Judah had his girl friend over this evening. After practice the boys met her in Sherman where they were meeting at an animal hospital. Her dad is a veterinarian and according to my son they live in an enormous house. I had to work in the afternoon, so while I was gone the kids who were home straightened up some things in the house. I do want to make an impression, but having an above averagely well-kept home is not the way I’m going to make it. I did re-tidy the upstairs bathroom.

It was later confirmed in the evening that this is now an official girlfriend. She’s very cute and I can see why my son is liking her. The other night I was sharing some mom thoughts that were met with rebuttal and contention from the other kids. All I had said to him was that the more attached you get to a person the more it hurts when it doesn’t work out. He has had some heartbreak before so I know he isn’t completely unaware. But several of them thought I shouldn’t have said that.

They were cute getting their pictures taken. Ellie and her mom had looked up different poses they could use for the second shoot. When Ethan took a girl for the first time I remember during the photos he was looking around confused and didn’t know what to do with his hands while standing next to her. I told him that it was okay to put his arm around her on her waist so he did. The girl’s mom looked at me and told me good job for saying that. A similar situation happened with this one.

Instead of looking around in silence he said out loud to everyone, he just kept asking, “What do I do with my hands?” I never told him to put his arm around her. One time, after a minor pause, her mom told him to go ahead and put his hand on the bridge rail where they were posing. I almost said it multiple times but for whatever reason I held back. These things would work themselves out and they did, with different pictures from the last ones. Laura commented they looked like experts now.

I had photo bombed the family chat for the second time with all the pictures. So anyway, the evening was nice. For a while they played catch in the athletic field with the other kids and Zorro. Dad and I walked along the lane and yes it felt like one of those moments when all is right. Dad made a campfire in the backyard so for a while everyone was in the backyard sitting and talking by the fire. It felt like one of those times where I really needed to be engaged and more fully present.

I tried to write you a letter
but this time stopped
So familiar with the heaviness
and futility
of forcing myself to be more

Rob Thomas sings to me
and I know you’re so tired
of all these men
winning me over with their
winning smiles and dark sides

Your lawn mower music
Tom Petty and Bruce Springstein
were okay, but the Guns
and Roses made me realize
how incompatible we were

The Christian music
you never listened to
were the songs that spoke
to my Spirit and freed me up
to worship freely with passion

With the adoration and love
you so wished was yours
You and me both
So immature and turning
every day into better champions

Today I worked
on a dream I’ve had
for a while

Bits and pieces
come back to me
little by little

It’ll never be
what I wanted
but hopefully better

Today was a lovely Sunday. It wasn’t anything special other than going to church and spending most of the day at home. We made a grocery trip into Aldi in the afternoon after Dad and I had both had our naps. I woke up in the middle of mine, still felt tired, so went back to sleep. After that I wasn’t as tired. Tomorrow I have a six hour module that I am hoping to just treat like a paper where I spend the day on the couch in my pajamas doing the thing I need to do but in a comfortable way.

I don’t know if it’s online reading, social media, or age or what, but my mind has definitely gotten duller. I don’t feel like I am thinking about all that much. I have enough brain power to get through the day and that is about it. It’s amazing how having a family gives you plenty of fulfillment, meaning, and things to do. And then you have grandchildren so the process starts all over so that you never run out of things. Later in the afternoon we watched the Brewers MLB playoff game.

They won so that was nice. It was an exciting walkoff where the Brewers were down by a point in the final inning. The other team’s star closer walked three players and loaded the bases. Then the next batter got down to one final strike and hit a line drive into the outfield which brought in two runs. So then they won the game. We walked around camp in the evening shutting off lights, walking Zorro, and helping kids talk through things on their mind. It was one of those days I love having.

The boys had a meet in Jacksonville this morning. It was one of those meets where they try to get creative and make it exciting for people. So they had seven different races where you were put your team members in a race based on the seed place on the team. So the runner who is typically seventh ran in the “number seven man race”. The one who is usually sixth ran in the “number six man race”, all the way up the line. It’s been frustrating having the team dealing with sickness or injuries.

The boys did well though. The one is still trying to catch his brother and the other one is trying to find his magic again. I told him it will come back. I got my video footage and used it to send to Ethan who was texting me throughout all of the races. He’d figured out that they would win the meet, until we realized that since our number one runner was injured, the team would receive a major penalty of points being added to their score, so instead of winning they ended up with second, which was still very cool.

My body is still so tired and struggling to bounce back. I tried to start a couch to 5k program a few weeks ago and I initially thought it was going well. But after the first day of week 2 I have not been able to get back to any kind of shape to run. Once I’m feeling better I’m going to modify it to alternate between normal walking and faster walking instead of walking and jogging. So we’ll see if that helps. My son had another dance tonight but this time they were going to her school for homecoming.

Today was a decent day. My 9am appointment texted me on my work number around 6 in the morning to say she had to cancel again because she’d been up all night with terrible pelvic pain. I actually did have more compassion since my daughter has gone through this. The nice thing about it being my first appointment and with her texting that early is that I had time to know to not go in until later. It gave me time to do a math problem and fold an extra load of laundry.

We talked more at Hope about “cancelling the debt”. It’s one of my favorite things to teach and talk about with people. The other is talking about love and how the loving thing is always the loving thing for every person and how true love cannot help but move and ripple outward. I love talking about that and I feel like my voice cadence changes and I light up like I have never before been so inspired.

And I can still come home and somehow feel depressed after all of it. I was tired and went to bed until supper. I slept through the bell and barely heard one of the boys asking if I was coming to eat. Not right now I think I mumbled half asleep. But then I woke up and came out.

I haven’t been in the headspace to write much lately. Today I reached out to a neighbor who has attempted multiple times to invite me to do things with her, with the most recent being to join a legacy board for the Lutheran High School. I went over a week and did not reply to her text or to her email. Earlier this morning when I was awake again, I emailed her back telling her I did not want to be on the board. It hit me though that I’d been ignoring this woman who lives very close by to us.

And I really didn’t know why. So I wrote her back and sort of apologized and basically said that there is really no good reason why we couldn’t get together more, and that I know the fact that we haven’t is on me since she has reached out several times. I asked her how her back was doing and if she is able to go on walks. So she has not written me back but I am not expecting her to too soon. I started thinking that it might actually be fun to have a fun happy friend who lives so close.

Lila turned one month old today. I keep wishing I could call my own grandmother and tell her. It piles up to where I keep collecting things to tell her. By the time we see each other next I don’t know how that is going to work with my pile. If I will have it all there still or if we will just be so happy to be reunited and to live in the eternal present that none of the things that happened here will even matter. I could be fine with either way, or whatever way I haven’t even been able to think up myself.

Today was an overall good day. It started out very early when I could not sleep past 3am. I was in the mood to write but I had already written here. So I got up and wrote Josh a letter since he has written me several things lately including typing out 23 strips of paper for our anniversary that he wrote on gave me for 23 days. I basically just typed till I filled a page. You’re supposed to direct your energy back into the relationship whenever it’s been closed off or unused or being put in wrong places.

It’s good to have those refreshers and tune-ups. After that I drafted an email that I decided later in the morning I will never send. You basically get a once in a lifetime chance to be a screwup and after that you just don’t have the same excuses. You have a little more insight into how things go and how your own brain works. And you just have to believe people when they tell you that something is not a good idea, no matter how much they may or may not understand. I don’t know why it’s so hard.

My craziness is not for everyone is what I’m saying. I’m sorry it had to be for anyone. So then I got most of my modules done to where I could come home and finish the videos and test after work. I had a really nice work day with all individuals who I really enjoy seeing. Tomorrow is more couples, an individual, plus a new family intake. Laura sent a video of Lila this evening of Ethan reading math gibberish to her as a bedtime story. She smiles more now and I told everyone she understands him.

Sometimes there are not enough hours in the day to get everything done. That’s how it’s felt the past two days. I feel as though I have nothing for energy even though I have yet to have my harder work days. The boys had a meet in Kickapoo Park. My one son is feeling more himself again and had a much better race though still 40 seconds off of his best time. My other son had a personal best. It was a smaller meet and not a very spectator friendly course. But I still got to see them two times.

Today was a nice day of catching up on some house chores. I redid Elianna’s room and made up her bed. I still want her to have a space that she can feel is hers. There were several loads of laundry to be washed and dried and folded and then also put away. My son and I keep joking about this pair of snow pants that keeps showing up in the laundry pile. It doesn’t have straps so it is not the same as the others that can be easily hung up from the basement ceiling beams. They keep getting washed.

At Thrive he used to say that you don’t always get to know how much or how deeply a person was impacted by you. I woke up from one of those peaceful dreams where we were standing on the side of the Thrive building with our heads nuzzling face to face like Simba and Nala in The Lion King. My hands were on his arms or waist, I can’t remember now. He told me he was moving and that for the rest of his life he would never limit himself in the ways he had done so.

The building is for sale and he is moving to another place. Arya reached out to me today and checked in on how things were going. She has two jobs now too after going through a turnover phase with her clients. I’m still trying to hold on to my nursing job and worked on the hours of training videos that need watching. In my dream there were people on the steps I didn’t know, all a little rougher looking. They had each taken a turn. Behind me I could see the door was nailed shut.