I squeezed and squeezed until I could squeeze no more. It was time to get up. It was after 8 but I was sure I had long been awake. I started my devotions shortly after that with a bit of anxiety, concerning my new attitude towards the book of Job. But I didn’t get too clouded by the recent information acquired. I instead purposed to continue to trust the power of the Holy Spirit. There are a lot of things on my mind to be prayed for and though I didn’t get to all of them, I was reminded to, “Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace.” Psalm 37:37 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/psa.37.37.KJV. Despite all that has been going on, I still enjoy God’s peace. Sometimes it feels a little far off when I allow the cures of the world to bombard my mind, but my expected end is always peace.
I finished my devotions a few minutes after 9:30 and I remember this because by the time I had tuned in to online church, it had already started. It was a really good service today and I found myself participating more deliberately with the word and the special time of prayer that was had for Afghanistan in particular. I hadn’t set out exactly what I’d be doing today, but I really should have spent some time to rest. In an event I made a really large and delicious smoothie this morning. After that wonderful smoothie, I spent quite a bit of time working on yesterday’s blog and recording it. Even though I had done a lot of writing on it yesterday, it still seemed to have needed a lot more. But I was happy to have been able to complete it.
I checked on the plants in the plant box after removing the plastic covering and started moving the dirt back in place where I had been trying to reduce the water content. The tomato plants were not as as before and I could also notice the lower leaves beginning to pale out. I followed through on an idea that I had had for a couple of days now with respect to the aloe plant in its own flower pot. The small shiso plant pot contain very sandy soil, which is preferred by the aloe vera plant: something with a lot more drainage. And so I scooped up the aloe plant, which to my surprise revealed that it had barely been hanging on with its three very distinct roots. No wonder I was not seeing any movement on top because the aloe vera was busy trying to establish roots below. I quickly mixed in the sandy soil with the more loam content and then replanted the aloe vera without adding any liquid to it. I examined the shiso plant top that I had cut off and noticed the tiny roots already sprouting. That gave me some hope that I might possibly be able to regrow or propagate the shiso plant. I wondered however where I put it.
Today was the first day of little to no rain and the heat was so intense that I had to turn on the aircon by mid afternoon. I purposed to drink a lot of water today or rather liquid. As a result, I was going to the bathroom more frequently. I was a bit blank for parts of the day, but then I remembered my poems and decided to finish consolidating the word document. I was taking the remaining poems from my justwordsjm.wordpress.com website, dating all the way back to early 2013. The next thing I should do, which I probably should have been doing at the same time, is to add the dates to the writings. A lot of the poems can act as stories, detailing some incident or moment that took place in my life. And so I think the chronology might come in handy. Wow. By the time I had finished, I counted at least 300 poems that I’d written over the past 10 to 15 years or so. There will definitely need to be some editing I’m sure, but now that I realise the magnitude of it, I’ll have to create phases for this project that I hadn’t planned on. Some poems brought back good memories, others, not so good. At the end of that activity, I was so tired. Well, I was kinda feeling tired since I had gotten up. Really hate feeling like that.
It was almost 16:00 and I thought I should quickly get out of the house for a bit. Before that however, I needed to solicit some help for my wearied kitchen floor. I sent a picture asking for any advice or suggestions on how to deal with the floor which had lost a lot of its wax in the spot by the kitchen. I had wanted to ask for some time, but I had to search the group first and had only gotten around to doing that today.
For the past couple of days, since working so intently and intensely on the computer, my right wrist had started to hurt again. The last time this happened was while I was doing my masters online. I had spent several minutes searching online for hand braces or wrist braces. While doing this search padded mouse pads also were suggested by Amazon and so I started looking on those as well. I threw several different types into my cart and while I was doing that, I remembered seeing similar raised mouse pads at 100 yen store. I thought this would give me the perfect opportunity to go on the road get out of the house and get some ‘fresh air’, if that was at all possible, since I had to wear a mask. Outside had gotten quite bleak again, but I had not really been watching the weather as much today.
I headed downstairs, grabbed my bike key and the bike spray. With all the rains that have been falling, I figured the bike could using some oiling. My bike is parked just a couple steps from my door toward the end section of the covered bike area. As I opened my door, I could smell tobacco. Once I got to my bike, I noticed my immediate upstairs neighbor standing in front of his apartment door and smoking. Smoking was not allowed in the apartments. This is the second time I’ve seen him standing at his door and smoking, but the first time in the daylight. He was actually much younger looking than I had previously thought. Somewhat handsome but a bit haggard looking. I could tell he was stressed out. He certainly looked much younger than me though. He certainly is one of the more recent tenants as there hadn’t been any I’d noticed before who practiced smoking in front of their apartment door. He had taken to smoking quite a bit there it seemed, as evidenced by the plastic bottle now at the quarter line mark, filled with cigarette buts. This bottle had taken up residence at the front of his door for a couple weeks now. There were also some butts lying at the front of his doorway, which was quite unsightly. When I realised who it was, I took the opportunity to apologize for my loudness yesterday morning. He seemed a bit puzzled, but finally understood as I confirmed that he was actually on the second floor and had thumped on the wall that separates us. That seemed to have jogged his memory and he said it was okay, as he continued to smoke. I tried my best not to inhale too deeply and hurriedly jumped on my bike to get out of the smoky environment. That encounter actually brought some relief as I had been thinking of writing a note of apology, attaching a snack of some sort and inserting it into his mail box slot. Thankfully, I didn’t need to do that anymore. On that note of neighbours, I noticed only a few days ago that the blue line that used to be downstairs and to the right, was gone. Not a trace of when this might have happened. This is how it happens quite often in Japan. Neighbours come and go according to seasons and jobs. This was the same neighbour who I had been thinking of giving my extra laundry pole to.
I got to the mall and climbed the steps to the 100 yen store. I found the mouse pad a few minutes later and checked for some more dehumidifiers, but couldn’t find any at all. The mouse pad wasn’t of a great quality, but it was a gap filler and almost 7 times less than what I’d seen online. I paid for it and went to the supermarket on the basement level, but nothing caught my eye, thankfully. I just wanted to look honestly and be out a little longer. There wasn’t much more to do and so I made my way back home at about 16:45. On my way back, I noticed it had gotten a little difficult for me to breathe, so I slowed down and breathed more deeply as I rode. Once home, I couldn’t quite decide how well my day was going. I had told myself I’d work on the final examiners training today, but it’s Sunday. I really have not been liking the blurring of the days at all. I immediately put my mouse pad to use as I did some research on mold and how it can affect someone constantly exposed to it. The research was saying that most mold is not harmful. I’ll have to do more research to fully grasp that understanding. and it’s it as though I know where mold might be in my apartment. Suddenly and without warning, besides the blackened sky, the rains crazily broke from the clouds at 17:00. Wow. I jumped up and went right to the window, grabbed the plastic and affixed in place, getting quite wet in the process. I quickly closed the window after that as the rain was blowing into the apartment. In less than 10 minutes the rain that fell would have flooded my plant box again, had I not sacrificed getting wet. Just look at the water that the plastic held off! Would you believe the rain basically halted after that unexpected downpour?
I figured it was time to eat even though I wasn’t really feeling as hungry as I thought I should have been. All I needed to do was to reheat yesterday’s cooking. So happy I had done that. I had no more energy for the poems and so I was led to job hunting again for about an hour after dinner. This was a very useful, though time consuming activity for me. I understood more about what was available and being expected of candidates. I also understood where my interests truly lay and what excited me. And I can say, I wasn’t seeing any of that for the jobs in Japan. It had been a long day and I can’t even begin to understand why today’s entry took me so many hours to write. Yes, you read right. It takes me hours to write the entries each day and then record them. I’ve stopped tagging them as detailed as before and I’ve also stopped sharing the entries on varying platforms. It just takes way too much time. But I will continue to take things one step at a time and allow them to develop organically as much as possible, just like this plant has been doing.
*** Thank you for journeying with me on today’s entry. Please support by leaving a comment below or sharing this with someone who might enjoy the journey. Remember to follow my blog to get posts directly in your. 21:08***