Stones and walls

"Only a fool trips on what's behind him."

The past is over and we should move on is what I get out of this statement. But should nothing in the past be tripped over now and then? If you look back and try to understand it so you can grow, is that tripping? I see how people say your not supposed to build barriers to protect yourself, but isn't it also stupid not too? Since I don't have all day to ponder this, I say trip over what's behind you now and then. Learn from it and grow. Then move on and try to avoid the big stones. Learn to be happy and love again but a small wall never hurt anyone. People should have walls and boundaries to let only those who are worthy in.

What to do?

I was thinking about making a blog elsewhere so I can write what I want and know that people aren't reading everything I write and hating my guts. It's too big of a pain since there are shockingly no blog apps to choose from besides this one. So I guess now my choice is write what I want and be hated, or give up in the idea of blogging. Obviously I brought this problem on myself by being who I am. One can't have as many enemies as I and not realize where the problem lies. I'm a difficult person to live with or to love. I really don't mean to be but have not learned how to restrain myself. It's always been hard for me to connect with people and even harder to stay connected. I lose myself in my own world or judge people too harshly. Maybe I make myself unlovable to keep people away. No matter. The end result is that I would love to pour my heart out into a blog but maybe a journal would be the smarter way to go. 

A tribute to Nana

My Nana passed away and this page is dedicated to her.

This is the note I sent with flowers for her funeral:

I love you, I love you, I love you!
Our souls touched and we said goodbye.
We hugged and kissed and you heard my cry,
when your an angel make sure you fly by. <3

Love, Rachel and family

This is her obituary:

Enid Atkins Rasmussen
February 7, 1921 ~ April 29, 2013 Our precious mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, sister and friend passed away peacefully on April 29th, 2013. She was the second of eight children raised by her parents, Henry Harwood Atkins and Lola Pearl Ellison, in Cardston, Alberta. Her childhood was filled with much joy and laughter and she treasured those vibrant memories her entire life. After graduating from Calgary Normal School, she taught grades one through nine in a rural one room schoolhouse for four years delighting many children with her witty charm and spunky demeanor. She married her high school sweetheart, L. Merrill Rasmussen, in 1943. She will be dearly missed and forever loved by her two children, Ronald Lyman (Colleen) Rasmussen of Layton, Utah and Karen (Merrill) Bunker of Bountiful, Utah, nine grandchildren and 23 great-grandchildren. Enid was blessed with a wonderful singing voice and enjoyed reading, watching the Utah Jazz, travelling, playing Scrabble and Rumikub with the grandchildren, and tending to her flower garden. She was famous for her Jumbo Raisin Cookies, bunwiches, and gourmet breakfasts. With babies, she was an entertainer and snuggler extraordinaire. Enid had impeccable style and will be lovingly remembered as a regal and classy woman. We will remember her beautiful smile, determination, integrity and zest for life. Though limited by dementia in later years, she remained sweet and uncomplaining to the end. She was beautiful through and through and a constant example to her posterity of facing your trials with grace and dignity. Although she will be missed immensely by her family here, she had longed to be reunited with her mother and father and we are happy in the knowledge she has been set free to rejoin them. We are so proud of the life she lived and the legacy she left. Funeral services will be held at 11:00 a.m. Saturday, May 4 at the Bountiful Meuller Park Stake Center, 1800 East Meuller Park Rd. (1800 South), Bountiful, Utah. Friends may call at the church from 9:45 to 10:45 prior to services. Interment in Bountiful City Cemetery. Funeral Directors: Aspen Funeral Services.

Published in Salt Lake Tribune from May 2 to May 3, 2013

And the pictures are of the flowers I sent, Nana, and my bird Ed, who hatched on her birthday and so I consider him to be a gift from her. Love you Nana! Kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss! :)

The prodigal son

Today's gospel reading was the parable of the prodigal son. This, along with the story of Mary Magdeline, is one of my favorite scriptures. To me, the prodigal son is a story about a man who loses his soul to the world. He forgets all about the love his father has for him, even though his father never forgets how much he loves his son. And then there is the other brother. The one who never left. The father explains that everything that the father has this son too has but that his other son was lost and is now found. An interesting interpretation of this is that the son who is jealous and mad, is now the son who is lost. I mean, what is lost? Jesus says to forgive and this parable is the type of forgiveness I think He means. I know I have a handful of people that I can't seem to forgive that way. And so I am more like the brother when it comes to forgiving and less like the father. God forgives us each time we fail and come back to Him again. He loves us and he opens his arms and rejoices to see us return. As I was going through RCIA I asked the priest about this very thing because of my family. His answer was that as long as people continue to harm you then you should forgive but not let them back in. If they are through harming you then yes, you should forgive and let them back in. This is a part of the story I often forget as I ponder it. The prodigal son chose to go back to his father and he begged for forgiveness. The father had forgiveness in his heart all along, but he didn't rejoice with his son until his son came to him. It's a slight consolation for me anyway. I haven fully forgiven but I'm working on it.

Family ties

The bond between a mother and a child is so natural that to not have a bond with my mom is still strange to me today. It's been nearly 5 years since I've spoke with my family. I wonder if I would be able to count the years if I didn't have a baby the year we had our final fall out. Eventually a lifetime will have gone by and nothing will have changed. It's sad. It breaks my heart. But it's also over. Any ties that may have existed have been severed and bridges burned. What kind of lessons can be learned from such things? Watch what family you're born into? Never open your heart up? And so, I've learned nothing.

I don't really know why today was the day to blog that. I haven't blogged in nearly a year and never about that topic. Who knows if I'll blog more again. I guess that's the lesson I learned. Don't blog. I wish I could feel free again to write my life down for others to read, but I don't.

First fondant cake ever

We've been watching the cake boss lately so inspired by the show I made a cake.

Blah

I'm kind of going through a down time, or maybe just a stagnant time, for the last...well, for a long time. I have no life, no stories to tell about each day that goes by. My blog is pretty much a sad joke since there really isn't ever anything new in my life to blog about. Even this is just a blog about blah.

Hoarders

Thanks to NetFlix, Keith and I have started watching episodes of a show called "Hoarders." This show brings back memories of my grandma on my moms side and also makes me think about Keith's parents. One of the organizers on the show became an organizer because his mom was a hoarder and committed suicide from her depression. Anyhow, he made a statement that impacted me, "I really don't think my mom realized what a burden she left behind for us to have to go through and clean up," or something to that effect. When my grandparents died most of the mess was already gone because they moved across the street to a prefab house only a few years before my grandpa passed away so most of the junk was trashed before and after he died my uncle took over my grandmas house, forcing her to move out and live at my mom and another uncles house alternating weeks and eventually into a retirement home. In any event, as a child I remember visiting my grandparents house. They had I-15 in their back yard which brought a lot of added dust. They also had a few acres of land with a pasture to the side, a few random buildings filled with junk like a garage, an old building that was once my grandpa's potato chip factory, several large green houses since that was their business when I was a kid and across the street they had a bunch of apartment buildings, a storage building, and another garage, along with the remains of a glass greenhouse that had shattered. Inside the house they lived in my grandma had stacks of newspapers of various heights, some as high as me and some a little shorter. Their floors were old vinyl tiles that absorbed the dirt into them. If my grandma spilled her coffee ( bishop approved because she got a Dr to say she needed it because she was anemic) she would put a newspaper on it and leave it there. That was her way of cleaning. I recall mopping her floor only to discover that her floors weren't really made of dirt and wanting to mop her entire house. She had boxes of junk all over her house and all of it was covered in layers of dirt. Dishes were always out of control at her house and that was the one job I hated getting assigned while visiting. As for the rest, I loved sweeping or mopping until you could see the floor. This always exhausted my grandma. My grandma didn't have a garbage disposal, instead she had a 5 gallon bucket that she would throw old food into and keep by her washer and dryer. This was absolutely disgusting and I believe is the reason that she had snakes in her house. I'm sure it also encouraged the mice. She had vines growing into her house from outside. When I was a teenager I spent a summer with my grandparents and lived off of spaghetti because I didn't dare eat any of their food.

The show also makes me think of Keith's parents. They actually outshine my grandparents and it quite possibly might be due to the cats. They are the cat people you read about where 100+ cats are found in one house. There are baby cats all year round and the ferrel neighborhood cats live and have babies in their house and yard. I've sat in their house and watched the cats pee on things in front of everyone. Their kitchen sink is broken and they won't let Keith fix it. Their dishes are of course piled up in there. The stove is broken so instead they have a dirty old hot plate to cook on. They leave rotting food out. You can find cat poo pretty much anywhere in their house. Their bathroom is scary at best and getting to it is just as bad. Everything they own smells like cat urine and you can smell their house from the sidewalk. There are piles of clutter everywhere much like my grandparents. I guess my grandparents had the advantage of having more property and out of use buildings to store things in because it wasn't as cramped and their bathroom wasn't as bad. This also helped them not have trash all over their yard.

Back to the show, everyone on the shows so far seem to have a citation or eviction notice hanging over their head. The amazing thing is that even if you know that the courts may possibly not let you live in your house if you can't get it cleaned up, and even with the help of a clean up crew (which they only clean what the hoarder allows them to clean), at least half of the people we've seen are not able to part with their hoarding habits. One of the ladies had her daughter tell her that since she chooses to live that way, her daughter isn't going to sacrifice anymore of her time trying to help her mom and that she and her kids will no longer be a part of her moms life. The mom didn't care at all, just as long as she could keep her disgusting mess. It's simply amazing to watch people who live like this and ponder what makes a person get to the point in their lives where this becomes acceptable. Some of the people had parents in the depression. This was what did it for my grandparents. Others felt the loss of one of their parents deaths so overwhelmingly that shopping and collecting filled a void. One lady grew up hungry so she hoarded rotten food and ate it. Honestly I don't know Keith's parents well enough to guess but I have been to one of his aunts houses and it was clean. I'm told his grandma's house is also clean so it can't be a learned trait. My grandma had a handful of messy sisters and I believe I remember hearing that her mom was also messy. It really doesn't matter as much how they got that way now I suppose, but speculating is interesting. The show makes Keith and I wonder if we're headed on the same road as his parents and my grandparents and makes us want to spend more time cleaning/getting rid of junk. It also brings the question to mind, how do you know what the line is on having a cluttery house verses the home of a hoarder??? It's possible that we're already there, or at least well on our way......

Christmas Eve

Birds

These are my black birds..

O Christmas Tree

Long day...

Today has been a long day. I had a productive morning which always seems to make a tiring night. Somehow kids know when you're really tired and put on their worst behavior. It's been fun.

I also found out (but am not shocked to learn) that I didn't know almost everything about parrots. Come to find out, my birds are completely unhealthy birds. You can tell if a bird is healthy in their wing color, their beak color, and also in their beak shape and length. Having black in their coloring is a sign of malnutrition. Same with any discoloration of their beaks and when they malnourished their beaks grow longer and jagged. Eclectus's of all parrots are excellent talkers at a very early age unless they are either malnourished or neglected or both. I've read up on diet and we're on our way to getting healthy, however it will take about a year to see any progress...which is also how long it will take my birds to get the cigarette stench out of their feathers. Needless to say, I'm still glad I saved my birds from the hell they were living in, but I sure wish I hadn't paid as much.

Back from the dead

I've been thinking I might get back into blogging again, not because anyone reads this because they probably don't but for the heck of it I guess. I tried Facebook for a while and decided I wasn't a fan. Since my blog is open to the world I guess I'll follow my old rules of not mentioning my kids names or uploading their pictures. Anyway, I didn't look when my last post was but I'm guessing at least a year ago. Z and I bought a couple different dogs only to realize we aren't cut out for puppies. For the record he was just as sick of them as I was if not more. For quite a while he had his fish and I had my parakeet. My chirpy little bird has always irritated him because it's so small and can't talk. Really it's an adorable little bird though. Well that wasn't the point, the real point was that last Friday we bought two Eclectus'. They're beautiful parots and one thing really cool about this bird species is that most parots have to be sexed to know if you have a male or female. Not so with these guys. The males are a beautiful bright green and the females are red and blue. Our birds came from a dirty house filled with smoke and so our pretty birds stink. Nontgeless we love them. They are very sweetly tempermented and a fun addition to our family. Their names are Oliver (Ollie) and Roxanne (Roxi). They are supposed to be great talkers but so far ours bark and honk. Christmas is almost here and we're almost ready. Going to spend some time with my aunt and uncle shortly for the holiday. Also trying to make our own family traditions still. So far we have our Advent Wreath (a Catholic thing), setting up our tree late, no lights on the house (one day we'd like to change that..), big candy bars for kids, not too many presents, and I think that's it. I wish we had a good Christmas eve tradition and a yummy breakfast tradition. Well it's getting late and I don't want to outdo myself in my blogging. So goodnight blog world, I might see you again sometime. We'll see.

Life in a nutshell

Well summer has only just begin and is almost over all at once.  Kids have all grown up tons.  Ashlyn and I have started knitting thanks to grandma.  Baby projects have kept me busy and so has Natalie.  In my spare time I've been teaching myself to sew from what I can remember of my dear old mom's sewing lessons.  We have lots of family coming to town at the end of this month, sadly Karlie won't be here to see them.  Obviously she's disappointed, but there isn't anything we can do.  The rest of us are all looking forward to seeing our out of town family.  If you count the months by dividing the weeks then I'm 8 months pregnant now (gets confusing since there are 40 weeks but only 9 months).  This is my most active baby so far.  He's been kicking early and kicking tons!  It's nice to know he's doing OK in there so I don't mind.  I have a big court battle coming up with the ex....other than that, nothing else is new. 

Puppy?!?!

iTouch vs. Zune

At first glance the Zune looked like a great product because it was nearly the same as the iTouch but you can get the radio and it's much cheaper.  Keith bought one so he could listen to the radio at work.  Within about a week and a half his brand new Zune kicked the bucket.  He got online and figured out the warranty process so I drove it to the UPS store to be shipped back to Microsoft.  A few weeks later we got back a refurbished Zune.  Kind of BS since we paid full price now for a refurbished product.  Zune number 2 didn't last a day, so we sent it back and got yet another one.  Guess what, Zune number 3 also didn't work and we're still waiting for Zune number 4.  Now that we've had a Zune since April and so far never had one that works AND have a year warranty that somehow expires in February I'd say we're a bit disappointed.  To top it off, the warranty is only good to the original owner, so we can't sell it and have the person who buys it covered under the warranty and according to different forums it's impossible to have Microsoft refund your money. 

In the meantime, Keith broke down and bought an iTouch.  It's awesome and so is it's warranty!  It has a ton more accessories as well as apps.  As for the Zune, maybe we can sell it on ebay (if it even works) and recoup some of our lost money.

Oh BOY!

I went to the Dr. last Weds. and the baby is doing great.  We found out we're having a boy.  We're so excited!!!  We're going to name him Ryan.  We let the parents know today that it's a boy by making them a picture frame with all our kids in it and an ultra sound picture of little Ryan that said "Grandson."  It turned out really cute.  We have some cute kids, which helps.  =) 

Everyone here is doing good.  Natalie has learned how to climb on the chairs and can't get down.  She's still a little tyrant!  She's also learned to bite.  Speaking of the devil, I need to go get her off my bathroom sink now.  Guess I'll never have time to really blog! 

Over the Rainbow

I've been waiting to blog after things settle down around here.  The last several days a depression hit me that I couldn't seem to break out of.  Usually I can break out of these moods but this last one has been a hard one.  I was crying several times a day for Karlie and her non existent friends around here.  That situation has hopefully ended well because there is a girl several houses down that IS allowed to play with her and this little girl seems more Karlie's style anyway.  This girl comes from a family with six kids that moved here from out of state so they're a little nicer than your typical local families. 

Just as things were seeming crappy, I ran into a relative that I could have lived without seeing again when Keith and I took Natalie to Walmart yesterday.  He's a cousin of mine from my dad's side of the family.  When I got divorced from my ex husband he chose my ex over me.  He took me by surprise when he came up to say hi.  At first I was sort of more friendly than I would have liked to have been just because I was so off guard.  He asked me if I still had my old job.  I let him know the brief story about how my mom and sister got me fired and how I had a felony charge over the whole thing.  Later when I thought about everything I really wished that I had thrown in more things about how crappy my family is.  Oh well, missed opportunity.  Then I told him that it's OK, I'm used to family screwing me over....kind of like how he did when he chose my ex over me when I got my divorce.  The whole thing went down hill from there and I ended up telling him to not stop me next time because I don't know who he is and I walked off with my family.  It was a pretty moment in the middle of Walmart with everyone walking by looking at us while I was crying the whole time.  Ahhh life!  Thank you for these moments.  The good news about this is that I wanted to tell him for a long time how rotten I thought he was for standing by such a jerk when everyone stood by that jerk and left me alone but I'm his family and he should have stood by me.  It's finally been said and now that chapter of my life is closed.

And to top off all the bad, I haven't slept in forever.  It's like as soon as I lay down anxiety hits me.  My mind is racing everywhere and I can't stop.  This morning I was done with kids.  They've been home on spring break and I've done all the work myself while they've sat around or ran off and played.  Luckily for everyone in the house I got a nap today when Natalie did and woke up much happier than I've been all week.  I think I'm finally back to an upswing again in life.  Man I hate it when life kicks your butt!

So there it is.  My life has sucked lately but things aren't as bad as they did seem and it's getting better by the moment.  Now I'm going to go to bed and hope I can sleep.  If not I guess I'll be reading Sense And Sensibility because for some reason I'm hooked on the classics right now.

Good Night!

Well, it's been a while!

Not much has changed in the last forever.  Keith is still in school, I'm still out of work and home with the kids, kids are still growing, baby is still growing, life is still going on.  Keith and I are nearly done with our Catholic classes but still no closer to being baptized.  I think our priest is waiting until after Easter to go over our paperwork with us.  The miracle of having a million divorces is that you can't just join the Catholic church until they are annulled.  Most of the others in our class will be baptized on Easter.

I'm 16 weeks pregnant as of yesterday.  Our baby is about the length of a tube of mascara.  I think that on our next visit we would be able to know the sex of the baby except that this time I want a surprise.  It's going to be a girl anyway though, the heart beat is fast like a girl.  I told Keith that he could have them show us the sex as long as they don't say so we can guess.  Unless the picture REALLY gives it away then I'm going to stick with girl.  Ashlyn is really hoping boy on this one.  Boy will she be disappointed!  Luckily kids get over that disappointment really fast when they hold their cute little sibling for the first time.

Natalie has learned how to open doors.  Luckily we got the egg shaped door knobs so we can't buy the door handles that make it so they can't get in the door because they wont fit our handles.  We knew this when we chose them though so I'm hoping that I can teach her where and when she can go in certain doors quickly.  I took her to the Dr.'s today.  She's in the top 90's percentile on everything!  She is 33.5 inches tall (93%), 29 lbs. 15 oz. (97%) and her head circumference is 19 inches (90%).  She pretty much hated most of the visit except the cuddling when we were waiting for the Dr. and the sucker at the end.  They have these smartie suckers that are great!  No mess, lots of happiness...I'm going to buy some next time I'm at Costco!

Ashlyn is doing good.  She's found some friends around here and seems like she's doing really good.  She enjoys school and is planning on taking some classes next year that will give her college credits.  I'm really proud of her!

Karlie is having a hard time around here, although she doesn't show it too much.  Ever since I got mad at the neighbor next door for letting her dog come dump in our yard, now not only is the girl her age at that house not allowed to play with Karlie, the mom over there has made it so all the girls in the neighborhood avoid Karlie.  There are three little girls and Karlie likes all of them but too bad.  As soon as they start playing with Karlie the kids are called in and not allowed out later.  It really makes me mad.  I'm having a hard time understanding how such supposedly good people are so awful.  I'm also having a hard time in trying to love my enemies.  I guess it's a work in progress.

Keith has been busy at work.  Since getting this new job he's had a lot of changes.  He's feeling how it feels to have a "normal office job" and also experiencing what it is to be respected and valued.  I'm really glad that he works in a better area now!

And me...well I'm tired so goodnight!  =)

Happy Anniversary!

Last year before we got married Keith and I wrote e-mails to each other and sent them through futureme.org so we would get them on our first anniversary.  When I read mine this morning it made my day!

Dear Rachel,

I remember seeing you for the very first time 4 years ago at Marks house.  You had a gorgeous smile and a body to die for.  I hoped that I would be able to get you to notice me.  I had not planned on meeting anyone that night, and never expected to be meeting anyone like you.  I knew as soon as you were getting into my car that we had a little chemistry between us.  Then at the club, I tried every thing I could to get you to notice me, and finally you did. I wasnt planning on staying out late because I worked at 6am the next morning.  I couldnt get enough of you and ended up spending the rest of the night with you and leaving to go to work strait from where we were at.  From that day on we have spent almost all of our free time together. Over the next few years we have had our battles, however we have been able to weather all the storms so far.

Then a year ago we got married, it was a quick little ceremony and then we were off to Mexico for the honey moon.  I hope you had a wonderful time and we made great memories to last a life time (especially since who knows when we will ever get a chance to go back).  Which leads us to today, our first anniversary.  I hope the past year has been a great time for both of us and that we havent had any major issues come up.  I just wanted to know that I do love you and you are still the best thing that has ever happened to me.  As the song goes " You are my sunshine, my only sun shine...You make me happy when skies are gray,  You'll never no dear how much I love you...So please don't take my sunshine away"    You do make me happy, and even when we argue, I would still rather be with you then anyone else in the world.  I hope I have been able to make you happy during the past year and I hope we have many more happy years to come.
I love you and I look forward to seeing you tonight.

I love you Keith!  Happy anniversary!  

"Some love lasts a life time; true love lasts forever!" -Just some quote I found somewhere that made me think of Keith.  =)