Farmer's Market

Our farmer's market season is underway. We are vending at two markets this year. A busy Saturday market and a smaller, newer, weekday evening market. I'm mostly pleased with how it's going so far. The soaps are not selling quite as fast as I had hoped but I am getting good feedback from the people who are buying. I didn't really know what to expect sales-wise and I think we are doing okay. My son is selling excess produce from the garden and excess periennial starts. He is selling out at most markets (but he hasn't had a huge quantity to start with yet). More produce will be ready soon. The markets should pick up in the next few weeks. It's almost strawberry season here and that will draw huge crowds to the market. Hopefully many of those new customers will be interested in soap. :>)

Respite again

We did more respite care last weekend. There is a lot I like about doing respite. I get a chance to know the kids w/o having to get involved in all the drama of their court cases, visits, etc. Also, usually before their quirks move from 'cute' to 'annoying' it's time for them to go home.

This group consisted of three sisters. Ages 11, 8, 5. They were from a city and clearly were used to city life. My 6 yo took great pride in showing them the goats, chickens, deer heads on the wall, etc. I could tell they thought they had been abandoned in redneck-ville. lol They are very sweet, quiet girls. I hope they weren't too terribly bored here. I have decided I need to invest in some books/activities/games/????? for pre-teen girls if we are going to continue to do respite for that age. Any suggestions? We're set up with boy stuff and little girl stuff but not much to do for older girls.

The only issue was that there turned out to be more transporting involved than I had been told upfront. When I was first asked if I could do respite, no transport was mentioned. (But I didn't think to ask either). Then it turned into "they might have a visit but since it's a holiday weekend I don't think they will" and I was left with the impression that someone would pick them up at my home if there was a visit (not sure if that was my misunderstanding or if I was intentionally led to believe that). Then a few hours before they were to be dropped off it was "Oh btw, you'll need to take them to _______ (city over an hour away) for their visit and then pick them up again 5 hours later." HUH???? At that point I should have said, look, that's not what I agreed to, you'll need to make other arrangements".....but I was feeling trapped because I wasn't sure if I had misunderstood all along that this transporation was going to be expected and I didn't want to leave the other foster parent in a lurch.

So I took them. $60 in gas and a lot of driving time out of my weekend. I'm not in
foster care to make a profit but I also cannot afford to have to spend money from our personal budget on respite transport. I'm not even sure how much I'm being reimbursed for caring for them...probably about $75 (it was just for one night) but I won't see that money for a month.

I learned a valuable lesson. Next time I'm called about respite my first question will be "How much transportation will be expected?" Then if it changes later I can confidently say, "I'm sorry, that's not what I agreed to do."

Say Cheese!

I just finished my third batch of goat milk cheese. So far I've made chevre, fromage blanc, and fromagina. All 3 are soft spreadable cheeses, similar to cream cheese. Yum! I made one batch into a cheese spread seasoned with creole seasoning, black pepper and onion powder. It was so good! I spread some on a tortilla, added some fresh lettuce (from our garden) and made a roll up.

I'm hooked! This is so much fun. :>) I need to get this baby goat sold so we can have more milk for the house.

I want to try mozzarella next.

So much for that.

So much for blogging every day in May. lol Between a slow computer, slow internet, and an ISP that was completely down for several days I didn't keep up. I'll try to do better from now on. :)

The kids are all asleep. This is the last night the respite kids will be here. It has gone very, very well. I couldn't ask for a better group of kids! I'm going to miss them when they leave. Hopefully their foster parents will want to use us for respite again.

A great homemaking website

I've been on Laine's email list for over 8 years. I have gleaned so many good ideas from her letters. Check out the archives at http://www.lainesletters.com/

Ten People, One Bathroom

Day two of respite care for the sibling group of five has gone well. Really sweet kids. No issues today except for the "I had that toy first" and "It's supposed to be my turn now!" type stuff that is normal whenever you get a group of small children together. They'll be here one more night.

Full House!

Our respite care kids arrived last night. What a sweet group! Five kids, ages 9-2. It's going good so far. :)

powerful quote

“I've come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It's my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child's life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or de-humanized.”

~Dr. Haim Ginott~

One Toddler + One box of Corn Starch

Recently Made Soaps

The soaps with the daffodils are Oatmeal, Milk and Honey scented. The other photo shows a variety of different scents/designs. Our farmer's market season begins this month so I'm soaping like crazy to get ready for it. :)

Blogging in May

My friend challenged me to blog every day in May. So far so good. LOL We'll see if I can keep it up. :>)

Respite

The new agency offers 2 days of paid respite care per month. That is a wonderful service to provide to foster parents! This is something we can do while we wait for a placement of our own. We will be doing respite care this weekend for a sibling group of five. I am both excited and nervous. It will be for three nights. I’ll let you know how it goes. It can’t be any harder than the previous group we did respite for (did I ever blog about them? The group with the major food hoarding issues and the major, major, major behavioral problems? This group *should* be a breeze compared to those children. I hope.).

Switching Agencies

We began our foster care journey last summer. For years we had talked about fostering and/or adopting off and on. It was never the right time. First, we lived in a tiny 2 bedroom house and literally had no room for extra dc. I seriously doubt we could have passed a homestudy inspection just due to the small square footage.

When we moved to our current home, our youngest was a high need 6 week old baby. So we had the space at that point but not the energy. LOL As she got older and less needy we began to discuss fostering again. By this time we also had met a family who are now good friends who had just begun fostering themselves. We looked into beginning the licensing process in the fall of ’06. We were discouraged to find that we (both of us) would have to attend all day classes for three Saturdays in a row. (Plus, we would have to drive 1.5-2 hours one way to go to the classes). There was no way we could leave our youngest for that many hours at a time---not without making her and her caregiver miserable. So we put the idea aside, again.

A few months later R, was content to stay with others for a few hours at a time and we again looked into beginning the licensing. Then we were thrilled to learn that I was expecting. We put fostering on hold again, knowing that pregnancy and the newborn phase would keep me plenty busy without adding the stresses of foster care. Unfortunately, I lost that baby last summer at 15 weeks gestation. We were devastated. It didn’t take long though, for our thoughts to return to fostering. We had the room, our youngest was older, and pregnancy was no longer a factor. We signed up for the classes.
That was in July. Actually I had surgery related to the miscarriage on July first, came home on July second and called the county agency that same day. I threw myself into fulfilling the licensing requirements as a way to keep my mind off my grief.

We were finally licensed at the end of October. At that point we were offered a sib group of 3, which we turned down due to lack of seating for that many children in our vehicles. (It turns out they went back home after only 3 days in foster care anyway.). In December we had a toddler boy placed with us. He was/is adorable and I was so sad to see him leave. He was with us 9 days and then he was placed with a family member. After that we had no more placements! We’re in a small rural county and there simply are not many children in care. That’s good…..I’m glad there aren’t more children in need of care here….but we know there are children somewhere who need us so we switched to a private agency that seems more likely to have a placement for us.

The new agency is a therapeutic agency so we had to do some more training in order to transfer our license. We completed that last weekend. I am so excited about this switch. Every one has been so nice and professional. I’m excited to see how it works out.

So….that’s a summary of our foster care journey thus far.

Blogging again

Hello Blog Friends!

My poor blog has sat neglected for months. I originally started this blog to record our foster care journey because reading the foster care blogs of others has been very helpful to me. There has been little related to foster care to journal though, so the posts have been few and far between. We have switched to a new agency now and hopefully will be getting placements on a more regular basis.

I also struggled because I wanted to keep this blog very anonymous, to protect the identity of any foster children placed with us. However, I didn’t like how impersonal that made the blog feel so I didn’t enjoy posting. I’ve decided to relax a bit on the privacy issue with my own family. Hopefully I can find the right balance between privacy & security VS. sharing enough details to make the blog personal and interesting. If/when we have foster children in our home I will reevaluate and will break off the more personal posts into a private blog if needed.

A friend has challenged me to blog daily through the month of May. I will try my best to keep up with that so keep checking for new posts! 

2.5 months

Wow, has it really been two and a half months since I updated here? Time flies when you're having fun. :)

We got our first foster care placement in December. An adorable 23 month old boy who was only with us for nine days. We knew from the beginning that he would probably go to a family placement and with Christmas coming we knew the judge would likely push for their paperwork to be rushed so the child could be with them for Christmas. It did indeed work out that way. I'm glad we knew the placement would be short because that made us prepared for when he left. We enjoyed caring for him. Hopefully we will have another placement soon.

Since then I've done some babysitting for the 11 month old foster son of a good friend. He is a precious child too and it is a pleasure to care for him. In the near future we may be doing some respite care for a sibling group of three that is currently placed with another local foster family.

I have so many thoughts about foster care that I would like to blog about. The emotions involved with it are so complex. It's late though, so I will save those posts to blog another day.

I've made soap several times this winter. It is my new hobby. Soaping is addictive! I have a notebook full of different soaping ideas I want to try. I set up a store on ETSY but haven't listed anything yet. That is one of my projects for February.

Our does are looking pregnant and we are looking forward to having goat kids in March. I'm so excited about these bloodlines---I can't wait to see what the kids look like. Plus once the does freshen I will have more milk to make into soap. lol

We are taking a new approach with school this semester. We're using a unit study method called "lapbooking" which is something I've never tried before. We've done some unit study work in the past (years ago) but never lapbooking. I'm finding it to be really enjoyable. Currently we are working on a "Sled Dogs" lapbook. In a few weeks we will follow the Iditarod sled dog race in Alaska as the final part of our unit study.

I also changed up our math curriculum. We set aside the Saxon math in favor of a worksheet generator. C (age 11)and I are both liking this much better. Saxon (in spite of being one of the most popular homeschool math curriculums) is rather boring. I find their review method confusing also because so many different types of problems are included in each lesson. It's nice to shake things up for a change of pace once in a while. :)

M & C are getting ready for an ice-fishing trip with M's grandfather. I know they will have a great time. T has a list of 12 "girl things" she wants us to do together while they are gone. The list includes 1) Go out to eat at Red Lobster (She asked if I could wear my wedding dress for that occasion! lol ) 2) Take R to have her ears pierced among other things. M & C will only be gone 4 days but I think it would take us 2 weeks to do everything on T's list. She likes to dream big!

soap

I made two batches of soap this weekend. One batch of oatmeal, milk and honey soap and one white soap with pumpkin swirls. They both turned out very pretty!

They need to cure for about 2 weeks and then we can use them.

labwork updates

Remember the extensive labwork I had done looking for possible miscarriage causes? The 12-vial, $2330 tests were all normal. I was really bummed. It is good that there was nothing serious found, but at the same time it would help to know what the issue is, especially if it is something treatable. I cannot continue having miscarriage after miscarriage. At my followup visit to discuss those lab results, I asked the rheumatologist about one other condition that I had become aware of through a comment made by a friend--- Methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR). He agreed to order the test for that condition.

I got the results from the new test on Friday. It turns out this IS an issue I am dealing with! I feel like saying "Praise the Lord, there's something wrong with me." Is that silly?

Methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) is a rare genetic defect that can lead to complications in pregnancy. Many people do not know that they have this defective gene until after they have had several unsuccessful pregnancies. Others may carry one pregnancy to term and not discover until afterwards that they carry the defect.

What is MTHFR?
Methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) is the name of a gene that produces an enzyme, also called methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase. If a person carries the genetic mutation that inhibits production of this enzyme, it can result in hyperhomocytenemia, which is an elevated level of an enzyme called homocysteine found in blood plasma.

When the body is deficient in methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase, its ability to absorb folate (also known as vitamin B9), such as folic acid, is inhibited. Folic acid and B9 are both essential to the development and health of the fetus.

MTHFR and Pregnancy
Because of a mother with MTHFR’s inability to efficiently metabolize folic acid and vitamin B9, the disorder has been linked to a variety of pregnancy complications such as chromosomal abnormalities, such as Down syndrome, and congenital malformations.

Elevated levels of homocysteine have been associated with placental disease, preeclampsia and recurrent pregnancy loss. 21% of women with high levels of homocysteine experience recurrent pregnancy loss.

Without treatment I am at an increased risk for heart attack, stroke, and deep vein blood clots in addition to increased risk of pregnancy loss. Now that we know about this I am to take high doses of folic acid, vitamin b6, and b12 each day, along with aspirin therapy. If I have any pregnancies in the future the rheumatologist and my OB will together decide if I need additional blood thinners based on labwork at that time.

I am so encouraged by this. It feels good to have some answers and a plan for the future.

Foster care updates

I had to turn down a young sibling group of three about a week ago. It broke my heart to say "no" but I only have room in my current vehicle for 2 children in addition to my own. I wasn't sure how I would work out transportation issues if I accepted a placement with more than 2 children.

Today I learned through the foster care grape vine that they were returned home already. So that would have been a short lived placement.

So we are still waiting on a placement. I am ready. At the same time I can't bring myself to hope for a placement because for children to land in my home that will mean that another family is going through the trauma of separation. I can't wish that on anyone.

Random updates

We started 24 eggs in the incubator Friday. Hopefully we will have some chicks in a few weeks! The eggs are from Buff Orpingtons, Black Orpingtons, and also some Partridge Wyandotte bantams. We have one hen in with our Blue Orpington rooster but she doesn't seem to be laying right now.

The does joined the buck in his pen on the 15th. If all goes well we will have some kids in March! The children are very excited.

Still waiting on documents for our foster care license. Everything else is completed. The licensing worker says we are "a click away" from getting our license as soon as the documents are turned in to her. I am frustrated by the delay. However, it is very likely we will get kids within a few days of getting our license so I just keep telling myself that the kids God intends to place with our family are not ready yet. His timing is always perfect. It is also an odd feeling to be excited about having children placed with us....but at the same time realizing that in order for children to land in our home that will mean their own family is going through the trauma of being split up. Very very sobering thought.

Tomorrow is my follow up appointment with my rheumatologist. We will be going over the labwork (12 vials of blood, $2330!) that I had done in September. This is to see if there is a cause for my recurring miscarriages. I hope we find some answers but I realize we may not.

I have been doing really well since the miscarriage but the last few days have been rough. Since July I have filled up my days with getting the foster care stuff underway. Now that that is at a standstill I have more time to think again. Thinking isn't good when you are grieving. I also have a friend due around the same time I was. Every time she mentions a pregnancy milestone it is a painful reminder to me of where I 'should' be. I am happy for her and I love to hear her updates but they do sting sometimes.

I'll leave you with some recent kid funnies:

My 5yo calls Miracle Whip "American Whoop"
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Lyrics from my 2yo Stinker, Stinker, Little Star
How I wonder, where's your car?
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I told my 2yo that I loved her. She grinned and replied, "You sure do!" Got to love that confidence!
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