Wednesday, February 15, 2012

bye for a while

Not that any of you has been holding your breath waiting for my next post.  But on the off chance that you have, or are wondering why I haven't been doing my usual commenting...

I'm going on a little blog fast.  Not sure for how long.  We are still on a quest to find some sort of peaceful, sustainable "normal" around here, particularly in this mama's emotions.  It appears that Shu has some degree of Apraxia of Speech, the discovery of which was both relieving and terribly discouraging, mostly the latter.  He will begin receiving more frequent speech therapy, and we are praying for wisdom about how to approach this challenge in a way that is not detrimental to our attachment. 

I know God is asking me to focus in right now for my own sake, to clear my head of some of the voices--both positive and negative--which are competing for my time and attention and energy.  I seem to be unable to stop comparing myself to others (no one's fault but my own, or perhaps another nefarious enemy who's been jacking with me) and feeling that I come up short every time.  Reading adoption blogs and forums is sucking me down, down, down...and like the recovering alcoholic who steers clear of the bar, I know I need to just step away for a while. 

Even while getting on here to post this I glimpsed my dashboard, and saw all the tantalizing post titles, just begging me to stop and read!  Lovely people whose journeys and kiddos I have come to care about!  I confess (and will confess to those I asked to keep me accountable) that I had to read a couple posts written by a dear bloggy gal pal, who wrote about her present emotional struggles and hesitance to blog about it.  So clearly she is not alone.  And neither am I.  But no more for right now.  Stick a fork in me.

I'm still on Facebook, so feel free to friend me there if you haven't already.   I think I'll be back.  In the mean time, may God's grace and love continue to abound to us all. 

Friday, February 3, 2012

XXXL

After the windowsill-leaping escapade which left a giant rip in the hem of Hummus Girl's Chinese dress, I started to wonder:  where else could I buy more Chinese clothing that's closer than, say, Guangzhou?  I landed here, where I found some surprisingly low prices, especially for women's dresses.

I really wanted to purchase something for myself.  I bought a dress on Shamian island...think I paid around $8 for it (gasp)...but I've never liked it.  That whole shopping experience felt stressful to us--the bargaining, the pressure to find all the right souvenirs and remembrances of China, the angry, grieving baby in my arms, etc.  So I wound up with a pale lavender, satiny dress.  Terrible color on me, thigh-high slit, and quite frankly, just does not connote positive emotions for me.  Am I putting too much pressure on that poor dress?  Perhaps.  

Right now you might be thinking  Oh, get real.  You just needed an excuse to shop! 

Whatever.

So here's a fairly recent photo of me.  This will be important later in the story.



I ordered two dresses, hoping they'd fit, nervous to buy something without being able to try it on.  Had suspected maybe the dresses ran small, so I ordered two dress sizes up from what I would normally wear.



Aren't they pretty?  The red one is a fine corduroy!  How 'bout that?  And the blue one is cotton with a bit of stretch.  I like dressing up, but hate being uncomfortable.  These dresses are shorter and more practical, so I can wear them more often.

I am thrilled to report that they both fit perfectly!  Like they were made for me!  A very pleasant surprise.

Also a surprise?  This.


Can you read the tag?  XXXL.  Apparently, according to Chinese fashion standards, I wear an XXXL.  (Take a look back at the photo of me if you need to.)  I am going to try my best to find that hilariously bizarre rather than annoying, and will celebrate that I now have two new Chinese dresses that I love and will wear happily!