I'm complaining.

Today, I am grumpy.

And its one of those exceptional grumpys (...grumpies? whatever.) where nothing is making you happy, and you can identify that its completely irrational - but feel powerless at defeating it. And its ugly. And i keep starting sentences with and.


And no, I do not think it is because I am 8 months pregnant thankyouverymuch.
...but maybe thats part of it.

So today, i will put a voice to my grumpy complaints in hope that if i put them out into the world, they will go away. Sometimes that happens. I put them out there and then all the things i have to be happy about start glaring me in the face. Pretty sure that will happen this time too.
but i apologize, because i know this is ugly and not at all keeping with the standard blog which paints perfect pictures. but this is where i'm at today and i wasnt about to post it on facebook or twitter, but wanted to get it out of my system nevertheless, and its a bit of a ghost town on this here blog so i dont feel *too* exposed.

Today, i wish/miss/want little things. Such as:

*that it actually rained here more than twice a year. i miss the rain. 

*that i could have soft cheese & a diet coke. 

*i had new curtains in my dining room & master bedroom. 

*a pergola existed in my backyard to provide just an ounce of shade so i could play out there with my two year old for longer than before 9am and after 6pm. and so i could put twinkle lights up on it. 

*that i could figure out what to do with the massively big wall in my central living area because it looks bare and makes me crazy. 

*that i had the energy & nerve to completely clean the garage, including vacuuming the edges to get rid of spiders, so it could be a cool, extended play area for Silas. 

....i do love my little house. I will never be one of those chic people who needs a house with a name (really, what is THAT about?), or knows what different types of glass are called, or paints chevron stripes on their walls in things like Ralph Laurens 'Pearlized Grey with an E'....but i have a vision for my little space just like any other girl who has access to blogs does, and sometimes it frustrates me that i cant seem to make it happen. 

Today, i also wish/miss/want big things. Such as:

*i was with my big beautiful extended family, camping in New England like I've done almost every year of my life.

*that i lived close to my immediate family, so i could do meaningless, everyday things like go over for dinner. or stop by and have coffee (or in my sisters case, tea) in the morning. or hug them. or work on crafty projects that my mother is so much better at than i am. or go on a date with my husband because my son actually has grandparents in his life & an aunt who wants to spend time with him. or go to church together. or not have holidays cost upwards of $700 just so we could be together.
skype doesn't cut it after a while.

*that i could go to the beach and float in the ocean for some semblance of relief and sunshine rather than just lulloping around my house.

*that i could form some sort of contingency plan for when baby girl arrives that will allow me to keep my house clean & my family fed. This is easily my biggest concern at this point. I finally feel like i've reached that 'adult' place (whatever that means) where you make your bed each day. and do the dishes just because they need to be done. and fold laundry the same day you wash it. and my biggest fear is that when i have a newborn again i'll torture myself trying to keep up with the house, and be an attentive mom to Silas, while working 3 days a week, then making sure my husband has dinner when *he* comes home exhausted from work, while on no sleep. How will i keep my family fed (emotionally and physically) & my house clean? This presses on me daily.

*that i knew one single solitary mom here who had a child Silas' age. i dont know a single one. and it gets awfully lonely sometimes. though the idea of "play-dates" stresses me out too...so thats kinda a no-win. blargh.

*that this charming small town i live in would have designed just ONE kid-friendly thing that didn't require a massive, diminishing return effort from parents. Like a zoo. or animal preserve. or aquarium. or museum of any kind (other than historical. not hugely stimulating for the 2 year old). or ceramic painting store. There are pools, but they are expensive, and i just cant quite bring myself to pay $25 to sit on the edge of my seat the entire time lest my child's face go too long below the surface.
There are playgrounds, but they tend to echo the 99 degree weather we've been having lately and - in case you did not know - playgrounds are not effort free for parents. There is "you'd like to go up there? ok i'll help you." "i am watching!" "yes i will wash the dirt off your hands" "you hurt your toe? yes i will kiss it, sandy as it is." "yes, i will help you down the slide" "please come here, you need more sunscreen" "yes, i will push you on the swing" "yes, i will take your shoe off to remove the rock" "yes you may have a drink" "i'm sorry they pushed you." <---for whatever reason, this happens almost EVERY TIME my tenderhearted boy goes to a playground. He is passive where other children are bold. I was worried for a while it was me projecting 'VICTIM' onto him...and then he was nearly trampled during this years Easter egg hunt and gave up 5 minutes in because it was too intense. His basket went down and his arms up to his daddy, and thats when i really knew he was just quieter & more internal that a lot of children, and thats ok. On average we'll be at a playground for about 10 minutes before he even leaves my side. He scopes it out, watches the other kids, and slowly - slowly- will make his way a few feet from me, scampering back every few seconds to re-establish that i'm there, im watching, i wont leave him. To be clear, this is not something i am grumpy about. His empathetic and quiet but curious nature to other children is something i fully embrace about him, but embracing it means we limit our playground time for more reasons than just weather & money. So we spend most days inside our house, just the two of us. and that big bare wall.

So pardon me, I know its not attractive.
I'm just having a human moment over here.
I'm just grumpy.


...but it just started to rain.

Puppet Theatre

Soo...this is what i made for Silas' Christmas present:

yes. bad phone photo.

cant find my camera anywhere...

Anyway! Its a doorway puppet theatre, themed around a pirate ship to match his Peter Pan room.

The portholes are open so puppets can go through there as well, and the jellyfish and crab both have little holes for Silas to put his fingers through to be their tentacles & legs.

Not owning LTTS but wanting to participate, had to make it up as i went, so it still needs some tweaking...and I think I'll still add some coral and other details to brighten it up, but for now I'm happy with it.

So much work! And so worth it. Many thanks to Jessica over at A Little Gray for inspiring me to do this! 

Adoption!!

The title pretty much says it all....so lets get to it.
And yes, it has been a year since I updated, but it would be impossible to cover everything thats happened, so I'm just going to forge ahead!

We've decided to adopt.

Hurrah!
I'm extremely excited, as I've seen this decision on the horizon for years, but the time is finally here and I couldn't be happier! Over and over we see God's heart for the orphan, and while I believe that every person of faith is called to care for orphans, there are many ways to do so. Not everyone is called to bring a child into their home, but I feel so blessed that we are able to welcome a child into our forever family.

Our friends Liv and Matt over at Furthermore Creative have designed a Christmas card for us as our first fundraiser. Please take a look and see if you might be able to use it this year! :)

http://www.furthermorecreative.com/2011/11/bolitho-adoption-fundraiser.html


I've also included our fundraising letter below, as a way to remember this day and this decision. How appropriate it comes in this season of Thanksgiving. :)

Hi! We're Ryan, Stacia, and Silas. Believing in Psalm 68:6 “God sets the solitary in families”, we have decided to add to our family through adoption! 

Ryan and I met in San Diego while working for a non-profit called Invisible Children. We married in 2008, moved to small town Colorado and our son Silas was born in September of the following year. Ryan works in computer technology and I am a music & theatre teacher at a private school, where Silas attends pre-school 2 days a week. On his 2nd birthday this year, we began to pray about adding to our family. We know we are being led to adopt, and feel fortunate to be surrounded by a supportive community. While it is a humbling experience to ask for money, we believe in the African proverb "It takes a village to raise a child" so we are asking you, our village, to help us bring our son home.

This adoption will cost around $20,000. We are daunted by this sum, because we will need to have the money up front. However, we know that God is bigger than finances, so we are trusting that He will provide $1 at a time.

The first amount we are hoping to raise is $4,000, to cover the cost of our homestudy. We would be amiss if we didn’t ask for help from those in our extended community who may be willing to donate to get us one step closer to our son – and no amount is too small! Our plan is to apply for as many grants as possible and pray that doors will open for the money to come through.

Please consider helping us bring our son home. Above all, please pray for us during this season. If you are unable to give monetarily, we would greatly appreciate your help by spreading the word about our card through facebook or email.

Thank you,
Ryan, Stacia, and Silas

Christmas Wishlist

Its the holiday season! Being my favorite time of year, i've loved seeing the storefronts slowly transform from Halloween to Thanksgiving to Christmas (Target is officially all decked out Christmas style and i love it).

I was originally going to write a Thanksgiving post, but we'll be attending Thanksgiving at my in-laws so the "ideal menu" post i had in mind would simply taunt me...i think its something do to with being in our own house this year that stirs my desire to host a Thanksgiving feast. 

However, i do still get to make a dessert and have purchased 2 small pie pumpkins to make an actual not-from-a-can pumpkin pie. If anyone has a good recipe for such a pie, let me know! 

In the meantime, i will dive into the Holiday spirit with the every popular Christmas Wishlist:

For Silas:

1. These amazing baby socks:

He has a habit of yanking off his socks as soon as i put them on. Now that its winter, i need a solution other than "oh well" and i think these would do the trick. 

2. This gorgeous embroidered alphabet:

i've had my eye on this since Silas was a newborn. i love educational toys that are still beautiful and fun, and this shop fits the bill. It's incredible. There's beautiful felted numbers, an adorable ladybug mobile, and even a Hebrew alphabet set! The home-school mom in me swoons. 

3. A play kitchen, like this one: 

Looove this b/c its small and very quirky. It looks like a kids imaginary kitchen come to life.

No matter what, he'll eventually have a play kitchen...i have big plans for our short entertainment center once we get the tv mounted on the wall. 

Also, if you've never explored the world of felted/wooden food, i suggest you look in to it. so much fun. 

For Mona and Amadeus:

our mini-daschund and *great dane

*in a moment of pure insanity i decided to give him to Ryan as our anniversary present. 

i will, however, never be insane enough to be one of those people with a "I heart my Great Dane" sticker on their rear windshield. Just wanted to clear that up. 

This cute bed for Mona, minus the cat of course. 

2. A dog bed for Amadeus, with some sort of music note motif. 

3. The biggest bone i can find.  

Next time: me and my lovas lists. 

On my mind.

Every time i find myself losing time browsing the endless number of crafty blogs out there i wind up coming back to this one thought:

Creativity is not discovered in reading about someone elses creativity. It is found by DOING.

so im going to go do.