“Passion rules reason, for better or for worse.”

– Terry Goodkind

Ikagai = Helping Kids, Martial Arts, Fitness, Art, Music

VALUES REFLECTION JOURNAL:

SAT Faith Can I trust me? 🎵

SUN Unity, feeling comfortable as a family.

MON Proactivity is knowing what I want.

TUE Teamwork is finding how to work smarter in a group.

WED Connection, shareing my passion with the world and accepting others gifts.

THR Purpose know what I can do, what is most importat, where I stand.

FRI Creativity is thinking of new ways to do better.

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HEALTH JOURNAL:

Social Health: Karate/Scouts Classes = 3 School Meet Ups = 1.

It’s going really well so far finding a balance between enough fun and enough time to clean and do chores ext.

Physical Health: It’s been a while since I exercised, but as I’m building a rock wall I think it just makes sense to save energy for that… it’s possible I will do both, but if it comes down to one vs the other I think the rock wall needs to get done first so that construction materials don’t stay as a mess.

Mental Health: Writing is helping me plan more and connect the dots between what I said I wanted to do last week, what I’m doing now and what I’m planning for later. It’s soothing, doing the work of building is soothing too, it’s still a mess and my projects are a mess, but seeing some progress makes me feel like I’m going to eventually finish the things I wanted to finish.

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LIFE JOURNAL:

Saturday: Last Saturday I was worried the rock wall would take so long it would stall the project, but since it rained I went to the hot springs. This week I went to a small Farm Fest, which was mostly music, but I didn’t worry too much about the wall, I guess I’m starting to trust myself that I will finish it. I was also working on figuring out the tide to make a Science Challenge for our Adventure Scouts. Ended up making 4 info pages, a badge and a St. Michael’s Mound printout.

Sunday: Last Sunday I was able to work on the rock wall’s bottom level, later that week a friend said it was “beautiful” and it made me so inspired to keep working and do a good job… I can motivate myself to an extent, but external motivation can boost my moral as well. This Sunday I did more work on the rock wall, filling gravel/soil in the gaps, continuing the second layer on the back further along and the top layer, I like the way filling with soil makes the wall look old. I specifically studied an old wall in an ancient village in the City of Refuge and I am kind of using that style. The wall is sloped like a Japanese wall to deal with seismic shifting of our area when the nearby volcano drops its caldera. So it’s a combination 牛蒡積み Japanese rock wall and Hawaiian rock wall.

Still waiting for Chamomile, Lilly of the Valley and Irish Moss to come… So, like most springs I’ve over spent on garden stuff and now rushing to install most of what I have to make room for the new orders ext.

Monday: Last week we had a good school day and fun in the front garden, this week I started the day in a productive moon. Woke up early did laundry, it smells nice in the room from washing the blankets yesterday. Cleaning up some cheese wax mess from yesterday’s mushroom project. Was researching the golf green project, I don’t golf, but I’m the gardener in our family, so I found out the golf greens are cut to .12 inches 1/8th or less than 2 quarters high… so you wait for the grass to be 2″, then cut it down and fertilize it with nitrogen. I can’t buy a cheap mower less than 1″ high, so I got a hand trimmer that hopefully will do the job well enough for us at home… I only have a week until my dad gets back, I’m hoping to have the patio clean and the bamboo garden in the front done by then. I did some work on the wall, and leveling/weeding, I was able to move the fountain base in place and check the position.

I know I was “supposed to” stop spending but I bought about $80 of tools needed to install the $200 of stuff I already bought… and I considered it a bit.

Tuesday: Last week we did a lot of Health Class and Theme Hospital. This week I’m so excited about the garden.

Today looking at the pot in place I can imagine connecting the water flow from the rock wall into the pot it wouldn’t require too much work and I have all the plumbing/pumps already. I would need some waterfall foam that I don’t have, but at least I have the plumbing/pumps/rocks…

This project started with my husband bringing me that pot when he moved, then I wanted to put it somewhere nice, because it’s nice, then I wanted to make it a fountain, because it seemed easy, then I thought in front of the bench would be a good place to look at it, then I noticed I would have to move a rock wall to move the bamboo to place the fountain. Then I did that, I moved the wall my dad built. In the process I built a new wall, dug up all the bamboo, and started laying down weed cloth to make the area easier to weed… it’s been going well, but I have this fear of not finishing.

One thing I need to do to finish is get rocks for the pathway, another is staple down the weed cloth, another is finish laying the weed cloth. So there is a lot to do still, but having the pot there gives me some hope.

I ordered more wheat, watermelon, sunflowers, the watermelon and sunflowers I want to plant in the front between the hedges, the wheat up on the areas that are very full of sticks and not soil… I was pretty sad last year that none of the watermellon made it, but I wasn’t consistent watering and I didn’t protect enough against slugs, and I put it out as very small plants rather than bigger plants, so all those things can change, I can do beer traps, I can try cedar repellant spray, I can wait until the plants are larger to put them out, I can water more consistently… I want to start a community garden someday, but usually the people who do that are successful gardeners, not… hmm… unsuccessful gardeners… so I’ll keep working on it. I know down the line learning irrigation would help, but I have bitten off the front garden landscaping, the golf putting area landscaping and I need to repair last year’s fountain as well…

The morning glory seeds I just got are sprouted… soaked them when I got them, it feels like they came immediately after I thought about trying again.

Wednesday: Last week the beach day was kind of epic, this week was even better. We had martial arts class twice. Some students were late, it was really fun both times. We got a lot of new students but they fit in really well. I had such a good time learning Hebrew from one of the students, I have nine letters now אבגדהוזחט and about two words, fish is dg דג and father aba אבא. Hebrew is descended from phonetician letters like English, but for some reason it reminds me of Japanese and that makes it easy for me. I forgot the dance game, so it was okay, but I think I’ll make a checklist in the future. A little girl did the Science Challenge I made for our group, I was so happy she wanted to do it, a few boys tried out the math challenge, that was cool too, but I was so busy in that particular moment that I couldn’t appreciate it. I’m trying to learn everyone’s names but I’m not doing well,

Thursday: Last week had friends over who played outside with us, it was great, this week I woke up early and started translating people’s names in an effort to remember them:

I translated one family’s names to Japanese and Chinese, they are the “gift of their father”, “the strength of God”, “shine” and “sunny”. 父亲的礼物 Fùqīn de Lǐwù 神の贈り Kami no Okuri. 礼物 Lǐwù/贈り Okuri, 上帝是我的力量 Shàngdì shì wǒ de Lìliàng 神力 Shénlì 神の力 Kami no Chikara/力 Chikara, 輝 Huī/Ki, 晴天 Qíngtiān 晴れた Hareta. Another are “hermet”, “wind”, “eyes of greatness”, and “peace”. 隐士 Yǐnshì, 風/风 Fēng, 眼睛的偉大 Yănjīng de Wěidà 大眼睛 Dàyǎnjīng, 孝平 Xiàopíng. Another are “royal forest’s meadow”, “promice of God” and “God is salvation”. 皇家森林草甸 Huángjiā Sēnlín Cǎodiàn, 上帝的应许 Shàngdì de Yīngxǔ, 神是救恩 Shénshì Jiùēn. Another are “angel” and “increasing surplus”. 天使 Tiānshǐ, 增加盈余 Zēngjiā Yíngyú. Another are two “white wave” 白波 Báibō 白波 Shiro Nami. Another is “supreme God” and “atom” 至高无上的神 Zhìgāowúshàng de Shén, 原子 Yuánzǐ. My name is pig foot, my husband is red, my daughter is light and my son is peace. 猪脚 Zhūjiǎo or 桜 Sakura 櫻 Yīng, 赤 Chì, 亮 Liàng 孝平 Xiàopíng.

Thursday: We covered Lincoln and Nixon in Social Studies, also a little WW2. I died my hair, I did what seemed like extra laundry. I want to install golf holes to the yard… but it seems like my energy is suddenly flagging. That’s ironic that I’m not “flagging” (placing flags) because I am “flagging” in energy. Hopefully I pick up a bit after digesting lunch, maybe it’s just digestion that is making me so sleepy. At the beach yesterday someone commented that she hoped we could get grants, I was thinking we didn’t need grants, but then today I started doing paper work to incorporate a non-profit for our scout group, me might not get grants, but they we “could” so it might be worth it. We really don’t “need” more funding, but if we did get it then what could we do with it? Here in Hawaii the incorporation papperwork was so easy, it was just two pages, I printed it out so we could sign them Wednesday. Ok, I installed the cups after all, but later cut my finger being over confident about the safety, I still like the tool though.

I was peacefully clipping along with “Gertrude” and with my left hand I saw a weed, I tried to pick that with my left hand and my right hand didn’t not mow the area the weed and my hand were in… so, little cut. But okay overall, put pressure, iodine ext. Will be more careful next time.

The backyard over time:

Friday: Last week I got funding for the little flags and I felt hopeful, this week I have installed the flags already I bought last week. It’s not complete, but it’s a start. I’m starting to be better at landscaping.

The wood has rotted, so we eventually need to replace that, I got two colors of plastic wood material coming to see what the plastic wood will be like one is “Bungalow” one is “Brazil Wood” in our area it needs to be not wood and not metal, so plastic is the key…

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FOCUS GOAL:

Butterfly Garden Project: 1. Build Wall/Spread Bamboo 👷‍♀️ 2. Weed/Mild Leveling 👷‍♀️ 3. Secure Weed Cloth/Edging. 4. Stone for Pathway. 5. Trench Electrical. 6. Placing/Assemble Fountain 👷‍♀️ 7. Adjusting (Need to dig up pump and place plumbing)

Putting Green Project: 1. Reseed Lawn 👷‍♀️ 2. Trim and Weed 👷‍♀️ 3. Fix East Corner

Sunflower Garden: 1. Level/Weed 👷‍♀️ 2. lay weed cloth by hedges 3. Mulch a path next to that 4. Plant sunflowers and watermelon

Future: Fix the Pathways with Plastic Wood. Move Ferns. Place Green House.

OTHER GOALS
Fix the small pond – Get more organized – Live life to the fullest.

This week three things happened that went from dream to reality, putting in the golf flags and cutting the grass, building the beginning of the new fountain, and filing out the two-page form to incorporate a non-profit corporation for out little scout group. None of those things were crazy, but they were all dreamed of then executed in the same week, that makes me feel pretty powerful. I’ve found a little pride in myself, my dad is still away, I hope when he comes back I still feel that way. I’ll try to stay in the moment.

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