A Day with Rachel

my alarm goes off, but something is wrong. its a saturday. this is my first inclination that today is going to be a long day. i lie on the floor, hoping i didnt wake rachel up, waiting for mom or dad to get up. since its a saturday, i'm not allowed up before them. so i wait. i think about getting in the bed with rachel, it would be a lot more comfortable than the floor, and i might be able to fall back asleep. my mind eventually wanders to California, my mind has been spending a lot of time there recently. i try to pull my mind to the future. just not too far. thoughts about after my mission have been depressing, thoughts about the past are no better, being filled with "if only i had said/come this this way, instead of that way." the present is no better. thoughts there only lead to thinking about whta stupid inane things mom and dad will argue about today. will it be another day full of pointless arguements about forgetting a salad, about cleaning the kitchen floor, not running the dishwasher, or about me? i notice that since i've got my mission call, i get argued about a lot as though i'm not even in the room. and when i ask them to stop, i just get yelled at too.
finally someone gets up. its mom. she starts to go about her normal saturday morning routine of renewing the books, and mumbling to me about how dad isnt making breakfast yet. i want to tell her to lay off, but dont quite feel couragous enough to be yelled at. not yet today. especially since rachel just came in the room, and i want tto spend happy time with rachel, not guilty time. mom seems to have this amazing ablitly to make you feel guilty, even though you were in the right, and not her.
the day moves on, going fairly smoothly until we find out Natalie cant come to discovery gateway with us. we were celebrating rachel's birthday a few weeks late, and she is dissapointed natalie cant go. she was really looking forward to it. mom and dad start to argue right there in the library. i feel myself slipping farther down the dark path of dispare. for rachel, i make myself stay happy, and help to find another alternitive. we will still go to discovery gateway, but is there another friend that you want to take with instead? i ask. we end up taking kassie, the neighbour girl that no is is quite sure how the two of them remain friends. before we can go, we have to attend a viewing. why cant we just skip it, i ask. apparantly mom and dad are "obliged" to go.
we pick up kassie, and go to the viewing. dad gets us lost, but because kassie is with us, mom doesnt yell. rachel is happy about this, but obviously expected mom to start yelling. i feel bad for rachel that she had to get used to that too.
after the viewing, we go to the gateway. everything goes fine, and mom is actually plesent to be around. it is a different story after we get back home. we have messages on the answering machine. one is for me, i am supposed to go clean the church. another is for rachel. because natalie couldnt come to discovery gateway with you, do you want to come to a barbeque with us tonight? the last one is for mom and dad, reminding them about a barbeque that they have to go to too. lucky for me, rachel wants someone to go with her, so i get to go. instead of going to clean the church, i take a nap. if i want to be at all plesent at this barbeque, i need to take a nap, but mom doesnt seem to understand, and starts to yell at me. i dont have the energy to fight back, so i pretend to fall asleep instead. it is the wrong move, i know, and mom hates me for it. for "not fulfilling your obligation" i must actually fall asleep at some point, because rachel is later sent in to wake me up. "mindy we need to go" how can i refuse her? i need to get out of the house. we bike over to the barbeque. i am glad to be rid of mom and dad for a few hours. rachel goes and plays, and of course, i'm stuck talking with the adults. "how's the mission prep. comming?" well. we still hvae lots to do, but i guess overall, its going pretty well. "what are you most excited about your mission?" leaving my parents for a while, with limited contact, i think. out loud, i say its just an overall exciting feeling." "what do you think it will be like?" i dont know, i've never done this have i? i think. but i answer it will be awesome to serve the Lord and teach his gospel. they talk about something else for a while, and i'm free to go play with the kids and help build the fire for the barbeque. i listen to their family. i never hear an arguement break out, even the many times that if i had been at home, one would have broken out. its dinner time, and as we are all gathered eating they start to quiz me about my mission again. God, i think, immediately berating myself for letting work have such an influence on what i think, cant they ask me about anything else? eventually, when the kids are all back playing, my wish is granted and they ask me about rachel. "is she doing alright? she has friends where she is living?" they eventually throw out the statement that "you're kinda like her mom aren't you? her mom, her big sister, her aunt. you were a lot of different hats." gosh, if only they knew the truth as to just how connected me and rachel have become. they would never immagine. suddenly, as they talk endlessly to me, i relize that jen's kids, and especially rachel, are the only ones in my family that i have ever been able to show love to, and say "i love you" to. even as a kid, i couldnt show it.
finally the barbeque ends, and we go home. mom tells us about the barbeque that they went to, never asking me or rachel how ours was. then one thing she says to me hits me, and not in a happy way. "i told brother bitters that rachel seemed excited to come visit us this weekend, but i think that really, she was just excited to see you." God, again berating myself immediately, can she make me feel any more guilty for leaving? i hope that's not true, is all that i can manage to say. i make sure to give rachel an extra long hug that night before she goes to bed. i only wish that day could have lasted longer, so i could do what i want with her, tell her what i want, and make absolutely sure that she knows i love her. my rachel, i say, and nobody elses. "my mindy" she says, "and nobody elses" i dont want to let her go, knowing just how dark the withdrawls are going to hit sunday night when she is no longer at our house.

thinking

so, i was thinking about things, and then about rachel, and then about my mission, and i realized something. you know, my papers were put on hold, and then rachel left, and things started happening with them. they were no longer on hold. they went in to the stake president. at first, it struck me as odd, then i realized, you know, God makes things happen for certian reasons, so there has to be a reason behind the timing on all this. now, what that reason is, i dont know. if it was because i was supposed to be around for rachel's sake while she was here and going through it all, its a possiblity, but for some reason, i dont think so. she's been through stuff like it before, and has been just fine, with out me there. my next thought was that, i guess then, i was supposed to learn something from it. what, i dont know, and i dont know if i really want to think about that much more, 'cause the thoughts it led to were most unplesent. but, apparantly, i was supposed to be here and learn something from it, if only from the fact that i know just how much easier it would have been if i had been like, say, in idaho, or on my mission. so, i guess it was a learning experience, but i dont know what i learned. just thought i would share. :)


P.S honestly, i thinks i do too much thinking for my own good. :) just thought i would share that too. :)

life

its been a while since i've actually updated my life, so i thought that i would do so, since i have no time, and am trying to put off doing my taxes today. :)

-starting with the most recent, my mission papers have made it in to the stake president as of today. as to when i'll be able to meet with my stake president, that is still up in the air. he is out of town a lot, which is rather frusturating, but i always planned on waiting a lot longer to talk to him. he is the stake president after all. and hey, at least i still get to talk to him sooner than expected. things with my councelor apparantly progressed faster than thought, according to her, which was a wonderful thing to hear.

-i actually have stopped my counceling. i stoped it right after my old councelor left, and i had to get a new person. i'll admit it, this seems to be turning into a habit, and i need to stop doing so.

- i still work at sears, but i'm no longer the only one on my team! we got a new gal just the other day. so, although she is currently doing training all morning, i'll eventually have another person to work with, and the load wont be quite as heavy. it came at a convienet time, because they hadnt been all about giving me days off, and now that i'm doing a class, i'll be going out of town to take tests.

-as mentioned, i'm currntly taking a class through BYUI. its an online religion class (new testament to be exact), and is turing out to be a lot more work than i ever planned it to be. i have a couple hours of reading monday-friday, and sometimes on the weekends. i had figured a lot of reading, but not as much as it actually is. i do love the class though. its teaching me some perspectives that i never would have thought about. its wonderful to be learning again.

-i'm no longer teaching the really cute sunbeams. i'm now teaching the CTR 9-10 class. its an interesting experience to feel like you know nothing when your teaching them. the kids are way way smart, and it sometimes amazes me just how much those kids know.

-rachel has left, but oddly, i'm not doing too bad. i expected a whole onslaught of a bunch of crap that happens with my bad depression, but it hasnt come, and i've been able to stay really happy. i guess that means that he therapy i did for those three months really wasnt a waste of my time and money. i do miss having her around, and all the fun we had together, and the house is now really quiet. it does mean we can eat things she really didnt like though, like spinach things, and things with peaches in them, and rhubarb! i've missed being able to have rhubarb things. :)

-for the first time in 21 years, i now have my own room. its kinda interesting to be able to have things in my room how i want, and to sleep not 5 feet off the floor. becasue of it, i spent a few days and rearragned things all by myself (okay, technically dad did take the beds apart, but only because i didnt get to it the day before since i was sick), and i'm proud of how the room now looks. :)

-i've started, or, more like, tried to start a daily yoga and cardio routine, but it hasnt really happned. between my class and what mom needs me to do during the few hours that i'm home and she isnt, i've found myself lacking in time. its something that i need to try and do better at though. it would help if i would prioritize my time, and not play as much. :)

-happy day for me, i've planned some trips up to good ol' rexburg to get out of the house. admitidly, two of those trips have educational reasons behind them. i need to go and take my tests somewhere, but instead of deciding to just take them here in utah, i'm going to save a lot of trouble, not time, but trouble, and take two trips up to rexburg to take some tests. it will be nice to get out of the house for a few weekends. :) i'm also going up to see the opera they are doing. one of my old roomates, RL, is a music minor, and she told me she was going to auditoin for the opera. i'm going to go up and support her being in the opera, or if she didnt make the cuts, i'm going to go and watch it with her. i just wish i could stay a little longer that trip. its a trip up the night of the opera, and leaving early the next morning. :( it should still be fun though.

- last, but not least, i've kept up my photo a day blog. its been a wonderful thing to do in my life. its made me look for the good things in life, and its helped to keep my mind where it needs to be, and focusing on what it needs to focus on. i just wish that i could do it for a bit longer than will probably happen, since eventually i'll be leaving on my mission, and i doubt my mission president will allow me to keep posting. maybe i'll just invest instead in a whole buch of those disposable cameras and take them with me, with instructions to my sister to upload them for me if possible? we'll see when the time comes.

final verdict # 2

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

so, we got a call from chris this morning. apparantly we wont get rachel AT ALL in two weeks. he wont tell us why. the way he said it at first made it sound like it was our fault, and that we werent doing something right, but he wont tell us what. so, in two weeks, rachel is going to apparantly be moving out. i guess we'll see what happens with it. we're currently (as in right this minute) trying to talk this out and see what his reasons are for it, but he wont say. not really. grar!

final verdict

Part 1
Part 2
so, we now have a final verdict on whats going on with rachel. soooo sorry. its been on my mind, and i need to tell someone. even if no one really reads this, the possiblity is there. so, we found out, finally, that chris has, as we suspected, sided with the hawks, and has it so that rachel will be spending every_single_weekend_ with the hawks. i dont know why we cant have just one weekend a month. their reasonin in why we couldnt have her every other weeked was even weak. they said "two weeks is too long. she'll forget us inbetween that time." sorry, i dont think so. i dont even want to know what sort of lame excuse they came up with for not even one weekend a month. it was supposed to start this weekend, even though we had told them, and they had been fine with it, that she had something this weekend, an they couldnt have her. i dont think i've ever been so close to abducting a child in my life. they are being absolutely unreasonable. oh, and something we just found out. the hawks apparantly dont think we are teaching her "life skills" because over chrismas, they asked her to go pack her suitcase to come home, and all she did was just sit there. now, rachel has this personality, and other kids do too, so i dont know why they had a problem with it, that if she doesnt want to do something, she'll just sit there, and not do it. its not like we let her gt away with it, we make her do it. apparantly, though, they think we're not teaching her life skills, and not teaching her how to pack a suitcase, just because she sat there and didnt pack it over christmas. what do they think we're doing with her? absolutely nothing? my personal oppinion is that she didnt do it because she was doped up on benedryl all the week she was visiting them over christmas. but, again, my oppinion doesnt count for anything. so, she's going to go there and learn the life skills (what life skills is she going to learn? whenever she goes with them, she's on benedryl the whole time, and all they do is go shopping. what's she to learn. how to be doped up and how to shop?)that we are apparantly failing to teach her. am i being unreasonable in really not wanting her to go?

update

so here's a quick update on the rachel thingy. i know, i know, its boring to hear about it all the time, but i need to get it out for my sake.
so chris finally called back last night to supposedly tell us what kind of decision he had come to on where rachel was going to live and where she was going to spend her weekends. apparantly the hawks (stupid chuffers) are very adamant about rachel comming to see them every single weekend. i'm all for them getting her every other weekend, but apparantly they think that "every other weekend is too long in between, and she'll forget us" yeah right! she doesnt even really want to go spend time with them. she's scared of them. she is willing to get to know them, but she wants to have chris there, as a support. (she wont tell chris any of this, but she will tell me, who then has to relate it to dad, who will relate it to chris.) so, we're trying to see if we can have rachel for just ONE weekend a MONTH. i'm not at all happy about this idea, when are we supposed to do anything fun with her? i guess we're not supposed to. we've finally gotten to a point that chris will listen to us about what rachel needs/wants. so, he's still thinking about it, and supposedly he will call us back tonight to let us know what he has figured out.
here's the thing about all this that bothers me. chris is currently on marrage number three, and having just come home from iraq with PTSD, he's very likely to do whatever he can to save this newest marrage. including, apparantly, forget about the needs of his child so that he can please his wife. the fact that he'll put his marrage before his children, that should come, but just to an extent. he shouldnt be forcing rachel into something she REALLY doesnt want to do. its stupid, and will just make rachel dislike her daddy all the more, which is something that chris really wouldnt like. and another thing that we found out that bothers me is the fact that krystal says that rachel has to call her "mummy" not "mommy", but close enough. ah ha, now i see and understand. they say that they dont want krystal to take the place of jen, rachel's real mommy, but forcing her to call krystal mummy? mmmm... there's a problem there. they may say that they dont want krystal to take her place, but really, i think they want rachel to have absolutely nothing to do with us, and with jen, and with everything else to do with her real mom's family. mayhaps i'm over reacting, i dont know. i just dont like the stupid chuffers, and this isnt helping to make me like them more.

rantings

so, we got a call from rachel's dad (chirs) sunday night. he told us that his wife's family (the hawks) want to start taking rachel every weekend, and if we ever wanted rachel on a weekend, we would have to call them and see if it was okay with them, wich doesnt make sense when we have her living at our house anyhow. we tried to talk the hawks down to every other week, because we want to be able to see her on the weekends too, instead of just during the week, when we cant go and do anything fun with her (she would go with them from friday afternoon after she gets home from school, to sunday night at bedtime. all she has time to do here is go to school, come home and do her homework, and then its bedtime. we dont want to be just the disiplanarians, and have them be the fun grandparents. we want to be able to have some fun with her and see hersometimes too). they wont bend, and take her just every other weekend, so their other idea is to take her permanantly, for everything, she would be moving out of our house. one problem we have with that is that chris will be comming here in about six months. she's insecure about life as it is (hence the thumb sucking, as mentioned earlier), why move her twice, when she could be moved just once, when chris came. chris's wife (krystal) wants rachel to be able to spend time with the hawks's, to get to know them better. thats not a bad idea, but she's told us that she is kinda scared of her grandpa hawks (according to rachel, he is kinda big, and in a wheelchair, and thats what scares her), and she would be more comfortable getting to know him if krysyal was here, but krystal is in DC with chris (he's in walter reed hospital). another thing is that they have dogs, and rachel is allergic to dogs. apparantly when she went to spend the week with them over christmas, she was on benadryl the whole time. sorry, that shouldnt have to happen. are they willing to give up their dogs to have rachel come live wit them? the answer to that was no, they are going to keep their dogs, and just keep rachel on benydryl. a stupid idea, because she cant remember what she did over christmas from being on benydryl. her school performance would go way way down. the last issue we had was that rachel has been living here for about four-five years. over that time she's grown to be like a daughter to not just me, but to mom and dad as well. they want to take rachel in about...oh...a week. now, we were just getting used to, and were fine with the idea of rachel leaving to live with her DAD in six months. thats time enough that we can still have her, and see her, and all that. the thing about the hawks is that if she leaves to live with them, we wont ever see her again. they dont like her living here with us, and try and take her all the time. i think i've mentioned that we werent sure if she would come back after both thanksgiving and christmas with them. we know for a fact that if she were to live with them, we would never ever see her again. and then she's just leaving in a week?! oh, and to top it all off, (this doesnt really have to do with this subject, but i need to get it out) when she went to spend time with them over thanksgiving and christmas, the time they wanted to come pick her up was inconvienint for our family. they were NOT AT ALL willing to see that we cant really do it then, can you come pick her up at a different date and time? both times, we had to rearrange our lives to make accomidations for THEM and yet they never do that for US. ajslfjasdlfjasdlfjasdl;fja;sd lfjk! chuffers! sorry. anyhow, to finish this up, and not make it horrendously long, we want her to live here, and they can wait to have her (we would make acceptions for some weekends, but not every weekend) for the six months till chris and krystal get home, when chris and krystal will be living out near the hawks', and they can see her every single day if they want, and we will never see her again, but cant they wait for the six months? cant they see that those six months should be ours? chris was supposed to call last night to tell us what was going on, but did he call? nooo, he did not call. so now we are stuck wondering what is going on with rachel and everything else. grar

sldkfjasdl;fjasdl;fjsad;lfj

the day started out interesting enough. it started out with going to work, and starting to work the freight. nothing new, nothing exciting. then i get a page over the intercom, before the store is even open "melinda, please come to customer service." i get there, and my manager is wearing rubber gloves, a mask, and goggles. something just had to be up. why else would she be wearing those? so i find out. apparantly Champion Breed pet food, not just the dog food, not just the cat food, but all of their pet food (dry, not wet) is somehow contaminated. we had to get rid of EVERYTHING! lots of 50 lb. bags of food and all. and yes, i even had to wear the gloves, mask, and goggles. it was the least plesent thing i could have done that day, or so i thought. i get done helping with that, and still have about half my shift left, so i go to work more freight. then i notice, "i'm not jingling like i should" i look down...my keys are gone. i look in the stock room, i look over in Pantry, where we were working the pet food. i ask C and T if they have seen any keys lying around. "no, but i'll keep my eyes out" sad thing is, this is the most important keys i had. my car, mom's car, my house, and the shed. all ones that honestly, no one wants missing. finally, i give up, and go on break, just so i can look for my keys. not what i had planned for my break. i had been planning on hopefully taking a power nap. i've been way way tired recently, so it would have been a blessing. it was not to be. i eventually go and look IN my car to see if they somehow came of my D-ring i keep cliped to me. yep, sure enough, they were sitting on the seat. so, i call mom. she hasnt left for work yet, thankfully, so she can bring me the spare, right? apparantly i shouldnt have tried. she was home, but i got a good yelling at, (over the work phone nonetheless!) and she hung up on me when she finally found them. she had claimed that she would be late for work. but here's the thing. she had told me just the night before that she could go in to work late today. lucky for me i rememberd it. i'm just glad that i didnt actually have to meet her to pick up the keys, but i am sorry for the really nice customer service lady. she had to deal with mom. poor gal. so i get home, and help rachel pack for going to stay with her daddy et al. for the next five days (we get her christmas morning, sometime after 9:00. we have no clue what we are going to do with ourselves that morning.) things seem to go smoothly, till i double check that she has everything. rachel has been...best way to describe it is PMSing, but she isnt old enough for it. i just hope that whatever it is causing it will stop soon. its getting to me, and i'm having problems keeping my temper with her. she gets upset at me, and things start to go downhill. we eat lunch, rachel not really all that happy, then we get in the car to get to trax. happily, she falls asleep on the way there and is happy when she wakes up. we get on our way, rachel absolutely loved riding trax! it was great. get to the wells fargo building to go donate blood, and find out "oh, your iron is actually okay, but you have too fast of a pulse" stupid people. thats why you do blood pressure, and not just pulse. some poeple have horrible pulse, and will never be able to, but have really really good blood pressure. i wish it was the ARC doing it. then i could have actually done something worthwile today. instead, i wasted an afternoon, and six dollars, and felt even worse about things. just alsdfjdasl;fjadslfjasd;l.

cookies

an empty bed

we sent rachel off to california last night. it was odd to get up for work and see an empty bed this morning

second one today.

wow, this will be the second picture i post today! and isnt it a feast? this was lunch, eaten while waiting to pick up rachel from school. a shake and fries. so nutritious. at least i was reading something good for me, even if i wasnt eating it.

the chuffers!

warning: the following is a rant

so, i've said once that i really dont like rachel's newest set of step-family memebers. but even though i dont like them, i can usually see their point of view. but they were being bloody chuffers! rachel is leaving this week to go to california with them for thanksgiving. first off, i dont think that they should have her over thanksgiving, but that wasnt up to me. they had been going to come get her all bright and early on friday morning. we had agreed on that. about a month ago! so, last night, we called them to find out how many days she was going to be gone, andwhat all they were doing, so that we could pack the appropriate, and enough, cloths for her to wear. we were pretty much busy all day on thursday, and that was why they couldnt come get her on thursday. rachel had SEP's (equvelant of parent teacher conferences, but the student and the parents plan things instead of just saying what a good child they are), and school, and we have a thingy at the library (its a mother-daughter book club type thing-a-ma-bob) plus, i have work all morning, so there isnt any way to get started on her wash so that she _has_ enough cloths to go with until after 2. that was fine, they said, we'll just come pick her up on friday, bright and early. that was fine, everything was great, and life went on. till last night. they called us back (we had to leave a message) to get the details about the trip. "oh, and we're picking her up on thursday night." what! we agreed on friday, so pick her up on friday. we had to explaine to them three or four times that it would be physically impossible for us to be able to meet such a request. did they listen? absolutely not. they hung up, under the pretense of "discussing it amongst themselves" but, they didnt "discussing it amongst themselves" they called up rachel's daddy and complained to him about it. next thing we know, we get a call from rachel's daddy, and he's asking us "whats wrong with picking her up on thursday night" we have to explaine it to him three or four times too! eventually, mom and dad get too upset, and rachel has to talk to him for a bit while they go "discuss" (more like argue) about it. i end up having to get on the phone and try to explaine it to rachel's daddy. the stupid bloody chuffers! they didnt need to call rachel's daddy up! he's trying to recover from Post Traumatic Stress! this is the _last_ thing he needs. rachel's daddy tries to calmly explaine to me why they can no longer come and pick rachel up on friday. rachel's grandpa hawkes apparantly suffers from severe back pain, and is not able to be in the car for long ammounts of time. woah here! and they were planning to DRIVE to california?! sorry, thats long amounts of time. i've been told about a 14 hour drive. an extra 15 minutes wouldnt hurt him in the least. secondly, even if we went with that plea, there's still the fact that we cant do it! so, what if we were to drop her off at their house, bright and early? they wont do it. hmmmm..... why not? we never did get an answer for that one. they seem to be too bloody....askl;dfj;lasdf! chuffers! dad could drop her off there as early as 5:00. its on his way to work, and when you drive an hour for work, leaving a half-hour early, its not much of a deal. they would never tell us why they wouldnt do it. they didnt want to have a clean rachel with clean cloths. no, they have to go and be stupid bloody chuffers and come pick her up, without having a shower, and with filthy cloths, after the library thing on thursday. i honestly hope that she's as onery for them when she's really really tired (she wont be getting to bed at their house till about 10) as she is for us.

i'll end this by saying sorry i seem to rant so much. i'll try and stop.

School Projects

i spent the day helping rachel build a diorama for school. its about the weather cycle. it has all the different types of clouds (cirrus, cumulus, and nimbocumulus), snow, rain, and hale, evaporation, condensation, a snow capped mountian, a lake, and even snow runoff!




for reference, rachel decided she wanted to take a picture of her diorama so it was falling. :) she enjoys it, and made sure i put it on here so you all could see it.

Leaves

"mom! i'm home! and guess what!? you know that pile of leaves you left outside? i jumped in it! it was so fun!" she said, as she came running into the room.
"i'm glad you enjoyed it. do you want to go out and play in them more? i'll even come with?"
"yeah!"
i turned off my computer, and we went outside. it was a beautiful day. not to hot, not to cold. just warm enough that we could be comfortable with short sleeves, and no jacket or sweater. suddenly, my mind began to race. why was i doing this? she had homework, i needed to start dinner. more importantly, we were both getting over bad colds, and it was sure to get cold out here. why hadnt we worn jackets?
"common mom! lets go!" she said, practicly dragging me out of the house.
she started to rake up the leaves, and we jumped in them. she did it again. we fought with the leaves, having "confetti" wars. we chased each other, and tried to get leaves all over each other. we burried each other.
suddenly, nothing else mattered. it was just me and her. and the leaves. we played for hours. never tiring, not noticing that the sun was going down. all that mattered was us. me and her. we were actually doing something, and it wasnt me telling her that she needed to do this, or go do that, or eat your dinner, there wont be any food 'til breakfast. all that mattered was that we were having fun...together.
eventually, after many times of pretending to be a bear, hibernating in the leaves, and being leaf monsters jumping out to attack each other, and chasing each other around the yard for hours, the leaves were in the garden, and there was nothing else to do, but to go inside, and to remember. it was rare the days like this, and i hoped that she would remember this, above everything else.

sunday pictures

Rachel drew these pictures yesterday. i thought they were cute. :)

i'm so proud

sometimes, being rachel's "mindy-mommy" is a lot of fun. sure, there are times, many many times, that its been frusturating, but recently, its been a lot of fun, and she's made me proud.

as i've been looking for missionary clothes (not nearly as easy as you might think), rachel has come along to give her opinion, and then, just to be fair, we'll go and look at rachel sized cloths. lots of the cloths that they have out are immodest, and for the most part, rachel didnt, i thought, care about if it was modest, or immodest or what. but, she surprised me. as we were looking, she saw some really cute shirts and said "oh, those are cute mindy. but they are immodest." and she moved on to something else. one of the floor models they had was wearing a shirt, actually modest, but its shoulder had slid down. rachel, once again surpriseing me, went over and fixed it and then said "there. now she is dressed modestly" i was so happy and proud, and muchly plesently surprised.

not only has she been doing this with clothing though.

her dad and K, have recently made arrangements for rachel to go with her grandma and grandpa H to California over thanksgiving. when she found out that she would be gone over a sunday she asked her dad "is there a church in california?" me and me mum and dad were all very surprised to hear her ask it. we had thought that, especially after living with some of her parents, she didnt care much if she went to church or not. it was so exciting to be able to hear her ask that, and to show that she does care, and that she really would like to go, no matter what.

on a different note...

yesterday was the primary program. my sunbeams sat there so well! i was so happy that they were able to sit there and were as good as they were. sure, a lot of it probably had to do with the fact that their parents and grandparents were there, but one boy, KS, he honeslty doesnt know how to sit still, and he was sooo good! i was so proud to be there teacher.

Doctor Rachel

i woke up, about 4:30-same time as i would get up on week days, really not feeling good, and it took till about 8 for me to be able to get back to sleep. when rachel had gotten up, about 6:30, i had just taken medicine to help me feel better. i hadnt eaten anything, and rachel saw it, and knows that i'm supposed to eat something whenever i take medicine, or else i just end up feeling worse. so, when dad had finished making breakfast, about 8:05, i had just started going back to sleep. rachel came and woke me up saying "mindy, breakfast is ready" i tried to inform her that i wasnt hungry, and that i just wanted to go back to sleep. "but mindy, you need to eat something to make you feel better. it will help your medicine" "but rachel i'm not hungry" "com'on mindy. just a grapefruit. it will make you feel better" how many times have i been Dr. Min, when she has been sick, and used the same line on her (just usually not grapefruit. its usually banana)? honestly, how can you oppose a nine year old, trying to be your doctor. it just doesnt work.

Rachel's Pictures

these pictures were drawn by rachel yesterday, in sacrament meeting. they made me smile. :)

Experiences of Motherhood

being rachel's mindy-mom is something i've always loved being. sure, its had its hard times, but the good times way way out weigh the bad. also, being a better mother to rachel than mom was to us was something that i always took a great amount of joy in (possibly an unhealthy amount). but, realizations came today that mayhaps all is not as it seems. studies have shown that daughters learn their parenting skills from their moms. i always liked to think that i had learned what mom's parenting skills, what worked and what didnt, and changed it, so that i could be a possibly better parent, knowing how to disipline my kids, but not be really overbearing, like mom was/is. knowing how to have fun, but get things done too (something that mom never really did. it was always get things done, and then get this done, and then oh look, its bedtime, with little time for much fun) i realized that, in all actuality, i hadnt done as i had hoped. i have, in more ways than i care to admit, become a lot like my mom. the thing that made me realize that, was today, when me and rachel were cleaning our room, mom came in, started yelling at the both of us (rachel for not cleaning fast enough, me for not making rachel clean better, and for supposedly not cleaning well enough either), rachel started to cry because she was frusturated, she was scared of mom (who can get to be real scary when she's that upset), and didnt know what to do. after i got mom out of the room, rachel came begging for a hug. i failed to give her one, promising one "later." "later" was always moms response if we asked her to come play with us, for a hug (we never got hugs (side note, but mom never ever said that she loved us either...something that i HAVE made sure to correct for rachel)), for just about anythign, the answer was "later." i hated that answer, and swore to never use it with my kids. but more and more recently, the answer is always "later" "i'll play with you later, rach" "not now rach, i'm busy" "rachel, i'm reading, not right now" always the same answer that i always got from my mom, something i never, ever want to use. it makes me feel bad that i refused to even give rachel a hug "later" since, as we all know "later" never comes. ever. i shall just have to make up for it now, and not wait till later. just no one else make my stupid mistakes, and, if/when you have kids, dont wait till the never comming "later" to make sure that your kids know you care.(heads out on a hunt for rachel, to make sure she gets her promised hug)