I said yes!

Well, he must of liked it.. because he put a ring on it!

That's right, much to my (and everyone else's surprise) Raymond proposed last weekend while we were visiting his family in St. Louis. If you know anything about us, you know that of course I said YES! He picked the ring and I could not be more thrilled with the new bling on my hand or my husband-to-be.



The only people around to take a picture took a blurry one, so... engagement selfie!

I know what you're asking. Do we have a date? No, of course not, he only just asked last week. There's a lot that goes into planning a wedding, and the first thing is to establish a budget. We're still working on that part before we make any decisions. The only thing I have picked is my dress, and that's because I worked in the bridal store for a couple years.



He picked it! I LOVE it, plus he got it at outlet prices -- so proud, I taught him to sale shop!

For any recently engaged gals, the most useful planning website I have found (other than Pinterest -- follow me here) is theknot.com. TheKnot allows you to set up a planning profile, and even has an app to help track check lists and budget sheets. I know this is going to be very helpful throughout the planning process, especially being able to log all wedding-related expenses via iPhone.

He proposed at the St. Louis World Fair Pavillion, and yes, he did get down on one knee! Are you married? We would love to hear your best planning tip or suggestion in making ours a life-long, happy marriage. Please leave a comment!

Yep, my ring looks great with a TREX! Here we come IVAN!

Moving Slowly

For weeks I have been attempting to write "Part 2" about losing my dad, and I just haven't been able to finish the post. I guess I took a hiatus from the blog because I felt I couldn't write about anything else until I finished adressing what happened in April. This week I realized that isn't true.

I'll write about April when I'm ready (which obviously just isn't yet). Every time I've sat down to write about those three weeks of hospice care I just become overwhelmed with grief and can't finish more than a couple paragraphs, most of which I delete the next time I look at the post. 

Grief is terrible and life consuming, and something that everyone deals with differently. I've slowly been learning this in the last five months. They say there are some general "stages" that most people go through when dealing with loss, and I still feel like I'm stuck in shock and disbelief. It was only this week that I really listened to loved ones who said that it's okay for me to feel like I just lost my dad yesterday.

My dad and I at Silver Dollar City, one of our favorite places to visit in summer and at Christmas time.

I have good days and bad days, but every day feels like a giant mountain to climb. I never used to feel like this before my dad died. Now, I feel maxed out on stress all the time and lose patience easily. The first few months after losing my dad I was extremely forgetful, which isn't like me. There were a few different days when I called Raymond after work to see what I should pick up from Walmart for dinner, and in the ten minute drive home I completely forgot to even go to the store.

Throughout college I filled my days with work and school from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. and that was my normal. I handled it well, thrived on it even, but I simply cannot do those hours anymore. If there is one thing in particular I've realized I need in order to heal, it is time at home or the gym, away from other responsibilities or commitments, to focus on myself. For weeks I tried to deny this, feeling selfish, and my grief and feelings of stress grew to enormous levels. 

Exercise has helped, and in June Raymond and I started going to the gym six times a week. We haven't quite kept up that intensity throughout August, but we have at least made an effort. Several friends thought I was obsesive about the gym in June, but I needed something else to focus on and give my mind a break from 24/7 grief.

And it is 24/7. I can work, and socialize, and go to the gym, but it's always there. If you have never lost someone close to you, you probably don't understand. That's okay. I'm glad, for your sake, that you have never had to go through something like this, but I also ask your patience and kindness. There's no time limit on grief, although I read today that most people will only put up with your grief for about a month and that's the most they can handle. How could I have even started to deal with the loss of my dad in four short weeks? If you have dealt with serious grief, then you know what I'm saying... and thank you for understanding. 

I can go through daily life, working hard and trying to sleep, but that doesn't mean I've even barely started down the long path of dealing with this loss. Every season and year will bring different memories, which are lovely and painful at the same time. 

Sometimes these moments sneak up on me during a perfectly normal day. On Friday night I drove past a high school football game, and it reminded me that it is fall sports season (meaning golf). Immediately, just by driving past a back-to-school scrimmage, I was transported to a world full of golf memories with my dad. He was so busy at work, but he always made time to go to my tournaments.

My first golf tournament in college, my parents were so excited that they drove all the way to San Antonio to see me play.

Every day is just plain hard. I post this in hopes that other people I know who have lost a parent in the last year understand that they are not alone in feeling like every day is a struggle. 

Eleven Rainy Months

Losing my Dad, Part 1
by Rachel

I guess I'm ready to break the silence. Hello, world. If you would like to know what I've been posting to the internet in my absence here, please check out my work blog for the Museum of World Treasures.



My parents, photo taken June 2012 (two months after the first diagnosis).



There are many reasons why I haven't written a personal blog in so many months, and there are also reasons why the posts stopped so suddenly. 

My dad died. 

It is difficult to find sufficient words to describe the last year of my life, or even just the last six months since I came home from England. It's hard to make the words in this post even feel as if they are flowing together to form sentences, but at the same time I feel as if I could write an entire book about the most traumatic thing that has ever happened to me (my dad would tell me to stop being dramatic if I had said that out loud). As long as this post is, it is only a summary of the months leading up to the day the doctors told us it was time for hospice care. 

When we found out that my dad had cancer in April of 2012, there were so many questions and so few answers. Not only did he have cancer, but it was a rare and therefore less-researched kind (bile-duct cancer). What treatments could we do? How long would we have? Why was this happening to my dad, the most health-conscious and fitness-concerned man I know? 

The summer brought few answers, but some treatment options. He went to chemo at least twice a month but continued to work full time, or as much as he could, even with his laptop in bed in the hospital. He continued to work as he was able until the week we were told that the only option was hospice care. That was also the first week he took pain killers throughout the entire ordeal. 



My mom, dad, little sister, and myself in London November 2012.

 I struggled over the decision to go abroad, but at the time he seemed to be doing so well. We had hope that we could have as much as several years, although they would be filled with chemo and treatments. It was hard to leave, but I had faith things would be the same when I returned at Christmas, and my dad encouraged me to take the opportunity.

I will forever be grateful that my parents were able to come and visit me over Thanksgiving in England. For that week, I was able to show my dad a world of new and exciting things that he had only read about and seen pictures of. Together with my mom and little sister, we toured the Tower of London, drank Guinness in Ireland, and explored London by the Underground. My dad was struggling as the cancer and treatments took their tole, but hiding it from the world and doing his best to continue on as he always had. Over and over again he repeated throughout the last year that sometimes we cannot control what happens to us; what we can control is how we react and whether we allow things to devastate us or whether we continue to move forward and grow as human beings.



My dad and I when he came to visit me in London.


I came home on December 20 and had a wonderful Christmas with my family. We took our annual trip to Branson, MO, although we worried it was too cold for my dad. It was the last time we would all be together in Branson, the place where my parents cultivated years of precious family vacation memories. 



My parents celebrated Christmas in Branson with the entire family.

 Everything began to change quickly in January. I started my new job at the Museum of World Treasures, moved into a new house, and started classes in Kansas again. Unfortunately this time of change also marked the first time in 2013 that my dad went into the hospital. He was re-admitted time and time again throughout the weeks of January, February, and March as they fought various infections and problems associated with the cancer. 

It was chaotic and stressful for me to try and balance a new job, school, and needing to be with my family as much as possible. Sometimes I felt like I wasn't doing a very good job at any of those roles, but I did just as both my parents had always taught me to do: I fought on, sometimes blindly, and kept going.

Things got worse over the weeks. The days at the hospital began to outnumber the days at home, but we still had faith and my dad was ready to keep fighting to do whatever possible to beat the cancer, or at least live with the cancer. And up until the end I truly believed, with everything in me, that he was going to and that cancer was not going to take my dad from us at only 57 years old. 

The first weekend of spring break Raymond and I were scheduled to visit his family in St. Louis. My mom called the morning we were supposed to leave and asked me to cancel the trip. We found out that day that the unthinkable had happened: the doctors said there were no viable treatments left, and that they were recommending hospice care.

My family had already weathered many months, but that day the storm got worse.