I woke up today in our new home. That made me very happy –
and a tad bit sad as I remembered our home in the rice fields of Misawa and our
neighbors.
It made me happy to have my first cup of tea in our new
home. I happened to have this one tea cup from our Korean trip….and I found a
pot to boil some water. LOL
I was alarmed to discover I’d forgotten to buy a shower
curtain. In Japan you have shower ROOMS – no curtains. It had totally slipped
my mind.
We attended our first service today at the Valley Chapel at
Beale. We really loved chatting with
folks. We look forward to getting to know the faces and names we met this
morning. That made us happy…but it was happiness tinged with sadness. We missed
the familiar faces from the past four years.
I noted there were only two youth besides ours (at least that I saw from
my seat). It made Arielle miss her friends.
We were invited to lunch with a family from chapel and that
made me happy….but we got out of the chapel too late to join them. That made me
sad.
We went to Sizzlers. Sizzlers is the restaurant where I met
Michael’s parents for the first time. Happy memories…tinged with a bit of
sadness as Dad G won’t be going to Sizzlers with us again. I got a text from
Mom G which read “@ Sizzlers – proceeding to Buffet.” That made me smile.
We are learning to make the most of our trips to town – it’s
at least 25 minutes to anything from our home. ::snort:: We were in Yuba City so we decided to stop by
Target for some home essentials (shower curtain, toothbrush holders, garbage
cans…). We headed to Wal-Mart for the
things which Target didn’t have and for a few more grocery items (those things
I didn’t need Sam’s Sizes).
It made me happy to see Michael sneaking Internet on his
ipad at Target and Wal-mart…and I’m anticipating “blazing fast” wifi in the
home by tomorrow night.
It made me happy to see little homey touches coming to
life. It made me laugh to discover I
forgot to buy the shower hooks.
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| Shower brought to you by AT/T |
It made me really happy when Michael was able to get the
adhesive residue off our front windows.
It made me happy to see Yuuki in her new bed (with old
blanket). It made me disgusted to see her corner a frog and go after the poor
thing.
It was a joyous surprise to find a bit of color in our yard
– not sure what type of plant this is.
It made me happy to see old family routines returning to our
lives.
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| Note the square alcoves above their heads |
It made me happy to see new family routines beginning…..
Bring your suits if you visit. Michael says I can’t do this
onsen style. I warned him it’s sure to happen so he’s thinking of how to get
some privacy back here. ::snort:: We need to fine tune the chemical levels - it was a "bit" strong tonight.
It made me happy to be transported back to Japan in my
memory as Arielle and I sat in the hot tub…..it made us both sad to think of
dear friends we’ve shared onsen soaks with in the past years.
You truly can be
incredibly thankful, joyful, happy and sad at the same time. It’s a familiar
feeling.
©2013 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...
