Letter's to Heaven

Dear Todd, I woke up this morning thinking about you, I wondered if I had dreamed about you or if you were just on my mind. I have so many things I wish I could tell you. I cant believe it's been 3 years since you left this earth. I still have to pinch myself because it still does not seem real. Every time I drive by the airport I think of that awful day that they brought what was left of you home. My gut aches writing about it. Can you believe that your little girl is going to be 4 in October. Todd she is beautiful.... She is strong, smart and just an amazing little girl. She will often ask me about you, she asked me "did you love my Daddy?" I share many stories about us butting heads, but I always tell her of course I loved your Daddy. The older she gets I know the more curious she will become. Its hard because on days that she's upset with her Mom she will cry for you. It breaks my heart because she will really never know you the way we do. She has your attitude for sure and she is bossy. We used to call you teacher Todd well she is teacher Emma, she often corrects me which I am sure you would find hilarious. She loves chocolate, I mean really loves chocolate. She is a take charge kind of girl, she loves to give her Mama a hard time. She is so excited about starting school next year and says she wants to be just like her Kenzie. When I think of all that you have missed and will miss, it hurts more that any words can ever express, and what hurts even more is that I am going to have to watch her do these things without her Daddy. I could have used some help with that wife of yours, she seems to be lost at times, I try my best to keep picking her up but I can only do so much. I keep praying that someone good will enter in her life and really love her and Emma. Tyler is awesome, he is a great kid with a big heart. He has become quite the baseball player. He still brings up to me how you were able to attend his practices and a few games on leave. It meant so much to him. Mackenzie is a wonderful girl, she is getting so big she reminded me the other day how you were first to hold her at hospital when she was born. Hailey gets upset because when we talk about you she cant remember, only through pictures. Todd you would have loved her, she is something else, you would love her personality for sure. I have not forgotten your love for kids, especially mine. You were a wonderful Uncle. So much has changed especially at the holidays, we lost you and Grandpa the same year, you at Easter and Grandpa at Christmas, it was a tough year that's for sure. Holidays are just not the same, those chairs remain empty. I like to think that you and Grandpa are together up in heaven sharing laughs. I am blessed to have known you and had you in my family.

Q&A

1. What is your current obsession? Really ME have an obsession no way! Lets see my obsessions can vary day to day even hour to hour as my husband would say, but my most current one is making sure Im ready for my inspection. I am constantly going through drawers looking for things that should not be there.

2. What are you wearing today? Jeans and a sweat shirt go figure....

3. What’s for dinner? Im thinking its a grilled cheese kinda night since Ty has basketball practice :)

4. What’s the last thing you bought? I bought a Calendar and some storage tubs.

5. What are you listening to right now? My Dad talking away on the phone to me about his job.

6. If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you like it to be? John and I have talked about this many times, we would love to live somewhere south, we both do not enjoy the winters here.

7. What is one thing you want to change about yourself? I wish I was able to not worry so much. I tend to take on everyone elses problems and carry them in my heart and in my mind, John tells me a lot lately that he worries I will someday give myself a heart attack worrying about things I cant control.

8. If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go? I would go to a nice warm beach with my family and just enjoy every second with them.

9. Which language do you want to learn? I would love to learn french

10. What’s your favorite quote? you are only as good as what YOU GIVE... I tell my children this daily...

11. Would you cook for me? of course what would you like???


12. What is the right way to avoid people who purposefully hurt you? Hmm Im not really to good at this one, I guess maybe act as if they have not hurt me but I tend to think that if you completely do that you are living in a pretend world. I have given this a lot of thought lately due to my situation, my only answer is to carry on living my life as I did before and if I run into that person I would just basically act as if they were no one to me and go on with my day.

13. What are you afraid of the most? Anything happening to one of my kids, this includes all my kids (daycare and my niece and nephews)

14. Who do you want to meet right now? I would be thrilled to meet anyone famous :)

15. What is your favorite color? Purple for sure!

16. Give us 3 styling tips that work for you. Wow I got nothing......

17. What is your dream job? Well I always wanted to be a social worker (go figure) but now it looks as if I may be a teacher someday. I found out that one of the perks for being a licenced daycare provider they offer many scholarships for a teaching degree.

18. What’s your favorite magazine? love the gossip ones US Weekly is my favorite :)

19. If you had $100 now, what would you spend it on? something for the house

20. What do you consider a fashion faux pas? wow no time to even think about this one.

21. Who, according to you, is the most over-rated writer? no idea nor do I really care :)

22. What brings a smile on your face instantly? John always does even when we are fighting he has the ability to turn a bad situation into a funny one (which often ticks me off more at the time) and of course my kids I love everything about them.

23. What is one word that you say a lot? WOW I say this way to often but then again if you know my family and all the drama you know why...

24. What kind of haircut do you prefer? Not one in particular I would often like to go alittle shorter for mine but my husband hates short hair.

25. What are you going to do after this? Feed my sweet nephew some baby food and read the other kids a story :)

26. What do you do when you are feeling low or terribly depressed? This will sound stupid to some but I go into my bedroom in the dark cry my eyes out and talk to God, he is the only one with answers and that can help.

27. What makes you go wild? Wow you may have to ask John that one.

28. What are your favorite movies? Sixteen Candles is my all time favorite. But I really enjoy all movies

29. What inspires you? People with faith and that are not afraid to show it and people who just help others not because they have to but just because...

30. What do your friends call you most commonly? to my face Shelly, Shell John calls me Belle, behind my back a few names come to mind lol

31. Would you prefer coffee or tea? tea, cant stand coffee

32. Which other blogs do you love visiting? My friends

33. What is your favorite dessert/sweet? cheesecake and I love any kind of fruity candy...

34. How many tabs are turned on in your browser right now? One.

35. When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was the first thing you thought? Wow Im looking (turning) into my Mother...

36. What is your favorite season? Summer, I love the heat :)

37. What is one wish that you really want to see come true? For my kids to have all the happiness in the world.

38. What breaks your heart? I have to agree with Lea, seeing Emma breaks my heart especially when she asks me about her Daddy. At church this past Sunday there was a chalk artist and she drew at picture and it had Jesus watching over all of us and Emma said hey my Daddy is with that Jesus. I want to see him, I just lost it at that moment.

39. What's one thing you really want to do in life? I want to be the best person, wife, mom, daughter, aunt, friend that I can possibly be. Someday when Im gone I want to be remembered as that person :) I pray that God will continue to use me as a tool to help others in their lives :)

Almost there...

Well I am on the home stretch of this license business, well lets pray they find nothing major (expensive) that I have to do... I cant believe that it has not even been a month since I received my letter. I remember feeling so hopeless and helpless at the beginning of this whole process and although I still have my doubts my confidence is building with each new day. I feel like I am up for the challenge. I had my class on Thursday in Grand Rapids, which was very informative and helpful. Now all I have is my CPR stuff this weekend and I will be calling my consultant Monday to schedule my inspection. I did have a very strange thing happen to me on Wednesday though, I have been praying this past month for closure because I cant help but wonder who turned me in. This whole time in the back of my mind I was thinking I knew who this person was and I had been trying to make her feel guilty basically trying to see if she would come clean with me. On Wednesday I got this letter about my so called "investigation" and basically it was saying that my case was closed because I am in full compliance. Great news but at the bottom of this 3 page letter it had my name, address BUT not my phone number. I showed my sister and she joked maybe it was the person who turned me in phone number. I thought no way would they make a mistake like that. I googled it in and to my surprise it was another Daycare in my neighborhood phone number. One of the same people who offered their help to me after all this happened. Her son and my son go to school together. Now coincidence that her number just happened to be on there, I think not, lets think about this. In order to write me this letter they had to pull my report up which in turn would state who turned in me and their info. I firmly believe this was Gods way of giving me my closure. This couple probably never told a sole that they had done this, I mean we have a ton of mutual friends, they thought I could never find out if they never told. I guess it goes to show you the power of prayer. I could not let it rest, my feelings have been so crushed. But now that I know I feel like I can move forward. She and her husband as of today are still on my facebook page I want them to know I know. I thought maybe she would have the guts to email me or call and explain. The funny thing is back when I told her what had happened to me I would have respected her if she would have owned it then, at least give me your reasons why she did it, wether it be because she thought if she had to follow the rules then so should I. I would have been upset but believe it or not I would have felt better knowing the truth. My honest opinion is that she was just jealous, I heard she had been losing kids and she is (for now) a friend on my facebook page she probably did not like seeing all the stuff John and I are able to do with are kids. Jealously can make people do evil things. She also probably seen all the nice comments my friends leave me for watching their kids. Little did she know I do not make a ton of money, I watch a lot of family in which I do not get paid for and all these other kids they only come once or twice a week. Now thanks to her I cant watch my nephews anymore due to the fact I have to get paid. Try looking at my sweet nephew Jrs eyes and tell him why he cant stay with his Auntie anymore. Shame on her in my eyes. I was helping family and friends at a very low cost. But I believe that everything happens for a reason and God used her evil as a tool to bless my family. In the long run we are better for it. Just getting there is the hardest part. But Im doing it, as much as change causes me anxiety I am pushing my way through all of it. Im stronger for it.

Changes

I cant believe how bad I have become with this blog, my life has just been crazy, really there are no other words to describe it. We had wonderful holidays filled with laughter and a few tears, Holidays are always hard when you are missing loved ones that should still be here. It puts your life into perspective though, cherish the people you love the most.. My kids are all getting so big, thats all I can really say without busting into tears. As many of you already know or have heard from others, I have been the hot topic of gossip I guess over this whole daycare thing, so I thought I would post the facts. First off I am NOT going to jail lol, thats the newest one I heard just this morning, and I do not have a $500 fine or any fine for that matter, its funny how one person tells a story and it gets totally blown out of proportion and so on. So here goes the story, really I must warn you its not all that exciting though. Almost 2 weeks ago on a Friday I received a letter stating that the state had received information that I have been watching other people kids.. And if I had I needed to get my license or stop watching kids all together. NO jail time or FINES were ever mentioned in this letter. Well getting this letter as you can imagines rocked my world and then to get it on a Friday made not for the greatest weekend for me. As everyone knows I have been doing this since Tyler was a baby, I often worried about getting caught but never really thought someone would turn me in. John had been trying to push me to get my license for quite some time but I knew that it was not an easy process and it comes with a ton of rules and guidelines. I always pushed it to the back burner, I knew that if I did I would not be able to have as many part time kids as I do because you have to actually make good money for this process to work and to benefit from all of it. I was not sure it was worth all the hassle and worry. But now thanks to someone else I have no other choice but to push full force with the license. After the shock wore off the tears came and the anxiety and should I say hurt. I was so hurt that someone could actually do this to me. I am so nice to everyone, why is it someone else's business how I help feed my family. I would never dream of turning someone in for this. Its not like I am making a fortune at all. If its not hurting anyone why does it matter. Lots of people have jobs where they get paid under the table. I think that it should also be a parents choice of who they send their kids to, just because you have a license does not make you a good sitter. I can say that I have given my heart, my patience and my home 100 percent to these kids. Not just anybody could do what I do. So for someone to do this to me, yes I took it very personal, and once I got past that the reality of all the changes set in. John downloaded the application for me and WOW it was a bit much to take in at first. But thanks to some wonderful people I had much of it completed within the first week, John was laughing at me because once I start something I like to finish it asap so stuff that would have taken weeks to do, I got done right away. That first weekend I was a walking zombie, other daycare providers were telling me this is a good thing, I will be way better off financially in the long run. This person actually did me a favor. I would feel good about it one minute and then bust into tears the next. But then after so many tears I started to see things in a better perspective. John and I and our kids had been praying before bed as a family for months leading up to this, praying that things would look up for us financially, Johns work is so up and down and things have been so up in the air just like for many families. John can only take so much of my crying before he blows and when he finally did, he asked me if it ever occurred to me that this was God answering our prayers. He was right, I would have never done this on my own, so maybe this is just what I have to do to get to something better. Then at church for the last two Sundays I have gotten the answers I needed that this was the direction that God knew I needed to be on. Some may call me crazy, and a few years ago I would have never imagined that I would be following Gods word so closely , but believe me I have never felt closer. With that being realized it has made this whole process much easier, I still worry, and I still have a hard time seeing so much of the good about it, but I have faith that things will work out, they always do. I am happy to report that the application was sent in along with a ton a money, and now I am in the waiting mode. I am waiting to hear about my class, after my class I am close like with one to two weeks close. Thankfully my sister has agreed to be my helper until after summer when I can search for a new one. Because anytime I have over 6 kids I have to have a helper, so I will be looking to hire someone after summer. So many changes coming to the Carnes household but lets pray all good ones.