The Story of a Lifetime

It is time.

Thanks to all of you who have recently checked on my well-being, since my last posting in which I hinted at some big amazing news and then dropped off the face of the earth.

So now I've had time to process, rejoice, and reconnect my brain cells, (and catch up on several projects which I completely abandoned in the process) and I'm ready to share.

Here's the deal.

Three weeks ago tomorrow, I got a registered, certified, restricted delivery letter that I had to go pick up at the post office. It was just another Saturday and we were running errands before heading home to family dinner and movie night. The letter the clerk handed me was a plain white envelope with my name and address typed on it. The return address meant nothing to me, but the name on the return label niggled at the deep recesses of my mind as I opened the envelope. Here's the text of the letter:


Dear Kristen:

Thank you for taking a moment to read this note

I am trying to contact Kristen Paige Voss regarding a personal family matter. If you are Kristen, born March 10, 1968 in Los Angeles, California, I would appreciate hearing from you at your earliest convenience.

I can be reached at *** (phone, cell, email followed)

I very much look forward to hearing from you.

Very sincerely,

Marianne Merrill


And then something spoke to my heart and I knew exactly why that name was so familiar. It wasn't the one my mother had spoken of so many years ago, but it was close enough.

Did I mention I'm adopted?

I emailed the sender, telling her that I was indeed the person she was looking for and asking for more information about who she was. Although I thought I already knew.

And two days later, I learned I was right. I received the most beautiful email explaining to me who she was and telling me that she just needed to know I was okay.

My birth mother had found me.

It didn't take long until I was on the phone. I had to call her...a conversation needed to happen. Simply emailing back was not enough. I had questions and things to say, and I needed to talk to her in person. With David at my side, I took a deep breath and dialed the home number she'd listed in her letter.

I can't describe the myriad of emotions that ran through my soul as I was able to tell her in person...thank you. Thank you for making the choices so many years ago that allowed me to be born and raised in the Voss family. Thank you for loving me so much that you knew I needed to take a different journey in my life.

As I've gotten to know her a little more over the last three weeks, I know for sure that she would have taken great care of me. I know I would have been surrounded by a vital, loving family. But I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that she made the right decision to place me in another family.

My parents are ecstatic. They've been able to tell her thank you themselves. My mom emailed her my whole life history and lots and lots of photos. I'm so grateful for their support and the way they raised me, with such love and respect for her and her choices.

So that's my story. There's lots more layers to it, but this gives you an idea of what I've been up to for the last couple of weeks. My family tree has another branch to it. Somewhere in the world, there are actually people who look like me.

Today Marianne celebrates her 60th birthday. Join me in wishing her well on this momentous occasion by posting a comment on this blog--she told me earlier today that I've made her a blogger since she's started checking up on me here, so I know she'll read this!

And let me say it again, but in front of friends and family--I'll shout it to the world!

Marianne, I've thanked God all my life for you. And I'm so eternally grateful that now I've been able to thank you in person. You have blessed my life in so many ways. You're an angel in my eyes.

Happy birthday, Marianne! Know that you are loved!

Snap, Crackle, Pop, OUCH!

First, let me say to those who have been keeping up with my keeping up with Betsy's "How Many?" game, that I know I'm seriously behind. She's had some great topics, too, so I will catch it up because it's been fun to write about them.

But I have a good excuse. I've had the most amazing past three days and I'm still trying to absorb it all and much of my brain has been in freeze mode. I have a massively exciting and previously unexpected event to share with you all, and I'm trying to find the way to put it into words.

But for now, I give you today's topic...

"How many bones have you broken?"

Easy answer. Five. And they're all toes. And subsequently two of them haven't bent since 1983. Seriously.

I smashed the smallest three toes on my left foot walking onto the gymnastics mat during team practice my junior year in high school. You read it right--not by landing a tricky vault, not by missing some slick move on the balance beam. I was walking from the hard floor on to the practice floor mat, and whacked my foot on the side of it. Keep in mind that the mat is probably about two inches thick. That took some talent, baby!

Q: How do you fix a broken toe?
A: You don't. Tape it to another one and be tough.

So I did it again right before college graduation. Ring-finger-type toe on right foot against the leg of the couch. Couch wins. Student wants to walk across the stage at graduation but NOT with the unattractive crutches. Student crams sore foot and still-broken toe into black high heel shoe and hobbles across the stage, hiding the pain rather well. Student is crazy and every once in a while has flashes of pain when said foot is overworked, thereby reminding her that vanity causes more pain than necessary.

Student still has much to learn. But this last time was truly an unavoidable accident...

A sliding cabinet drawer came off its track recently and fell, pointy corner first, onto my second toe, left foot. None of the other toes ever got so purple and so swollen so fast. It was actually a rather cool medical experiment, and I was in a public place so screaming out loud was not an option. Now all that's left to injure is the big toe on my left food and we have a full house.

Broken bones aside, I've further scarred myself with the double hernia surgery I had when I was nine, the C-section baby I delivered 15 years ago (imagine those three scars together and I have a smiley face on my abdomen--TMI!), the carpal tunnel surgery I've had on my left hand, the one I need to have on my right hand, and an odd assortment of stitches and gluing back together of body parts. They haven't required casts (okay, the hand surgery did), but they were nonetheless painful and expensive and trauma-inducing.

Oh yeah--and I'm raising Captain Accident. Colin's broken a wrist (both bones, all the way through at the same time) and a thumb, and he's had any number of sprains, dislocations, tears, rolls, and other sports-related injuries that make me wonder why I keep buying the uniforms and paying the medical bills.

And now I think I need some Tylenol. I hurt just thinking about all this!

What about you?

Eeeew. Gross. Yuck. Click!

Just another typical afternoon at our home...the girls and their friend Ryan were playing outside after school. One of their latest pasttimes has been to carry all the empty jars we have outside and collect bugs.
Eeeew. Gross. Yuck. Why?
Today it got a little more heart-palpitating than normal for me. Lindsay came inside with nothing other than a large praying mantis. Very large. In a shorter jar. Without a lid on the jar.



I should get some serious "Good Momma" credit here. I did not run screaming from the room. I did, however, grab a baggie and cover the jar as quickly as possible. All the while pretending complete interest in what she had found. And edging her ever closer to the back door without being obvious. This is what I was taught to do in Good Momma school.

In my heart, I believe praying mantises are e-vil. Scary. And not part of my home decor theme.

And then I made her take it outside. Good girl that she is, she obliged. And then good scrapbooker that I am, I took pictures of it.


You can't see the creature very well in this picture. But it's there. Inches from her mouth. And she's taken the baggie off the top of the jar.

She did not get this hobby from me. Trust me.
This is SO not genetic!

The praying mantis was liberated in a safe location, free to pursue and devour another mate.

And then five minutes later, Rebekah came in holding yet another jar, wanting to show off her new pet katydid. Thank goodness she had a lid. That bug was even more mobile.

Where, in their genetic history, did they get this insane hobby? David's not such a bug guy, though he has rescued me from many a terrorizing moth.

But I won't squash their fun. Maybe their bugs, but not their desire to be scientists (as they call themselves) and learn about nature.

However, remember that katydid? He's still sitting in a jar on a table in my entryway. Let's hope she forgets about him before she wakes up. I'm releasing him into the wild under cover of night. Maybe if I spin the jar around really fast three times he'll get dizzy and forget his way back home. I can only hope.

Showing off, if you don't mind

Okay, it's been bugging me...

In my post on Saturday, I added a family photo we had taken that included my dad's dog, all with the purpose of sticking to the topic of how many pets we had (or didn't, in our case). But that picture was just one of many proofs we had taken that day, and it's not the best one. So I want to go on record with our favorite shot. Though these were taken a year and a half ago (and David wasn't feeling too well that day), it's still the picture I have hanging in my front hall and the one I've scrapbooked in several projects. I don't think we'll ever take a family photo that I will like nearly as well. For the record, my mom took these pictures in her studio.

Thanks, Mom!

And just to show us in our natural state, here's another one:

Man, we're weird, but I love us!

Not mentioning the unmentionables

If you're looking for today's "How Many?" post, I think I'm going to choose not to participate fully. The question of the day was "How many bras do you own?" The answer: Not enough good ones!

But if you want to reply, feel free!

Here Kitty, Kitty...(cough, sneeze, gasp)

Today's "How Many" question from Betsy is a rather simple one for my family...



How many pets do you have?

The answer, quite simply, is none. Thanks so much to our own oldest two-legged creature, his allergies to any kind of animal with fur have kept us from having any extra bodies sharing the heating vents on cold mornings. (By the way, this allergic condition extends beyond the domestic household animals. Horses, deer, and oxen who blow snot on his neck are included, among other friends. And yes, he's allergic to ox snot as evidenced by the large hives that immediately came to life.) We did try to babysit my niece's two beta fish while her family lived in Japan for a year, and we did quite well for a long time. Then we thought we had killed them ourselves until we found out they had lived long past their life expectancy, and very old age was the culprit. But Jennifer, I'm still sorry!



Growing up, I was exposed to any number of animals...like when I was in first grade and we lived on 1 1/2 acres in California with 3 cows, 2 sheep, 6 geese, a bunch of ducks, a parakeet, 60 chickens, and 2 dalmations who liked to eat chickens for breakfast. Nothing like starting your day picking up fresh chicken parts from the back lawn.

And I'm still not sure why my parents would send a tiny seven-year-old into a small coop full of feathers and sharp beaks to collect eggs.

Need I point that that to this day, I'm still quite afraid of chickens?

Then it was a succession of dogs and cats and rabbits, including my favorite best friend, Souffle (Souffie for short, thank you). She was a poodle/cocker spaniel mix, and she was my buddy for eight years. David grew up with three different dogs over the years, too.

We always thought we'd have at least one dog roaming the yard as our kids grew up. Not so. We've had any number of family and friends try to share their pet abundance over the years, but we've had to turn them down...much to the chagrin of our daughters. But we love the fact that any of us can walk barefoot in the lawn and not step in any presents left behind.

So for pet fixes, we take the kids and a bottle of Benadyl to my parents' home, where at this point, two poodles and one blind cat rule the roost. And so I leave you with the only related pet picture I can find in a pinch...Christmas 2006 when my mom took our family photos in her home photography studio and Rebekah was sure that one of their newest puppies--Miles--needed to be in this particular shot.



Not the best photo in the bunch, but it's us...and a makeshift pet.

What about you? Are you a pet person?

Something I Can Dance To, Redux

Time for my new daily journaling prompt, thanks again to Betsy (see yesterday's post). Today's "How Many?" question is

How many songs do you have loaded on your mp3 player?

The answer? I don't know. As many as possible. I can't add any more. And my playlist on my blog is full, too. I wish I could add more, but that would involve a new MP3 player or another playlist. (Hint, hint, Santa Claus.)

Her follow-up question was even better:

What music moves you?

To which I've already written the reply. Indulge me, please, while I link you back to one of the first few posts I wrote:

http://sunshineinmotion.blogspot.com/2008/01/something-i-can-dance-to.html

This gives my answer in greater detail than you probably wanted to know, but it's all there for the reading. I have added some favorite new artists since I wrote it, but this is the music that really moves me. Literally.

So what music moves you? Post and let me know! Wanna groove right now? Check out my playlist to the right.

Boogie on, baby.

Playing the "How Many?" Game

My friend Betsy just inspired me with her latest blog gimmick...it's a "How Many?" question she creates and answers every day to keep herself blogging regularly. Nice trick! Since I just checked her blog today for the first time this month, I'm a little behind, but I'll catch myself up. (Feel free to play along...)

The first four questions:

1. How many kids do you have?
If you've been reading my posts, it's not hard to see...
The answer to this simple question is three.
Colin is 15, Lindsay is 10, and Rebekah is 7 (but she'll say she's almost 8).

2. How many cars have you had?
Ooh, good question. Let me see if I can remember that far back...

No, wait. Too many memories bubble to the surface. Let's save this one for another day and its very own post. David has to get in on the act, too. He's been the primary driver of our most bizarre and unconventional vehicles.

3. How many minutes is your snooze alarm? And how many times do you hit it?
(Sigh) First let me say that I hate alarm clocks. Probably because I hate getting up in the morning and the two seem to work hand in hand. I think my clock has a 7-minute snooze window. And my clock has two alarms. The OCD person in me (who is always afraid the alarm won't go off) had to have two, one as a backup. So I set them for a few minutes apart. And then one goes off, I hit the snooze, then the other goes off a few minutes later, then I hit the snooze, then the first snooze session is over and the first alarm goes off again....rinse and repeat. I think I hit the snooze at least three times each morning. And since my clock is set to be at least 10 minutes fast, I really have no idea what time I really get up in the morning. Let's just say it's early, since Colin has to be out the door for Seminary (early-morning scripture study for teenagers in our church) at 6:45 AM, and we read scriptures and have family prayer before he goes.

Did I mention I hate getting up in the morning? But when I think of all I get done by 8:30 each day, I amaze myself.

And the last question to catch myself up to date with Miss Betsy:

4. How many jobs have you had?
I think I'll save this one too. It requires quite a bit of thought, as I've been working for the last 27 years of my life!

Wanna play the game? Reply to this post and answer the questions, or let me know you're doing it on your blog! If you want to check on Betsy's answers (or get the questions first-hand) since this is her game, click on her blog link in my margin above.

How many days do you think I can post my answers on time? :)