This was a week of highs and lows. Thursday was my birthday and it was a nice and very relaxing day. We received some news early in the day, however, and even struggled with what kind of news it was since it was the passing of a family member we haven’t had contact with in years. It’s hard to know how to handle the death of someone who wasn’t very pleasant to know, was abusive to your husband, and then stopped communicating (which actually came as a blessing).

The weather was beautiful that day, though. I didn’t go anywhere. I read a book and wrote a little bit on the third Gladwynn book, and watched an old movie.

Yesterday we went out as a family for my birthday and it was another relaxing day with beautiful weather.

We went to lunch at a nice restaurant, visited a garden center, a library with a used bookstore, and then a playground and creek.

The garden center is decorated for fall with pumpkins and gourds lined up all over and flowers blooming in their garden.

Little Miss wanted a white pumpkin so she can paint it later so we picked up one of those for her and a natural soda for me.

We stumbled on to a shoe sale that we thought was next week, which was very exciting for us because it was an amazing sale and let us stock up on shoes for us and the kids. It derailed our trip to a Barnes and Noble, which is about two hours from our house (any Barnes and Noble stores are two hours from our house – in one direction or the other.)

 I haven’t visited a Barnes and Noble for probably 15 years and my husband was going to take me to one as a surprise. I decided it would be better to save gas money (it was another 45-minute drive) and buy the shoes instead. I didn’t know where The Husband was actually taking me but I had guessed maybe he’d found a Barnes and Noble near us so I told him I was okay if we didn’t visit it this time around.

The thing is, I wouldn’t have bought a lot of books anyhow because I rarely buy new books. I prefer to buy them used or on clearance. I’d rather get a few books for $10 than one for $15. It would have been nice to walk around the store, but now that I know there is one not super far away, we can find another time to go. Plus, we needed the shoes and there is a used bookstore in the library of the town we were already in so we went there and we brought home 15 books for less than $20.

Most of my books were cozy mysteries and Little Miss chose quite a few of them. I’ll share more about the books I picked out on my Sunday Bookends tomorrow since that’s where I usually talk books I’ve been reading or have added to my collection.

After we visited the bookstore and library, Little Miss wanted to try out her new water shoes at the creek so we spent about 45 minutes at a small park that also has access to a creek.

Earlier in the week Little Miss and I picked up her new glasses and the next day I took her to Kid’s Club, which is a program at a church near us, where she met her friend that she’d invited.

Little Miss loves her new glasses with multiple colors on the earpieces and pink along the rest of the frame.

We both enjoyed looking at the trees that had changed in the town where the optometrist is and I had to laugh because one of the trees is changing into a beautiful orange color that is matching the color of the car parked at the house it is next to.

Wednesday night Little Miss and her friend had fun at the church program while my friend (Little Miss’s friend’s mom) and I chatted together in the parking lot.

This weekend we are continuing to relax since The Husband doesn’t have to work for the first time in – I don’t know how long actually.

We plan to hang out and watch movies and one of us should probably wash some dishes since we played hooky from housework the last couple of days.

These days off came at a good time since the death in our family was my estranged mother-in-law. My husband wrote a bit about his relationship with her on his personal Facebook page but I have decided not to share that here.

The bottom line is that my mother-in-law was abusive mentally, emotionally, and sometimes physically. She picked favorites out of her two children and you can take my word for it that my husband was not that child. She has not spoken to us in more than five years and lives several states away. In other words, this “loss” doesn’t feel much different than when she was alive.

It’s a complicated situation when a person loses a family member who wasn’t very kind. There is grief there but it’s different than the grief other people have. It’s partially a grief of what could/should have been and also grief of there being no closure or apologies for past hurts. In this situation that apology would most likely never have come thanks to mental illness on the part of my mother-in-law.

I wasn’t even sure how to feel and spent part of my birthday a bit numb and dazed. Should I grieve the woman who tried to manipulate me the way she did everyone else? Two days later, I still don’t how to answer that. I feel sadness for a woman who chose to have no relationship with her son or beautiful grandchildren – even when we lived less than a mile from her for many years before she moved, but I can’t honestly say I feel a sense of loss or grief. I feel guilty for that and I also feel odd admitting that, but it’s where I am right now.

I should be crying, shouldn’t I? I should be thinking back on fond memories or saying things like, “Sure she wasn’t nice at times but…”

Yet I have none of that to offer in this situation and it’s a surreal place for me to be.

It’s only happened one other time and in that case I could at least think of one or two really nice and genuine things the person did – while also wondering if any of it was real since so much lying was revealed at the end of that person’s life.

So moving on to my plans for the rest of the weekend as I navigate this weird headspace I am in.

I’m looking forward to working more on my book this weekend and on some reading.

Next week we don’t have any appointments scheduled so it will be mainly school and maybe a playdate at a local creek with a couple of friends.

The temperature is supposed to drop next week and I am looking forward to the fall-like weather. Yesterday’s 83-degree temps were not very welcome by me, even though it was a very beautiful day.

How was your week last week? I hope you found some time to relax and unwind. Let me know in the comments.