hannah ananas

Well, the baby and I are both sick. Possibly with hr same bug, possibly with different ones. We shall see. We both have stuffy noses and feel iffy, but my stomach has just been a bit uneasy, whereas she has had diarrhea the past 24 hours. We are both working on staying as hydrated as possible right now already. But I think we need to try sleeping even more tomorrow. We got back in bed today after breakfast and some early morning errands, and slept about two hours. And we are going to bed earlier than usual right now. But we probably will need to use this earlier bedtime and a morning nap tomorrow to help us out. (If we didn’t have to get up at a certain time in order to have breakfast, I wouldn’t even bother getting up early right now. But the silver lining is that we get free-ish okay food and it helps us to follow a somewhat reasonable sleep schedule, even if we are sick and need extra sleep.)

God, heal us, please. Keep us and my husband safe and well. Help him to do well in his work always, yet help him to maintain genuine humility. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2026

Well, I got to play with several travel strollers in a specific Target that had the main ones I was interested in seeing in person and testing out. I then went and bought a well-used expensive and durable one for $40 and a once-used expensive carbon-fiber one that is ridiculously lightweight for $125. Altogether, $165 and I can use whichever one makes sense for the current trip we’ll be taking, each time we travel. And one is practically new. And I would have had to pay that price for any single used stroller under normal circumstances, so getting two very different ones for the price of one is pretty cool.

Thank you, God. Please, keep my husband and our daughter and me safe, make us fully well, and help us to be kind and loving with one another. Remind my husband that he is good enough for this, and guide him to prepare and behave accordingly for his success, please. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2026

What a clustered sort of situation to have to figure out. Drop several hundred dollars on an item without ever getting to see or touch it or check any of these promised-to-be-amazing features, let alone compare it to others. Even for shoes, we get to see and touch them all together in one section of a store. Try them on, see how they look and feel in use. And they’re less than a hundred dollars, usually. But baby strollers? Nope. Spend $350. Hope you’re happy with the single random stroller you got, and never cross another one in order to regret your baseless decision.

Ugh.

Post-a-day 2026

My husband has been tickling our daughter while she sits in his belly in bed. He has taught her to raise her arms when she wants him to continue tickling her. So, she copies the sounds of his saying, “Arms up!” as she throws her arms into the air, he tickles her, she cackles, and then she falls forward face first onto his chest. She sits up, and the cycle repeats. It is immensely wholesome and calming for my nerves and senses.

Thank you, God. Please, keep us safe, make us well, and help us to see that we are where you want us to be. Help us to be our best selves and to be kind with one another. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2026

We had some struggles, but we made it. The work that was done on the car yesterday ended up leaving a few important bolts not fully bolted. So, we lost two bolts along the way – and yes, we heard each of them – and the engine kept sounding worse the longer we drove (though it had been fine for the first few hours). But a shop took us in right away and put it up on a lift. They saw immediately that it was the bolts holding the catalytic converter in place. After the engine cooled for about an hour, they made quick work of replacing the missing bolts and tightening the one that was still there, and then we got on the road, a little over two hundred dollars poorer and more than two hours delayed. Finally, just after 9pm on the time zone we started, but 10pm where we were headed, we made it to the hotel. That’s just over twenty hours after we left home last night/this morning. Good news is that they had space for us to check in a night early and charge the same rate. Bad news is that the bed sucks. (I’m lying in it right now, and I am very doubtful that I will get much cozy-good sleep while here. Huge bummer, because that’s half the point of staying in a hotel.) Fortunately, my husband is the one who is here for the new and hard work and training, and he has already proven that he can sleep perfectly well in this bed.

God, guide us clearly and kindly in your will. Keep us safe, make us well, and make us sleep well and nourishingly each night, especially these next two weeks. Ease my husband’s fears and anxiety, please. Give him the courage and confidence to do well in all of this, and help us to be good spouses to one another all along the way. And good parents. 🙂 In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2026

Though, it isn’t a true road trip to me, because we aren’t visiting or embracing anything along the way – we are in a semi-hurry just to get there as soon as the laws will allow us. So, not a fun adventure in the car. Just a drive somewhere far away.

Very far away.

A thousand miles.

God, keep us safe and whole, make us expedient, and help us to be happy and joyful and supportive of one another. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2026

It’s only been years of traveling, but I’ve finally begun making a reusable list for packing. Guess it took having a kid and the prospect of several trips in a row to feel the true need of the list. But it certainly will give my brain a bit of a rest as time goes on and I don’t have to rely on memory alone to get things handled – I can still pack reliably even when exhausted. Which is most of the time these days, really. So, that’s a big positive!

Thank you, God. Please, keep my husband and our baby and me safe, make us well, and make us joyful and kind with one another. Help us to have a safe and wonderful time together these next couple weeks especially. Grant my husband the knowledge and abilities and skills he needs to be confident, great, and wonderfully successful in this career. Help us to find balance together, and kindly. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2026

Sometimes, the people we love are also the people we hate.

Post-a-day 2026

My mom took the baby for a couple hours so that O could get things done at home. However, when I got home to do those things, I was so tired, I could barely think straight or even walk straight. So, I determine the best route was to take a nap. Even if I slept the whole time – though, that seemed very unlikely – I would have the energy to manage my daughter without screaming this evening, and likely would be able also to do some tidying at the same time. If I didn’t rest, I’d get probably a touch more done with the tidying, but would be even more exhausted when my daughter got home, promising for a very difficult evening together for both of us.

So, I told my mom the plan, just so she wouldn’t try calling me, used the bathroom, and then lay down for a nap. And I woke up to the door being unlocked two hours later. It was no joke that I had been exhausted. And I was so relieved that I’d trusted myself and taken the nap, because it was evident that I had needed it.

And the evening went quite reasonably after that. I did, in fact, get some tidying accomplished. I didn’t scream and yell at my daughter like I was worried I would have done. And I still rested some more after all the tidying and ‘dinner’. (Not sleep, but rested, and interacted calmly and seemingly lazily with my daughter from the sofa, still engaging but resting, too. And ‘dinner’ instead of dinner, because random bites of food really doesn’t count as dinner, but I still couldn’t manage much else after the food poisoning.)

I’m so grateful I got to sleep. Now, for some more, and this time with my daughter.

Thank you, God. Please, keep us and our home and things safe and well and together. Guide us always to be our best selves, the people you made us to be. Show us your way. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2026

Sometimes, I feel like the recovery days at the end of an illness are worse than the actual illness. People expect us to be full-force when we aren’t healed yet, and the performance they expect and require necessarily makes the effects of the illness linger even longer, often outstripping the time of the initial illness. All because we didn’t get the support we truly needed so that we could rest fully for another day.

I feel this often these days.

Post-a-day 2026