SpoonFullofJelly

Open adoption has become a sore spot in my family. For those that are new to my corner of the blog world, welcome. I'm Lauren Maruki and I have been writing about all the bumps in my road from living and travelling internationally to infertility and now adoption of our first child. Hubby and I both have adopted cousins. Hubby's cousins are now adults, and mine are all under the age 12. Open adoption was a topic of discussion a couple weeks ago at a family event. To our surprise, my mother discovered that my cousins do not have an open adoption with their birth family. I had wondered if that door was shut. Now I am wondering if it was accidentally shut or purposefully shut. I want an open adoption. I want to continue to learn not only about the birth mother, but the birth father, the birth grandparents, the aunts, the uncles and all the crazy cousins. Those people make up my child. Those people have traits that my child will possess. The traits will be the key to perso...

I have been on another transformation lately. Check out my previous changes I made. But I have been inspired by so many Vegan and Vegetarian Youtubers. I watched one video to get juicing ideas and I got sucked in. I did a little experiment with myself in August. I wanted to make sure that I understood what my body was missing. So I went a whole 7 days without meat. No turkey, pork, chicken, beef or seafood or any kind. I thought by day three I was crazy. My great grandparents lived pasted 85 years old and they raised their own pigs. But they also raised a ton of veggies. Their lives were probably not as meat heavy as mine. Hence my weight. By the sixth day, I liked the challenge and contemplated continuing it. I spent the next month eating only beef and chicken, but I eventually went back to pork. Fast forward to February 2017. Its a new year and horrible things are happening to me. I began to itch after eating pork and dairy. It took like a month to figure it out. I then sp...

Welcome to Summer! Our weather in the upper mid-west is so bad most of the year that we count summer the moment the clock strikes June 1st. We have been without snow for a while so this summer might be a hot one. Me Lately I have been ashamed of myself. I have not finished a book for the past three months. I have gotten bored with the repetitive ideas that are flowing through the books that I have been reading. One thing that I know that I will be doing this June is to working my way through a devotional. It is apart of my  2017 Goals . My goal is work my way through the book of Proverbs with the  Life Change Series . I need the wisdom of the this book as I have encountered some new life changes. Hubby Hubby bought a half dozen books last month in attempts to fill his summer reading list. I applaud him as I hardly know what I want to read months ahead of time. Next on his list is to finish  Good to Great in God's Eyes . He began this book a while ago and got s...

The best tip I can ever offer is to diversify and diversify. Diversification is often referred to investments, but I'm talking about diversifying your income. Hubby and I thought that it was a crazy idea to take on a second job, but we couldn't figure out a way to save $23,000 for an adoption. We quickly learned that we needed more income so we applied for other jobs for higher pay. We did get promotions and new jobs, but we made the most headway with our empty hours. Our second jobs were not tired to our main careers. Since the new jobs are separate, we are able to enjoy something new, challenging and short term. There are pros and cons for taking on a second job. Pros More Cash! Try out a new career field before investing too much Practice a new or forgotten skills set Receive much needed discounts Cons More commuting throughout the week Free time is consumed working Taxes can be thrown off without careful calculations Below are some ideas of how yo...