Tonight I decided to get with the picture, finally embrace my destiny, hop onto Amazon and order myself a Track Mom bag. I found a cute one with pink letters that says, “I’m in my Track Mom Era”. It’s supposed to get here March 10th. It came to mind again while Josh and I were in Dick’s sporting goods this afternoon looking around for a birthday present. I saw what would’ve been a perfect Baseball Mom bag. I almost wanted it.

Yesterday the boys had an indoor track meet in Williamsville. Dad was helping with the woodcutters retreat, so that left me as the parent who could go. I told the boys I’d see what happens, that maybe I’d be there or maybe I wouldn’t. It wouldn’t have been an issue if I hadn’t had to go to work. When that is the case I want all my free time. I was sitting on the floor in my pajamas folding laundry when my son texted me the time.

Something inside me shifted and I was like, “What are you waiting for? Of course you want to be there. And it’s only 20 minutes away.” So I told him that I would be there and that I was on my way. I parked the van in a distant lot and paid my five dollars to get in. The track had a stairway to the upper level with many open spectator spots on the stairs. So I just stayed there and waited the allotted time until the race was to start.

The boys were in the 4×800. So that was fun to watch and I was proud to cheer them on. One of them said he could hear me. I was hoping so since I was the only one making noise toward the runners in that area. I was planning to film the race so the boys could watch it but I ended up caving and Facetimed Ethan so I wasn’t able to do that. I texted him to let them know it was starting and he hadn’t realized that I was going to be there.

While I was waiting I kept my coat on and crossed my arms to block my chest from the noise. It was the announcers and the gunshots which were loud enough to still get through. At the end of the race of I waved and left. As I was walking to the van he texted to ask if I was there still. I told him I was in the parking lot, but did he need something? He was just going to talk if I had time. I turned around and he met me, my heart happy.

I started going down the rabbit hole of wondering where my present issues are coming from. Was it mom’s this, my dad’s that, my husband’s x,y,z, and all the things. At this point they all seem like plausible reasons, but none of those things gives me hope for a better tomorrow. It sounds like a dramatic way to say it but what I mean by better tomorrow is the hope for a changed experience of living as myself, as this person I am.

I have thought about closing off parts of my mind. Like if your mind is a universe or like a land you see in video games, you basically would leave 90% of the world uninhabited and stick to this little10% of happy lands. There is no reason to explore the universe because earth is right here and was made for us to live on. Everything we need is right here. We wouldn’t even have to know there was anything else out there to encounter.

I (Ug, the I’s…) keep telling myself that’s all it would take. You forget about 90% of the universe because most of it is just open space anyway. To explore it takes too much time, too much money, too much risk of shuttles blowing up and burning upon reentry. We were made for earth’s atmosphere. The atmosphere was made for us so we could see the sky and breathe and live on earth without dying, without forgetting about God.

Camp had some interesting activity in the afternoon. We were inside the house when several fire trucks came into the camp lane and rushed down toward main camp. Long story short they’d been fighting a fire on another property and the fire had made it’s way into camp. By the time the trucks had gotten here the hayfield had burned up and there were underbrush fires in parts of the pine forest. They started working on those.

Four of us drove out there to see what was going on. It was me, Josh, our son, and a friend who is in town for the woodcutters men’s weekend. The three of them went into the woods with shovels and were helping put out fires for a while until one of the firefighters asked them to leave. I had started walking into the woods to get a closer look but then started hearing men yelling and shouting and decided not to do that.

So I sat in the car until they all came back. I never felt like things were out of control but it was scary to imagine what could have happened if no one had been there to put out the fires and to do it as quick as they had done it. Our area was on red alert for no fires because of how dry things have been for many months. Dad and our friend went to go check the other side of the hayfield before we drove back from out there to the house.

Today was a good day at Hope. Wonderful, actually. The sessions went well and I had that sense of deep fulfillment, like I was doing what I was meant to be doing but not even thinking about it. It’s the feeling I had with the homeschooling. You are caught up in the moment and I love the stimulation and the juggling of all the balls. Praise the Lord also, I had no pain from sitting and did not feel buzzy in my body or exhausted.

My niece has turned a corner with her chicken pox. Another niece from another family has also come down with them. She was staying with my sister and at the church at the same time with the other family. She thinks the exposure date was the 8th and not the day that she originally thought. Nothing here has happened yet but if it does it will be just about the time that Ethan and Laura are supposed to be visiting for spring break.

I wish there was a medicine or something I could take to get me through these more emotionally and psychologically challenging times. I am getting to the point where if I knew it would work, I would be willing to take something. People with addictions talk about numbing the pain and that is something I don’t relate to. I do not numb my pain. I just feel it and live with it and wonder why it continues to be with me and go on and on.

I know there is a hole that I can fall into. And when I am in it there is no light. There is no climbing out of it because when I am there I can’t move. The light just somehow happens upon me and when I am able to start to see it I find myself back in a better place, where I believe that I can be happy. I remember that I can. Last night we went to church and the parking was once again packed and full. I wondered what was going on.

There has to be a sporting event, I thought again. But all of those people were there to go to church. I wondered how many times one can hear a sermon about the Lamb of God, or why anyone one would think it was any more useful than the last one. We came home and had a birthday. I finished wrapping presents and set the bag out on the table. I thought about Facetiming Ethan or Elianna but in the end decided we were enough.

The mornings are quiet these days. Josh is usually up first, and then it is a toss up between me and the two boys going to school. Sometimes I am up before them drinking coffee and writing and reading. Other times I am in bed and get up when I realize I really want to say goodbye to them before they leave. They pack their lunches and fill their water bottles. We stand at the door and hug them goodbye every morning.

Ethan and Laura called this afternoon to say they are having a girl. I was on my way into town to do some shopping for the kids’ birthdays. He couldn’t talk long because he had to go to practice, but I was happy to hear their news. I called Elianna when I was in Sierra to tell her. She was happy too. They had a whole section of cat furniture and beds and climbing trees that I took a picture of and sent to her.

She said she used to want to fill a whole room with those. If we were rich I’d buy them all and make the garage a cat paradise. After finding a few gifts I met Dad and the boys along with Grandma and Elianna at Culvers for the junior class fundraiser. Grandma paid for our supper and then bought everyone ice cream for dessert.

The dining room is put back together. I went through all the mail and mopped the floor and pulled off most of the trim tape. This morning I went to Ross and found a fake plant for dining room table centerpiece. One time I asked for a cutting board and my mother in law bought me a solid wood board that is probably two inches thick. It’s so nice that I do not use it for cutting. Instead I use it as a table piece to go under the centerpiece.

I also shopped around for clothes. It’s just nice to have a new shirt or sweater or pair of sweater pants to wear around. I still have it in my head that I’m going to have an office at Thrive that I can turn into my personalized place to see clients. Alex is leaving at the end of the month which means one of the upstairs rooms will be open. That one has a lot more space. I just don’t know where else I would have that freedom to be weirder.

The other day when I was there I told him I still wanted to be there and that I still had ideas, I just wasn’t ready. I needed more experience and practice. One of the reasons I would sometimes start to think I shouldn’t stay there is because I didn’t like how being there affected my mind. Like surely this was a not a healthy way to be thinking.

I don’t know, I don’t feel like it’s as bad these days. The friend who we are going through the Unwanted book together ordered us the workbooks and delivered mine to me today. So I am looking forward to working through that with her, which I was doing to help her but probably I will get something out of it too. In Chapter one you’re supposed to be reflecting on your unwanted “sexual brokenness” and how it shows up for you.

I didn’t know what exactly to say except perhaps the limerent mind. That would be the unwanted behavior, the thing that is painful, stressful, and brings hardship. I’m not going to overthink it and everyone has their different things. I really feel like I’ve worked through most of this but it probably doesn’t hurt to have a refresher every once in a while. Hopefully that doesn’t sound like overkill. It’s good to know how people process.

It’s been very cold again today. I went outside for a walk and barely made it two minutes. It was nice after a busier yesterday to have nothing else going on today. Tonight for our family time we went to the store to buy ice cream. I normally do not care for it but tonight I did have some. I’ve been stalled out on my walking goals while this weather has been so unfit for walking. The scale has not moved in this month.

My limbs and extremities changed a lot over the past few years. I don’t think it’s stupid to talk about our bodies because I know that many women have things about themselves they do not like. It’s one thing when you feel it might be possible to change it but it’s another when you are sure or unsure if certain parts of you can change. A woman who has a mastectomy is not shallow or vain for missing who she used to be.

I tell myself that in dimmed light it doesn’t matter. But when certain summer clothes don’t look the same or you’re embarrassed for certain parts to be seen anymore it makes it different. I tell these women that confidence and how we feel is 95% attitude.

I proposed to Dad and the boys The Great Purging of 2026. In honor of the ten year anniversary of us moving here we would embark on a two month project to clean out the basement by May 1st. Nothing is totally set in stone, but it is possible Ethan and Laura will be staying with us in the summer. She’s going to do her internship here while Ethan works at the day camp. They could choose between the upstairs or downstairs.

That would leave sometime in May for the installation of the carpet. They actually seemed okay and pretty on board with all this. The hardest part for them is going to be getting rid of their things. The hardest part for me might be the reminder of all the money we’ve spent on their Legos. I am eager to make money to have more wiggle room and money for spending. There are debts to pay and kids to keep helping.

I’m still in the phase where I have to recover several days after working. I really don’t know how people keep going and lately I’ve been frustrated with my felt limitations and that isolation with feeling like nobody really understands. I just sound like a wimp and like I need to get a grip and keep moving just like everybody else. What I am grateful for is that I do still bounce back and start to feel ready again to go back for more work days.

I asked to pause on couples intakes so I could get my bearings with the notes and situations. I honestly never pictured myself doing so few individuals. I like that I can do it but it’s more like “Hey wait, I still do want to have one on one times”. The couples waitlist has leveled out but the family one is also long with only one other therapist who is taking intakes for those right now. I asked if I would be able to take any of those.

She said I could. I will tell you the only reason I feel like I would even try it is because the teacher I had at Lincoln (the hard one) modeled it in our family dynamics class. I would not want to do parents and children. I don’t think working with kids is my area. I need clients to have a certain capability for understanding. But they have ones with requests for grown adults within families and some for parents and teens which might be okay.

Again, this isn’t really what I imagined myself doing. But I do like have the opportunities to try things and get experience doing a wider range of therapy sessions. There are many parts to these types of therapy that I feel could be streamlined. And while I realize that it can’t be all about me and psychoeducation, there are things that can be taught, and then modeled, and then practiced. You teach the people to fish so they can do it.

Perhaps it’s wishful thinking, but it gives me hope that this kind of work is sustainable. With the harder teacher you never felt like the warmth and caring was there in abundance, but I learned in a way that I did not with the others. I actually think it hurt her feelings that she was known for this aspect. For me, I would rather people learn and have their lives be enriched with the difference of knowing than have them know me.

Anything deeper is just a bonus. It is a Lenten goal of mine to continue working on my “touchy feely class” as my husband helpfully calls it, so I can complete that as well by the mid April deadline. It’s just a matter of trying out and writing on seven more graph filled pages of exercises, writing the book report, taking the exam, and sending in the compiled documents and practicum info. It sounds like a lot but I feel like its doable.

I have a lot on my mind. I just want to be faithful the life and opportunities God has given me. That is my main goal. Today we went to church and Bible class at Trinity. The pastor is going through Genesis and today was Genesis 17-21. He started by talking about chiasms and then he said these chapters formed a chiasm. It starts with God’s promise to bless Abraham with a son (Ch. 17) and ends with the birth of Isaac (Ch. 21).

The middle part is God destroying Sodom and Gomorrah (Ch. 19). God had to cleanse the land before he could make it a place for his people. On either side of the middle is Abraham interceding. The first time he intercedes for Lot and Sodom (Ch. 18) and the second time he intercedes for Abimelech (Ch. 20). I forget sometimes how great the verses are that talk about how God is gracious and does for us what he has promised.

My niece woke up with a chicken pox rash. My sister didn’t know at the time, but apparently there was a toddler in church last week who my niece had held who’d had the chicken pox. Dad and the boys had already left for a track meet. The indoor season has a few meets and one of my sons wanted to participate. More power to them but I was not going to go. Not only did we have visitors but I needed to not be out all day.

Elianna was over for the morning with Zorro. My brother and his friends were here for the tree tapping so she was also here to say hello to the people here. My parents had decided not to come but then showed up at the window in the middle of me Facetiming the boys to figure out how to hook up the games. For a while it was very chaotic but in that funny kind of way. My nephew was also teething, fussy, and had a fever.

I wasn’t sure if the boys had been vaccinated. So I was looking through their records and the younger boys have all had one. I guess they’re supposed to have two. I don’t know if one is enough to produce immunity but I guess we will see over the next couple of days. My mother-in-law’s brothers were having a retirement party so Elianna and I met the boys there in the late afternoon. After that we had birthdays at Grandmas.

My nieces were sick there too with a lingering cough and cold happening. I never did get sick after dad and the boys but I’m wondering now if this will bring me down to a sick place. I checked with people before I came because I wanted them to be informed that we’d been exposed to this virus. By the time I knew about it I just had to embrace what was there. The kids were playing. My niece was resting. We buried the creature.

So it was all in all a good day. Elianna and I finished painting the dining room before we left. The dining room is slowly getting completed and put back together. My son was disappointed with the results of his race but I still think that he did a great job. Anytime you get out there like that it’s a reason to be proud. The retirement party was nice and produced a good turnout. The birthday party was fun and we all had a good time.

My sister and family are spending the night. Back in 2019, Dad and the kids found a salamander on the camp grounds. My nephew was very much into lizards and those kinds of things at the time. So they kept it for my nephew and my sister has been feeding it and taking care of it for all of these years since then. She had to order special worms. She and the kids are here to bury Squirmy in his original homeland.

The kids had their second ultrasound earlier in the week. The news has officially gotten out that they are going to be parents and we are going to be grandparents. I just think it’s the funniest thing to say but I’ve already gotten used to saying it. I am grateful that my childbearing years are over and that instead I get to help the next generation with their children.

They’re supposed to know within a week or two if the baby is a boy or a girl. My guess is girl but I have no reasonings for that to be my guess. Josh ordered a shirt that says Concordia Grandfather from the gift shop. It’s been a month and it hasn’t been mailed yet. We heard about this on Christmas evening when they had known for two days. Compared to the engagement this was an easier secret to hold.