Rachel's Blog: 2013

New Post......And She Sings Has Been Updated

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Just reminding you again that this blog has moved! :-) Come on over and check it out:

www.songsfortheking.blogspot.com

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Remember, my blog has moved to.......www.songsfortheking.blogspot.com

And there is a new update! I would love it if you would come on over, comment, and follow me! :-)

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Hey everyone! Just poppping in to remind those of you who may have forgotten that I've moved my blog....I just put up another recording on my new blog.....

Just head to:

And She Sings

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Head on over to my new blog, www.songsfortheking.blogspot.com , to follow this week's daily video production!

Official Notice: Rachel's Blog Has Moved

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Just wanted to clarify for those of you who didn't read my last post. I have moved!

And She Sings

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

....at a new blog I've set up. I've found myself without much to say on this blog anymore - I don't have time to take many pictures (Mom has really taken over family blogging!) plus *cough* camera batteries are kind of....expensive.

So head on over to a new chapter in my blogging life! I think you'll find it interesting.

And She Sings

For now, I think Rachel's Blog is officially "on hold"....like I said, my mom does such a great job with the family blog that I thought doing a music blog was more of a niche I could fill. 'Sides, it's what I'm into. :-)

Anyway, feel free to follow it!

LONG overdue update!

Monday, June 24, 2013

Wow. My blog has been....rather....dead.....for the last few weeks. Completely dead. And for that I apologize! I have been so incredibly busy (great excuse, huh?) but I decided some of you *might* enjoy knowing I'm still alive via some pictures.

We just made the trip out to South Carolina to see Jonathan's graduation from basic training! It was SO good to see my little brother again.....:-) He looked quite stunning in his uniform; the only problem was

keeping track of him since there were about 300 other graduating guys there that all looked the same lol!

Teaching Isaac how to do "real" pushups!!

We got to tour the barracks while we were there. They were surprisingly nicer than I had expected!

Eating lunch in the RV!

More pictures and details later, but there's a teeny update for now. :-)

A Slightly Boring Post

Monday, May 13, 2013

Sorry guys, no words of wisdom today. Here are some pictures from my birthday recently.....it's 11pm and I really have nothing of intelligible significance to say at this hour. :-) For the record though, everyone is alive. Yes, big news, isn't it? Told you it wasn't significant.

Life goes on - homemade iced lattes, pink nail polish, hot days, a new Krause movie production in the works (remember last year's?), a dentist appointment coming up (yippee), Grandma visiting in a few weeks, wonderful friends to fellowship with, and fun with music editing software.

Oh - and I'm now a regular at Ragazzi's Terretoria, a gourmet italian resteraunt. Regular pianist, that is. They put an ad in the newspaper for me each week to gather in more customers. Last Friday night I pulled out $120 from tips plus what I charge. Not bad for three hours of plunking around on a keyboard, huh?! A dream job, for sure.....

Free Download Friday

Friday, May 10, 2013

Terrific Tuesday (aka corny title)

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Hey! Today was a fun day for me. I headed down to the CPC for the morning and, as usual, had a great time. My shift was from 9 to 1....no clients today, but there were plenty of other projects to work on. Tons of followup work (I closed probably eight cases today!), shredding of old expired cases, and the creation of new pregnancy info packets that we give out to our positive-test clients.

So you all probably know by now that I truly do love scarves....right? Right? I think I've mentioned it a few times :-). Anyway, my friend Kayla from church crocheted this one for my birthday recently. Isn't it simply gorgeous? She is so good at making these kinds of things. I'm thinking I'll be seeing a new business emerging soon in the yarn aisle of Jo-Ann's...Kayla's Proffesional Looking and Amazingly Detailed Products, Inc. :-)

It was gorgeous today - yes, it's almost summer, but the weather is absolutely breathtaking. Like, low 80's (if even that?), cloudy skies but still sunny (does that make sense?), and just generally windows-open-kind-of-weather. I sleep with my window open, and no joke, the chirping birds wake me up every morning around five. I get to jog at 5:30 listening to my favorite songs on my ipod and watch an amazing sunrise. I love it!

So Josh is the ever-present echo and constant copy-cat around here. When Isaac says he's hungry, Joshua is right behind him saying the same thing. Today Isaac told me he was stuffed, and low and behold, a little voice pipes up "I'm stuffed too!". Anything that Isaac is, Josh feels he MUST be, or his little emotional ocean breaks forth and he crumples. :-)

Anyway....after the CPC, I came home and had lunch, and then ran some glamorous errands that included a trip to Ace Hardware purchasing a new p-trap for my bathroom sink and a hair-catcher for my shower drain. A hint? I've been having some...uh....trouble with clogged drains due to....well, you know....hair. Don't tell me I'm the only girl who plugs up sink drains on a regular basis. Up until a few weeks ago I was standing in four inches of water during my shower it was so backed up. Yeah. I'm....working on that one. :-)

Isaac is our completely original clown. Upon getting into the pool for the first time this summer, he looked up at me, completely serious, and said, "Hey Rachel, baptize me!" Maybe we've been watching too many John the Baptist movies or something? Anyway, now he thinks it's a hilarious joke, and baptism is always discussed at the pool in some form. They also think communion is hilarious. Um, kind of not good??!!! Seems like I'm always trying to get them to stop re-inacting the Last Supper with giggles and sarcasm in the living room. Example? "Hey look! Take and eat, this is my bod-ee! Ha ha!" Yeah. We're...working on that one, too.

Some of you probably heard about our juicing fast from my mom's blog. I am back on food now (thank heavens) but I'm still juicing on the side. And generally, I'm now wanting to really eat healthier. I even skipped cupcakes on David's birthday. Don't know how I did that one?! But remember I said generally I'm being healthy. So....if you find me with a Starbucks or something similarly poisonous, well - it must be a special occasion or something. :-)

Have a great week!

We Be Older Now

Monday, May 6, 2013

We had three birthdays this week! And four this month. We're now older, wiser (that counts me out), and jumping into another year of life.

I turned 20 just a few days ago. Officially no longer a teenager! I totally don't feel ready to be this old. I mean really. I have always thought that when I reached such a lofty number....I'd somehow have everything together. Be mature, rich, (sorry, it's what I always assumed), prepared, smart, and just generally ready to tackle anything that came my way. Oh, and incredibly spiritual, too.

But - here I am , twenty years old, and I seem to be none of these things!!!! Definitely not rich. Two traffic tickets took care of that one. Mature? Not so much. How else do I justify my love of chasing my little brothers up and down the stairs and tickling them till they say what I want them to say??? Prepared? Only for today. Smart...um, let's not talk about that one, ok?

But I am twenty now. Here I be. Secretly I wish I was still a four year old. The little girl I babysit is having a princess birthday party next week and I'm finding myself jealous. lol

And David? He is fourteen today! As you can see from this very grainy and poor quality picture (sorry bout that one), he is much taller than me and getting....kinda....broad. Apparently my chubby cheeked little brother grew up overnight. He's shaving now. When did that one start?

Ah well. More pictures coming, just wanted to throw this up tonight. :-)

Waiting - not my favorite thing

Sunday, May 5, 2013

"Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for Him...."

(Psalm 37:7a)

I don't like waiting. I don't like not knowing. I don't like wondering what's going to happen next. I don't like being patient.

I like being in control of things...I'm not a dominant person, but I like having all my ducks in a row and things figured out. New situations scare me - rather than take them head on I'd really rather just hide.

So what do you do when there's nothing to do BUT to wait? And trust?

For a while, I tried convincing myself that this whole trust business was something I was pretty good at; you know,you just kind of, "trust God" and then do what needs to get done. Your way. Because, God helps those who helps themselves (a well-known Biblical fact, of course) and the trusting part is really more of a theoretical concept....not necessarily something you'd actually do, right?

Right?

I mean, God doesn't really expect me to just give everything I've worked for up until now to Him, does He? He wouldn't actually ask me to surrender every area of my life to Him...would He?

No no no. Of course not. He would understand, of course, that my dreams and my goals and my desires are quite important to the success of my life and my appearance and my purpose and.....well, ME, really.

Unfortunately, I'm finding out differently these days. Unfortunately in the sense that it's dealing quite a blow to my sense of control. Sometimes things change, situations come up, life happens, and control is literally the last thing you have.

I'm finding out that I can't change the things around me I don't like. I can't alter circumstances that God has allowed into my life for whatever crazy reason.

But mostly, I can't keep change from happening. It's inevitable. Things will always change. People will always change. That's life.

What a perfect opportunity to literally go running into the arms of the One Who never changes. Ever.

What we call "surrender" or "sacrifice" is simply giving God what He already owns anyway. It's not like He's relieved when we give Him control over our lives - He doesn't need us. And He already has control anyway. It simply boils down to how we relate to God, not the other way around.

There's something about just letting go and allowing God to do what He wants with my life that frees me to watch for what He's doing rather than worry if it will line up with my ten-point plan for life success or not.

Because honestly, I'd much rather be saying "Not thy will, but mine be done!"

I don't like giving the controls over to God. In my self-absorbed stupor I like to think that, yeah, He IS God and everything, but He doesn't understand how much ________ means to me. I seriously like to think that I know how to run my life way better than He would, since it's, you know, MINE?

And...there inlies the rub. This happens to not be my life.

It's His.

So again, "surrendering" control to Jesus isn't doing Him a favor or anything. It's just giving Him what He already owns anyway.

And I'm learning that He....kind of DOES know what He's doing. Usually it's not till later that we get to find out why He took us certain directions. But it is all for the best. And God happens to have the advantage of seeing the whole picture.

In the famous words of Jim Elliot, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."

I'm learning. Slowly. :-)

Movie Review: Homerun

Thursday, April 25, 2013

This morning, David and I went to the theatre to watch the recently produced movie, "Homerun". I didn't know too much about it, except that it was supposed to be a really good family movie. I wasn't disappointed! It was great - I'm super glad I went to see it. Probably one of those that we will want to get on dvd when it comes out.

The movie centers around Cory Brand, a baseball star who is on the cutting edge of his career as a player for the Grizzlies. On the field, he's as incredible as he looks - talent and all. But off the field, he's a broken man struggling with his alcohol addiction, a fierce anger problem, and emotional scars from a childhood with an alcoholic father.

Things start getting messy when Cory's outbursts of uncontrollable anger show on the field during a game. Word gets out about his drinking addiction, and he is suddenly faced with a tarnished reputation. Not long after, his drinking gets him in a serious car accident; his brother is put in the hospital and the media gets hold of the story. Desperately trying to save face and redeem his career, Cory's agent sends him to a small town to coach a little league baseball team and attend an eight-week addiction recovery program.

No sooner has he begun his coaching than he realizes that one of the players is his own young son, and the existing coach is his former wife, both whom he abandoned years ago to pursue his promising baseball career.

All of these circumstances make for a touching story about forgiveness, reconciliation, and God's grace.

The focus of the film is how very possible it is to overcome an addiction through Christ. When Cory has hit rock bottom in more ways than one, he finds God and begins his journey, dealing with his past head-on. As a third-generation alcoholic, he declares that "change starts here, right here".

Possibly one of my favorite quotes of the movie was "Nothing great happens when you hold back."

It was so refreshing to see a clean, wholesome movie, where recurring themes of grace, forgiveness, and redemption in Christ were present. No bad language, didn't have to worry about certain scenes. It was all good!

I won't recommend a certain age for seeing this movie, since all families are different. However, viewers should be aware that there are many scenes involving drinking, and the effects thereof. Outbursts of anger are shown. Since the focus of the movie is addiction recovery, scenes revolving around this theme are present. Thumbs up for a great movie. Really. It was one of those that made me want to tear up at the end. But it would have made my mascara run....so, no go. :-)

Alabama Trip Photos

Thursday, April 18, 2013

So, finally, here are the pictures from Dad's and my trip to Alabama a few weeks ago. :-)

On the road here. The drive from Arizona to Alabama is about 22 hours....we basically drove it straight, and you can see the rather deleterious effects in this photo. Coffee helped, lots and lots of coffee. And of course, we traded off, napping while the other drove. But when I wanted to sleep most (midnight and beyond) was when I simply couldn't let myself doze. Dad was on the verge of falling asleep at the wheel at one point and I wasn't much better....and that's when we decided to just pull off and rest a few hours. A few. Very few. We did this whole driving thing in a day and a half! Kind of exhausting, but way better than dragging the whole thing out for days on end.

Our trusty GPS! The second day of driving, which was pretty much mid-Texas on, we drove through rain the entire time. Every single state along the way was in downpour! And I happen to believe we drove through a tornado-ey patch in Mississippi. It was green, silent, not windy, but super cloudy and rainy.

The girl we made the trip for!! She got into the honors program and the whole point of the trip was to be there for her induction ceremony. It was just a good excuse to visit her, really. :-)

Church on Sunday.

Trusty Waffle House, our road-trip friend. I always get their chocolate chip waffles (*yum*). Being in the deep south, everyone is "amen-ing" and "hallelujah-ing" around there, and our meal this particular day was no exception. While waiting for our food to come, we had a quick prayer. As soon as I had finished, our waitress, who had been standing next to our table the whole time, placed our check on the table and gave her hearty "A-mayn" to the whole deal, with that super-thick southern accent. It was pretty funny. You just don't get that in Arizona. :-)

I spent a few days with Courtney in the dorm, and as I walked with her around campus, met her friends, and went to her classes, everyone kept telling us how crazy it was that we were nearly identical! People even thought we talked the same. They kept laughing that we were like carbon copies of each other. One person even thought I was Courtney when Courtney was out of the room momentarily. Do we really look that similar, really?

Photography....

And then, on Thursday, the Honors Ceremony itself, which lasted about an hour.

Courtney's name was called, and she stood for about....five seconds? Everyone clapped. At that point we said, "well, that's all we came for. Guess it's time to go home now!" We drove all that way for five seconds!!! Not really. Like I said, it was totally just a good excuse to spend time with her. :-)

Explaining.....something.....it was important at the moment.

There was a small reception of cookies and punch afterwards. Nice. Really the best part of ceremonies, recitals, programs, weddings, etc. Okay, ax the weddings. Not true. However that's the main part I do remember about weddings I went to as a little kid....those mints? And the cake?

We toured the HUGE campus library. There were signs everyone saying to be quiet and NO disturbance please, because it was a "study area". Dad picked up this giant monster of a book that was written like.....centuries ago or something. Does anyone really ever check this kind of book out? Really? I was like, where's the fiction section....(non-existant, by the way).

There was some peaked interest in it for a moment. But Starbucks beats it. Sorry, just have to say it. Again, probably the best part of the library? Was that there was a Starbucks inside it.

Kinda tired by this point. This is Courtney's dorm, by the way!

We got a very thorough tour of the entire campus and the residence building where Courtney lives. It was fun to see everything and get a feel for campus life!

Being goofy :p

All in all, it was a great trip! Praise God we had safety as well as good health the whole time. It was wonderful to spend time with Courtney, and then of course we hit Texas on the way home to see family and friends (see previous post). I was so ready to be home by the end of it all, though. There is truly no place like home:-)

Fun with Friends in Texas!

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Home. After twelve days of being on the road, I am finally home and (trying) to jump back into normal life. That would entail unpacking (yep, still working on that suitcase), cleaning up my area of the house, and going back to work. It's good to be back.

I have a whole lot of fun pictures to share, but I wanted to start off with some really cute ones from the end of our trip. Dad and I first drove to Alabama to see Courtney's honor ceremony, plus just stay and see her for a few days. On the way home we hit Texas, and stayed with family there. It was a great opportunity for Kaylie and Ashlynn to drive up and see me - I met them at Summit last summer and they both lived like two hours from where we were in Texas! I was so excited that they made the drive up and hung out with me for the day!!

Kaylie, Ashlynn, and me.

(You're so cute Kaylie!)

So this isn't exactly your normal kinda picture. But I saw someone else do it once for a photo shoot and I thought it would be fun to try and replicate. It was fun. Slightly weird. We decided we had enough of this type of picture when the neck-pain kicked in. (Aprox. one minute. Maybe less.) Something about the end of a splintery slab of wood right in the back of the neck.....

We had the best day together. So much time to talk and laugh, (make faces too). We went out for Subway AND Bluebell ice cream, stopped by the local vet to see a puppy that was up for grabs but turned out to already have been snatched up, and went hunting for a good spot to take pictures.