Our little corner of the world

Since it has been such a long time since I have consistently posted, here's a QUICK update so I can move on to the more exciting and current storytelling ventures of my life:

 Got married.....

 Graduated from BYU-Idaho with a public health degree....

 Got a dog....
(just kidding, this is my family's dog but I love her like she's my own. Whoever said love can't be bought has never slipped pieces of meat to a dog at dinner.)

Moved to Salt Lake to both do internships (Franklin Covey for Eric, Salt Lake Aging Services for me)....

 Took a fun trip/belated honeymoon to London, Scotland, and Ireland.

Lots of other things have happened too, but I really am feeling too lazy to vaguely gloss over anything else.

Which bring us to now!

After weeks searching for gross, overpriced apartments in Salt Lake, we found a great basement apartment of a friend of my mom's. She lives with her 102 year old mother who we LOVE. Back to Roselle in a moment.

I generally hate basement apartments because they are dark, dingy and tend to ruin your whole living space when a flash flood comes rolling through town, forcing you to sleep on your living room floor for three weeks, kayak to the grocery store, and rotate the only two outfits you have access to since your bedroom is a giant construction project. I can't make these details up. This happened to us this summer.

However, our current basement apartment walks out to the most beautiful backyard on a hill that overlooks Salt Lake. It is twice as big as any of our other apartments. And we help around the house in exchange for most of our rent. It has been a blessing since both of our internships are unpaid.

Roselle is the 102 year old woman that lives above us. Sometimes my duties include putting her to bed when her daughter is out of town. Normally, I would not look forward to taking off adult diapers/dentures/wigs and lathering ointment on someone's legs, but Roselle is sassy and hilarious, two of my favorite things.

Things that regularly come out of Roselle's mouth:
"Well, I only robbed one bank today, so let's hope tomorrow is better."
"What size feet do you have?! I sure am glad I don't have those big things."
"At least I have outlived all of my enemies" (said with a sigh while I am putting her to bed).

Her heart is healthier than an average 30 year old. I am pretty sure she will live forever. So chatting with Roselle is actually kind of the highlight of our day.

Not to say that our living situation is perfect. When we first moved in, we had to spend the first several nights at my parents house because our apartment was littered with spiders. Big ones, little ones, hairy ones, ones with big butts, jumping ones. You name it, it was in our shower or closet. So I had the place sprayed and the guy told me we would be seeing lots of dead spiders around the apartment. He also gave us some of those sticky spiders traps that you put against the wall.

Conceptually, these traps are great, but in reality, it's upsetting to see that dozens of spiders have crawled along your walls in a matter of days. The sticky stuff has long stopped being sticky, but I am too creeped out to pick them up. Right now I am looking at one sticky trap next to the computer that has a spider that is literally three times the size of the rest. So much for sleeping tonight.

We also have a rat problem. Actually, I don't know if they are rats or mice, but what's the difference really? I could never tell, except that rats are bigger? Anyway, since we live on a slope, there are stairs that wrap around the house to the driveway. These...rats...have burrowed holes in the grass at the top of the stairs and I think they have a whole tunnel system/rat kingdom under there. Every time I walk up or down the stairs, I hear rustling. I am unsettled by this as well. I have no logical reason to be scared of anything creepy or crawly unless it's poisonous. But fear is almost never logical.

My illogical fear-ridden mind is positive that there is a rat king down in the rat kingdom that for months has been ordering the other rats to dig a rachael-sized grave underneath the stairs and that one of these nights, they will swarm me and drag me down to my grave and no one will ever know where I went. This fear has driven me to literally run around the stairs at night, giving the rat kingdom the widest berth the lawn will let me.

On the plus side, we have a little kitty cat that comes and sits on our porch chair that I named Felix. I may have left out some deli meat for him, sealing our fate as his forever second family. I am so naughty with feeding animals. Sorry to Felix's family and my parents for teaching your pets to beg.

The sad realities of me blooming late and peaking early in life

I have been thinking a lot about my 14 year-old sister and where she is right now compared to where I was at that age. I mean, it's not really great to be in the business of reminiscing about your 14 year-old self because that's just asking for a good case of depression and cringing. So I will make it brief. But let me paint you a picture:

When I was in middle school, I was walking around with the most terrible bangs that I had impulsively cut (and then got sick of, so re-cut right to the hairline and was then trying to grow out) (I am thinking of bangs again. Is that just asking for trouble? Am I predetermined to cut them to the hairline again when I hate them?) My hair is curly so I straightened the bangs and wore a greasy ponytail everyday. I owned maybe 4 pairs of baggy pants in shades of beige, navy, and black (school uniform colors, ya know). In seventh grade I had two pairs of shoes: a black, chunky heeled boot and an Avia sneaker from Costco. I wore the Costco sneakers every day with, say, khaki capris and a non-logo red polo shirt with my greasy bang ponytail and lavender/hot pink braces. At home, I wore baggy shirts and soccer shorts.

I also had a fresh smattering of acne on my forehead so yeah, I was the object of every pubescent boy's desire. It's not that my parents were so poor that they couldn't afford good clothes. I just was an awkward, shy girl whose daily vernacular did not include words like "shopping", "jewelry" and "shower."

Emma, on the other hand, has several pair of Lululemon leggings, long and luscious hair, clothes that I would steal if I could fit into (unlike Emma, I was NOT a size 00 in middle school), the perfect two-swipe and age-appropriate mascara routine, and a fresh, zit-free face. If I could sum up Emma in one phrase, it would be this one that she said last week upon seeing a picture of her two year-old self:

"Oh, my eyebrows have been on point since day one."

Emma is popular. I was not. Emma likes to hang out with boys on the weekends. I was much too scared of boys and read books instead. My parents have to call Emma and tell her to come home. My parents had to coax me with bribes to go out and socialize. Emma is growing up much sooner than I did.

What are sisters for, except perfecting each other's lip gloss and jewelry game 

The difference between 14 year-old Rachael and 14 year-old Emma probably stems from personality differences, my parents making more money than they used to and therefore, um, spending more money on their younger children, and I also think it's a generational thing (that one scares me a bit.)

So anyway, I grew up very slowly. And then, very rapidly, I peaked during my senior year of high school and freshman year of college. I became much more social. I went on trips with  my friends to India, Mexico, and St. George. I wanted to be in student government, so I created a position for myself and had the school constitution changed (high school Rachael, you're awesome). I dated so many boys my first semester of college that my aunt and girl cousins recall constantly being updated on the new drama every sunday dinner from my mom. I rock climbed/mud caved/mountain biked my way around China for four months. It was all very adventurous and romantic.

Now that I am married and "have to pay bills" and "be responsible" I look back on my peak years and can't help but feel that I have back-peddled to 14-year old Rachael. I spend most of my weekends reading. I wear lots of baggy shirts and soccer shorts. If I end up cutting bangs again, I have a suspicion that I will look like my middle school self instead of the effortlessly put-together girls on Pinterest. I constantly plan imaginary trips to faraway places that I probably should forgo so I can, like, go to grad school or have kids one day.

Emma is repeatedly telling me what's trendy. I feel like I should be in the loop too. It makes me feel like a 40 year-old mom, truthfully.

On Halloween, I was at the grocery store, buying candy for trick or treaters, and I saw some high school girls, all dressed up and ready to go to a party and I thought, "Oh, how cute. You are so young and darling and in the prime of your life!" And then I immediately rolled my eyes at myself because older adults say those same kinds of things to me all the time. So I guess I've still maybe got it? But "having it" is relative because a 50-year old still "has it" to an 80 year-old.

So there you have it, the rise and fall of the Rachael Ely empire. My small, tiny window of being at the top of my game. I definitely know that I will read this post when I'm 35 and laugh and think that in my early twenties, I was at the top of my game. And then, at 80, I'll think the same thing of being 35. Does anyone else think that we tend to romanticize our pasts and remember events and time periods being more ideal that they really were? I totally do. Except at 14. I wish I saw the middle school years through rose-colored glasses so it doesn't make me shudder when I try to fall asleep.