Two days ago I was chatting with my new friend after we dropped our children off at the school bus stop.

She and her family moved in this area on July of last year, right before the new school year started. She searched around the elementary schools for her two young boys. She found one charter school in the neighbor city and applied the enrollment online. One boy was approved, but unfortunately, the other boy was in the waiting list. Since she didn’t want her two boys to go to the separate school, she enrolled them to the local public school. Her older boy has been having some issues with other classmates, and so, she started thinking about transferring her children to the charter school from next school year.

While I was listening to her, one idea strongly popped up in my head. It was the idea of transferring my daughter to the charter school from next school year.

Starting from this school year, my daughter frequently mentions she hates school.

Her main reason is about classmate friends.

For the previous three years started from kindergarten to second grade, she had four good friends in class. All of her good friends transferred to a different school. Two girls moved to another state, one girl left the school and started homeschooling, and one girl moved to the next city and transferred to the different school. My daughter said it is hard to get in to the girls who had already built a group of friends. I know exactly what she means. Since the school very rarely has a new student, the group of friends are firmly fixed and hard to get in.  

As a parent, I have some reasons I don’t like this school very much.

First reason is about the entire school buildings. Everything, including classrooms, cafeteria, kitchen, bathrooms, and gym, are very old and dirty.

Second reason is a combination class. My daughter’s grade has two classes, and one class is a combination with the lower graders. The principal and the teacher always say they don’t have any issues. However, what I have heard from my daughter, other classmates, and their mothers are completely opposite. It seems to be a big issue to have the different graders in a class, doing different things at the same time.

***

After I came back from chatting with my new friend, I called the carter school and made an appointment of the school tour.

***

In the tour group, there were two other families. One mom had two children. She already applied online, and both children were approved. The other family had a little girl who will be a kindergartener. They came with the mom, and the grandmother, and the grandfather.

The principal and the vice principal escorted us to a variety of classrooms, cafeteria, gym, and playground.

The entire school buildings are clean and newer appearance. The local branch started in 2016. No wonder everything looks still new. They have many young female teachers.

The one hour tour was pretty informative. I liked the school very much.

Before I left the school, I made another school tour appointment. Next time I will come back with my husband and daughter, so that they can see and feel the school on their own.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

This morning my fasting glucose level was 178. It was worse than yesterday. I just had the acupuncture treatment yesterday. Taking the fact into consideration, it is obvious the acupuncture treatment is not working great for me.

My thought suddenly went back to the beginning of this year, January 1st. I had a dream where my current acupuncturist was in.

In the dream, my current acupuncturist and I were sitting in the car. I was at the passenger’s seat, and she was in the drivers’ seat. Both of us saw the location of our goal. Even though the goal was straight ahead of us, my driver did not drive straightforward.

The way she drove was abnormal.

She stepped on a sudden accelerator toward the slant direction and hit an obstacle. The corner of the car got damaged. After the hit, she made a sudden back-up. Then again, she stepped on a sudden accelerator. This time she forwarded toward the other side of the slant direction and hit a new obstacle. She repeated this pattern, going zigzag.

We eventually reached to our goal. The car got damaged by her sudden forwarding and backing up. If she had driven straightforward from the beginning to the end, we would have reached to the goal much faster and smoother, without making any damages to the car.     

***

After I woke up, I asked my family spirits about the message from the dream.

Instantly I received a block of thoughts like this.

This dream showed my mind status. I am counting on my current acupuncturist too much. Since the goal is to recover my good health, I should be the driver. I should take lead toward my goal. Anybody else including my current acupuncturist can be the passengers who give me advice from time to time, but they cannot be the driver.

***

Now that I knew my body did not show any improvement from yesterday’s acupuncture treatment, the message from this dream really stood out.

I should keep in my mind that I am the driver toward my goal. It is time for me to review my life style of the past few months and correct any of my wrong actions. I am responsible for my health.

I should stop counting on acupuncture treatments or any other outer factors. They can be just one of the supplements to support.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

Today I had my ninth acupuncture treatment. This was the third treatment from my new acupuncturist.

I liked today’s treatment. It was relaxing. I felt my energy started flowing better with the treatment.

However, unfortunately I don’t see any improvement in my body in terms of actual numbers.

My morning glucose level at 6 am was 163. When I came back home after the acupuncture treatment at 11:30 am, my glucose level was 148.  

Today’s recommendation from the acupuncturist.

– Swishing month for 15-20 minutes with coconut oil to prevent dry mouth and teeth decay (and hopefully to fix my small cavities).

– Coenzyme Q10 (Coq10) supplements to raise my High-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol

– Get enough vitamin D: getting sun light during daytime. Sunlight at sun rise is the most powerful.

***

There was one thing I didn’t like. At the payment, my acupuncturist announced the fee increase. I felt it unfair to be informed after the treatment. I believe all the patients would like to be informed of the fee increase in advance. We don’t like such kind of surprise.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

This morning right before I woke up, I heard a voice. It said “Don’t forget your Oyakume in Navajoland”.

“Oyakume” is a Japanese term meaning a duty or a responsibility. In my case, it is my life mission that I had been told many times while I was in Japan.

With the message, my thoughts went back to Navajoland. I was thinking about Navajoland and the people whom I met and interacted with for a while.  

***

Around 9 am, I received two text messages. One was from my husband, and the other was from my mother-in-law. It was about my dad-in-law’s older brother. He passed away around 8:30 am.

Maybe it was him who visited me in the morning. That was why I was thinking about Navajo people and the land.

I sent a good prayer to him. I thanked him for his kindness and help to me. I sent him good thoughts and images that he was now free from any pain or regrets, and that he was with his family spirits safely.

He was a good man. He was one of my good old friends.

When I was single, he let me stay at his house for certain nights. I offered some grocery in return. Those days he wanted to write his own story, a memoir, so I shared my knowledge about how to input and edit in Word file. I still remember his friendly smile.

I appreciate him for spending time with me. I wish him for an easy and smooth transition to the spirit world.   

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

Yesterday’s tire exchange event reminded me of my recent dream. This event was related to my dream of January 2nd.

In the dream I was in a car. I was sitting on the rear seat of the driver’s seat. My daughter was sitting next to me, on the rear seat of the passenger’s seat. I could not see the driver’s face, but it was a man.

While we were driving the car, all of a sudden the cars before us started rolling over or bumping each other. The scenery was just like that of the movie Bird Box (2018) streamed by Netflix. Then I noticed we were in the middle of a huge earthquake. The roads were cracked. Houses and buildings were collapsed. I saw fires everywhere.

In such a drastic environment, our driver kept on driving skillfully. He avoided all the unexpected flying objects and obstacles on the road. We finally reached at a safe place like a sanctuary. When we arrived, our car was unharmed. Three of us were all safe. 

Then I woke up.

***

After this dream, I meditated and asked my family spirits for meaning of the dream. I got some block of thoughts like this.

This is a warning that something drastic might happen to me. However, with the help of somebody (the driver in the dream) will help me out from the issue. In the end, we all would be fine.

***

I thought back the event of yesterday. Maybe the driver (the helper) was my husband. If he didn’t notice the nail in the tire of my car, I would most likely keep driving the car. I might get involved in an accident or something. With the help of my husband, I’ve been able to avoid the drastic event.

I appreciate my husband and my family spirits to let me avoid any possible accident.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

In the early morning I got on my car to go the grocery store alone. I noticed the TPMS (Tire Pressure Monitoring System) warning light was illuminated. I got out from the car and checked the tire appearances. All four tires appeared fine, so I took off to the store.

After I came back home, I mentioned my husband about the light. He went to the garage with a flashlight and took a thorough look on each tire. He found a nail in the rear tire on the diver’s side. Sure enough the tire air pressure was low as 17 PSI, which was supposed to 30 PSI.

Back in 2002 in America, I experienced a flat tire caused by a nail for my old cars a couple of times. Every time when I took it to the local tire store, they fixed it for free of charge.

Without thinking anything more, I asked my family to go to the local tire store with me. I thought they would fix it for free. In case the nail went through, I didn’t mind to exchange the tire to a new one.

I should have known better.

The tire store worker told me since the nail went through the sidewall, it was not repairable. He naturally gave me a quotation for all four tires.

I was shocked with the number of the tires. I didn’t mind to buy one tire, but I didn’t expect to buy all four tires.

The worker insisted I was required to exchange all four tires. Since my husband does not like arguing with anybody, he was ready to pay for all four new tires. I didn’t fully trust what the tire store worker said. I wanted to get the second opinion.

I took my car to another tire store in town. There, the worker said the same thing that I needed to buy four new tires. The second store’s price was much higher than that of the first store.

There are some more tire stores in town. I called three more stores to get the quote for my four tires. After my efforts, I found out the first store was the winner. Their price was the lowest.

I was embarrassed to go back to the first store, but I had no other option. I went back to the first store and bought four new tires.

By the time we came back home, we were exhausted. If I had known better, I could have saved my family’s precious time and energy. I feel sorry for my family to drag them around here and there almost all day.

***

I still regret for what happened. My car did not have many mileage yet. It was still 36,000 mile. The tires had still enough tread left. If I had known better and took the appropriate action earlier, I could have saved my four tires.

I believe my TPMS warning light illuminated on December 14. On that day I didn’t check the tires thoroughly for any nails. When I added tire air, the warning light went off, so I kept driving my car. Possibly on the first day of the light illuminated, the nail was not deeply inserted. If I had noticed the nail on that day and brought my car to the store to fix it sooner, the tire could have be repaired.

Next time, I will be more careful when the light comes on. At least I learned from this experience.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

One of my favorite bloggers reported her success in losing weight.

Compared with her heaviest weight, she succeeded to lose 8 kg within 9 months. I think it was an amazing success.

I admire her the most was that she succeeded in winter.  

As for me, my body tends to enter to a hibernation mode in winter. I tend to eat more sweets and do less exercise in winter than in summer.

Right now in the middle of winter, I weigh 62 kg. I don’t like my current weight at all. I lose weight in summer up to 57 kg. Thus, my weight varies up to 5 kg in a year. I want to change my pattern so that I can stay in my preferable weight all year around.

Every time I read somebody’s success in losing weight, especially about the people who have succeeded in winter time, it motivates me.

I believe we all can benefit from other people’s success. All we need to do is to imagine their happy smiling energy and feel it. Then, we can adjust our energy to the same level as theirs.   

It feels good to celebrate other people’s success.   

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

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? (^^♪