Purpose of Dreams

One of my dreams involves living in a large old Victorian style house - full of floors of rooms and rooms. A large kitchen, a spacious dining room, a comfy library, and a welcoming family room. I want to fill the rooms with people - children, guests, boarders, whoever. I'd decorate it with antiques that tell a story - that remind me and of others of distant times and treasured values. I picture large Holiday dinners with people of every age packed around a table sharing a meal.

Another dream has me cozied up inside a small yurt or tiny house (or maybe even an RV?) in the middle of wide open spaces. The view disrupted only by fellow small-dwelling neighbors. Minimalist interior - the only contents the bare necessities. Clean lines, modern, functional, no excess. A testament to the fact that we can live and thrive on far less than our society tells us we need. I dream of cook-outs - people milling around an open yard and sitting under shade trees. Neighbors bringing a dish and everyone spreading out on blankets to eat. Afterwards everyone - adult and child alike - bands together for a game of tag or backyard baseball.

I'm looking for the same thing in both dreams really. In both the dreams I'm harvesting a garden and canning the produce. The size of the garden and the number of jars varies. (I should probably learn how to can . . .) In both I'm interacting with people - neighbors or housemates. In both I'm focusing on something I think is important - in the first on on history and a past through the old house and antique decor. In the latter - on simplicity and not holding on to things that will perish.

I don't really see them as opposing dreams though - yes, I can't really live in both a large house and a small house at the same time. But I think that no matter where God leads me to live - I can live out some of those values that produce those dreams. I think I'm starting to realize that it's not so much about getting to your dream - it's about figuring out how your dreams are suppose to impact your life. God didn't give me these desires to have them put on hold until "one day" - they're here now and should be used now. It's difficult to realize the people part of my dreams as an introvert - but I'm thankful to God who seems to throw me in the middle of people - and often puts someone there who will pull me into being involved. I try to find ways to incorporate the things I value (history, roots, self-sufficiency, minimalism, stories, community, etc) into my everyday life today.

Just A Couple Of Things I Want To Remember

I was listening to some of the podcasts from creatingafamily.com today as I was doing some driving and heard a couple of things that I just want to make a note about in hopes that I remember them years down the road.

1. Using a bottle as a tool for attachment. Dawn Davenport, the host, had on a guest that's an expert on adoption attachment. One thing they brought up was the idea of giving your adopted child - even older children - a bottle. Not as a feeding tool but as an attachment tool. put juice or something in the bottle, give the nipple a small opening, and then take the time to rock and hold your child while s/he drinks. On the show they said that this was acceptable as long as the child was comfortable with it. I think it's a cool idea.

2. In another podcast they were discussing how/when to bring up the adoption story with your child - and the general consensus is to make words such as "adoption" and "birth parents" common and normal from the very beginning - just by saying them even before the child understands what they mean. They talked about having a "life book" with pictures from the home country in it and reading children's books about adoption. So, the idea hit me, I want to make a "just for us" Children's book about whatever the adoption story ends up being. Of course - my mind starts dreaming wild dreams - but I think it would be cool to take some pictures and simple wording and tell the story and then it get printed off at a place like snapfish.com in one of their "book" formats for the child. I'd love to do a story that shows the two time lines of me getting to the child and then the timeline of the birth mother having the child and the child going to the orphanage/baby house/etc and then when our time lines meet in the same place. I can write the first two pages at this point. haha. "In America there was a woman with dark hair. She lived in an apartment and had two cats. She worked at a school teaching children. She was happy but she thought it would be wonderful to have a family and started thinking about all the ways there were to create families." . And then later, "One day the woman knew it was time to start her family so she called a place that helps families find each other and . . . " Anyway. That's the English-major side of me coming out. Depending on the history I get on my child we'll see how the "two time lines becoming one" thing goes - but right now I really love the idea. My "dream" level of the book is to take real pictures from the journey and have an artist "illustrate" them into children's book type images that still resemble me and my child and then fill in the gaps of the story for which pictures most likely will not exist. (My child's birth for example)


On a completely different note. I'm still completely undecided about if I want to pursue the adoption of one child or two at a time. i know I eventually want at least 2. However, I've decided that's something else (along with country) that I'm going to stop trying to figure out until I get closer to beginning this process.