Today was the last day of the school for my daughter.

When I was waiting at the bus stop after school, I saw her walking toward me crying. It was heartbreaking to watch my daughter crying.

Before even asked the reason, I knew why she was crying. She was crying for her best friend.

Today was the last day for her best friend to come to the school. From the next school year, she is going to a different school . Her parents bought a house in the next city in last April. It was inevitable for her to move the school to the closest one.

My daughter liked her best friend very much. I too I liked her very much. I was happy for them to be trustworthy friends to one another.

I hope they will find another trustworthy friends in the upcoming new school year.  

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

This morning I woke up at 5 am. Amazingly I could wake up naturally without the help of the alarm.

I work up early because I wanted to go to the grocery store while not being crowded by many other customers.

While I was putting the contact lenses on, my left contact lens slipped off from my finger. I searched around but could not find it.

During searching, I felt the feeling that my family spirits did not want me to wear contact lenses today. The reason is obvious. I often have headache after wearing contact lenses. Tomorrow I will need to drive for a long hour for my important appointment. I cannot get sick this afternoon or tomorrow.

So, I told my family spirits. “Okay, I get it. Thank you for your support. I am not going to wear contact lenses today so that I won’t get sick this afternoon. Now, please let me find my lost contact lens.”

Within two seconds, I found my lost contact lens.

Weird… I already searched the area many times before. It was as if my contact lens was there all the time, but there was a veil to hide it from me.  

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

Nowadays when I open the news page, the first news that pops into my eyes are the news of somebody’s death.

The news of somebody’s death is not new. It is always there. People die and born. It is natural.

My attention has been changed. I am more focused on people’s death than before, because I have started thinking about my own death.

More specifically, I have started thinking about my old days and how I want to leave this physical form at the end. That is why I have been interested in the story on how people leave this physical form.

I believe my desire counts. My desire creates my future as I want. So, I have started visualizing my future clearly.

My future vision is like this.

I will keep on doing good walking and exercise every day. It will built up good muscle in my body. The good muscle in my body maintains good energy in my mind and spirit.

When I turn to my 70-s and 80-s, I will still keep my daily routine of good walking and exercise.

Even if I stumble over something and fall down, I will be able to stand back up with my own muscle.  My bones will be strong. I will make my surrounding people surprise at my high energy in my old ages.

***

The other day while I was walking, I heard my family spirits told me that my current health issue of diabetes is a true blessing.

I am still in my 40-s. In this young age, I had fully recognized how important to invest in my good health of my future.

All my daily efforts are the investments for my future, to make my desire come true.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

I received a wonderful surprise. One of my old friends gave me a call. We haven’t talked each other since our last get-together; last December.

We enjoyed our conversation to catch up with one another’s recent life.

She had been in the hospital for a while. She accidentally stumbled on her dog and fell. That caused her hip bone broken.

She told me she experienced and learned a lot during her stay in the hospital. There were many people there, and each person has their unique life story. She saw some patients being mean to others because of their pain, while others being thankful to others regardless of their pain.

We cannot judge people from only one aspect. The people acting mean to others might have good reasons to be mean. The other people acting thankful to others might have good reasons to be kind for some reasons that we don’t know.

One thing for sure though, is that the people who always being thankful to others seem to look happy and bring more good luck than the other people who are opposite.

I believe our thought is one of our habits. We can change the tendency of our thoughts.

First, we need to pay attention to our tendency of our thoughts. Then, change it to our preferable one. Once we get used to have a tendency of our thoughts in positive way, it will stay like that.  

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

I bought some pretty clothes and dresses for my daughter. She was so happy for her new outfits.

She tried on one of her new dresses and started twirling. Her energy was twinkling and beautiful. So, I started recording a video of her dancing.

Then something wonderful happened.

A whole bunch of light beings started joining her. They looked like snow. It was really beautiful.

I got a happy goosebumps all over my body. It is a sign that happy spirits were with us.

I wanted to try myself too. I asked my daughter to record a video of me dancing. In my video, though, there were no light orbs surrounded me.

We took it as a sign that the happy spirits showed up for my daughter. The happy spirits love her very much for her pure and fun energy.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

I haven’t eaten any store bought sweets since my first acupuncture treatment. I miss eating sweets.

My friend shared some homemade healthy sweets recipes with me. With one of the recipes, I made homemade cookie with my daughter.

This recipe does not contain any egg, butter, or white sugar. It simply contains flour and whole wheat flour (50% each), some healthy oil, and maple syrup. I didn’t have maple syrup, so I used honey instead.

My daughter enjoyed making heart-shaped cookies.

They turned out excellent. They tasted not too sweet, but did have some sweetness. We all loved our homemade cookies. I am glad I won’t need to buy any more store bought cookies. My homemade cookies are healthy and cost effective.

—

Recently I completely stopped buying frozen pizzas. I bought a pizza stone. With this pizza stone, my homemade pizza turns out great.

In my kitchen, gradually the convenient foods have been disappearing. Instead, not convenient but healthy optioned ingredients have been taking over the spots.

They are great changes for me and my family.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

The end of the school year is coming closer. In order to celebrate it, the school planned for a get-together for students, teachers, and parents. They offered a cook out lunch with a regular lunch fee to parents.

When I entered at school, there were some students sitting in the building. All of them knew who I was because they know my daughter. They escorted me to my daughter’s classroom. They were friendly and kind.  

We paid a lunch fee at the reception desk and proceeded to the cafeteria. We got a tray with potato salad, fruit salad, and some fresh vegetables along with our choice of a hamburger ban or a hotdog ban. Then, we were told to go outside to get a hamburger meat or hotdog meat cooked in the grill.

I expected there would be a long waiting line to get meat. But surprisingly, the waiting line was very short. We didn’t need to wait for long.

There were several young men wearing Fire Department’s T-shirt in front of the grills. They were cooking meat in the outside grill. They worked very swiftly. They too were friendly and polite.

These are one of the great benefits to live in a small city.

I grew up in the city. My elementally school had close to 3,000 students. Not all of us knew each other. It was totally different from this area. I like this small and friendly environment.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

Today I had my 2nd acupuncture treatment.

As the same as last time, the acupuncturist checked my pulse and tongue. She found some progress in my pulse. Especially my kidney got stronger than last time. She could not see any progress in my tongue. She said tongue usually takes time to show any progress. At least, I was happy for the progress in my kidney showed in my pulse.

This time I didn’t get emotional at all. I just felt relaxed. My one hour appointment went by so quickly.  

My acupuncturist prescribed me an herbal tea for blood sugar. I will take this tea during meal three times a day. It is a product of China. The details are written in Chinese, and I don’t know exactly what ingredient is contained.

***

After my acupuncture treatment, I had an appointment of get-together with my friend at the local Starbucks. My friend brought a Triple Mocha Frappuccino to me. It used to be my favorite. Maybe she remembered my favorite and didn’t know my diabetes condition. It looked delicious. But I had to turn down her kind offer.

Since my first acupuncture treatment of May 2nd, I have completely stopped having coffee. I also have avoided taking any kind of produced sugar as much as I can.

I didn’t want to make the same mistake that I made at the recent birthday party. When I was invited to a birthday party, I was offered a can of coke and some slices of pizza. I naturally took them. That caused my blood sugar spiked up over 400, and I regretted about my action.

Today, I didn’t yield in taking Frappuccino. I am proud of myself for having being strong. The Frappuccino contains coffee, whip cream, sugar, and chocolate. I cannot risk my health.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

I went to see my friend at her workplace. She is an owner of the sushi bar. 

Recently two of her employees resigned their positions. They were one of the best employees and she desperately needs to hire somebody who can cover their positions.

She asked me if I want to work for her. I am willing to work, however, I have only limited time available to work. We discussed the time and it was far away from negotiation. She needs somebody who can regularly work from 7 am in the morning. Her store opens almost all day of the year, except for Christmas day.

My available time to work is limited to the time while my daughter is in school. And, I cannot work on weekends, because I still want to spend time with my family on weekends.

She said she would wait patiently for the time that I could work weekdays. I told her it might be three to four years later. She said she could wait for the years.  

***

Then she offered me a tour at her workplace.

I was inside of her sushi bar wearing their uniform. She showed me on how she made sushi, roughly from the beginning to the end. I also could watch other employee making sushi. I got the idea on how they make and what to do.

She emphasized the speed on making sushi was the key. She recently needed to fire one employee. He was perfect in personality; kind and polite. But he could not catch up the speed on how the other employees’ making sushi.

She gave me the actual daily sales amount. Based on the sales amount and retail price, I could easily calculate how many sushi one employee needs to make. It blew my mind. It was definitely beyond my expectation. Yes, she is right. The speed is the key. I think I can catch up the high speed though, once I get used to making sushi.

It was an exciting and interesting experience. I enjoyed this work tour very much.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

Today I received an invoice from the lab company. I was shocked at the high price. Also I received a notice from my insurance company about my copay amount. I was way higher than I thought.

Before I made an appointment, I confirmed with my insurance company that the lab test is covered by the insurance company 100% as the preventive care. Also, when I made an appointment with the clinic, I mentioned about that.

It was a simple human error. Somebody who was responsible for inputting coding made a mistake. It should be fixed easily. All I need to do is to make a couple of phone calls.

However, making a phone call is a tough task for me. I went through many bad experiences on miscommunication over the phone, especially with the staff members at the clinics and hospitals.

I took ourage and picked up my phone. I called my insurance company. The customer service representative who picked up my phone sounded like a young woman. Luckily enough for me, from the way she spoke, I could tell she was smart and quick to grasp the situation.

First off, we started with the invoice from the lab company. She made a phone call to the lab company and set a 3-way talk so that I could hear their conversation. It turned out the invoice was simply a mistake. Somebody messed up the claim number and ended up to charge me a wrong bill. It solved quickly.

Then, we tacked with the clinic. This was not easy.

Again, the insurance company operator called the clinic and set a 3-way talk including me. The first receptionist who picked up the phone put us on hold. After having us to wait for long, she transferred us to other department. There, nobody could solve the issue. Then we were transferred to somewhere again. Same thing happened. We had to wait on-hold for long for somebody pick up the phone. The last person we spoke dealt with the coding, but she didn’t have an authority to change it. All she could do is to send an email to her supervisor who has the authority to change the code. She is out of the office for the day. This was it that we could do for the day.

By then, we spent almost one hour for this matter. I was exhausted.

At least I was thankful for this operator for her kindness and smartness to support me. Without her support I might have given up to deal with this matter. I almost lost my temper, but she never did. She stayed calm from the begging to the end.

***    

The following day I received a phone call from a young woman. She was the supervisor for the coding at the clinic. She politely apologized for their error. She told me to rest assured that she sent out the correct the coding to my insurance company.

***

To think back about this matter, maybe it happened to me so that I could practice on the problem-solving and the better communication skill.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪