In the morning I read a local news about a head-on style collision. It was a shocking news.

It happened early morning of yesterday. The police reported the collision time as 5:59 a.m. The accident location was in the freeway of our neighbor area. We use the freeway in a daily basis.

A local woman crossed over the center line and collided head-on to the vehicle driving in the opposite direction from the front. The woman was pronounced as dead at the scene. The victim who was hit by the woman’s vehicle was transported to the big city’s hospital by a rescue helicopter. Within a couple of hours of arrival, he died in the hospital.

I feel sorry for both victims’ sudden deaths. My condolences go to their family and relatives.

This morning after my daughter left for the school bus, it started raining. I walked to the bus stop and delivered an umbrella to her. I decided to wait for the bus with her.

While waiting, one old man came close to me and started chatting with me. He is a grandfather for two young girls.

He has helped the school as a volunteer for these three years. So, he is familiar with the school and students.

He has volunteered at my daughter’s class too. He shared his experience as follows.

According to him, her class is considered as a real bad one. There are many bad-behaved students in class. Only four students are well-behaved and listen to the teacher. Of course my daughter is one of the good ones. He is impressed at my daughter for her always passed in spelling tests and reading comprehension tests in such a noisy and restless environment. He believes that her class teacher resigned because of the bad students.

I was shocked to hear his experiences. I didn’t know her classroom was really bad.

That being said, I would not worry about her though. I survived my elementary school days in the very loud classrooms but I could learn necessary information at school. I know my daughter will be fine.

I am impressed with my daughter doing great at such the noisy environment.  

In the morning my friend took me to the mountain hiking.

Our destination was a church located 40 minutes’ drive away from our area. The church was built on the surface of a steep mountain. It is open for public so that we can enjoy hiking the uphill trails surrounded by a whole bunch of angel statues.

I never came here nor knew about this place. I felt like I were a tourist who came to a new area. It was a fun experience.

***

In the afternoon, the maintenance man came to our house and switched the cooler to the heater. He said it would start getting very cold with rain starting from this week. Our winter will finally come to our area.

This evening I went for a long distance walking with my friend. We walked 6 miles. It took us 1.5 hours. It was a very nice walk.

During the walk, I mentioned about our house rent increase and our wish to buy a house soon.

My friend gave me a ray of light in house hunting.

She mentioned about her friend. Her friend is her neighbor across her house. The woman and her husband bought the house three years ago as their vacation house.

It is common in this area. Many rich old people who live in east side of America buy a vacation house in Southwest area. They spend summer in their place and spend winter in our area. It works perfect for them. They enjoy beautiful summer in their area. Their summer does not hot as our area. On the other hand, their winter is harsh with lots of snow. So, they spend winter in our area where it seldom has snow or very low temperature.

Sadly for them, they recently decided to get divorce. They are now in the process of divorce. The woman told my friend that the couple is planning to sell their vacation house.

My friend is not sure in details of when they will put their house in the market. But she is sure they will sell the house.

My friend’s daughter once visited their house. She said the inside of the house was nicely remodeled and well taken care of.

I was delighted with the unexpected possibility. If this house is supposed to be ours, I hope every step will go smoothly for us.  

Today my daughter had a wonderful surprise.

She received a birthday card from her Japanese friend. The card was her handmade and contained her kind message to my daughter.

I hope they will keep their friendship even after they become grownups. It is rare to meet nice friends.

They share the birthday month.

We went to store and bought a cute birthday card for her. We will give her a wonderful surprise back. We hope she will enjoy my daughter’s birthday card with her drawings.

I woke up feeling happy. I remember my family spirits were with me in my dream. They told me not to worry about the rent increase. They also told me not to take it personal. They reminded me that the previous rent amount was lower than the market value and that we could stay for almost six years with the good rate. We should appreciate for that. It was a gift from my family spirits. My mind got calmed and refreshed.

***

Back to the reality. The issue still remained. We will have to seriously think about our house. We have to take some actions to buy a house so that we will not need to worry about a sudden leave notice or a rent increase notice.

I thought about the neighbor house with a swimming pool for sale that we recently went to take a look. I checked the realtor’s website to see the status. It says “the house is accepting backup. The owner has accepted the offer but still accepting the house tour and offers from others.”

I called the new realtor whom we met at the house for sale. She was nice and easy for me to talk. She told me the house is under contract. She is the one who is dealing with the purchase process and the process is going well. She does not think the owner will accept any more price offers from others.

During the conversation, she was helpful to give me lots of information for house hunting. If I buy a house, I would like to buy it from her, not from the mean one.

I mentioned about current situation. She looked up the information of our current house. The owner bought this house with $165,000 in 2009 and tried to sell it with $171,900 in 2010. Nobody bought it. That was how the owner decided to rent it out instead of selling it. With the information, the realtor thinks the owner probably wants to have the same price for the house.

Considering other information such as the house’s age and lot size, the realtor does not think the price is the reasonable. Besides, the house does not have any remodeling or upgrades. The roof needs to be replaced soon. There were many cracks inside and outside of the house, so the walls need to be taken care of too. Unfortunately though, the realtor cannot offer us a free estimate until the owner decides to sell it.    

Some realtors’ websites estimated the house’s value as $111,000 or $118,000. There was a huge gap between what the owner wants and the realtors’ estimates. The owner will not accept these price range.

***

My husband and daughter really like our current house and want to buy it. If we buy this house, we won’t need to deal with a moving process, and that sounds brilliant. In my first five years, we changed our residence five times. We hated the moving process.

To me though, this house is not my ideal house. I want to have the entrance door facing to east, but this house is facing to west. I want to have the kitchen sink facing to a window and have the natural sun light, but this house’s kitchen is facing to bedroom. Even in the day time, I need to turn on the light while I cook.

I asked my family spirits for advice.

They told me to forget about the neighbor house with a swimming pool. As for the other option, buying the current house, they told me “do not rush!”   

I shared the messages from my family spirits with my husband. He agreed on their advice. We decided to wait for a while.

The post office now offers a prior notice email of the upcoming letters and packages. Two days ago, the notice email included the scan data of the letter from the realtor.

I got uneasy. I instantly knew this was not a happy letter.

The realtor is the representative of the house owner that we are renting. The owner can do anything, such as kicking us out or increasing the rent, as long as they notice us one month prior.

I had spent these two days feeling uneasy. If the realtor were nice and friendly, I would casually ask her what the letter was for. Unfortunately I cannot do so. If I asked her, she would reply back to me in her usual cold voice tone to wait for the letter arrive. She is not nice.

***

Today the letter finally arrived. I was right about my intuition. It was not a happy letter.

It was a rent increase notice. The letter was straightforward. It does not contain any greetings or nice wordings.

The letter said they will raise the rent by 12.5 % from January of next year. The letter asks us to sign the official document of the rent increase agreement and send it back to her. The letter also says even if we don’t send the agreement document back, it is considered we agree. Otherwise they have rights to terminate rent contract; which means we will have to move out by the end of next month.

I was shocked.

I wish the realtor was little bit nicer than doing this. I wish the realtor at least let us know in advance by a phone call, prior to the official letter. Instead, the realtor just sent out the cold-hearted letter all of a sudden. The letter was intimidating and threatening. I felt the disadvantage of being a tenant.

As for this realtor, she was nice and kind at the beginning. At least I thought so. However, my husband warned me to be careful with her from the beginning. He knew she would change her attitude right after we made a contract.

He was right. The realtor completely changed her attitude from nice to cold-hearted. After we signed the contract documents, any communications with her, including the conversation over the phone and the text messages, were unpleasant. We have been living in this house for almost six years. Whenever I needed to communicate with the realtor regarding the house, I would ask my husband to do so. He didn’t like communicating with her neither. That was how we have survived from dealing with the not-nice person.

Maybe it is the sign for us to move out this house. But then, where should we go? We don’t have any opportunities yet to find another house.

Before I slept, I asked my family spirits to talk to me about our residence in my dream.

Today it rained all day long. It was one of the rare day that rained from morning. It was cold as the lowest temperature of 2 C (35.6 F). Still, it was not bad as Navajoland at all. Their lowest temperature had been already -10 C (14 F). 

***

I watched the movie “Indian Horse (2017)”.

This movie is based on the Richard Wagamese’s non-fiction novel “Indian Horse”. It is about an Ojibwe boy who survives the Indian residential school system to become a star ice hockey player.

In one word, this was a tough movie to watch through. While watching, the memories in my deep inside flooded back to me. My soul still remembers all these terrible and unfair deeds in the past lives.  

The scenes in the school where the nuns and other school faculties treated the Native boys and girls in an abusive and cruel way. They were denied everything they received from their parents and grandparents; the mother tongue and the culture. They were forced to become a Christian.

In the movie, even after the main character boy got out of the school and became a star ice hockey player, he went through the unfair treatments from the public and society. After many Natives went through this kind of unfair treatments, they ended up becoming an alcoholic to escape from the mean society.

It was painful for me to watch this movie through. My husband left the movie in the middle. He could not watch through. He didn’t say much, but I understand how he felt.

I remember both of his grandparents often told me about their own experiences in the boarding school. They went through the unbelievable and shocking experiences, just like being described in this movie.

This is my sincere hope that the Native ancestors who had been treated improperly in the society are now all in the safe and peaceful place; aka, their original spiritual homeland. They deserve all the bests. I know they have been watching over their dependents very well from the spirit world.

I want to contribute to make this world to a better one. I have been praying for it every day. My contribution might be small, but I believe everybody’s positive thoughts does count.

My husband and I attended the Thanksgiving lunch at my daughter’s school. It is the school’s annual event to celebrate Thanksgiving food with our children.

I always enjoy this event. The school offers the special lunch to parents and guardians with a small fee. The lunch contained turkey, mashed potato with gravy sauce, steamed corn, rolls, and pumpkin bread with whipped cream.

I just had the lunch, but I already start looking forward to the next year for the lunch.

***

We had a company during the lunch. It was my daughter’s best friend’s mother and grandmother. They told me they greatly appreciate my daughter for being their child’s friend. My daughter and their child have been close friends for these past two years.

They told me their child has “Oppositional defiant disorder; ODD”. It is common mental disorder for small children who had gone through some traumatic experiences in the family. Since her parents were divorced, the child has experienced the dysfunctional family. According to her mother and grandmother, previously, the child had tough times due to the emotional swings at school.

After my daughter became her best friend two years ago, the child’s emotion got much improved than before. That was why they appreciate my daughter so much.

I recall of their teacher of the previous year. The teacher told me the child often got out of control. Nobody could handle her except for my daughter. The teacher said my daughter worked as the natural tranquilizer for the child. My daughter has a lot of patient and would listen calmly and carefully to the child. That was how my daughter always succeeded to calm her friend down.

My daughter is very nice and kind. She is well-behaved and respects others. She is wise and good at observing others. She speaks up whenever she has to. Many people often praise my husband and me for doing a great job to raise our daughter.

I appreciate their compliments, but it was not due to how we have raised our daughter. I honestly believe her good personality comes from her original soul. My daughter was born with it. She was born already mentally matured. She is an old and matured soul. My husband and I are honored to be her parents in this lifetime. She is an earth angel.

When my daughter was still a toddler, she often told me she would like to become a teacher for difficult children or mentally disordered children. I believe it is one of her life purposes in this life. She might become a teacher to save many children in the future.

I feel honored for being her mother in this life. I am willing to support my daughter for her fulfilling her life purposes.  

Last Friday my daughter came back shocked. She told me her teacher was leaving.

All the students saw the teacher was crying during the recess.  

My daughter handed me a letter from her teacher. It was addressed to me and my husband. It was a simple letter mentioned she was happy to have my daughter in her class and appreciated her for being very nice and kind to her. She also mentioned about her leaving the school. She wrote her last day would be November 26th. My daughter told me we were the only one who received a personal letter from the teacher.

I emailed the teacher and informed I received her letter. I also mentioned to her that we appreciated her kind support to my daughter.

The teacher replied back to me and told me she would call me and tell me the truth after everything is done.

The situation seemed to be serious. According to my daughter, her teacher was not resigning with her personal reason. She was fired. Nobody knows the reason why she got fired. I concerned about the teacher. I have talked with her a couple of times in person. She does not seem to be a bad person at all.  

***

This morning I talked with the school vice principal over the phone. I asked her what happened to the teacher, but she politely told me she cannot give me the detailed information. The school has been interviewing candidates who will take over the class. According to the vice principal, the teacher did not show up today.

That was a big deal. I understand the school cannot tell the detailed information to protect the teacher’s privacy. I just hope the teacher will feel better soon for whatever happened to her.