Author Archives: rachrn34

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Our visit to Missouri State

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Last night Kayla and I headed to Springfield to attend a campus visit at Missouri State. Neither one of us is a morning person so it was best to go down the night before rather than leaving at 5:30 in the morning. When I visited Rockhurst with Emily the entire thing was structured with scheduled activities. This was laid back. It started with me parking in the wrong spot but I didn’t get a ticket. Next up Kayla wasn’t on the expected list even though she received the reminder email. I thought here we go typical Mole craziness. After that things went smoothly. We started by taking a campus tour on a bus. That was a little overwhelming and at first we thought the campus was huge. We quickly discovered its a big square easily walkable. We then went on the dorm tours. The normal freshman dorm rooms with the community showers were way bigger than the Rockhurst rooms. We then visited the six person suite. It has three separate bedrooms each with a door and a lock. It also has a community living room and a small fridge. We visited the four person suites and liked it the best. It had two different rooms with locked doors, a bathroom and a kitchen with a full-sized fridge and microwave. Amazingly we did not pick the most expensive place to live. The four person suites are located by the dining hall and one doesn’t have to even go outside to eat. I told Kayla forget the freshman fifteen she will gain the sophomore seventy! Each dorm has its own laundry room and the laundry is FREE. As in no quarters are needed. I told Kayla there is no reason to bring her laundry home for me to do! You can also check on-line to see which washers are in use and if yours are finished. I would have never imagined such high-tech all those years ago when I went to nursing school.

The school also has buses that not only drive you around campus, but will also take you downtown and back. Kayla liked this feature and said she could save her gas for coming home from time to time. We went to admission, housing and financial aid lecture. When they posted that it was 16,000 a YEAR to attend, I almost fell out of my chair. This included housing and 19 meals a week. After all a girl has to eat!  Rockhurst was 16,000 a SEMESTER.

It was 12:30 and Kayla and I were ready to leave. We weren’t even a mile from school when she realized she forgot to have me take her picture with the bear. So we turned around and went back and snapped a photo. It was a great campus and if she decides to go there I will be thrilled. After all it’s where I wanted to go. She still wants to visit University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg and then decide for sure. However we are going to set up her portal and schedule the time for her classes and apply to the dorm. She has to go get a meningitis shot and finish up her hep a shot series on Monday. She said to me but I had meningitis. I said that was viral meningitis and the shot is for bacterial. As soon as she found out she would receive it in her arm she was fine with it. She has yet to get over the steroid shot in her butt when she had a major asthma attack.

 

Mole moral~One more campus visit and then Kayla is that much closer to going away to college and some freedom from her old Mole parents! We are both excited for her future.

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Breaking one of the ten commandments

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I am not sure if I actually broke Exodus 20:17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” However I can say that I have wanted this medal

for four years but in my defense I don’t know anyone personally who has one.

I am pretty sure I first saw the Lincoln Presidential Half Marathon race on Facebook four years ago. It is ran in Springfield IL through the town, including the cemetery where he is buried. The first year I had just had Dr. Veronikis surgery and all that left-sided pain so it wasn’t happening. The next year I had taken the spring off to heal my patellar tendonitis from falling the previous August and recover from plantar wart surgery. The next year I was battling plantar fasciitis in my right foot and the next my left. So finally today I got to run it and receive the most awesome medal. It’s almost better than my Disney medals. It’s a really close second.

This will most likely be the one and only time I run this even if next year the medal is a five dollar bill because we ran on cobblestone, loose gravel and gum balls from trees. It was a tripping hazard that high fall risk girl should probably not attempt again. It was freezing this am and I of course only packed a short-sleeved shirt but by mile 3 I was fairly warm. It was cool seeing the capitol building and then running through the cemetery. It’s hard to take pictures with the brightness turned down but here they are anyway.

I made sure I put in my phone where I parked so I could find my car afterwards. Of course I had no clue and had to ask a cop. Then I picked the wrong direction to find the cross street. By this time it was so windy, I thought I was going to be blown into the middle of an intersection and ran over. I finally found my car fifteen minutes later and probably another thousand steps. It’s so hard having zero GPS skills.

 

Mole Moral~Good things come to those who wait, even if it is a coveted medal that will probably send them straight to hell! Hahahahah

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The Wizard of Oz

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Finally after eleven years all is right with the Wizard of Oz. These pictures are  living proof.

It all started back in 2004 when my nephew Tyler was slated to be born by cesarean section on 10/29. I asked my brother and sister-in-law if my niece Sarah could spend Halloween with us. They said sure and then I came up with the grandiose idea to do a Wizard of Oz theme. Emily and my niece Sierra both wanted to be Dorothy and Emily swears Sierra refused to cooperate unless she was  Dorothy. So I being the mean mom I have always been, told Emily to pick a different character. She refused to be the wicked witch and to this day says that should have been Sierra. She finally agreed to be the house that landed on the wicked witch of the east.

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I am pretty sure the only way should would wear the costume was to make the house this weird satin pink color and  I was willing to agree to anything.  We did not realize how heavy cardboard would become so she took it off about midway through trick or treating and made her dad carry it.

Making the costumes turned into a nightmare. Kyle’s tin man costume came out three sizes too small so I said screw it and bought him sweats. Allison’s was supposed to have some sort of straw material and I couldn’t find that so I cut up strips of material and made that straw. Sarah’s good witch hat was huge! Her grandpa Jerry called it her Pope hat. The shoe covers for Kayla’s lion costume were in Allyson’s closet for years.

After this I am not sure if I ever made another Halloween costume and swore off sewing for a few years. And then the advertisement for the Wicked half marathon showed up in my news feed.

 

I could have sworn Emily asked me if she could run it with me but I may have asked her. She swears it was my idea and I came up with the idea to dress up. I told her she would be Dorothy and I was trying to decide between the tin man or the scarecrow. To enter the costume contest they had to be submitted by December. We wouldn’t have our costumes finished until the night before the run. Sometime later I decided to be a flying monkey and used this monkey as my model.

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However, I did Emily’s costume first. I knew she was a sweater and needed a running wicking shirt so I bought a plain white one and came up with the great idea to pain the gingham check on it. I ordered the material to make the skirt and must have looked at it in blown up size because when it arrived the print was tiny and I had to make way smaller squares for the shirt. I used 1/4 inch quilter’s tape to make the squares. I bet a put a good ten hours into the shirt. And the skirt should have been a piece of cake but the first time I made it Kayla could barely wear it so I asked Emily to measure her waist. I remade it and when she came home it was huge. I asked her and she said “oh yeah I added two inches to my waist measurement.” I could have killed her because I had to take the skirt apart and for the third and last time put the zipper in. It was still a little big, but I told her too bad you can pin it like when you were little.

And then I started on the flying monkey costume and by the time I was finished, I had sworn off sewing again. I made the grey shirt no problem and then came time for the pants. I ordered the material and the pattern off of the internet and I took my measurements and cut the pattern pieces out to that size. When I got the pants all sewn together I couldn’t even get them past my knees. I wasn’t sure what happened so I had to purchase the pattern again and I decided to make it the biggest size possible which was for a size 45 waist and 54 inch hips. When I had them all together I couldn’t get them over my butt and they barely fit Emily. I said screw it and found a pair of grey running pants. I then started on the jacket. I had found a DIY blog which worked great for the hat but the jacket was once again six sizes too small so Emily and I went and found a pattern that turned out to be perfect. I probably spent a good three hours on the stripes as I had to cut out three different colors for each. Allyson was supposed to make me some wings but she didn’t get around to it and refused to draw them for me so I drew them myself. I also turned the thighs of the first attempt at the too small pants into my shoe covers!

After finishing the race today I am just going to say that our costumes were by far the best. Almost every other Dorothy was a store-bought costume and I was the only flying monkey. I had a lot of people talking to me and telling me they liked my costume. Emily and I had a really good time even if it did rain the first nine miles. That was pretty miserable but we survived.

Mole Moral~Good things come to those who wait! Hence Emily ended up being Dorothy eleven years later in a really cool race, with a really cool mom!

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A different definition of insanity

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I think it was Dr. Phil that I heard the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. This past weeks long run was 16 miles and it rained almost every single day. So this left me with three choices run in the rain (no way, it would mess up my iPhone), use the treadmill (I’d rather rip out my fingernails) or go to the Arnold Recreation Center and use the indoor track. I had recently discovered the indoor track being free to walk and run on. So I picked the lesser of the three evils. So how many laps did I run? Somewhere around 192. Now that is insanity. I had a few people asked me how I managed. Well for one I listened to my Jesus running music. I really connect with God that way but I have to be careful not to be singing out loud. And even worse is if a Kid Stuf song I have to be super careful not to be doing the arm motions. I mean I borderline on a lunatic spending over 3 hours walking/running 192 laps as it is. Just let me sing out loud and do crazy arm motions and the white coats would be immediately sent for.

As different music plays, I am reminded of different things. Lets see Broadcast came on which was the opening song to the very first Big Stuf camp I ever attended. How He Loves also from that first camp in which for the first time I could feel people loved me. That’s a hard one to explain and belongs in a different blog. A lot of my music comes straight from camp. There are songs that make me think of Brent a kid from church that sings in the youth band. Sometimes I heard him sing it before the original artist and well he is just better. My only non Christian song is What Makes You Beautiful by One Direction. The Oak Bridge interns did a flash mob to that song. Sometimes when I listen to it, it’s as if God as singing it to me. It works pretty well for that. Maybe Uncle Larry is right, any secular song can be switched to Christian just by changing the words. Oh how that makes my cousin Eddie crazy when he says that.

This weeks long run is 18 miles and no rain in the forecast so back to my normal running route. And yes I have signed up for a full marathon!

 

Mole Moral~I can usually find a work around any problem and the track was just such a thing! Yep I’m insane!

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Korn Dog

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Its been a difficult week in the Moehlmann house. Monday was the best day ever but set off an unexpected chain of events that led to more stress than I could have imagined and my itching skin that I had finally gotten under control, flared up again. This leads me to the conclusion I can eat all the gluten I want, and if my stress is under control I won’t be such a dry flaky mess.

Today Brian received the news that his really good friend Dave had passed away. His friends nickname was Korn Dog because Korn was his last name. Dave had been diagnosed with HPV of the tonsil. I remember asking Dr. Chobanian about it at the time and he said he was sorry because that was a really bad cancer. Dave did well for a while after the surgery and treatment although he became very thin and never drank like he use to. It came back and I think he may have done one more round of treatment but the last time he refused and now he is in heaven.

There are so many great Korn Dog stories. One of my favorites was a party Brian attended at their house. I must have been working but I will never forget Brian telling me Dave would let the kids ride on his back while he went down the stairs on his stomach. So it was like the kids were sleigh riding in the house. I can’t even imagine how sore he was when he woke up. He and Brian met when Brian worked at RotoMetrics. They were both on the same golf league with a few other Roto guys. Every year the golf league would have a weekend golf getaway which basically was a drunken fest. Dave laid down in the fairway and fell asleep while waiting to tee off. When it was his time, he woke up, rolled down the hill and hit the ball as if he were awake the entire time. He was one of my favorites of Brian’s friends.

Mole Moral~ Live as if your time is short and focus on what is most important. Love God with all your heart, soul and mind, and love your neighbor as your self. Jesus!

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Leap Day is the best day ever!

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Ever since I was a little kid leap day has always been my favorite day of the year. There are several reasons for this but the biggest one is it’s special because it only happens once every four years. Also it was the year of the Olympics because they use to do the summer and winter Olympics in the same year. I can’t remember when they moved the winter Olympics to the non leap even year but they did!

Seven leap years ago Brian called me and proposed to me over the phone. I was at school (Deaconess College of Nursing) and I think he maybe came to visit me three or four times the entire time I was there. In his defense I came home every weekend because no one stayed there and everyone went home. I said yes and couldn’t wait to go ring shopping. He quickly informed me he wasn’t buying a ring at this time. I finally got him to part with the money for an engagement ring three months later on my birthday. We originally planned to get married on February 29, 1992 as it even fell on a Saturday. However, in August (1988) I moved to Edwardsville to get my bachelors degree in nursing. I moved in with my best friend Gena. I was also working as a nurse at Deaconess and was scheduled Labor Day weekend. I was crazy busy and did not call him for three days. Brian was convinced I had met someone else and the next thing I knew he wanted to move the date up. He will deny this but it was not my idea. I wanted to be finished with my degree before I got married. I was slated to finish school in March of 1990. (Back in those days SIUE was on weird trimesters). We decided we wanted to get married in October. Our first (and blind) date was on October 11 so I wanted to get married on the 13 but Brian refused. He said our anniversary would fall on a Friday from time to time and that would be bad luck. So we settled on October 20, 1990 and the rest is history.

Since I ended up not getting married on leap day, I tried to have my two oldest kids on leap day. I missed it by three months both times. Allyson was not born in a leap year so I was really off with her. I worked with a nurse on Women’s Health whose birthday was leap day but she has since retired. Last leap day I made a cake and brought it in for her. She was really touched an surprised. Who knows maybe I will have a grand baby on leap day! I cannot believe I just said that! I am not old enough for that nonsense.

 

Mole Moral~Leap Day will always be the best day ever!

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Late night with Andy Stanley

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I haven’t been up past eleven o’clock in a long time. Last night I was working on Emily’s laundry and actually made it up past Saturday Night Live. I was in for a bit of surprise when talking points with Andy Stanley came on channel 5. For those of you that have no clue who I am talking about, Andy is the pastor of Northpoint Community Church outside of Atlanta. I visited there once as they are the church that writes Kid Stuf. The place is huge and has like 25,000 members. He was really interesting but then again he always is.

Andy was talking about how if you live your life as if your days are numbered, you will gain a heart of wisdom. Too many people go through life as if they have all the time in the world and often find themselves at the end of life not where they wanted to be. He quoted a nurse who worked hospice who asked her patients what their biggest regret was. Almost every single man’s response was working too much when the kids were little and missing out on their childhood and spending time with their spouse. The second response was not living the life the person wanted but the life others expected them to live. Of course I received validation for something I have said for a long long time. Anytime Brian harasses me about the house being messy and asks why I don’t keep it spotless my response has always been on my deathbed I will not say “I wish I kept the house cleaner.” It will be  “I wish I helped others more, made gifts for others and made time for people.”

I certainly feel i am living the life I wanted except for being married and having kids. I swore when I was younger I was never getting married or having kids. However both of those turned into a huge blessing, I never dreamed possible in my younger years. I always knew I would be a nurse and I wanted to be a burn nurse. I did that for ten years and lived my dream. And now on Women’s Health I have felt it is the place God wants me to be. I have tried to leave a couple times when things were really rough and he told me no. I am glad I stayed because I really do enjoy it 99% of the time. It’s hard to believe in a little over a year I will be fifty. I remember when Brian’s dad turned fifty and I gave him a coffee cup that said “how the hell did I get this old”. Oh that is so fitting and every time I think of it, I smile. Time goes by so fast, too fast and their is no slowing it down. So my goal is to try and follow the two greatest commandments. Love God with all my heart, soul and mind and love my neighbors as myself.

 

Mole moral~ If you stop by my house, it is most likely to be a mess but I will invite you in and we will have a lot of fun. And when I’m gone you will say that girl had the messiest house ever but she sure was a lot of fun!

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Facebook and Gluten Free

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I guess its been close to a month since I decided to remove the Facebook app from my phone. I just felt like I was wasting too much time reading it. I also was tired of all the political mumbo jumbo and everything else. I can indeed pull Facebook up via the safari browser but I have found myself rarely doing that. Before Christmas I had an eczema flare start that will not go away. I had it once before many years ago for a month or so. It started behind my knees both times. This time it has gotten out of control and to the point I wanted to claw my skin off! There have been times my skin felt like it was on fire. So i am either going crazy or just my usual hot mess.

So I decided I would try gluten free even though I do not have celiac disease and have never had digestive type issues. Gluten can trigger eczema. I rarely cook or grocery shop. I have zero interest and I swore I had no time. Well since I have cut Facebook down to a bare minimum I have done both. We have tried all kinds of crazy recipes and I started making my own gluten free bread and crackers. I am just going to say that when one has to make their own crackers, one is less likely to binge and eat them all at once because there is no running to the store for more. My first attempt at the bread was hysterical. It looked beautiful when I took it out of the oven, but two hours later when I was back from running it has fallen to midget size. I had not cooked it near long enough. I haven’t made that mistake since.

The kids are not too keen on it but then again if its not fast food they aren’t keen on anything. I have given up on trying to make food they like. Actually I am to the point as long as I like it everyone else can make what they like. Brian has enjoyed the new recipes and not cooking so much although I do find him often wondering around the kitchen looking for ways to help.

 

Mole moral ~ I have found social medial to be a bigger waste of time than I had realized. However I am not cutting it totally out of my life, as that would be crazy!

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Meeting Miss Ellie

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IMG_0945Please note the title is meeting, not meet as in I did not adopt a pig! I thought it was best to set this straight right away because my mother knows what an animal lover I am and she would be having a stroke thinking I am now living with a pig. My dog Soleil is an only child and will stay that way because that is how she prefers it. She doesn’t mind when we dog sit but I don’t think she needs a companion twenty-four/seven.

My friend Brittany who I worked with ten years ago on Women’s Health had posted a few months ago she was looking for someone to watch her two pigs while they were on vacation this summer. I being the animal lover, jumped at the chance. My cousin Eddie owned two different pigs and said they were smarter and cleaner than dogs. Then all of a sudden then ended up fostering and taking in the third pig which was Miss Ellie. I knew there was no way I could handle three pigs but I didn’t have the heart to tell her. Well, then she posted that she only wanted me to watch Miss Ellie (the other two are boys.) She wanted to bring her by for a home visit so I could meet her and she and her husband could check out the house. It reminded me of when we adopted Soleil. So she and her husband brought her over yesterday and Kayla was home. I would have felt like an idiot taking pictures but you know the younger generation photos everything so Kayla took a bunch and put them on her snapchat story. So that is where I got this one. Ellie loves to eat Cheerios and Soleil just stood there patiently and Zach gave her a couple.

I didn’t pet Ellie too much because I figured maybe pigs are like dogs and do not want people just touching them. So I used the Cesar Milan rule of just kind of watching her. She’s really vocal, especially when you try to get her to move to go outside or change surfaces like hardwood to concrete. The more she doesn’t want to do it, the louder she becomes. They told me just to ignore that. This reminded me of the bearded dragon and the previous owner telling us just ignore his puffed up behavior and pick him up anyway.

Soleil got along really well with her. One time Soleil was bugging her so she got the head swipe. Apparently pigs don’t bite they head butt each other. I looked at Soleil and said that will teach you. She will be coming over again before they go on vacation. This time the animal lover Allyson should be home. She was disappointed she didn’t get to meet Ellie and asked Kayla and me all kinds of questions. It shall be a fun summer adventure.

 

Mole moral~ If you need pet setting, the Mole’s are your people!

 

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Shleprock takes Holly for a test

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According to Brian, only crazy people ask Shleprock (me) to take them to the hospital for a test. With my bad luck, that’s like asking to die. Oh the Mole house is so, so morbid. My friend Holly is crazy like me and she had me take her for a cardiac cath today. Except it wasn’t exactly a cardiac cath but rather a comedy because the only person who knew what test she was having was the cardiologist. The rest of them would be what I call “clueless wonders”. The nurse had her sign a permit that basically said a cardiac cath with possible stent placement and/or angioplasty. That was scary. Holly was told she was having a left heart cath but everyone else seemed to think she was having both sides of her heart and with dye. Everyone was confused and disoriented even the nurse practitioner who went over the entire cardiac cath procedure. So when the cardiologist comes in he tells her that he is going up her femoral vein (big vein in your leg) and not her artery because he was only measuring the pressures in her heart and not looking for blockage. That there wouldn’t be any dye used because dye isn’t needed to obtain heart pressures. He gets finished talking and I look at him and say “so are you doing a swan ganz catheter.” He looks at me amazed and says yes and asked how I knew this. I said I worked in the burn unit for ten years. (Yep somehow I manage to mention when I worked in the burn unit quite frequently). After he told us it was a swan, I knew the risk was small. After all they let the residents float those in all the time. And heck I use to get the numbers off of them so how hard is that. She got back from her test right as I left for my appointment. I got back from that just in time for the doctor to talk to her. Right after the procedure he told her she had mild pulmonary hypertension (that is high blood pressure in the lungs for my non medical friends) but when he came in he had reviewed the pressure numbers and told her she had moderate pulmonary hypertension. But it was all good because it wasn’t severe like her pulmonologist (lung doctor) was afraid of. Of course the crazy nut had gotten on google and looked this up yesterday and freaked herself out. Then he rambled something about the pressure being up in the right ventricle and maybe she just needed to double her diuretic. However, he is a cardiologist not a pulmonologist so he cannot decide on the medication. When we first signed in, the girl was reluctant to tell her that her CO-PAY for this test was 1300! She has private insurance and still is expected to pay 1300. I am surprised she didn’t have a heart attack and die right there at the desk. I can’t wait to find out what the full billing for this procedure turns out to be. Health care in America is so jacked up!

So Holly survived the test without bleeding to death and was discharged by 2pm just like they said she would be. They told her if she gets home and feels or hears a pop in her leg to call 911 immediately. Then said well its your vein so if that happens you shouldn’t bleed out because it’s not the artery. Then the nurse gives her discharge instructions as if she’s had a cardiac cath and told her not to resume one of her medications for two days because of the dye. Except she didn’t have dye. See everyone confused and disoriented. We had quite the comedy show going and I will end this with my favorite Holly story. Well it’s two of them. I met Holly two days after I came back from the nurses strike. I had just gotten in big trouble for writing “Spare Me” on the dry erase board. I walked up to her and asked her if she smoked. I then said you are giving me a cigarette and we are going to smoke. Oh and my name is Rachel. We were friends from that day forward. A couple of weeks later I realized that she and Brian graduated the same year from the same high school. She asked me what his last name was. I looked at her like she had three heads and said “Moehlmann same as mine” It’s a Holly classic.

 

Mole Moral~ If you need comic relief before and after a procedure Shleprock is your girl!