Officially 'Waiting' Again!

So now that Jack's first birthday has officially passed with a super-fun Birthday Fiesta celebration, we have updated our adoption home study and are officially 'waiting' again. Hopefully it won't be too long before Jack gets a baby brother or sister on the way! He is such a happy little boy who LOVES other children, so we hope the wait is not too long, as he would be the best big brother EVER!

Care Kits for the Homeless

After listening to Elder Holland's talk in General Conference "Are We Not All Beggars?" I made a goal to actually take action on an idea I had a while ago but never implemented. Then Andrew Brown spoke in church on Sunday and I felt very strongly prompted during his insightful comments that the Lord expected me to ACT. So, I will be hosting a get together at my house to put together Care Kits for the Homeless. These are small, waterproof bags that contain items that could be useful/helpful for a homeless person. We will be following a packing list provided by the Portland Rescue Mission for the Care Kits, which include things like sanitizer wipes, toothpaste, bandaids, socks, water bottle, hotel toiletries, etc. 

The simplest way to complete this activity is to have one or two people do all the shopping for the items to assemble the kits. We will keep the total cost of the kits between $5 and $10 per kit (never having done this - I don't know which end it will be closer to). If you wish to participate, just let me know how many kits your family would like (commit to a number) and then after the shopping is done we will calculate the exact cost per kit (e.g. $6.27) and multiply that per the number of kits you requested. (If each kit were $6.27 10 kits would then be $60.27.) You should bring cash or check to the assembly activity. 

I started brainstorming about this project a few years ago when we started going to downtown Chicago so frequently (where you encounter the homeless each block), and more recently as I have wondered how I want to teach Jack to respond to people in need. While everyone I've talked to who ministers in the homeless community states emphatically that it is never a good idea to give money, that is certainly the easiest thing to do. These care kits are bulky, and inconvenient compared to a $5 bill, but I feel they are so much wiser and more 'caring.' I want to teach Jack both wisdom and compassion, and this is my personal solution. 

If you wish to join, let me know how many care kits you want to take home after we meet to assemble them all. For example, Richard and I will need 10-20, b/c we encounter homeless people A LOT, but perhaps you only want 2 or 3. Or maybe you want to get enough for the next 2 years - (everything in them will be non-perishable). Perhaps you want to keep them in your car, or make it a specific family home evening activity to go hand them out. In addition, let us know if you have items already on hand you can donate (e.g. hotel toiletries).  

The Five Factor Challenge

I've organized a fun health challenge based on various ones I've seen online. Here are the details for anyone who is interested or wants to join! It runs for six weeks, and we will do several rounds if the interest is there.

The Five Factor Challenge

Factor One: Exercise (20pts)
You have to do 20 minutes of exercise a day. It has to be intentional, nonstop exercise. Grocery shopping at Costco, while a marathon, cannot count. A 20 minute walk in the neighborhood in the evening does.

Factor Two: Nutrition (40pts)
Select any diet plan you choose. Then follow it. You can do weight watchers, calorie counting, my fitness pal, gluten-free, carb free-whatever. It just has to be a change for the healthier from the way you normally eat.

Factor Three: Hydration (10pts)
You must drink 3 L of water a day, this is six water bottles, for those who hate math. It's a lot, but it's amazing how much better your body feels and your skin looks!

Factor Four: Rest (10pts)
Try to get at least 7 hours of sleep per night. If you can't fall asleep, you can lay in bed and meditate. If you have to get up and tend a child in the middle of the night, this does not count against you, assuming you go back to bed when they do. If necessary, you can use naps to make up your seven hours. You just need to give your body at least seven hours of rest within a 24 hour period.

Factor Five: Healthy Habits (20pts)
Choose one bad habit to stop, or one good habit to start during the six weeks. Bad habits to stop could include eating late at night, or limiting TV. Good habits to start might include journal writing, scripture study, etc.

That's a total of 100pts per day. You get one free day for each of the categories, but can take each one on a different day. Every category except Nutrition is a total loss of points if not completed. For Nutrition, deduct 5 points every time you eat outside your nutrition plan. If calorie counting, that's 5pts per 100 calories over your goal.

In order to play I am asking that everyone toss $15 into the pot, so you have some skin in the game (but if you really want to play but can't come up with the cash, don't worry about it, just let me know). I will hold the cash 'in escrow' if you will, until the end of the game, when the entire total of the entry fees will be divided into three winners, or more if there are ties in any of the winning categories. The three ways to win are
1) Transformation (highest percent of body weight lost)
2) Dedication (highest overall score combining all the points from six weeks)
3) Fitness Guru (logged the most number of exercise minutes)

Every Monday use the link below to the game google doc to report your score by noon. There are separate tabs for the weight loss and exercise competitions, if you are competing in those by logging percent lost and exercise minutes.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PhUnZUvjs_x6Yaxn5apxeZ8slD0pgKakrTHWxMYeIU0/edit?usp=docslist_api

To start, record your plan in the google doc and give me the $15 bucks for the pot the next time you see me! You can also send it via paypal, message me for a PM with my paypal email address. Be aware that paypal has a 3% fee for non business transactions, so it would be like, $15.50. 

Letty

Look for Jack Updates on our Private Blog - G7KidChronicles

How it works:
ChroniclesofLetty is public, and so you can choose to follow it and get notified in your inbox whenever that blog is updated. Because this blog is private, you have to be added to the blog (which means I need your email address) in order to be able to click on the link and have it actually work - if the link isn't working, I haven't input your email address yet as an invited reader, or you haven't replied to the email blogger sent you saying that "your were invited to view G7KidChronicles" and gotten yourself set up.

 

Whenever I update either blog (with the exception of the daily picture journal for Jack) I will post the link on Facebook, so it's easy to click on and access that way.

 

What's on G7Kids:

• Funny and sweet stories about Jack
• Updates on Jack's development and progress
• Adoption updates about trying to locate siblings for Jack and/or further IVF updates
• Jack's daily picture journal, which is a super-cool idea I stole from online and we will see how successful I am at implementing it. The general idea is that you post at least one picture from each day - either a 'sum it all up' photo, or as the key to a funny story, or just the random one you took at night b/c you had forgotten to do it yet that day...if time allows, text and stories accompany the photo, if not, well, then that's that.

What's on Chronicles:

• Vacation travelogues and pictures
• Extended family stories and pictures
• Myself and Richard's life, hopes, aspirations

Announcing the Sudden Unexpected Arrival of Jack Goering!

An incredible thanks to all of you who have helped spread the word through passalong cards, Facebook and other media, and word of mouth. Jack found us through a friend, who found a posting, that led us to a facilitator...

We know that our little miracle is the result of so very, very many prayers ascending to heaven on our behalf, and are so grateful to a God who hears and answers prayers, and whose timing is always perfect.

Please continue to keep an ear out for potential adoptive situations and let us know! Not only do we hope to eventually have siblings for Jack, we have so many, many wonderful friends who are still waiting!

Meeting Jack - The Video

Come Watch a 2.5 Minute Video About Adoption Passalong Cards!

First, we are so grateful to all of you for sharing our initial blog link on your Facebook walls and via messages. The beautiful responses and support from everyone has kept smiles on our faces for the last month. And okay, okay – we know we specifically said monthly updates, and this is coming at 3 weeks, but we just got our adoption passalong cards in the mail!

1)    We would love it if you would please “join” the event we launched today from our Facebook page.  What’s the event? Letty made a super-cute 2.5 minute Storyboard Video explaining adoption passalong cards – which we are asking all of our friends and family to help us pass out! You should have an invitation to the event in your inbox, or you can click on this link to go there directly and join it.

2)   Please also post the link to this page to your FB timeline so people can find it that way.

http://waitingwishingprayingupdates.blogspot.com/2013/11/come-watch-25-minute-video-storyboard.html

If you would like a digital file or some passalong cards (Letty ordered a few thousand) let us know how many (5, 10, 25 or more!) and we will get them in the mail to you the next day! At the very least, it’s great to keep an adoption passalong card in your wallet, because you never know when you might need it!

Love, Letty and Richard

Announcing the Launch of Our Adoption Blog

Dear Friends and Family-

We are writing to ask you to keep us in your prayers and help us reach out to birth parents who might be considering making an adoption plan. We offer some simple suggestions, like posting our blog link on your wall, on how you can do that in the message below.

Background

We have always wanted to raise several children. Earlier this year we experienced two failed In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) surgeries as the conclusion to several years of medical attempts to have children. We are still passionate about becoming parents and are excited to have finished all the required training and certifications to be eligible to adopt.

How You Can Help

We are pursuing adoption in two ways:  our adoption agency and through private placement.  Currently the waiting list for adoption thru LDS Family Services averages about 3 years (our case worker told us in 2012 they only had about 300 babies available to place nationwide). We ask that you pray for us.

Successful private placement is all about making contact with the maximum number of potential birth parents.  We hope that, through your friends, you can help us connect with individuals we would not otherwise meet.  Our goal is to get the address of our adoption blog and our contact information to as many people as possible, FLOODING every social media platform.  Here are a few ways you can help us make this happen.  

• Send a short message via Facebook and/or e-mail (example below) with our adoption blog link (http://www.WaitingWishingPraying.blogspot.com) to all of your friends with whom you feel comfortable doing so.
• Like our FB page at http://www.facebook.com/waitingwishingpraying and invite your friends to like it too!
• Post a message with the adoption blog link on your Facebook timeline, Twitter feeds, etc.
• If you are a blogger, grab the button from our adoption blog to post on yours.

We will be updating the adoption blog and sending updates on our progress every month or two.  We hope that you will be willing to share blog updates as well. If you would prefer to NOT receive any more messages about this, please let us know.

Example Message To Post:
My friends are hoping to adopt! If you or someone you know is considering making an adoption plan for their baby, please check out their adoption blog www.waitingwishingpraying.blogspot.com a the link below. And feel free to repost this on your own timeline if you wish to help spread the word!

Thanks in advance for all your help, the few minutes you spend will make all the difference for us.

Sincerely,

Richard and Letty Goering

Grateful for Friends! Latest G7Kids Link

Thanks again for all the love and support! 

http://g7kidchronicles.blogspot.com/2013/09/repost-trust-god-and-believe-in-good.html

Happy Belated Father's Day Dads!

I know Father's Day was last week, but we were traveling so much I didn't get a chance to share this marvelous Father's Day video that touched my heart so much. Both mine and Richard's father's were Dad's like those in this video - endlessly caring, loving, and hardworking. We feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to have been raised in the homes they built for their families.

Read More on G7KidChronicles!
http://g7kidchronicles.blogspot.com/2013/06/fathers-day.html

London Calling

As I have slowly, slowly, been getting a handle on my other projects, I am starting to feel a strong pull to finish the London blogging. I'm beginning to think that if I don't finish it now, I never will! Plus, with all the other blogging I have been doing, I'm wanting to get Chronicles of Letty up to date, and KEEP it up to date (when I say up to date, I mean a) at least 2 entries a month and b) using up all the scraps of word docs and pics I have jammed randomly in a digital folder called 'for blog.' Plus, I want to use a nifty new blog background I found for Chronicles, which I WILL NOT do until I take down Tower Bridge.  And that simply cannot be done until London is complete. ERGO. I am bravely tackling the London and Europe entries from Fall 2011. I think that I will post them current to the day I finish them, with the actual date of their occurence in the text of the blog-post, rather than subjecting everyone to the hassle of backdating them. Once I get all of them done....well, I might find the energy to actually back-date them via the blog and get them properly chronologically ordered.

Anyway, happy reading all!

How Can You Subscribe to G7KidChronicles?

Hello friends and family!

So, many of you have asked if it is possible to subscribe to the new blog, G7KidChronicles.blogspot.com. If you clicked on that link and got nowhere, it's because it's a private blog and you have to have an invite to read it.

The answer to the subscription question is, not really, but kind of. Because the blog is private, there are no feeds from it, which means you can't get an alert in your inbox when a new entry is posted. I know how aggravating this can be, because, honestly, with everything else going on in your life, who has time to keep checking back to some random blog for new entries? Well, at least I know that I myself rarely ever get my friends' private blogs read, b/c that oh-so-convenient new post doesn't show up magically in my inbox.

Anyway, I think I have a workaround. Whenever I post a new entry in G7KidChronicles, I will post a link to it on this blog, ChroniclesofLetty, which will remain public. Therefore, if you are following ChroniclesofLetty, you will see the link to G7KidChronicles in your inbox or google reader. You can then click on the link, and as long as you are an authorized reader, you should be able to be redirected to G7KidChronicles and read the new post just fine. And anyone else who randomly clicks the link by accident just gets the 'private blog' notice. (If YOU get this notice and are not a robot, contact me, and tell me you need an invite to the blog). Voila! Feed problem solved! Try the latest blog post link below and see if it works!

http://g7kidchronicles.blogspot.com/2013/05/courage-finding-it-keeping-it.html

Yay for ANOTHER new blog!

I know, I know, as if I didn't have enough blogging projects! Just wanted you all to know what's taking my time and energy away from Chronicles! But once school is out for the summer I hope to have more time to devote to FINALLY finishing up the entries on our 4 months in London, and changing the wallpaper! Hah!

Let me know if you want an invite to the new blog (this one's private) and I'll send one your way!

My New Running Playlist!

Thanks to everyone who responded to my Facebook request and told me their favorite running songs to me to help freshen up my playlist! I have included a list of the ones that were fast enough paced to make my playlist (I need a rapid, driving beat to keep me moving with enough speed to burn the calories!). I also included my previous favorites for running because some people requested them. Feel free to suggest new songs to this list in the comments section!

Letty's Old Songs from her Previous Half-Marathon Training (1st Attempt)

Don't Turn Around	Ace of Base
The Way You Make Me Feel	Michael Jackson
Say Hey, I Love You	Michael Franti
Ooh Boy (I Love You So)	Real McCoy
Where Is Your Boy Tonight	Fall Out Boy
The First Single (You Know Me)	The Format
Another Night	Real McCoy
Can't Hurry Love	Supremes
Live to Love Another Day	Keith Urban
Since You've Been Gone	Kelly Clarkson
Happy Girl	Martina McBride
Girl's Just Wanna Have Fun	Cyndi Lauper
You Spin Me Right Round	Dead or Alive
Uptown Girl	Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
You're Still the One	New Found Glory
Superman	Goldfinger
Single Ladies	Beyonce
Rockin' With the Rhythym of the Rain	The Judds
When Love Takes Over	David Guetta Featuring Kelly Rowland
Can't Get You Out of My Head	Kylie Minogue
Hot N Cold	Katie Perry (Radio Edited Version)
I Get Knocked Down	Chumbawamba
Attention	The Academy Is

New Songs For a Running/ Half-Marathon Training Playlist (2nd Attempt)

Who Let the Dogs Out	Baha Men
Burn It Down	AWOLnation
Check Yes Juilet	We The Kings
Watcha Say	Jason Derulo
Oh No	Marina and the Diamonds
Without You	David Guetta
Fighter	One Republic
Hall of Fame	The Script
Boogie Wonderland	Earth Wind and Fire
It's Time	Imagine Dragons
Marching On	One Republic
Move Along	All American Rejects
Bom Bom	Sam and the Womp
We Are Family	Sister Sledge
Shake Your Groove Thing	Alvin and the Chipmunks
Down Under	Men at Work
Baby Likes to Rock it	The Tractors
Jump Jive and Wail	Brian Setzer Orchestra
Can't Touch This	MC Hammer
Bust A Move	Glee Cast
Marry You	Glee Cast
Survivor	Destiny's Child

Discouragement: A Germ of Its Own

Hey peoples! I know I'm not writing much here lately, but I wanted to throw up this link to my scripture study / spiritual insights blog by way of reminder that I a) have one and b) have been writing in it lately.

http://afterthemannerofhappyness.blogspot.com/2013/01/discouragement-germ-of-its-own.html

Also for those who are interested, my sister Rose's missionary blog from the Rome, Italy Mission is also keeping me super busy with posting her letters and pictures. It is a really fun read!

 http://sorellapreston.blogspot.com/

Our Backs to the World

For much-needed perspective in this special time of year, read the following blog entry that tells the story of this fascinating picture.


http://www.mormonmommyblogs.com/2012/12/our-backs-to-world.html#disqus_thread

So Excited For Breaking Dawn Part 2

Yes, I am an unabashed Twilight fan! I love love loved the books, and I willingly suspended disbelief all through each film! I cannot believe the end has arrived. Just for nostalgia's sake I dug up this picture from the very beginning - November 2008, with my sisters Ann and Rose at a kickoff party in Alabama. Note our stylin' fake tatoos that say Edward, Bella and Jacob.  The next year we had t-shirts (can't find that pic!), the year after a sign saying we missed Rose (a college freshman then). I saw the last one in London, dragging Richard with me to the Twi-athlon. And now, at last, the final midnight showing! Even though, alas, I am without both sisters this time- never fear girls, I will be swoony and hyper enough for all of us!

Yep, It's Offical, My Husband is Freakin' Adorable.

Richard is on business travel for work this week - I just checked my inbox and found this picture he emailed to me during their lunch break (apparently somewhere they serve fortune cookies.)

Smokey Joe's Cafe at Theo Ubique in Chicago!

Richard had to travel unexpected over the weekend, leaving me stuck with theatre tickets in Chicago. So my Mom hopped a train from St. Louis and joined me in Chicago and we went to see Smokey Joe's Cafe at Theatre Ubique on Thursday and Xanadu at Drury Lane Oakbrook on Friday. I was set for Xanadu, the touring Broadway show to be the unforgettable experience. However, it was merely amusing, an ok night of theatre. Smokey Joe's cafe was AMAZING!!!!! OH MY GOODNESS I LOVED IT!! Here is a copy of the review I submitted on ticketmaster
 
***I took my mother with me to the show as my husband had to travel unexpectedly for work. We were both surprised by the intimacy of the venue, such a small stage and Theatre! I was more familiar with the Chicago theatre scene, but I could tell my Mom was braced for a sub-par performance effort.  (Hilarious side note for blog readers...the shuttle from the parking lot pulled up along a small block of businesses in the Roger's Park neighborhood of Chicago and, pointing at a darkened doorway the driver said, "that's it, just through there." At which point Mom looks at me and says "I am NOT going down that dark alley!" It turned out to just be a small dark door, to an even smaller venue, but it was a hilarious start to the evening.)  From the first song the show BLEW US AWAY! Even myself, who based on critical reviews was expecting great things, was astonished at the talent Theo Ubique assembled for this show, under the direction of Brenda Didier. Perhaps most enjoyable was the absolute performance factor of every actor and musician. Small venues can often be intimidating for inexperienced actors, after all, you are performing and singing staring into people's eyeballs from two feet away at times. However, instead of turning inward to their performance, the stars on Theo Ubique's stage engaged with the audience, grinning at us through their solos, winking at my Mom in the steamy parts, and treating us like their oldest friends throughout. A special shout out to piano player extraordinaire Jeremy Ramey and his incredible music direction of the show.  He struck up a conversation with us from his piano stool a few feet away from our table, and proceeded with the evening like we were his specially invited guests. And our close up view as he proceeded to play some of the best piano I have ever seen live was a special privilege of the evening. We raved about the show to our waitress, to the people at the table next to us at dinner the next evening, and in general to anyone who would listen. Smokey Joe's is a MUST SEE event and Theo Ubique is a venue where season tickets are a BRILLIANT idea!***

I love discovering unexpected theatrical gems! Performers and performances that turn an 'amusing' night out into an unforgettable experience! I will be going back to Theo Ubique again and again!

Dallas for Emerson's 1st Birthday!

Yep folks, my nephew Emerson really is that cute. His first birthday was on Sunday, and Richard and I got to go visit Dallas for the occasion! Brace yourself for tons of cute baby pics, I just can't choose between them!