hannah ananas

I love when people truly mean what they offer as help. Too often, it seems that people make offers out of a sense of obligation, or self-preservation in terms of status, perhaps. Offers like that, when taken up, usually leave a sour taste in the relationship. And that always sucks. When I make an offer, I mean it. I have had too many people not mean it when they have made offers to me, and it has me be mistrustful of people’s offers now, even the honest ones. I don’t like that. I’ve been working on just simply asking, seeing somehow if the offer was genuine or if it was a version of fake. That, while uncomfortable, seems to help weed out the fake stuff and create deeper connections with those who truly meant their offers. Around baby hand-me-downs… it has been a tough one to navigate. But I have been gaining practice in that follow-up asking… and in telling when things won’t turn out, even before the ask. So, it’s cool to be able to confirm my suspicions, at least, now that I’m asking. Then I’ve been able to move forward understanding better then situation and also knowing that I’m good at reading situations. Double positive there(!).

Okay, going to sleep.

Thank you, God, for this life and the love I receive and give within it. Help me always to see clearly my next step in fulfilling your will in my life. Help me and my family to be our best selves and to help one another be our best selves. Make my husband and my daughter and me well, please, and keep us safe. Thank you for our home. Please, keep our home safe and whole. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025

Here, I thought I might be able to go to bed. But the baby started moving within a minute of putting her down. Sure enough, she had to poop, and it was big time. Over an hour later, after we both cried a good bit, she is finally back in the cradle, sleeping. We shall see if this time works…

Dear Lord, please, help us all three to sleep well each night, the baby, my husband, and me. Thank you for this family and this home. Guide us in your will. Make clear our next step in pursuing and fulfilling your will. Make us well, please, and keep us safe. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025

Our chiropractor works with God’s hands much of the time. I am immensely grateful He brought her to us (or, rather, us to her, I suppose). She is helping to heal me and to allow our baby to grow up practically perfectly in every way she physically can. It is awesome, and the results of her work show both immediately and longer term – it’s just beyond anything I’d known before in physical sorting-out.

Thank you, Lord. You know my will – allow it to be, please. Help my will to be your will. Please, always make your will for me clear and healthy to me. In your name, I pray. Amen.

P.S. The rodeo begins tomorrow. For the first time in my life, I don’t really want to go… at all. It’s a weird feeling. I’m normally super excited about its starting. But I rather am disinterested this year – not against it, but not particularly for it either.

Post-a-day 2025

Today, I felt good, and so the family all met at Spring Fling at my old school. Same deal as last night, where I was able to walk while carrying the baby – I carried her with Ease, zero sense of pushing myself at all. Nothing hurt. We went slowly and I sat often and for a while each time. But nothing even ached a little bit, and we were there for about four hours. I got tired, but not achey.

I sat in an epsom salt bath tonight, and found it bizarre how it was the first time I haven’t gotten in and felt ‘I so needed this’. It was nice and cozy, and felt good, but didn’t feel necessary like it had felt since before birth.

Truly, it was so weird today. I got to show many of my old coworkers (who are dear to me) my daughter and be happy and feel good while doing so. I hadn’t once been able to do that before last night, not be miserable while introducing her to someone. My body hadn’t not been in aches and pain for almost two months. Until last night, that is.

The power of God in the Holy Spirit is boundless. I am grateful for the grace of His blessing.

Thank you, God. Thank you. Keep me and my husband and our baby safe and well, please. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025

Today, my mom and I (and the baby) went to a thing at church that we do every year. It is talks and praise & worship and an early dinner and Mass and Adoration, all in a day together with registration in advance. (Haha) At one point, my mom commented that we should get one of the priests to bless the teether rosaries we have for the baby, which we had with us today. She mentioned wanting a specific priest to do it, one of the speakers (who also led a retreat I attended in college, as well as various events throughout my teen and young adult years, possibly including Mass at my high school), though she was clearly open to any of them doing it.

When we were between Mass and the start of Adoration, that particular priest happened to be standing at the back, just chatting with a couple people right along where I was walking to get back to our seats. I pause and asked him, ‘Father? Are you available to bless a rosary for my daughter?’ He told me that he was. I confirmed he would be still there chatting for a bit longer, and I went to get the rosaries from my mom. She noticed I had stopped and talked to him, and met me partway with them.

When I had hobbled back over to him, he quickly wrapped up his conversation with the two ladies and turned his attention to me.

I proffered him the two rosaries, and he accepted them and said, roughly, “Okay, so these are for your daughter. Tell me about her…” I started to share about her, and pointed vaguely in her direction as I did. Excitedly, he asked if she was here, and I told him that she was and that she was presently asleep on a pew. He gestured and half-asked as I said that we could go over and see her if he wanted.

So, we went over and saw her and my mom. On the way, he greeted a few people, but mostly listened to my answer of his request to tell him about my daughter and the pregnancy and all. He asked questions, and I answered honestly. Once there, we chatted briefly and then he prayed over her and over the rosaries, blessing both her and them.

Then he came and sat next to me. He asked me to tell him what had gone wrong that made me have a difficult recovery, especially what was still causing difficulty for me (as I was clearly still in a lot of pain, given how I stood and walked and, even, looked). He asked more questions, and I answered honestly. This included whether I believed God could heal me now… and whether I believed God loved me so much that He wanted to heal me now. And whether I believed I was good enough and deserving of being healed now…

And then he, with permission, laid hands on me and prayed. He asked me to repeat and declare certain things during the prayer. It was intense. He also asked for specific healing in my body, especially for my womb.

And, while he prayed, my body felt like it was on fire again. Three years ago, when I was working to release much that had been weighing me down and hurting me for so long, and I was preparing myself to be fully the person I longed to be, during Adoration, when the Host was directly in front of us, though the room was very, very cold, and I had been in at least a jacket and a scarf, my body began to burn. It felt like a furnace was beaming hot air directly at me and all over my whole body. I was pulling off all the layers I could as I cried on my knees, facing the Host, I was just so hot… burning. The experience and thought that occurred to me was that the fire was burning up all the stuff that didn’t need to stay with me anymore, especially all the bad and unwanted stuff from my life. The priest seemed to understand something about it all, too, because he stood directly in front of me for longer than he’d held the Host in any other place – he must have felt something was happening, which it was. I left lighter and new and living in a space of being freed. And much changed in my life after that. For the better, to be sure. I started the next year of my life with morning Mass and reconciliation, and then met my (now) husband about two weeks later, completely unexpectedly. God set a fire within me and sanctified and healed me emotionally that night at Adoration.

Tonight, I felt a similar fire. But it was distinctly in certain areas within my body. All the inside parts of me involved with labor were burning. My uterus especially was an intense blaze of heat(!).

And then, when he got up and walked away, and I got up and moved back into my pew and seat, I paid attention… and the pain in my uterus was gone.

……..

At the end, during the payer time, we went to have a couple pray over us who had done so during my pregnancy. We wanted to have them pray over us now that the baby was on the outside of me. They asked how I was doing, and I mentioned only that my stitches area was still hurting me. My mom started to mention the inside stuff, and I stopped her, letting her know that I had already mentioned all that was hurting me right now. As we walked away from them, I noticed an immense drop in the struggle I had been having with my groin area.

So, yeah… that happened tonight. Yippee!

Thank you, God. Jesus, I trust in you. In your name, I pray. Amen.

P.S. I hope I remember tomorrow to share further about the priest and my experience with him.

Post-a-day 2025

9:52PM came and went, I believe while I was sleeping on the living room bed tonight, and I didn’t even notice it. It typically celebrate my birth time on my birthday, as it truly marks the transition for me from the completion of one year to the beginning of the next. However, I was beyond exhausted tonight. The baby had a really rough afternoon and evening today, what with digestive issues causing her to cry off and on almost the whole time. That meant, of course, that those present also had a really rough afternoon and evening. And I was already sleepy from the minimal sleep I’ve been getting as a whole, let alone from last night’s not-great sleep levels.

Nonetheless, here we are, in the early hours of my 35th year of life. Welcome to it, naner! And thank you. As my husband pointed out, today, our baby turned one month old and I turned 408 months old. 😀 Dorks, I know. I am incredibly grateful for it and I love it(!!!).

Lord, thank you for the love and support today, especially despite my not feeling energized or particularly well. Thank you for all of it. Make us well, please, and keep us safe and together in my family. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025

This year has been my Jesus year, my age 33 year. My mom always jokingly said to family friends when they turned 33 that Jesus, at age 33, completed his life’s work, turned water into wine, walked on water, and raised from the dead – what are you going to do this year?

So, I prepared myself for my own Jesus year, though it was far down the road when I first started considering it. As of today, I have walked on Water Street, and I have walked on a glacier, which is, in fact, water. I helped my Opa create wine from grapes we picked (on the side of the road, in fact, quite possibly somewhat illegally, now that I consider it), and I created a chemical compound structure for water and turned it into the one for alcohol. And I brought back to life the dead border to my now-husband’s back patio by tilling the soil and planting a beautiful and blooming garden that lives to this day, and – now, this is the biggest one of them all and the one at which I still am amazed and for which shall be forever grateful and in awe of my capacity to do it – I made and birthed a baby girl, our daughter. God’s hand was certainly in all of these, and it was through Him that I did any of them. And this is especially so with the last of them.

So, here I end my Jesus year, and in complete gratitude for these awesome and blessed 33 years.

Thank you, God. May you grant me ever-growing love and many, many more blessed years with my beautiful family. Thank you for everything. Please, heal me and my family, make my husband and my daughter and me well, and keep us safe. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025

It now seems like it is actually bigger than it was… in other words, I’m working on not panicking right now. The midwife said to stop the Tylenol and Advil for 24 hours to see what happens – there’s a chance they’re masking symptoms of something that isn’t doing too hot. So far, I haven’t had any new symptoms (aside from the larger and firmer belly region, that is).

God, heal my body, please. Release me of these fears that are attempting to rise within me. Make me and my baby and my husband well and safe, please, and keep us so. Thank you for our home and family. Help us always to be our best selves voluntarily. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025

My belly has been very jelly-like thus far. However, tonight, I noticed that it seems to be kind of firm. It is still sticking out a lot, though, and almost seems to be more than it was yesterday. This is all when I am standing. And there are two spots, one on either side, that are like a cross between a golf ball and a tennis ball (in size) beneath the surface, slightly protruding.

Is this all just the abdomen coming back together normally?

When I’m lying down, my belly still feels somewhat jelly-like, but it is definitely more dense and heavy than it had been.

I went without the medicine for two doses, and it ended up aching and hurting in the whole belly region, so I went back on the medicine. Perhaps I can cut it in half in another couple days, as it wasn’t as horrible as it had been before without medicine. But it still sucked big time as soon as I tried to move at all.

God, heal me and the baby and my husband, please. Make us well and keep us safe and together, please. Help us to use our good health and well-being to be our best selves and to share your love in the world. Grant us always kind words with one another. Help our family to be rooted in you. Keep us safe, please. Thank you for this family. In your name, I pray. Amen.

P.S. Today has been Tuesday. That means that our baby is four weeks old now. Wild. Thank you, God. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025

How is it that, on one night, 70° is far too cool, but then, on the next night, 70° feels uncomfortably hot???

All due to the outside temperature’s being drastically different between the two nights.

Well… welcome to Houston.

God, make us well, please, and keep us safe and together, please. Help us to communicate with love, both with ourselves individually and with one another. Thank you for the success of my husband’s test today. Please, help him to find newly the confidence he has earned and deserves. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025