Dear Diary......

A couple of new things:

Joined Weight Watchers today- lets see if I can keep it up.

Mom informed me that last year at this time, Dad had 75% of his lung capacity working. This year- 61%.

Holy crap I am a ray of sunshine on here. :) I'm dazzled from all the glitter that farts out from my sentences. I have lots on my mind, but i am reserving this one for happiness. We have moved into our new home, and I have gotten fatter. lol. Comes from having this awesomely large kitchen and island where I can bake to my hearts content, and have the room to do it all in. :) Then I eat it all. My specialty is the normal cookies- Peanut Butter, Cocolate chip, and the good ol' M&M cookies. :) I'm going to try a new pumpkin pie recipe this week for Christmas. I even made the puree for it. I'm making my first pie from scratch...Yeah Baby! (Imagine that in the Austin Powers voice) Our tree is up and fantabulous, but I have decided I also want a fake tree next year. We have our real tree in the back of the house in the family room where we hang out. But we have that *perfect* window in the formal living room, and it's looking lonely. This is the window that goes from floor to ceiling....totally perfect for the tree display. So next year we will have two trees. Cause I am greedy like that. :) I also made a ton of presents with the kids this year. I am not working, so money is tight for those "extras". So we made snowmen for the Aunts and Grandmas, and ornaments for the combined gift between the Aunts, Uncles, and Grandparents. They turned out pretty cute.

Ok...pics are a bit challenging for me. lol. I'll get it one day. Anyhow, it was great fun. Christmas was cool too. Lots of visiting. That's all for now! :)

Where's the Sun?

Turns out this is nothing but a hidden diary where I tell my aggravations, vents, fears and heartache. I want to cry when I talk to other people, so I will cry and tell the hidden online world instead. :/

Missy came over on a Sunday two weeks? ago. We had a jolly time for a bit, and then we mentioned Dad. Yep. It became real. We noticed some "things and doings" that each of us had heard/seen. These things brought us to the definite conclusion that he is going to leave us.

Mom had told me Dad was cleaning out his garage, and had some stuff for me to see if I wanted them or not. Okay. Free stuff- Sweet! Missy mentioned how Dad asked her to look up values of things he finds. What he has found has not made him satisfied. My parents owe money on their house. Dad's life insurance will cover either 50% or 75% (couldn't remember the exact amount it was worth.) Dad could get more money for life insurance, but he refused to go to the dr to do it. We believe he is trying to set my Mom up so she won't have this huge financial burden when he is gone. Such a sweet and loving man.

Our family friend Danielle has been preparing Missy, I think. Her Grandma died from this stuff, and she's sees Dad in the same state. She keeps telling Missy about how similar Dad and her Grandma are. Missy is the most emotional of us 3 older girls. Rather, she is the most publicly emotional person. Shell hides hers the best, and I'm the runner up. So now that I have re-hashed the fact that I truly believe my Dad is dying, and quickly, we have more family news.

My Aunt Veronica was in the hospital, and we found out she has heart, kidney and lung issues. And it's pretty bad. She's been bad for a long time, but since her visit to the hospital the other week, it's been VERY bad. Along with this, she has no insurance to visit a specialist, and they are poor, so she can't really afford a doctor or treatment. Probably already stressed on how to pay the hospital bill. Her daughter is scared, worried and feeling lost. I get it.

My Aunt Gladys had lung cancer a few years ago, and had a surgery to remove part of her lung. She was cancer free for.....3 years? She gets routine testing to check for the cancer, and some issues showed up with her blood work. Looks like she could have bone marrow cancer. We'll find out for sure on the 17th or 18th of this month. But the doctors were pretty specific on what they thought it could be right down to the name of 1 thing.

My Aunt Loretta was also recently in the hospital for her heart. It's been bad for her for a long time, and she got on meds to see if it helped her out. It did for a little bit, then she went in to the hospital for heart pains. She may need stints. She's not doing well either though.

I love all these people dearly, and this is just too much! Luckily, I don't think that side of my family realizes my Dads issues right now. They have enough going on. The last few years we haven't really been up to Puyallup to visit very much. My other relatives that used to live near here moved out to North Dakota, so they don't see it either.

I do normally stay happy and very in love with my family, but that's because I put all of this out of my mind, and ignore it. I'm pretty good at that really. It just kind of sneaks in everyonce in awhile and makes me very melancholy.

I hate remembering.

My lovely Dad

I am worried about my Dad, but I am only able to "talk" about it in this blog that is really a virtual journal that no one finds laying around the house. Only you, Rachael know about this.

I think my Dad is dying. Seriously. I know he went to the doctor a year or so ago (maybe a bit longer), because he was super sick and couldn't breathe well. My Dad, who has always said smoking is fine, he's never going to quit, actually quit for awhile. Something the doctor said scared him enough that he tried quitting. It didn't last though. As I go through the photos from even when Maddie was a few years younger, my dad has aged at least 10 years in a just a short 3 years. I went to my parents house yesterday to visit after Briannas birthday, and my Dad was "not feeling well". He was doing the whole out of breath talking when we were there. I can't talk to anyone about this, because even though i'm sure they are all thinking the same thing I am, if we voice it, it will become real. No more pretending all is well.

I know my Dad had told Missy before that if he were dying, he wouldn't tell anyone because he didn't want them sad, or being sad around him. He felt it was the nicer thing to do for everyone involved. Even though he said he'd be pretty upset if WE were dying, and didn't tell him. Go figure.

And so I wonder- how much longer do we have? Do we get this Christmas? Next? How many years? Months? AAAgggghhh!

And now I find out that Dad is worried his company may let him go. The new manager is laying off a ton of the old people, and bringing in new. My dad drives the truck. How hard would it be to get some other young punk to drive (or two part timers), pay them less and then offer no benefits? What will my Dad do? My Mom? I wish I could make it all better, but I can't. I wish I could just confront Dad, but I can't. I can't even think about it without crying, so I try to never think about it. Ever. It just sneaks in every once in awhile. What would I do without my Daddy? What will my kids do without their favorite Papa? I Hate this.

So if you do read this Rach, please don't say anything. I just needed to vent my thoughts somewhere, and I hate crying in front of people. :/


*To clarify- I did not mean don't say anything to me or what not. That just sounded rude. I just meant please don't say anything to my family about this. Don't think they would appreciate that i wrote this.

Can't I make up my mind?

I realize no one *really* knows about this blog, so no one reads this, but if they do....well that is just fine too. It's so far just to help me vent, or get out some feelings that I don't normally let out to other actual people. I'm just that way. So here it goes.

I have wanted to move for a few years now. We had even put our house on the market two years ago, and had a few offers that we turned down for being well below asking price. But we never got to go through the process of actually selling, so it doesn't count right?

Well, here we are, just 16 short days from needing to be out of our house, and all that has been done to prepare is the initial de-cluttering I did for showing the house. Pictures are still up, daycare stuff is still out, all of our normal day-to-day stuffs are still here. As well as some stuff we may use once a year, but I'm too afraid to put it away "just in case". This is also my last week of doing childcare, but it seems like any other week. I can't seem to grasp the idea that I am moving away from my home in such a short amount of time. When I do actually stop to think about it, I honestly want to cry my heart out, but I can't because I constantly have kids around, or Terry, and I do NOT want to cry about it to him. I know he would understand, but he would also feel bad, since I hardly ever let the water works out. :)

I want a bigger house to do my daycare in, but I love my little house. I met Terry while he was in this house, and had both of my kids here. This house holds all of my most precious memories of my life with *MY* little family. We took this from being a guys house with bare bones and white walls, to our cozy family home. I'm seriously going to miss Brandons blue room that I was constantly going to re-paint and make it a brighter room. That was his nursery color to go along with his "planes, trains and automobiles" theme when he was born. Maddies awesome yellow room that was the perfect shade of yellow, with her flowers and butterfies theme. And I am going to miss my room that I have with the perfect guy. (Which I had to go through some that weren't so great, but somehow found Terry when I thought no one would come my way.) I'm going to miss our room where Brandon used to come in with his smile and wake me up. We spend some mornings in our bed hanging out as a family together for a little while. I'm going to miss my incredibly tiny kitchen. Something is to be said for these small kitchens; everything you need is always within easy reach. :)
I know that when we have our new home, and our stuff is moved in, I will LOVE it! I know we will create a TON of new and awesome memories there as well. But we aren't there yet. In fact, we have only an offer on a house that we don't even know if the bank is going to accept it or not. Yep. It's a short sale. The ones you hear horror stories about. Where you can wait half a year without any word from the bank, then bam! You either got accepted or not. So we are in limbo. We have to be out in 16 days from our home, but we don't have another home to move to yet. What to do? Live in our toy hauler trailer, of course! Where? Well, we though we had an RV park picked out. Turns out summer time comes and you then have a waiting list. Grrr... Not that my dream was to be in an RV park, but it has hookups for continuous water, waste removal etc. And most importantly NO TREES! I have a horrid fear of spiders so the lack of trees by my trailer means less of those nasty little intruders. We got in too late, so now we are on a waiting list that they said looked like mid-july as the earliest for an opening. Lovely. So now we get to stay at my Mom and Dads house. In the trailer. Right next to the biggest spider loving tree ever! Don't get me wrong.....I was planning on spending lots of time there anyways so the kids had a yard to play in, etc. But now we have to conserve water, hook up to their house for electricity and take (at least) weekly trips to dump the waste and re-fill with water. I'm thankful we have the trailer, and I am extremely greatful for my awesome family who has already offered to help in any way they can. My family rocks. Plain and simple. :)

So I feel sad about leaving our home, living in my parents yard till a spot opens up in the RV park, and not knowing if we even get to have a house in the near future. The offer says no sooner than the 8th, and the family seems willing to work with the banks and us, so that is good. But I keep clinging to the close date of Aug 8th. Because I have to. So I don't cry, which in turn makes Terry feel awful for making me cry by not having everything all nifty for our family. I know this seems petty and silly, and quite frankly a bit self centered but I have never had to leave a "home" before, and it's actually quite difficult. I mean, I left my home when I was done with high school, but my parents still live there, so I can go back whenever I want. It was a sad time, but also exciting and new. I can't come back here. I don't want to see what they do to 'my' home.

I'm also super weird when it comes to my kids. I am STRESSING over the fact that my 6 year old son is not happy about moving. He has this misconception that we will not see our friends anymore. He is worried about me not working anymore, and not having any money. He even thought Terry would be jobless and broke so we wouldn't have any money for the new house. He's worried/scared/sad about the possible school change.

I am not looking forward to seeing the kids faces when we pack even more, and move their bedrooms out. I know Maddie wont understand it either, and I hope she doesn't get too upset about it. Basically I don't want my kids to feel misplaced or upset about ANYTHING. I would feel like a complete failure as a mom, even though my head will know differently. I don't want to be a failure as a girlfriend either. I've been depressed, and I need to perk back up, and make this into an exciting adventure! It's all in the attitude, right? Maybe one day I will get in my breakdown, then everything will be good to go. lol. So now that I wrote a book (and not exactly very well either) I suppose I will stop. At least for now. I'm sure I will be back on soon. :)

100 Things

It has been only 4 days since Terry left for Texas, and my insecure, co-dependent self is incredibly saddened. Silly, I know. But I saw something that said when you are feeling sad, write 100 things down that make you happy. Sounds easy, but lets see.
1. Watching my kids loving on each other. (doesn't happen too often, lol.)
2. listening to my kids sing songs, especially the "I love Mommy" song Maddie made up.
3. fires in the fireplace with hot cocoa and a movie.
4. Being snuggled up with my kids and my guy. :)
5. Toe socks (pretty profound stuff here! hehe.)
6. Baking cookies just perfectly moist.
7. Getting new bras. (yes, when you are my size, and they cost $40 a piece, you get excited for new ones)
8. Random flowers brought home from my guy. It rarely happens, so it is special when it does.
9. hearing my kids' laughter
10. watching their excitement on their faces
11. date nights
12. buying my kids clothes. sounds weird, but i LOVE it!!!!
13. getting new shoes :)
14. smells of freshly mown grass in the end of spring/beginning of summer when the grass still has the moisture in it for the best smells.
15. caterpillars. :) love the orange and black super fuzzy ones.
16. good haircuts. It really makes such a difference in how you feel.
17. unique things- example...my zipper purse. and my seat belt purse. Love them so much!
18. Those dainty little weeds that look like flowers. No idea what they are, but i love them.
19. sunshine on a cold day
20. Terry doing dishes. :D
21. rearranging and cleaning the house. (only occasionally)
22. Terry snuggling up to me in bed. Even if half the time it is just to get warm. :)
23. family outings
24. reading a good book
25. getting a mani/pedi, cause it makes me feel pretty. Mainly because I don't normally don't get it done or do it myself.
26. Good music. One of Rebecca St. James' albums is my "happy music"
27. Taking loooooong drives in the country. (while listening to said "happy music" from above)
28. Shopping.
29. spending time at mom and dads laughing it up with my sisters and mom.
30. making my family happy. It really does make me happy too. :)

So far 30. I'll think of some more later.

I have a great life. I have the 2 kids, boy then girl, with a great guy who treats us all well, and is very much a huge part in our lives (unlike some dads I know). We live in the typical Ranch style house, moderate yard, in a little suburb. A run down, older part of town, but that's fine. I am able to stay home with my kids (though I sometimes seriously re-think this, and wish I had a job for some good ol social interaction with other adults and time away from home). I am able to drive my son to a better school- not top notch, but average. Our school is waaaay below average. I have both my parents, who have been married for FOREVER. :) I have 3 awesome sisters, ones that I had trials and tribulations with when I was younger, but now we all get along well. We live comfortably, which I am extremely gratefull for since we were on welfare when we were younger. lol.
But I am unhappy with several things, most of which are my own fault, some not. Considering my life, people probably think I am being absurd and ungrateful, which COULD be the case, but I don't really think so.

1. I am a fattie. My own fault, but I struggle GREATLY with willpower. I am an emotional eater as well. I eat fatty foods and huge portions. We don't have chips or anything like that, so I guess that is good. lol

2. I need dental insurance. Bad. But even as a business owner, I am having a hard time looking for some at a reasonable price with good coverage for what I need done. I am now less a happy person, cause I really don't like to smile. :(

3. I am always short on money. MY money. The money I use to buy the kids' clothes, shoes etc. with. I need more daycare kids to help out with that, but unless I go to a full week, it isn't likely to happen anytime soon. We need a house where I can kind of seperate the daycare from our actual living space, like a split level home. Then I could hire someone for the days I wanted off for family. :)

4. I really miss adult conversations. I love Terry so much, but I would also like other adults conversations as well.

5. I have been needing a really good cry, and I HATE crying in front of anyone, cause I am an ugly cryer. lol. You know what I am talking about- red eyes, nose, puffy face, snotty etc. And the face redness can last for hours! Not pretty, lol. :) So.....since I am constantly with my kids and/or Terry, I haven't had a good cry in...........at least a year. Probably a lot longer, but who knows.

6. I love Terrys work schedule, and the fact that he has a great paying job, etc. But I really dislike the leaving for 3 weeks, coming home to work Monday through Friday, gone at 6am home around 8pm. Then leave for yet another week. I always used to joke how I could not be a military wife because I couldn't handle the seperation. I can't even handle 3 weeks. lol.

7. I feel like a failure with my kids. I know they are good kids, but i just doubt how much of it is me. I don't know.....

BUT.....I am happy and greatful for my awesome life and family. :) I just sometimes need to let things out, even if they are silly, small or irritating. Nobody really knows of this site, so I am good to go. :) I would keep a journal, but ever since my mom and Missy snooped in my diary when I was younger, I don't trust those things. :D