Life By Lindsey Rae

I am going to have a photo shoot this weekend to get some pictures done for my website, so I have been making many, many shopping trips to look for clothes for this. This is taking up SO much time. It's so hard for me. I have a lot of anxiety and worry with this because I have to factor in being a person who is very tall, needs to be modest and who is extremely cheap! Plus, whatever I choose has to look good and be good in pictures. There are a lot of things to worry about. Believe it or not, I, (who usually buys everything on clearance and can often find full outfit that could have cost less than $15 from head to toe), has actually even bought somethings regular price recently! I have tried so many options! And I really only need 3 or 4 different outfits, but I am such a perfectionist when it comes to things like this that I feel are going to me/my music, that I am driving myself crazy. Really, the pictures on my website will probably be a first impression of me/my music for a lot of people. So, that's stressful to think of it that way. So, when this week is over, I will be glad. Hopefully I won't have to worry about finding these "perfect" things anymore...or at least for awhile.

I am SO behind on SO much stuff. It seems like I have been behind since March and I don't know if I will ever get caught up. But. maybe when I don't have to go shopping so much I will!
I've been looking for clothes so much recently I can't even remember when I last went shopping for scrapbook supplies...now that is a worry!

Tonight after Jerrod got off work we went over our subdivision to take a look at an empty house, that is the same model as ours, that hasn't closed yet. It didn't have any upgrades that we wanted to look at, but it was the same floor plan and layout, so it's kind of nice to see the completed house without furniture.
Afterwards, we drove past our lot to see if any progress had been made...not much of anything, but they did have the building permits posted.So, I guess that is promising. We walked around to see what we could see...check out the neighbors foundations, look at the lumber...you know, fun stuff like that. I was able to catch Jerrod in a few pictures, which was exciting, because he will never let his picture be taken. (I've gotta sneak up on him when he's not expecting it.) Of course, most of them are from the back, but once and awhile I do get one where he shows his face, which is nice.





I also am more excited than ever about the wooded lot beside us. I went over there and looked down into it (it slopes down and is full of trees) and it just made me really happy to see it. I like having that little bit of nature there in the middle of all those houses and streets and that stuff. And actually, the house we walked through today was on a lot we had initially considered buying for a few days. Today we saw that their big living room windows open up to the side of the neighbors house and at the neighbor's bathroom window. Ours will open up to this:
Well worth the extra money for a premium lot! The other house definately does not have a good view! And this one is going to be so nice for us...and for the next person for resale. Maybe we could have got into the other house sooner, because it is in the previously opened section, but this location is much more appealing for me.

About 30 seconds down the road is the new retail area, so went over there to have some supper and then went to a movie. I haven't been to a movie in a long time. Jerrod goes more often, but I like to watch things at home, because I like to keep my hands busy while I'm watching things and I can get more done with my scrap booking stuff that way. And it's also always so cold in those theaters! I brought a sweater because I know that, but I was still freezing the whole time!!! I hate it! Not, that I'm not freezing at home too, with Jerrod blasting the air conditioning and all, but it's worse when I'm out and about. I really hate air conditioning.
Anyway, we saw 3:10 to Yuma. It was good. We liked it. We like westerns and it's not very often that you see them in theaters anymore. It will be nice to have so much of the retail, restaurants and this sort of thing so near to us when we move.

Well, it seems that our house will finally start to appear soon! We had our construction meeting with our builder this week so they can now get things going. We couldn't get started until we had the meeting and we couldn't have the meeting until a lot of other things were accomplished (things that were out of our hands, such as: getting streets and curbs in and approval by the city and then getting building permits from the city).
So, we had to basically make the final decisions on everything we want for the house and then also pay deposits on certain things. So, it was a little expensive meeting too.
They said that it will take about 10-14 days to finish the foundation, because it is a slab. They are supposed to be starting that this week. The one concern is that they said that they would only be working on 5 houses in the neighborhood at a time...and ours would be one of those 5...but, when we drove by our lot afterwards, we saw that at least 6 or 7 of the neighbors foundations had already been started. We were a little bit bothered by that because we are really hoping to get in ASAP. And we should be one of the first to get in, since we were one of the first to purchase our lot and sign our contract, back in April. So, I don't know why they have already started so many others if they are intending to only do 5 at a time. I am going to have to ask about that next time we talk to them. We are desperate to move as quick as we can, because our lease is up this month and so we are going to be paying month-to-month from here on out. Month-to-month means much more expensive....
Anyhow, I guess some other people must have been able to get their construction meetings first. How unlucky is that? We've been waiting for months and then as soon as we go out of town they get our building permits. That would be very disappointing and I would be mad if that were to put us behind.

I am home after 10 days away. I wasn't able to access the internet as easily as usual....or could, sometimes only from my PDA, which has a slightly small screen and is slightly inconvenient to type on. Although, I will say it's still better than no internet. Anyhow, I didn't update this much.

We spent the 10 days in both Denver, Colorado and Cheyenne, Wyoming. This was Jerrod's trip because it is where he grew up and where some of his family and friends are. So, we spent most of the time visiting people, going to eat at the places he likes and doing a little shopping at some of the stores we don't have in our area. (High-end audio store for Jerrod and scrapbook store for me.)

We got in this afternoon and I am very happy to be home. I like my home because it is a peaceful place and I miss it when I am gone for so long. And, I also like having all my stuff around me.....By that I mean that I like having all my art supplies and scrapbook stuff around so I can do my creative projects whenever I want to.

Good news came a couple of days ago that we will be having our construction meeting for the house on Monday. This is very exciting because that means that something can actually be constructed! We have been expecting it to happen "any day" (to quote the builder's people) for about 3 months now. I guess they just got the building permits from the city. This meeting will finalize the plans so they can go ahead with it. We need to move since our lease is ending, so, let's hope that this thing gets going soon and quickly. I told Jerrod that after this trip I was staying home for a week, but I may make a sacrifice to go to go to the construction meeting. It will probably be worth going out to finally get the house started! Actually, I am going to be very busy getting caught up on things that I haven't been able to do while I'm away, so staying home might not happen anyhow.

I think one of the worst things about being gone is when you come home, you have no food. Because, of course, we try not to leave to much in the fridge if we know we are going to be gone for awhile and it will spoil. But, now, it means that I am going to be drug to Wal-Mart and pushed around the store for an extra long grocery shopping trip....and I really hate grocery shopping. It's so exhausting (and boring) for me. I think I am allergic to Wal-Mart. I'm not kidding. There is something in there that makes my allergies bad. It's always a terrible experience. When I complain, Jerrod always says, "Well, do you want to eat or not?" But really, I'm not sure if it means I have to go grocery shopping....

There's one thing I forgot to mention. I remembered it was coming up, but forgot about it on the actual day: August 19th was my 5 year anniversary of when I moved to Tennessee. I can't believe it's been that long. In some ways, it doesn't seem like it's been that long. However, when I think back to all that has happened since then, I guess it really has been 5 years. Jerrod had his 5 year anniversary of moving here about a month before in July. Strange that we both moved here at almost the exact same time and probably passed each other at many a church singles activity, but never met until a couple years later.

Anyway, I was just remembering when I was younger and I wanted so badly to move here. I planned it for 5 years before it actually happened and now it has been 5 years since it did happen! I could never have imagined that this day would have come back when I was 14 years old and first got the idea that I should move to Nashville. And now we are even building a house in Nashville! It makes it seem that we are even more settled here. Sometimes when I am driving places I think to myself that I can't believe I actually know how to get where I am going around here (with my bad sense of direction and all). But then I remember I have lived here 5 years!

I have felt very good about living in Tennessee for the most part. I mean that, I have always felt at home here. So, I am very glad that we are here and very grateful that Jerrod has a good job gives us another good reason to stay...and very relieved that I have my permanent residency so that I actually CAN stay! The only other place I might want to live would be in Osaka...but that's another thought for another day.

I'm realizing that most of the stuff I have been writing about lately has to do with my primary class...I guess that shows where the majority of my social interaction has been coming from.

This week's lesson was on faith. So we talked the scripture in Alma 32 and about faith being like a seed and like a seed if we plant it and nourish it, it will grow. So, I got this wonderful idea to do the thing where the kids get to plant a seed and all that. I remembered that I had these tiny little terracotta pots that I had got somewhere at one time and I could paint those up all nice and then give them seeds to plant in there and they could take it home.
Only problem was the seeds...at least, I thought that was the only problem. I didn't expect there be a big selection of seeds this time of the year, but I thought I might find some left overs of something. I didn't really care what...just wanted to find some seeds. I looked at 3 stores and called around, but had no luck. Even Wal-Mart and Home Depot didn't have any. Finally, I found a few packs of vegetable seeds at a discount store. I ended up getting lettuce seeds because that was all they had that would work.

When I went home, I washed all the pots out and then prepared them by filling in the cracks in the surface, sanding them, and then started to paint. Well, after days of dry, 100+ degree heat, at the moment I started to spray them...and I am not even kidding about this...it started to rain. Not a lot, but enough big drops to mess up that nice wet paint. It was too hot and humid out and I couldn't even get them to dry. So, I had to bring them in and ended up hand painting all them. Everything was working against me. Plus, I have a cold and I felt horrible yesterday, so the last thing I wanted to do was to be running around looking for seeds and trying to fix a messed up paint job.
After those were dry, I painted a quote from a primary song around the rim of the pots: "Faith is like a little seed. If planted, it will grow." Then I used scrapbooking rub-on embellishments to put their names on each one and add little flower decorations on the outside.
This morning I got up and filled them with dirt and boxed them up to take to church.

After we taught them the lesson, Jerrod and I helped everyone plant their seeds in the pots. They all wanted to know what kind of seeds they were. I didn't want to tell them I could only find lettuce seeds, so I kept saying, "Faith seeds." "Yeah, but what kind of seeds are they?" "They're faith seeds!"

One of the girls really liked her little pot a lot and was very excited about the color she got; she was excited to put it in her window. I was happy about that. She is one of the only ones who ever says that she appreciates the stuff I do. I appreciate that. However, I don't know if any of them ever said thank you after all I went through to get those little things done for them! I want them to appreciate it, because I think it's important they should learn to show gratitude. Maybe the next class they are in won't be so fun and then they will start to realize that our class was better than they thought! I try to do fun stuff, because I know that it's hard to sit through church sometimes and I want them to enjoy being there and look forward to being there.

The primary presentation is coming up. They are having quite a few kids do little solos on the songs, which I thought was different. I offered to give a free voice lesson to any kid who is going to do some singing in the presentation. Not that I will be able to do much with a 4 or 6-year-old in one lesson or even two, but I figure it's good for them to get practice and build up their confidence. And, it's something I can help out with that I don't mind doing.

I found this picture and I thought it was kind of funny. It's also a little sad though...but kind of funny...

Sunday seemed very stressful. Mostly, because Jerrod had been sick since the previous afternoon and so I had to go to church by myself...which meant I had to teach our class by myself.
This was the first Sunday since May when almost all the kids have been there. We've really only had about half of them during the summer, since everyone is always gone on vacation while school is out.
But today, I think maybe because they were all there and there was so much to talk about after so long, they were very wound up. And of course, being that I was by myself, it was more frustrating to keep them under control. They pretty much drove me crazy.
Usually, I prepare and teach the lesson and Jerrod helps answer questions and keeps them under control. Especially the boys, since they tend to have a harder time sitting still. They all really like him, but he also doesn't let them get away with anything.
After I had asked the kids to pleasestop talking, poking each other, moving around, etc., about 50 times, I finally said, "guys, seriously, you are really not being reverent and I've told you and told you too many times that we are in church and you need to act like it. I can't handle you all being like this all by myself! What would Brother Barrows do if he were here?" and right away one of the little boys who was being most obnoxious said, "he'd kill us!"
So, they are obnoxious, but at least they know it. I guess that's a start.

After I was thinking about the kids, I realized what the problem is: None of them are troublemakers and they are pretty good kids all around, but there is not a shy one in the bunch! So everyone has got to be saying something all the time! Oh well, I guess it could be worse. I know I sure went to Primary with some kids that were worse.

Jerrod is still not feeling well tonight. He is going to stay home from work tomorrow too.

Today we had a baptism for three of the kids in our primary class. Jerrod gave a talk, I sang 2 songs and then I gave a talk...so it was a little bit of a Lindsey and Jerrod show. haha.
It was actually a really good baptism and I really felt the spirit there. It was also a very big baptism...enough people that they had it in the chapel, so it kind of felt a little bit like church. (We figured that meant we were done our duty for speaking in church for awhile!) We also drove the missionaries and then took them out for supper after.
Jerrod spoke on baptism and I talked about the Holy Ghost and told the kids about one experience that I can remember when I listened to the Holy Ghost when I was younger; their age or a little older: I used to like to walk around the farm and down to the dug-out to see if there was anything interesting. One night I noticed a bunch of little flowers that were growing by the water that I hadn't seen before, so the next day I was going to go there to look around again and pick some. I was going to ride my bike, but, when I went to go, I had a feeling that I shouldn't...that I should walk instead. So, I listened to that feeling and decided to walk.
When I got to the dug-out, I saw that there were some baby ducks. As I went to look at them, the mother duck jumped out at me and started to chase me away. She kept chasing me as I ran, all the way back to the barn, almost to my house. That was a pretty far distance for her to keep going after me. It was one determined duck! After, I realized that if I would have taken my bike, I wouldn't have been able to get away fast enough. I would have set it down and then panicked and had to leave it when I was trying to get away from the duck. Also, I wouldn't have been able to ride very easily over the bumpy ground and the hay that was growing. So, later, I felt that the spirit had told me to walk instead. That probably saved me from getting attacked by an angry duck! 'Cause that duck wasn't going to give up!
Anyway, that was an experience I had when I was smaller, but I told the kids that when they get older and have to start making big decisions about things like moving, college or getting married and all that difficult stuff, then they will appreciate even more that they made the choice to to the right things when they were younger so they can have the guidance they need when they really have things to stress about. haha. I really hope that all our kids stay good. It would be disappointing to see one of them go astray.



I kept looking behind me and something like this was what I saw! (except only one angry duck.) It's actually more terrifying than it may appear.

Today the temperature got up to 104 degrees Fahrenheit, which was supposed to be close to record highs. I knew it was hot, but it wasn't until I read the temperature in Celsius that I realized just how hot....That's 40 degrees!
The rest of the week is supposed to be close to the same 36, 38, 39. Pretty warm out there.