I feel like I am not that great at coming up with new ideas myself, but I am very good at improving ideas. That latter part is for sure. I am a great critic (in the good sense, actually finding points for improvement and how to improve them, not just trashing others’ ideas).
I wonder how I could use that to serve the world and God’s will in my vocation…
Post-a-day 2024
P.S. Our home now has electricity again, as of this afternoon. Tomorrow would have made it a week without power. I’m impressed it has been restored so quickly, though I am nervous about the costs of doing such. There is some terrible damage, what with the several electrical towers crushed on the ground nearby and all… I hope there aren’t brown-outs coming soon, though they seem all too likely, since things have been supposedly rerouted temporarily… too much power going through too few channels right now…
P.P.S. Thank you, God, for a cool home in which to sleep tonight – we both are so tired, it has become very difficult for us to function and be kind at the same time. Thank you. Amen.
We had spirit dress at school today. My husband and I went to a baseball game with my brother and sister-in-law this evening, and it was both an eventful game and the Astros won. And it was dollar dog night, which I love. It was like a party. When we all got back to our homes, my brother and sister-in-law had power back at their home. Yippee! We don’t have electricity restored yet, but we are wired after the game. Today has just felt quite like a Friday.
I knew she was at that house around the corner! My husband went over there this evening to find a way into the yard. He ended up finding the owner – who was impossible to find yesterday amongst the fifteen other people living in that house – and the owner knew exactly which chicken Patrick sought. They apparently had it running freely in the house, not mixing with their own chickens.
This morning, my husband had to be up earlier than I liked in order to go have a flying lesson. (We won’t discuss the part where he didn’t end up actually flying until the afternoon, despite having gone up there this morning…) It was Saturday morning, and I was exhausted from the last couple days. Nonetheless, he finally got up to go fly.
After a few seconds, he says, “I’m gonna turn this light on,” giving me the warning he sometimes gives before turning on one of the lights in the bedroom.
Immediately, I responded with an exhausted, “WHY???” Just as quickly, however, I changed my tune to an easygoing, “Sure, go ahead.”
It took half a second after that before he cursed and we both started laughing. At least, I think we both laughed. I certainly did, at any rate.
Obviously, we were laughing because he had flipped the light switch to on, and no light came on… because we don’t have electricity still, from the storm Thursday evening. We both had forgotten, but I had remembered first and had used it to my advantage. 😛
And yes, we are idiots.
Thank you, God, for our silliness together. Keep us both safe, please. In your name, I pray. Amen.
Today was both good and tough. It was good, in that I accomplished much clean-up in the backyard this morning from the storm. I also went for a good, long walk with a neighbor and her dog, and we checked out the neighborhood. I also got to see my brother and sister-in-law briefly when they came to pick up coolers to borrow for their freezer foods. My husband also got to have another lesson for his flight training progress.
It was tough, in that my husband was gone most of the day, and work had been canceled for me today. I struggled with food for myself, as well as water. I accomplished nothing I had hoped to accomplish yesterday and today, because electricity is still out. It likely will be out for a week or three, given what we saw on our walk. I felt tinges of despair at myself. And, though I comforted myself with the reward of a fun and lovely show, the intimacy shown in it saddened me due to how different it was from the relationship I have been able to have lately. And, though we have a generator hooked up, something changed, and now the bedside lamp flickers terribly, giving me a massive headache quite quickly. Plus, that means I can’t do my regular reading by lamplight, which is usually a massive help in my mental health. And I am going to bed with a headache.
God, help us to heal, please. Help me learn to camp well, too, please. Keep my husband safe. In your name, I pray. Amen.
Well, an even tougher storm came through town this evening and rather devastated certain areas. My husband thinks we might be a week without power. There are 100+-year-old trees fully on the ground or split out half and flung down the road all over the place right now. In addition to the crazy winds, there apparently also was a tornado in our area. So much power is out right now in just our area, let alone the other parts of town that got hit hardest.
As my husband said, it looks like a big deal hurricane came through. And yet it was something like only an hour-long storm. Just nuts.
Since so much power is out all around, perhaps my husband might not be going to the gym tonight, and we’ll be home in bed together… wishful thinking over here(!). I wonder if he is still flying in the morning… Hmm… I also wonder if school even has power. I shall check in the morning before heading in!
We went to the final game of the little league championships for my husband’s nephew this evening. The game was at 5:45pm. The league is age ten and under. They have a limit of an hour forty-five minutes to play their game, but must also complete six innings. So, as long as they’ve completed six innings, whenever they hit an hour and forty-five minutes of play time, that marks their final inning. The other night, their game went long, but only by 20-25 minutes. But yes, that was still long for them to play over their maximum game time. Tonight, however, the game went very long. It didn’t end until 8:05pm.
That’s two hours and twenty minutes, a full forty minutes over their normal maximum play time.
But then… – yes, indeed, there is a but here – they, the undefeated team in the playoffs, lost the game by one run, which was gained in the final inning.
So, since the other team had been the winner of the loser’s bracket, now both teams had lost one game. (Yes, I know. The winners of the winner bracket should have already won the whole thing, but they do it having the winner of the winners’ bracket play the winners of the losers’ bracket.) So, they had to play another game to find the winning team, as both teams had had a single loss, while the rest of the teams had all lost twice.
And when might this second game be? After a brief ten-to-fifteen-minute break.
Haha
So, when we confirmed the game was still happening directly afterward, as originally planned, before the first game had run way over time, my husband and I rushed to the car and sped on over to the nearby Costco for a dinner of hot dog and pizza.
We brought back pizza for the kids, and they each had one of the small slices while they were at bat – it was close to nine at night, and none of these kids had had dinner; they needed nourishment to keep them going, for sure. We also had pizza and drinks for our extended family who were there, and shared our excess pizza with this very kind deaf couple whose son was on the team – also deaf, I discovered, when I saw his hearing aid and witnessed how he told his mom that he couldn’t find his hat (almost no sound at all, just lips and a bit of minor signing) – and whose daughters were growing very hungry and bored at their brother’s very long baseball outing.
Note** They hadn’t know that Costco had pizza or that you could get a whole pizza there OR that it was only $10. Let alone that it might just be the best regular pizza in town. They were very excited to discover all of these facts. After tasting the pizza, they were all the more excited to have learned about it. So, yay! Glad to share such wonderful food and with others, while supporting a company that seems to be genuine and morally sound.
Anyway, the boys played the second game loads better. There’s a five-run maximum in the leafy per inning. In the first game, the other team got the five runs in the first inning, no outs. Not a good start. When they hit the second game, however, the nephew’s team had stepped up to their true usual playing level, and they got the five-run max in the first inning this time. At the last inning, the score was 10-5, the nephew’s team winning. They were first up to bat in the inning. On the second batter, the players on the field seemed to miss what was actually going on, despite the fact that they had been forced to crowd around the pitcher and close to home plate before the pitch (first batter had stolen to third at this point), and the pitcher fielded the unfortunately-short-hit ball, and threw it to first base…
There were no outs. The team was up by five. They only needed one run to win the game, because, even if the other team went to bat afterward, they had a max limit of five runs per inning. So, a lead of six points would end the game immediately.
When that pitcher turned around and tried throwing to first – and no one there was ready, because the first baseman was up by home plate with all the other infielders – the kid on third made it home with ease (as did the kid at bat, who is very slow at running, make it to first safely, incidentally), and the entire team and its coaches exploded out onto the field in joyous chaos.
I’m not sure the other team fully understood how they had just lost the game. But they certainly figured it out, what with all the screaming and jumping and running around like monkeys.
And they were all great sports, which was awesome to see at the end. They got special somethings for the second place team, and the winners, the nephew’s team, got championship rings. Shocker, I know.
Anyway, it was cute and we had a great time. But it was a very long time to be at the baseball fields. The game ended at 10:33pm, and we didn’t leave until after 11pm. That’s five hours just for watching. Phew!
Anyway, goodnight.
Thank you, God, for this evening of entertainment and kindness and joy. Keep my husband safe, please. Amen.
I asked my Japan group if anyone had experience seeing the kimono market here in the US – if they knew if people were interested and, if so, how much interested in terms of cost.
One person immediately sent me a message to let me know that – no, she didn’t seem to have any knowledge to offer – she, herself, was interested in buying one or two of my kimono.
Not quite was I was aiming to find, but okay. I accepted fate’s offer.
She came by the house this evening to see the ones I had already set aside as ones I didn’t need to keep anymore. She ended up picking out two kimono, plus an obi (the belt sash) and a haori (the short wintertime jacket that goes on top of kimono). I still haven’t taken a photo of all my kimono together, so we agreed that I would aim to do my photo this weekend, weather willing, and then she could come get them next week and pay me then.
Now, the amount she is paying is quite fair for me. And they are truly kimono that I was not at all going to use for myself.
And yet… I am sad to know that they are going away, that they won’t be mine any longer and that I will not see them anymore. Even if they are slightly ugly colors (both for my complexion and objectively so)… I feel a sense of loss and sadness for that loss.
I really need to find out if I’m going to do a booth to dress people at the festival this year for photos. If so, it’s well worth keeping the rest. If not, then it will be time to let go of the excess. But I have a major sense of FOMO around not being able to do that booth, if I sell them instead.
Okay, determined. I must find the cost of the booth, then I will be able to see my next step clearly.
Thank you for bag clarity, brain.
Thank you, God, for this opportunity. Please, keep my husband safe and well. In your name, I pray. Amen.
So, as the ocean waves rise and fall, perhaps I am experiencing my rage finally start to crest. I can’t talk about certain aspects of all my work nonsense without bursting into flames of fury on the inside still, but all of it as a whole is much easier for me to handle now. Perhaps because I’ve been sharing about it with others, openly. I’m finding clearer and clearer ways to express what happened, and concisely, too. Plus, folks who care about me are getting to understand why I have been struggling so much. It has been helpful. And I haven’t been mean about it. There was the one lunchtime right after my meeting, when I was beyond furious, that I didn’t handle it all too kindly, but I am not upset about it, and none of my feelings or words then were actually false – they were fully true, just not tamed or organized into respectable phrasing yet. I accept the initial blunder with my fury expressing itself then. Now, I am on a whole new level of being able to communicate it all well and without nastiness. I am grateful for that, at least.
Perhaps, one day, I will be able to trust fully in God that the parties responsible will reap what they sowed this year and that I will find my place in the world of work.
God, help me to be fair and kind these next three weeks, please. Keep my husband safe, please. Help him to find ease and joy in his studies. Help us both to return to the fitness levels we truly want to have, please. In your name, I pray. Amen.
hannah ananas 