Race Against Time

In exactly one week (to the minute)...I'll probably start packing for my trip...which I will then leave for the airport 6 hours later.

I am NOT a planner. I like spur of the moment. I do not like to talk about plans for the next day. I certainly do not like to make plans weeks/months/years ahead of time. I do admit that I planned this trip to Korea 4 weeks ago, but that's about as close as I get to making a plan.

However, I know others enjoy plans, so I made out a calendar for the next two months, and whew...it's busy this next two weeks. Between starting private teaching (the first weekday after finishing a school year of teaching), VBS and camps, figuring out where/when/how kids are getting to places, getting last minute orders done, and thinking about packing (but not actually doing it) for a 10 day trip, it was probably a good idea to get it down on paper...for everyone else :)

So yeah...I've decided that as long as I have my passport, my license, some cash, my credit card (which I did call and alert of my travel plans), I'm good to go. Oh, and I have to get that plug adaptor. When will this all become real? Probably in exactly one week (to the minute).

I had a GREAT time talking to my oldest adopted student today. We were talking about our biological families, how we would rather meet siblings than parents, how we didn't really even think of the dad, how we didn't think of ourselves as being born...so many similarities in our thoughts. It'll be so interesting to be surrounded by people who all have a story like this.

Random thought: We had to send in family pics and they showed them to us during the Webinar the other week. These girls (ladies) look SO different than their moms. HAHA, of course they do. But it's weird because I only realize when I see them, how people must see me and my mom/family. I think my mom and I match but whew...we must look pretty different! The first time I noticed this was at Kinhaven (my summer music camp) and I saw an adopted Korean girl with her parents. I was like WHOA...they look different. It was the first time I ever really thought about not looking like my family. We had 4 kids, 2 girls and 2 boys...I never really thought "look at the pic of the 2 white boys and 2 asian girls"...interesting. I SUPPOSE I can understand the lovely question "where are you from?" But blecch anyways.

okay enough rambling for tonight. I've got packing to think about.

The Prayer

 SO MUCH FRIZZ!
so glad it stopped raining just in time for concert!

Check out my PRETTY program <3






Tonight was an amazing evening! Family and friends gathered at the Lanier Chapel (as the sun came out at the perfect time) in support of our adopted friends who participated and my trip. It was a crazy day preparing!! As I do most things, I started preparing around 10pm last night---and worked until about 3am, complete with about 25 pillow pets falling on my head, followed by a huge trifold frame thing. After changes in school schedule, printer issues, a personnel change, locked doors, torrential downfalls, no windshield wipers, locked gates, forgotten bags, etc...with my mom's help, everything got done... by 6:07pm and the show was on (only 7 minutes late), and it was a huge success!

 The kids played great, and almost everyone there was blessed by adoption either in their own family, their extended family, or close friends, or their teacher...haha! I've included links to some of the pieces, but they aren't turning blue so I suppose you'll have to copy and paste. I've been working on WAY to little sleep to figure out how to make it work. It's thanks to Bobbi Jo, and my massive cup of coffee, that I even made it thru the day on the 3 hours of sleep I got.

 https://youtu.be/97kxKG5Wesk The Prayer


https://youtu.be/B7PO6Gm8OL0 Maybe from Annie

https://youtu.be/szn1klby5Xg The Swan

 https://youtu.be/SfugpxgKHFE Piano Trio

https://youtu.be/mywDd5THmew Forrest Gump


My 2-3am efforts did not go unnoticed as many folks enjoyed looking at old pics, my adoption papers and looking thru some old books we have. Not gonna lie, I'm PRETTY AMAZING at finding obscure items that I have been out of sight for 30 some years :)

With my THANK YOU card created and written, I'm off to bed. A day closer to my unbelievable trip...honestly, that's what it is right now...I can't BELIEVE I'm actually going...in 2 weeks and a day. It actually makes me laugh. I guess on Jun 6, I'll be up PRETTY LATE!!

Dear Mama

Mother's Day. I knew I wanted to write something today. And of course, I wanted pictures.

I went to my scrapbook and I knew I had these pics from the day I was adopted. My first thought was ...WHAT??? COLTS FANS? Lol, I had no idea!!

 This is the day I met my mom. This is the day my mom met me. Seems strange. Most parents and children don't meet this way.  I've always thought about this day...someone hands my mom a complete stranger...and it's love at first sight? When you have children, you spend 9 (or 7) months physically bonding with these kids. You feel all the feels...literally. Whether it's hourly barfing or pelvic separation pain, or braxton hicks that take your breath away...or those first moments when you see the hearts, see the alien heads, see them already fighting....😆

WARNING: From here on out, I skip around and ramble and although I'm speaking from the heart, I'm feeling torn between saying how I'm feeling and how I feel I SHOULD be feeling. I'm confused.

 I had the most wonderful, thought provoking, emotional conversation with a couple today, who adopted twin girls. Conversations with them always make me think. A lot. The things they say definitely make me think about feelings on the other side of adoption...not just about myself, the adoptee, but the adopters. I love them for being so open and honest and wanting to ask me questions and understand more from my side. I appreciate being able to ask them questions without feeling like I have to guard what I'm saying.

I have heard parents, who have both biological kids and adopted kids, say "I love my kids the same." I have always had an issue with that. But after talking to my friends today, I discovered maybe I have more of an issue with those choice of words, not with the sentiment. I feel like my mom ABSOLUTELY loves her kids equally; so why the issue?   I just can't imagine it's the same. I can't imagine that you can feel the same way growing a child in your body vs someone handing you a child at the airport. I do believe you can love these children equally...but those memories and feelings( in either situation)...it must evoke different feelings, right?

I've never wanted to adopt kids. I always thought, how could I love a child that's not mine? (and then after having kids) ...as much as my own children? AND THIS IS COMING FROM AN ADOPTED KID! Then I started thinking, well, maybe I'm the perfect person to adopt because I could empathize with the child and be able to tell them that I actually DO love him/her the same (who am I kidding, it would be a her. HAHAHA). BUT then, in the back of my mind, I still think, but what if it's NOT true?  I know many people who have adopted their children and I have NO doubt that they love their children 100%.  I have no doubt that many of these parents have prayed for these children, shed so many tears before these children and have shed tears of joy and happiness for these children. They love these children like they were their own. I mean, my friend's kids look just like her and they're adopted. I forget they're adopted from time to time. And I'm sure many people do not even know (advantage of international adoption...that conversation is pretty unnecessary).*** So backtrack a few sentences. I feel like it's offensive/insensitive to even type "like they were their own". I contemplated deleting it many times.  Of course the kids are theirs. Of course my mom is my mom and my family is my family. But I'm trying to be real (ha, that's ironic since it's the word "real" that I find most obnoxious when people inquire about my "REAL" family. 

Is it wrong to wonder about a time before you met your parents? Is it wrong to wonder what they look like, why it happened? Side note,  it's not my place to share my friend's story, but he brought up an entire side from the adoptive parent that I've NEVER even thought about and it blew my mind!! I'm just trying to have an open dialogue (with myself in my craftroom, I suppose); I knew today's post would be especially rambly. Whew...it's all just so...I don't even know what to think. I know my mom loves me. I believe that my biological mom loved me so much that she wanted a better life for me. Or do I? I want to believe that. I don't know that I always believe that. Sometimes I feel guilted into feeling that (why is that word highlighted red?), sometimes I feel better about being adopted feeling that, sometimes I don't feel that. I'm not expecting to get big answers from my trip. But just taking the trip is acknowledging that there was life before I met my mom...my real mom, btw. HAHA

Oh, so today, my Sunday School director prayed for me and my trip. I told the class I was going on the trip and that I'd never been to Korea before. As he prayed, he said "she's returning to this place she's been before", and I was like "that's weird...I said I'd never been there"...and then I realized that WHOA...I have been there before. So now I have to change it to "I've never been back since I was born there". So strange because just like I had never thought I'd be BORN, I never thought about being in Korea, even though obviously both are true.

I end with this poem an adoptee posted today, and with a special HAPPY Mother's Day wish to my mom. I'm so glad God placed it on your heart to adopt and that it was me who you met at the airport that day. I'm so glad that you get to live close by (haha) so that I can show you what I buy at Joann's on a regular basis, so I can come in a sit down on your couch and talk, so that you can be a part of our daily lives. Thank you for coming to all of my concerts, FOREVER, and for putting your children first while you worked, took care of others, coached, and went to school. I don't even know how you did it all!!! You are the REAL deal!! 💓

Once there were two women
Who never knew each other.
One you do not remember
The other you call mother.

Two different lives
Shaped to make yours one.
One became your guiding star
The other became your sun.
The first gave you life
And the second taught you to live in it.
The first gave you a need for love
And the second was there to give it.
One gave you nationality
The other gave you a name.
One gave you the seed of talent
The other gave you an aim.
One gave you emotions
The other calmed your fears.
One saw your first sweet smile
The other dried your tears.
One gave you up
It was all she could do.
The other prayed for a child
And God led her straight to you. (Anonymous)

Footprints on my Heart

Okay, I don't really know this song, but I thought it was a great title for this post.

Today I received this email.

When I read it, it took my breath away for a moment. I was very excited and nervous and then... I wasn't sure what I was felt.   This is somewhat embarrassing, but I thought to myself, "well, it's only the foster mother, but it's something".  I don't think I was dismissing the importance of foster mothers; I think I was trying to protect myself from getting hurt if this meeting didn't happen.

So then I spent the day thinking about foster parents. I don't know many, but I have a SHINING example of foster parents in a family at my school. Wow, they are the most amazing family, and they care for their babies so much. They give so much. They love so much. They have grown kids and every time I see them, they're carting around another baby. That takes a SPECIAL kind of AMAZINGNESS!!!

I remembering thinking at one point after I was a mom, "hmm, this lady took care of me for 6 months. That's a pretty long time in the newborn timeline." I thought about how much I loved my children at 6 months. How much they were a part of the family. How life would just not be the same without them. Yes, 6 months is not much compared to the almost 40 years I've been alive, but without her taking care of me for 6 months, who knows what would've happened. I think it was my mom who told me once that I came over in a sleeper/clothes that were very nice, that showed that I was well taken care. At that moment, I felt like I had been loved and cared for from the beginning.

It would be a great honor to meet my foster mother and family. It's so strange though, I write this blog, and I talk about the trip with friends, but I'm not sure it's really sinking in. It's in less than 4 weeks. SERIOUSLY??!!

Thanks for all the continued prayers and support.

Sound of Silence

This kinda rambles (and uses a lot of parentheses and ... this things) so I've gone back and highlighted important words in RED for those on a time crunch.


I am a musician/violinist/orchestra teacher/lover of most musicals, but I do not like noise. Ironic, right? I LOVE silence. It's very strange because I can listen to kids playing all sorts of interesting notes all day long (yes, of course wrong notes make me cringe), and listening to my children being loud pretty much doesn't phase me. But background noise=YUCK!!!!! No music on, no crinkling sounds, and absolutely NO CHEWING!!!!

Okay, so I really just wanted an excuse to get Ryan on my blog. But truly, I just love when it's quiet. ABSOLUTELY quiet.  Maybe it's because of what I do all day (which I love)...maybe I'm just getting old (which I don't love). What does this have to do with being adopted?

My ears. My ears are a blessing in my line of work and a curse in my line of...life. I have insanely sensitive ears (and sniffer). Having perfect pitch certainly has its benefits. Like knowing when a note is out of tune. HAHAHA...but since it doesn't ensure I play in tune, is it really THAT helpful?  I can randomly sing a G. Another really awesome skill...NOT!  It's like a nerdy party trick, but I don't like parties (whole separate post some day) so strike two. I can impress my students when they play random notes when they're not supposed to be playing and I chastise with pitch expertise (example: Student, why are you playing an F# while I'm talking!!) or when they're doing the "what note is this?" game (which I actually do enjoy) but again...not getting me ahead in life.

The negatives: I KNOW when a note is out of tune...like really know...really quickly...really accurately.  OH. MY. GOODNESS. All day long, this is what I fix, and it can be draining. When I watch movies, instead of hearing music (like, "ooooh cool, there's the Star Wars theme!"), I hear note names. I tell my students this. If you were listening to a conversation, and instead of hearing words, you heard the letters being spelled out...D-i-d y-o-u h-e-a-r w-h-a-t h-a-p-p-e-n-e-d...(that was as painful to type out as it would be to listen to I imagine)...it's just not as pleasurable to listen to. This is me and music. Not music I'm directly involved with (either playing or conducting), hence why I'm still doing what I do. But if it's indirect...eeks!! This is why I don't let my students pluck or play or play airy at any time.  (I can't think or form thoughts when this is going on. My older kids have caught onto this and think it's funny to pluck random notes while I'm trying to form thoughts). This is why I'm sitting here typing in silence instead of watching The Blacklist (even though I really want to know what's going to happen to Agent Keen). Most of the time, I have to craft in silence. Even Bernie can attest to the fact that talking can totally mess me up. And it's weird because musicians are supposed to be huge multitaskers. We have notes, rhythms, bowings, dynamics, style...so much going on that we process simultaneously. But I can't stand listening to the fan, or the air conditioning, or the cockroach that was crawling around the other night in my craft room---couldn't get ANYTHING done! Though, it could've just been the fact that there was a cockroach crawling around. I will drive around in the car uncomfortably warm just so I don't have to hear the air.

I've really gone on much too long about this (even though there are so many more examples). The point...is perfect pitch nature or nurture? That's something I think about a lot. Is it because Mrs. Moyer started us all at age 3 and we have just learned what A 440 was and boom=perfect pitch? Or is it genetic? Do my biological family members seek silence like I do?

My fave superhero is Superman. Remember in the movie when he's young and he's discovering his powers and he runs and hides in a closet at school because he hears so many noises/conversations? Yeah, that's how I feel. And...He's adopted!!! (Remember at the end when the lady comments on GOOD LOOKING he is? Maybe that's an adoptee thing too! HAHAHAHA!!!!)

Now back to finish this episode (with subtitles because I don't listen well when I watch Netflix ...just so weird). Big concert tomorrow and then I can start to concentrate on learning Korean?

Final irony...all my post titles will probably be song titles.

Let's get physical!!

First things first. I read my blog entry on my phone and I was super bummed that the pictures, that I spent so much time strategically placing, were NOT in the same place on the phone, so I won't be doing that again. Boohoo.

Anyways, back to the Korea stuff. My initial thought in my initial post (which probably means it's the most important to me) was regarding physical attributes. My whole life, I've been a bit obsessed with twins. In my younger days, it was Brad and Scott K.,  Heather and Holly D., Kate and Christy J., and then a special pair of my own :) Then it was so many in my twins group (Emmie and Kenzie), and at NCS, Rachel and Erika, Zane and Garrett.... There's just something about ID twins, right? Anyone remember that National Geographic on Twins? Then...Danielle's Ernst's adoption/twin story (AMAZING) and the Twinsters story---wow that would just be my ultimate dream come true!!

As I got older and then had the girls, I realized that my obsession probably came from the fact that I didn't look like anyone (haha, these lightbulb moments do come to me a bit late).  But not looking like anyone else (other than all Asians in general 😒---because that's how it was in my small town) makes for a bit of incompleteness I suppose.

Oh, time out for a funny story. A while after the girls were born, my mom and I were talking about the girls and how cool twins were, and we were talking about how they were assigned colors (pink and purple) from before birth. I was saying how it was just like me and my sister and lamenting the fact that we always got the same thing for our bday and had to wait to open presents together. And then I was like WHOA...that's JUST LIKE US---I'm a twin!! HAHAHA...again with the "phrase that pays"...my sister and I spent so much saying we were "twins by adoption" that I hadn't actually thought about the word "twins" in that phrase.

                                                  EXAMPLE CONVERSATION

Do you have brothers and sisters?

Yes, 2 brothers and a sister.

Are they your REAL siblings?

My brothers are my parent's biological kids, and my sister and I are both adopted.

Are you REAL sisters?

We are not from the same biological parents. I was adopted when I was 6 months old, and she was adopted when she was 5. She couldn't speak english yet when I started KG, so she's a year behind in school but we're the same age and we have the same bday.

How?

They knew from her bones/body that she was born between this and that date, so we have the same birthday.

Do you know HOW many times I've told this story? Do you know how silly it is for people to ask if they're my REAL siblings. I do get it. I understand what they mean.  (And I know there are people who feel I should not be so irritated by certain questions like theses, my all time (least) favorite being "where are you from?") I know, I know, they don't mean Lancaster, PA but I do answer that more and more as I get older. (Twin moms get asked equally annoying questions. But I suppose anytime there's something "different" about you, questions come up but after the millionth time, even if well-intentioned (perhaps), it still gets annoying. But where was I? Oh yes, twins. So, I have twins, my sister and I were kinda twins, I think twins are cool.


Physical Attributes: I want to know what my biological mom looks like. I want to know if my biological dad was Korean. WAIT! What if my biological MOM isn't Korean. HAHA, I've never even thought of that. You're probably wondering why the heck I would even think this...it's about the
HAIR. I do NOT have beautiful, sleek, black, straight hair. It's dark brown, it's coarse, even curly-ish in spots, and super duper frizzy!! (and it certainly doesn't help that now I'm sprouting tons of even more course and more curly gray hair, smack dab in the front middle section). I'm very interested to go there and examine the population's hair.

I want to know if she could anything she wanted to and stay relatively thin (though this is getting a bit harder to do these days). I want to know if she can lift weights 3 days before a concert and appear super strong! I want to know if it's impossible for her to find a bikini that fits because ...well, you know that song about the yellow polka dot bikini?...the rest of the words very accurately describe what the bikini covers. I want to know if she looked like she swallowed a basketball when she was pregnant. And I want to know if there are siblings who look like me. I've pretty much looked the same since I was born. I imagine if I had biological siblings, we might all look pretty similar.

Well, that's all for today's post. And since I don't know the answer to any of these questions (and I honestly do not think I'll ever know), I'll post some pics of my favorite girls who CAN eat anything they want to, who DO have frizzy hair, and who look JUST like their mama!!

There's no place like home

I will start this post with this title, and I imagine on June 17, I start a second post with this title.

In 1 month, I will get an a plane and 14+ hours later, as I step off the plane, for the first time, I'll be surrounded by people who look like me. From those who have experienced this, I heard this will be quite overwhelming. I'm already overwhelmed and all I have done is filled out some paperwork and bought a plane ticket.

When I was 17, my parents offered to send me to Korea for a graduation present. I had no interest. Other than the occasional "I wonder if anyone thinks of me" on my birthday, adoption wasn't something negative...just a matter of fact. (Aha! That's where that phrase comes from.) My parents are my parents, my siblings are my siblings, I thought it was silly that people would ask me about my "real" family...my family IS my real family. I certainly got teased about the way I looked, but who doesn't for some physical attribute. I was stereotyped, good at music, smart, drives poorly, takes too many pictures, tans easily...hahaha...and they're pretty much all true, so again...never an issue.

Fast forward 10 years. (College, music teacher, married, move to Texas, get dog) I was fortunate enough to become a mom!! I was DOUBLY blessed to become a mom of twins (this pic, however, is me prego with only one child, who was almost the same size at 2 children). And I hit the jackpot with identical girls. I went from having NO ONE in the world look like me to having TWO girls that looked like me. It was awesome!!

 And then the lightbulb moment...which when I say it outloud seems like the opposite of a lightbulb moment and perhaps it even sounds untrue, but I promise, it's 100% true. A few days, a week? after the girls were born was the first time something occurred to me. I was born. Sounds ridiculous right? Cuz we're all born, duh. However, up until that moment, the phrase "I was adopted" was "the phrase that pays" as my favorite math teacher used to say. THAT was the answer to so many questions:

You don't look like your mom=I was adopted.
Do you know your medical history=I was adopted.
Is your sister your "REAL" sister=Yes, but we were adopted
What's your favorite rice= [FOR REAL??] I was adopted.
 
 AND that lightbulb day...something changed. It didn't change how I felt about my family or how I felt about being adopted...it just felt like I wanted to know a little bit more. After I carried the girls for 7 months, I realized that there was someone out there who carried me for some number of months and felt me kick and roll, just as I had just experienced with the girls. And then perhaps that someone loved me so much, she was willing to make the biggest sacrifice and leave me on a doorstep at an orphanage (if that's really how it went down) so I could have a better life. And I wanted to know more. It's not even about meeting her (or him...why is it so many adoptees only think about "her"?) and needing to know why this or that...it's just about knowing that I had experiences before I came to America that I had never considered before and I wouldn't mind considering them now.

Then I had baby #3...and CARBON COPY (with light brown hair)...super coolest thing ever!! My biggest interest in finding a biological parent isn't asking why...it's seeing what he or she looks like. Maybe this seems superficial, but since I don't even know all the feels I'm going to feel in a month, this has always been the most tangible thing to me. ("Thing" is a terrible word to use, but I can't think of how to describe it. I feel like I'm trying to explain/justify why this is important, but I know my BFF would say that's not necessary so "thing" it is).

Baby #4...can't leave her out. She looks like a twin to one of the actual twins, more than the other twin, so...I have 4 girls that relatively look like me. Pretty neato!!

At one point, I found an adoptees FB page, and we even met. This was a HUGE moment in my adoption thinking. I thought I was the only person who had the feelings I had. In fact, many others felt the same way, while others did NOT have great feelings about being adopted. It was an eye- opening evening...like a white person's eyes...or like mine in snapchat. There are so many things I learned (which I might save for another evening) but I did learn about the adoptee tours. I looked into it last year, but it was too late to go, so I was thinking about it for this summer (2017). And of course, being the procrastinator I am, I decided to go about 3 days ago :) So...here's my first blog entry, and I'm hoping to keep up with it as I have SO many thoughts swirling around and I don't even know how to process everything. I'll be going from Jun 7-17, and I am so excited and equally nervous. I'm so fortunate to have a husband who supports this decision, and a mom who supports my trip.

Back to making some shirt orders!