Pity Post

Well, I'm feeling a little guilty for my non posts to this blog and wondering just what I should even do with it. Should I delete it? Should I just type "Blah, Blah's" to keep it active? My life has become one big filled calendar. I'm officially a full time student as of 2 weeks ago. My life has definitely changed. I'm managing, but that also depends if I can remember what my  address, telephone number, and if I can count all the kids I brought into this world.
Jeremy aka (Elder Rader) just got back from his mission about a month ago and although it has been an amazing journey with him, still feel claustrophobic with 4 adults in the house. He is currently registered and attending TMCC with Emily and I as a full time student. Between encouragement to help him find a job, piano and music lessons for John and Kate, full time schooling, planning and taking meals for compassionate service, plus find time to bake bread, sew skirts for the girls, and have my genealogy lined up back to Adam, I can say I'm losing my mind. (I know, I don't do all that... but I'm still adding it for a more intensified effect) I'm feeling overwhelmed to say the least. I'm mad at my history teacher for posting trick questions which have nothing to do with the chapter and the playdough for my special ed class keeps finding its way into the hands of a little 7 and 11/12'th old girl.
So, as I was browsing through the blog list of the friends I have, stumbled across this stress diet that is fit for all. I've posted her blog so you can see what a talented lady she is... which now gives me one more reason to be overwhelmed that I am not creating and doing all of the neat things she is doing. ( I tried,...  but the glitter is still stuck in my hair)

http://thehouseofwhimsy.blogspot.com/

He's Baa- aackk!

Finally home!!

Just off of the plane with mom and dad. 

"Houston, I'm coming home!"

Today  our missionary son returns home.  I have waited two full years and 2 days for this moment and yet, I do not feel ready.  I am both nervous and excited at the same time. Sleep was  intermittent amidst counting Southwest and Delta Airline jets and Todd's snores.   Waking from my sleep for the umpteenth time, I envisioned his mission calendar with only 10 months crossed out.  Tossing and turning, I reminisce with myself about the concerns of the last 6 days, okay month:  Plane delays, snowstorms,  making connections, etc. Still yet, worries of smelly socks,  buying 2 more gallons of milk, and wondering just what all the excitement was all about.  My checklist for Elder Rader's arrival included the last post to his missionary blog, making  his bed, and adding another jar of peanut butter to the kitchen cupboard.   I have anticipated this event for so long that I am of the opinion that anticipation is just plain overrated.   Don't get me wrong, I really want him to come home... but the anticipation is literally sending me to my grave.   At this rate, I may go home before he does.

Summation of my son's mission

While being a member of the Missionary Moms website for some months, this e-mail was posted by a mom that read this article in the Deseret News  posted  Monday, June 23, 2008.  It sums up my feelings as a mother of a missionary.  Elder Jeremy Rader returns on Monday.    Enjoy!


Deseret News
Edition: All
Page: C01
Anxiously awaiting my missionary[0]
By Ann Cannon

    It's late enough to be truly quiet. There's no music blaring from the apartments down the street. No teenagers talking on the front lawn. No cats fighting on the front porch. No TV.
   No crickets, even. Just the sound of a clock and the distant whoosh of a solitary car. Still, I can't sleep.
   Our son returns from serving a mission for the LDS Church tomorrow, and I am crazy eager to see him. The extended family will be at the airport in all our stereotypical Mormon glory to welcome him home with hugs and tears and flashing cameras and possibly balloons, if I remember to buy them. Which I won't. But oh well.
   So yes. I'm thrilled. It's never been easy to let someone go, but in our age of instant telecommunication and access, not seeing or talking much to a kid for two years seems particularly hard, even artificial.
   But at the same time that I'm so happy, I'm also anxious. Downright scared, in fact.
   Scared? Of what?
   I try to analyze the reasons for my fear as I lie in bed, twisting the night away. Here's the list so far.
   1. I'm afraid that we've got the time wrong somehow and that he's been waiting for us at the airport. Since Friday.
   2. That even if we do have the correct ETA, we'll be late because my piece of crap German car might break down along the way, and I'll have to call Caesar (the Car Tow Guy!) to come rescue us. Again.
   3. That our son will be soooo physically changed we won't recognize him.
   4. That we'll be soooo physically changed he won't recognize us.
   5. That home is nowhere as good as he remembers it.
   6. That we, his family, are nowhere as good as he remembers us.
   7. That he will, in fact, think we're all slackers.
   8. Which, actually, we kind of are!
   9. That possibly he'll try to make us stop being slackers.
   10. (Which is a good idea but one to which some of his younger brothers might object.)
   11. That he'll also wonder how his dog got fat. (Answer: I fed her too much.)
   12. That he'll also wonder why we bought a second dog that weighs 160 pounds and drools.
   13. That his friends will have all moved on.
   14. That he'll be lonely because all his friends have moved on.
   15. That he'll wish with all his heart he was back in the mission field.
   That last one is the thing that scares me the most, because all you really want is for your beloved boy to be happy. And you understand that leaving something behind as absorbing as a mission must be difficult — as hard as it once was to leave home.
   The French novelist Anatole France observed that "all changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another."
   Saying goodbye to a mission is like experiencing a little death. And yet there's new life after it, too. And in some corner of my sleep-deprived brain, I know that my worries will fade in the bright light of morning.
   Hey. The kid will be fine.
E-mail: acannon@desnews.com

For Jeremy

Here are some last minute pictures to see for the holidays before you come home.

Wendy is on the far Right.