The Same Ol' Cracker...

Growing up I remember that the ladies in my family all really knew how to cook wonderful meals and I mean cook! I must preface the remainder of the story with the reality of my family. While growing up most all the women stayed home while the men worked outside of the home. The women were responsible for cooking, cleaning, making appointments, and the small people running around their homes. This is likely where I got my warped sense that my husband should manage all vehicle issues, outdoor work and I will handle the indoor work and appointments for children, etc. This also includes cooking for the family!

With all of that said I have absolutely NO idea how my mother or any of the other women in my family figured out how to make good meals that the kids enjoyed and kept up a good variety. I feel like I am making the same meals over and over and over again and soon the family is going to notice and there will be a mutany.

I work outside of the home, I have little to no energy when I return home...oh hell, even on days I don't work I don't have much energy to cook and do all the other stuff necessary. I really don't ever feel like cooking but child protective services would prefer I not starve my children! Recently I've started writing out a menu for a week and then grocery shopping specifcally for that menu. It not only saves my sanity when I know what I'm making and what I need to thaw while I am at work or the night before but it also saves us money to only get what is needed from the grocery store.

It wasn't until just a couple of days ago I e-mailed my childhood friend, Carrie and asked her what types of things she makes for her family for dinner. Carrie's mother and mine were dear friends for a very long time and very frequently cooked the same types of really yummy dinners. Eating at Carries was always just as good as Mom's cooking at home and even better during Lent (I used to be Catholic) when we didn't eat meat on Fridays and if you were lucky enough for an invite to dinner when they were serving waffles with ice cream! YUMMO!

So...Carrie makes a lot of similar meals but there has to be some different things that I just can't think of so I e-mailed her and then we talked about sharing our recipes through a weekly exchange. Then it dawned on me that I have this great recipe section on here where we can all share recipes! I would just ask that if you have a great recipe that your family loves that is easy enough to make after a long day of working or that can be cooked in a crock pot...PLEASE SHARE with me and the others who follow the blog. You can e-mail me your recipes at rachelperez01@comcast.net and I will share them if you would like. If you don't want me to share them on the blog but want to share with me...I'll be just as grateful!

This could be a great place to come to get those home cooked meal recipes that we all loved growing up or love because we've tried them in our own kitchens and they were a huge success. I have shared some of mine already and will add to that but I am excited to try other's recipes also. Please share so we can all make life a little easier (not having to really think to come up with something for dinner is such a nice little luxury).

Thanks all and happy cooking!

A Geo Metro, Grace and and a Chubby Chef in Training

We have had an inoperable golf cart in our garage for quite some time. Dan has had great intentions of making it operable but little to no time to get that project going. So finally, Dan decided he was going to get online and find himself an old Geo Metro in the classifieds and salvage the engine so he could turn this golf cart into a street ready hot rod (okay well not really).

The idea was to turn this battery operated golf cart into a gas powered golf cart, give it tail lights, signals and all those things you would need to have on a street if it were dark out. The reasoning behind this is he wants this golf cart to be our new Halloween mobile. Since he paints vehicles for a living he intends to paint the now canary yellow golf cart black and airbrush some spiders, bats and other cool creepy halloween things on it. Eventually it is what we will use to cart our kids around the neighborhood on Halloween night for trick-or-treating. Let me tell you the kids (and Dan) are nothing short of pumped for this thing to be done but...it takes time and we still had to find an engine.

Last fall Dan found a really inexpensive Geo Metro. One night after work we ventured with the boys to a REALLY rough part of Minneapolis and found the address we were looking for.

In between two other condemned duplex houses was a very shabby, falling apart duplex kitty corner from where I was watching a drug deal take place and surrounded by people that would normally make me run the other direction in day light or dark. Dan proceeded to get out and go to the door. I decided to sit in the back of the truck with the boys in their car seats (why I didn't pick the drivers seat with the car running is beyond me).

Dan disappeared into one of the doors of the duplex and then we sat, and we sat, and we sat. When I began thinking that someone had killed him dead, stolen the cash from his pocket and left him there I began to panic and thought about getting out and getting to the front seat to grab my cell phone and call him (again, not sure why I didn't have the phone with me already). It was then I realized that I couldn't get out because the child locks were on and I was so wedged into the door by the two car seats that I couldn't really move. I sat for a few more minutes watching several more drug deals on the corner and being completely scared for our lives. Dan finally came out and told me he made the deal and that we had to pull around to the alley to get the car on the car dolly. The alley? Really? Ok, let's go to the alley!

So we go to the alley and there is 75lb Grace, the woman who sold Dan the car and we have to get this thing onto the dolly. Dan gets in this car which is FAR too small for my 6'4" husband. Grace (75lbs) and me (a few more lbs) begin pushing this thing while Dan steers to get it on the dolly. HA, yeah right! So while we make several unsuccessful attempts at this Grace is telling me that her son is upstairs making her a birthday dinner. She explains he is a chef in training and I am picturing this scrawny guy whipping up some merengue or something. She then describes him as a 275+ lb guy and I'm all wondering "so why the hell isn't HE out here pushing this car instead of you since you might drop dead at any moment". Finally the son comes downstairs and he gives one shove and the car is on the dolly! WOOOHOOOO!!!!! Grace and the big boy went in after a quick exchange of courtesies.

This is when the shit really hit the fan! Dan decided it was a good idea to pull the car onto a flat surface to get the tie downs on? Even saying this I am wondering how in God's name he thought this was a good plan and I warned him, I really did but I trusted he knew something about a car dolly and it's magic hold on a car even when said car is not tied down so I went with it. Then it happened...the car rolled off the dolly and I stood there wondering how we would ever get big boy back downstairs after his very kind willingness to come down and offer his help before (aka: Grace yells COME DOWN HERE WE CAN'T GET THIS THING ON)!

Dan and I stood staring at the tragedy for a few moments before we looked around us and saw some of the locals walking down the alley, others standing out on their back steps having a domestic (yes, I mean a true domestic) and Nick sitting in his car seat groaning "I'm hungry, I want some french fries". This was bad, really bad.

So we pushed, and pushed and pushed and pushed. Grace and the big boy were NOT coming back out, the domestic was getting louder and a little scary, the locals were eyeing the truck every time they walked by like they might try to hop in and take off even though we were just 10 feet away. We pushed that thing until we were both about to die. It was when Nick started to yell louder "I'm HUNGRY, I WANT FRENCH FRIES" that Dan hopped up on the dolly started pulling the car with me pushing from the back end that we managed to get that Geo Metro onto the dolly and pull a shoulder and a lower back muscle. It's funny how all the scary things happening around you aren't near as motivating as your child becoming increasingly annoying about his demanding hunger!

We got that bitch tied down and we were outta there (almost two hours later). Nick got dinner and we had this amazing piece of shit in our driveway that would soon be cut into small pieces and thrown away to reveal the ENGINE!

As I write, Dan is out mounting said engine to the golf cart in hopes that he can get this project done for Halloween. In the end it will all be worth it but at that moment...I would have left the car and the cash and ran for my life without looking back even for a second. It was a pretty funny scene and leaves me chuckling each time I remember.

To Speak or Not to Speak?

It has recently come to my attention that my 18 month old should be starting to say a little more than "mama", "hi", "wow", "die" (which in Danny language means Daddy) and "uh oh".
Danny however much prefers to scream like someone is attempting to murder him. I have attempted everything short of swatting him with a rolled up newspaper in his snout to get him to stop. The noise he produces is painful and agonizing and he won't stop! God help me I can't make it stop!

I was talking with a co-worker who happens to have several grown children and grandchildren and she looked at me square in the face, chuckled and said "Why should he talk? He doesn't have to." It was then that I realized that she was completely correct. Daniel does not have to talk because EVERYONE in our house (and that's almost a baseball team) speaks for him. Why would he ever need to say anything when between his parents and siblings he just has to make a noise and he gets what he needs. Of course that also means his noises must be LOUD because everyone is always talking in our house. I have raised a household of talkers...imagine that!

Saying "hi" is funny and cute because it makes everyone laugh and pay attention and saying "wow" (sort of like (WOOAAAAHHH) is really great and everyone laughs hysterically. Why should he ever say anything else?

 I was completely convinced that he does not understand the english language (oh, and by the way screw sign language...he is the one kid that looks at me all like "whatever mom you look like a moron with all that hand shit you're doing).
I was totally wrong, he understands perfectly. Like when I say "Daniel please get your baby and bring it to Daddy (die)" HE DOES IT! So I try more "Daniel please get mommy your fire truck and show me the ladder" and HE DOES IT!!!! This little man knows exactly what words mean and how to follow directions, even those with several steps and he is CHOOSING not to talk to us! I have never had a child who doesn't love to talk. I am so confused and besides who wouldn't want to talk to me?

I guess I'll just chalk it up to the fact that he really is his father's son. Dan really doesn't talk much either (it's the whole opposites attract stuff). I guess we will see on his first day of Kindergarten if he screams at his teacher or simply says "hi" and expects her to start laughing hysterically in complete adoration. Oh boy! It's gonna be a long road.

All I can say is "WOW"

Jipped

Is it fair that when your child's life is cut short that you feel jipped? Every person, every book, every article about losing a child and the grief that follows explain emotions such as anger, sadness, loneliness, depression, even happiness. How about jipped? No one ever mention jipped and I feel friggin' jipped!!!!!

How about when it is the first day of what should have been your child's senior year of high school and then it will be the date that she should have gone to her senior homecoming dance, father daughter dance, prom, graduation, college, first job, wedding, first home, babies...when the hell do they talk about this feeling like I was robbed of all of those things?

It was all a part of the plan (my plan anyway). I had this lovely girl at age 18 but that was okay because I was going to kick ass as a mom. I was going to prove everyone wrong and that I could be an amazing parent, responsible and loving, nurturing and supportive and just because I was young didn't mean I couldn't be a good parent! I was going to raise my girl to be self sufficient, responsible, to be a contributing member of society and to be compassionate and loving and how to be strong like the other women I was raised around. My reward was going to be that I would be just 36 years old when she graduated high school and that I would be a young grandmother and that I would have enormous amounts of energy to play with my grandkids and teach them too. My mind painted pictures of dressing her in a long white gown and getting her ready for her wedding, helping her pick decorations for her first home and eventually of being by her side in a hospital room when she had a baby of her own. When I was a young girl I didn't fantasize about my own wedding and about my own fairytale. I had many aspirations to be many great things but my greatest fantasies began when Maryah was born and I began to let myself imagine her being the grown up young lady that I always wished for her to be.

I have been jipped. I have hit a wall and this is all I can focus on at the moment. I realize of course that I am not the only one who has been jipped by this loss but I certainly do feel very alone with my feelings. It's ok though, I want to be. No one ever tells you that you will always want to be alone either but it's true. I am sure it will pass but for now it feels really great to just be alone with all of this bull shit going on inside of my heart and mind.

I keep hearing about more and more kids that are passing, cancer is robbing their families the same way it robbed ours and it stings my already tortured heart. I cannot imagine anyone else having to bare this burden. I just want it to stop. Children should NOT die before their parents.

I hope that some day these feelings will turn into action and I will help to find a way to make it stop. Until then...here's one for the books:

Following the death of your child you will feel grief through many emotions. At different times you will feel sad, lonely, aching, heart wrenching pain, anger, depression, more heart wrenching pain, you might also feel happy now and again but you will feel that along with the heart wrenching pain so it will be bitter sweet. You will likely forever feel jipped.

I wish someone would print that in one of the many grief journals.

The Moments That Count

I have been struggling to find the funny, the happy, the joyful things to write about until just now when I realized why. I can't write anything else, get beyond this "block" I am having until I write while the music is blaring her favorite songs, about my girl, my inspiration, MyRyah.

I have been racking my brain thinking about who I know, how well I know them and can I really contact these folks to ask them for help. Since I found out about Children's Lighthouse of MN (the first children's hospice/respite center) in MN I have been really planning in my head about reaching out to those I attended CDH with that have public attention. I have thought this but have not yet acted because I couldn't bring myself to reach out to these folks in fear that they would think I was "using" them somehow. I mean how would you not think that? When someone calls you or FBs you or e-mails you after 15+ years to say "hey do you remember me from HS?" It seems so fake, such bull shit and when you are trying to live genuinely it seems ridiculous!!!

Then I remembered clearly the moment that I sat on my living room couch with Zach looking on at our five year old daughter playing quietly on the floor and clearly hearing the conversation when we said "She will do great things and lead many people, some how, some way!" How could we have known? How could a parent know that when a child is so young? There has always been SOMETHING. I can't place exactly what one thing it is with Maryah but she had "it".

I imagine these men and women I am considering contacting have "it" too. I imagine them playing in their yards and homes as children and their parents thinking that there was something about them. I imagine this because I believe God has somehow marked those destined for greatness so that those of us here doing the every day work (important but not so widely public) can see and nurture that greatness. I imagine that the moments that we realize this are among the important moments in our lives. They were children, like my girl, they are great like my girl and they have the ability to touch and lead thousands like my girl. They need to know about this project, they need to know about this opportunity to use God's given gifts and partner with Maryah and make CLM a reality for our MN kids.

I sit here this morning and I know that there are big things that must be accomplished in Maryah's honor and CLM is one of them. I know that I need to get past my heart ache and work hard for her. I know that

I need to remember the moments that count:

"Thank you Mom for taking care of me for all this time."
"I love you Mom, you are my best friend."
"I don't want to die mommy but I'm not afraid"
Three squeezes of the hand, the stillness of her big, beautiful heart and knowing she was leaving my arms to be in my mother's arms and more importantly in God's arms.
The final hugs and kisses.
The touch of Dan's cheek to let him know how much he was loved by her.
The final words to the boy she loved and the best friend she will never be far from.

We all live our lives so that we might feel pure joy and the real moments that fill our heart and mind. I have lived many of these moments already. MY daughter was great...she was destined for greatness...she was given a job directly from God and she did it REALLY well...she did it fully and she used up her gift until the final breath of her life.  She is MY daughter...how humbling! I hit my knees daily to thank God for giving me such a HUGE gift. He trusted me, simple me to care for someone so special and to nurture that greatness. I am truly beside myself with humility as I take that in.

She was here, her legacy will live on and I will find a way to make those contacts to speak to these people that are also destined for greatness and I pray to God that they will somehow know her spirit and speak up for the need for this hospice center. She didn't lead me to this project for nothing. I need to make big things happen exactly how she would have. I won't stop trying until my last breath.

The funny blog posts will come, they will flow once again but for now there is work to be done and my inspiration will come again through working on something so important. I have to find a way to move with my grief again, this will be a process every day for the remainder of my life.

She was here, she lived, she loved, she was here, she did everything that she wanted, she lived her life so that everyone would know she was here. She brought us together in her name to do something that will help so many others.

Today my blog is the link to my heart and has helped me to tap into those moments that count to bring me back from a place that was blurry.

I won't forget Maryah...I will keep living and taking care of all of the people and the things you've asked me to! I promise.

A Little Excessive?

So my soap box blog post about everything in excess begins with school supply shopping. We get to superstore X and get our cart in gear and ready for the race to get all things SCHOOL! And we're off...back pack, notebooks, pencil holder, wide tip markers, fine tip markers, crayons (24 not 48), pens of red and pens of black, highlighters, pearl erasers, pocket folders and notebooks in red, yellow, purple and blue and then 48 PENCILS! Who in the hell needs 48 pencils? I am not sure God could find use for 48 brand new pencils in just nine short months that include holiday breaks and miscelaneous days off. That's like a new pencil every third or fourth day. It's not only that they need  48 PENCILS but they must be sharpened and God help you if you don't have access to an electric sharpener...talk about carpal tunnel!

Come to think of it I am quite certain that out of all of those pencils not a single, solitary pencil has come home in the spring! Where do they all go? Do they eat them? Do they throw them away when they are only half used? Where are the pencils? 48 pencils is a lot of gosh darn pencils! We won't even get into the fact that Superstore X has eight billion wide ruled, spiral notebooks of all colors EXCEPT yellow which is on the local school supply list which is posted in said superstore!

Let's talk about socks and underwear...so now we are out of the school supply section armed with Elmer's white glue and ten thousand glue sticks incase the old standard Elmers isn't going to cut it and our fiskars scissors (in case the generic brand doesn't cut the same).
We move on to find some general items for all the kids where we find that really only one kid needs new socks and one kid needs new underwear but in case your entire family and some of the neighbor kids need some they come in packs of 7,000. I'm just sayin'...you can't ever have too many socks and cotton underpants according to superstore X's packaging strategies.

Well, it's short but sweet because I have to get moving so I can sharpen all those penils so God help them, the children won't be sent home or held back a year because they came with only 47 sharpened no.2 pencils. Whew! I have a lot of work to do!

Happy School Year!

Blog Police?

So I've got this odd feeling that if I don't come up with something creative and post on this blog often enough I will be in "trouble". LOL!  It seems silly I know but I feel the need to watch my back.

So I have a few random things rattling around in my mind that I will throw out there. Things I think are worth remembering, funny to me things that maybe no one gives a rip about!

First, I learned why they call Leech lake, Leech lake. I found this out while in the water up to my waist when my husband (up to his knees) is looking around in the water down below and is following something. Pretty soon he yells "holy cow that IS a leech!". Oh holy Jesus I about faint and drown right on the spot. I have a deep fear of leeches after having ten, count them, ten leeches attached to my feet sucking every ounce of blood from my body and bible camp when I was like 12. The screams could have been heard all the way back to St. Paul I'm sure of it which led to my mother coming that very night at my begging and pleading to please come and pick me up from this horrible leech infested camp!
Then, all of the sudden one of the boys pulls the darn thing out of the water and it's like four feet long and about as big around as Danny's arm! Dear LORD! Ok, so it was about six inches long and about as big around as my thumb but still...dear LORD! The leeches I have been scared of since age 12 were only an eighth of that size. This was the first of about four or five more of these blood sucking savages we saw on our trip to the beach. I had to be strong for the children. I had to hide my fear and show them how to be brave. This was all the while they were laughing at me hysterically and throwing the leeches at me while I screamed bloody hell!

Second, Nick has learned to pee standing up (thank you Angie, childcare provider extraordinaire and her son, "big Nick"). This really isn't THAT exciting but it leads me to Nick's funny of the month. Dan and I were enjoying dinner with the boys this week and while we were sitting at the table Nick announces loudly  that he has to go poop. Well, okay then...he was off to the potty and we continued to eat supper. About five minutes passed and we were listening to Nick doing his normal talking, quiet singing, etc. Then he belts out singing "WHO LET THE DOGS OUT? WHO? WHO? WHO? WHO? WHO?" this sent us into hysterics and now I've been singing the song all week. Too funny not to share!

Third, my heartfelt moment of the week was when I read a letter Morgan wrote to me on Wednesday when she was with me at work. In all my years as a mother there is really nothing that warms my heart more then when my kids leave me little letters to find when they are away. This one was no different and I suddenly realized that my little girl is growing up and developing into such a fine young lady! I am so very proud.

We will be heading out to do school shopping this weekend which I think will bring more stories and good humor so I should be able to keep the blog police from kicking down my door!

Hope everyone is enjoying the tail end of summer.

Tried to post cabin pictures but blogger is being an asshole!