To be honest, I miss that style of blogging that was just daily catch ups, but I haven’t figured out a way to write like that while balancing all the social media that seems to come along with blogging now, too. Under the Personal Tab, you can find day in the life posts, personal reflection posts, etc.

Anyway, it was heart warming to hear that so many of you feel like I do; that the connection feels like checking in with a friend. So let’s do that. I’ll even touch on the few specific topics a few people requested, like grief and covid. Let’s start with the weekend, though!

Friday night movie pizza and movie nights have temporarily been claimed by Kaitlyn’s soccer games. We are enjoying the switch up, especially because it coincides with beautiful, spring weather! Friday we watched Kaitlyn play, in which the middle of the game she ran over to give me a kiss on the sidelines (little kids sports are so entertaining). Afterwards we met friends at King Canary where they had the Chickpeasy Food Truck for the night, so we sipped Kayne Nest beers and ate Mediterranean style while the kids ran amuck.

Saturday we were up early and back to the soccer fields. I ate a Daily Harvest raspberry and mulberry seed bowl on the way, then sipped tea on the sideline, while we cheered on Hailey’s team. 

She had two games, so in between them the girls played on the playground and David and I got our workout on. We did Jen’s Go for a Run Driveway workout, one I always have saved in my phone for an “anywhere/no equipment” option; it’s a good one!

In Hailey’s second game she played midfield instead of her usual defense and SCORED A GOAL! We went berserk cheering. Our sweet girl tends to be a little timid on the field so to see her take a shot against an aggressive team was super exciting.

We came home afterwards, all pretty tired from being up the night before and waking up early, so we took it easy for the afternoon. We went on a family walk to an open house in the neighborhood because we’re nosy like that and everything happening in real estate right now is fascinating to me. 

Then we came home to play Catan, grill up some dinner, and watch The Greatest Showman. We all were in bed early that night.

Sunday was so nice, The girls made David and I breakfast while I meal planned (did you know all my printables are located under the resource tab for you to download?) and he worked on stuff for our new rental (more on that below).

I grocery shopped in person for the first time in what felt like a really long time (what can I say, the delivery convenience usually sucks me in). David and I went on a long walk, then I did a sauna bag session (use code AHS for $75 off). I made kale pesto pasta salad, dried my hair, and was about ready to drop by dinner.

That’s the rundown of our spring weekend! Now a little deeper dig into life on the requested topics (by the way, I love your requests, so please feel free to send them to me. Sometimes it feels a little too “me me me” to write about personal topics, but when you ask about them, I’m almost always happy to share).

Grief

I still don’t know how to talk about Dad’s death. Well that’s not entirely true; it’s just that I still can’t without my voice cracking and tears welling up in my eyes. It will be one year since his death next month and looking back on pictures it’s hard to imagine that some of them were just a year ago. He fought so hard and bravely for so long, for himself, certainly, but also for us. It’s even more clear now.

On the first weekend of May, his birthday weekend, we are hosting a celebration of life event. It’s one year after we were together celebrating his birthday. I struggle to sit with emotional turmoil so while I’m looking forward to it and honoring a man that positively impacted the lives of so many through his work as a priest and a therapist and just through how he lived his life, I’m also trying to prepare myself to be in tears the whole time. Good friends have reminded me “however you will be is fine” and I’m trying to take that to heart.

I’d describe the grief at this point as a tank inside my heart. For the most part, I’m doing well and enjoying life, but little moments happen that sting (memories, songs, etc) and they flow into that tank. Then at some point, the tank reaches it’s max and I lose it. I sob in the car or while looking at pictures or while talking to Mom or Kris or David. Then, I’m OK again. The tank is completely drained and after a night’s sleep I’m good to continue on until it fills up again. 

There are signs though that he’s still connected with us. And in those moments, my heart soars with certain faith that there is more than this world and it exists in ways we can not understand. Those signs never come when I ask for them, but somehow always arise when I need them.

Covid

A common question asked how we are handling life right now in regards to covid. This is such a sensitive topic because I know that depending on where you live and your personal situation, what you’ve been through and how you have lived this past year could differ greatly from my experience and I respect that. I can tell you that after losing my Grandma Betty and Dad within a couple month of each other last year (neither one Covid related), that spending time with the people I love has never meant more to me.

So, in short, we’re living. We are taking care of our health to the best of our ability in both the physical aspect (rest, sunshine, good food, supplements, sleep) and mental (connection, being with people we love, using boundaries in regards to media intake- both social and news). In more clear language- we are spending a lot of time outside, the girls are in activities (soccer, tae-kwon-do, Girls on the run), we are eating out occasionally (once a week, usually outside, but some inside restaurants, too).

Real Estate

I’ve talked about this on Instagram, so I’ll mention it here, too. We just finished a large project on our our home, redoing the exterior, getting a new front door, adding a roof/covering to our front door, and updating the cameras. It was a long overdue project and it looks like a new house!

In regards to short term rentals, we backed out of a contract we were in for a new construction property due to rising building costs and an unmet timeline. However, after several offers that didn’t work out (the amount of properties going for over asking right now is CRAZY), we are under contract on a new property! We still have inspection to go, but if we make it through closing, I look forward to sharing it with you. I’m cautious to share too much considering our track record with real estate over the past year 😉

Ok, I’m wrapping up the longest post ever, but thank you for asking about real life things and chatting with me. While I do aim to write posts that you might find helpful (reviews, meal ideas, etc), it sure is fun to chat about life every once in a while, too.

How’s life going for you? Are you dealing with grief? Are you working on a project you’re excited about? I’d love to hear about it!