I have a life-long male friend. I have known him for many years since we were both small. In our childhood days, we both often thought we would get married in the future. We got along with very well. We thought it natural to get married.

In reality, it didn’t happen. My friend married in his late years through an arranged marriage. It seemed to me that he chose his wife as a result of high pressure from others. There were still many people who act and behave under old traditional way of thinking. One of such old thinking was that we need to get married before the certain age. His wife seemed to be under the same situation. So, the arranged marriage worked well for both of them, when it comes to the contracted marriage.

For the first several years of their marriage, my friend often complained about his wife. He often mentioned that they had discussed about a divorce. They didn’t get divorced though. They are still together. My friend does not seem to be happy at all. He seems to survive his marriage life just for his children.

***

This morning, while I was driving a car for a long distance, I thought about them. Technically speaking, I didn’t intentionally think about them, but some thoughts about them came to me regardless of my intention. As you know, while you are driving, or whatever you are doing something without using your logical brain, you go into a meditation state. So, I was driving, and at the same time, I was meditating about them without thinking.

My conscious was expanded. My logical thinking was not functioning at all. Under the expanded conscious, I was told, or I knew, that every marriage serves its own purposes to fit for the husband and the wife. Outsiders will never understand the true purpose for their marriage. In my friend’s case, the husband and the wife have agreed in their soul levels to teach each other.

My friend and his wife have a totally opposite personality. My friend cannot be selfish. He always concerns about others and puts others before himself. On the other hand, his wife is self-centered. She always puts herself at first. She never thinks about others. That way, they are taking a good balance and teaching one another from the opposite direction.

From other people’s point of views, the wife’s being selfish does not help anybody else. But in their marriage, it does.

So, perhaps in every marriage, a husband and a wife help and teach each other. It sometimes may appear one is better and superior than the other, but in fact, they both need one another to take a good balance.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

For these past several days, I have been thinking about having my hair cut. Since I don’t have any pleasant experiences about hair stylists on this area, I was thinking about cutting my hair by myself.

I went to the bathroom and put a pair of hair cut scissors and comb on the edge of the bath tub, so that I would not forget about doing that tonight, as a reminder for myself.

At early afternoon, I received a phone call from my friend. She invited me for a get together at her house. She mentioned she also invited her other three friends. One of her guests was a hair stylist. She also mentioned her friend would like to offer a haircut at a reasonable fee.

I thought it interesting. Right after I put the haircut tools on the bath tub, I was invited for a haircut opportunity.  

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

In our front yard, we have rose bushes. In our back yard, we have several flowers. But those flowers are available only in summer time. I don’t have any flowers in my house in winter time. I miss fresh flowers.

When I lived in Japan, I often walked to a flower store and bought some flowers for me. It didn’t cost me much. They sell from one rose. One rose just cost me 200 yen (about $2). 

Just one rose did its magic. When I brought back one rose in my room, the rose shared its amazingly rich aroma to the entire of my room.

Sadly though, at the area where I live, there was no fresh flower stores. We can buy a flower bouquet at grocery stores. I have bought it many times, but the flowers were not fresh and went bad very quickly. I miss going to a flower store.

For the time being in the winter time, I will survive with a bunch of flower pictures that I posted all over of my house wall.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

Winter has come. I love cold weather and I am enjoying it, except one thing. Due to the dry air, I need to tackle with itchy sensation when I am between the sheets in the night.

I had been wanting to buy organic cotton fabric to make homemade sheets. On Black Friday sale, I finally bought enough yards of organic fabric from my favorite organic fabric store. The fabric can be used to make a towel. It is soft and thick.

These past two days, I had been busy sewing. Finally my original sheets were ready to use last night. I made new sets of sheets for my family too.

I slept with a set of new sheets last night. It was so comfy. I felt like laying down on spring meadow.

I even dreamt of laying on a gigantic cream puff. I don’t remember the details of my dream, but I do remember I had a high quality of sleep.

It is always good to be surrounded by your own homemade items. Especially sleeping items. I cannot wait to sleep with my homemade sheets again tonight.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

All day today I have experienced technological troubles. It started from logging in to a certain website. Even though my log in ID and password were correct, the system showed an error. I contacted the web administrator. He received similar reports from many customers but he did not know the reason. The system worked fine on the server side.

There were some more issues. I could not log in to the bank. I received a call from a stranger as a wrong number call. In the evening, my mom called me. She had been worrying about me because she had not received any emails from me for these past weeks. From my side, I had sent at least several emails to her. When my husband came back, I asked him if he went through any technical issues especially in emails. He said he did.

I get used to this kind of communication issues and technological issues. My Mercury in the relocated to this area sits in the 12th house. I have a tendency to deal with miscommunication issues.

This time though, the communication issues seemed to have happened not only to me but also to others. I suspected Mercury Retrograde and did some research.

Bingo! Mercury retrograde has started from December 3rd and will continue until December 22nd.

During these three weeks, we will experience many miscommunication and errors in technologies especially in email communication. But we can survive by paying extra attentions to communication. For example, after sending an email, if you don’t receive any reply in two to three days, you can check with the person by making a phone call. During the conversation with somebody, especially somebody in your work, make sure for the person to correctly understand your points.

Mercury retrograde is not bad nor scary. It also brings benefits. This term is good for talking to yourself. Meditation is good. Some important memories might come back to you. It is a good time for us to acquire a better communication ability.

If you have somebody you don’t like to talk with, avoid the person to communicate. Instead of causing misunderstanding troubles, keeping silence might be a good idea. Instead of pushing hard to only one direction, turning around and facing the other direction might be good. You might find peace in the unexpected direction. Life is full of mystery. 

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

I always enjoy observing the cultural difference between Americans and Japanese. There are many things in daily life to discover the obvious difference. Catching the school bus is one of them.

At my neighborhood area, we usually have 10- 12 students who gather up at the same school bus stop.

Some moms come to the bus stop by car, although it is within walking distance. Now I know people ride a car only for 5 minutes walking distance. Perhaps for them, riding a car almost equals to wearing a pair of slippers. They might consider a car as their body parts.

There is one more thing that I was surprised. I discovered a difference in people’s attitude toward the concept of time.

After the bus arrives at the bus stop, the child comes out from the backseat of car, walks to the driver’s seat, and hugs and kisses to mom. Then, the child slowly walks to the school bus. I never saw anybody including the bus driver and other students getting mad at the slow child. They patiently wait for the child to get on the bus. Everything is slow.

When I saw this scenery for the first time, I was surprised. I would not see this kind of scenery in Japan. If Japanese mom comes to bus stop by car, the mom and the child would come out from the car before the bus arrives and wait for the bus with other students. Japanese people constantly think of others. We don’t want to be late for anything. We also don’t want to have others wait for us.

I remember my school days. I always made my efforts to leave my house early so that I would not be late for school. I always wore a watch on my wrist and constantly checked the time to stay being punctual.

I get used to new concept of time. I like the way people react about time in a slow pace. I like the phase “take your time.” What a luxurious feeling in the phase of “I am not in a hurry and I can take my time”. Of course it won’t fit in to every situation, though. Sometimes it is good to take time.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

My daughter often astonishes me with her amazing spiritual gifts.

Today she asked me who Shizu was. My daughter saw a grandma being standing next to me. According to my daughter, the grandma being should be somebody who was related to me in blood line.

I thought about the name but it did not ring the bell to me. Later on, I thought it might be my maternal grandma. I asked my daughter if it was correct. She saw the grandma being was shaking her head horizontally, meaning no.

I was really curious about the grandma being. I called my mom and asked about Shizu. I found out it was my paternal grandma. She passed away when I was very small, maybe 3 or 4 years old. Some relatives mentioned I look alike with my paternal grandma. My daughter said that the grandma being was happy for finally being recognized by me. So, nowadays for some reasons, Shizu-obaachan (grandma-Shizu) often visits me and watches overs me.

Similar things happen often.

My daughter startled me the other day too. She draw a picture of me. I had a mask on my face, and the mask tube was connected to a machine next to my bed. I got bewildered. I asked my daughter what the picture was. Is it the prediction that I will be in hospital and put a mask in the future? My daughter said “I drew you right after I was born”.

After I pondered for a while, I remembered that I was wearing an oxygen mask during my labor. Right after my daughter was born, I was still wearing the mask. She said right after she got her conscious, she saw me wearing the mask. She remembered it.

My husband and I never mentioned to her that I was wearing an oxygen mask. We actually forgot about that.

We adults tend to think a baby cannot see things. But they actually see things more clearly than we do. And, they even have a memories of before-birth. There should be many, many things that we can learn from babies and small kids.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

Nowadays I have felt energy stagnant. After I looked around in my house, I am sure it is due to the messiness of the house. 

As a result of decluttering two closets, there were several trash bags in front of the entrance. The outside trash can ended up being so full that its lid stayed half open.  

Thank goodness, after getting rid of unnecessary items, I felt more energized than before.

I learned one tip from my experiences. I will not go to yard sales nor thrift stores anymore. Almost all the items I trashed were the items from yard sales and thirst stores. The items that I bought without thinking were the items that I didn’t need.

There is one more purpose in my decluttering. It is to show the Universe my willingness to move. My family spirits always tell me they respect my free will. They cannot do anything without seeing my willingness. So, please my family spirits, take this as my willingness to move. I really want to move out from this area at our best timing.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

My daughter’s birthday is coming up. We already prepared for her birthday cake and present. We went to the store together and let her choose what she wanted. We wanted to buy something that she wanted, so there is no secrets.

This year my daughter asked me to write a birthday card to her. I thought it a good idea.

Here is the words I wrote on her 8th birthday card.

Dear my precious daughter.

Happy birthday for your eighth birthday.

You are the brightest sunshine for me in the daytime.

You are the brightest star for me in the night.

You are the biggest reason for me to live this lifetime.

I am happy to wake up with you.

I am happy to eat with you.

I am happy to laugh with you.

I am happy to sing and dance with you.

I am happy to take a bath with you.

I am happy to sleep with you.

Every day and every moment I spent time with you becomes my treasures.

Let’s accumulate much more precious and fun memories together.

I always tell you this, but let me say this to you again:

Thank you for choosing me to be your mom.

It’s my great honor to be your mom, even though you are much older than me in spirit. 

I respect you so much.

You are always protected by my big love. Always.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

At the place where I live, we seldom have earthquakes. Last night, however, I felt some ground shaking and the low roaring sound that usually accompanied with earthquake. I was sitting in a couch with my family. They noticed the shake and the sound.

And this afternoon, when I was alone at home, I felt the same shake and sound. When my husband and daughter came back, I asked if they felt it or not. They both noticed it too. Some websites showed there were small earthquake in California.

At late evening, I saw some people in my Facebook page talking about the weird sound of yesterday and today. They suspect it might from the military. Nobody knows the truth.

In any ways, I always think of my family. In case of any natural disaster, I want to be with my husband and my daughter. That is all I want.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪