It's been a week since the Missouri Senate ended a nearly 40-hour filibuster by forcing a vote on a controversial proposed religious liberty amendment to the state Constitution.
And in that week, the Senate has voted to approve the journal three times - but only after the daily report was read in its entirety - and last Thursday, senators voted to send the religious liberty amendment to the House.
The Senate Democrats have continued to talk a lot about their issues with last week's filibuster and the previous question motion that ended it - and the lack of finding compromise with the Republicans.
"What happened last week was pretty traumatic," Minority Leader Joe Keaveny, D-St. Louis, told the News Tribune. "It's going to take awhile for people to work their way through it.
"I think everybody agrees, we need to find a way forward from here, but actually finding a way that we can do that sometimes can be challenging."
Late Tuesday morning, the Republicans caucused for about 40 minutes, and the Democrats met behind closed doors for nearly 90.
"We'll go in (this) morning at 10, and our intention is to get to the (bills for) perfection calendar, so we can do some work," Floor Leader Mike Kehoe, R-Jefferson City, told reporters.
Kehoe said he adjourned Tuesday's session without holding an afternoon session so committees could have some extra time to work, after the filibuster canceled last week's meetings.
Kehoe said he and Keaveny have "daily dialogues" about the session, bills coming up for debate and issues facing the chamber.
"There's a lot of people passionate about various issues," Kehoe said. "Some have to do with the issue last week - the actual joint resolution - and some have to do with issues on rules."
Reading and approving the previous day's journal is one of the first things the Senate must do each day.
Under normal procedures, the reading of the journal is started then suspended by unanimous consent.
But last Thursday - and Monday and Tuesday of this week - one of the Democrats objected to waiving the reading, so it took 45 minutes last Thursday, 50 minutes Monday and only 13 minutes, 40 seconds on Tuesday to read the journal in its entirety.
Is there a danger that forcing the journal to be read, then talking about the delaying work, will go too far, making it impossible for Republicans to work with Democrats on issues?
"I believe there is that danger," Keaveny said, "which is why we've got to strive to keep an open line of communication."
Keaveny said he and Kehoe have "had some very productive discussions - which is why I'm still confident that we can find a way to get back to business."
Both men agreed the Senate's debate calendar still has some hot-button controversies, including voter/photo ID, abortion restrictions and a fuels tax increase - issues where finding an agreement among lawmakers may be difficult.
"That's the challenge," Keaveny said. "There's a lot of stuff on that calendar that we could spend a lot of time talking about."
Kehoe added: "There's tough issues out there - that's why we're here, though, to handle the tough ones."
Although no bills have been debated this week so far, Kehoe and Keaveny said it's too soon to write off the 2016 session as a loss.
Lawmakers have their spring break week next week and don't resume work until March 29.
"Let's come back with everybody re-energized and more optimistic," Keaveny said. "Hopefully we can get things moving that way."
Kehoe said: "There's a lot of time left in the session, and there's a lot of important things that members ... want to try to get accomplished for their districts and for the state."