Valerie’s Neighborhood

Ashlee and I were talking about our shared love of Mandie books today, which now has me trying to think back and remember all my favorite childhood book series.

1. Mandie by Lois Gladys Leppard -  www.mandie.com

2. Laura Ingels Wilder

3. Anne of Green Gables

4. Narnia

5. And there was another series. I actually have a couple of the books at home, but I can't remember their names right now.

6. Nancy Drew

7. American Girl - before they were so popular. I liked Kristen the best.

8. My Canadian West Series and others by Janette Oak - (gosh... just early of an age did I pick up reading as I feel like I was awfully young to be able to actual read these books all by myself without any help.)

And I'll have to keep thinking. I'm sure there were more.

I got an email today from a Janet Norwood. I thought maybe she was someone sending out messages for the mayoral candidate - Mary Norwood (who I don't like and am not voting for unless claiming relation to her will help out my ministry in the years to come).

Here's the message from Janet: Are you ok????? I was thinking about you all night???? I have a hang over and I still have 4 and 1/2 hours of school to go and then Mary's tonight...what was I thinking.

Hmmm... I'm thinking she really must have had a rough night, as I don't think I'm the Christy Norwood she intended that email to go to... unless I had a REALLY rough night and have NO recollection of her or the night.

Life has been uber crazy, but good.

Last night I was driving up a side road next to Kroger when this big black SUV starts to peel out of a little very used parking lot next to Kroger, but slammed on its breaks when it saw me. I was far enough and going slow enough that I didn't even go for my break. I would have had plenty of time to stop had the guy not stop. Well, the driver of the SUV proceeds to SIT on horn while I drive past him and the passenger flicks me off with both his hands. I was so ANGRY. I wasn't the one who did anything wrong. I was the road driving straight and slow. I think they failed to realize (maybe they was getting high in the very dark of the abandoned parking?) that while they didn't have a stop sign, they weren't on a road and were at parking lot exit and therefore didn't have the right away. I was just on a straight shot of road. It wasn't two roads intersecting. And heck... I wasn't even up at where the exist was when they tried to peel out of it. I was so frustrated. I hadn't done anything wrong. They were they idiots.

This all happened after my monthly and LONG Neighborhood Planning Unit. I was on my way to buy some food for the week as well as the bread I need to bring this afternoon to our family Thanksgiving potluck lunch. I wasn't in the mood to be messed with. Well, I need to actually run and help with the potluck. I'll go ahead and post this, but will edit it a little later today and post more.

Just got done with an AMAZING potluck. Don't really know that I have the energy to write more just yet. Guess it will have to wait for another day.

... you live and work in the inner city when the hot news on the press and the exciting buzz of the day is about the new Subway located just 2 miles away. Yummy! I am enjoying a terikyki (spelling) 6-inch sub as I write this.

from our little pumpkin!!

Stay tuned for pictures of him in his costume!!  What will Abe be????

as a family that is.  So you will have to excuse the horrible lateness of getting this post up but well, I've been busy :)  So Monday morning of our trip we had arranged for our driver Solomon to meet us at Bejoe House since we thought that we would be going to the Care Center to pick up Abe.  Once he got there though Travis called and told us that the other little guy being picked up that day wanted to go see his Mom and Dad now and didn't want to wait on us to get there so Travis said that he would bring Abe along too and would be at Bejoe in about 1 1/2 hours.  Since Solomon was already there we decided to run to the store to pick up some bottled water.  We got our water and was on our way back when Solomon got a call from Travis asking where we were.  He was already at the guest house with Abe and we were nowhere around!!  Solomon gets off the phone and says Travis is at Bejoe and I completely freaked out.  What did he mean?  We still had plenty of time.  I needed to get our cameras and have someone video tape the event, I wasn't ready (oh, wait, yes I was, I had been waiting for this moment for years!!).  As we start to pull into the guest house alley we notice that Travis is parked in his car at the entrance waiting for us to get back, so we were able to pull in, run upstairs to get our camera (we were going to video tape it but we didn't even have a tape in the camera and Jeremy was shaking so bad he couldn't get the wrapper off so we just went with the camera.)  So here's the video for my little camera.  Little background, the other couple that was there were caught off guard too so since I had the camera I started video tapping them because I thought Travis was the only one in the car so I figured he would bring up their son and then go get Abe from the car, well I was mistaken.

We spent the rest of the day just hanging out at Bejoe House with Abe.  It's hard to put in words all the emotions of that day.  It all kind of seemed surreal.  All of the sudden this guy walked up the stairs and handed us our child, WOW!!  But it also all felt so natural.  Having him just fit.  All the waiting, all the fustrations and emotions leading up to that moment just all seemed to fade away like a distant memory. 

So... I decided to sneak into my professor's CCDA class on his new book (When Helping Hurts). I came 15 mintues late from lunch. (And well, two of my professors wrote the book; Steve Corbett was teaching a session at the conference.) My big boss - Bob Lupton (who is famous in this world) - was sitting on the floor in the back of the room with his wife Peggy. It was a large room packed full. I sat down on the floor in the back next to Bob. I'm sitting there for 15-20 minutes listening when Steve goes to talking about the principal of looking at the neighborhood's assets first and not it's needs... and suddenly I'm hearing "christy norwood" and him talking about my job with Bob Lupton and how I do that. It was a surreal experience. Well... 10 minutes later I decide I need to stand, so I get up and lean up against the wall and all of the lights go out (though thankful Steve is using a powerpoint and so it doesn't disrupt him). And I of course try panic inside wondering if the lights going off are me or not. It was me. It was a weird sort of small 4 little buttons that I had pushed when I leaned back. You know... I just don't think it's nice to turn the lights off on some someone who just gave you a shout-out. Opps!!!

On an exciting note... The CCDA is going to be doing little Saturday institute sessions for $25 for the whole day! They plan on doing one in Chattanooga in 2010! So excited!!! I was thinking at the beginning of this session about how strange it was that this conference that plays such a central part of my year is not known by those in my life outside of those with whom I work. Hoping to get people from my church and maybe even Shannon & whoever else can join me in Chattanooga for the day!!!

... I wasn't really sure what to title this entry. Actually, I generally struggle with that decision. I am just not that creative when it comes to the world of titles. I'm sitting in a rocking chair at the Starr household. I am giving Caleb and Ashlee Starr a much deserved 'date night.' Ashlee's sister is getting married this week. Her sister's been a bit high maintenance with the whole thing, so I decided I'd try and help give them something nice to start out the wedding weekend. Carrie and I cleaned up the kitchen. Ashlee is queen of hospitality and at making everyone feel welcomed, but all the people can lead to a mess. Cleaning up after everyone helps me and Carrie to feel like we earn our keep around here. :) I really do feel like God's permitting me to experience what it's like to live in an Acts 2 sort of community. I LOVE IT! The little girls are all tucked in bed and now I am getting some internet time before heading off to the CCDA conference. Not sure how frequently that will happen. I just tried to click onto the Sher's and Mom & Dad's blogs, but vox for some reason won't let me do that right now. Hope I don' have to wait all week for that. Didn't realize my fair pictures would be so popular. :) If I ever wondered if folks read my blog I suppose I won't have to wonder anymore. :) So what do you think? I'll answer any questions you have, Mom, just might not be much to answer right now.

Before I am unfriended and disowned I figured I should at least start blogging about our trip, try to get everyone caught up on life over the past three weeks.

The first two days of the trip were pretty much spent on a plane, fun fun!!  We had a 2pm flight out of Cleveland on Saturday, our friend Kate who was staying at our house came over a bit early to settle in with the dogs and prayed such a wonderful prayer over us and our trip, we feel so blessed to have her as a friend.  Our next door neighbor Laura drove us up to the airport. 

It didn't take long to get checked in, although United wasn't so keen on allowing us 4 checked bags each weighing almost 50lbs but they really had no choice since we had a connecting international flight.  She really checked our weights though, I really think she was hoping she could charge us for overweight bags but I had weighed and re-weighed our bags to make sure they were under 50lbs.

We had lunch at the airport and I think that is when it hit me that we were really on our way to pick up our baby boy.  I started tearing up over lunch, I know, I'm such a sap!! 

Most everyone knows I hate to fly.  I was more than willing to get on a plane to go get Abe, but I really do not like to fly.  So as we are sitting at the gate waiting for our flight to DC the attendant comes over the speaker and informs us that due to severe turbulence we would not be getting an in-flight drink service and would not be allowed to use the restroom so get something to drink and use the potty before we get on the plane (ok, he didn't really use the word potty).  Great, my first flight of a 100 something hours in the air and they are warning us about the turbulence before we even get on the plane!!  It actually wasn't as bad as they said but apparently had been really bad coming in from DC.  It was only a little over an hour and a bit bumpy but we got through. 

We had a 5 1/2 hr layover in DC.  We found a Potbelly's Sandwich for dinner.  We discovered this little gem on our trip to Columbus this past summer for our anniversary and fell in love with their sandwiches, however I accidentally said I wanted everything on it which included some really freaking hot peppers and after a few bites I couldn't feel my mouth!! 

At the gate we met up with another family traveling with Gladney, the Davis'.  They became quick friends.  We had such a fun time with them that week.  We wound up sitting right behind them on the plane.  There was also another family on our plane that was traveling to pick up a sibiling group of 4!!  4!!  They had 3 children already at home, one of their sons was traveling with them. (More about them on Wednesday)

The plane ride was LONG, but I think I wound up sleeping a lot of it.  That's one advantage of being short, you can curl up in airplane seats, plus having a wonderful husband who doesn't mind you laying all over him helps!!

We landed in Addis Ababa around 7pm Sunday night. We had to make our way down to get Visas, go through immigration, change out some cash and find our luggage.  We get our luggage off the turnbelts and they are all sopping wet!!  It was raining in DC and the only thing we can think of is that United threw our bags out on the tarmac and told Ethiopian Air to come pick them up.  I think they sat out their for awhile.  The Davis' bags were soaked too.  We found Travis, our in-country staff person, pretty easily, the only tall white guy in the crowd.  We met our driver Solomon, who became a great friend that week!!  He was awesome.  He loaded us up and took us to Bejoe House.  All 4 of the families traveling that week stayed there.  One was already there, and then we and the Davis' got in and then another family came on Tuesday. 

The Bejoe staff cooked us dinner which was very nice of them and very yummy!!  We had spagetti.  It had the best sauce on it!!

We settled in for the night, pretty tired from all the traveling.  We would meet our son the next day.  We were actually pretty tired so fell asleep pretty easily and got a good night's rest.  The next day would change our lives forever!! 

It's been awhile since we've done one of these, so I thought I'd pass one of the Vox Question of the Days around the circle to hear what everyone says. I think I know the answers, but we'll see. I have a feeling I'll be in the minority on this one. :)