Tag: surprise

Value in being valued

On a walk the other day with my mom, we met these nice old people who live on her street, just after we picked up some ujukitsu off the ground in their backyard/the abandoned small golf course. Turns out that they met one another while teaching for a year in Japan on a military base (that is no longer in existence) near Tokyo. I am familiar with the train line that led to it, according to them. Before Japan, they each had taught a year or two in Hawai (he) and the Philippines (she), and then they met and married and moved to teach on a base in Germany together. They were part of the foreign service teaching for 14 years altogether, I believe they had said. Then they moved to Houston and taught in elementary schools here until they retired. It was adorable to hear.

Considering my frustrations in this part-time job I am now working, I have wondered if something in school teaching is still calling to me. I miss having classes of kids, and teaching something – and something valuable – each and every day I go to work, and being loved and trusted and valued by those around me, in immediate interaction with me every day. Though, perhaps it is less about the classroom and more about the respect and valuing and love that comes to me in a classroom, but that has seemed nearly nonexistent in this position. I have even felt disrespected and incredibly undervalued and unappreciated here.

I wonder what there is for me to do about that.

I know one thing for sure: I’m tired of relying on the way I am told things work. Word-of-mouth information is faulty, and it has proven itself to be so over and over again in this job. I am tired of it. I will do my research for all of my questions, and clock the hours and expect no pay for them, and I will be prepared for all the stuff at this job that will pop up at some time or other – the crazy situations all seem to be inevitable, and I prefer to be prepared and to know what on Earth is going on. So, I will prepare myself, and I will not rely any longer on anyone else to teach me what I need to know or what they all think I need to know – that has been terrible so far, and I am done with it.

In doing that, I will be prepared as I want to be prepared, and as I always prepare myself when I care about something. The system is faulty, and I do not have to follow it – I can do better than it, and I shall, especially in this part of it.

Separately, I am doing more photos tomorrow morning, and I am nervous. I have been doubting and stressed since that bad photo shoot where I didn’t trust myself the other week. I know I need to take photos to move past this, but that doesn’t make it less scary for me. Someone will be relying on me, and I will be relying on a camera… and myself. Now, I just need to trust myself, and do what is needed to be done. Even if that seems like a ridiculous something. You can do this, Banana. Trust yourself and have faith in yourself – Jishin to Kokoro.

Post-a-day 2020

Rest and Weather

I feel like the weather is kind of really getting to me lately. You see, I can handle cold weather and hot weather both, just so long as I can be in charge of my indoor temperatures. Lately, the weather has been going back and forth between warm-ish and really cold (in the twenties Celsius to just above freezing). Unfortunately, between work and my mom’s house, I have not had reliable temperatures indoors anywhere. No matter how I have approached it, I never seem to predict appropriately what the indoor temperatures will be, and so end up slightly miserable while at either location for longer periods of time. In my own home, I hav even fine. But I haven’t spent the bulk of my waking hours in my own home lately.

And so, with that physical semi-misery comes a certain level of both conscious and subconscious stress. And, with that stress and the unexpected cold indoor temperatures, I feel like I am getting sick. And it sucks. All I want to do is take a super fast shower and then curl up in bed and sleep for ten hours. But I have to be up to work in about nine hours from now, so I likely won’t get more than eight to sleep. And only that much if I somehow manage to go back to sleep when I inevitably wake up around 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning, as almost always now. (Another factor in my feeling terrible, as I haven’t gotten enough sleep lately, especially due to the fact that I can’t stay asleep during the time I have available for sleeping.)

Anyway, lots of frustration and stress lately and right now, and all I want to do, I can’t really do. But we shall see how quickly I can get myself to bed right now, and then how I feel in the morning. I really hope I crash asleep tonight, and then wake refreshed and well tomorrow morning. I and the world around me need it(!). I actually broke down in miserable crying tonight before driving home from my mom’s, I was so tired and stressed.

But, starting after tomorrow, the days will be increasing in length again, and I am grateful for that.

Post-a-day 2020

Fantasyland Visas and Green Cards

Do you ever find yourself fantasizing about something, and realize that you do not necessarily want that actual something to happen, but that you are really just enjoying the fantasy in and of itself – in a way, you are fantasizing for the sake of fantasizing, and that is completely satisfying for you?

You see, I met these young guys recently, and one in particular has stuck out to me. He is adorable in many ways. He is also very likely several years younger than I am. And I’m not so sure he knows that. At the most, he might think I’m a year or two older than he is. I have a feeling that I am several more years older than that age difference.

That being said, I have nonetheless been very much enjoying the idea of some sort of relationship developing between the two of us, in a dating/partnership capacity. It took quite a while for me to develop an understanding of my own age prejudices, and to clear them up for myself. However, where I stand now, I have no personal qualms with great age differences in either direction for a couple. (I have almost always been completely okay with friendship age differences, as I have always had friends who are very different ages than I am, both older and younger.) And so, I find myself wondering and imagining how it might be to pursue one of those traditionally odd age differences with this guy. And, I am not having this imagination adventure simply for the age aspect – he is also adorable, remember.

Usually, when I find someone cute, it is in a rather disinterested, ‘I don’t actually see a future for us, and I won’t worry about it,’ kind of way. And whenever I think someone is cute, I won’t think almost anything more than that. If I do, those thoughts won’t last beyond a day or a few. With this guy, however, these thoughts have lasted a couple weeks now. And this is surprising to me. I don’t see myself as truly interested in him. He’s just that casual situation of ‘What an adorable guy.’ But that is why I am beginning to believe that this whole imagination adventure is just for the sake of having an adventure in my life right now, and in an area of my life where I have not really had much adventure before.

So, rather than be carried away with this mental adventure, and falsely believe that it is something I really want, just because I’m having fun with it in my head, I am letting myself do just that: have fun with it. I am enjoying it. I am clear it is not something I want actively to pursue, and so I will not be pursuing it. If it were something I truly wanted, I would pursue it. But all it is is some thing fun inside my head, and so I will have fun with it inside my head. And, I think, knowing that it is only something in my head somehow makes it all the more ridiculous and, therefore, fun to enjoy.

Just my thoughts on the matter tonight. 😉 Kind of ridiculous, right? 😂

Sweet dreams, folks! You know line will be! 😀

Post-a-day 2020

Ever the procrastinator?

Well, I have four days remaining in a 100-day challenge to go 100 miles of cardio activity. It could be swimming, running, walking, cycling, rollerblading, etc. in any combination, just so long as it is 100 miles achieved in 100 days.

I started out strong, and was determined to have all my miles be from running. But then I had that fall that one ridiculous Friday evening, and my running (and general walking for a while at first) plans were ruined. I had hoped that I would be able to start running much sooner than I was able, but the bruised bones really pushed that back for me. I can run mostly okay now, but have to be careful with the cold weather, as it makes the pain show itself in my knee.

However, that all being said, I had accepted conceptually that I would not be able to run my whole hundred, based on my body’s situation after that fall. I had begun walking with my mom on occasion, and counted that toward my hundred. But my subconscious somehow missed the part where I needed actually to start these other cardio activities of my own. I kept just thinking I would do the whole thing running, when I was able to run again, and the only walking I did was once a week, give or take, with my mom. I wasn’t able to start running for real until just a few weeks ago… at which point I wasn’t anywhere near half of the way on those hundred miles. Even as of this week, I wasn’t half way through the hundred.

So, despite my efforts to be ahead of the game here, I ended up doing the bulk of effort right at the end of the whole thing.

But it has been nice, actually. I rode my bicycle around, looking at Christmas lights last night for an hour and a half-ish in the cold, and it was lovely. And I got ten plus miles out of that ride. The other night and tonight, I hung out with my mom at the office where she works, and I used the elliptical-type machine to get some run-walks in not out in the cold. And, this morning, my dad called me and invited me to go to a casual spin class with him at the Y, so I could get some more bicycle mileage in without having to ride outside in the cold.(Actually, I’m not sure how that will be, masks and digital class and all, but it will be nice to be doing it with my dad, and that’s the point of tomorrow’s plan anyway.)

So, fingers crossed that I manage this all appropriately in the next couple days, and I am able to turn in my sheet for the challenge, fully completed!

Post-a-day 2020

Pass-where?

For the first time since I was a very small child, I do not have a valid passport for travel.

In a way, it feels utterly odd and out of this world. In another way, I don’t even notice it, because it wouldn’t necessarily do me any good to be valid right now anyway…. which is, in its own way, utterly odd and out of this world.

And, what’s even more weird is that I’m not even sure what I’m going to do about it all. I don’t even know if passports are being processed regularly again yet. Not a clue. And that, in and of itself, is also weird for me and my life.

So, yeah… there’s a lot of weird around passports on my life right now. (It’s extremely doubtful, however, that I am the only one in such a situation right now, though, which is simultaneously comforting and, again, rather weird.) 😛

Post-a-day 2020

Yikes

Okay, I think I have finally learned my lesson on something: Trust myself.

I know enough and have done enough to handle what I am doing in photography. I am much more reliable than any automatic camera settings. Yes, it is convenient not to have to change settings constantly with changing light and angles. But having photos with the right subject in focus is significantly more important to me than having what looks like decent lighting it with a blurred subject. And the latter is what I keep getting every time I doubt myself and say that it will be safer to let the camera use its intelligent automatic setting.

So, I will trust myself to manage all photo settings from here onward. I trust myself. Not the automatic settings.

Thank you, World for this opportunity to remedy the photos that did not represent me and what I truly can create with photography. I am terrified and grateful, both in a wonderfully good way. Thank you.

Post-a-day 2020

December 6th

I asked my mom the other night if she thought Heilige Nikolaus (Saint Nicholas) would leave presents in my shoes if I set them outside my bedroom/studio door in the house where I currently am living (Not a great idea to leave anything completely outside overnight in this neighborhood, you see. It could be okay, but it isn’t amazing odds.), or if he probably only visited the suburbs (where people can leave shoes outside overnight safely). She told me that he probably only uses people’s permanent addresses.

And so, when I arrived to my mom’s house this morning – in the suburbs and the location of my permanent address – I was delighted to find atop her new blanket my croc-like shoes that always remain at her house, filled with delights. There also was a pair of traditional Dutch wooden clogs, also filled with goodies.

Note: When I first arrived, I set a few things on the sofa, plugged in a camera charger for the photo session I would do shortly for someone, and wandered to the kitchen for something or other. As I did all this, my mom asked me if I saw her new table. I turned back and looked toward the fireplace, opposite the sofa, and saw a small table decorated with a new winter blanket and covered with the shoes etc.

I’ve been clear to my mom several times over recent months that I would like, at last, to have a sewing machine of my own. I do not often have gift requests or wishes for my birthday or for Christmas, but a sewing machine and all of its necessities is something that I really need help managing – I do not know enough about brands or specifics or technologies even to guess appropriately what machine to get myself, or in what price range, let alone all the pins and wheels of everything one uses with sewing machines. I think it can all be in the mid-hundreds of dollars for a decent quality everything, but I am not one to know which ones are the decent ones yet. Thus the request for a Christmas present from my mother, a woman who has made clothes (and more) her entire life.

When I got looking at the shoes and goodies, I was tickled that, aside from the delicious-looking babyfood snack packs – yes, they are amazing, if you get the right ones – there happened to be obvious sewing machine supplies: thread, bobbins, pins, machine sewing needles, etc. “Hmm! Clearly Heilige Nikolaus has a hint of what I’ll be getting!” I laughed, and my mom laughed with me. I went through all the items, delighted that they were here, essentially solidifying the fact that I would be getting a sewing machine of my own at the end of the month. Whether it would be new or just my mom’s (and she would get an upgrade for herself) was still to be determined, but one of my own I very likely would have by the end of the month! (At least, it was more likely this time than any other that I’ve asked for one.)

Just as I was about to leave for the photos, I began to pack up. “But you still haven’t finished,” said my mom. “You didn’t see it all yet.” She wanted me to see it all before I left, I knew, but I hadn’t realized that I’d missed something. I went back to the large clogs in the center, and pulled the bits and pieces of sewing materials out of them, looking for what I had missed up in the toes of the shoes.

But there didn’t seem to be anything else. ‘Is it under?’ I ask. And my mom replies in the affirmative. I pick up the clogs, find nothing, and set them back down. I check the wreaths next to them, and it is the same story. I look over the back of the table and ask if it is the cute new-to-me nativity scene just behind everything. No, it is not.

Without thinking much of it, nor expecting much out of it, I flip up the blanket to see under the table.

And it isn’t a table after all.

It is one of the big cardboard fold-outs for laying out sewing patterns and measuring, and it is sitting perpendicular atop another box. It takes a moment to process that the box is a brand new sewing machine.

Even thinking about it, my eyes are welling up now. It was so unexpected, and so amazing, I started crying when I realized what it all meant. Not only did my mom really find me a sewing machine of my own, but the found me a new one. This is something I have wanted for years, but hadn’t figured out how to make happen yet. I felt that I really was ready for it this year, and my mom showed me today that she agreed.

“I figured you could get started on some of the things you’ve been wanting to do lately, instead of waiting,” she said. 🙂

It is time, my dear. It is time. Sew on, love.

Danke, Heilige Nikolaus, Saint Nicholas!!

And thank you, Mom.

And thank you, God, for all this love and joy today and always.

Post-a-day 2020

Sometimes, life becomes very predictable. And some things never seem to change.

And sometimes, you end up on a Zoom call happy hour unexpectedly with a group of guys who are at various levels of their happy hour (which has clearly not just begun). And sometimes you may or may not unintentionally flash the camera, because you just took a shower and were getting ready for bed when you clicked on the unexpected link without really thinking about what joining a Zoom call meant…, and you are extremely grateful for the people’s being drunk, because such a quick flash goes utterly unnoticed with so much alcohol between brains and eyes.

Phew!

Or, perhaps that’s just something that happens for me. 😂

Apparently there are situations in which I prefer drunk people to sober people.🤣🤦🏼‍♂️🤣

Post-a-day 2020

Meditation

I started on this 28-day meditation thing through work. I specifically selected the five minutes a day version (versus the 15 minutes a day one), because I knew I could maintain five minutes going forward, at least for the 28 days, if not 40 or semi-indefinitely going forward.

The first day’s recording, which involves some prompting at the beginning and end, and casual flowy sounds for the duration, was just over five minutes in total. Okay, no big deal. It’s an approximate five-minute meditation. Totally okay.

The next day was roughly the same for the same timing. Each subsequent day or two, however, seemed to be longer and longer, to the point that, by day 18, I was listening to a more-than-15-minute recording for the meditation. It was still the same sort of prompting at the very beginning and end, with just the flowy sounds in the middle, but it was almost sixteen minutes long now. On the 21st day, I was so utterly wiped and aching for rest and sleep, I could not fathom staying upright and awake for an additional sixteen plus minutes. I left out the official meditation with ease and no regret that night.

I have yet to return to it. I agreed to a five-minute meditation, and that was not what I was given. Frankly put, it had no integrity in its design, based on how it was advertised. And a lack of integrity is a real turn-off for meditation.

Yes, I still want to do a meditation for the 28 days. No, I do not think I will do that one. I do the meditations during my process of getting ready for bed – they are a conclusion to my day. I can give five minutes reasonably and responsibly. Any more than that would be out of integrity for me and for what I need to do in order to take care of myself. The meditations had become a stressful endeavour for me the last several days of it, because it was too much time for me when I was already so tired. So, I’d spend the whole first part of the meditation letting go of my annoyance at the meditation itself. On the last few nights, I even got annoyed again near the end, because it was taking so long, and my body was done with sitting in its position. Not exactly the most productive use of time.

So, yeah, that wasn’t the best experience in giving it a go with a new approach to meditation and meditation styles. I wanted to test it out and see how it went, and that is just what I did. I have it space to grow on me, and it did. And then it overgrew on me and I let it go. Now, it is time to move forward with my learnings from it, and create something that can bring effective value to me and my life as a whole (effecting thereby those around me in life, too, in a positive way).

Post-a-day 2020

Advent

Today marked the beginning of my Advent and Advent calendar for this year, complete with presents and my mom falling face forward up the stairs to my room. Trust me, despite the fright in the moment of that final piece happening, it was all extremely delightful and quite festively fun (even the fall, while my mom was lying there, laughing on top of the pile of presents she had been carrying).

You see, firstly, I didn’t know my mom was coming over, and my phone signal was still off. So, when I heard a knock behind me, I genuinely thought it was a raccoon or possum doing some construction work in the attic (or the likes). But then, my bedroom door was opening – by the way, the door to my room is down a flight of halfback stairs, because my room is a converted attic – and I started to freak. out…..

“Hello?” I asked in both annoyance and trepidation. It was my mom. And yes, I had locked the door, as I always do – my fear was that I hadn’t locked it, and I was now about to be attacked. I heard her voice, relaxed, reminded her that I was tutoring, and I went back up the stairs. Just as I was finishing telling the student to log off and back on again to see about resetting her computer’s connection and sound, I looked back down the stairs to see my mother falling forward as she turned the corner to head up the second half of the stairs. She has similar stairs in her house, but there is no step on the turn at the midpoint. Hers are just half and half. Mine are four, then one on the half turn, then another ten in the last part. The light in my stairwell is minimal in the first place, and the baskets of presents she was carrying certainly didn’t give her much help in seeing that single turn step. But they did help her land more safely, fortunately. I rushed down carefully and, basically, lifted her up off the ground on my own, as she had almost no leverage to get herself back up, her arms still wrapped around the presents now beneath her chest.

Even as I lifted her up, we were both laughing. She had determined already that all was well and whole within her body still, and so we could not hold back. It was ridiculous and hilarious to the both of us.

Anyway, the whole unexpected arrival of my mother was due to a request I made of her weeks ago. Would she print out my Advent calendar for me to use this year? I had made one for my cousin years ago, and loved it. I wanted to use it again this year, but I didn’t want to risk seeing the days ahead of time by printing it all out for myself. I had wanted them to be a surprise as much as possible, but I wanted to be able to write down my responses, instead of just look at it on my phone, as I did last year. (Each day has a question/prompt of sorts to which I am requested to respond, you see.) So, here we are on the first day of December, which lines up with how I had created the calendar initially, as a 25-day Advent calendar. My mom has gone above and beyond, as is regularly her style when it comes to fun, creativity-related things – the exact reason I had asked her to do this for me in the first place – and come up with presents for each day, wrapped in Charlie Brown Christmas wrapping paper – the Advent calendar I made is based on A Charlie Brown Christmas – to go with each day’s paper prompt.

Today, I got a box of tea, from which I can have a cup every morning when I open the day’s card and present – again, the original calendars we made are referenced, as they were tea Advent calendars, with a different tea for each day – as well as a Christmas lights necklace and green and red jingle bell bracelets to give me extra festivity this month. Then, my mom proceeded to open up the box of tea and make us each some tea. She actually hung out with me in my room while we snuggled up to our cups in the cold morning air, and just hung out together. Oddly enough, those were two of the things on my list for the first day’s prompt, checked off unexpectedly just about as quickly as I had gotten them written down.

Then she went off to work, and I snuggled in my bed another few hours before going to work myself.

All-in-all, it was a beautiful start to my Advent and my Advent calendar for this year. I am extremely grateful, and feel a strong sense of love and care for me today (for which I also feel extremely grateful). Yesterday was an odd sort of reminder for Advent’s ideas for me, just perfectly timed. And I have a feeling that there is much value to be found for me in and through Advent this year. I look forward to it all with cautious and grateful optimism.

Grazie, World and God. Here we are. 🙂

Post-a-day 2020