Back at It

It has been a while since my last entry. I've been busy. I've had a lot on my mind. And I just didn't make time for this. Sorry to be so blunt. I am just being honest. I haven't made the time. I've had time. I suppose I just didn't want to write here. Which feels odd to say since I love writing so much. I hope to get back to being consistent again, though.

I traveled up to Indiana for half the month in June. I had a good time and I'm grateful for all that happened while I was there. That's part of the reason I didn't write. I wanted to prioritize time with family. I didn't visit with any friends like I originally wanted to. As the time for my trip approached, I decided family was going to be my focus.

All of my other writing projects have been on hold as well. I was making great progress in May. But June was sort of a break from all of that too. I did do some handwritten journaling on my Kindle Scribe. As I go through those writings and notes, some of those things may come out in this journal or in my other writing projects. So, it wasn't a complete hiatus from writing out thoughts.

We are officially half way through this calendar year. Today is dad's birthday. I'm feel Blessed to still have him. We had some good moments for just the two of us while I was up for my visit. I don't get a lot of that anymore. It's mostly time with both of my parents when he is around. I did get quite a bit of time with my mom alone, though. I had some precious moments with my son. I had half a day with my niece as we went kayaking. And I spent an evening one-on-one with my brother.

I've been with my current company for a year now. Although I've been doing this job for more than 5 years now, I transitioned to this company on July 1st last year. Things are still going well here. We are about to get news about new job titles. And we will be doing the annual employee goals and reviews this year. None of these things make any difference for what I do here, though. It is all corporate things that I guess all companies do. I've accepted that it is part of the job and just go with the flow. But it honestly makes no impact on what I do or how I feel about myself. That's a sobering thought.

A year ago, I was about to go on my first California adventure. It was a trip that has changed my life in so many ways. Part of me wanted to plan to be in California again this week. But I prioritized my trip to Indiana. And rightfully so, of course. I'm currently planning a trip to California next month, though. And again in November. My trip last November was also life changing. There's something special about those trips. I'm grateful for what God is showing me. Over the next few days, I'll be reading what I journaled last year about the trip a year ago. It's going to be so much fun planning the August trip. We are going to see a Dodgels game! We may also explore the area and make a visit to Downtown Disney. It will be a nice vacation with new memories and more life changing experiences.

We will be wrapping up the season 4 Bible study for The Chosen this week. We took a couple of breaks between May and June. Otherwise we would have already completed it. I'm working through lesson 8 this week. I had already finished lesson 7. We'll go over these final 2 lessons this weekend. The season 5 devotional came in and I'll be sending that to Cherie tomorrow. She should be receiving it next week. It has been a while since we have worked through one of those. We've been doing the Bible studies since October. The next Bible study may not be available in Kindle until next month? The episodes are available on Amazon Prime today. I think they land in the app in September? So, we can work through the devotional first and see where things are after that. Once we get through the Bible study, though, we won't have any more The Chosen things until season 6 comes out late next year and into 2027. What will God lead us to next and in the meantime? I'm excited to see what's coming next! This journey has been amazing so far. We just need to remember to take breaks as needed.

I know things may not always work out this way, but I'm glad our next video call is on the one year anniversary of the day we had our LA adventure. We also had a video call on the one year anniversary of our very first video call. I love when the timing works out like that. I have a strong connection to dates, important memories, and experiences.

I wrote a handwritten letter tonight. I haven't done that in quite some time either. I started writing by hand again last year and thought I'd start writing letters often. Yeah, that didn't happen. But when I do write a letter, it feels amazing. I wasn't able to write much by hand for years because of my tremor. Typing and writing by hand are completely different experiences. I wrote the letter on my Kindle Scribe and then printed it. But it still felt like I was putting pen to paper. Using an electronic tablet like the Scribe still felt like I was writing on paper. I've really enjoyed having the Scribe. This is the third letter I've written with it. The first was for mom on mother's day. I did that because I needed to send the letter electronically to dad. The second was for my deer pal, Bambi. I did that because of how well it went with mom's letter. Today's was then inspired by those experiences and for my deer friend, Cherie. This one is for her birthday present.

As I mentioned above, I have been writing with my Scribe for journaling and notes too. I really love that device. One of the notebooks I have on it is something I titled Scratch Pad. It's 9 pages now. I jot simple notes in it. I also have some notebooks on specific topics. And I've been keeping a log of things I do each day with timestamps. I think I'd like to do more letter writing too.

Something else I've been doing well with is reading on my Kindle Colorsoft. I've started a list of books I'd like to read. I've already read through a few. I'm currently reading The Invisible Man. I have plenty of others on my list to keep me busy for some time to come. I started reading more last year. But now that I've this Kindle, I've made it a more regular part of my routine. Something else that has been life changing lately.

At first, I had issues with the batteries for both Kindles. I did some research and think I've figured that out. They are lasting quite a bit longer now. One thing I did was turned off Bluetooth. I don't need that at all. I also found out the devices do some indexing when I load new books. So, I only load the books when I'm ready to read them. The indexing is for searchability. I don't really use the search feature. I don't think I can turn off indexing, though. I also turn on airplane mode when I'm not at home. I can go much longer between charges now.

This year has been...interesting. A lot of unexpected things have come both personally and in the world in general. There is a lot to pray about. Some very bad things have been going on in the world. There are also some good things going on. Personally, most of what is going on in my own life has been very good. Regardless, God is good. And that's what matters to me. I keep trusting Him. I keep following Him. I'm learning to find God in every moment. Everything will be okay. I need to trust Him with everything. I may fail at this sometimes. But He will never fail. Thank You, Lord...for everything ❤️