Struggling

I go back and forth on how honest I want to be on this blog. Do I just post the good feelings or the bad also?
I guess I will be a little forthcoming.
Yesterday, Aaron took off work because he had a doctor's appt for his worsening poisen ivy. It was almost to the point of hospitalization for IV steroids and the doctor told him that it would probably be in his future someday, but was able to just give him a shot and a prednisone pack. It was already starting to dry up last night and I did change the sheets after he told me that every time he moved in bed the night before, the ooze from his arms would make his arms stuck to the bed. UGH! All that to say that Aaron was home yesterday morning for the "how are we going to pay for this adoption" meltdown.
I have this meltdown every so often. I guess my faith waivered and I am embarassed to say that God had given us so much and helped us throughout our whole marriage, that I hate to say I wonder what to do next.
See, we lost around $15, 000 on our last failed adoptions when countries closed. Then we spent the last 1 1/2 year -2 years paying off that money. We finally got out of debt last month. Then I was able to make myself wait until the next time we got paid and pay the $250 application fee. Now we are ready for our next step.
We need 3 or 4 pages notarized, something easily done, plus our agency fee $5200, humanitarian fee $500, homestudy review fee $100, USCIS $670, and fingerprints $180. All of these will be our next step, along with collecting our dossier paperwork, of which I already have half done to send in to our agency to be put on the waiting list. Then we wait for our referrals. When we get our referrals, another $17,000 will be due, plus travel. But that is not a bridge I need to cross right now.
However, we don't have all the fees. I guess yesterday was me saying to Aaron who is such a good listener...
On one hand I know that God wants me to stay home as much as possible and homeschool the girls, however, on the other hand, I know that God has called us to adopt 2 more children. Ok, these two hands cannot go together. I am already working a lot and the stress is bad, trying to fit work around homeschooling and family. I have been working every Friday and Saturday, 12 hours each day, however when coop starts Sept 10 and I am teaching two classes there, that will be more on my plate and one less day I can work. I will probably only work 12 hours every Saturday, maybe a few 4 hour evenings during the week.
Then I go to the other arguement in my head constantly. .,. We need help with this adoption. On one hand, I would LOVE to be able to have the $30,000 in my hand that WE have earned ourselves and not have to ask anyone for help. It is definately a pride thing. I HATE even thinking of needing someone elses help. And I think, why should anyone help us. I don't blame them, they earned their money, dont expect them to help you with it.
Then I think on the other hand it would be helping 2 children without hope, find a family, who will love them as their own, so it wouldn't be a bad investment. The Bible tells us to help orphans, many times over. Many people are unable or unwilling to adopt, but they can still obey God by helping the orphan get in a permanent home.
So there is the constant craziness going on in my head.
Take it as you will.

Working on the Dossier

I made an error in the last post, Madelyn and Natalie came home yesterday, not today. They had a great time at camp, and I am glad to have them home. We missed them. Last Sunday through Sat was a busy week, with driving to camp Sunday, Wednesday, and Saturday. Plus working 36 hours Tues, Wed, Thur, and Fri. So I didn't get much done on the dossier.
I have printed out a lot of paperwork that I hope to either have notarized tonight at church or Wednesday night at the latest.
Still waiting for our marriage and birth certificates to come in. Once our homestudy is looked over by our agency and deemed worthy, the we will be able to apply for USCIS. This alone will cost $670, plus $80 each for Aaron and I for another set of fingerprints. Our agency should be calling our references this week and sending us our adoption agreement and fee schedule.
We will owe them approx. $5200-$5500 at that point. Praying that God will step in and prompt someone to help us out with that.

Application is There!

I heard back on Sunday that our application made it to our agency and we are ready to start working on the dossier. I am dreading it, but now at least I have something to work on.
We took Madelyn and Natalie to Camp Maywood yesterday. They will be there until Sunday. So it is just Hannah at home. I am working Tue - Fri this week, so today is my only day off to work on the adoption paperwork. I already have a list of errands to run today and stuff to get done. I will probably work 2 12 hour shifts and 2 eight hours to get 40 hours in this week and after 12 hours, I am so tired when I get home, I just sit.
Today I am planning on ordering original birth certificates for Aaron and I and our original marriage certificate, and sending out 3 more reference letter requests, and going by our bank to get a statement from them.

Application is in the Mail!

Aaron got his travel pay today. So I had enough from that to mail our application. I am so happy. They will probably get it Monday, but we have begun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This has been a long 3 years, let me tell you.
My goal is to have our Ethiopian dossier done by September 1st. Earlier if possible, I will have to see what all we will have to gather. Our agency estimates a wait of 6months at the longest for an infant girl referral. That will put us at Mar. 1st at the latest getting a referral. We will then travel for the court date around 10 weeks after a referral, which will put us mid -May going to Ethiopia, then it will be 6-8 weeks before we go back or pay and escort to bring her which would be around the end of June. I probably shouldn't be counting down like this, but I hope to have an addition to our family by next June. If it only takes 4 months for a referral, which is also possible, then that would make it early May!
I have been canning figs. I have never canned before, other than some blackberry freezer jam a few years ago. We have a big fig tree, and figs are good, but you can only eat so many fresh. I have used 8 quarts of figs the last week to can, and I haven't picked today or yesterday. I made some bread and froze it, but usually fig bread uses 1-1 1/2 cups of figs, not near enough to use them up.
I also canned some fig syrup. Since I had a lot of the syrup left over. It is really tasty and maybe it will be good on pancakes, if not I think I could probably use it in place of corn syrup in pecan pies. I think it will work.
We signed up for our coop classes today. The classes start in September. The girls can't wait. They all three got their first choice.
I am having to can at Mom's apartment since I can't use our water canner on a glass range. We will be heading to the house soon to start supper and finish any school work we left off this morning.

Still waiting...UGH!

Will we ever start this adoption????
I am thankful that we are completely debt free now other than our house and land!!!!
Our application, along with our family photo, copies of our passports, are all in an addressed envelope... waiting. Waiting for a $250 check.
However, after paying off everything we don't have enough to send in the $250 for the application. Ugh! seems like this whole three years has been putting off the adoption one month, one week, one day at a time. I have been so excited waiting so I could send in the application and get started.
Confession time....
I called yesterday to see if we could pay for the application with credit card, since I would be paying it off with the next paycheck, but they don't take credit cards. And you can't use a credit card to get a money order, so it is wait some more. I know that to most this would be no big deal. What is another two weeks to wait for the next paycheck.? And in reality that is true, but to my heart it is just another 2 weeks added to the last 50 times I have had to say wait 2 more weeks in the last 3 years of waiting to bring another child home.
After getting off the phone with the agency yesterday morning, I cried for about 15 minutes, got angry that it seems like whenever I get a good attitude about the adoption, seems like the next day something happens to take my joy. Then I sucked it up, wiped my eyes, left my bedroom and finished school for the day with the girls.
Of course, this adoption will probably cost us close to $30,000, on top of the money we have already lost. so this is just the beginning of the money woes. But the blessings that will come with overshadow that I am sure.
I could never get our paypal donation button to work. I think I signed up incorrectly and whenever you try to call paypal, you get a message that says "look it up on paypal.com" so since I am terrible about computer things, I just took off the button. If you would like to help us give an orphan a home, please email me or leave a comment and I will get back to you. Our email is Pirklefamily1@netzero.com.
Thanks! Karen

School is in session

We started our 4th grade, 3rd grade and 1st grade school years on Monday. We did this last year, starting in the summer so we could have a nice fall break. So far so good. For Hannah, I am using the 1st grade curriculum that I used when Madelyn was in first grade. It is called Children Around the World and we will be studying a different country each week. For Madelyn and Natalie, we are using a new curriculum that I hadn't seen before, called Learning Adventures. It is a unit study where you study a certain subject in depth for a certain number of days. So, our first 30 days we are studying Ancient Egypt and using the Bible study of Joseph to do that. The girls like it so far, and I think it will work out good.
I had agreed to work 7-3 for the charge nurse at work for 5 days in August, so I am already planning on having to take a week off for that. There is a Bible camp about an hour away from here and some of the girls' friends are going, so I offered Madelyn and Natalie a chance to go and they took it. So they will be going to another camp and Hannah will be here with me.
Last week, Aaron was only 2 1/2 away on a fire, and he had a hotel room, so we decided to go and visit. Most of the time he is on a fire, he is out west camping out, so this was unique. So we drove over there Thursday night and stayed until Saturday and Aaron rode back with us. We had a good time, Aaron still had to work, but we were able to eat supper with him every night. Plus, we got to swim in the indoor pool twice and we went to a couple of museums. The girls love museums.
I am filling out our adoption application this week and sending it Friday or Saturday. I am getting very excited. Our social worker emailed me with a few more questions so she can complete our adoption and she should be finishing soon. The adoption agency social worker wants to see the homestudy before it is notarized so that she can make sure it will work for Ethiopia and everything is addressed that needs to be addressed. She emailed me yesterday saying that the wait for a referral for an infant girl is around 4-6 months. So soon!
Work had called a bunch wanting me to come in over the weekend. And they have wanted me to come in each day this week. SOOO hard to say no. I live with constant guilt over not working each time that they call. Aaron says "it is not up to you to save them" I know, but whenever they call, I see $$. But I keep saying I am going to work less. It is stressful on me to work a little every day. Now that school is started I need my focus to be on the kids and they extra stuff we can do.

Camp

I got back our kids' medical forms this week, so now I can send them to the social worker and she can complete our home study. Unless something major comes up, which is always a possiblity, we should have our debt completely paid off and have enough to apply for the homestudy the next time we get paid in two weeks. Yes!
I was hoping to finish off the debt with this paycheck. Unfortunately, the week before last, instead of working 40 hours like I was scheduled, I got in a whopping 5. Last week I was able to work 25 out of 40 hours. I signed up for 40 hours this coming week, but when I looked at the schedule the boss printed out, I am only signed up for 24. I need to check on that. After this coming week, I am planning on going down to 1-2 days a week. I am hoping to start school on the 19th of July. If the girls curriculum comes in. I ordered it yesterday. That way we can take a nice long break in the fall when it is so pretty out.
Aaron's work called Wed. night to see if he wanted to go to a fire about 3 hours from here in another forest. So he left Thursday morning and will be gone until Monday at least. So he will be able to make up for all the days I missed in the last few weeks.
The girls got home from camp last night. Madelyn and Natalie went to camp with my brother Eric's two oldest boys up in TN. Aaron and I took them up there last Sunday, but they were able to catch a ride on the church bus with my brother's kids and go back to their church. Then Eric brought all 3 home last night. He spent the night and he and the oldest did some target shooting. Hannah had stayed most of the week at Aaron's parents and they brought her to Eric's for the ride home. They all had a good time and I am glad to have them home. It gets lonely and quiet here without them. Camp was a huge deal for me growing up, so I want them to have great experiences too. I worked 8-10 weeks at Short Mountain Bible Camp a summer from the time was 13-19. It was the highlight of my year.