IKEA’s soft toy drawing voting has started.

You can vote every day from today until their last voting day of November 28th.

My daughter’s Drawing ID 607553.

Please support her drawing if you can. Thank you.

My daughter’s birthday is coming closer. She started counting down the days until her birthday. Previously she had been counting down the days until Halloween. After Halloween, her counting down was switched to her birthday.

She made her wish lists for her birthday gift. The top item of her wish list item is a new iPad.

Her wish naturally came true, in an unexpected way.

The other night my husband was talking with his mom over the phone. His mom complained about her brand new iPad that she recently purchased; the 7th generation. She has worked on the setting, but she has suffered from dealing with new procedures. She was almost ready to give up on the setting. My husband suggested his mom to pass it down to our daughter.

His mom never thought of passing it down to my daughter, but she thought it a good idea. My daughter wants to have it, and she will be good at using it anyway. There are other good reasons to pass it down to her. She was selected as a member of Honor Society, and she deserves to be cerebrated. Her birthday is coming up too.

This evening the package the new iPad was delivered to my daughter.

My husband helped my daughter for the setting, so it didn’t take long for her to finish setting.

Now she is so happy for her new iPad.

I read the news about Dean Foods. This America’s largest milk producer is filling for bankruptcy because Americans are now drinking less cow milk than ever.

***

I recall my younger days. I grew up in the age where people were strongly encouraged to drink cow milk. The teachers emphasized the students the importance of drinking cow milk. All the adults were well-educated by mass media to encourage everybody to keep drinking cow milk every day.

In Japanese elementary schools, all the students were forced to drink a bottle of cow milk for lunch. It was a mandatory. There was no substitutes for cow milk. I never liked cow milk. My intuition told me it was not good for my body. I told my teachers many times that I didn’t want to drink cow milk. All the teachers didn’t listen to me. Lunch time was supposed to be fun for all the students, but it was not for me. Because of the drinking cow milk mandatory, I could not fully enjoy the school lunch.

I never drank cow milk anywhere except for school lunch. My mom always kept cow milk in our home refrigerator. I never touched it at home. After I left my parents’ house and started living by myself, I never bought it by myself. Whenever I needed milk for my recipes’ ingredient, I used soy milk as a substitute.

***

I remember my late friend whom I met when I was 29 years old. He was a psychic / spiritual healer living in Los Angeles. Since he was dealing with good health and healing people, he would repeatedly give two instructions to everybody whom he met. The first instruction was not to smoke a cigarette. The second instruction was not to drink cow milk. He would confirm these two were the main causes to make people sick.

I totally agreed with him. However, people could not accept his instructions easily. At that time, the majority of people had a habit of smoking and drinking cow milk. Especially as for cow milk, since the government officially encouraged the people to drink cow milk, it was hard for many people to believe him.

If he were alive in this age, he would have been happy for the current trend; people drink less cow milk. People have started drinking more alternative milk such as soy milk, almond milk, and cashew milk. My daughter is blessed with this good trend. She is not forced to drink cow milk at school. Her school offers alternative milk to her.

This trend is one of the evidences of “森羅万象” (Shinrabansho). All the creations in the universe have been evolving. All is good.

Maybe, my late friend have been working so hard for this evolving. If so, he has been successful. The number of smokers and cow-milk-drinkers have been dropped down than before. Thank you Yamamura-san for your continuous support and love to us.

Today was a national holiday observed Veterans Day. Many restaurants in town offered a free meal for veterans. My husband went to town to deal with some of his chores. According to him, the entire town was packed with people. There were many cars’ waiting lines in front of restaurants here and there.

My daughter and I stayed at home and enjoyed our quiet and peaceful time together.

Interesting synchronicity happened.

Today is November 11th, written as 11/11. When my daughter and I happened to check the time, it was 11:11 a.m. Then, later when we were done with our small projects and checked the time together again, it was 1:11 p.m.

I took it a message from my family spirits.

I felt they were trying to remind me of “a start.” In order to have a start, I need to make room for it. I felt my family spirits are encouraging me to let go of the old things in order to make room for something new to enter.

It resonated with me.

***

I breathed out as long as I could, with the old energy. The old things can include old habits, old way of thinking, and old human relationships; anything do not fit to my current energy anymore. It is okay for me to let them go.

After I breathed out, I felt the emptiness for a while. Emptiness came with loneliness, then it moved to joy to be released and to be free. Feeling much lighter than before, without any obligation. I felt good.

I realized it is the condition of being in center. No right / wrong. No good / bad. No exist / non-exist. No happy / sad. I am standing just right in the center.

I thought of being at “Zero-point.” In Japanese culture, our gods is counted as “柱” “Hashira”. Hashira is described as “being center”. Nothing bothers it. It simply stands in the center.

Then, I let the new air come in to my body. Now I am ready to accept new energy.   

Since yesterday I have been working on my wood craft projects. I completed two projects on this weekend.

My first project was a small coffee table. I applied a light blue paint on my new table as the same color of my daughter’s table. Now my new table works perfectly as an extended table for my daughter’s coffee table. My daughter is loving it.

My other project was a huge chalk board. This was done in a simple way. I smoothed out the surface of a big size of rectangle lumber with a sandpaper and applied a chalkboard paint on it. Then I connected the chalkboard onto a leftover frame of a crib by drilling screws. I put this big chalkboard in my room. I can use it whenever I want to brainstorm my ideas or something. I am loving it.  

One thing I suffered during my projects was a fire red ant. I was so into my projects that I didn’t notice they bit me several different places in my body.

In the morning I worked on my wooden craft projects in the backyard.

I washed the lumbers, wiped them off with a cloth, measured the sizes and marked them, and cut them with a saw.

While I was working, I heard some moving sound inside the pile of buckets. I thought it was from a lizard. I knew some lizards living in our backyard. But the sound was different from usual. It sounded somewhat violent and continued for longer than usual.

I asked my husband to come over and check. He checked the bucket one by one. Then he made a dull “ew” sound.

He quietly beckoned me by using his pointing finger. I reluctantly went closer to see it.

It was a baby snake with small and skinny body. The snake just captured a lizard, which was bigger than the snake. The snake didn’t care my husband and I observing it, because it was busy munching on a lizard’s head. The lizard’s body was hanging from the snake’s mouth.

***

We called the local police and animal control department. Soon enough, less than 5 minutes from the call, a fire truck arrived at our house. Two young male firefighters got out from the fire truck.

One of the firefighters at first tried to use a tool to pick up the baby snake, but the baby snake was too small to pick. He then used his own fingers to pick the snake up and put it in the white container with a screw lid.

When he picked the snake up in the air, the snake dropped the lizard. The fire fighter picked the lizard up and put it in the container too. He said “here is your food.” We all smiled at each other on how nice he was. My husband and I thanked them for dealing with this issue promptly.  

It was one of the benefits to live in a small town. Police and fire department are available for us right away. Everybody is laid back and friendly.

Winter is almost here. That means we will need to be alert for snakes. We see more snakes in winter rather than summer in this area.

My daughter was selected for a member of National Elementary Honor Society. She was invited to their official membership ceremony this evening.

I didn’t grow up in America so I didn’t know about this society. Their official website mentions about the criteria to select the members as follows.

Eligibility Requirements

Students in grades 4-6 who meet the requirements for membership outlined by their school’s chapter are eligible to be invited for membership.

Each chapter is required to publish its qualifications for membership, which is based on the four pillars of NEHS:

Scholarship

Per national guidelines, at a minimum, students must have a cumulative GPA of 85, B, 3.0 on a 4.0 scale, or equivalent standard of excellence. (Each school chapter is allowed to require a higher cumulative GPA.)

Responsibility

Service

Leadership

***

Before the ceremony, my husband talked with the responsible person for this society. He assured this membership is truly honorable. Some parents complain for not their children being selected. He has to explain the parents the selection was made by careful consideration of the four criteria. The schools are requested to submit the evidences to prove the student’s qualification. The membership can be a great help when applying a scholarship and even in job hunting.

***

At the ceremony, I saw one mother who is familiar to us. She has two children who go to the same club activities held at the library; the coding club and the electric club. The mom was so proud of her children. I saw her crying during the ceremony. As a matter of fact, she was not the only who was shedding tears of joy. I saw other parents wiping off their tears. I did all my effort on not to cry during the ceremony. I cried alone at home, before the ceremony.

The ceremony was impressive. Four older grade members came to support the ceremony. Each member came up to the stage and explained about what to be expected to the members on each criteria.

Among them, I was touched about the leadership criteria the most.

It was explained like this.

Leadership is not always taken place from the front. Sometimes a great leader stands side by side with the group. Other times a great leader needs to support the group from behind, to make sure everybody is doing fine.

As for scholarship, they emphasized the importance of studying. Study is a lifelong business. Nobody can finish their study once school is done. Everybody’s journey to study continues until the very last day of their life. They encouraged the members to keep on studying. Study can be about anything and can be done anytime. 

Once they learn something, it is their responsibility to use their knowledge and wisdom to lead others.

That leads to service. Any kinds of service is actually done for members themselves. Whenever the member offers any services, he/she should feel joy in offering the service. Offering service is actually joy for themselves, not to please others.

I enjoyed attending the ceremony. It was great.

***

After we came back home, I informed my parents and in-laws about the NEHS membership ceremony. All the four grandparents were very happy and proud of their granddaughter. I appreciate my daughter to make our parents so happy and proud of her. Not to mention, she always makes my husband and me happy and proud of her. I am blessed to have her as my daughter in this life.

My daughter was awarded for her perfect attendance in the first semester at school. We went to the restaurant to celebrate her award this evening.

We seldom eat out at the restaurant. This evening was one of our special occasions.

We ordered a steak meal. I ordered a sirloin steak with medium-well. I really enjoyed the meal. The beef meat was so tender and cooked just right of my preference.

This morning my friend and I went to the mountain for hiking.

It was located in the military post. I had known this area but never hiked before. I was not sure if public people are allowed to go hiking in the mountain. According to my friend, this area is open for everybody to hike. As a matter of fact, I saw some group of hikers here and there. They are all very old people.

Right after I got out from the car, I felt its high elevation. The air was fresh. It tasted great. Just a couple of steps made me hard to breathe.

We walked to the top of the mountain. The trail was much steeper than I thought. On the way down the steep hill, I almost lost my step a couple of times. I concerned about the old people in the hiking group. My friend assured me they should be fine, because they were well-prepared. They was holding a pair of hiker’s sticks on their both hands and wearing a pair of sturdy hiking boots.

I was not well-prepared. I didn’t bring the hiker’s sticks. I was wearing a pair of running shoes which are not suitable for this mountain hiking.

One time when I jumped off from an inclined rock with my injured right foot, I felt a sharp pain in my ankle. I thought my ankle got completely healed, but it was not. I could have re-injured the ankle. I am glad it didn’t go bad. I should be more careful in walking on steep hill.

My friend and I promised we will come back for this steep mountain hiking with a well-prepared condition next time.

My daughter had a dental cleaning appointment this evening.

The dentist told me he has good news and bad news. The good news was that she has no cavity. The bad news was she will need to wear braces in the future.

I knew she will need it one of these days. I also knew it is not right now.

However, the dentist thinks differently from me. He gave me a referral to an orthodontist. He wants us to go see an orthodontist soon.

I asked the dentist how many baby teeth my daughter still has. He said 12.

I thought to myself why on earth he wants us to go see an orthodontist at this moment. But I didn’t say anything to the dentist. I know he will argue with me about that.

***

After I came back home, I talked with my husband. He agrees with me to wait to see an orthodontist until all the baby teeth come out. I think it will be the age of 16 or so. My daughter is still 9 years old. We believe it is too early to wear braces.

***

When I had braces, I didn’t doubt anything. I just followed my orthodontist’s suggestions. He took out my 8 teeth. He gave it to me every time he pulled it out. I would examine my pulled tooth. It never had a decay or cavity. He pulled out my totally healthy teeth.

Now I am smart enough not to blindly accept whatever medical people say to me.

I have learned each tooth is connected with our organs. I will make my best efforts for my daughter to find the best orthodontist. He/she is willing to listen to me and discuss the method without pulling all the healthy teeth.

I know it is hard to find, but I believe there should be some good ones somewhere. Anything can be possible as long as I believe powerfully.