In loving Memory

My mother-in-law passed away this week, on Monday. She was diagnosed with cancer 3 years ago in March. For the last 11 months, she has been fighting for her life even more than the previous 2 years. The cancer had spread to her brain. She underwent radiation and more chemo and they were able to shrink the tumors some, but they came back with vengance and there was nothing they could do for her. She spent the last 6 weeks in a lot of pain.

She will be dearly missed. She was the most amazing, caring, loving, generous person that has ever lived. I hope I can be like her some day. I know she is in Heaven with her husband and I know she is happy. She is free of pain now and she is with the person she loves the most. She has missed him dearly. I know that we will be reunited when our time to leave this earth comes. We are an eternal family. My inlaws were sealed in the temple before my husband was born and Stan and I have been sealed in the temple. We are sealed as a family for time and all eternity through the power of the priesthood. I am so grateful for the restored gospel in this later day so we have the opportunity to be sealed together in the temple.

I made a slide show of photos from her life. I hope you enjoy this. You can find it at www.hodgefamily.net/elizabeth/ .

A big milestone

I have been doing Weight Watchers for over 2 years now. I have not been 100% on program the entire time, but I have been on program most of the time. My medications have the side effects of weight gain. I could tell that I have been fighting that side effect because when I started the medication is when I noticed I was having to work very hard for every little ounce I lost. I am very happy to announce that I have now lost 50 pounds. When I started WW, I was hoping to lose 50 pounds my first year. It has taken me longer than I had hoped, but I am still proud of this accomplishment. Here is a layout I made showing me and my WW leader, Jamie, taken the day I reached the 50 pound mark. Now, onto the next 50 pounds.

Good weekend

This has been a really good weekend. It didn't exactly go as planned, but that is OK. Stan and I were suppose to go to the temple yesterday, but Rachael ended up having a last minute dance rehearsal, so we had to postpone our temple trip. We are going to try to go on the 20th now instead. Saturdays are just so busy for us. It seems to be worse the older the kids get. We got some cleaning done around the house and a few errands taken care of.

Rachael and I got to go to a baptism yesterday evening. Her friend Natalie was baptized. She is the sister of the woman who directed the Savior of the World production. Natalie started coming to rehearsals to help her sister out. By the time it was over, Natalie had a testimony. Her parents didn't let her get baptized until yesterday though as they didn't want her to rush into a decision like this at such a young age. The baptism was wonderful. There were a lot of people there. I felt the spirit so strongly. I am so grateful for Natalie, Casey and Jane and the friendship they have with Rachael. She is so happy when she is around them. She is like that at dance too.

Speaking of friends, things are going so much better for Rachael at church. The girls are all getting along again. Rachael hung around after New Beginnings last week talking with the girls she previously hadn't been getting along with. It was good to see them talking like that again.

On Thursday night, we had a visit from Ben Parker. When I first moved to Austin, I started baby sitting Ben and his little brother Danny. Ben was 3 years old. Now, he is married and has a child of his own. His family left Austin in 1996 when they moved to Denver. I lived with his family for about 6 months when I was in high school. It was so good to see him again. I really miss the Parker family. I miss the long talks I would have with Jera. Their youngest child, Maegan, was my baby when she was little. I took care of her, did her hair and taught her all kinds of things. Maegan is all grown up and has 2 children now. It really makes me feel old.

photography class

I signed up for an online photography class that started this weekend. Our first assignment is about ISO. I've never really understood it much, but I think I do now. I still have 3 more photos to finish out the assignment, but here is my first photo for it.


This was my midday, outside shot. I need to do an inside shot, a shade shot, morning and night time shots. The morning one is going to be the hardest. I don't think about my camera first thing in the morning.

Sick Sunday

That is what today is. Actually, that would describe the entire weekend. Rachael got sick on Friday with cough, congestion and fever. Jeremy woke up in the middle of the night Friday night with a fever. He was so upset because yesterday was the Pinewood Derby for Cub Scouts. He has to miss the entire things. He has been looking forward to this for several years now. Each year that Andrew did the Pinewood Derby, Jeremy would tell me how long it was before he could race his own car. Now, the first year he can race and he is sick. Stan took his car and they raced it anyways. He got second place. Andrew took my old camera and took lots of pictures and video taped Jeremy's races for him. That made him much happier. He was surprised and excited about the trophy.

Everyone is doing better today. Rachael's fever is gone. She just has the cough and congestion left. She is going to go to New Beginnings tonight even though she didn't go to church today. She is suppose to sing a solo tonight at New Beginnings. Hopefully she is able to sing ok with the cough and congestion. Jeremy woke up with a fever this morning, but it is gone now, without any treatment. Hopefully it will stay away and not come back tonight. We will be staying away from grandma for a few days until we know for sure no one is contagious. Now, I just hope Stan and I can avoid getting sick. Stan can't afford to miss work and having a fever will mess with my MS.

Blown out of proportion

I comment that I made on my blog a week ago has been completely blown out of proportion. I never intended to attach anyone or offend anyone or be mean. What I meant when I talked about the problem being made worse with the girls at church is that Rachael has expressed concerns that she is very emotional right now and worries that things she may say or do are going to be taken personally and not in the context that she is trying to deal with her grandmother dying. In the past, things have been taken personally when they weren't meant that way and feelings were hurt that shouldn't have been. She started feeling like she always said the wrong thing and she is worried about that again. I wanted to express my hope that there would be more understanding than there was in the past since some of them have recently experienced what Rachael is going through. That I am aware of, there has been very little problems expressed between the girls involved. Rachael and I just FEAR that things will be misunderstood and that is making the issue worse from our point of view. In talking with the YW president, she said things seem to be going good with the girls. I was thrilled to hear that. I really want the drama to be over. Rachael is really trying to be kind. She did not talk with the girls about their father's death because she remembered that she didn't want to talk about her grandpa's death right after if happened. She didn't give them a hug or try to "distract" them because she didn't want to appear to be a fake since they have been fighting. She thought the nicest thing she could do was to just leave them alone so they could deal with their grief without being reminded of the problems. She was torn for days though, wondering what was the best thing to do. They seem to be trying to include her. They keep asking if she will play basketball, but she can't because she has a dance class on Saturday morning when the games occur. She was asked to play at mutual on Wednesday, but she had to rehearse her song for New Beginnings. I am pleased to hear this.

When I typed up the entry in question, it was only to express my concerns over my daughter and not to attack anyone or be mean. The purpose of this blog is to keep my family updated on how things are going. This blog isn't for attacking anyone or spreading rumors or anything else. If you come in contact with me in any way, then you might be mentioned on my blog. It just depends upon what is going through my head when I sit down to type. Iwas trying to be vague about the problems. Most people I talk to only know about the problem at church as a "personality conflict". It isn't something Rachael or I talk with many people about.

Today has been such a long day. I had an appointment today at 9am, so I got up at 7. Usually, that isn't bad, but I could not sleep last night. I finally fell asleep at 1:30am. Jeremy woke up at 4am, then again at 5am. He couldn't get back to sleep, so he got up and watched cartoons.

After my appointment, I came home to take the truck to Stan. He had gone out this morning to find the back window on our Rio shattered. We have no idea how that happened. We did a little bit of school work, then I took Rachael over to Grandma's. Their great grandma needed to go to Walmart and needed someone to sit with my MIL. Rachael finished up her geometry there while she helped grandma with anything she needed.

I took Jeremy and went to Walmart myself, then to Target. I had to get my Avinza prescription filled. They didn't have any in stock. I was so mad. It takes a week to get in once they run out because it is a catagory 1 controlled substance. I fill that Rx every single month annd this is the 2nd time in the last 3 months they have run out. I don't get it. They know me well there and even the tech and the pharmacist said they knew I filled it every month. I don't know why they ran out. It was the only reason I went to Target, so now I had to go to CVS to fill the script. They couldn't do it right away, so I had to go back again, then I had to pick up Rachael and take her to dance, then come home and make dinner. At this point, I am so tired. I honestly haven't felt like this in a long time. I will be going to bed early tonight especially since I have to get up early again tomorrow.

Lately, I have been freaking out about Rachael getting her license. I worry constantly about her driving in the dark, or bad weather or during rush hour. I get anxiety attacks about her driving. She isn't a bad driver, but I just worry about something happening to her. I have had an anxiety disorder in the past and I wonder if it is popping up again with all the extra stress that is going on in my life. Millions of people drive every day and very few of them get in accidents when you think about it. The odds are low that anything will happen to her, but I still worry. I may make her keep her permit for a while longer until I am more certain of her driving skills. I need to let her drive more though so she can get better. She has 2 months before she can even get her license, but we still have half of the driver's ed lessons to go, so she may not be through them anyways. I don't want her to know that I feel this anxiety though, so if you are reading this, don't tell her if you talk to her. I do trust her and this anxiety has nothing to do with her. It is just senseless anxiety that comes up when I am experiencing a lot of stress. I had the same problem when Jeremy was a baby. I constantly worried that something was going to happen to him. I even had to go on anxiety meds because it got so bad.

I am also worried about Rachael's stomach. She has been having trouble eating lately. She is going to see the GI next week. She takes medication for reflux, and that helped for a while, but it isn't helping as much anymore. She frequently isn't hungry, then when she is, she will gag easily on her food, then get nausea and can't finish eating. She was having heartburn, but that went away when she started the prilosec. I wonder if some of this might not be the stress of her grandmother dying and the problems she has had with her friends over the past year and this is her physical reaction to stress. The gagging did start around the time her grandmother was diagnosed with the terminal brain tumors, although the reflux problems she has had off and on her entire life, including as a baby. I'll post an update after we see the GI next week.