The kids are all done with their cross country seasons. After the meet this morning my mother-in-law took us out to lunch at a corner café in Petersburg. It was actually pretty nice. We go out to eat a lot it seems, or at least it seems like we have been lately. Between that, the leftover funeral food, and the nearly full gallon of potato salad that someone brought over, we’ve eaten something together almost daily for weeks.

She paid for the bill like they always do. Miles came with us because he had come to watch the meet. I have not personally asked anyone about Laura anytime recently but Josh said he asked about it on the way back to Nebraska. The boys also said that Ethan talked to her several nights on the phone while he was home. It’s apparently still something that is going on. We’ve morphed a little bit as time as gone on into a family that is open about some things and not as much about others. Even I have changed into this. It is a very weird thing to not just be able to ask and say what comes to mind.

I cleaned out the freezer this morning before the meet. It’s the whole nesting thing again where you have to prepare. I wanted to see what was in there and dig around for any leftover soup bone I’d saved from other times. Right before I got sick I’d planned on learning how to use the instant pot I’d received for Christmas. I want to try making broth in there because I’ve heard you can make it in four hours instead of 18-24.

If I am going to do this school thing then I am going to need to take care of myself. One of the first papers we had to write was a student plan for self-care. I went back and read it just to see what I’d said that my plan was. My two main things were taking care of my body and staying connected to others. At my practicum site one of the things they do in the groups at the end of the day is ask what the patients are going to do for self-care, or “acts of kindness” as my supervisor calls them. I’ve been a little amazed by how many people say they’re going to brush their teeth in the evening and not just the morning.

I wish I could go into things deeper than I do here. I think we are all dealing with the recent loss in our own way. It feels still very hard to believe that my father-in-law will no longer be with us. He has been such a present part of our lives for so long that it’s hard to imagine him never being there again. Josh and the boys played catch this evening. I asked the boys how they were doing and they said it helps knowing where Papa is.