Sidebar about the Counter

Hi All!
Nope, I'm not telling you a thing about our adoption- not quite yet.  But it's coming. 

I just wanted to address that little counter at the bottom of our blog.  Go on, take a look at it.  It's at 25,000.  Our blog has been looked at twenty-five thousand times.  Oh.  My.  Gosh.  I stuck the counter on there last August just because I was curious if anyone actually read it besides our family.  Looks like they do.  Who are you people?  Seriously, please leave me a comment.  PLEASE.  And if you have a blog yourself, leave a link and I will read it I swear.  I'm curious.  I also love taking a peek into the lives of people I don't know.  It's like eavesdropping on a conversation in the Metro- which is my other favorite pastime.  And besides, people are inspiring.  Take a look at this one http://www.kellehampton.com/ She is amazing.  I love that she finds beauty in things that most people don't even notice.  And she takes photos of her life and kids that make me want to dust off the camera and quit being lazy about hauling it around.  Or this one. http://www.sweetnicks.com/  Her food photos make me want to go to the kitchen and cook until it's a disaster zone in there.  Fun, huh?  And I have lots more.  And that doesn't even include all of my adoption friends and their wonderful stories.  The internet is just incredible.
 
The reason I started this little blog was to keep people updated on what was happening while we were in KStan for our first adoption.  I didn't want to send emails to all of my family (which is a whoooole lot of people) but I didn't want anyone to worry while we were gone either so I started a blog.  And then my mother in law (Hi Gigi!) send it to the entire population of the city where she lives and I realized that people who knew me but didn't really KNOW me would be reading about our exciting but also terrifying and uncertain trip- people outside of just my family and the adoption community and it sort of made me want to hold back.  I was originally planning on using the blog to just keep people informed and then keep a written journal for Rinat while we were there- a record of falling in love with him.  I'm sure that a time will come when he is unsure of himself and trying to figure out who he is and where he belongs in the world and I wanted him to know how excited we were to get to know him and everything that we learned about his home.  I was reluctant to put it all out there for the world to see.  But then I decided to just... jump in.  And I am so glad that I did.  I am not the most outgoing person in the world.  When I was young, I barely spoke out loud.  Other people scared me.  I was that girl in class who, when told to read aloud for the class, could barely be heard because it wasn't above a whisper (and, for the record, when I was teaching I never, ever made a single student do that). And book reports and poetry recitations? Absolute torture. I made myself sick worrying about it.  I just wanted to disappear the second anyone looked my direction.  But adopting Rinat has changed my world.  It has changed me.  Yes, there are many other things that have also contributed- my great friends in college, my patient and loving husband who has been my encouragement for 17 years now, being in this city that I love with amazing and supportive friends- but the last few years with him have affected me more than anything.  I want to be seen for once and I want people to know that we're here, and that we are a happy family full of a huge amount of love.  We know what's important in life and we make it a priority.  I don't know if that would be the case if parenthood had come easily.  But there it is.  This is our life and it is AMAZING.  It is full of twists and turns and good times and difficult ones but overriding it all is us.  Our little family unit.  And I want all 25,000 (and counting) readers to know it.  So keep reading!  And then when I am old and grey and no one can understand what I am saying because my dentures keep falling out (and Carson hides them because it's funny), we'll still have this record of our lives.  A record of all the love we had to give.  So thank you so much for supporting us and being happy for us and sending good thoughts our way when they were badly needed.  We appreciate every single one of them.

I hope everyone has a wonderful and candy-filled Halloween.  Check back soon for big stuff in our life!  Love to all,  -m 
And did you look at the weather over there to the right?  SNOW next week in Karaganda.  Rinat will be so excited!