My Feelings of Abandonment

There are days when I wonder if Heavenly Father has just completely left me alone.  He has given up on me or something.  That's the only thing I can think of, because for the past three days Emma has been very sick.  She says that she is in a tremendous amount of pain in her chest after she eats or drinks, so she refuses to do it.  I have taken her to two different doctors now, and both are telling me the same thing.  Have her eat, drink, rest, blah, blah, blah.  Yeah, how do I do that when she refuses and starts screaming that it hurts and runs to the bathroom to puke what little she's already eaten because she ends up gagging herself?  I can't force her to eat.  I have prayed and prayed and prayed for answers, for guidance, for something.  NOTHING.  Literally.  N-O-T-H-I-N-G.

Have I been abandoned?  The doctors keep brushing me off.  "She looks fine," "There's nothing wrong with her," "Keep giving her antibiotics for the possibility that she has pneumonia and 'encourage' her to eat and drink."  They even did a chest x-ray and a urine analysis.  They ran a flu test and a strep test.  Both negative. Encourage her?  Okay, I'm encouraging her.  I'm begging her.  I'm crying, I'm throwing laundry baskets, I'm threatening to let them put a needle in her arm, but she still won't because she's too afraid to eat or drink because it hurts.  WTH?!

Which brings me back to my original question: Have I been abandoned?  Why won't Heavenly Father give me SOME sort of little clue?  Why won't he help me figure out how to get my daughter to eat or drink to alleviate the sunken cheeks and dry, bleeding lips?  Why won't he let the pain in her chest subside long enough to allow her to eat something?  I guess this is the question that any parent asks God when their child is very sick.  And, yet, my child is very healthy for the most part, and for that reason and many others, I am truly blessed.  I know that I need to focus on that.  I know that I need to quit thinking that I am being abandoned, and start having some faith.  But, I DO have faith--that's the thing!  I KNOW with every fiber of my being that if Heavenly Father wanted to, he could heal her right now.  I know that he can do anything he wants to do.  I just don't think he WANTS to do anything, and I need to figure out what kind of lesson he is trying to teach me through my child.

Okay, I am done now.  Any of you that are a little less frustrated than I am, please keep Emma in your prayers.  She could really use them.  Oh, and yes, I've had Mike give her two priesthood blessings so far.  Nothing.  What am I missing?


UPDATE:
Although it was a very rough time, we finally found out what was going on with Emma after we had her checked into Cook Children's Hospital in Fort Worth.  She had esophagitis, which is essentially cold sores and canker sores all up and down the inside of her esophagus.  She couldn't eat or drink anything, so she was severely dehydrated.  She stayed in the hospital for four days.  I know that Heavenly Father is always watching over me, even when I think he's not.  She is healthy again, we were able to pay for most of the medical bills without any trouble, and it hasn't come back.  I am tremendously blessed.  It's just hard to see that when one is in the thick of their trouble.  I am grateful I was able to get through it relatively unscathed, and that my baby is all better.

My Exhaustion

I am tired.  I think this has been the sentence to describe my life since I started going back to school in 2010.  It seems like all I ever do is clean or study, neither of which I am ever very excited to do (especially cleaning).  The studying has been paying off, though.  I have gotten straight A's the past two semesters in an attempt to bring up my pitiful 2.9 GPA, which is COMPLETELY unlike me.  I guess moving to a new state and trying to get situated and then being sick for three months straight will do that to even the best of students.  Not that I am necessarily the best of students, however.  I mean, I am going to UTA, not Harvard or Yale or somewhere like that.

Either way, being tired seems to be the way I describe my life all the time.  Some might look at it as being lazy, but not me.  And, not only am I physically tired, I am truly MENTALLY tired!!  My brain has been fried recently, especially now that I am nearing the end of my Bachelor's Degree path.  Wow.  That's kind of a big deal for me.  I have this fall semester, consisting of 4 classes all squeezed into two days a week, which I am going to LOVE!  I can't wait to only have to drive two days a week.  Then, in the Spring semester, I have the internship in Plano which I am BEYOND excited for!  Then, in the summer semester of 2015, I will be taking three more classes which serve as a bridge to the graduate program and I will be DONE with my Bachelor's degree!  I can't wait.  It has been such a long time coming.  Of course, that won't be the end of my school journey, but at least I will have a degree in hand and I will finally be able to start a career.

Even though school always seems to consume my life and my conversations, I promise there is more that is happening for me and my kids.  The kids have spent a very boring summer in the house with Audrey babysitting while I go to school, so they are actually excited for school to start--I think.  I wish I could have taken them somewhere fun for the summer, but it just wasn't in the cards for us and I don't think it will be in the cards next summer either.  I will make it up to them at some point, but for now this is the way life is.

Mike is working hard as usual.  It is especially daunting for him in the heat of the summer, but according to long-time locals, this summer has been an especially mild one.  Ouch.  If that's the case, I would absolutely HATE to be here during a "hot" summer.  That is one of the reasons that Mike and I have been seriously tossing around the idea of moving again.  Texas just hasn't felt like home yet and we have been here over two years.  But, we have to stay a little longer, and only time will tell what will happen in the future.  In the meantime, we will try to make the best of our situation, count our blessings, and crank up the AC.

My "It's Not Fair" Face

     There are days--and I have no doubt that everyone has them--that I wish I could be anyone but me.  When I was young, there was this book called "It's Not Fair!" and it was all these pictures of kids comparing their lives to other people's and telling why what they had wasn't fair.  I really can't do the kids' faces justice because the drawings were hilarious, but they would always have a scowl and their lips would be sticking out very far, like a duck beak.  My siblings used to tease me that I looked like them, and now that we are older, we all laugh about it.  I've looked all over the Internet, but I can't find it anywhere, and I certainly can't remember who the illustrator was, so onto my point.
     I don't know if just women do this, but I find myself comparing myself to other people all the time.  "Oh, I wish I had Caradon's gorgeous, thick hair instead of my thin, limp hair."  Then there is, "I wish my teeth were as white as Samantha's," or "I wish I was as thin as that girl," or "I wish I could wear that outfit."  It's sad that I find myself comparing my weaknesses against everyone else's strengths.  But, doing this got me thinking...are there people out there wishing they could be like me?  Is there someone out there wishing that they had kind, well-behaved kids?  Is there someone out there wishing they had a really hot husband who also cooked, scraped the dry skin off their feet, and thought his wife was beautiful?  I'm sure there is, and sometimes I wish that person would say something to me.  It would be nice every once in a while to hear something good from someone who isn't required to think you are amazing.

     Because I feel that way, I always try to do the same for other people.  Every time I see someone with beautiful hair, or really great style, or a fabulous handle-bar moustache...I tell them!  It certainly never hurts, and they usually respond with a smile and a "thank you!"  Hopefully, what goes around will come around and more people will be willing to pay compliments instead of moping with their "It's Not Fair" face, just wishing they were somebody else.  I'm going to work on that--try to see my strengths more often and when I look in the mirror, no more pouting.  I'll just have to see the good things and maybe someday I'll believe them.

My Internship

          It has been too long since I have posted anything in my blog.   I am sure any of you who actually read it (maybe 2 or 3 people?) are wondering if I gave up.  I haven't.  I just have had a lot on my plate these past few weeks...er, months...er, years?!  It's been a while!  Well, here I am now, probably a lonely post until the next one.  Who knows when that will be?  Anyway, on to my story!

           As all of you know, I have been in school since May 2010.  I have been working my little tooshy off, but it's been a really slow process.  Once we moved here to Texas, I decided I would plow through it as fast as I could.  So, that's what I've been doing.  There have been a few bumps and snafus along the way, but for the most part I have done really well.  All of this studying is in planning to try to enter the accounting world with a career that I love, Bachelor's, Master's, and CPA in hand.  Well, part of that process is to get an internship for some real-world experience.

          The whole process started back in February.  I went to the school's Firm Night.  This is where all the accounting firms in the area (including some from the "Big Four") come to meet potential candidates.  I had signed up for speed networking--essentially a speed dating process, I assume, although I have never done one of those.  Anyway, I had to sit down at a table with recruiters and discuss in four minutes or less why I would be a good candidate for their company.  Needless to say, I was terrified.  By the end of the night, however, I had become an old pro at explaining my resume in a nutshell.  After it was all done, I went back to life as normal.

          Three days later I received an email from a small firm in Dallas saying they had been really impressed with me and wanted to pursue an internship for me at their company.  I was excited, but still wanted to explore other options.  So, I logged onto the school's career site and started submitting my resume to various companies--or at least, that's what I wanted to do.  Being that my GPA was an abysmal 2.9 (long story--definitely one for another post), I couldn't apply with anyone from the Big Four.  I was sad about that, but at the same time, I don't know if I would want to work for one of them.  I had heard horror stories about working 100-hour workweeks and being a number in a herd of minions.  Being that I am a mom to four very active children, I wanted a mid-sized firm.  So, I applied to two more.

         At this point, I had three potential internships.  Both of the ones I applied for chose me to do a campus interview.  If that went well, I would then have an office visit with other interviews during that time which would be the final step before receiving an offer.  To make a long story short, my campus interviews went well and I was asked for an office visit to all three firms.  I went to the first one that had pursued me, and to make another long story short, they offered me an internship, withdrew it saying they weren't sure if I could give them the time they would need and they didn't think I could handle the commute.  Then they called me back a few weeks later saying they would actually like to offer me an internship after all.  Of course, I had already washed my hands of them, so I very politely told them no, thank you.

          One of the companies invited me to a social event at this place called Top Golf.  It was a driving range of sorts with three levels facing out to goals.  The point was to try to hit the golf ball as far as one could and make it into the various targets.  Here is what the building looked like:

You can't see the goals, but they are on the left.  The building is just open platforms facing the green.  It's way cool.  It was a lot of fun to be there and the people were all really nice.  I had decided right then that this was the firm that I wanted to go to.

A few weeks later, I went to their office for an office visit.  Again, a lot of fun.  Everyone was very friendly and the office was really pretty.  I had enjoyable interviews and a nice lunch.  I had a great feeling when I left that I would get an offer, but obviously I wasn't sure.

A few days later I went to the office visit of the other firm I had applied to, LGT.  It was a really great day as well.  The firm was smack dab in uptown Dallas, so it was very fancy.  Maybe even a little TOO fancy for me.  As much as I would like to think that I could fit in to the hardcore business world, I need some place where I can be me and not worry about keeping up appearances.

Long story short again, I did not receive an offer from the third company (LGT), but I did receive one from MCG which I was ecstatic about since this was the one I wanted anyway!  My internship will start in February of 2015 (super long way away, but that gives me a chance to take my tax accounting class to get me familiar with what I will be doing) and go until May.  I. Can't. Wait!  Here is a picture of the building:

Sorry, it's a little grainy, but it sure is nice!  It even has a gym on the first floor that we can get free membership to!   Maybe it will encourage me to get back to my running days' figure! =-)