunch of "what if?" scenarios through my head.  Like what if a sink gets clogged?  (Okay I think I can handle that one.)  But what if a water pipe bursts?  Do I even know how to turn off our water?  Or what if there is a small leak in the roof and I don't know it and then moisture gets into the attic and into the walls and then they get all moldy or just collapse?  Far fetched? Maybe... but this is the random crap that runs through my mind every few months.
    Todays bout of paranoia was brought on by the furnace.  The kids' bedrooms are a lot colder than the rest of the house, especially if the doors are closed.  And the rest of the house doesn't seem to stay warm for very long... even in the new addition.  So when the heat kicked on today I stuck my hand over all the vents to see if any warm air was coming out and the results were less than stellar.  Now my mind is racing.  Do we need a new furnace?  I don't even know how old our furnace is.  I don't know how much a new furnace costs or where to buy one or who to call to install it.  Pathetic I know but like I said, I'm clueless.  I decided to pull out our homeowners inspection report from when we bought the house to see if there was anything about the furnace in there.  Nope.  Nada.  But there was tons of other stuff that I didn't notice before.  Nothing huge... just things we could do to improve the condition of our home and help prevent all of the freak-out scenarios I come up with.  As I read though the report, I actually had to look up some words in the dictionary.  What the heck is a soffit? Or a fascia?  Well I know now.
    I've decided I just need take it one day at a time, learn as much as I can, and relax.  Between my mother-in-law and the internet, I can find out everything I need to know.  Every time I have a paranoia panic attack, I need to take a deep breath, look around at the roof over my head, the kids playing on the solid floor beneath us, and the solid, un-moldy walls and know that everything will be okay.  If a pipe bursts, we will figure it out.  If the roof collapses, we will figure it out.  If the furnace crashes, I'll learn real quickly how much they cost and who to call to install one.  I just hope that when the time comes for those kinds of homeownership joys, they're spaced out enough for us to have some recovery time in between.