I decided to close my small business.

I established my small business with the help of two business mentors in 2016. In these three years, I fully noticed I am not good at doing my own business. I appreciate to my two business mentors and feel sorry that I could not meet their expectation.

***

As the first step of closing my business, I closed my Facebook Page account.

Thank you to the people who liked my Page.

This evening the maintenance person came to our house and installed a carbon monoxide detector. My family and I have known this man for these six years. He is a husband of the realtor who deals with our renting property.

My family and I like him a lot. He is friendly and easy to talk with. He always greets us with saying our first name and shake hands.

I knew this man is nothing to do with the recent rent increase. But since he is the husband of the realtor, I wanted at least to ask him to send his wife a message on how we felt about the rent increase.

They recently increased the rent amount. I really hope they had done in a little nicer way than what she actually did.

The realtor’s rent increase notice letter arrived at our house just one month prior from the increase activation month. And the rent was increased by $100 a month.

I hope she had noticed us at least three months prior. I also hope she had increased the amount little by little.

I talked with my friend. She is currently renting an apartment. She also experienced the rent increase, but in a much nicer way that we went through.

Her apartment informed all the tenants three month prior, and the increased amount was only $20. I think this is the proper way to increase the rent.

I talked with the realtor’s husband from my heart. This was all I could do for now on my part. I sincerely hope the realtor listened to our request and take the proper action. I sincerely treat other people as nice as I can, so that I deserve to be treated in the same way as I do to others.

My friend and I went for our routine “Sunday evening walk.” We walked 4 miles (6.4 km) for 1.5 hours.

I came back home sweating all over the body.

I enjoy talking and walking with my new friend.

It was a peaceful weekend.

This morning our local town had the Christmas parade. It was supported by the local Fire Department and the local volunteers. They threw candies to the audience by the street.

We couldn’t go see the parade this year due to some chores in town.

After I came back home from chores, I saw some evidences of the parade. There were some candies as well as a pile of horse manure here and there on the street. I am sure the parade was successful and fun.

My daughter’s school had a music concert.

Before I left home, I told myself not to cry. For previous years, I would always cry when I listened to kids’ songs. Their voices were holy and pure. I was touched. I would feel embarrassed for my crying though.

This year, my daughter’s teacher didn’t choose the Christmas related songs. Their song was about The Flag of the United States of American.

Regardless of my strong determination, I cried again. I could hold my tears when my daughter’s class sang the song. The lyrics contained they are proud to be Americans. The lyrics touched my soul.

Maybe, I am becoming an American. I started loving this country and the people here.

I woke up with a clear image of my dream this morning.

In my dream I was visiting my uncle in his house in Japan. My daughter was with me. My uncle was happy to see my daughter. He was nicely talking to my daughter.

There, I saw my parents too. We all had a good conversation and shared hot meals together.

***

When I woke up, I noticed I miss my uncle.

He is a younger brother of my dad. My uncle and my dad have been best friends all their life. They are very close to each other.

I haven’t seen him for years. Last time I saw him was maybe when I was 35 years old or so. When I married, my parents told me my marriage with a foreigner is an embarrassing. My parents asked me not to tell of my marriage to any of my relatives. Therefore, I haven’t seen my uncle ever since.

My uncle is an open minded person. If I could mention about my international marriage and our daughter, he will be for sure happy for me and my family.

I take things positively.

The fact my uncle showed up in my dream means a lot to me. It means he also misses me and thinks of me. Maybe he wants to see me and my family in person. I believe in fate. If we are supposed to see each other in person again, it will happen naturally. If not, it is still okay. I can see him in my dream world.

I think of my parents every day. I send good thoughts and prayer for them every morning right after I wake up and every night right before I fall asleep. However I don’t call nor email them often.

For these past couple of months, I have read many books regarding taking care of old parents and spending time with cancer patients. All of them were helpful for me to think.

Among them, a story of a woman around my age resonated with me.

Her mother reached to an old age. She was not sick so that she didn’t need to stay in a hospital. However, her body got weak and could not do daily chores by herself anymore. She was living alone and needed support in her daily life. The daughter; aka, the author, decided to take care of her mother. She resigned her job and moved back to her mom’s house, and started devoting all of her private time to take care of her mother.

She made her decision with solid confidence. It was from her pure love to her mother. She was happy in taking care of her mother at the beginning.

Such life had passed by for more than four years.

By then, the author got too exhausted and stressed out of her life. She forgot about her first motivation of her decision. Gradually she started blaming her mother for ruined her good job. She started wishing her mother to pass away soon.

One day she realized of her wish. She blamed herself for wishing that. Then, after discussing with her other family members and relatives, she sent her mother to a nursing home. The daughter still helps her mother for the monthly payment of the nursing home, but she now has her private time to enjoy her life.

Toward the end of her book, she shared her wisdom that she learned from this experience.

It was nice of her to be willing to take care of her mother. It came from her kindness. That being said, she admitted that it also came from her obligation feeling. She thought of her other family members or relatives as well as others such as neighbors and friends. She worried they might think of her as a cold hearted person if she does not take care of her mother. She concluded if somebody wants to take care of their old parent, think twice if it comes from only pure love. If it also accompanies with their obligation feeling, they should not proceed.

After four years, she started wishing her mother’s passing away as soon as possible. Spiritually speaking, our thoughts create the reality. Her wishing of her mother passing away soon is not necessarily same as the wish of her mother. Her wish might be in the way for her mother.

After read her book, I thought of my own decision.

I think I made the best decision about my parents for not going to see them nor not living with them to take care of them devoting all my private time. I know my parents are independent souls. I know they fully understand and honor my decision and life.

This is the decision agreed between both of my parents and myself. I don’t need to worry about others on what they think of me. I need to protect my sacred boundary.  

Last night she had headache. She went to bed earlier than usual and had a nice 10- hour sleep last night.

Regardless of her effort of last night, her headache still stayed in her when she woke up. She wanted to be absent from school today. Judged from her face color and energy level, I was confident she would be fine at school. I knew her headache would be gone by the time when she arrived at school. I talked her into going to school. She reluctantly said okay.

She normally goes to the bus stop alone, but today she asked me to come with her.

While I was walking to the bus stop with her, she was walking very slowly. In each step, she complained about how sick she was.

Even though I knew she was acting being sick, I thought it cute of her. Within five meter or so from our house, I asked her one more time if she really needed to miss the school. Her face brightened up. She happily said YES.

I thought it would be fine for her to take one day off from school. So, I agreed with her and let her stay home. This was her very first day to be absent from school in this school year anyway. She deserves to rest up.

She nestled up to me and acted like a small child all day. I accepted her and stayed closely with her all day. It was good for both of us.

She is in the transition age. I remember it was confusing and frustrating to go through the physical and mental transition. I am glad that I could be there for my daughter whenever she needs me the most.

My daughter came back home feeling sick.

According to her, her head started hurting after the math test at school. The test was performed on the computer screen, and the students had to stare at the screen for close to two hours.

My daughter also said that after the test, it was not only her but also some other students mentioned about headache.

***

In the night, she went to bed earlier than usual.

She said she could not sleep due to the strong headache. But after received some minutes of Reiki from my husband and me, she instantly fall to a sound asleep.

I appreciate Reiki energy for helping her to sleep.

My husband received a letter from the VA office. It announces the new regulations effective from January 1st 2020. He will be qualified for receiving some benefits of Military. One of them is to shop at the grocery store on post.

I had a bad memory about this store.

At the time right after we married, my husband was serving as an active duty military. As a military spouse, I was qualified to shop at the grocery store on post. We lived in the government housing on post. From our house to the store, it was just a 10 minutes’ walk. Those days I didn’t have my own car, so it was convenient for me to shop at the store.

I appreciated for the nearby location of the store, but I had one concern about the store. It was about the baggers.

The baggers in this store does not get paid from the store. Since they are fully depend on customers’ tip only, the customers were supposed to give them a tip for their service of bagging.

At that time we were a young couple who strove for every penny. Even a small amount of tip of $3 to $5 was hard for us to spare. I asked the baggers politely and gently to let me bag my shopped items. They yelled back at me that it was their job. (I guess it was their way to say No.) After bagged, some of them started pushing my shopping cart heading to the parking lot. Sometimes they bagged my shopped items in a pretty bad way. The eggs were broken or some vegetables were pushed by other heavy items. There were times that I noticed some missing items after I arrived at home. They forgot to put the bag in my cart.

There were no other options to avoid the baggers in the store. There were no self-checkout cashiers available at that time.

I wanted to shop at the other grocery stores to avoid the baggers of this store. But I could not do so, because I didn’t have my car.

Because of the uncomfortable experiences, when my husband mentioned about his new benefit to shop at the store, I was not excited that much.

***

Today my friend told me a good news about the store.

The store now has self-service bagging lanes for the customers who want to bag their shopped items by themselves. Now I am willing to go back to the grocery store.

***

Please don’t get me wrong. I am not intending to offend the baggers. Firstly, I understand the tipping is Americans’ traditional custom. Secondly, I know some customers appreciate the baggers’ service to bag the shopped items, to carry the shopping cart to their vehicle, and to load the items into their vehicle.

I just wrote my personal experience. There are people who strives for their every penny or wants to bag their shopped items by themselves in their preferable way.

Therefore, it is good to offer both options for everybody to match their preference.