Julie Gumm - Author

“So, are you going to adopt again?”

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You know how six months after you’re married everyone starts asking, “So when are you having kids?”

Same type of thing happens once you adopt.

“So, are you going to adopt again?”

And quite honestly it seems like most families who adopt once, adopt again. And sometimes again, and again, and again.

So it’s a fair question.

And I always react with this really pronounced pause.

Then, “Well, we don’t currently have plans to.”

Because I’ve learned not to say “No” to God. That’s basically like telling an eight-year-old boy “I double-dog dare you”.

You know, because I told him we were not having more kids 6 years. Two was good.

And he laughed at me. Probably hysterically. In a loving sort of way, of course 🙂

So I will say that we currently do not have plans to adopt again. Mark and I are both passionate about orphans but are focused, mostly through our work with World Orphans, on the millions of kids who will never be adopted internationally. How we can we keep, or place, them in families? How can we show them the love of Christ?

And of course, there’s the book – my own little crusade to help as many OTHER people adopt as possible.

But, I won’t say never. I’m too smart for that.

Summer Whining

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Ah, summer. I don’t know why I started humming “Summer Lovin'” (from Grease) all of a sudden 🙂

Days of fun and games…

…and whining.

“I’m bored,” gets nipped in the bud fairly early on at our house. Any child who uses this line ends up cleaning something – the kitchen, the bathtub, the walls. (Insert, evil maniacal laugh here.)

But the last few days the kids have been driving me crazy with, “Are we doing annnnnnnnything this week? We nnnnnnnnnever doooooo anything.”

Hm, let’s see.

  • gone swimming
  • VBS
  • Lego camp
  • basketball camp
  • sleepovers w/ friends
  • Chuck E. Cheese
  • Water Game party
  • piano/guitar lessons
  • singing lessons
  • the store (for the kids to shop)
  • Red Robin
  • Cracker Barrel
  • the movies to see Judy Moody
  • Dunkin Donuts
  • another summer movie tomorrow

Um, yeah. We nnnnnnnnnever go anywhere.

Working from home is a double-edged sword. On the one hand we’re here, spending time with the kids, not having to put them in a program. On the other hand, I think sometimes it’s more frustrating for them that we ARE here but can’t just play with them all day.

Plus the fact that it’s 110 degrees outside doesn’t help, and leaves you to find indoor activities. Which, when you multiple the cost by $4 kids, can bankrupt you faster than your ice cream cone melts.

I’m thinking I’m going to put a running list of our activities on the refrigerator so that every time I hear “we never do anything” I can point whining child to said list.

 

Is paperless possible?

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I dream of a world in which my kids never bring home papers from school, in which I stop receiving paper mail, in which all the important things I need are stored electronically.

I’d say I’m fairly organized with the paperwork in the house but there’s still more of it then I would like.

Mark has even more. I think he tends to print out more things to save than I do. My philosophy is if it’s online why should I print it?

So a few months ago I started to use Evernote. Mainly I’ve used it’s web clipper function to grab stuff I see online and then file it in digital notebooks that I can sync between laptop, iPad, phone, etc.

Then Mark stumbled across a couple posts by Michael Hyatt, Chairman of Thomas Nelson Publishing, where he talks about how he uses Evernote. He’s gone paperless in his home office. Seems he’s inspired Mark a bit.

Except I had to laugh last night when we were talking about it and Mark asked “Did you see the post about how he organized his notebooks? Here, I printed it out.” We both laughed as he handed me the PAPER.

Guess we’ll have to do some retraining.

I spent the $25 bucks for the Essentials of Evernote by Brett Kelly – WELL worth it. Took me just a couple hours to go through it with Evernote open and I have a great grasp on how I can use it efficiently to manage work documents, task lists, expenses, recipes, kids info, etc.

Now all I need is a weekend with my scanner and my laptop 🙂

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