Tonight we sat out with the neighbors and chowed down on bbq and salad while playing with guns. Yes, there were real guns, but none of them had bullets… the guns we shot were just bb guns and a paintball gun.

So what if I missed the targets 99% of the time? It was fun! Riding the 4 wheeler was even more fun. At first I said no, because the one brought out tonight is small, and I’m not… but I’m glad I did. It was actually a blast. Maybe next time I’ll try the big one… who knows.

On to this weeks menu! Chris is home this week (yay!), so I have to do more than heat up something. I don’t like eggplant, which is this weeks ingredient, and neither does Chris. Normally I would give it another try, just one more… but Chris has been wonderful the past few weeks, and tried fresh tuna, sweet potatoes, mushrooms, stir fry, AND tomatoes, so I am not going to push another thing on him… out of everything he tried, only the tomatoes got a hard no, and the mushrooms and sweet potatoes were an “eh”… fresh tuna and stir fry (plus the sweet potatoes and mushrooms) opens our menu options up quite a bit, so I am not going to complain.

Thanks to Fresh Ginger for hosting this weeks menu swap!

Monday
Breakfast: Rice Chex & coffee
Lunch: Enchiladas
Dinner: Mexa Slop

Tuesday:
Breakfast: Rice Chex & coffee
Lunch: Chicken & rice soup
Dinner: Steak, corn on the cob, and baked potatoes

Wednesday
Breakfast: Rice Chex & coffee
Lunch: Enchiladas
Dinner: Teriyaka Tuna Stirfry and rice.

Thursday
Breakfast: Rice Chex & coffee
Lunch: Pot Roast Soup
Dinner: Grilled chicken, sweet potatoes, and peas

Friday
Breakfast: Rice Chex & coffee
Lunch: Enchiladas
Dinner: Salmon & Corn Chowder (in my new slow cooker, yeehaw!)

Lately I haven’t been writing because there are a lot of things going on in my life that I am afraid of sharing. I live in fear of saying the wrong thing. Not because I may get negative feedback, but because I simply hate to be… wrong. I am much more of an… idiot, in person, than I convey myself to be online. With a keyboard I can deliberate and think, making sure everything sounds just so. I can delete and reword until it looks right, to me at least. I have always cherished the beauty of the computer, for that one reason.

Unfortunately it keeps me from writing, because I am to tired to sit here and police my every word. Especially lately, with a bunch of drama, which is ¾’s good, ¼ awful going on around me. I want to write about these things, but don’t have the energy or will to find the perfect words to do so. I fear that Chris’ family will find this blog and use it as ammunition, so I don’t write about them… and I desperately need to. A friend recommended I start a blog just for friends, but I am to lazy for that.

Part of me wants you to tell me to just write. To not worry about how strange or uneducated my words will be, to cheer me and on encourage me to share what I need to about the things we are dealing with…but the other part of me revels in this new desire for privacy, and the need to hold things in. Growing up I was always a blabber mouth with people I trusted. I told everyone everything, even my mother. The past few years I have been learning to hold things back, and appreciate my own counsel…but that gets me so wound up. So I’d rather you not say anything at all.

You see, this post makes no sense to me. Pushing the save & post button will be extremely difficult, because I don’t want to publish nonsense… but I will. So here we go. Maybe going this far will make letting for of the rest easier.

These are just a few of the pictures, there were so many cameras and flashes going on, I don’t have them all yet.

I am parting ways with my lovely Nokia Music Express 5300 in beautiful Lilac.

T-Mobile has been a wonderful carrier for the past 2 years, but the time has come to move on from leeching off my Mom and get my own cellphone account. It cost a lot of money to get things set up, because my credit sucks, so Sprint wanted deposits, but we did it in my name to help build that sucky credit… so the deposits are paid… and in less than a week I will have a full keyboard for texting!

So two brand new Rumors (mine is white, Chris’ is Blue) are on their way… and then both of us will be able to cut that last finical string to our parents.

And let me tell you, that membership is worth it. The hotel and camping discounts rock, you get a discount at Napa, and having it actually got PimpDaddyPain a raise. Last week the company truck broke down in Ephrata, and PDP just had it towed on our card. Saved the company $400, so the boss gave PDP raise… which netted us over $80 extra on his paycheck. That almost pays for the membership. And it’s saved us so much money on parts and travel. When my Mom told me what my wedding gift was I muttered, but it’s the best thing we got!

Back to the trip… instead of driving to Ephrata/Moses Lake by myself on Tuesday I am just going to go with the crew when they leave Monday morning. It means a night of camping with the “guys”, fishing, golfing, and time to explore a new city. We’re going to leave the moment PimpDaddyPain gets off work, and just drive to Eugene (and then down to Coos Bay) from where the job site is. So I have to have the house in order and everything packed by tomorrow. We have already missed the last two weeks of church, and I have a feeling we will miss tomorrow as well… just so much to do!

The landlord is keeping Whiskey for us, and they’ll be checking on the cat as well… so it’s just going to be us, which makes things much easier. If we can find a decently priced universal hitch in Oregon we may be towing back the rest of our stuff, just depends on how much time we have to shop while we’re there…every day in Oregon is planned out to the hour, and I don’t know how much free time we’ll have between the bridal shower, bachelorette party, rehearsal dinner, the WEDDING!!!, the reception, and then a big family barbecue to celebrate several different things. This will be the first time my Dad’s family, my Mom’s family, PimpDaddyPain’s family, and all of our friends are in one place together! It’s certainly going to be interesting.

I doubt I will be online - so if you e-mail me please be patient. I am scared of what my feed reader is going to look like when I can finally check it on the 11th. Text me girls, I will miss you all!

A week from tomorrow you will be a married woman. Every time you hit a milestone, I tear up and wonder why time has to go by so fast. We’re only 3 years apart, so I can’t sit here and tell you much about life, but I can tell you that watching you get married is going to make me feel old.

So often you and I are on completely different pages. I would definitely say we are closer now than we have ever been before, but with every grown up choice we make, the bond only tightens. Sometimes loving you is overwhelming and difficult, because we are so different…and you are so much like Dad. There have been times in the past two years when you were the only thing that kept me going. I tried to be strong for you, because Mom couldn’t be, and I felt it was my responsibility.

I am scared to walk down the aisle ahead of you, because in a way you’ll no longer be mine. Part of me wants to grab you like you were still as little as you were in the picture above, and run far away from our lives of responsibility and adulthood. I want to hold you close, and keep your near, and rewind to the years where we walked down dusty roads with pocketfuls of change, and moaned about having to go to church four times a week. Most of all I fear watching you stand in front of Uncle Steve instead of Dad.

Is it silly to be hurt that it’s going to be someone else doing your ceremony? Of course I felt the loss at my own, but that was different… I never actually expected to things the traditional way. You did. And I hurt for you, knowing that it won’t be the happiest moment of your life, because you’re going to walk through those doors towards the man you love, and Daddy isn’t going to be there to speak God’s words, binding you and Ryan together for life. As much progress as we’ve made in our grief, I know you well enough to know it’s going to ache for a moment… and that’s not fair. So I’m mad at him for you. Which is stupid, and crazy, but incredibly real. He’s supposed to be here for this, for you, for me, for us…

Us… it’s so different now, and it’s only to go get worse with every year that goes by. We’ve all made our choices and walked our own roads, and although life is wonderful and fantastic… I miss the us we used to be. Not just the us we were with Dad, but the US we were without him, and without anyone else. You know how much I hate changed, and for some reason the complete turn around my life has done because of my marriage (which I do not regret, and in fact cherish) is just striking me now. You told me once with your vows, the Schenewerk’s coming to an end… and I just laughed. We have cousins, and grandparents, and we will forever be Schenewerk’s, but will never be THE Schenewerk’s again. I guess I’m just rambling now… but goodness, I needed to get this out.

On the phone tonight I told you something a fantastic friend told me before I went to The Hitching Post with Chris. You have my permission to fail. Becky, you can screw up, you can hate it at times, and you can quit. And you understood just what I meant. I wasn’t sure you would, and the fact you did made me cry. We’re on the same page right now, and I’m hoping it doesn’t flip for some time.

I love you. Completely, and forever. Good luck, and cheers. I am so glad you’re happy.

Love,

Rachel