brothers – hannah ananas

It’s Friday night…

And I juust-juust-juuust-juuust-juuuuuuuust Got Paid!

Anyone recognize that early 2000s jam right there? It occurred to me on my way home this afternoon after school that it was the last day of the month – thus my reason for taking the scooter to get its state inspection at the time – and so 1)October starts tomorrow(!!) and 2)I must have gotten paid today. And then it hit me that today is also Friday… and then the song hit big time with great haste.

After I got home, when my man was with me and almost finished with his own work for the day – he works remotely – I just had to play the song. So, I blasted it as a surprise for him. It was wonderful and ridiculous and stupid and genius all at once.

Thank you, God, for such a silly and amazing time. Amen.

Then, when he finished working, we goofed off a bit before heading to the driving range. My mom and stepdad then stopped by the range to give us some petit fours from Louisiana, where they had just taken a small vacation, and some October Louisiana beers for us and my brother and sister-in-law. We chatted for a while and it was awesome.

But he time they finally left, the sun was getting close to setting, and my brother was finishing at his event for school, and so he came and joined us at the range and even hit some balls with us. Then he and my man enjoyed two of those not-cold beers from my mom as we all just hung out after the balls were all used up, and we waited for a table at the wings restaurant we had planned to visit for dinner. (We had checked in online, and the wait was over an hour still.)

After a while, we gave up watching the poor tactics of the ball carts, and headed to use our coupons for free wings that we had gotten at the Astros game for a player having stolen a base. And we had a grand ole time at the restaurant, being idiots as usual.

The whole evening was just really awesome tonight, and I am immensely grateful. Thank you, God, for such fun and fellowship and love. Thank you. Amen.

Post-a-day 2022

“Fit”ting it all in

I had wanted, at the start of this week, tog et in three more workouts before the end of the year. You see, I keep track of when I do them and how many total I have done throughout the year. I started that two and a half years ago when I started at the gym, because I felt it was important data. Sure, you’ve been going to the gym for four years…, but how many times did you actually go to the gym? I wanted to help keep myself accountable as well as see how results lined up with my class attendance.

I keep both count of how many workouts I’ve done per calendar year and per year of gym membership (I started the second week of April in 2019). My first year, I managed 190 workouts, I believe. (It’s all listed on my computer.) Of course, that ‘year’ ended with the gym closing and whatnot with the COVID shut-downs. Then I had major struggles for a while with no gym to attend, and the workouts died away. But, last December, I got myself back at it, after the gym had closed permanently and then re-opened (with higher prices :/…). So, this calendar year, as of Monday of this week, I had done 55 from 1 January to 7 April, and I had done 132 after that. So, I was at 187 for the calendar year so far. I figured, It would be nice to reach a round 90, meaning 190. Still not 200, but I can still make that 200 happen for the gym membership year, which is what matters most to me. For the calendar year, I wasn’t going to be able to make it happen, what with being out of town for moving my grandma last week, and then suddenly having to move myself this week. But I could challenge myself and get that 190 with the remaining days, especially since I intended to be done moving by Wednesday at the latest. (I was clear that I needed all my sleep and energy for moving on Monday and Tuesday, and so was clear that I was not going to the gym early on in the week this week.

But, today, Thursday, I got up (later than usual) just after six and did a running and core workout in the crazy fog and dark that was my mom’s neighborhood this morning. Then, I met my brother on a walk to see his dog again before he left town – yes, all I wanted was to be able to play with and hang out with the dog, but all I was allowed was walking with him twice… so it goes – and walked roughly two miles with them. Then, as a means of heading home after the walk that ended at his dad’s house, elsewhere in the neighborhood, I did the same running and core workout again. Nuts, I know. So, I racked up roughly 9-10 miles today from running and walking. And I could barely hold myself up for the second round of the core work. And I’ve got a blister between two of my middle toes on my left foot, which is annoying but healing somewhat quickly. (Of course, I poked it with my knife, because it was too much with all the fluid in it earlier… Anyway…)

But I’m glad and relieved I managed the two workouts today. And my other brother, who has been very not-active in life lately but who has just moved back from Japan, has agreed to go to the gym with me tomorrow morning. It’s a good 35+-minute drive into town for that, but it is worth it for my brother to go do it with me. I think he could really use the physical workout and the mental and emotional release it has to offer with it. If he ends up liking it, and he finds a place close to the gym, I likely will get him a punch card for him to be able to go several times without the high price tag.

Anyway, I’m excited for him to go with me in the morning. And I’m excited to round out the goal of 190 for the year and 135 for this leg of year gym year. And I’m nervous but glad to be going at all. The past two weeks have been bizarre for me, and I miss my gym and its people and energy and release and health. I don’t know how the next six weeks of my life will look, but I am glad to have tomorrow morning sorted somewhat, and positively so.

Thank you, God and Universe, for the help and support and courage for all of this lately. Please, help me to be Your love in all that I do and in all that I am, as Your creative expression in this world. In your name I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2021

Under the same roof

My mom and her two brothers are all staying in my aunt’s house tonight (aunt is out of town) with me.

I think this might be the first time they’re all staying together – and even without their spouses – under the same roof at once in decades… perhaps even since they lived in their childhood home together.

The dynamic is partly totally weird and partly totally easy… kind of like, ‘Why couldn’t we have done this dynamic years ago?’

Instead of the regular struggle they all seem to have around one another, getting on each other’s nerves and all.

Anyway… it’s neat, and I like it. 🙂

And it makes me think of how my brothers and I all get along so well together.

Post-a-day 2020

What’s the name of the game?

I want it all to work out beautifully, but along the lines of my intentions… we shall see what life has in store, however.

Likely, I will discover something much better and rather different than I had ever expected, and for many, many reasons.

After all, is that not how much of life tends to work in the first place?

Anyway…

I’ve been struggling the past ten days, give or take a few on either side.

Getting myself to exercise, even to get out of the house and be specifically outdoors has been tough.

Part of me wonders if something is off in my hormones and diet, but most of me believes that I simply have gotten myself into a mental slough…

This whole “What’s Next” thing has really been getting to me, and I feel like I need a bit of a break from being where I am and have been, both mentally and physically.

The things I have been doing have ended or are ending, and I want a quick vacation to reset, and then to come back and take on all the new stuff full-force(!).

I got a small taste of what it feels I most need last Friday…, and it was amazing, but it also reinforced my draw to taking that real retreat from this daily circumstance in which I presently find myself (and have found myself for a very long while).

I was supposed to do a somewhat quick road trip with my mom, and go visit my brother in Wisconsin, because my mom has wanted to take a road trip with me in her new car for the past three years (though, I only just this year learned of this intention of hers).

Every time I’ve asked to arrange everything with my brother and her, she tells me her schedule won’t allow it.

Okay…

So, I aimed for a shorter trip to visit my cousin in Oklahoma.

It was to be during the workweek, so that I could still work remotely, and we wouldn’t interrupt my cousin’s weekend time with her husband, who had to be at work during the workweek.

But then, suddenly, days before we are about to go, my mom declares that she can’t take of time during the week like that – it must be a weekend…., even though she had already agreed, before I had even reached out to my cousin about visiting.

And then, we were going to go to Galveston for an overnight stay…, but my mom, yet again, decided she actually couldn’t take off when she said she could from work, so we would have to do it on a weekend… when everyone else is there…, which neither of us was interested in doing.

And now, two and a half road trips having been canceled, I’m about ready to burst… I already had my summer plans of spending six weeks in Italy and England (to work on my thesis and visit my best friend and her soon-to-be baby) canceled…, I don’t know how much more of being stuck here I can take.

If it goes much longer, we risk my getting a job elsewhere and just moving away, clear as day…

I was doing so well, back when I had things I was looking forward to doing…, and now, I’m what feels like such an oppressive state, I feel it harder to breathe, and I can’t even seem to get myself to exercise… which only adds to my misery, making me feel like I have a huge fat-girl complex, and all I seem to want to do is eat cookie dough and cry and sleep all day to avoid the world…

And it isn’t all day that I feel this way, but it is the underlying tone to almost every moment, and so is always with me.

I know that I’ll be okay at some point, but I’m really not okay right now, and it has kept regressing, little by little, lately… that’s why I couldn’t stand people asking how I was doing weeks ago… I wasn’t okay, but I didn’t want to talk about it with them.

And I still don’t.

But I’m still not okay.

However, I am finally starting to see clearly what all is in the way for me, and I know I can and will start clearing and cleaning it all up in the very near future.

For now, though, I am simply acknowledging it and letting it be.

I am pissed off and I want a retreat from all of this, and I keep being promised one, and then having it pulled away from me.

And it all comes down to money… if I had more of it, this wouldn’t be an issue right now.

But I won’t get into that.

Ugh…

Post-a-day 2020

Stop, in the name of love

When I was around eight years old, a group of neighborhood kids and I were wandering around the streets – because that was the norm back then – and we came across a garage sale at a house across the creek.

It was not often that I was allowed to venture across the creek, so this was already an especially exciting day for me.

But then, this garage sale made it even more exciting… and something in the garage sale just set me on fire(!)…

It was… a gigantic stop sign…

A true and genuine, very large stop sign…

And I wanted it so badly..

We all looked around a bit, one person, I believe, buying something on the spot, due to his or her having a dollar in her pocket, but the rest of us had no money on us – that just wasn’t the thing to carry around then…

And so, we all calculated the amount of money we would need to gather from our respective moneys, and headed back across the creek together, dispersing to the various houses.

Now, I didn’t actually live on this street, due to a somewhat complicated scenario, so I didn’t have any money waiting in a house for me per se…, but my brothers and their dad lived there, and I was spending time at their house, as was usual for me, and they had money at home.

I raced to the house, and I went to my oldest brother as fast as I could… I asked him if I could have some money… I think it was ten or fifteen dollars (not a lot, but not nothing either for the time)… he asked me why, and I quickly explained everything to him, practically begging for the money at this point…

He said we would have to go check it out, and so grabbed about twenty dollars, and we were about to head out, when it was suddenly time for me to leave – my mother was there to pick me up.

My brother said he might still go check it out, but my mom said she and I could drive over to see it, because she likes things like garage sales, anyway, just to look at things.

When she and I arrived, everyone was already back, my brother among them this time, and some of the kids were already heading back home, new treasures in hand.

I showed my mom the other small something I had wanted, as well as the stop sign… she was not convinced on the stop sign…

I was sad, but not surprised – I had known my true chance of getting it lay in my brother’s letting me get it… kind of the whole, ‘Better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission,’ idea, where my mom would have accepted a done deal, but wouldn’t make the deal herself.

And so, I believe we went home, my having a small treasure in hand, and grateful for it, but sad the opportunity that likely was never to present itself again had passed, un-seized…

Sigh……

The next time I was at my brothers’ dad’s house, upon entering my oldest brother’s room, I was struck: there against the wall, behind his speaker system, was a huge and red stop sign… very much like the one I had recently told him about…

Seriously?! I wondered and asked… he openly admitted that he knew I had wanted it, but that that was because it was cool…, and so he got it for himself…, because it really was cool.

….

So unfair, brother… so unfair.

😛

It was actually rather comical for me, as opposed to heartbreaking…, and my brother, I think, knew it would be.

For me, it was just something really cool that suddenly was available to me – it was not something that I had always wanted…, so I would be okay not having it… and I was.

Plus, as he mentioned, I still got to see it all the time, but I didn’t have to figure out how to rearrange my room to put it on the wall somewhere that looked right – for his rather bare walls, it was an easy task.

So, it was totally a cheater move…, but we both were very okay with it and found it quite funny in its irony.

I still do, decades+ later..

Haha

Ridiculous, right?

Ridiculous.

Post-a-day 2020

Yesss…

I have started something.

I told my brother about how I create my own translations of Japanese signs that have odd photos.

For example:

After sharing such an idea with my brother, I thought his interest in it would be at an end within minutes.

This afternoon, however, as he sat at the airport, waiting to go home, I received a group message from him with the following:

Apparently, my delightful pastime was not lost on him.

😀

I actually was brimming tears as I laughed at this very unexpected set of messages earlier.

Whew!

Post-a-day 2019

Dorks

My brother asked me if I was doing a carry-on bag for our trip.

I told him that I was, and he said that he was hoping/planning to do the same for the whole trip (with an exclamation point at the end!).

That was in text messages.

Talking over the phone a little while later, after our tickets (one set of them, anyway) were booked, we discussed the bags again, and the matter of bringing only a carry-on bag plus a purse.

‘My biggest concern right now is really what watch I’m gonna bring,’ he says to me.

‘I know what watch I’m bringing!’ I counter, and my mom laughs behind me, knowing full well what my brother must have just said, and laughing at him for it (not at my comment alone).

I only currently wear the watch this same brother gave to me several months ago.

It is awesome, and I wear it lovingly and with pride at the company, at my brother for finding and supporting it, and a little at myself for wearing it.

My brother knows this, and so does my mother, so we all got my teasing joke of a comment, and, once I told my brother that Mom was laughing, we all laughed at his dilemma.

My brother has an entire collection of watches, each one different from the rest, and all of them stellar quality and style…, and I would guess that they add up to around a hundred thousand dollars altogether…

He typically travels with three watches as a minimum – a casual chic, a sport, and a work watch that doubles as formal.

Sometimes, I believe, he brings something like seven, when it’s a longer trip, and he’ll have varied activities in which to participate and events to attend.

I always bring my one watch, and simply remove it whenever I do sport.

(The moment this company comes out with a sports-safe version of their watches, however, I am totally likely to have two watches, and quite suddenly so…. until that time, however, I have just the one.)

We absolutely love my brother’s love of watches, and I laud him for and value his efforts in creating watches with an awesome private watch company that has begun to make watches for him and to use him and his sports to create advertising for their watches…. frankly, he has done what we all dream to do, by turning a dorky passion into something that not only allows him to pursue his passion but to be encouraged in it and to be paid through it, all while always having a wonderful time with it all.

I am proud to share blood with him, and I love having fun with him around his love of watches (and many other things, too, actually).

At the end of our call, I ask him how the boating went with his friends earlier.

He tells me that he took some pictures, and so he’ll send me something.

After a few moments of flipping through photos, he sends me a wrist shot of the watch his buddy temporarily swapped him for two of his watches…

Seriously, brother?… You went boating, and you took pictures, and the only photo that actually comes out of it all is one of your wrist and a watch, where you really can’t tell that you’re out on a boat in the first place?

But, for him, of course it is. 😛

And, to be fair, when I saw the photo, while my secondary comment and thought related to the aforementioned concept, my first thought and comment were immediate: “His Carbotech!”

I knew exactly what watch it was, and even I was excited that my brother was getting to wear this watch… 😛

Post-a-day 2019

Little siblings

I never had little siblings, younger brothers or sisters… I was the baby of many, and by a bit.

My eldest sister would be mistaken as my mother whenever we would go out places… eleven and a half years difference can do that.

And so, I grew up learning loads of things not to do, loads of mistakes not to bother making, because at least one of my older siblings did that thing, made that mistake, and I learned the result long before I might have considered doing any of it myself.

Therefore, I’ve always struggled to understand what it could be like, having your younger sister in grammar school or still in high school… going to their terrible school performances or sports games… my siblings were all older by a good amount, so their performances and games were always awesome to me – in my child mind, they could have been pro compared to my own performances or games at the same time.

Tonight, I ran into two old classmates who were attending the art show of their little sister… and it reminded me that people actually do that, come back to the high school because of the younger sibling… I’d forgotten.

I’d thought people only really returned to visit for themselves, see old teachers and new buildings… that sort of thing… or to work there.

As I pondered how odd that idea feels, I suddenly recalled that I actually can relate a little bit.

You see, it’s almost like I have a borrowed younger sister.

My best friend lives in England, but her youngest sister lives in Houston, and she’s in high school right now.

Though I mostly am at the school for work purposes, I occasionally arrange my schedule around seeing her or spending time with her.

For the art show tonight, I had already planned to attend it, because it is always amazing.

However, I also knew that she would be performing in it, and so made sure to arrange accordingly to be there when she performed.

I always record her performance, and send it to her sister, who, naturally, is too far to make the trip for a short little performance every time.

So, in a way, I have a borrowed little sister: my best friend’s little sister.

It’s not exactly the same as her being my real sister, because I’d have attended loads more of her events and such…, but it has enough similarities for me to be able, ever so slightly, to relate to those who have younger siblings.

You know what I mean?

Post-a-day 2019

Beer run?

‘Okay, I’m stopping at the grocer on my way out there.’

‘Oh, since you’re stopping at the grocer, will you pick up some (hard) cider for me?’

He then gives me the details of his preferences on cidre, and we settle a plan…

“Haha…,” he continues, a bit nerdily and excited, “I’ve never had my little sister buy me alcohol before.”

We both had a dorky chuckle at this idea, mostly because we knew how the rest of our family had been growing up, as well as how unlike them I had been, simply uninterested in alcohol, let alone getting someone to buy any for me.

…..

Separately, when actually at the store, two girls who work there were telling me about the cidres sold, and kept suggesting I get a ‘sneaky’ one, so that I could ‘get him drunk’, and they kept chuckling at how their boyfriends are always surprised with sweet drinks that have high alcoholic content and leave them drunk, when they had thought they were totally fine… I didn’t entirely disapprove, since it’s people who matter to the girls, but I wasn’t exactly a proponent of the behavior in the first place…

When they remembered that I had said “for my brother”, their tunes changed and they gave me genuine flavor information on the different cidres, instead of just talking about getting something sweet. 😛

The irony of it all was how I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d purchased alcohol, let alone purchased any for my own consumption (not that these were for me, of course), and it felt extra-silly carrying out the cidres… I felt so totally out of place, not unlike an underaged kid sister trying to sneak alcohol for her brother’s party…

My extra consolation was in the fact that he really doesn’t drink much in the first place either, but wanted some drinks because he is on vacation (and even then only a few, because there’s an intense CrossFit class awaiting him in the morning). 😛

Post-a-day 2019

My birthday

It’s a special birthday for me this year.

It seems like the few people I really would love to have spend the day with me are all otherwise occupied slash unavailable on my birthday this year.

I would like to shuff this feeling of inadequacy and being unloved…, as well as the feeling of just not bothering to do anything for my birthday at all, since they can’t be part of it….

Perhaps I need just to go ahead and pity myself and have a great big, emotion-releasing cry, and get it all felt and out of my system, and then I can readdress how I want to celebrate my life this year.

It’s funny how, even at the thought of that, a miniature version just happened, and I’ve even started glimpsing ideas of things I’d like to do to celebrate life this year. 🙂

Praise God – He helps me through it all, even and especially if He is the one throwing it at me. 😛

Post-a-day 2019