#lifereflections — Public Fediverse posts

A butterfly morning 🦋

Our little caterpillar completed her metamorphosis and became a beautiful Swallowtail butterfly!

It felt like Christmas morning, as I came down the stairs and saw her perched upside down on the tulle in the habitat box the kids had made for her.

When we found the caterpillar in our garden, the kids decided to “raise” her in a diy caterpillar habitat. Then, they named the caterpillar Cali.

Of course, we weren’t really sure if the caterpillar was male or female, but the kids decided it was definitely a girl. Lol

We waited a little bit before releasing Cali because her wings were still damp and needed time dry off.

Once we felt it was the right time, we brought the butterfly box to the front porch and slowly opened the tulle we had placed on top of the container.

Cali didn’t fly out of the box right away, though. Her wings weren’t ready just yet. So, we spent some time ohhing and ahhing over her. 🥹🦋

Two of our neighbors walked by wanting to know why we were huddled together and the kids were squealing with delight.

We showed them Cali calmly resting on Travis’ hand, and one of the neighbors said she thought the butterfly was beautiful. 😊

And then all of a sudden, the butterfly fluttered her wings and flew off of Travis’ hand and onto Zephaniah’s chest.

The kids squealed again, and Zephaniah froze. But he had the biggest smile on his face.

A few minutes later, the butterfly flew up into the air and fluttered away.

💜 XO

H-Mart grocery haul

We made a trip to H-Mart, and I unintentionally ended up with a big grocery haul. Lol! Isn’t that how it always happens?

To me, H-Mart is like the Target of grocery stores. I go in with my short list, and I somehow always come out with a cart full of way more than I had planned.

Over the past few months, I’ve become increasingly interested in Japanese and Korean home cooking, especially the simple, everyday meals families prepare. So, I decided it was time to explore a few ingredients that were completely new to me.

Travis was able to help me pick out some of the products. He was stationed in South Korea for about a year, and he said he ate out at a lot of the restaurants (which he loved!). He even took a cooking class while he was living in Korea.

This trip, I picked up seaweed snacks, sesame oil, sushi rice, Japanese mayonnaise, and a few other items that caught my attention along the way.

Travis and I were using our phones to google which seaweed brands were good for making gimbap and sushi rolls. As we were trying very hard to determine which brand to get, a lovely Korean woman, who was also shopping in the store, overheard our conversation and walked up to us offering to help.

She was so sweet. She showed us which seaweed brands she uses to make gimbap. We smiled and thanked her profusely for her kindness. That helped us so much!

One of the things I enjoy most about cooking is learning something new. I love learning how to cook many different types of foods. I may not know exactly what I’m doing yet, but that’s part of the fun!

Every new ingredient, recipe, and kitchen experiment teaches me a little more than I knew the day before.

Here are some photos from our H-Mart grocery store haul.

Now the real adventure begins: figuring out what to make first! Do you enjoy learning how to cook different types of recipes?

💜 XO

Broken sunflowers still bloom 🌻

In the springtime, Travis and I discovered volunteer sunflower sprouts growing in between the sidewalk.

I’m pretty sure the sunflower seeds were left behind in the wintertime by the birds and squirrels when I put up bird feeders.

So, we gently moved the sunflower sprouts to our garden bed.

We managed to “rescue” six of the eight sunflower sprouts we found in the sidewalk. All six of the sprouts recovered from transplant shock and grew strong and tall.

But as many gardeners know, sunflower stems can still be fragile, especially during storms or when pesky squirrels are rummaging through your garden. 😏🐿

The beautiful thing about sunflowers, though, is that they are resilient plants.

Despite nature’s challenges, sunflowers will try very hard to keep growing, even when broken. Sometimes they just need a little help.

This is something I have learned this gardening season.

I was able to save one broken sunflower plant by trimming down the stem and placing it in a vase of water.

The sunflower still bloomed, and the bees loved it!

Another sunflower plant with a broken stem (thanks squirrel! 🐿😏) Travis was able to make a stick-based cast for it.

And the other day, that sunflower bud still bloomed!

It makes me happy that even though a couple of our sunflowers experienced hardships, we were still able to give the flowers a chance to complete their life cycle. 🌻😍

Despite being broken, the sunflowers served a great purpose by attracting the bees to our garden to pollinate our food plants (like our peppers 🫑 and tomatoes 🍅).

And perhaps there’s a lesson to be learned from broken sunflowers that keep blooming anyway. 😉🌻🙏🏽

💜 XO

6-7 chicken nuggets

I don’t even remember how this whole “6-7” trend started, but it has certainly become part of our everyday life, hasn’t it? 😆

The latest addition to the trend? Six- and seven-shaped chicken nuggets. I’m not even joking. Lol!

The kids spotted them while we were grocery shopping at Aldi, and of course they immediately wanted us to buy a bag so they could try them. 🤣

And the price of the nuggets?

Why, $6.70, of course.

This reminds me of when Domino’s featured their 6-7 pizza sale last —buy a large pizza for $6.70 using their promo code “67.”

The kids were so excited when they found out about it, that they asked us to please buy them the new Domino’s 6-7 pizza for our family Pizza Friday. 🍕🤣

And so we did, and nope, the pizza wasn’t shaped like the numbers six and seven. Didn’t taste any different, either.

But the kids thought it was funny, and it made us all laugh. Totally worth it, imo! 😂

💜 XO

Drawing with the kids 👩🏽‍🎨

Today, I enjoyed a calming activity with the kids—sketching and coloring flowers. 🌸 The flower activity was part of a science lesson for the kids to draw, color, and label a flower with pollen.

I turned on a jazz playlist to help us focus on our artwork, and as we were creating our sketches, it started to rain.

Perfect timing! 🌧☺️

We discussed shapes we could see in the image of the flower.

One shape that stood out to Zaya (5) and Zephaniah (8) was the middle of the flower reminded them of a hexagon.

So, together we sketched a hexagon shape onto our sketch pads.

Surprisingly, drawing a hexagon is not as easy as I thought it would be! It took me several tries to finally get the six sides connected to form the shape. 😆

Next, we discussed the vibrant yellow color of the pollen and its purpose. We also made connections to the flowers and vegetables growing in our garden.

There was something unexpectedly joyful sitting at the kitchen table with Zaya and Zephaniah, drawing and coloring together.

Keep in mind I am not an artist 😅.

However, the children told me they thought my purple flower looked amazing, and really, that’s all the recognition I needed. 🥰

💜 XO

Somewhat clear skies

It feels good to be back outside now that the air quality is improving.

An unexpected visitor 🐣

A summer storm left our patio garden with one unexpected little visitor. 🐥

A front porch garden harvest 🫑

Enjoying a small garden harvest right from our front porch! 🫑🥬

Where I’ve Been and Why This Blog Is Back

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you’ve probably noticed something: it went quiet.

The last article was published on January 16, 2025. I didn’t plan on disappearing for over a year… but life had other ideas.

Ironically, I started this blog to entertain myself. It was supposed to be a place where I could write, share ideas, learn new things, and occasionally make people laugh.

Then work decided to become my main source of entertainment.

Between new projects, more responsibilities, frequent travel, and life generally refusing to slow down, the months passed much faster than I expected. Every week seemed to bring something new, and before I knew it, this blog had been sitting quietly on the sidelines.

But here’s the thing: I never forgot about it.

In fact, the longer I was away, the more ideas I kept collecting. I’d come across an interesting topic and think, “That would make a great article.” I’d read something fascinating and want to write about it. The list kept growing… the publishing didn’t.

Until now.

This blog is returning with a much clearer vision than when it first started.

The goal is simple: build a library of content that’s worth coming back to.

Whether you want to learn something new, improve your finances, laugh for a few minutes, read an original story, discover a poem, practice Spanish, or simply explore different perspectives on the world, I want there to be something here for you.

Over the coming months, you’ll see articles across every category, with new content published consistently. Some posts will make you think, some will teach you something practical, and hopefully, a few will make you laugh.

This isn’t just another post. It’s the start of a new chapter for the blog.

If you’re returning after all this time, thank you for sticking around.

And if you’re new here… Welcome. I hope you’ll enjoy what’s coming next.

Ночь
Я размышляю о смысле жизни, её целях и причинах, а также о том, какова цель 'я', если ты умрёшь.
Если сознание 'я' ограничено телом и вынуждено принудительно соответствовать правилам реальности, и при этом у нас есть защита от самоуничтожения, то, возможно, жизнь можно рассматривать как своеобразное заключение в тюрьме.
Мысли про сознание 'я'.

English:
"I contemplate the meaning of life, its goals and reasons, as well as the purpose of 'self' when one dies. If the 'self' is constrained by the body and compelled to conform to the rules of reality, all while having protection from self-destruction, then life can perhaps be viewed as a peculiar confinement in a prison. Thoughts on the 'self'."

#ContemplateLifeMeaning #LifeGoals #PurposeOfSelf #SelfConfinement #RealityRules #SelfProtection #LifeReflections #ExistentialThoughts #MeaningOfExistence #IdentityInDeath