This picture's for you Mom

Well, I've been away for awhile. So a quick up date is in order. Above is the teapot that I painted months ago when my Mom visited and which she didn't get to see after its final glaze, so at last here are some pictures of how it turned out. In terms of my crafting life, since Christmas time I've been doing lots of crochet (pictures of this soon) some thought about working on dolls, but no progress, and some work on two new scrappy quilts. One of which I started a while back, and the other a new project inspired by Bonnie Hunter's website. However, to show all of this off properly I need some more photos, so this is to come, soon I swear.




What I've really been preoccupied with is our latest project as a family. Dagon and I are in the process of becoming certified to be foster parents. We are interested in expanding our family, beyond the cats, to include a young'un with the goal of fostering to adopt. What does that mean really? Well foster parents are temporary parents to a child who has been put in their care until they are able to be reunified with their birth family. In the past foster parents couldn't adopt a child who they had fostered, if the child could not be returned to their family and the parents terminated their parental rights. Now the laws have changed and in order to help children find permanent families faster and with less disruption of living situations foster parents can adopt children who they've fostered if that child becomes available to be adopted. So now 70% of all children adopted from foster care are adopted by their foster parents.

So, what does that mean for Dagon and me? Well, when we feel we are ready to be foster parents, and have completed all of the licensing requirements and our home is set up and ready for a child we would work with our case worker to be matched to a child as foster parents. At this point in time, we are working our way through the class required as training for all foster parents and it has really be interesting and challenging to learn about how the system functions and some of the challenges we will face with any foster child. We still have a number of things to do before we will be ready to have a child in our home as part of our family. However, we are working our way through the process of licensing and taking it one step at a time. While it is hard to imagine our lives with a child in it, especially one who may or may not become ours permanently, I feel that we both have a lot to give a child and I want to see where this journey takes us. Ever since I stopped being a grad student, and dealt with the health disruptions stemming from my Graves disease, I have felt so frustrated about the fact that we don't have children (as much as I love my furry babies it’s just not the same). Now though I feel hopeful that one way or another Dagon and I will get to be parents.