Tag: crazy

Rodeo time

Well, our first rodeo shift went rather well, especially for a first shift and for only the second day of cook-off. We only got yelled at once, and it was by someone on the committee who clearly needed to ‘be in charge’ and ‘be the boss’ for the minute, without having any idea what actually was going on in the moment. And we got it all handled quickly, anyway, and that person left, because her shift was over, anyway. Aside from that, things were mostly normal and good.

My mom and I stopped in a bathroom on our way out, and I realized then that I hadn’t yet seen myself in a mirror in my rodeo uniform. I had always looked at myself in the mirror during rodeo, in our uniform, I mean, and felt that I looked so blah and not-womanly and not-pretty. I always looked a little bit of a mess, somehow, even if I was freshly cleaned and brushed and whatnot. There was just something about it I couldn’t seem to shake off: I didn’t look very good in our uniform, the black cowboy hat, the vest, and the white collared button-down shirt.

Last year was the first time that, suddenly, I not only didn’t look not-very-good anymore, but I actually looked pretty. I looked like a woman. I looked beautiful. I was wearing the same exact uniform as the year before, the same shirt and vest and hat. And I had the same long hair, just a few inches longer. Yet something was different, because I was pretty. It made me smile like crazy whenever I looked in the mirror. And I noticed that I looked at myself much more often than in the past. It felt good to see myself looking so good. It was the opposite of a Catch 22.

This year, I have short hair. And I’ve been a bit of a mess off and on in terms of looking feminine and pretty and all, ever since I cut it. It’s just about shoulder length now, and I was worried I’d be back to looking boyish again, and very much not pretty.

And yet, when I saw myself in the mirror tonight, I was shocked. My hair somehow looked perfect and cute and girly and pretty. I looked beautiful, gorgeous, good. And so it began again, smiling at myself in the mirror. I look forward to seeing more of this beautiful woman in the near future. This truly shows that what’s going on in our heads impacts a lot in terms of how we appear physically. When I’m happy, healthy, holy in my head, so, too, isn’t body. When I’m uneasy, stressed, and feel like I’m not worth it, so, too, is my body.

Thank you, God, for this blessing of joy that has caused such wonderful beauty in my life. Thank you for this life, and thank you for this love. Help me to share your love, especially with those who so openly share love with me. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Improvement!

Today, as of this morning, I feel different. Yay! I feel distinctly different from how I have felt these past two-ish weeks now. I guess the weakness of illness has actually left me, now, and I have a sense of normality within my body’s bounds again. I even am genuinely considering going to the gym tomorrow midday. That’s huge. Truly.

Yes, I still have coughing, especially from too much talking. But it is significantly improved. No full-body convulsion-type coughing fits. Just the occasional few coughs and single coughs sprinkled throughout the day, hacking down that phlegm that is finally clear and white, not yellow.

Anyway, it feels like improvement.

Tomorrow, we go to the apartment to see if they’ll do a walk-through with us (because they no-showed for the walk-through today, our last contract day, since they decided to close the office for the day and ignored our appointment… we had to drop the keys in their dropbox… which never seems actually to work, as they’ve lost everything we’ve ever dropped to them in it…). Fingers crossed on that going well for us, please. Prayers appreciated. We really want to move onward from this apartment.

God, help us, please, so that’s e might dedicate our time, resources, and energy to other things and endeavours that will honor you and share your love with the world around us. In your name, we pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Hmm

Well, I received my black belt. It literally has my name on it. It’s actually quite pretty, really. And, as for the performance we did, it went really well. Also, my mom got to participate in the whole ceremony, too, kind of like last week. Everyone else had a black belt carrying in their belt to the ceremony and presenting it for us. Most of them had a parent as that black belt. But I had a brown belt, my mom, carrying and presenting mine.

When we removed our black-belts-in-waiting belts, the brown with a black stripe through the center, our head instructor had originally just told me we would be handing it to a family member in the audience. Okay, no big deal. I’ll hand it to whomever, so long as he or she is in the front of my family section. Easy peasy. When we actually tied the belts, and she announced to go hand them off, she announced that we were presenting them to ‘the person who had been the most influential in our karate career’. Uuhhh… not what she’d said before… Well, of the options, obviously my mom had played that role. Fortunately, she also was sitting on the front row, making it easy to present the belt to her. I was sure to turn it facing her before presenting it – true Japanese style, of course – and thanking her.

Then we went off with no belts on, breaking rules of the uniform – you never wear the top without the belt and the pants, and without wearing them all fully and properly. Only the pants can be worn without the rest. Then, we changed into our new white uniforms to receive the black belts, again and still breaking the whole uniform rule for another few minutes.

But then the cute and dramatic procession happened, presenting all the belts in rank order, alongside our individual black belts we would receive (carried by our selected black belts and my selected mother who has a brown belt) to music. And we all went back out there one at a time while a photo slideshow played for each of us. After that, we finally were given our belts, and they were tied on for us by our head instructor, and we were officially black belts. So, yay!

It was a good time. So was dinner afterward with my family, and the occasionally chatting with others at dinner.

Separately, I’m still sick. Ugh. Almost no yellow remains in my nasal passages, but the coughing just won’t give up. After tomorrow, I will know if I need to go for more doctor stuff. Ugh.

Also, my apartment lease ends tomorrow. We scheduled a walk-through with the office at 4pm tomorrow. My flat-mate sent me a screenshot of an e-mail she received today – but that I did Not receive, even in spam – that says the office is closed tomorrow. No idea how that is going to go down, but I’m going to pray much about it tonight and tomorrow. This process with this complex has been a huge hassle from the start, and I’m genuinely concerned about what they might try to do to us. Please, say a prayer for our easy move-out tomorrow, if you’re able.

God, help us move forward easily from all of this. Heal my body. Heal my man’s body. Heal all those in need of healing, that we might all serve you better and share your love more effectively. Help us to have a smooth completion with this apartment complex. Please. Please, help me to release this guilt I feel around signing that contract in the second place. Help us, please. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Tomorrow, tomorrow

I receive my black belt tomorrow. I still have a ridiculous cough. It is extremely aggravated whenever I talk. We shall see if I can manage okay just not talking tomorrow. It would be a terrible time to cough the whole day, during the fancy awards and presentations of the day… yikes. Oh, God, heal me, please! I’m supposed to make an announcement with no microphone tomorrow, too(!). Help, please. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Seriously?

I’m still sick. I can talk a bit, but talking aggravates the cough. My nose is still dripping on the back, also aggravating the cough. My neck muscles are tired from coughing so much and from such intense coughing. My sides are tired, too, from the convulsions. I am weak and tired from not being able to eat enough, but eating anything causes immense coughing fits. So, I have to eat quickly and strategically – high protein, easy-to-chew, quick meals or snacks. Even then, I still cough up a storm.

Tonight, when doing the saline rinse in my nose, the right nostril suddenly closed up almost entirely – I suppose from something getting pushed over to it up top – leaving the solution to slide slowly but firmly down my throat instead of out my right nostril, as it had been doing quite decently. After too much of this, despite remaining calm and collected, my body revolted and vomited, right there in the sink. I let a little more water rinse through, just to make sure no vomit ended up in my nose, and I abandoned the rest of the saline rinse. I had hit my limit for the night. I had gotten most of the way through, anyway, and that was better than nothing. I had only thrown up a small amount, and didn’t want to consider what it might turn into if I kept at the saline rinse any longer. I’ll just do it in the morning, when my food is well and digested. Because I need that food right now.

Post-a-day 2023

Quick Karma

Firstly, yes, I am still sick. Improved further, but still breaking into uncontrollable fits of coughing here and there, making my throat sore sheetlet from the intense coughing. My abdominals are less sore, which is a clear improvement. And my throat doesn’t have the burn to it anymore. Also, there seems to be less coming out of my nose as a whole from either direction, which is good. I also can kind of talk again. Though, the taking aggravates the coughing, so it is only so helpful… 😛

Now, down to business: quick karma., as I called it.

So, my man is juicing. Why? He’s struggling with learning portion control and containing himself in general when tasty food is around. He’s doing a fitness challenge right now, and wanted to do six days total (with two rest days in the middle) of having only these set juices as his ‘food’ for the day, as they help ‘cut’, as the guys all call it. Juice cleanses and juicing in general are by nature very low in calories, making them one of many ways people choose to help cut down their fat levels, especially after bulking up.

Well, that’s what my man is doing right now: cutting, in the form of juicing.

However, he keeps eating little bits of valentine’s candy here and there. :/ And then, here’s the kicker. I heard him say earlier how he wanted pizza. Clearly, he saw the leftover pieces from our Valentine’s Day meal together – yes, we had agreed ahead of time that we wanted our meal together to be Costco pizza, because it’s amazing and because a slice is almost like a heart shape – sitting in the fridge. However, he doesn’t seem to act on the desire, and so I say nothing about it, so as not to make it harder on him by talking about food. (He really struggles mentally on these cleanses, in ways I’ve never understood.)

Hours later, he finally rushes out the door to go to the gym for his nightly workout session. It takes him multiple trips back and forth to the car, but he finally sets out, and I start to get ready for bed.

I notice that I’m feeling a little low on something in my own diet, and so go to the fridge to see what can help remedy my situation. The berries I bought will do just the trick, I think. As I pull out the box of blackberries, I end up glancing down at the pizza slices on the edge of the bottom shelf.

But something is wrong… There is too much space. How can this be??

I take a closer look at the pizzas. I know in a moment what is odd about them. They aren’t odd… they’re even… they’re only two.

P——!

I send him a message. I state his name first. Then send another message. “I’ll let you guess what I’m about to ask you…”

He quickly replied with a clever, “Stop.
“🔨🕰️”.

I reply, “Collaborate and LISTEN
“Last chance to guess
“Let’s collaborate on ideas of what this problem might be haha”.

We’re idiots, I know.

He responds, “Yes I left some lights in
“On*”.

“Not a problem, love”

And then I add, “What I’m wondering, is how, when I wrapped and placed three pieces of pizza in the fridge yesterday, there are, somehow, only two in there now… how could that be, when I didn’t eat any pizza today, and you’re on a juice cleanse?”

He immediately responds, “Lolololol”.

A moment later, he adds, “I knew I forgot something… look near our pantry”.

Sure enough, sitting atop the aluminum foil box and zipper baggies is a massive slice of Costco pizza, still wrapped up in foil and cool from the fridge. It hadn’t been there long.

After I discover the pizza slice, he adds, “Dang
“And I still didn’t get to eat it”.

Durn straight he doesn’t get to eat it. In case anyone forgot here, HE’S ON A JUICE CLEANSE(!!!!)! What’s he doing here, trying to cut with a juice cleanse, and then eating a massive slice of calorie-rich pizza??? No wonder he has trouble with self-control under normal circumstances… Ugh! This man… boy, do I love him, but, sometimes, I just can’t see where he’s coming from on things. 😛

And talk about instant karma… he sneaks a slice of pizza, but ends up forgetting it at home. What’s more, if I hadn’t mentioned anything about it, the dog likely would’ve found the slice before I did. Then it would’ve been long gone and made a mess on the carpet in the dining room (where the dog, no doubt, would have eaten the pizza). So, his getting caught actually made the situation better for all. Because the dog doesn’t need that much pizza either – she’d hurl in the middle of the night. Yet another mess he’d have to clean up…

Anyway, with that, I’m going to sleep: I probably rambled telling that all, but that’s where I am in my need for sleep. I wish you a lovely night and day. May God bless you all. Amen.

P.S. Please, God, heal me. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Improvemeh…

Well, the coughing proved to be a big problem last night. After hours of being in bed, I had barely slept a wink – I just couldn’t stop coughing, even when on the brink of exhaustion. My man came through for me and delivered some specific single-ingredient medicine – typically the only kind I want going into my system – to help stop the coughing. Well, not to stop the coughing, but to lessen it significantly. And it did just that. It took a bit to kick in, but I finally fell asleep around 3:30 or 4:00 this morning. And I actually slept. Thank you, God, for some real sleep, at last.

I had hoped only to take that medicine at night, but my coughing grew so terrible by late afternoon, I couldn’t even function. I’m still taking it easy as a whole, but I don’t like having to be on medicines like this. My body can’t truly tell where it is in recovery and what it may most need. Tomorrow is the last day of the antibiotics, and I hope I will be able to back off the rest by tomorrow night or the morning after, too.

Oh, and I hope I have a voice to use again soon, too. That would be helpful… though, I have very much appreciated this opportunity not to speak. It has been frustrating at times, but very good as a whole… a great lesson in patience for me and for my family. Makes me really want to get us into some ASL classes asap, though. You never know when you might need or want to use another language.

Prayers for healing, if you are willing and able, please, for me and for all the world.

Dear God, heal us all, please. In your name, we pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023