Month: December 2023

Communication

It’s a good thing we’ve been working so much on having good communication with one another. It made all the difference today, turning what was a very stressful situation into an absolutely wonderful one.

Thank you, God, for this man and for his willingness to let you guide him and for his love for me. And thank you for my love for him and the grace that we both give to each other. Thank you for this life and this love. Help us to continue to pursue and fulfill your will together, being our best selves with one another always supporting. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

A good time

Tonight was a dinner for faculty and staff and their plus ones. I expected to have an okay time. I ended up having a really nice time. We had a pleasant and loving time at our table with a few folks. We had a nice time chatting with my boss and his wife. We had a delightful time chatting with some guys who have taken religious orders to become priests. My man got to meet a good handful of the important people for me at work. And then we stopped by the karaoke after-party just to check it out on the way home, but ended up staying until it closed down. (Just need to say that it was 100% like a slightly toned down version of a frat party. It was hilarious and kind of wonderful [minus the handful of people who had gotten truly drunk and were not so fun].)

Suffice it to say that I am going to bed tonight very late, but socially and emotionally satisfied.

Thank you for this wonderful evening and night. Keep us safe, please. Heal my man’s defensiveness with me, please, and mine with him. And heal my burned finger, please. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Theatre

We went to a show tonight. It was a one-man-show about Katharine Hepburn. It was called “Tea at Five”, I believe, and was a delight. And it was about Katharine Hepburn from the 1930s, not Audrey Hepburn from the 1950s. We looked it up afterward, and discovered that she and Audrey were related only distantly by a great-great (and maybe a few more greats) uncle, who ended up being a husband to Mary Queen of Scots… something like that, anyway. But Audrey wasn’t even her niece or anything reasonable. 😛

Anyway, the show was great. I’m exhausted, though. I almost cried after I got home when I realized that I don’t have to go to school in the morning. I was so relieved, because I’m just so worn out from the semester as a whole, but also from this week in particular.

Granted, we’re doing breakfast with my dad in the morning, so we have to be out the door at 8:30. But I can still rest well tonight.

Thank you, God. Keep my man safe, please. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Sleep, at last

I stayed at school today to work. I waited to work out, because I was able to be productive during last period. And then I kept being productive… until I finished with everything. Exams are done and ready and sent off for approval. All grading has been completed, even the late grades. When I finally finished at nearly 8pm, I was done. Time to go home and go to bed without dinner.

Actually, I had the final breakfast taco and a few bites of pumpkin pie as dinner. But still. Barely ate that, I was so tired already.

I’m really glad I got the work done – my brain and nerves needed it. I feel such immense relief now, and I can also show all the essay stuff to students tomorrow, which they’ll appreciate greatly, I’m sure. (Most of them, anyway!)

But I’ll have to do a workout Saturday or Sunday, or do two tomorrow to make up… so, we’ll see… 😛

Dear God, thank you for the Christmas lights going up tonight. Thank you for my home. Thank you for my man. Thank you for my job. Help me to do well by them all, please. And by you. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Share for a reward

On Duolingo. Looking at the end of the year in review. “Share for a reward??!”

“What?! Share for a reward?! That wasn’t there earlier!”

Both laugh.

“Not like we do anything with them, anyway…”

Because we don’t use the gems for almost anything. But we’ll still take the reward option every time it asks us to share in exchange for one!

Nerds. Or idiots. Likely both, really. 😛

Post-a-day 2023

Segregation

Somehow, it never occurred to me that my parents were there for desegregation. We learned all about it in school, but they never had us ask our parents about it… We once had to ask our grandparents about some event, but I don’t recall what it even was. But why didn’t we use our own family members more with history? They, after all, did live through much of the detailed stuff that is referenced in the classrooms… and it makes things more memorable when we can tie them to something personal.

I remember, actually, doing one interview for school with my dad. Part of it, at least, was about race stuff, but it wasn’t tied as much to all the things we learn about, the events and people and such. It was about how a parent grew up relative to another race. I remember that much. It’s when I learned that the first black person my dad met was his college roommate, in college. Also that his parents didn’t particularly like (or know at all) black people, but, since black people weren’t ever around – remember how he never met one until he left home for college – my dad was exposed to much of an opinion about black people. In a way, the almost-certain racism never got much of a chance to be passed on to him. No, he didn’t get to know people of other races, but he also didn’t have any hostility toward them.

Fast forward to the next generation, and I grew up going to school in the most diverse county in the most diverse city in the country. Several of my best friends and crushes growing up were races other than white. And it never even occurred to me to care. People were just people. Kind folks were kind and mean ones were mean. Race truly never came up as a factor beyond looks.

Kind of cool, really…

Anyway, I’ve gone way off topic here. The point was that history class missed a huge learning opportunity here, and I want to remedy it as best as I can. I’ve already reached out to both my parents for some basic memory sharing, and I’m arranging really sitting and talking with them about it in the near future, too. How cool that my parents were there for so much stuff that we learned about in school… And how bizarre that that never truly occurred to me that they could share with me all about it personally, not just from a learned knowledge base. (Like how my mom was talking to me at Dealey Plaza about JFK’s assassination… but I subconsciously thought she was telling things she had learned in school – she was a great student, after all – not that she was remembering it from the live news reports…)

I have so much to discuss with my parents…and I almost feel a need to bring along a textbook!

I just might…

Post-a-day 2023

My man

I miss my man. I am genuinely totally okay on my own here – it’s not like I can’t function or enjoy myself and whatnot whenever he’s out of town. I just would have loved to have had him with me today and tonight and now… I’m always fully functional and able to enjoy life when he isn’t right beside me. But I just enjoy it all all the more whenever he is…

And it’s funny to me, you see. I wrote years ago about how – and I mean, like, possibly in middle school in some version of the wording, and then about seven years ago with this wording – I wanted to find a life partner and husband who absolutely could live without me, but who just didn’t want to live without me; someone who wanted and chose daily to live with me. I think he feels that way about me, but I know for sure that I feel that way about him. We don’t need each other to survive. Yes, it helps make life all the better, being together. But it isn’t a necessity for life – it is a choice we get to make. We don’t have to be together – we want to be together. And so, I hope we get to continue choose each other every single day for decades to come.

Thank you, God, for this wonderful man. Please, keep him safe and get him home to me tomorrow, healthy and well and holy and happy and safe, please. The dog, too, and all that jazz. Grant them safe travels, please. And grant us all great sleep tonight, please. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

P.S. Our gym had a white elephant gift exchange tonight. I ended up getting an electric kettle with a set of the LMNT electrolyte packets – I believe it was like a hot chocolate kind of gift box idea. Makes sense, right? The price limit was $30. We brought $30 gifts that were purchased using major online discounts – most people had done a version of this, taking advantage of cyber Monday and all that jazz, right? Exactly $30, but it’s really a $50 product. A lot of people also did the, ‘It only costs me $30, but it costs a non-member (or whoever else) $40-60. Cool. The best ‘deal’ seemed to be a Landry’s gift card set for $75 of gift cards. I was absolutely about to steal that, as it came up right before my turn. However, a couple stole it from each other in order to max out its steals right away, and I never got the chance. Well, onward… I had wanted to try these electrolyte things, and they had one more steal available at my turn, so I took them and knew I was set. What I did not know was that this was basically the best deal of them all, product cost wise. When I opened it and really looked at the two things at home, I could not believe this electric kettle was anywhere near $30, even with a discount. And I imagined the powders weren’t cheap either. Sure enough, the powders are $45 for a single purchase or $39 with a subscription. And the kettle? It is a $195 kettle! So, my “$30” gift was actually $260 with tax. However, they didn’t break the actual limit buying it. Why? Because the company had sent the kettle free with the regular order of the powders that the gym does. So, it was basically a free kettle and $30 of powders for them… Well, I’ll take it. And I did! Thank you, God, for this unexpected and awesome blessing! Amen!

Over the Saturday morning work

I love Saturday mornings. But part of that love’s foundation is in the fact that I get to choose how to spend my Saturday mornings. I can be up early and exercise or do things on my own or with family or friends, or I can sleep in after a late night of fun the night before or just lounge through the morning, moving from the bed, eventually, to the sofa… But I get to choose how I see myself most enjoying the morning each time…

Except when I have to work. Every time I have had work on a Saturday, I have been stressed and annoyed, even if just a little. I dislike doing it. When I proctor these tests, I have to get up earlier than even when I go to school during the week. And, right now, that doesn’t work too well for me. I’ve been on a mix between my man’s time and my own, meaning I get to sleep later than I want, and so have to stay in bed an extra couple hours past when I naturally wake most days.

Ugh… and then I have to sit there all morning being vigilant while the students take this ridiculous test that they’ve been taught specifically by the company now how to take… nonsense… just nonsense.

Anyway… I’m exhausted and going to sleep now.

God, grant me restful sleep, please. Thank you for the financial compensation tomorrow’s work offers to me. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023