Thank you, God. You have clearly given us your help, and we are incredibly grateful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Amen.
When we’re not still in the middle of it all, I might come back and share what all this was. For now, however, I am grateful for the various resolutions we have reached, and I am hoping for continued increase in grace, joy, and ease for the both of us on this trip. God, please, continue to guide and to help us to be our best selves and to find love, grace, and joy in one another throughout this trip, and always. In your name, I pray. Amen.
I have to say: For some reason, I was utterly disinterested in reading The Chronicles of Narnia when I was a kid. We read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in fourth grade, and I enjoyed it. But I never felt a desire to read the other books. I loved other series, but had no interest in that one.
However, now that I’m three quarters through the first book, I’m starting to reconsider. I’ve actually liked this book, and so find it interesting how these stories all tie together, though with different main characters for each book – perhaps that was what had disinterested me back then, a lack of a stable main character. In this case, Narnia is the stable main character, in a way, though it is always kind of the blanket holding everything happening, as opposed to the everything that is happening itself.
We’ve been working on going to bed early this week, my man and I, since I was up until 4:30 Sunday night and he didn’t sleep at all, as we prepped him for his trip and sent him out the door before I went to bed.
Anyway, so far, we’ve made it to bed after two, after one, and after one… so much for going to bed early, eh?
I was struggling to get out of the house and get my errands done earlier today. Just as I was getting near the point of I must leave Now, my cousin reached out to me and my mom. She let us know that she was in town for the week and would like to see us, if possible. After a few further messages and a quick phone call, I hopped in the car and went and picked up my cousin.
She only had until about five o’clock, and it was already almost 3pm. But I picked her up – and she left her baby with her husband and in-laws! – and she went and ran my errands with me.
It sounds silly, perhaps, but I think we both had a really great time just being together again, and with no other real distractions, no one else for us to have to think about or check in upon. One of my errands happened to be to my mom’s office to pick up some pie, so my cousin got to see my mom for a little bit, even.
I dropped her off at their dinner reservation near 5:30pm, after a lovely time together, and with an intention of going to pick her up in the morning to come hang out with me at the house while I get things done here, both for the slumber party and for my trip. If the timing works well, she and I also will go to this wonderful shop that makes fabulous natural body products – oils, scrubs, lotions, soaps, etc. Then we can have some lovely tea/tisanes at the house together and just be all hyggelig together.
Why is it always so hard to accept dying and death of those we love?
For that matter, why is accepting their aging so hard past a certain point? Once they reach the point that their aging feels more like the beginnings of the body’s shutting down… of dying…
We are going to Mexico to visit his family. He is going for three weeks, and I am going for a week and a half. However, both our packing ended up looking like we’re moving there for a month (or two). Oh, the comedy in packing when driving somewhere versus flying… he leaves by 2:30am at the latest (within the next hour). I fly down on Friday. My carry-on had better be just a few little things, because my clothes, excepting the outfit for the plane, are all packed and in the car already. Lord, guide me, please.
Dear God, please, keep him safe in his travels today especially. Keep us both safe throughout all of our travels. Thank you for this life. Help us to bless the world through the gifts that you have given to us. In your name, I pray. Amen.
I had my man open tonight all his presents that I’d put under the tree. I don’t give Christmas presents, but I determined to have some fun for him this year, to let him be like a little kid and to shower him with gifts. Almost everything was either gained second-hand or from free gift cards, so the total cost was around $50, yet there were loads of presents for him to unwrap. He had said he liked opening packages, so I made sure he got to do just that tonight.
I also surprised him with my ticket to come visit with him in Mexico. (Granted, that one was several hundred dollars, but I’m also visiting my step-sister in Monterrey with the tickets, so it will be two trips for the usual price of the one, plus $40… not at all a bad deal, especially since I get to spend New Year’s with him, visit the town he loves, and see my step-sister and her family.)
He got me nervous by asking if I’d ‘approved this with anybody’. But, afterward, he said it was totally fine. His mom would be surprised, as he’d just told her two days ago that I wasn’t coming. But that everything would be okay. I’m still in a little bit of that space of unease, probably because it gave me the feeling of being in trouble, but I’m just going to let it be and see what happens. Hopefully, the concern will clear up on its own just by my allowing it to express itself.
I really hope he enjoyed everything I did for him tonight. And I’m really excited to set up the Play Station 3 that my mom gave us from her house (used to be my brother’s, but he didn’t need or really want it). We likely won’t get to play together until mid-January, after he’s back, but that’s okay. I’m excited about it, nonetheless.
Dear God, please, help us to rest well tonight. Keep us both safe in our travels. Help us to pursue and to fulfill your will by being our best selves. Thank you for everything. And please, heal my uncle – help him to join you fully. In your name, I pray. Amen.
I can hardly believe tomorrow is Christmas Eve. Time has been flying in an odd way this season. Well, we shall do a bit more prep for his trip on Monday tomorrow. Otherwise, we get to hang out together and then go to midnight Mass. We might go to my brother’s for homemade takoyaki, but we’ll have to see. I really want us to be able just to hang it together tomorrow and the next day.
Thank you, God, for the blessings of today. And thank you, especially for the heat we now have in our home. In your name, I pray. Amen.
So, now we can have hot water and cook and bake and have heat in the house and run the dishwasher and wash anddry clothes and just hand wash greasy dishes period(!). Oh, goodness… the difference it makes. We are incredibly grateful this is finally handled.
Turns out that we likely didn’t need to dig the ditch ourselves at all, but I think it was still good in that it gave my man a somewhat cathartic thing to do, as well as a thing to do while we waited for all the rest of the pieces of big company nonsense to sort themselves out.
See? The contracted company brought their own machinery to handle the rest of it all. AND they put all of the dirt neatly back on top of the ditch after they replaced all the piping. No extra work for my man or us. Woohoo!
The big energy company, when we did what we were supposed to do, then told us that we would have to wait until Tuesday for them to come and do the simple re-installation of the gas meter and to turn on the gas… a very different message from what they had told us two days beforehand, when they’d said same-day installation would be no problem whatsoever. They now wanted us to spend over five days in our home in freezing temperatures, and then they would come do a twenty-minute stop-in.
No way, Jose.
Fortunately, after much intending on my part and multiple phone calls on the part of my man, Centerpoint showed up, and a very nice man named Lee hooked up everything easily and quickly, and turned on the gas and cleared up our gas lines in the house (because air is in the line at first, after installation). And now we have heat!
We actually both reveled in taking hot showers before going to the Christmas gathering we had this evening at my brothers’ dad’s house. That shower, though not the actual best I’ve had, was, within the context, the best shower ever. Uh…
I just thank you, God. Thank you. Keep us safe, please, that we pursue and fulfill your will, being our best selves. In your name, I pray. Amen.
hannah ananas 