I attended the decluttering class sponsored by the local library. I invited my friend to go together.

I am a clean freak. I believe I am good at organizing and decluttering. I recently watched the tiding up program in Netflix, and I am always interested in organizing the house. With all these reasons, I very much looked forward to this lecture.

Unfortunately however, the speaker didn’t give me any useful information or tips for decluttering. All the tips she mentioned were nothing new. It sounded like she was bragging about her big house with huge storage space.

I regretted for attending this lecture. I felt sorry to my friend for wasting her time.

I turned to my friend. She was busy typing something in her cell phone. I was not sure if she was taking a memo of what the speaker said. Or, she was bored and using her cell phone to kill her time.

I decided to do the same as her. I started playing around with my cell phone to kill my time. Then, I got a text alert ringtone. It was from my friend who was sitting right next to me.

I almost busted laughing. She was feeling the same way as I did. She was bored and wanted to leave.

After exchanged our text messages back and forth, we wondered how we could leave without being rude to the speaker. Our seats were corner back at the room.

My friend took her courage and pretended going to bathroom. I followed her.  

By then, it was already 43 minutes had passed. It was when the speaker started giving away her junk items to the audience. The audience wanted to learn helpful tips to get rid of unnecessary items from their houses, and the speaker got rid of her unnecessary items to the audience. It does not make sense to me at all.

***

On our way back home in the car, I apologized to my friend for wasting her time. We shared our opinions on how boring the lecture was. We both had a good laugh.

Even though the lecture was not helpful, at least we enjoyed communicating through text messages. All in all, I had a good day for spending time with her.

***

Today’s lesson for me.

– I should think twice about attending at any class of the local library. Next time in case I attend any class, I should make sure to have a seat close to the door or outside the door, in case I need to leave as soon as possible.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

This morning I had a dental cleaning appointment. Today’s dental office was new to me. I was greeted politely by the receptionist.

I liked my new hygienist. She had a calm tone of voice. Every time she perform something to me, she would explain beforehand, so that I would not be astonished.

She said she liked my name. Her mother-in-law had the same name as mine and she used the name for her daughter’s middle name.

The hygienist’s assistant jumped into our conversation. She said she is half Japanese.

Three of us chatted for a while about good things about Japanese, such as how smart they are and how polite they are.

It was a nice coincidence to have three people who are related to Japanese.

I consider every single event that makes me happy as a small gift from my family spirits. The important point is to keep myself stay being happy all the time.

BTW: I changed my dental office. The previous dentist told me I have a cavity on the canine tooth of right lower jaw. I didn’t want to fix any of my front teeth easily. I knew from my actual experience that a cavity can be healed by itself. Today my new dentist told me I have a cavity on the canine tooth of left lower jaw.  I will see what I can do without drilling by a dentist. I am going to use some homeopathy remedies to fix a cavity. I will update the status of my cavities on both sides.  

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

My certificate of deposit (CD) has matured. I visited the local bank to ask for advice.

The bank teller gave me the APY list of this year. The CD rates are changed every year.

I don’t remember the exact rates of last year, but I do remember that the rates got much better than last year. I was surprised at the highest rate. A new CD rate of $10,000 for 60 months is up to 3.60% in other banks.

It doesn’t feel like it, but economy is growing better this year, at least in America.

I hope this healthy economy wave will be spread around the world.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

This morning I received an email inquiry from my homepage contact page. She asked me if I was interested in collaborating with her business. She thinks their audiences and my audiences will appreciate for our content in our articles. Her collaboration idea was to post and promote each other’s article through our homepage.

At first, I was so happy for somebody had contacted me. I was also happy to know somebody whom I haven’t met in person read my articles. With the happy feeling, without thinking, I almost accepted her collaboration offer instantly.

I didn’t do so, however, because I do my business with the help of my husband. I needed to ask his opinion before I reply back to her.

I talked about this with my husband.

We feel the directions of her business and my business are not exactly the same. Besides, as of now I am not ready to promote my business nor my articles.

We concluded to politely turn down the collaboration offer.

I appreciate the person who contacted me. It was nice to know I have somebody who read my articles.

I appreciate my husband too for discussing about the collaboration offer. It is nice to know I am not doing this all by myself. I appreciate my husband to stand by me.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

We had a cold rain all day long today. This winter has been much wetter and colder than the previous years, as the weather report predicted.

I noticed my body is under the hibernate state. My body orders me to eat more sweets and stay being lazy during this cold winter days.

Although I still keep doing the daily exercise, I have been struggling to keep doing so. I know my personality. Once I indulge myself to skip the daily exercise with the excuse saying “it’s okay to skip only one day”, it will continue being like that. So, I am fighting with myself every day not to listen to the lazy part of me.

***

For the previous ten years, I had complained about the Arizona’s powerful sun and the heat during the summer time. Since 2016, I had been strongly wishing for moving to a different area where it has much more snow and rain than our current area. We actually went to three different states to explore the new areas and looked for the houses. We never had met the right land nor the right house yet.

This year is my 11th year living in America. I finally realized one thing.

So, my realization was my body got used to Arizona of its powerful sun and the heat. I actually like we have constantly sunny days. One research shows we have close to 300 sunny days in a year.

I appreciate the Arizona’s powerful sunlight and fine weather.

I am grateful to finally say this. I love living in Arizona. It took me ten years to say this.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

My husband changed the engine oil and the oil filter for our cars. Since he started his career as a vehicle mechanic, it is easy for him to perform the vehicle maintenance service. It is handy to have him with us.

I thought back my younger days.

My car life started when I was 22 years old. I bought a used car for myself. Until I turned to 32 years old when I had to give up owning my car, I did the major maintenance for my car by myself, including engine oil and oil filter change. I put the snow chains on my tires whenever I went for skiing. I took take good care of my car by myself for years. I was proud of myself for doing these by myself.

Compared with that, after I moved to America, my husband has taken care of the maintenance service for our cars.

Other daily things are the same way.

When I was living alone, I needed to do everything by myself such as assembling a new product, fixing computer error, fixing a minor water leaking, changing light bulbs, or taking care of bugs inside the house.

Here in America, my husband takes care of all of these choirs.

It is great to have a handy person in the house and I appreciate for my husband. But at the same time, I have to admit. I have been spoiled by the convenience.

This can be applied to everything in our daily life. Once we get used to convenience, our ability might get weakened. We’ve got to brush up our ability from time to time in order to keep our ability available whenever needed.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

Starting January 1st 2019, Netflix started streaming the decluttering program. The main cast is a Japanese woman. The program title is “Tidying Up With Marie Kondo”.

I have seen her in Japanese television programs along with other online videos. I have also read her books. She has been famous of her own tidying-up method, Konmari method.

I like her method on the following four points.

– The first step is to think about our preferable future and visualize it in details. That includes our house and belongings. The vivid and detailed vison of our preferable future becomes our strong motivation for tying up.

– Once we motivate ourselves, greet to our residence and ask its support.

– In order to judge whether to keep a certain item or not, we put the item close to our heart and feel the vibration. She encourages us to use our feeling of “Tokimeki” in Japanese, “Spark joy” in English.

– In case of getting rid of an item we don’t feel Tokimeki or Spark joy anymore, we show our appreciation to the item for its purpose to come to us, and let it go.

I like her way to show our respects and appreciations to material things.

I think it is based on our animism belief. Japanese people believe Gods and spirits everywhere; in lands, daily materials, and houses. We are not living alone. We are living together with all the Gods and spirits around us everywhere. Since everything has its own divine meaning to exist, we respect each one of them.

I hope her Konmari method will be widely accepted around the world. Her method is needed to everybody not only for tidying up, but also for drastically improving our way of thinking and way of living.

Her method leads us to a comfortable way of thinking and living peacefully along with everything on this planet.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

This morning the temperature got much higher than yesterday. Although some snow stayed here and there in our backyard as well as in the streets, we had enough sun light. I enjoyed the warm energy from Sun. After the gray sky from snowy weather of yesterday, it as blessing to have blue sky with Sun shine back.

My daughter’s winter vacation is soon coming to an end. She is feeling sad about going back to school.

She often wishes to change our bodies. She wants to have my body and wants me to have her body.

Her reason was not what I expected. She envies me for not need to go to school. She wants to stay home as I do.

That being said, I don’t think she hates going to school. She always comes back from school with the happy state. She talks about fun things that she and her classmates have had on the day.  

***

I thought about her wish. If we could do that, it would be fun. I would enjoy having her small body and going to elementary school.

I fully enjoyed being an elementary school student in my childhood. The reason was simple. I didn’t need to think about anything. I had many good friends. I was good at playing sports and running around. I laughed a lot. Everything was fun. I didn’t have any stress or concerns to think about.

This process made me realize the technique to stay being happy. It is simple.

— “Do not think too hard.” —

Everything is in fact simple enough for us to cope with. It is only when we start thinking too hard, everything becomes too complicated for us to cope with.

We all knew this simple technique when we were small. Thus, all we adults need to stay being happy just like small children is to unwind our thoughts.     

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

This morning we were surrounded by snow, everywhere. Yes, everywhere, including the asphalted streets. It is very rare for this area to have such a big amount of snow.

Last time we had this much snow was right after my daughter was born. It was the Christmas Day of 2009. My daughter was still three weeks old. Due to the big snow, the electricity went out for more than eight hours.

This time, thankfully our electricity did not go out. Our Internet service also was fine.   

Only one drawback from this big snow was my husband’s work. His workplace was completely shut down. Unfortunately his company did not compensate for today’s work hour, he needed to use his paid holiday hour to cover.

Other than that, we enjoyed playing with snow and walking on snow.

We were all safe and healthy in this cold weather. I guess all was well.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

I had a great start of the new year of 2019.

I woke up at 5 am. I prepared breakfast for my family and myself. After we had breakfast, we went for a walk.

This is our recent routine for the new year day.

It started snowing from the early morning. We enjoyed walking in the pure powdery snow.

I love snowy day. The cold breeze from snow refreshes not only the outside air but also our feeling. 

***

I want to share my wonderful dream of last night.

In my dream I was pregnant again. I touched my belly. It felt as if it was right before the due date. Even though I was in my dream state, I still could feel the warmth and a baby bumps on my belly. It felt so real to me.

I was surrounded by my family spirits. I felt the existence of Daigo, my son-in-spirit inside my belly.

I asked my family spirits how the pregnancy process went. I hated going through the pregnancy process, such as vising the OB-GYN frequently, taking a blood test, and managing my glucose level with a great care. That was the main reason I decided not to have our second baby.

My family spirits told me not to worry about it. They told me to just focus on how I was feeling. I focused on my feeling. It was nothing but happiness. I was so happy.

On my second thought, I wondered of my age. My thoughts started wondering. How old I was? Would it be happening in the real life or only in my dream?

Then, again, my family spirits told me not to worry about anything. Just stay focus on the happy feeling of being pregnant and having Daigo.

I again shook off all my concerns and wonders. I just enjoy feeling happy.

***

Then I woke up. I am pretty sure my family spirits woke me up on purpose.

I checked the time. It was 00:03 am.

I liked my family spirits’ kindness. The number 3 means to create something. The Three energy is to give birth to a baby.

It might not be giving a baby birth, but it can be anything. This dream tells me that this year I will give birth to something. I will give a life to my creations. And their message for me was to focus on only the happy feeling while creating something new, instead of worrying about the detailed procedure.

It was a great start of the year. I appreciate my family spirits for the wonderful message through my dream.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪