My Superman

Tony just called me from Moorehead City. He wanted to tell me how much he loves the smell of the sea. If he were there to play, I would have made a mean sound in the phone and hung up. But he isn't there to play; he is there to work. He is working so hard for our family. So, I have to steal this moment away to brag about my Superman. When we moved down here to NC almost a year ago, Tony was given a HUGE assignment. He was the guy who was supposed to get the pain clinic at Ft. Bragg's hospital-- Womack-- up and running in a serious way. With the influx of wounded warriors coming back from Iraq and a large majority of those coming to Ft. Bragg, there is a great need for long-term pain management care at Womack. Tony hit the ground running and he has been running with it ever since. He works tirelessly for the soldiers-- he is constantly fighting the military red tape, inefficient hospital systems, political garbage, etc. He LOVES to do research and is always working to improve on current pain treatments and partner with other pain specialists, writing up protocols and review papers, conducting research and so many other things I have no clue about.

And when he isn't working hard for the soldiers, he is working hard doing extra work so that our family is able to do things like adopt, have money for vacations, get us settled in our new home and more. And despite all this WORK, he is still around an amazing amount of the time! Way more than he was in medical school or residency. He rarely misses a soccer practice or game. He makes himself available every day to play with the boys, and he finds time to be intimately involved with the ministries of our church. He is my #1 running fan (okay, maybe my only running fan-- except for my parents and sibs. of course :)), my advisor, sounding board, and best friend. HE is the reason I am Wonder Woman! (hey, it works for me!)

For most of you, this is a boring post; and I'm sorry, but this one isn't really for you :) It's for my Superman. I am ashamed to say that most of the time, I am too absorbed with my own world to recognize all that he does for us. God has gifted Tony in amazing ways. And Tony brings God glory by how he uses his gifts and passions.

So, please raise your coffee this morning-- or your beer mug this afternoon while watching the NC game (of course that is what you'll be doing this afternoon, right?!)-- to help me toast my Superman; Faster than his speeding life, more powerful than the forces of darkness which try to keep him down; Abounding in the Love of Jesus Christ-- making Team Dragovich's life one of eternal abundance!!

Grace and Peace;
Wonder Woman ;D

Grace, Faith, Courage and Strength

I guess it has been over a week since I have last blogged. Mostly because there is not much to blog about!! We had a different kind of Easter celebration this year. Tony and I have both been working so hard on several different projects-- work, school, ministries, etc.-- which SORT OF culminated with a large BBQ at our home on Saturday and then the launch of an entirely unique and fun curriculum for our children's ministry at church, of which I am intimately involved :) So... by the time we got home on Sunday, there was no impetus to do anything but sit... and sit... and finally stop sitting long enough to make some deviled eggs and call it an Easter dinner-- HAAAA!! I'm not kidding either! That is exactly what I did! We had left over BBQ, chili- cheese dip, salsa and chips and deviled eggs. I think that is sort of hilarious. Tony certainly didn't care-- he was watching Basketball. The boys didn't care, all they wanted to do was play with their friends, and I was perfectly content sitting on my BACK porch (not the Front porch) on my new cheap patio set that is really so cute and read a book. And it was these words that kept rolling through my mind: "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, He is risen!" Those were the words of the angels who met the women at Jesus' tomb that first Easter morning. I can only imagine the confusion, wonder, amazement and hope which must have filled those women the rest of their day... I don't think they were worried about ham dinners, easter egg hunts, baskets or traditions. Don't get me wrong, Team Dragovich woke up to some candy filled eggs inside new bicycle helmets hidden throughout the house; traditions are nice. But they aren't essential OR eternal. Accepting Jesus' sacrifice on the cross and His victory over death... living in the Grace (free, undeserved love that keeps no record of wrongs) He so freely gives to all who have Faith and understand His sacrifice was for THEM and comes with no strings attached... having the courage to BELIEVE even when all the world around us can seem so grim... TRUSTING in the Power of the Holy Spirit, which is given freely to all believers for the continual renewing of Strength and living with the unexplainable ability to live free from sin, death and the power of the devil. These are eternal.

For those who read this and believe-- it makes perfect sense. For any who read who do not yet believe nor have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ-- this sounds like foolishness. For our family, the words, "He is not here, He is RISEN!", are not just empty words associated with a metaphor or analogy-- they are TRUE!! Jesus really did rise from the dead and show His power over even death. And He did it out of love for mankind-- ALL MANKIND. And now these three remain... Faith, Hope and Love, And the greatest of these is LOVE.

On the adoption note, three more families from our agency received their referrals this week for children. Self-lessly I am excited for these families because my heart and prayers are for them and I celebrate with them. Selfishly I am excited because I LOVE to see movement in our agency-- it means... well, MOVEMENT!! :D

Grace and Peace,
Shari

The big "D" in black ink

I bet only one person who reads my blog will know what that means :)... The big "D" is the code word Tony and I use to talk about his upcoming deployment, esp. around the kids. Because he has been in residency and fellowship for the past four years, we have dodged the big "D", but we knew when we moved to NC, that it would come-- and it has! He is going to Iraq-- Bagdad-- from Dec '08 to June '09. So, it is still many months away, and I don't really know how I feel about that. In some ways I wish we had requested this June through December. Then it would be over with and there wouldn't be any concern about him being gone during the same timeframe we SHOULD be getting our referral for the kids and traveling to Ethiopia to pick them up. We made our request quite some time ago and before the timeline for referrals was increased. In January, he was able to meet with his placement officer and was told that he may need to go this summer. We were honest with Col. Harris in telling him that we didn't know WHEN the best time for him to deploy would be, and we just prayed that God's will would be done. There for a bit, it looked like he may get moved up, but when the list came out, he was in the Dec '08-June '09 category. It's good when things are out of your control and you have a relationship with God to know that He is over all things and loves you so much to carry you through it. We know that God can see into our future and work out all the details, so why try to manipulate the situation??? Do I wonder how all this will work out with adopting-- YES!!!!!!! But, here it is and all I can do is trust God and walk through it-- good :)

So, unless Barak or Hillary get elected and pull all troops out immediately, I will be single-mommying it for a bit in 2009-- I can do everything through Him who gives me strength (Phil. 4:13), right :D?!

Grace and Peace,
Shari

TAG!! I'm IT!!

Hooray! My friend Jill tagged me-- that is so fun :D! I didn't even know you could play tag on the internet; that is kinda scary, isn't it??

Here are the rules:

You have to tag 5 people and you can't tag the person that tagged you. You leave them a comment on their blog letting them know you are tagging them and why. Also, direct them to your blog for instructions. It is also asked that you notify the tagger when you post your list so that they can enjoy reading the responses.

Here are 10 things about me:

1. I was raised on a hog farm in Central IL.
2. I married my high school sweetheart-- After God, he is the wind beneath my wings.
3. The only thing I watch on TV is NASCAR-- Joe Gibbs racing all the way!!!
4. My favorite dessert is strawberry cheesecake, but I RARELY eat it.
5. My crocs are lime green with flowers, butterfly and piggy jibbitz on them.
6. I get seriously fussy when my surroundings don't "Look" the way I want them to-- in other words, this new home thing with blank walls and lack of organization or pretty furniture is making me bonkers... I mean, good for me :)
7. I LOVE homeschooling my boys for lots of reasons but one of the fun perks is having an excuse to buy LOTS of GREAT BOOKS!!
8. My favorite thing to do... anything where I get to watch my boys in action-- just watching them interact and use their God-given talent, fills me up.
9. I wish I could run as fast as Deena Kastor (ha, ha!), and I have serious running goals-- which include running Boston's Marathon WAY faster then I did the last time!
10. When I think about us adopting, it makes me cry (in a good way) that God would allow our totally imperfect family to be a part of His eternal plan of expanding His kingdom and sharing His Love here on earth.

Okay, I better get this out before all my "tag" options are taken!! I'm tagging:

Susan
Hilary
Apryl
Heidi
Alecia

Heidi-- when I tagged you, I messed up on your comments-- so you either have a deleted comment from me, or TWO comments from me... Sorry about that!! You're still tagged and I am NOT a Stalker-- unless playing tag qualifies one as a stalker :).

I'm excited to get to know you all better!! Please know that we are praying for each of your adoptions and are blessed to be connected to you through the Body of Christ in this very God-ordained way!!

Grace and Peace,
Shari

Dumb sayings....

Well, only one dumb saying comes to mind right now; you know the one, "no news is good news"... Just ask anyone adopting a child-- that is a really dumb saying, isn't it?? I say it all the time, especially when my husband doesn't call and tell me when he gets to a destination which is far away or in a dangerous location, or when he is driving tired (like post-call), etc... meanwhile, I'm fighting off all these scary thoughts of him in a ditch, against a guard rail, off a cliff-- wait, no cliffs where we live-- but you get the idea. But now, I'm not saying that dumb saying anymore, and I'm CERTAINLY not thinking it!! Hmmm, if I am impatient waiting for forms to come in now-- how painful will it be when we are waiting for a referral??? Yikes! I better get a grip!

This weekend did afford some opportunities to clean and organize our garage and we actually took advantage of the opportunity! We didn't make any huge changes, but just re-worked what we have. Then, when we were done, Tony and I "kept working" on the garage... aka... hid from the boys!! Isn't that bad?? They were driving us batty this weekend-- bless their lil' hearts!! (see, I'm catchin' the lingo of the South!) I don't know if it was trying to come down off the soccer game highs, or obsession over playing with friends, or the impending tornado warnings and severe thunderstorm warnings that had them all in a tizzy-- probably a combination. Whatever it was, it carried over to yesterday, and Tony and I hid again on the front porch (that's not really hiding, but it is purposefully not being in the house :)). Hiding is sort of fun-- we had some good-- okay, NECESSARY-- conversations. But I think we need to come up with some better strategies than hiding... we are running out of spots and it certainly isn't helping their disposition any :D!

Before I wrap this up... I don't even know who reads our blog faithfully-- I know not too many and that's okay, it's still new and I talk a lot :)-- but for those of you who do keep up with us-- I would covet your prayers as we navigate a couple things concerning our adoption. First, we are getting into a season of financial crunch-- we knew it would get ugly before it got better, with trying to fit adoption costs into our current budget... not an easy thing to do. I struggle every day to trust that it will all work out; not to mention letting go of the things I see not getting taken care of, which take money to get taken care of!! (getting the boys' rooms furniture and feeling more "permenant", getting the kids' room ready--knowing how to even get it ready would help!, having TIME to be creative on a VERY tight budget, etc)
Second, we are trying hard to navigate the whole "sibling groups only" rule that AWAA has regarding adopting 2 children at one time. This was one of our NECESSARY conversations. It HAS crossed my mind that when it is finally our turn and the referral for the sibling group comes to us-- it COULD be for TWO BOYS!!!! And this isn't the only thing I am grappling with... but I won't bore you with all those :)

I was VERY encouraged by a blogging friend's post about God bringing all things full circle. Click here to read her story. I guess I just want to know, that when it all comes down; Tony and I will be able to hear God clearly, be free from our selfish desires and have the kind of FAITH that can answer, "Your will be done; here on earth-- in our family's life-- as it is in heaven!"

Grace and Peace,
Shari

I LOVE North Cackilaka!!!

Have I mentioned how much I LOVE living in North Carolina... or North Cackilaka as I love to affectionately call it-- I have no idea where I got that; I know I heard it somewhere, and I used to say it to the boys all last year before we moved-- they would to get so irritated with me. The conversation always went something like this: "Boys, aren't you SO EXCITED to be going to North Cackilaka (in my Yankee accent)??" Boys' reply, "Mom, STOP calling it Nawth Cack-i-LAKA!!!" Then I would just say it again :) Now that we have lived here for almost 10 months and I still say it, they have given up...

This is why I love NC-- all week long, Tony and I have been taking time in the evening and doin' some front porch sittin'-- watching our children play with all the neighbor kids, laughing at their crazy antics: club joining, club un-joining, scooter/bike races, light saber fights, etc. In MARCH!! Yesterday it hit almost 80 degrees and all week it has been getting warmer and warmer. Our front porch has a perfect view of the whole cul-de-sac and all the other neighbors' yards where the kiddos play. They just bee-bop from yard to yard, living in their own little world, so oblivious to our observations and spying on them :). Tony says living this way reminds him of growing up and it just fills him up. I feel like I am getting a special opportunity to look into his childhood and watch how his days were filled. I did not have such a childhood-- I grew up on a farm, and we certainly weren't galloping through the cornfields to get to the neighbor's house!! I treasure my childhood for different reasons, and would never trade it for the world, but I feel doubly blessed to be able to live now in a neighborhood full of families and kids and experience this side of life as well. I think the only thing missing is two more little dark-skinned bodies, running helter skelter with the rest of the gang!!

Speaking of our dark-skinned beauties, I am beginning to allow myself more and more to "feel" their coming into our family. Does that sound crazy? Let me clarify... when we first started this adoption adventure (not that long ago), it was so hard for me to imagine them without getting anxious, uptight and frustrated with the whole adoption process-- I mean, there are MILLIONS of orphans in Africa alone, but I can't get to any of them because of all this mound of rules, paperwork, meetings and red tape!! Besides all this, there is the lack of physical evidence (being pregnant)-- other than the crazy emotions-- to prove that they are really coming. Don't misunderstand what I am saying. From before we sent our application to America World, I clearly had the vision in my head and heart of Team Dragovich in "techni-color"-- it is beautiful, I wish you could all see what I see!! But that is part of the problem-- seeing it so clearly, yet being helpless in many ways to bring it to fruition. We do our part, but SOOOO many other entities must do their part to bring the vision to fruition. Isn't that the point, though? Isn't that where God's grace, mercy and peace come to the fore-front and not only does the vision come to pass, but so does the "fruit" in the life of Team Dragovich? I think so; and I am willing to go through it all-- because I see our "Techni-color" family and KNOW it is God's design.

Two more families are traveling this week to pick up their babes... We're praying for them and cannot WAIT to follow them in Ethiopia. Meanwhile, we are at at stall with paper-chasing. That's okay, soon enough we will be sending off that Dossier and entering the ranks with SOOO many other families in the "WFR" (waiting for referral) phase. Right now, that is my great desire... to be able to "tag" myself in our Yahoo Group as "WFR"!! So now you know how obsessed I am :)-- ha!!

Grace and Peace,
Shari

Blockus, Family Runs and G-Man

That is a strange title, right??? I really haven't had so much to post this last week; we are pretty much at a stand still with adoption paperwork-- the boys and I drove to Clayton for our last homestudy visit. It is about an hour and a half drive from our home; and guess what-- it rained the entire day... just like our day of driving for fingerprints-- is this a sign? Anyway, it went really well; at least from my perspective it did :). I guess our social worker has the last say on that. So, now we are waiting for that report to be complete, and for our I171-H form to come from the USCIS office... this is our clearance to bring the kids home, from an immigration perspective. What I am most excited about is that "our Rebecca" (that is what I call our social worker) has a great desire to organize a Ethiopia support group for all the families in the area who are adopting from ET. Amazingly there are MANY families from our agency alone, who are adopting from ET. I can't wait to meet these families-- in real life, NOT computer life-- and have a place where we can go and hang with other families who will "look" like us-- you know, COLORFUL :)!! I truly believe this will be like oxygen for our family and essential for our kids AND for us, as we walk this "road which is less traveled".

Other than that, in Team Dragovich world; we hit the ground running once we got home from NV. Of course. Work was crazy for Tony, and my week was filled with meetings, soccer and a new gym routine-- I signed the boys up for a homeschool P.E. class which meets at a gym in Fayetteville on Tues./Thurs. for 2 hours. They really keep the kids moving, teach them great, age appropriate skills and I GET TO WORK OUT FOR TWO HOURS UNINTERUPTED... SWEET!!! Sam says he hates the play room and he is already fussy about going today. But, he is having huge separation anxiety these days-- much worse than the other two did at four-- well, I seem to remember Wyatt hating preschool, too. But, he stops crying within a minute of being in the room-- so I can live with the pain, though there have been days lately where I am NOT into it.

Over the weekend we had a chance to do some fun family things-- Friday night Wyatt slept at a friend's house and the rest of us played Blockus for the first time. It is a really fun game!! I am horrible at it-- at least so far. Isaac beat Tony and I by A LOT!! He LOVES board games-- as do I, and we don't play them NEARLY enough. Tony doesn't really like board games, neither does Wyatt... I should play more with Isaac-- we need something special we do together. The other fun family thing we did-- well it is fun now that it is over-- was go on a family run/bike ride... 7.5 miles around our lake!!! Half the route is on thick sandy, hilly paths and the other half is on the main road of our community which is SUPPOSED to be safe for "bikers, runners". There is a huge chain mesh fence in the middle of the route which we all had to climb over and then throw the bikes over... AND we brought the dog!! How this even happened is that I needed to get 8 miles in to make my 20 mileage goal for running for the week. The IDEA was that the kids would all go play with friends on Sunday afternoon and Tony and I would run the loop by ourselves. Instead, none of the neighbor kids were available and Tony decided that we would ALL go and it would be a fun family run... he is always pushing the envelope that way. Needless to say, it was a stop and go run for me-- esp. the first half, BUT I did get my miles in AND because I put it out of my mind that it would be like a "real" run, I was able to enjoy and be awed by my boys' skills in the sand and up the steep hills of our community!!! I wish you could have seen them-- each attacking the challenges of the sand and hills in their own unique way-- yet another insight by the Father, into how He created them each so uniquely.

Last, but not least, I have to share this funny statement made by my sweet husband on Saturday night. I was going through the posts from our YG (yahoo group) and mentioned something about "G-man"-- this is the name the YG has given to our advocate in Ethiopia-- the guy in charge of all our paperwork/referrals/court dates, etc. Anyway, when I said something about "G-man", Tony torqued his face funny and said, "Who's that??" I told him this was our power of attorney in Ethiopia. He just had this bland look on his face and responded; "Should we really be okay with a guy named "G-man" in charge our documents to adopt from a foreign country???"

And having said that... I'm out!!
Grace and Peace;
Shari

Mining for diamonds

Today when I came down from teaching school to make lunch, I casually glanced outside the back windows. That is when I noticed that our patio set was missing from the deck. Hmmm... I don't remember moving the patio set, and I bet the dog didn't move it... so I went outside to check it out, and sure enough it is missing along with half the chairs. The two chairs I DO see are mangled up against the grill-- uh-oh. When I walked to the end of my deck, there were the remains of my patio set, smashed glass covering the ground and the other two chairs wrapped around each other a few feet away. I guess the wind blew sorta hard last night. Later that afternoon, as I was attempting to clean up the mess-- not easy when tempered glass shatters and blows all over the side of your yard-- I tried to look at the bright side of things... I was sick of that set anyway, the glass was always dirty and I was constantly cleaning it; that set has had a "good" life-- we've kept it through at least three moves and it WAS our FIRST purchase when we bought our first home back in Texas... That got old, so then I pretended that I was mining for diamonds-- as the sun hit the teeny, tiny, glass pieces, I imagined I was somewhere deep in Africa-- let's say, hmmm-- I know! Ethiopia! So I was deep in Ethiopia in a diamond mine (I have no idea if there are diamond mines in Ethiopia) and with each glittering "jewel" I picked up, it brought me one step closer to paying for our adoption... that made me laugh at my weirdness, but it, too, got old. So, in the end I decided that if I can fill the bag enough to make it look impressive, then I will have something to write about on my blog, tonight-- which, by the way, I am becoming highly addicted, to. That one worked. I even started on the second bag, before I had to stop and go in to make dinner.

Those weren't the only diamonds I was mining for today. At some point in the morning I had this realization that there was no such thing as adopting two unrelated children from Ethiopia-- somehow, I thought we could do this, thus not have to wait as long as people adopting sibling groups. Well, that joke is on me. So now I am mining for all the "diamonds" of positive thoughts I can muster about why it will be good to have to wait so long (9-12 months). For instance, it is still a LOT shorter than waiting to adopt from most other countries-- or even in the U.S.! And we still don't know if and when Tony will deploy! There, I said it. Tony is probably (99% probably) going to deploy sometime in the next year for six months. If our wait was shorter, it is highly likely that we would get our referral/court date/travel either while he is gone, right before he leaves, or as soon as he gets home. None of those are ideal-- what is ideal, anyway? That's for another blog. Back to topic-- mining for diamonds. In the end, I most certainly feel held by the love of the Father. When life looks SO uncertain and SO unpredictable, there is nothing to do but have faith in the One who knows every single hair on my head-- even the new gray ones; cares deeply about the details and is ABSOLUTELY big enough to handle this one, too :)

That's some good diamond mining!!
Grace and Peace,
Shari

Happy Dance

This morning started out super great!! It was just another Tuesday post-vacation day; trying to get some sort of school done, when I got a call from our family coordinator returning my call from yesterday about drama mail to which I came home (no notary seal and MD rejected fingerprints). Patiently, she helped me to establish that YES, there IS a notary seal on the document-- not ALL notaries are circular... some are RECTANGULAR!!! Wow, don't I feel like a ding. At least I seem to add some comic relief to her days when we do talk.

But the best piece of news she gave me was to stop pursuing a police report from the State of Maryland-- Praise the Lord!!! I think I made her tired just explaining why they rejected the prints, asking why we had to have FBI AND State clearance, etc... she said; "You have NC clearance, right? Between that, your homestudy report AND USCIS clearance, I think we are covered." I was so giddy, I started giggling on the phone, which made her start giggling and then I just kept saying how she made my day, week and month!! Now, if I can only get my money back from MD... that ought to be a trick.

So, now we are down to our final two pieces of paper-- the homestudy report and the I-171H form. All other documents are gathered and waiting to be copied and sent off...which is good, because it looks like we have a long wait ahead of us.


That's it For now. Enjoy the pics of our week in NV!
Grace and Peace,
Shari

Home again, home again; jiggety jig...

So... I have been hiding away in the mountains of Nevada for the past week. I have to say... hiding is fun sometimes ;D... but it got to be too much hiding, and so we had to come home. I missed home... North Carolina really does feel like home and I love it!! But, we had a great time visiting Tony's family in Nevada. His parents live in an undisclosed location-- which I will never tell, lest it becomes discovered and more people move in and ruin it for them-- ha, ha!! They live outside of Virginia City, NV; up a big steep hill from Reno, NV and it is a fun getaway. We spent our week playing in the snow, mud and rocks. We spent three days skiing (the boys made two of those days) at Mt. Rose, and Sugarbowl in CA; we bowled, went out for Thai, Tony made a UNR basketball game with his brother, and I caught up on some reading. And of COURSE, we found a way to stop in at the bookstore while we were there... We did other things, too; but you get the idea :)

We even made it back without too much hassle-- our baggage on the other hand, did not. It should be arriving tomorrow morning sometime. Not so thrilled about that, but it is not really high on my radar right now. Unfortunately, I'm already taking inventory of my week, calculating the hours in my days and the amount I need to cram into them... and my little internal calculator just blew up-- guess I'll have to spend another week on vacation!! HA! And of course, you know the "coming home" drill-- look through all the mail, listen to all the phone messages, delete-- I mean, READ all the emails... Then try to make sense of it all. Well, my happy surprise mail I got to open was my passport in the mail-- that wasn't supposed to come until the end of March or even April. My UNHAPPY mail was the State of Maryland telling me that they couldn't process mine or Tony's fingerprints because the prints were "illegible", and we must have them redone. They kindly included a training letter that I guess we are supposed to "offer" to our local officers in case they need extra "training" on how to take fingerprints??? Of course the training is offered in Maryland and so really it is for MARYLAND officials-- yet somehow we received this bit of information... whatever. The best part is they cashed our checks-- they didn't actually do anything, but they still cashed my checks... Nice. So, now I get to call them tomorrow and try to make sense of their chaos...

My other unhappy mail was a letter I have been waiting for from our family coordinator from our agency which she was supposed to sign and have notarized so we could then go have have it sent BACK to VA for certification... this would be a second attempt on this particular letter-- the first one was notarized wrong and therefore rejected by the Commonwealth of VA. When I finally got the second one, it looked good at first and I thought it was HAPPY mail-- but it turns out that the notary forgot to put her seal on the document-- kind of important when you are notarizing something!! I'm glad I caught it BEFORE I sent it back for try #2! Guess I have to get this paper figured out, now, too. But... I just got back from vacation... I am refreshed and ready to handle all these minor challenges!!

Now, while I was in Nevada, I had time to try to process some things-- like running and why there is such a lack of it lately and how much I hate that and what I am going to do about it. Now, we have a plan ("we"-- meaning Tony and I) to get me running again... I figure maybe if I post it, then I am more accountable and more likely to be guilted-- I mean, motivated to follow through! The goal is 20 miles a week. I almost went into sharing my plan-- that is probably boring for 99% of you :)... BUT; I am GOING to get over this running slump!! Sooner rather than later!

I know I processed lots of other things-- but that is for me and God alone :) Trips are good... home is wonderful... my life is full and rich and blessed!