hannah.ananas

A change of plans

We were scheduled to do the fun Stein-hoisting competition tomorrow at an Oktoberfest event, and enjoy the related Oktoberfest bier vom Fass at the brewery. However, when we found out it wouldn’t be happening until 4:45pm, we bailed. We had tried to find the time all last week (We totally would have gone last Sunday, though they had no contest Sunday, if we’d known the contest happened so late in the day.), but there was never a schedule available.

You see, we’re scheduled to take our miniature vacation this weekend at my uncle’s spare house in Wimberley, and only had delayed from today to tomorrow afternoon so we could do this contest and get the Steins and have the lovely beer, all for a great price. But, with the contest so late, we weren’t interested in staying in town so long. So, we went and had a single beer each at the brewery this evening, then had hot pizza at Costco. Now, we can get up casually in the morning and head on out.

The whole point of this vacation is for us to go not-home together for a couple days and to be able to enjoy the nice weather. Basically, I want us to have some breathing space, but together. We’ve both been struggling lately with not getting done the things we want to get done, especially at home. So, rather than stay home to do the things, since I have off school Monday, we are taking advantage of my long weekend and taking a trip for ourselves. We’ve had to cancel every other trip we’ve planned this year already. He got to go work in Mexico for a month last month, and for a couple weeks in early summer. But I haven’t done any kind of vacation, and I have been miserable lately, drowning in my own stresses and failings. I need to leave the house and go somewhere that doesn’t cause me even more stress for just a bit, and I want him to be with me.

Next weekend, I can go back to getting stuff done at home. But I just need to take a step away this weekend and breathe and spend un-stressed time with my man in a place where we both are at ease and have nothing pulling at us to be done.

We almost had to cancel, because none of our dog-sitting plans were planning out. Both back-ups failed after the original pulled out. Fortunately, we found someone today who could help us, and I feel like I can finally start to breathe a little bit more deeply now that that is handled, at last.

Anyway, I think I need to go on this trip so badly, because I’m already feeling so depressed and like a failure for leaving home instead of getting things done here. I think that is exactly the reason I need to step away from home for a couple days…

God, help me to find the rest and relief I seem desperately to need right now, and help my man to do the same for himself. Keep us safe. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

A few days’ time

Whenever I want to do something that 1)will take extra effort, 2)requires extra time, and/or 3)is a shift in or from routine, it usually takes me a few days’ time to process the idea. First, I hit the point of knowing that I really would like for it to happen – not just that it would be nice, but that I truly want the resulting shift or change or whatever. Then, I just kind of sit on that idea for a bit, let it simmer, let it develop naturally, rather passively, without putting intentional effort into it. After a few days, I have causally developed a plan. I start doing little steps that assist with the impending shift. Eventually, I determine that I’m almost certain that I want to do it a certain way or time or whatever. And then, somewhat suddenly, though usually within 24 hours or so, I dive right into it and make it happen.

And then it’s done, like it was no big deal and was always going to happen on this day and at this time, and now my life has shifted in some subtle or huge way.

No matter what it is, be it rearranging furniture, unpacking boxes, getting rid of things, shaving my legs, or putting up a shower curtain, it almost always takes the same few days’ processing time before I make it actually happen. Tonight, it was the shower curtain.

And it looks great.

And it feels silly that it took me days to put up a shower curtain, once I’d determined that I was pretty sure I’d wanted to put it up.

But it did. And it almost always does. And it was perfect that it was tonight, and I am grateful that I got it done at a time when it didn’t cause extreme stress, as it would have done had I done it at any time beforehand when it had come to mind. Instead, it got to sit in the background and ruminate, and I was able to arrange time and effort for it to happen with ease, rather than total stress. Tonight, I fit it into the schedule without having to sacrifice sleep or any other already-scheduled task. For that to happen, it always takes a bit of time to get everything to shift just right. And, tonight, it did,

Thank you, God, for the ease of tonight’s shifting task. Thank you for giving me these opportunities to make positive changes in my life without having to stress immensely over them. Thank you for the ease it allows just to let things sit for a bit before taking action. Please, help me always to see clearly my next step in pursuing and fulfilling your will in my life. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Faith

Sometimes, I have trouble having faith that all will work out perfectly, that God will take care of us, that things are going as they are right now for a very good and valuable reason in my life and in the lives of those I love.

And yet, as someone mentioned tonight, whenever we have no faith at all, everything just feels even worse… we have no hope, no true love embedded naturally in life, no trust that we will be taken care of in the end, even if we feel we have failed to do our part.

And so, even though it sucks when I struggle to trust in God, it sucks even more when I give up on Him entirely… so, I’ll take my struggling faith over no faith any day.

Dear God, I am sorry that I have doubt toward you and your plans. I am sorry that I give in to the temptations of the devil and his workers. And I accept that I will continue to do both for the rest of my life. Please, help me to grow in my strength to resist the bad and to uphold the good. Help me to grow always in my trust in you and your works. Help me always to pursue and to fulfill your will. Your son, Jesus Christ, suffered in our stead and died in sacrifice for our sins such as I have mentioned. In his name, I pray in gratitude and faith. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Fury

Can I just put it out into the ether that two-factor authentication is uncivil and unjust? It wasn’t hard enough for me to create a password with what feels like fifteen requirements. Now, I must also carry around a separate device to be able to access my own content. Because my fingerprint verification also was not enough, for some reason.

I just don’t want to deal with this crap… I’m so sick of it. And I’m really hating people and their stupidity today.

Post-a-day 2023

Just be

Tonight, instead of going straight to bed, I watched a terrible show with great dancing and waited for my man to finish exercising. After I shower in the evening, I don’t like touching anything dirty, so I purposely waited so that I could hug him when he arrived.

What was really awesome, though, was that he sat down with me to watch this terrible show with good dancing, and we just got to lie there together, half snuggling, half just lying on top of each other. It was lovely just being physically against one another, especially after having been apart for so long.

Thank you, God, for this man and his love. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

My man

My man is home, and I am beyond grateful. I am relieved, excited, delighted, and filled with joy. And yet it also feels completely normal. I am not bouncing off the ceiling or anything. But, when he first hugged me, held me, I just started to cry – not only was it that my man was home, but also that I have a man who loves me and whom I love… as he said to me this morning when we were just sitting together as he held me, he loves me “immensely”. And I him.

And I am so grateful for it.

Thank you, God, for this man and this love that we have been blessed to share with and through you. Help us always to honor you with our relationship, and thereby honor one another always. Help us to be the best we can be and to pursue and fulfill your will. Thank you for the many blessings we have and share. Thank you for your love. Help me gently, please, to release my fears and to trust in you. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Oh, my head…

It hurts. And it has been hurting since late this morning. It got loads worse tonight, though. It could be tied to menstruation and it could be tied to not enough food or water for the day. Frankly, I think it’s all three, the food and sleep especially. So, I shall sleep now… in hour and a half increments, because of the menstruation… and see how it goes.

God, grant me restful and healing sleep tonight especially, please. Bring my man and the dog and all their luggage stuff home safely tonight while I sleep. Heal my grandma and my brothers’ dad, please. Heal us all. Help us to pursue and to fulfill your will always and in all ways. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Well, then…

I was supposed to go to the rodeo with my friend and her husband and baby (and the husband’s stepmom) tonight. But the friend was so exhausted, she ended up not going. Therefore, I turned in my exhaustion card, too, and stayed home. So, it is 7pm, and I am already in bed and finishing up my bedtime routine.

I wasn’t joking when I said I was exhausted. While I would love to wake up early tomorrow, I have a feeling I will need all the sleep between now and 7am… we shall see!

Thank you, God, for this unexpected blessing of having plans cancelled. Help us all to sleep well tonight and to prices and release that which holds us back from loving you fully and pursuing and fulfilling your will on Earth. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Homecoming

Tomorrow is the homecoming football game. I’m not going. Not even for a few minutes. And, for the first time, I’m excited about that fact.

I normally love the homecoming game. The buzz is exciting already, but I also really enjoy all the silly and utterly stupid mums that kids are wearing nowadays. I aim not so much to consider the cost of these things, though. Haha

Nonetheless, I normally like to go, at least for a little bit, and am sad if I cannot attend. This year, however, I am so darn tired, I can hardly wait to go home and go to bed tomorrow after school.

(Coincidentally, I just remembered that I’m signed up to go to the Pasadena rodeo with a friend and her family, though she did say this evening that we might not be going after all… so, we’ll see.)

Post-a-day 2023

The room was a buzz… with static

I went to adoration… for all of five minutes, and then I ditched. Why? I had to get out of there. Just as with every other time I have gone into that chapel, my ears were assaulted by the loud humm-buzz of what only could be a speaker not in use but on or terrible dimmable lights… as we discovered today, it was both.

I’ve been casually asking for years who is in charge of the technology of the place, but have always simply not received an answer. Today, however, when I couldn’t even stand to be in adoration, a place I wanted and love to be, I made it happen. I went to the offices and found someone who, though not officially in charge – turns out no one truly knows ‘who’s in charge’ there – had a key to all the locked doors and had authority to investigate the sound with me.

I explained to him my theory. When he had replaced the blessed sacrament back into the tabernacle, I got to troubleshooting. After only a few tries and one google search, I had my main solution: Yes, the amplifier hanging on the ceiling was left on all the time, thereby giving a constant feedback sound.

Displayed here:

After the massive sound was gone, we did find a much smaller one that ended up coming from – you guessed it – overhead dimmable lights.

Though the lights may or may not stay off (there are two sets side-by-side), I now know which ones make the buzz. As for the speaker, I wrote a note to say specifically what to turn on before each Mass and to turn it off after each Mass. Until that becomes normal for folks, I at least know how to turn it off myself. Just have to find someone with the right key… and yes, I have considered asking if I might have a copy of that key, specifically for the purpose of being able to silence the buzzing roar of the speaker when needed. We shall see what happens.

For now, though, we have a wonderful start and a functional real of possibility and plans. And I am grateful for that.

Thank you, God. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023