Recently I have been thinking about one specific friend. We became friends in 2016 and had a get-together several times. At our last get-together, she mentioned about her new job opportunity in Europe. Since then we haven’t seen each other.

I sent a text message to her and she replied back to me right away. I was at the right timing. She just came back from her trip to Europe. We scheduled to see each other this Wednesday.

I look forward to seeing her again. Then again, I admit that I am feeling a little bit nervous. Every time when I had a conversation with her, it ended up with a counseling/healing session. She is gifted to heal people.

Upon our meeting she will definitely ask me about my recent life and how I have been doing.

I don’t want to talk about any negative things such as about my Japanese parents. But at the same time, part of me wants to talk about it to her.

I am confused. I pondered about what I want. I asked myself some questions.

What do I want to hear from her?

Do I expect her to give me any specific advice?

Am I strong enough to hear anything from her?

Instantly the soul-leveled-me gave me the answers. The soul leveled me, already knows all the answers for me.

I am confused because I am somewhat blocked from true self.

I am confused because I cannot see and hear what I really want in my life.

While I am writing this down, I started realizing it is my fear about my future that blocks me seeing and hearing from true self.

So, I am clear now. I expect my friend to help me to get rid of my fear so that I can reconnect with my true self.

I know meeting with my old friend is a gift that was given from my family spirits. I will be fine.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

I received a text message from my mom. Her message was messed up in the grammar and the spelling as usual. It actually got worse. I needed to use my imagination and guess on what she was trying to tell me. I don’t blame her. It was probably due to the side effect of the medicine or chemotherapy.

Guessing from her text message, my mom is having a tough time, mostly about her depression. She complained about my dad for being selfish.

However, just one week ago, my mom wrote about her love to my dad. She had missed my dad while they stayed separately from their house and the hospital. After my mom stayed in the hospital for her surgery for two weeks, my dad was hospitalized for his surgery.

I asked my mom if she wanted to talk to me over the phone. She said she didn’t want to talk to anybody.

I also asked her if she wanted me to send her Kusurie book; the book of healing arts. She refused my offer. She said she does not believe anybody or anything.

She sounded like she now hates the world.

I feel sorry for her. It is definitely due to the side effects from the strong medicines and chemotherapy.

At the same time I thought to myself, that I have to stay strong, so that I can keep encouraging them and sending good thoughts and prayers to her and my dad.

I believe they will go through this toughness together. I look forward to visiting them again in next May.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

My daughter came back from school in a panicky mode. She was holding one paper in her hand. The paper was all wrinkled because she clutched it tightly in her hand.

It was a letter from the school principal.

He announced about their new decision. Due to the increased number of the students enrolled in fifth grade, they decided to make a combination class of fourth graders and the fifth graders. My daughter’s grade is affected again this year.

For the previous three years, they combined the class of my daughter’s grade and the one year younger grade. This year they stopped the combination class with the younger grade. There were five students who had studied with the older graders. Now this year the five students have to do the same grade again for one more year. I really feel sorry for them.

***

At the beginning of the school year, all the parents got relieved with the news of no combination class this year. However, two weeks after the school year start, the disaster of the combination class came back again. Only one different this time was the combination class is with the older grade.

My daughter and all of her classmates were shocked about this change. The letter didn’t tell the details, so I didn’t know exactly how this change would affect my daughter and her class.

In the evening I talked with the school principal over the phone. He told me the little more detailed information.

According to him, my daughter will stay with the same teacher and the same classmates. The only change for her is that three more students will be added to her class. Her class stays for the fourth graders only. Along with the three students, some more students will move to a new class which is the combination class of the fourth graders and the fifth graders.

As far as I heard from other parents, the combination class has only one teacher. While the teacher is teaching one group of students, the other group of students has to wait for their turn to be taught. Each group gets bored while they are waiting for their turn. It is definitely a confusing environment for the combination class students every day.  

Even though my daughter will not be affected, I still feel sorry for the other students, maybe around eight students, about moving to a new environment with the new teacher and the new classmates.

I think it will be a big deal for small children to change to a new environment. It is my sincere hope that the school will be aware of it and stop doing these kind of changes often. It will affect the students in their peace of minds.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

I had two rattan baskets need to be completed. While my Japanese friends were visiting us, we made these together.

They had been sitting on my computer room floor for a while. Today I finally completed one of the baskets.

It turned out to be a rather big round basket. It will be good to keep vegetables or fruits in the kitchen. I am happy for its completion.

***

Now, I need to work on completing the other one. The other one is a difficult to complete.

It is supposed to be a round shaped colander for soba noodle (buckwheat).

I had been searching for the good information on how to complete it through the Internet research. I still could not find any good information.

I am going to ask around my neighbors who seem to have good advice.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

I woke up with a dull headache this morning. I forced myself to get out from bed. I somewhat managed to prepare breakfast for my family. I also ate some rice soup that was easy to digest.

After my daughter left for school I took one hour nap. After the nap, I still felt tired and sick.

Again I forced myself to get out from bed. I had many chores to do. I prepared for dinner, started the washing machine, dusted off from furniture, and vacuumed and mopped the floor.

When I went outside to hang the washed clothes, I felt dizzy from the strong sun light and heat. I somewhat finished my chores, and went inside the house.

For two days straight, yesterday and today, we had an extreme heat. The temperature was risen up to 105F (40C).

After I cooked for the dinner, I run to the bathroom and vomited. It accompanied with the heavy headache. I could not keep standing anymore.

The pain was so intense that I could not sleep. It was about the time when my daughter would come back home. I appreciated that she now goes to/comes back from the bus stop alone so that I didn’t need to go to the bus stop to pick her up.

When my daughter came back and saw me in bed, she instantly told me it was from the extreme heat. She quickly went back and forth between the bedroom and the kitchen. She brought me some ice pack to cool off my body. She also brought some iced water and Gatorade drink. Then she came to me and told me I would get well soon, gently stoking my bang area.

Some minutes after my daughter’s taking care of me, my husband came back home. He also told me it was most likely due to the extreme heat. He gave me some Reiki energy. His Reiki energy is always powerful. After received his Reiki healing energy, I could fall asleep right away.

After two hours nap, I got up all well. All the pain was completely gone.

In the evening we enjoyed for a nice sunset walking. I appreciate my family for their constant love to me.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

I made my homemade mirin. This is my first time to try making it.

The ingredients are as follows.

– 500 grams of steamed mochigome (sweet rice)

– 500 grams of dried komekouji (fermented rice)

– 2% of salt

– 960 ml of sky vodka.

I mixed all the ingredients in a hot boiling water sanitized glass bottle. I will need to wait at least six months to let it well fermented.

I look forward to tasting my homemade mirin six months later.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

During the last weekend, I happened to swing by the local Asian market. I seldom go there. In fact the last time I went there was four to five years ago. The reason is simple. They don’t care for the expiration date of all their merchandise. I saw their items that had already expired five to six years ago. I also had witnessed the store owner trying to make the expiration date invisible by scratching by his thumb finger. Another time I heard the store owner complained about the Japanese customers who always checked the expiration date of each of their merchandise.

Despite of my decision of not going to the store anymore, today I went to the store because I needed to buy a sweet rice in order to make a homemade mirin. When I went to the Asian market in the big city last weekend, I forgot buying it even it was written in my shopping list.

My going to the store turned out great, because I unexpectedly found kabocha squashes in the store. The regular grocery stores seldom carry kabocha squashes.

I was happy to get a kabocha. Now I can cook the sweet vegetable soup.

It is one of the macrobiotics recipes. The soup should be helpful for diabetes.

The soup needs four types of vegetables; onion, cabbage, kabocha, and carrot.

All the vegetables need to be diced into small pieces. This is a healing food, so I didn’t want to cheat by using a food processor. So, I carefully cut them by hand. It took me almost two hours to cut vegetables.

The soup turned out to be a pretty good amount for me to eat it every day for two weeks. I hope it will be beneficial for me to cleanse my blood stream.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

I had a dream of my condominium in Japan. When I moved to America, my mom bought it from me. It now belongs to my mom. My parents never rented it out to anybody. It has been vacant for 11 years now. I have been asking my parents to sell it to somebody.

In my dream a mom and her daughter were in my condominium. I never met them in the real life. The mom seemed to be a single-mother. She looked like in her early 40s and her daughter looked like in her early 20s. I was there with them to help them to arrange the rooms to their preference. They kept on saying good things about my condominium. They liked it very much. We had a good time together in our conversation. I felt good in my dream.

When I woke up, I thought of my condominium. My parents didn’t mention about selling it to somebody, but I thought I might be happening right now. And the new owner might be a mother and her daughter.

I often received the right information through my dream. I hope this morning’s dream would actually happen in the real life.

My condominium has a high vibration. All the three rooms have a window or a balcony facing to the ocean. You can enjoy watching the calming ocean view and listening to the relaxing wave sounds. I really hope somebody who loves it will purchase it with a smooth purchasing procedure.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

We had a rainy/cloudy morning. We were planning to go to lake to swim this morning, but because of the weather, we changed our plan into going to the indoor pool instead.

When we arrived there, their spacious parking lot was almost full. We had a hard time to find a vacant spot.

We enjoyed swimming and soaking ourselves into their hot/Jacuzzi pool.

I miss going to the hot spring in Colorado. Depending on my husband’s work, if his job does not get too busy, I want to visit the hot spring during my daughter’s autumn break in October.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

My daughter is now the 4th grader. I still walk with her to the school bus stop. There are many other younger students who walk alone from their houses. There is one more grandfather who walk with his granddaughters to the bus stop. We are the only rare parents who walk with their children to the bus stop.

My daughter wanted to walk alone to the bus stop. My husband is reluctant about that, but I wanted to respect my daughter’s independency. So, my husband and I decided to allow my daughter to walk alone to the bus stop.

In Japan we all start walking alone to the elementary school. For some students it takes 20-30 minutes from their house to the school. It is common for even the first graders to walk alone to the school.

Considering about the Japanese culture, it might be pretty natural for my daughter to walk alone to the bus stop. We live in a safe neighborhood. Besides, it takes only 8 minutes from our house to the bus stop. I should not worry about my daughter too much.

Today was the first day for my daughter to start walking alone from/to the bus stop.

I had a complicated feeling. I was happy for her independency, but at the same time, I felt slightly lonely about her not needing me to escort her anymore.

It is one of the processes for both a young child and a parent when the child proceeds the steps to the adulthood.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪