Hello and Welcome!

When I have mentioned to people that I was thinking about starting a blog, almost everyone encouraged me, saying things like “That will be fun!” or “No, it’s not hard!”  Now that I am finally working on my first post, I have to agree.  This will be fun.  And, so far, even a computer-challenged person like me hasn’t had to ask too many questions.

I want this blog to be a place to discuss lots of things.  A Preacher’s Wife-Suburban Mom’s Hodge-Podge, if you will.  I will write about family, work, play, homemaking, food, adoption, and really any other topic that may strike my fancy, whether it is Alabama football (Roll Tide!), the fact that I create random nicknames for famous people, or my love of Sonic Route 44 Vanilla Diet Cokes. 

With all of that said, this is a list of steps you  should  might take when starting a blog…

1.  Read  a few  hundreds  thousands of blog posts for almost four years.  (Most of what I read concerned adoption, specifically Ethiopian adoption, as my husband and I started our adoption process on August 18, 2007.)

2.  Think about how you should have a super cool blog.

3.  Start your adoption paperwork.

4.  Cry.

5.  Complete your adoption paperwork and have each document notarized, sealed, and authenticated. 

6.  Consider driving from your home in Georgia to St. Louis, Missouri, to hand-deliver dossier.

7.  Take a H.U.G.E. chill pill and say an even H.U.G.E.R. prayer and hand your dossier to the nice people at your local UPS Store.  (I need to add that he was the father of a precious teenage daughter from Vietnam, so he thought nothing of me  kissing the package goodbye  sobbing on the phone to David that it was done  wishing it luck.)

8.  Wait.

9.  Move back to Alabama.

10.  Think about how you should have a super cool blog.

11.  Wait some more.

12.  Cry some more.

13.  Wait even more.

14.  Receive referral of absolutely stunning six-week-old baby girl on January 30, 2009.

15.  Wait.  AGAIN.

16.  Receive word that your case has been put on an indefinite hold.

17.  Cry even more.

18.  Receive word that you have a court date.

19.  PASS COURT!

20.  Think about how you should have a super cool blog, too.

21.  Receive official word that you will be going to Ethiopia.

22.  Do nothing, thinking you have a nice three-week time frame in which to prepare.

23.  Have your husband surprise you at work with a phone call announcing that you will be leaving for Ethiopia in 60 hours.

24.  Go to Ethiopia and return eleven days later with above mentioned absolutely stunning baby girl.

25.  Think about how you should have a super cool blog.

26.  Love on your baby.

27.  Help your husband celebrate his 30^th birthday.

28.  Watch a lot of football.

29.  Celebrate an extra special 1^st birthday with the Yo Gabba Gabba gang.

30.  Celebrate Christmas.

31.  Decide you want another baby.

32.  Think about how you should have a super cool blog.

33.  Discover you are pregnant.

34.  Hold a Diet Coke funeral.

35.  Stay sick for an  eternity  fifteen weeks.  (FIFTEEN!)

36.  Feel better.

37.  Find out you are having a girl.

38.  Quit your job.

39.  Eat Sixlets by the handful.

40.  Announce that although you are two weeks early, you are ready for the baby to be out.

41.  Go into labor that afternoon.

42.  Have another absolutely stunning baby girl.

43.  Celebrate an extra special 2^nd birthday with the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse gang.

44.  Celebrate Christmas.

45.  Have your husband apply for seminary.

46.  Have an extra talented friend design your blog.  (Please go see her at www.lambertslately.com AND www.sweetiebabysblogdesign.com.)

47.  Have your husband be accepted to seminary and receive several scholarships because he is so, so smart.

48.  Have your husband be appointed as the Pastor to a church full of sweet members.

49.  Enjoy your summer, even if it involves an unfortunate above-ground pool failure.

50.  Write your first blog post approximately 3 years after thinking about how you should have a super cool blog.

See, it really is THAT simple!  I hope you enjoyed that  short  long list. 

And, since this blog will be mostly about my family, I will come back and fully introduce us sometime later this week, as well as describe what I hope to discuss in the future.  In the meantime, here is a picture to hold you over.

P.S.  Don't act like like the baby doll playpen at your house doesn't hold your Tickle-Me-Elmo and  Dora Flashlight.

P.P.S.  Thanks for reading!  Please leave me a comment so I know you are out there!