A long overdue 2019 update...

This year has not been good for my blogging skills and I'm long overdue an update to 2019. But it was recently pointed out to me that often the second year after a loved one's death is harder than the first. That first year, you're in shock, you're in survival mode. But the second year, that's when you really start to process your feelings of loss, your grief. And that can have an impact on daily activity or function. 

At the start of 2019, I chose FOCUS as my Word of the Year. But I've got to tell you, I have not been focused this year. I have struggled staying focused - in so many ways. I started the year strong, with clear goals in mind of what I wanted to accomplish. But many quickly became goals I just couldn't grasp. There have been many days when nothing in particular has been wrong, but I've just felt off. I think this is an effect of my grief. 

While the year has definitely not gone the way I wanted to, it has still been busy. I'll do my best to recap the past 7 and half months. 

I started the year getting a few things organized for Jacob and I. I created a schedule that hangs in Jacob's room that we can put up of all the day's activities. Jacob likes to know what's going on. Jacob was busy with Rainbow Room at church and swimming lessons at the Rec Center. I had joined Minnesota Valley Chorale again this season and choir practices started up quickly. We also spent one very cold Saturday exploring the St. Paul Winter Carnival and an Ice Castle! I have to admit, the ice castle was really cool!! ;-) We also froze bubbles outside in the -20 degrees weather!

In February I got to participate in Pedal Past Poverty, as part of my mom's church group from Messiah. Jacob was there to cheer us all on - myself, Nana and Papa. 

Pedal Past Poverty

We also took Jacob tubing for the first time at Mt. Kato. He had a blast!! Our first trip up the conveyor belt, Jacob kept losing his balance and falling over, getting carried along and struggling to get up. It was funny to watch. The rest of the day he got pulled in the tube and so he was not nearly as exhausted as Brandon and I were! I also managed to fall the down the stairs while carrying a sick Jacob. Sprained my foot and had Jacob throw up all over me. Winning parenting moments. Overall, we got entirely too much snow and storms and wind this winter. That was not fun. I summed up the month of February in my planner as "survived".

March started a busy church season of Lent but we manged some fun in there too. Jacob and I got a trip down to Iowa in right away and it was so much fun to watch Jacob play with his cousins. Brandon and I went with some friends to the Four Daughters Winery for a dueling piano event where we have a table right in front - so fun. We also went to Rochester to see my very good friend in her local theater's performance of Avenue Q! She, of course, was amazing! And the show so funny! Although, it had been years since I last saw the show and you can tell it was written in a slightly different time. 

Great Wolf Lodge

Marshmallow Pit

Jacob, Brandon and I also spent a weekend in the cities at the Mall of America where explored Candytopia - basically a dream come true for me. It was so fun and neat to see everything made out of candy - really like Willy Wonka! Jacob really enjoyed the marshmallow pit at the end! We spent the weekend at the Great Wolf Lodge enjoying the water park - especially the wave pool! 

Candytopia

Sips for Shelter

April was busy with church and choir practices. Throughout the month of April, I was singing in four different choirs! The Worship Choir and Chamber Choir were both a part of church. Then there was MN Valley Chorale and the Mankato Children's Choir - more on that later. I tried taking Jacob to an egg scramble, but there were too many people and he didn't want to participate. He did enjoy playing at the playground though! The weather was super nice that day. Jacob got to spend an extended weekend in Iowa with his grandparents and cousins, which he LOVED. Chelsea and I managed a girls day while helping a good cause at the Sips for Shelter event, put on by Partners for Affordable House. We spent the day being bused around to different local wineries and breweries and it really was a super fun time. 

Also in April, I made my final payment of student loans!!! YAY!!!! 

MCC Concert

In May things started to slow down, choir-wise. I decided to sing in the Alumni Choir of the Mankato Children's Choir with a good friend. We both grew up singing in MCC and thought it would be fun to do the alumni choir as part of the 25th Anniversary concert - and it was! It was great to see some familiar faces and old directors! While the Minnesota Valley Chorale had our two concerts in April, we were still practicing. We had been invited to sing with the Mankato Symphony Orchestra. They were doing Handel's Messiah. This was my first time ever singing with an orchestra and singing so much of the Messiah. But it was such an amazing experience, I'm glad I did it. 

The last few months of school were somewhat challenging for Jacob. While he's a smart kid, he was having trouble staying focused. Sounds like the beginning of this post! He wasn't listening like he should, would rather walk around by myself than do his school work or listen at story time. He was using some "potty words", trying to get the other kids to laugh and distracting the class as a whole. We tried a couple of different things and we talked through it with Jacob's therapist. (He regularly sees a therapist and has been since the start of 2018.) Finally, we found a system that seems to connect with him. Jacob would have daily sheets sent home that would tell us how he did for each party of the day. He would get a smiley face, an OK face or a sad face. His points would get added up and he had a goal he tried to meet each day. There were rewards both at school and at home when he met certain goals. By the end of the school year, Jacob seemed to be on track and doing what he needed to be doing. I was extremely proud of the progress he made and thankful for the teachers that helped us at school. 

Champagne Bar

Brandon and I also decided to take a vacation during May and spent five days in California where we explored Wine Country and San Francisco. We both decided the vacation was too short but we had a fun time wandering around and relaxing. I even convinced Brandon to do a spa day with me which included a mud bath! I'm not going to lie, it was a little weird but super relaxing. The weather was perfect while we were out there. 

Chicago 

Jacob meanwhile, spent a few days in Chicago with my parents and had a blast. He really enjoyed going to the top of the tallest building and standing out in that glass cube. I admire his bravery! 

And then it was summer! Ah the start of summer. When the weather gets better, the days get long, you have a ton of fun plans and then you only manage to do a fraction of them.. 

I did get to spend a weekend in Rochester catching up with two very amazing friends. We went and saw the super funny movie "Booksmart" and spent the weekend catching up and talking about life. We managed to get to the Air Spectacular event as well and saw some really awesome airplanes doing some amazing tricks. We also went to the Lake Days parade in Lake Crystal and enjoyed the marching bands. We found a new seating spot this year, right at the beginning and I'm pretty sure it's our new favorite spot. We ended the month in Iowa, celebrating Jacob's birthday with family. 

Cousins!

July was a bit busier. We started the month celebrating the 4th, Jacob's birthday again and the wedding of a cousin's out at the family farm. All of us cousins were finally in the same place at the same time! It was a miracle. Jacob did TWO weeks of Vacation Bible School - one at Messiah with Nana and one at CTK. While he might not have been a fan of going that much, he was a trooper and did good! 

Girls Weekend

I also enjoyed an extended Girls Weekend getaway with some high school friends. This was our second year of having a girls weekend and it was just as much fun and definitely needed. It's always amazing when you can get together with friends who you don't see very often and sometimes don't talk to very often, but it's like nothing changes. I love having such a great group of women in my life and I love all the fun we have. 

At work, we had a Office Family Outing at the Mankato Moondogs game at the end of the month. It was a fun afternoon of food, drinks and baseball! Then, I ended the month up in Fargo, at our headquarters for our annual marketing meeting. This was the second time I've been to Fargo for a marketing meeting and the second time I did not manage to get a visit to Dan and Josh in! There's always next year. 

And finally, August. We spent one Thursday exploring a new park up in Jordan with some friends and had a great time. The park had a great playground, a splash pad and a little beach! We would definitely go back. Then Jacob and I went to Iowa to take part in the 2nd Annual Focus Up on Mental Health 5K, which is organized by Austin's sister, in his memory. It was a very successful event and a great weekend to spend with family. But our weekends down there are never long enough and Jacob did not want to leave that Sunday. 

Just last week, Jacob had Camp MidKnight at school. This is where they invite all the incoming kindergartners to come experience what a typical school day will be like once school starts. It's so amazing because they have not only the Kindergartner teachers there, but also many of the preschool teachers. They have practically the whole school to themselves, get lunch and meet new friends. Jacob had a really fun time, saw some friends from Knights Plus and made some new friends. While he's excited to finish out his summer vacation, I think he's also really excited to start school again. 

I also had the chance to attend my 15 year High School Reunion last week!!! What?! Yes, 15 years. We all kind of missed the ball on this and so the event was thrown together last minute. But we still managed a good showing and it was fun to see old friends and classmates that I haven't seen since probably our 10 year reunion! :) 

Jacob and I have spent the last 10 days fending for ourselves while Nana and Papa are enjoying a trip overseas! And I'm happy to report that we are surviving! And while it's nice to know we're capable of taking care of ourselves, we're also looking forward to the return of Nana and Papa. And if I'm not mistaken, I think they're glad we aren't taking this newfound freedom of living independently too seriously and that we'll probably stick with the basement a while longer. :) 

So here's to the rest of summer vacation, my favorite season fall and then winter before we know it. 

More pictures from the year:

Like I said, entirely too much snow

Cousins!

Kindergarten Roundup!

Happy Easter!

Air Spectacular 

Celebrating 150 Years at Our Saviour's Butternut

The end of winter

One thing I hope to do better at this year is keeping up with my blogging. Even if it's just monthly recaps about our daily lives. I really enjoy being able to go back and have these to help remember what's going on. 

February has come and gone and so has March pretty much. :) 

Jacob really enjoyed his big boy swimming lessons (no parents in the pool). Surprisingly, he did much better listening to the teachers than he did when we were in the pool with him. :) Ha! You can really see how he's getting more and more comfortable in the water. He's picking up on the kicking and scooping and with the help of his frog floatie, he can really move himself around the pool. He even went down the big slide at the Rec Center a couple of times! Although, one time he might have gone more under water than he was used to and that spooked him a bit! But he graduating level 3 swimming and can move on to level 4! 

Jacob also enjoyed his ECFE classes. Generally, he zones in on one particular toy (a truck or tractor) and won't do much exploring with all the other activities they have. But he started to expand on that this session. He really enjoyed the sensory bin, playing with play-doh and even some imaginative play in the kitchen! He really was quite adorable, telling us the pan was too hot and not to touch! :) He also did incredibly well when it came to circle time and singing along with the songs. Hearing him sing the "Hello" song - adorable. 

Overall, Jacob has really started to do more singing which of course just warms our hearts! It's so fun to listen to him singing songs he makes up and songs that we've been singing to him. He is still a huge fan of Big Block Singsong but he also is really into Veggie Tales songs as well. And of course, many of the favorite nursery rhymes! He's still very much into dinosaurs and DinoTrux! And he has had a renewed love of reading! He is really enjoying the Pigeon books right now and we read them so much, he can pretty much read all of them back to us! It's pretty adorable when he just randomly starts quoting a book! We're really looking forward to the warmer weather to get back outside more often! 

Jacob also got to spend a weekend in Iowa at the "Zuba farm" with his grandparents and cousin Evie. He was seriously counting down the days until he could go and once we picked him up, he talked for days about how much fun he had! :) And of course, he's already asking when he can go back! 

I also have to take a moment to talk about this sweet kid Jacob. Even though he's only three and a half, the kid has a huge heart. He is the sweetest, most kind boy. And it melts my heart. Randomly he will come up to me and say "hug?" and then give me a great big hug and say "I love you so much". I don't know if he can sense when I need those hugs or just really is the sweetest boy, but it stops me in my tracks every time and I am reminded about how blessed I am to be this little boy's mother. Before swimming the other day, we were waiting for class to start and he just random says "I love you mommy. And I love my daddy!" Or when he slept all night in his own bed the other night and was telling him how proud I was of him the next morning and I said, "Give me a high five!" Jacob looked at me, thinking and said, "Or I give you a hug!" :) This weekend, he told Nana he needed to come give me a hug so that I feel better. And one day at daycare, he started crying for no reason and when Amber finally got an answer out of Jacob he said, "I miss my mommy". He still runs to me even if we've only been a part a little while, arms open and when I pick him up, he buries himself into a big hug. His little heart is so full of love. And I am so full of love for him. 

For me, February was a little crazy. We had our fifth annual Pedal Past Poverty event at work on the 25th. And while this day and the prep before hand are crazy enough of themselves, we also had to deal with a "incoming blizzard" that make things even more hectic. We managed to get everything to the Y on Thursday night before the snow and got everything set up by Friday afternoon. By Saturday, the weather was cold - but otherwise perfect for the event. We had a successful event and raised just over $92K! I am constantly amazed by this community and how caring and giving they are. 

I also did some more singing at church, singing with the praise band and agreeing to sing as one of the song leaders for the Holden Evening prayer for Lent. I even agreed to sing a solo at church the morning after Pedal Past Poverty. Probably not my best decision, but it went well. :) 

Jacob and I have successfully switched bedrooms and all the moving and organizing is pretty much done. Just a couple more pieces of furniture to remove. I also got a new mattress!! And I have to say, it is a huge improvement from the waterbed! :) It's pretty much my new favorite place! haha! 

Austin and I both signed our copies of the divorce papers as well. This was a hard day and made everything much more real. I am definitely mourning the lost of my marriage and I'm not sure how to handle that. 

We also visited my Grandpa R. who's been in need of some extra care. But he was in good spirits when we visited him! We've also been stopping in to see Great Grandma & Grandpa J. before school and after swimming. Jacob loves those visits because he almost always leaves with chocolate! :) 

March has been pretty low-key. We went out and celebrated Austin's birthday early with a dinner at Applebee's and a family fun night at the Wow Zone! Jacob was so cute, telling the waiter right away "it's my daddy's birthday" :) He also enjoyed sharing the cake and ice cream! At the Wow Zone, daddy and Jacob spent a good amount of time playing the Jurassic Park video game. And it was very fun to watch. Then we did a round of family bowling - Jacob's first time - and of course, Jacob won. :) 

I got to spend a day up at the Capital for Homeless Day on the Hill - raising awareness and advocating support to end homelessness in Mankato. It was my first time doing anything like that and while I didn't get to meet with as many representatives as I would have liked, it was still a really great day. I look forward to going back again next year. 

This past Thursday, we dropped Austin off at a treatment center in South Dakota. I won't write more about that here, I'm working on a separate blog post for that. 

I guess that about does it for us right now. Hopefully I'll be back again in another month. :) 

A month recap

First things first. I want to thank my amazing family and friends for all of your support and love following the last blog post. You all lifted me up, encouraged me and said things I needed to hear. I'm blessed to have each and every one of you in my life. Thank you. 

Second, I want to say again that I will continue to support Austin and his fight against addiction. He is still someone very special to me, someone I love, the father to our child, someone that I want the very best for. I hope that you'll join me in encouraging Austin in his fight for sobriety and show him the love and support he'll need in this battle. 

It's hard to believe the month of January is already gone. Overall, the month was pretty good. Work was super busy - we're hosting our Fifth Annual Pedal Past Poverty race on Saturday February 25 - feel free to look for ways to help! :) But preparations are in full swing.  

One not so great thing is I have a kidney stone. I've been dealing with it for nearly four weeks... I finally did a CT scan and the stone is 3mm. Meaning they can't do anything for me. :-/ So this has slowed me down quite a bit but working through each day. The one upside is that I'm drinking so much water, I have been able to completely cut out pop! 

On Saturday, January 21, I also proudly took part in the Women's March Minnesota in the Twin Cities. It was an inspiring day and amazing to know that I participated in something that will be a big part of history - nearly 90K people in Minnesota alone! I'm proud of the work the organizers for the March did and look forward to the continued work over the next four years. 

I'm going to take a quick pause here and say that I'm keeping this blog nonpolitical. Believe me, I have plenty of things to say regarding politics, but that place is not here. Instead, you can read those thoughts over at my other blog: PB&J. 

Back to the 21st... I have to admit that as much fun and for how amazing the day was, I really did myself in. That was the most activity I've done since getting kidney stones. And I did not drink nearly enough water. That night, I was in an incredible amount of pain. If you've never had kidney stones, it feels a lot like giving birth, but maybe worse. That Saturday night was definitely a long and terrible night. 

In continuing with the Year of Me... I've started to get my life more organized. Jacob and I have switched bedrooms and I'm working on making his room a place where he can really play and move the toys out of the living room. :) I'm going through boxes and getting rid of things we don't need and organizing what we do need. I'm getting a space set up to keep my bills, medical stuff, Jacob stuff, etc. organized. I've taken a look at my budget and made sure I'm making the most of each paycheck and getting more into savings. It's all a slow process, but I'm making some steps. 

We signed Jacob up for a few activities as well! He is officially in the "big boy" swimming lessons - where parents don't go in the pool with the kids! :) This is much easier for mom and dad and so fun to watch Jacob interact and learn on his own with just the teachers' help. We're also doing ECFE class again. It is amazing how much Jacob loves school. I really hope this continues! :) And in another big step, we submitted his application for preschool next year. I'm still not sure I'm ready for that, but Jacob certainly is! He's already excited and looking forward to it! 

I think that just about wraps it up for us. Let's see if I can continuing with my blogging this year. :)