“You have no friends available for a friends quest this week.”
What, Duolingo??? What??!
Perhaps, if I had more friends period, it would be different…
Thanks for reminding me of that fact, Duolingo… not.
😛
Post-a-day 2023
“You have no friends available for a friends quest this week.”
What, Duolingo??? What??!
Perhaps, if I had more friends period, it would be different…
Thanks for reminding me of that fact, Duolingo… not.
😛
Post-a-day 2023
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
My cousin is staying with me the next few nights. My alarm is set for just after 4am tomorrow. I usually aim to go to bed no later than 9pm on such nights. Yet, she and I stayed up until after one o’clock just talking and hanging out together. Frankly, the disregard for a need to sleep and for the responsibility of sleeping enough reminds me of any sleepover we had as kids. The only thing missing was being yelled at by my aunt for being too loud and up so late. It all calls to kind the question of, “Did we actually grow up? Or are we still totally kids?” At least when we’re together, it seems to be the latter idea that is more true… 😛
And I am grateful for that. Though tomorrow might be more than a little tough at school. (See? School. Totally still a kid. 😛 )
God, thank you for this friendship and family tie. Thank you for the time we now get to spend together. Help us both to sleep well tonight and the next few nights, that we be energized during the waking hours and ready and able to take on the days and to pursue and fulfill your will. In your name, I pray. Amen.
Post-a-day 2023
An employee is suddenly not at work on a Monday. The office is cleared out. The employee’s information is wiped clean from the online directories and website pages. It is almost as if the employee never existed… though the employee was there on Friday…
Not a word is said about the sudden disappearance and near-erasure of this employee.
In such a situation, we have a tendency to want to find out – to want to know what happened. We want to speculate. We want to discuss.
On one hand, we want to make sure we don’t make the same mistake or mistakes that that employee must have made. On the other hand, we just want to know. We don’t actually need to know, and we have no real reason we can name for wanting to know other than, simply, wanting…
And this landed for me in a new way today, as I discussed this whole scenario with another:
Is that not the work of the devil? I asked, almost surprised to be saying it myself. That was the whole deal with Adam and Eve – he set up a sense of ‘needing to know’, which had them eat from the Tree of Knowledge. That was the spark and the downfall for Adam and Eve… and it has been handed down to us, that same need to know.
He and I both sat there silently for a few moments, letting the idea sink in.
“That’s… a really good point,” he said.
We both kind of chuckled as we processed further exactly how good a point it was. Clearly, it had struck a chord in us both, for more than just the present scenario.
I mentioned how I was now reconsidering whole chunks of my life with this new perspective, and it was all occurring very differently suddenly. After all, I have already admitted plenty that one of my biggest struggles in life is when I have an experience of not knowing… either about how something is done or what is expected of me, and especially about what is to come next for me in life as a whole. When I now consider these instances of not knowing from the perspective of ‘the devil is who’s telling me I need to know,’ suddenly, I have a place of freedom around them all. The overwhelming thought is that ‘I don’t actually need to know, do I? God will make sure I know what I need to know. And He likely won’t tell me what I don’t need to know. So, I genuinely DON’T HAVE TO WORRY ANYMORE ABOUT NOT KNOWING…’
About anything in life… I have no idea what actually will happen with my job in the next eight months. And, as I saw today, I truly do not need to know. That doesn’t mean I don’t prepare for different scenarios or prepare for success. It simply means that I don’t need to worry about the fact that I don’t know which scenario will be revealed. When it reveals itself will be the time for me to know and the time for me to respond. Until then, I can do my best where I am and head in the direction I feel called to go, to the best of my ability. I don’t know if I’ll make it that way, and that is totally okay. I’ll find out when I get there. If I don’t need to know, I likely won’t.
Perhaps life actually is on a need-to-know basis. Perhaps it is too heavy for any individual to carry, knowing everything… you know? My yoke is easy and my burden is light… because you don’t have to know everything I know. 😛
Goodness gracious… God is gracious, and God’s Grace is miraculous and wonderful.
Thank you for this blessing today, God. Thank you so much. And thank you for this love and this life. In your name, I pray. Amen.
Post-a-day 2023
We went to a theatre show that took place in Japan in the 1950s or so. Naturally, my mom and I wore kimono and looked awesome. When we first entered the theatre, the director lit up, he was so excited to see us dressed up as we were. One thing led to another, and I was entering into my schedule that I would show up the next evening for closing night to dress the director before the show, in kimono, of course.
My mom decided that she wanted to join me in dressing him, because how could she not? It’s quite fun to provide such an opportunity for someone, especially for someone who has never worn kimono before and has a desire and a reason to do so.
So, I packed up my men’s kimono – most of them, but not all of them, because some belong to my man and to my man alone – and headed back to the theatre this evening. We had a blast dressing him and picking which belt went best with the kimono he selected, and getting it all to sit appropriately on his non-Japanese body. Once he was dressed, not only was his delight visible, he went and showed all the actors and workers his outfit, and they all were really excited about his outfit. (Of course, they remembered us from the night before, because, well, kimono aren’t easy to miss or forget when they’re sitting in the front row for the entire show.)
As people began to arrive, the director was speaking with various attendees, and it was clear they all appreciated his attire. Plus, he just looked really cool. It was definitely the right color and all. I even had had him go take a photo on the actual stage, with its Japanese style walls and all, it just looked so complete a picture. It was just a really great way to complete the show’s run, and I’m very grateful I not only got to be a part of it but the source of it.
Thank you, God, for this blessing. Thank you for this life. Help us all to experience your love and to spread gratitude. In your name, I pray. Amen.




P.S. Always remember to play in life. Tonight’s playing dress-up was such fun, and I look forward to more play and fun to be had tomorrow in some way!
Post-a-day 2023
Only at a rodeo meeting can I casually mention that I discovered that Willie Nelson is 90 years old now, and have someone respond, and absolutely unpretentiously, “Oh, yeah… He is. He’s a long-time personal friend of mine, you know.”
These people. What a beautiful mix we all are. I love it and I am grateful to be part of it.
God, please, continue to bless us all at the rodeo. Thank you for the blessings you have granted us thus far. Thank you for the love and the learning and the countless opportunities to make a positive difference for others and to share your love with the world around us. Thank you. Amen.
Post-a-day 2023
“It has Brie, salami, and raspberry compote, and is on the jalapeño cheese bread from Goode Co. Is it still considered a grilled cheese?”
“I think so. Sounds and looks delicious.”
Over a year and a half ago, I was gifted the leftover entire loaf of jalapeño cheese bread from a Goode Co. Barbecue catered lunch. I brought it to my man’s house and told him I wanted to make us grilled cheese sandwiches with it – I just needed to go get the cheese first. He is excited about the idea, and keeps the loaf for me to come back and cook up the sandwiches in the next day or so.
The next day, however, while taking with him on the phone, I hear him wondering aloud about what something is… Why is there a twisty tie on the floor? What is this plas… And then it hits him. I ask him what it is, and he tells me with gravity that it was the twisty tie from the loaf of bread.
It takes a tick for it all to set in. At first, I thought he had been eating the bread and left open the bag. But then I remember his commenting on plastic on the floor…
Put simply, the dog was able to jump up and get the loaf off the counter, because my man put it too close to the edge. The dog is not very big, so the bread had to be very much right on the edge of the countertop. Massive fail on my man’s part.
The whole loaf had disappeared, along with most of the plastic, it seemed. My one consolation in the upset was that at least the dog would throw up or have horrible poops after all those jalapeños. She had neither, of course. And neither my man nor I forgot about that incident.
Fast forward to last weekend. A friend of his is having a gathering to celebrate the baptism of the children. The food at the small gathering is from Goode Company. I see the bread and instantly recall our denied grilled cheeses. I laugh about it and share the story. I am not mad about the whole thing at all. I find it comical. But I have always been a bit let down that we never got to have those grilled cheeses. So, I’m not sad or mens or anything when I tell the story, just to be clear. It is no sop story.
Anyway, the next day, the friend reaches out to my man to let him know that they have extra jalapeño cheese bread, and would we like to have it? Of course, we accept graciously and gratefully. He delivers the bread the next day to my man, and only asks that he get to see some photos of these grilled cheese.
It took me until today, a week later, to be able to spend the time and make them, naturally. So, we had stuck the partial loaf in the fridge and the full loaf in the freezer. Didn’t want to risk losing them to the Houston humidity. Even still, we did lose one half-piece cuff of the fridge pieces.
Nonetheless, I made an open-faced slice and a whole grilled cheese sandwich (only three pieces of bread were available from the fridge, you see) today. I tried for the first time coating them in mayonnaise first – will do that every time in the future now, because it is amazing – and then cooking them in Kerrygold butter. I used Brie that I sliced up into thin pieces (to be like shredded cheese, for melting consistency and ease), salami that I had sautéed in the butter already, and then raspberry compote that I had, all on the jalapeño cheese Texas toast style bread.
I kid you not, this grilled cheese sandwich was amazing. We both used utensils to eat them, and it was ridiculously satisfying to do so. They were just really, really good grilled cheese.
Of course, I reminded my man to get a photo of the two before attacking them, since his friend had specifically asked for photos. He took them – the most underwhelming food photos he’s ever taken, likely because he was so ready to eat what smelled and looked so good – but he complained that the sandwiches were totally not grilled cheeses. They had too many other things in them, he said, for them to be grilled cheese. I declared that as immediately false, and said the majority of the filling was still cheese, so they were grilled cheese sandwiches. (Obviously, we are ignoring the fact that grilled cheese sandwiches are typically truly sautéed cheese sandwiches, but whatever.)
He sent the photos to his friend with the message, “Hannah’s ‘grilled cheese’”. He then added the aforementioned message and inquiry, and the friend replied that it still was a grilled cheese. My man immediately shouted aloud, “Wring answer!” And we had a very good laugh about it while we finished off our awesome grilled cheese sandwiches.


Thank you, God. Amen.
P.S. I discovered today that Brie is a proper noun by law in France, as it is cheese named after the region named Brie. And now you know, too. 😛
Post-a-day 2023
Today has been my man’s birthday. We had nothing big deal planned, yet it still turned out to be a wonderful time. I surprised him with chocolate-coffee pancakes, fresh eggs, and bacon (and a freshly brewed coffee) for an early breakfast before I went to school. Then I brought him a surprise chocolate-lovers’ large slice of cake from a restaurant that ships i their cake slices from this awesome bakery outside of town, which he promptly devoured. And I surprised him with a special hot sauce that is expected to be a slightly sweeter version of Sriracha. Hopefully, he likes it. (He told me over breakfast, “I know what I want for my birthday… Sriracha.” I snorted gently and told him something like, ‘Of course,’ and, ‘Yeah, right.’ No such thing right now, dear. We both chuckled over it a bit, but so knew immediately I would go get a bottle of this specific new version that was recently released to a couple Asian grocery stores in town, not far from school. So, I got him a bottle right after school and before the chiropractor appointment, and surprised him with the bottle at the house later, with the chocolate cake.
Anyway, we then went to a rodeo social and my stepdad got to join the committee very easily and be on my man’s team. So, they’ll end up working together for the rodeo this next year, which I think will be quite fun for the both of them, as well as good for them. We also had a great time at the social just being social and talking with a handful of specific people.
And then we had a great and silly dinner together, my mom and stepdad and my man and I. That was a good ending for the night, and I most certainly drove us home (because rodeo meetings typically have open, complimentary bars, and tonight’s was no exception).
Thank you, God for this blessed day and for this blessed man. Thank you for the love I am blessed to share with him and the life we are blessed to share together, through you and your love. In your name, I pray in gratitude. Amen.
Post-a-day 2023
Today was awesome. I got to see my aunt in the morning, eat fresh eggs with bacon, volunteer and make a positive difference at a rodeo event, learn loads about brisket and everything involved in it, eat great and free brisket, have a lovely free beer, be gifted some awesome paraphernalia with our family name, ride my Vespa, see videos of my man having a great time at the range, hang out with one of my best friends and her family, play with her daughter who is my former bedroom neighbor, have a dance party with the daughter and my friend, then play with my man with the daughter and even do some acro-yoga all together, and then come home for a great shower and some lovely air conditioning in our wonderful home.
Thank you, God, for this absolute blessing of a day – this was wonderful, and I am so grateful… Thank you. In your name, I pray. Amen.
Post-a-day 2023
Today, I did outdoorsy stuff and spent time with people I love and who love me. I had a great lunch with my dad, a great workout with a friend over FaceTime (and her little sister who was doing a lot of the stuff with us, on and off, which was adorable, including her counting aloud when she was on a way different count than either of us had been at the time :P)), and then I had a great evening playing pickle ball with friends for my friend’s birthday – none of us had ever played before today, and there is definitely an adjustment to be made from tennis – and then having dinner with them afterward. I got home tonight close to 9pm, absolutely exhausted and sun exhausted.
I could barely stay up half an hour to talk with my man before I went to bed. And my skin is only slightly burned, but I definitely spent some time in the sun today, and I can feel it throughout my skin and body.
Dear God, thank you for such love and fun and satisfaction today. Thank you, loads. Please, help us all to sleep very well and effectively tonight, that we awaken tomorrow ready for Church and your word, as well as pursuing and fulfilling your will and our daily goals! In your name, I pray. Amen!
And goodnight!
Post-a-day 2023
P.S. Happy July! Welcome!