Let me start at the beginning. Once upon a time there was a daughter born with little rosebud lips and huge green eyes. She was my second child. My first girl. Not having had the most wonderful of relationships with my own mother, I was afraid of repeating history. So that first night in the hospital, after all the well wishers had gone, I sat her in my lap and told her that I wanted us to be friends one day, when she grew up. That has happened in spades!
I have six children, two of those adopted. Homeschooled them all; still do the youngest two. From the beginning, motherhood, and the love of it, took me by surprise. I thrived in the role and loved every minute of it! Being an only child, the swirl of activity, the creativity of making learning fun just agreed with me. I had found my passion!
Unfortunately, the marriage part of that equation was not solid and it crumbled. I chose to leave and not without major failings of my own. Coming from a christian background, I had spent much of my life with the "spirit of buck". I WILL survive, I WILL buck up, I WILL find the ultimate "good girl" list and follow it to the tee. After 20 years, I finally dropped all my cookies on the floor in front of everyone! I have since learned the "spirit of grace and mercy". But that is a topic all on it's own.
Suffice it to say, during all of this, Rachael chose to live with me full time. That was the beginning of the transformation from mother/daughter to mother/daughter/friends. Last winter Rachael broke two ribs, while throwing up. Because that's Rachael. She was sidelined for a few weeks trying to recover and struggling to come up with a "vision" for her life. Essentially, she had none. One fateful day, I called her from work and asked her to go to the grocery store for me. When I came home, not only had she gone to the store, but she had put the groceries away and was actually cooking. Now folks, this was the same girl that, only a short time before, had screwed up a boxed cake mix! I panicked and wondered where they'd put my daughter!
From that moment on, Rachael had found her passion! She ate, drank and slept cooking. If she wasn't cooking, she was watching cooking shows on t.v..I lost total control of my kitchen and was not invited back in! After several months of eating like a queen, and wondering when it was going to wear off, I was driving in the car one day when I looked into the heavens and there appeared in great cloud writing.....RACHAEL SHOULD GO TO CULINARY SCHOOL! Okay, well, the idea popped into my mind then. I called Rachael and said..."I have this amazing idea!" Turns out, she'd had the same amazing idea the same day! Two amazingly great minds! What are the odds?!
Thus began a hilarious, sometimes stressful, seemingly on- a -whim adventure that has resulted in my daughter in Chicago this morning on her first day in her apartment and she can't light the pilot light in her oven. This is not a good start for a culinary student!
We love making new friends and meeting new people. We invite you into our story and our heart and our lives. Be forwarned. We are crazy, imperfect, hormonal females. Well, Rachael is. I have no uterus. But that's another story.
No comments:
Post a Comment