There is news (don’t we all know), just not really anything momentous from me, ya dig?

I don’t mean to be dismissive- I’m really not. I wasn’t immune to children and innocents dying before, and I’m not now, and I don’t like war, especially one so stupid.

L’appel du vide does come in clutch sometimes though, I’m not gonna lie.

Don’t want to be insensitive over here is all, is what I want you to know, but I refuse to blog about world events.

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Just know my current blah/blue mood is one I came by honestly and earlier in the week than the bombs getting dropped.

I was blah before it was cool, I will have you know. Hipster discontent.

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I couldn’t write this Friday, my writing night. I just had this restlessness and nebulous ache that couldn’t be soothed. I pulled out my “what helps” list and went through it: took a quick nap, worked outside, accomplished a task, cleaned up the house, got my hands in the soil to weed, and started a fire in the firepit and had a couple of beers. (I usually don’t drink on Fridays… but like… for science, at that point.)

I couldn’t shake it and I really did give it the ol’ college try.

I just decided I did NOT want to do a writing night in that headspace as I wanted less of what my brain was serving up, not more- so I watched a movie instead.

The escapism worked, and the next day I woke up in a slightly better mood. So there is that.

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But before that- last Sunday- the Father’s Day plans did not go off without a hitch.

We’ve had recent flooding here (one storm dumped 8 inches of rain in a night) so the river looked like chocolate milk. The real risk is not the color of the water but the potential for underwater debris… so we didn’t boat down to Lucas’s tree. We wouldn’t have been able to fish anyway. Plus the pollutants that get washed into floodwater… just no. You don’t get on or in floodwater… so we didn’t.

We talked about it and went to Austin instead, with the plan of a hike to Twin Falls and stopping by a record store. Figured it was a good choice as the girls had never been to Twin Falls and Lucas and I used to take our dog (back when we had a good dog) out there. Sure it was near water so was probably flooded, but we wouldn’t have gotten in… it can still be scenic even if the water isn’t clear.

So pretty.

On the way I decided we’d go to the record store first, not second (just in case we got all sweaty and muddy) and I’m gonna tell you… the children can certainly spend some time deciding on what album to buy. I didn’t rush them… they enjoyed themselves.

We then drove out to go hiking, parked, turned around… and there was a WALL of black clouds coming in from the west… it was insane.

Twin Falls isn’t exactly a slot canyon, but considering it’s between two hills it can flood like a motherfucker… how else did it get scraped down to bedrock, you know?

I know this and that’s why I triple checked that there was no rain in the forecast before we left. And yet here we were- staring at a huge storm. I checked the app and now it was 100% chance of thunderstorms for the next 3 hours. AWESOME.

We got back in the car and got buffeted about by high winds and huge rain drops the whole hour long ride home… where it continued to rain for hours and hours.

Because of the storm we couldn’t barbecue like we’d planned either. And while we’d also planned to watch The Godfather… my oldest had assignments due for her summer classes and needed a shorter night than a 3 hour movie, so we watched Cool Runnings instead. (Very different vibe, lemme tell ya- but this way the youngest had a movie she could enjoy too.)

It was a day of changing and changing plans.

The thing that strikes me is that if we’d gone hiking first we’d have been an hour down the trail when the storm hit. And sure we’d have pushed through the cedars and climbed the hillside and come up and through instead of following the trail back… but damn. It would have freaked everyone out for sure, especially the little one.

It all worked out… aside from Uber Eats delivering our food to the wrong house and then not crediting back the $45 it cost… it was a whole thing the entire day, honestly.

We rolled with it and made the most of it that we could. I had cut flowers for him and written Lucas a letter that morning and put it by his side of the bed. The records the girls bought I told them were gifts from their dad. And when plans changed and changed and changed throughout the day everyone adapted and rolled with it and it was okay. Nobody freaked out or lashed out or anything- which my therapist says this is an indication of how much healing we’ve all done and is a positive sign- so I’ll take it.

I can hardly recall Father’s Day last year. I know we planted a rose… I really can’t remember much.

But fuck this Universe that threw a Father’s Day at us less than a month after losing him. Of all the dirty tricks…

It was okay this time though.

Or alright.

Whatever the worse one is.

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Days later we DID fire up the grill and make burgers like we had planned for Father’s Day.

Were they the best burgers ever? No. Were they the worst? Also no. I need to order a new grill insert for that part though- it’s rusted through and so sits precariously over the coals. I only lost one patty to the issue though.

Add it to the list of things.

It was also very okay/alright.

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The garden is rocking along.

There are tomatoes and banana peppers and peaches growing on the tree and grapes coming in. The lavender looks the best it ever has and the bougainvillea are starting to bloom. I mowed the grass yesterday and finally got the shrimp plants planted in the front bed.

Everything needs more weeding.

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My contractor has well and truly abandoned this bathroom project now and is not answering calls. He left tools and a generator here, so we’re just gonna call it even.

I hired another contractor to finish the work- and he said a five year old could have framed the window better, so that’s fun. And that the outside siding needs to all be reset as the first contractor did it incorrectly.

I just want it fucking finished at this point, you know? My dear god just someone do it right.

I also had to hire a new AC company and am now staring down a $700 repair bill. But they gave me a $50 discount so it will now ONLY be $650 instead.

Maybe the blah mood is just that it’s a lot lately, in a short amount of time- that seems like a reasonable assumption. Oh I also had a work trip to Houston I made this week… you know, it was probably just too much pitched at the ol’ nervous system in a short amount of time.

I am capable (and I still ask for help even) and I’m doing it, I’ll have you know.

But oh to have a soft place to feel safe in again where I can drop the shoulders and close my eyes and breathe deeply and not be the one to have to make every decision… but alas. It’s been 13 months and a smattering of days since I had that.

No, no.

In the here and now regardless of what mood you’re in the fields still need to be plowed, and the harvest brought in, and the cows milked, and the pastures rotated, and the mending done, and the fire banked at night, and the children all fed. Or some shit like that.

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I went with my aunt to a seminar yesterday about “finding your life’s purpose” (day after my angsty Friday night)- as she wanted someone to go with her.

I’m actually pretty clear on this sort of stuff, though. I haven’t struggled in my life to know what I want and what I want to accomplish. I know what makes me happy. I know how to set a goal, work towards a goal, and achieve a goal- so none of the information on how to do that was new to me. I got a couple of reminders to take actions daily towards those goals… a couple of exercises were useful.

We then did one exercise where the speaker had us close our eyes and picture having everything we wanted for two minutes: to really flesh out what exactly it looks like in detail: the house, the car, the relationship, the job, the fun, the joy, the look, the smell, the overall feeling.

We then opened our eyes and wrote it down.

The speaker asked me if I wanted to share what I wrote down. I declined.

All I’d written down was “2023”.

When the future you want is in your past its a special kind of ache, is all.

My aunt told the speaker about my loss later, and I wish she hadn’t- it’s mine to tell and I was pretty obviously choosing not to. Not everyone deserves to know the worst thing that has ever happened to me over a conference table on a Saturday morning, especially after the (much expected) sales pitch for life coaching lessons. I let it go. Its fine, really. No harm was intended.

Overall I guess the lesson (back to collecting lessons) from the experience is that at some point I’ll need to figure out how to do that one exercise correctly. Maybe one day there will be a future I can picture in such detail to work towards, again.

Maybe there will be.

The days are long, the lawn is watered, the fireflies are back, and the sunsets are pretty over the trees.

I do notice those things too, I promise.