Today was New Moon, and it is good to start something new. My daughter and I agreed to start chanting Hannya Shingyo together. Since I have been chanting it every day since my late mom’s departure and my daughter has been listening to it many times, it already has become familiar with her. I hope it will be her natural habit for the rest of her life.

For two mornings straight, I had the dream with the similar advice. My family spirits advised me to plant onions in the backyard. I never thought of it, but it is a great idea. First, our backyard is now wide open as our summer produces were all done. Second, an onion is my favorite food for these years and I eat it every day. Third, it is the right timing (or maybe, a little late) to plant onions. Maybe I should go to the DIY store during the weekend and purchase the seeds and plant them.

Today I worked on a life insurance purchase process for my daughter. I run an illustration of some scenarios and picked one that will be beneficial for her in the future. So far I have heard several people talking about the great benefits of purchasing an FFIUL for their minor children, and now I fully agree with them. I shared my knowledge and information with my family and we all agreed to apply the one I recommended.

My family and I watched the movie Avatar (2009) on the DVD at home. We watched this movie a couple of times while my daughter was still a toddler, but we wanted to refresh our memory before the upcoming new movie comes to the theater. I was once told that my soul is originated from the star Arcturus, I feel honored if it is true. I have been a member of Arcturus community in FB, and the members have mentioned that the movie Avatar is related to our homeland star. Four more Avatar movie series, Avatar 2 to 5, are set to be released starting from this year to the year 2028. I am so excited to watch them all.

So far, three of my friends asked me what my daughter wants to receive for her upcoming birthday. I am so grateful that they remember her birthday and want to make her day special. My daughter is good at finding what she wants in the online store. She is thoughtful so that whatever she chooses is within very reasonable price range. The items she has selected are all cute and fit to her cute characteristics.

My husband and I ordered an ice cream cake for her. We are looking forward to her special day.

I ordered the homeopathy remedies that was prescribed by my new friend who is a student of professional homeopathy school. There were many items that I wanted to purchase from their store, so the total amount had accumulated a huge amount. The remedy store will send my ordered items to a shipping agent, and the shipping agent will forward my items with the custom documents. I wonder how long it would take for the remedies to arrive to my house.

In the afternoon my husband and I worked on reviewing and setting up the benefits of the following year that is offered by his company. His current company offers the benefits in a much better condition than ever. Many of this company’s workers leave high reviews of their benefits. I agree with them. I appreciate my husband for working at this company to support us.    

It was an extremely busy day. I attended a one-day lecture/seminar for farmers/gardeners for 7 hours from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. I had some other appointments and chores so I recorded it whenever I needed to leave the seminar. I went to pick up some produces from the community garden people, went for a bowling with my family, and attended the online training for the insurance agents. My day went by quickly. I will listen to the recording sometime soon.

The other day my neighbor friend brought us a surprise gift, which was a whole turkey. We thankfully received her love and kindness. When I opened our freezer, there was no space for such a big turkey. The cooking instruction says we will need to thaw it in the refrigerator for 4 days. Luckily, we had enough room for the whole bird in the refrigerator, so we kept it for 3 nights/4 days. This morning it was ready to cook. With the help of my husband, we gave a good massage to the bird with generous amount of olive oil and other spices, and baked it in the oven.

It turned out pretty well. My husband and daughter enjoyed the nice dinner. As for me, I noticed my body does not accept much of turkey, so only some small bites were enough for me. Now, there were lots of leftover for my husband in the freezer.

This evening I was planning to attend the monthly online Reiki gathering, but it was cancelled. Our reiki teacher just came back from his business trip of Romania and needs more rest. 

I thought of my Reiki teacher. He emphasizes the importance of valuing “right now” by reminding us Ichigo Ichie (一期一会) over and over again. I agree with him and would like to value the importance of each gathering. I hope he will rest up well and we will see him in the next online gathering. Thank you, Hyakuten-sensei, for your kindness and sharing your precious teaching and inspiration.

When I visited my mom in Japan two years ago, I wanted to cook healthy foods for her with safe ingredients. I went to several grocery stores in town and even in the next town, but I could not find organic produces or some ingredients that I wanted to purchase anywhere. I felt sad that the people who live in my parents’ area cannot purchase any safe ingredients locally. Maybe they are available through online shopping, but it is not available for the old people like my parents who do the daily shopping locally.

Compared with that, we are lucky that we can purchase safe ingredients locally. At the area where I live, starting several years ago, my local grocery stores started having organic produces and they constantly added the types of organic produces available. Recently I found they started having a variety of organic onions. My favorite produce is an onion. I cook and eat an onion every day.

Every Thursday morning the people of the local community garden share their organic produces for free of charge to the community. I myself have my small garden in my backyard too.

One of my husband’s coworkers bring chicken eggs that he raises to give away to his coworkers. It doesn’t happen regularly, but once in a while we receive the naturally grown eggs.

I feel blessed. I would not have been able to feel this way while I was living in Japan. Now I can say from my heart that we don’t need to be surrounded by whole munch of luxurious material items. Natural produces with lots of vital energies make us feeling rich and blessed.