A Beloved's Journey

  Butterfly wings for Bunny and her doll First I start with an apology. I have just seen that my last post and update on here was in April, I'm sorry for my lack of correspondence. There have been many times that I have thought of writing a post but really wondered what I would say... Covid has stalled a lot of things as I am sure you are all aware. I feel very blessed to live in NZ though. In speaking to my friends in the UK we are very, very lucky. The news on the adoption front is that I am still waiting to be matched. It feels a bit odd writing 'still waiting' as I know that this will be for much much longer and 'still' sounds impatient but what I mean is that I am continuing to do the thing that I was doing before. I contacted CARA, which is the Indian adoption authority, and they told me that the earliest I can expect to be matched is December next year. This was quite a blow at the time but now I am enjoying having a timeline of sorts and a clearer idea of ti...

I've been thinking that it's time for an update but each time I have thought of writing another post I struggle with knowing where to start. Not because so much has happened with adoption but just because... well Covid really. Who would have thought that a vast majority of the world would be stopped in their tracks in such a small amount of time? So I'll give you an adoption update and tell you a bit about what I have been up to over 4 1/2 weeks of lockdown. On Wednesday 5th February I received an email saying that I had been accepted by CARA (the Indian Authorities) to adopt from India. From here my papers will be sent to a region of India and over time will be matched to a child based, to some degree, on the conditions I have set. This waiting will take a minimum of two years. But the waiting is not taken from the 5th February 2020 when I was approved. Instead it is taken from when my papers entered India. I thought this date was 5th May 2019 but it turns out that the d...

I'm sitting in my lounge and there is a delicious aroma wafting through from the kitchen. Not because I am cooking something but because I have chopped up some ingredients ready to cook this evening. On Tuesday this week I went over to my neighbours house and had my first 'cooking class.' I still don't know what the curry is called but it was delicious and I learnt a lot about Indian cooking. My neighbours are from North India so their cooking is very different from curries found in Southern India. PJ showed me many of her spices kept in glass jars or Tupperware containers (no small cardboard boxes from the supermarket). She had star anise, black and green cardamon, bay leaf, turmeric, cumin seeds and the list goes on. I learned that black cardamon is used for a spicer flavour as are red onions whereas green cardamon and white onions are used for a sweeter flavour. I also learned that red chillies are not as good for you as green chillies as red chillies can burn your...

Today, on this 11th September, I have finished paying off the $10,000 loan that I received late last year. I began paying this off in January and have managed to pay it off in 9 months and 8 days with God's grace, two fundraisers and some pretty epic budgeting skills. It feels good but I know the celebration will be in my next pay when that money will go to increase my savings towards adoption. How did I celebrate? Well not with anything today but recently I bought a beautiful darker-skinned doll for Bunny and that felt like a way to celebrate. In the next week or so I will take my incredible friend, who lent me the money, out for a meal to celebrate. And tomorrow I hop on a plane and fly to Auckland to attend the Sistas Conference and hopefully meet Lisa Harper and her daughter Missy. I'm so excited, I don't know how much sleep I will get tonight. I've been beavering away over the past few days sewing a baby blanket as they are collecting these at the conference to...

Waiting is an interesting conundrum. How long will it take? What else could I be doing while I'm waiting or instead of waiting? Waiting is never easy. We are all waiting for something in life, a new job, children to leave home, a pay rise, getting married, the queue at the supermarket or the husband to fix something! Sometimes we wait with faith, not actually knowing if what we are waiting for will come about. Other times we wait, knowing that what we are waiting for will come to pass. The waiting for the latter is easier but we still require hope in our waiting. I'm not the best at waiting but I find it easier when I have something to do while I wait. The struggle that exists with waiting for Bunny is not having an end date. I don't know when the waiting will end, I'm in a limbo of waiting for something that I know will change my life with no idea when it will happen. In the meantime I have to live! So what do I do in my living and waiting? 7 years ago I started ...

Almost a year of my adoption journey had passed before I decided that I needed a nickname for the little girl I was to adopt. Saying 'my little girl' was feeling a bit impersonal and at 3 words and 4 syllables long it was taking it's time to pronounce. The search started for a short but cute and relatable nickname for 'my little girl'. The search wasn't a long one. I had already purchased fabric from Spotlight early on in my journey to make a quilt for my little girl. I love to sew and I knew I would need some projects to make and to help pass the waiting time. This fabric is a beautiful woodland theme with deer, acorns, toadstools, trees, bunting and... bunnies. I decided 'Deer' didn't have a very enduring tune to it but 'Bunny' did.   I had also already purchased a 'JellyCat' bunny from the local ToyWorld as I had seen these in 'Harrods' when I had visited London in 2016 and had already decided that they were th...