Month: July 2023

Talk about mysterious…

All I will say for now is that today started out very differently than how it turned out. Note this exchange between a friend of mine from college and me from just after midday today (though, morning still for the friend).

J: How are things with trying to find work?
H: Iffy
H: I had a clear message from God to do other things while waiting for a reply for this one particular job interview. But it has been a few weeks now with no follow-up after the second interview.
J: Ahhh that’s hard to wait through. His timing can certainly be mysterious.
H: Yes!!

Fast forward to 18:45, and I sent that same friend the following message:

H: What did you start this morning?????

Suffice it to say for now that my prayers and understanding of God’s guidance proved true, and to an extreme. He kept telling me that I would understand and know how to proceed once they reached out to me, meaning the school where I had applied for the IT position. He didn’t say anything about whether I’d get the job or even that their reaching out had to do with that job – just that I would understand after talking with them when they reached out. And I had started getting antsy just the past two days, like it was getting close, whatever it was…

And, boy… what an unexpected conversation – two conversations – I had with them this evening when they reached out. God led me truly and clearly, that’s for sure. I have at least one more conversation to have tomorrow morning, but this much of a turn of events was certainly unexpected, though not unbelievable. God truly works in mysterious ways and with mysterious timing. To put it simply, though vaguely, God has just offered me almost exactly what I asked to have several years ago, but that I likely wouldn’t have been able to manage and handle at the time I first wished for it. Now that I say that, I’m not sure I ever prayed and asked for it directly, though I certainly wished it were possible and could and would happen. Man… what a wow-filled evening…

Thank you, God. Help me to act according to your will and to see clearly, especially tomorrow. Help me also to speak clearly and to have the words that make the best difference, tomorrow and always. Thank you for this blessing of an offer. Please, heal all those in need of healing, and help them to feel your love clearly. Thank you. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Talavera

We have some awesome Talavera from Mexico, the majority of which arrived this past weekend with my man, from his most recent visit to Mexico. We have loads of pots and some plaques and a lot of one tile and some dishes and lots of animals etc. now, and it is very exciting. I already started setting the new planter pots around this morning for visual testing, and we laid out the animals and such in a rough formation for putting them up on the fence. I have little attachment to the formation. They just needed to be set outside in a rough shape for my man to start hanging them up. He had put up the two pieces before that we already had, but he wanted me to have say for this lot. It’s likely because he doesn’t want me to get annoyed with how he does it. However, if he had just done it with his own tastes and opinions, I likely would have loved it. But, now that he’s asked me, he runs the risk of my being incredibly meticulous about it all, as I tend to get when something is up to me… thus my intentionally loose attachment to the current formation.

Said formation can be seen here:

Oh, JK. I didn’t take a photo of the formation that I actually put together on purpose. Instead, you may enjoy a photo of most of the stuff just sitting in the grass when we first brought it all outside, but I hadn’t organized it for display yet.

Also, yes, there is a chicken in the photo, too. I will see if I can get a photo of the display in the morning, so we can compare later how it all turns out on the fence. 😛

Thank you, God, for such blessings as today has held. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Sorting it out

We love each other. God, do we love each other.

But we are still struggling to figure out how to let go of all the insecurities and junk that doesn’t serve us, in order to accept the love each of us has for the other.

And that part has proven surprisingly difficult and incredibly annoying.

‘Why do we have to piss each other off so much?’

‘Because we’re so hard-headed.’

‘And defensive.’

‘What? Me? Speak for yourself!’

😂😂

I’m just glad we can see it all. It isn’t easy to work through all of this, but it would be loads harder and nearly impossible doing it blindly.

Thank you, God, for this love and this relationship. Help us always to become better with each other through your love. Help us to let go of that which does not serve our highest selves and you, as you intended it to be in our lives. Thank you for this life. Help all to experience and notice your love. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Mouthaches

I have a sore spot in the corner of my mouth. I’ve had it happen in the past, but with no clear reason that I can recall at present. It is not common or regular or anything. It just has happened in the past, I know. I felt it getting really dry the other night, and woke up the next morning with a really dry mouth corner. A while later, it seemed to be almost like a cold sore kind of thing, but also very much not like one. Now, a few days later, as I remember the other times going, the skin keeps ripping and healing as I open my mouth to eat, and then let it sit between eating times.

Basically, it is annoying, and I would like for it to go away. Also, it is a little painful, which sucks on its own, and then more painful every time it rips open again. Cuts on the edges of the mouth are quite terrible, to say the least. Haha

Anyway, I’m exhausted, and we both seem to have a small bug of some sort, though, possibly, different bugs. I went to bed with a sore throat, and he’s been dealing with digestion struggles since he got back the other night. Whatever the case, we both slept loads throughout the day, and that seemed to help. However, we are both ready to sleep a whole night’s sleep now, despite having slept so much today. Our bodies are clearly fighting off something.

Dear God, please, heal us both. Thank you for this life and love and good health. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Home

Well, we are home now, and showered and going to bed. We are slightly sunburned and the man has something like a low-grade end-of-digestion stomach bug, and we are definitely exhausted and longing for a day of rest tomorrow. However, the weekend went quite well, we both enjoyed it, and I’m both grateful and glad that it all went how it did.

A fun moment:

We all do a silent auction for our family reunion now. So, my man and I always consider what we might bring to donate for it, though without having to purchase something new. This time, we had some extra handmade Mexican mugs from our previous trip together to Mexico. We had just last week (on his most recent trip there) purchased other mugs that we both really like, and so the previous unused, simpler ones were fully ready to find a new home.

So, we donate the mugs. After my mom arrives at the reunion, she mentions how the only things that particularly interest her in the auction are something-I-forgot and the mugs that we had brought. It made us both laugh. ‘No, Mom. Don’t buy the mugs that we brought, which have been sitting at our house, unused for the past six months.’ 😛

She didn’t.

But one of my second cousins did (that means the child of my mom’s cousin). He bid the full value we listed – because these mugs truly would have been for sale for $10 a piece here in Texas – of $40. My man thought the girlfriend must have said she wanted them, yet we found out that the second cousin actually truly wanted them for himself and he wanted to make sure he won them. So, he out the value down as the first bid, and he won the things.

However, his girlfriend also really liked the mugs, and, as he was putting it, he was pretty sure he would be having to split them with her. But there were two of each color, so that wouldn’t be too hard to manage fairly.

But get this: The whole reason we even ended up talking with him about it was because he was standing outside with his cousins actively drinking out of one of the mugs!(!!!) He wasn’t joking when he’d said he really liked the mugs. He started using them right away and was so happy about it. I even photographed the moment, it was just so adorable and hilarious.

I’m so glad they have found such a happy home that loves and values them so much now! It just goes to show that, just because we may not love something, doesn’t mean it isn’t awesome and lovable in someone else’s eyes. Put differently, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. No, they weren’t trash at all for us, but we definitely didn’t love them the way my second cousin loves them. Now, they will be loved appropriately, and I am so grateful.

Thank you, God, for the successful and safe weekend. Please, heal us both in all ways, that we grow closer to you and to each other. Thank you for my family. In your name, I pray, Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Stressing

Tomorrow, we are scheduled to go tubing. But then breakfast got added in there. As ridiculous as it may sound, I very strongly prefer to have a BM at home in the mornings. With the new schedule, my body is already stressing a shaving to ‘figure it out’. Public bathroom are almost never easy for me, let alone for that kind of need. Ugh…

Sometimes, life can be really annoying with all these tiny yet significant struggles…

God, help me find the clear solution and path, please. Keep us safe. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Tomorrow morning…

I’ll get to wake up knowing that he is on his way back here. I likely will be a bit anxious throughout most of the day. However, I pray for God’s guidance and steadying hand, that I keep myself busy with the tasks I want to complete tomorrow before my love gets back.

Dear God, please, keep my man and the dog and the stuff all safe and together tomorrow. Give them safe and easy passage back here to me. Give me guidance and a steadying hand – help me to trust in you, tomorrow especially, and to trust in your love and your power to keep them safe. Help us always to pursue and fulfill your will. Heal where we are hurting. Help us to share your love always and to be our best selves. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Getting closer…

One more day, and then he’ll be heading back to me. I can hardly wait. I’ve never missed someone – not even him – like this.

God, keep him safe, please, and give him a safe and easy passage back here this Friday, along with all his things and the car and the dog – keep them all safe and well and together, please. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Blowing the surprise

I was so extremely careful with every photo I sent and with everything I wrote here, and then I got distracted and wanted to capture a video of my uncle starting up his boat, and rushed to do it, then sent it to my mom and my man without thinking about proofing the photo first.

And that blew it. I almost immediately had a phone call. “Where did you get those plants?” Plants? What plants did he mean? I checked the photo I’d last sent him twenty minutes prior. Those are only the trees in pots that I moved around a bit – not new plants. I think that must be it. And then I realize that I had just sent a photo to him and my mom, not just to him… and I definitely didn’t proof it before sending it.

Sure enough, right there in the center bottom of the photo is visible a whole corner of the new garden beds and their flower and shrubs. I worked so many hours on that thing, and I was so careful to keep it a surprise for my man when he got back this Friday… for two weeks, I have kept this secret from him successfully, despite a few close calls. But man… I blew it this morning, and now he knows about the brand new flower beds, which are gorgeous, by the way. I hauled almost a thousand pounds of bricks… twice… to make the border of the beds. Add to that the weed burning and pulling and digging-up, as well as the shoveling out of all the pebbles, and then the tilling of the soil and removal of random brick pieces buried all throughout the area, flattening of the border area, laying of pebbles, tamping the pebbles flat, and then placing and leveling the border bricks. It was a lot. And it was outside in the heat, all in my own.

And, before all that, I’d gone to talk with experts and to look at plants, researched a bunch online, and, later, even brought a soil sample to an expert to confirm that my planned plants could survive in the soil. I was keeping it on a tight budget, so far as putting in garden beds goes. And I’d arranged to get a bunch of free mint (three types) and oregano from my brother, who has a huge garden.

The only consolation I truly have is that he hasn’t seen the whole area, all together. It really is impressive all together, even compared to seeing just a portion of it. So, I hope he truly will enjoy that and be surprised by it. I know he’ll love it all, whether he’s surprised or not, and that’s truly the point – that he enjoy something I did for him to enjoy. So, we still have that, even if the element of the big surprise has been lost.

I did tell him how I worked so hard to keep it all secret and just to do it all period, and asked him still to be surprised when he got home. He readily agreed, and, when I reiterated later in the conversation, he replied, ‘About what?’, which was lovely of him to do.

Thank you, God, for this absolutely amazing man and for allowing us to choose each other. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Please, help my flowers and plants to thrive and to keep our yard beautiful. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023