There's been a lot happening in the Elliott home this past month.

I'm not quite ready to post about it all yet.

Today I want to brag!!!!!

Any time I mention my HOT husband, I always make it a point to mention how HOT he is, and that I have the best husband in the world.  

But truth is, I don't think you all realize just how wonderful he really and truly is.

There's a lot I could say about him...I could go on and on and on and on...about him.

For our one year dating anniversary I made him a book of 365 Reasons why I love him.  That was from just 1 year of dating...this October we'll have been married for 9 years, and we dated 4 years before we said I do!  

That means there are at least 4,748 reasons why I love him up to now!

Good gravy, that's almost unfathomable that someone could have that many reasons to love just one person.

But I do!


One of the reasons I love Chris is because he treats me like the Pretty Pretty Princess that I am. ;0)

Chris opens doors for me, he always has me walk in first, he admits when he's wrong, and he tells me he's proud of me and loves me.  He always treats me with respect and listens to me (even when my story lasts longer than he'd like).

Another reason why I love Chris so much is because he works hard for our family.

This may sound kind of generic to some people...but he really and truly does.

Not all men have the work ethic that Chris does.  Not all men put their family first and make it a point to show up for work on time, every day, and give 200% (even when they don't feel like it).  But he does!

He does it because he wants to provide for our family.

He wants to give us not just the things we need, but the things we want as well.

He does it, not because he's the man of the house and feels like it's his responsibility, but because he sees my needs and our families needs and he wants to be the one to provide for us.

I am SO extremely proud of my husband.

He is an honest, hardworking, responsible, HOT man, spiritual leader of our house, and amazing husband (and one day Dad).

I love you Husband!

Thanks for all you do! 

2012 Hopes Update and 2013 Hopes

A new year has begun...and that means it's time to update you on my 2012 Hopes and tell you what my Hopes for 2013 are.

I'm going to be honest with you, I'm not so uber excited to see my progress for the 2012 Hopes.  I'm pretty sure I didn't quite fulfill any of them 100%...but I do feel like there was quite a few things that happened this year that may have kept me from hitting the mark on all my Hopes, but were most definitely worth it.  I'll list them after the update.

*Updates will be in blue ;0)

Holly's 2012 Hopes
*I've listed the ones that aren't really capable of being measured first...because let's face it. These will always be on my hopes list, and are things I will continue to strive to make better.

~ I want to continue working on being the best wife, “maschia” to the ducks, daughter, sister, granddaughter, aunt, friend, etc as I can be. There’s always room for improvement ;0)

~ I want to continue to work/focus on my marriage. Every relationship in our lives requires work for it to continue to progress. The most important relationship to me, aside from my relationship with God, is my relationship with my husband. He and I share our lives together, now and forever, and in order for our life together to maintain it's yee-ness (I'll explain yee at another point if you don't understand this terminology) we will always have to work on it. Go Team Elliott!

~ I would like to continue working on my faith and my relationship with God. It’s very easy to become overwhelmed and let the stresses of life overcome and overshadow the things that we really need to focus on. But if we make it a point to grow in our relationship with God we are better equipped to handle those life stressors. It doesn't mean we won't have frustrations and trials, it just means we'll have the best resource (God) available to us to help us through those rought patches.

~ I'm going to do an update on all of the above in one paragraph, because as said before, they're not really measurable.  As always I feel like there are areas for improvement, but all in all, I think this year I became closer to my husband and to God.  As well as many other family members and friends. 

~ I am going to work on not letting other peoples issues become my own. I feel like there are certain situations in my life that I could have easily been sucked into the middle of, when in all honesty, it doesn’t have to do with me. I’m not one of the key players in the situation, and I’ve tried very hard to not let the issues of those close to me, that are key players in the situation, become my issues. It’s difficult…because when it comes to those I love, I want to go to battle for them, but I can’t. I just can’t. And I can’t let their issues become mine, and I can’t let their issues eat at me. It’s not healthy for me, and it drags down those around me.

~ This just makes me giggle...because to be perfectly honest, this specific hope is in relation to a specific situation that is continually happening.  I've stayed out of the middle of it, so as far as that goes, I've hit the mark on this one...but it is a struggle.  I think this is something I'll always have to work on.  And thankfully I have wonderful family and friends who are aware of the situation and who can support me and help me to maintain my stance.

~ I want to increase my random acts of encouragement. I know this was on my hopes list from last year…but I focused on some of my other hopes more than I did this one. So here it is again. I want to do at least one random act of encouragement a month. And I fully understand how odd that seems, like I'm planning out a random act of kindness. But here's where the randomness comes in: I will intentionally, once a month, seek some quiet time with God and ask him to put someone on my heart that I can help encourage. It may not be random from God's point of view, because he knows what's going on with that specific person...but I don't. All I know is that God loves that person in my life so much that He's showing them His love and encouragement through the words I have to say to them.

~ I did really well at this, at the beginning of the year.  I was very purposeful for the first months about spending time in prayer about who I could encourage.  But life happened, and that just kind of fell off.  There are times that I encouraged someone without realizing in the moment that I had done so.  So I'm gonna consider this a win.  I think I put too much pressure on myself for this one at the beginning.  Honestly, encouragement isn't something you can force.

~ I want to donate my time or resources to a local organization at least once a month. Most likely (knowing me and how busy our calendar can get and how fast it fills up) it will more than likely be resources that are donated.

~ This worked out the first few months and then life happened and things got crazy (as they always do).  I still would like to be able to donate more of my time and energy to helping others.  But I think I need to do it as it comes as opposed to forcing it to happen. 

~ I want to be better this year at doing Menu plans. Last year started off good and trailed off there toward the end, with no menu planning being done the last few months. Chris and I are very good about budgeting, but food is our weakness and we’re very easily talked into forgoing all that’s in our fridge to go out to eat. This isn’t always a bad thing, but we just need to discipline ourselves to use more of our “go out to eat” money for grocery money. Since I get home around 3pm every day it’s easier to make food at home...not like when we both got home around 6 and neither of us wanted to spend an hour in the kitchen making something, when we were starving right then and there. How I plan to get myself in this discipline, I don’t know (suggestions welcome), but I definitely need to do so.

~ 2011 repeated itself here.  I do think it was a smidge better, but not a whole lot.  I think I need to come up with a list of things we love, and maybe a few new things each month, and just rotate meals.  I DREAD menu planning for the simple fact that I want to make things we'll like, but I don't want to eat the same things all the time.  We've tried so many new things over the past two years that I really feel that there should be enough varieties of recipes that I should be able to come up with a list to go off of.

~ So last year my goal was to finish Scrapping 2010 before starting on 2011…granted I strayed a smidge from this as I did start on 2011 before completely finishing 2010…but I did keep my word and finished 2010 instead of just dropping it completely once I started 2011. SO…this year I have a new Scrapbooking goal. I want to finish 2011, get at least half of 2012 done, and get a little bit of 2009 done too…YIKES! That’s a big goal. But I do have a plan for getting this done. Each month I plan to get 1-2 months from 2011 scrapped. Some months had more going on than others, so if I encounter a long month to scrap…I’ll just do it. If the next couple months are small scrap sections then I’ll do both. I already have January and February of 2011 scrapped, so I’m currently a smidge ahead of the game (well, as far as 2011 goes) so I should be able to finish 2011 earlier in the year than December 30^th ;0) and get more than 2 months of 2012 done by the time 2013 is here. Depending on how this goes, I may even up this monthly goal to include the month prior to’s scrapping, meaning in February I’ll work on January from 2012 as well as a month or two of 2011. This would obviously make it easier to get caught up but may be a little over zealous. My scrap retreats could be time focused on 2009. I do have some stuff scrapped from then already, but at the moment I don’t know how much is done and how much I have left, so who knows how long it will take to catch up on it, but at least I’ll be working on things that are sitting in a bag in the closet just screaming to be put in an album. Wish me luck…this is I think the biggest measurable challenge I’ve given myself.

~ This is the easiest hope to update, because it's the most measurable.  I didn't meet this goal...but I feel like I could have if other things hadn't come in to play.  Let me explain...

I got through August of 2011 scrapped and May of 2012 scrapped, which that in and of itself is HUGE, in comparison to years before.  On top of that I started Scrapping4Adoption.  I finished a 20 page album for a friend and have done 25 pages on another friends album for Scrapping4Adoption.  I'm so happy to be able to do this to raise money to help with our adoption, and I LOVE putting an album together for a friend, but the truth is that doing these albums did take some time away that I would have worked on mine.  So I don't count this against my Hope...and I honestly feel like this was a pretty big win for the year. 

~ Last year my Blogging hope was to blog once a week…go ahead and chuckle, it is humorous. This year my hope is to simply blog…just kidding ;0). I am going to be much more manageable with my hope for blogging this year and say at least twice a month. I can do that, right? Once every two weeks…that’s manageable, isn’t it? YES…yes it is! I can do it.

~ 7/12 months I did 2 posts...not great, but not so bad, right?

 

So there you have it...

 

I think the number one thing that happened this year that was HUGE in our lives and had the most impact in my available time was starting the Adoption process.  Paperwork was my life over my Summer Break this year.  I feel like it's a good enough excuse for slacking a bit ;0)

 

Holly's 2013 Hopes

~ I want to continue working on being the best wife, “maschia” to the ducks, daughter, sister, granddaughter, aunt, friend, etc as I can be.  AND hopefully, to be the best Mommy I can be.   ;0)

~ I want to continue to work/focus on my marriage.  Go Team Elliott!

~ I would like to continue working on my faith and my relationship with God.

~ I am going to continue to work on not letting other peoples issues become my own.

~ This year I really want to focus on my health.  I'm 32 years old, and as far as I'm concerned, I'm pretty healthy for someone living with CF...but I know there are ways that I can tend to slack with my health.  I don't exercise, I don't always take my enzymes, I'm not always good about checking my blood sugar and taking insulin.  So I really, REALLY want to make these things a HUGE priority this year.  I don't have a plan for the exercising right now...mainly just that I need to actually do something (even if it's just 10 minutes 3 times a week). 

~ I want to work on my menu planning and more specifically, putting together the list of recipes we LOVE.  I think this will really help me with being more organized with my menu planning and maybe I won't dread doing it so much.

~ I'm going big again for my Scrapbooking goal this year.  I want to finish 2011, 2012, stay up to date with 2013 and work some on 2009 (or just older stuff in general).  This year I did take some time to go through all of the things I have in tubs/boxes/bins from years ago that need scrapped and I got them all organized.  This will help as I move forward with catching up on these things because I know just how much I have to scrap from each year.  Some years it's a little, and some years it's alot...but either way I think it will make things more manageable.  I also want to finish the 2 albums I have for Scrapping4Adoption by the end of January.  Woo...here we go.

~ My Blogging hope is to blog at least twice a month...baby steps.

 

Feel free to check in with me as the year progresses. 

Things I learned this week

~ I have one of the BEST life together groups EVER!!!!

~ Coughing fits are scarey...when you have to poop!

~  Even when I have less people to buy Christmas presents for, I still find myself frantically searching for at least one gift at the last minute.

~  "While You Were Sleeping" by Casting Crowns is one of my all time favorite songs...Christmas time or not.

~  I am SO over paperwork!

~  My Dad is the most amazing Dad in the world!

~  I don't like Chris to say "Hey Jack" to me.  #duckdynasty

~ People who have never been through the adoption process and/or have the capability of having children biologically, have NO idea how hurtful their words can be to people like me.

~  After 8 years + of marriage, Chris still doesn't really like old stuff (thankfully he doesn't consider me "old").

~  Lung function cannot be guesstimated...and even if you feel fine, it can still be down :0(

~  My Pulmonologist LOVES me (he told me so)...I love him too (that part I already knew).

~  The school staff needs Christmas Break (and every other break we get) more than any of the students do.

~  My God is bigger than any problem I will ever have...I have to remind myself of this Every single day!
 

WINNER!!!!

Okay, I didn't really win the lottery (I don't even play)...

And I realize that there's a lot of not so great things that can come from winning the lottery...but barring all of those bad things happening, if I had won the lottery, here's the positive side of what I would do.

After taxes it was what, a mere 385 million payout (just enough to live off of for a lifetime)...

1.  Tithe 10% = 38.5 million, but I'll round that puppy up to 40 million (God's blessed us quite a bit, I'd probably give WAY more than that actually).  Crosspoint's permanent home will be built (you're welcome all you peeps on the load-in and load-out teams).

2. I'd give a good chunk to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation...I'm thinking that would help with making the life sustaining drugs and help find a cure for sure. Because there would be so much funding behind the drugs, it would decrease their cost for the consumer (BONUS) so they wouldn't be the most expensive drugs EVER!!!!  You're welcome CF peeps.

3.  Our adoption would be funded, and our non-profit organization to help others fund their adoptions would be funded as well.

4.  The Red Barn Retreat would be built and up and running.

5.  I would put in the rest of the new windows on the house, finish our basement, and add an awesome master suite, complete with HUGE walk-in closet, full bathroom with walk in shower, a scrapbook room for me, and a dj room for Chris with more speakers than he could possibly imagine (this room will also be sound proof ;0) ).

6.  I would buy us new cars.  4 of them to be exact.  2 practical cars for every day use.  A mustang for my Hot Husband, and a corvette for me ;0)

7.  I'd buy a new refrigerator...because I HATE the one I have.  Goodbye 1983 model with immovable shelves!  You know what, I'd probably replace all my appliances...and my kitchen.

8.  I'd pay off the house and student loans.

9.  Our parents, siblings, nieces and nephews would probably get some nice swag!

10.  Chris and I would go on some AMAZING vacations!!!!  We may take some friends and family along for the fun.

11.  I would go to the Container store...I'd probably buy some stuff ;0)  Currently Chris won't allow me to go to that store.  This isn't him being mean, he just knows my illogical LOVE for organizational supplies and is aware that sending me into this place would be like putting a crack whore in a room with all the drugs for the taking.  Come to think of it, he may be even more opposed to me going to the Container store if we'd won the lottery... 

12.  I'd probably still work, but it would be part time...I'd spend the rest of the time doing (insert Napoleon Dynamite here) whatever I want to do...GOSH!

But most of all, first and foremost, I would thank God for the amazing blessing of always providing for us....and giving us so much more than we could ever imagine.

65 Roses Adult Prom

It's funny how life can make a near complete circle at times...at least when it comes to people you've encountered.

This past weekend we held the first annual 65 Roses Adult Prom (a fundraiser to raise money for Cystic Fibrosis). 

*Note:  In case you didn't know this, many children (and adults, I'm sure, too) have a difficult time pronouncing Cystic Fibrosis, and it comes out sounding like 65 Roses.  There's your little, "you learn something new every day" fact...you're welcome ;0)

July 2011 I was sitting at the entrance to my garage, with my lovely little sister, reading my facebook feed when I was invited to an event to raise money for super cute Boston.  I click, I start reading, I'm curious because I do not recognize the name of the person that invited me  AT ALL.  Come to find out, MY high school junior prom date is Boston's Dad, and Boston was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis. 

What the?

So I immediately sent Josh a message to let him know that if there's anything they need or if they want someone to talk to (who lives out life with CF every stinkin day) to definitely hit me up.

Schedules got in the way but we were all finally able to get together in December.  We had a lovely dinner at Applebee's and chatted for hours...and so began the reconnect for he and I, my hot husbands new found friendship with Josh, and my new found friendship with his amazing wife Ashley.

Fast forward to this summer, and Josh and Ashley call us up and are all, "We want to do an adult prom to raise moolah for CF.  AND we want you two in on the planning of it.  Oh yeah, and we have like 3 months to plan it!" 

Our hard work paid off. 

Prom went off smashingly, and we had around 125 people show up, eat, dance, take silly pics, and raise money to help make CF stand for Cure Found!

Here's Josh and Ashley:

Here's my super HOT husband and me:

We completely spaced and didn't recreate the prom photo of Josh and I from Junior Prom (Ashley and I are kicking ourselves for that one).  Next time, FO SHO!!!!

But as much fun as Junior prom was, I must say, I enjoyed my Adult Prom date a whole lot more (sorry Josh, NO ONE can compare to Chris)!

Josh informed me yesterday that although I didn't win prom Queen, I did win Prom Princess.  I didn't get a crown, but an excerpt from my last blog post was the whole inside of the prom program (next to a pic of Boston, my friend Dawn, and one of me), so I do feel a bit special.  I can live without the crown I guess (at least for this year) ;0)


*A special thanks to Claire Olvey Photography and Jen D with Budget Florist for being so tremendously awesome and donating your time, energy and services to the prom.  Your support means the world to me.  Mwah!

Saltiness is Good!

I know I've kinda of gotten away from my regular blog posting since we've started the adoption journey.  But I think sometimes I just don't feel like I have much ado to blog about ;0) unless I think it's something deep and witty to relay to you all.

 

But this morning at church, one of the scripture passages kind of got to me, and I felt like I had something to say about it.

 

This blog post is of course intended for all my readers (thanks Mom and Heather), but more specifically for my friends with/or who live with CF on a daily basis. 

 

I would consider myself a pretty upbeat person.  I don't tend to let my CF get me down too often. 

 

I mean, don't get me wrong, I have my days. 

 

We all do.

 

When I cough for 4 hours straight and can't seem to get the bronchospasms to stop no matter what I do... 

 

3 percussion sessions in a row with the vest at night and 2 cough drops later, and I'm finally able to go back to sleep, just to have my alarm clock go off in 30 minutes to do my morning treatments...you can't blame me for letting my frustrations with it get to me.

 

I usually spend that ENTIRE time praying to God, just asking him to take the bronchospasms away and let me sleep. 

 

He does, though it may not be in the timing I want him to, He does answer.

 

Sometimes it makes me question why I had to be one of the 30,000 children and young adults in America that are living with this disease. 

 

Trust me, I was diagnosed at 5 days old, have lived with CF my whole life, I know what living with CF is. 

 

And as much as I hate the ups and downs of CF, I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

 

To be perfectly honest, as much as I hate the ups and downs of CF, I would gladly take on all the CF in the world if it meant no one else had to deal with it ever again.

 

I have NO concept of what my life would be like without CF in it.

 

So while I've accepted what I was handed when I was born, and most days I roll with the punches, and on those off days I know that it's just one bad day in a sea of more good days right now...sometimes I still question, "Why me?" Or for that matter, "Why me and all the other great people in my life affected by CF?"

 

And then Crosspoint happens...and out of nowhere (or so it would seem to me) just what I need to hear is said from the stage.

 

So...for me and all the other people living with CF (whether personally, or dealing with it via a family member, friend, spouse, whatever)...I hope this passage helps you, like it helped me today.

 

 

There are some groups of people that believe the reason a person is born with some type of affliction, disease, whatever, is because of past sins in their lives.

 

Some believe that if you have a disease or some "blemish" you can't do certain things, or hold certain status, or have certain jobs.

 

I've never believed any of that.  To be honest I think that's just more of Satan's lies meant to push us down. 

 

So when I saw this passage on the screen this morning, and I sat back and read it, I thought, "This just gives me further proof, in a way, that God created me just as I am.  He gave me purpose, even within my disease, and gosh darn it, he thinks I'm pretty special."

 

Matthew 5:13

The Message (MSG)

Salt and Light

¹³ “Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.

Now, I don't believe this passage is about people with CF specifically.  I don't think if there's a cure for CF that we're goign to "end up in the garbage."

But I can't help but think that it's interesting that people with CF are a little extra salty...

And God says we are here to be the salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth.

There are plenty of other people who can bring out the saltiness for God, CF or not.

But I guess when I read a passage that talks about saltiness, and I'm a salty girl, and I've had a few days of extra coughing, and trying to figure out what the purpose of me dealing with this disease is, it kind of feels like it's been written just for me.

"Hey Holly, Let me tell you why you are here.  You're here to be the salt-seasoning (literally, tee hee) that brings out the God-flavors of this earth.  If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness?"

CF makes me salty, and I'm here to be the salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. 

And maybe God gave me CF because through it I can show others his love, his faithfulness, his grace, his blessings.  Because in spite of my CF, I can see all of those things that God is.

Maybe the salt crystals on my forehead when I sweat are supposed to be a physical reminder to me that I am here for a bigger reason. 

Maybe God recognized that while I live and breathe with a little more difficulty than everyone else,  I could show Him to others in a way that maybe someone who isn't quite so salty (in the same way as I am) couldn't.

So as a reminder to me, and to all my CF peeps...

God made us this way on purpose.

We are meant to be salty.

We are meant to show our saltiness to others.

And we are meant to be the salt-seasoning that brings out the God flavors of this earth.

We're getting closer...

Many of you know we've been in kind of a holding pattern with our Adoption process.

Holding pattern may not be the right word...we've purposely been holding off on signing off on our Homestudy. It was approved and once we sign off on it and pay our next fee we will be active.

We were holding off not because we didn't want to go active...we were waiting to raise some more money so we don't fully deplete all of our savings (we're very financially conscious in our house...which sounds sort of silly if you know how expensive adoption is).

This past weekend we had a garage sale and raised $700 more for our adoption fund.

Woo Hoo *hands waving in the air (clapping in sign language)

 

So...Where does this put us in the process?

Chris and I both feel we should wait until after our next pay day before we sign the next check.

You have no idea how hard it can be to write that huge of a check and hand it over... we are SO excited for where it's taking us, but like any big amount of money that leaves your bank account (no matter what it's for) it can kind of make you nauseous when you first hand it over.

We have been faithful in following the path that we feel God has asked us to take, and of course HE is always faithful and blesses us abundantly. We've definitely seen this in this past weekend. 

So, I can safely say that we will be active this month..and I will for sure let you all know the day our faces show up on the website ;0) * We'll be looking for them as soon as that check makes it to the agency.

Thank you for supporting us. Whether it's been financially or by prayer. We are without a doubt so thankful and blessed to have every single one of you supporting us along this crazy journey.

You can continue to support us by:

1. Praying for us and our adoption journey. Once we go active we can begin applying for grants and funding. We're also looking into some other fundraising opportunities (school starting has slowed down my pursuance of these opportunities, but now that I've gotten back into the school routine I can begin this process again). We'll keep you updated on all of this information as we know more.

2. Praying for our Birth Mom. We still don't know her yet, but odds are she could be pregnant now, and may be debating between keeping the baby or not (and I don't necessarily mean parenting vs. adoption here). We know God will bring us the perfect child for us, and it will be in his timing...we want that birth mom to be bathed in love and prayers from us and our family and friends. Please join Chris and I in praying for a woman that we don't even know yet, a woman who is facing some tough decisions, and the future of a baby who is already loved by so many.

3. Pray that we don't go crazy waiting to find out if we've been picked after we go active. Chris said to me not too long ago, "I'm not gonna lie, if we don't get picked soon after we go active, I'm gonna be kind of upset. Because we're pretty awesome!" I don't disagree with him. Again, we know things will happen in His timing, but that doesn't make it any easier when we have wants/expectations for our timing.

4. Check in with us periodically. Once we go active, it could be days, weeks, or months before we get picked...and so I may not have updates to post very often. Checking in with us, not only reminds us that we still have that support from our friends and family, but it helps us to remember to check in with the agency every once in a while too.