Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - August 20, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Happy 22^nd Birthday, Geraldine Sheldon!

Happy 1^st Birthday, Abigail Rice!

We got in on a very short vid-chat with Abigail and her parents this morning at breakfast, but she was in high demand; so we had to share her with the rest of her family and friends from a distance; and left it up to her parents to make sure her day was special.  We did not see Geraldine, but while we’re thinking about her; let’s mention that her wedding to Scott Faulkner is coming up in September once the summer season is finished for the store and pub; so they are also busy getting ready for that big day along with everything else they have on the go while starting their new life together!  Since we don’t keep up with every collegian story, let’s also take this opportunity to mention that Scott graduated with his Master’s degree in electrical engineering and is starting his own business geared toward custom solutions for farms and rural communities to improve and modernize electrical systems.  Geraldine earned her Bachelor’s degree in English Lit and Journalism, and while she helps out at the pub and at Abby’s store now and then too; she wants to be an author and is focused on that.  She’s going to continue her education too, but decided to take extra time and do her Master’s degree program from home instead of spending a year away from Scott at Florida State.

As for our news of the day-so-far, it has mostly been a repeat from the first few days of the week.  We did our workouts with football or cheer squad hopefuls; Ethan and I spent the rest of the day until now playing with our books or beakers at the lab or archives; and now we’re getting ready to host our four best friends for the rest of the day from dinner through a co-ed sleepover.  They are staying with us ahead of our back-to-school shopping trip, and while we’re excited about that – or at least the girls are; that is also going to be a faster trip than normal because Naomi, Sophia, and I have a ball game tomorrow night that we need to be there for to hopefully help with the win to ensure our spot in the championship game on the holiday weekend.  Ethan and I need to go and help Mom with the cooking for that dinner; so let’s wrap this up with the world news report.

The wars news includes more attacks on both sides for Russia and Ukraine with far-more devastation happening to Ukraine now that they basically have no air defenses left.  In the Middle East, Israel added new attacks on Syrian targets because they aren’t happy-enough with the genocide in Gaza, the horrors they’re inflicting on the West Bank, or the attempts to burn southern Lebanon to the ground.  They aren’t done with Iran either – they’re just leaving that fight to the Americans for now!  That, by the way, would likely change if President Trump doesn’t ‘finish the job’ for Israel; and they really don’t care how many people they kill to achieve their ultimate goal of a Greater Israel.

Related to both wars, the growing food crises around the world are gaining more attention, and while we wrote about lost crops in Europe being blamed solely on the heat wave; the Russian port blockades on Ukraine are risking the loss of their most-exported crops; stories are making the rounds that Turkey is retaliating on behalf of Ukraine and blockading Russian ships from leaving the Black Sea with oil or grain; and if that continues; there will be many parts of the world running out of food by later this fall and definitely into the winter.  That is another disaster waiting to happen!

There are some new stress signs for the economy and the financial markets in general, but our top story there is about our national debt passing the forty-trillion dollar milestone.  That number is so insane than most people don’t even try to think about what that should mean for our country, and while our politicians play games with the numbers; it is all a house of cards that inevitably will fall.  That reality can take longer than anyone can imagine, though, so there is no point in making predictions.  We also really do not want to experience any of the scenarios that go along with those crashes; since major wars are often the result when a massive amount of perceived wealth evaporates.

Finally, for today, let’s talk about the A.I. compute boom.  After the big announcement for the NVDIA half-trillion dollar financing deal for building more of the massive data centers, stories are popping up about how much of a bust this bubble could become.  In a nutshell, the actual A.I. companies like Anthropic lose tens of billions of dollars every year; they get all of the funding from companies like NVDIA that they turn around and spend on infrastructure that they buy from those same companies; and their products may never produce enough value to ever earn the revenues needed to keep that circle of life afloat.  Add in the fact that around half of the major corporate cloud storage services are purchased by those same A.I. companies and that those cloud companies also invest heavily to keep those revenues and profits coming in; and we can definitely foresee another tech crash in our collective future.  We could spend some quality time writing about what A.I. actually can and can’t do too, but as with any computer program; the data that comes out of those programs can only be as-good as what the humans creating it could imagine and actually make work!  We wouldn’t dream of trying to scare any future readers, but for all of the A.I. enthusiasts, before you get too invested in the concept of computers that think like humans; imagine that future computer thinking exactly like President Trump or other ‘favorite’ political or powerful world leaders and then envision what that kind of computer would do if handed the ability to control everything!

On that scary note; that’s all we have for today.  Stay tuned, since our fun level is going to go up from here and through the weekend – starting with a fun evening with Mom and our best friends!

Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - August 19, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

The rest of our Tuesday was great from the Pizzeria pizza picnic dinner and ball practices at the park through the evening with Cassie and Michael with our four best friends that included ‘live’ music, a movie, and lots of chat time to our co-ed sleepovers that we got around to sometime after Cassie and Michael headed for their bed.  Tai Chi by the river and breakfast were great too; and then we – the teens – were either off to the park for football or cheer squad workouts with our friends and past or future team mates.  We had fun with that too, and then Ethan and I went to play-work at the lab or archives; we kept our personal fun going there for most of the afternoon; and then we went home in time to help Mom with making dinner and then enjoying that meal and visit with her where we learned very little about her trip to Crystal Springs that we’ll pretend was completely boring compared to our night at Cassie and Michael’s house!  We met up with our best friends again at the church for the teen praise team practice to get ready for the holiday weekend church service; kept busy and had fun with that music play time for nearly two hours; and then we came home alone again with just a side trip to take Silkie for a walk and see Naomi and Aiden to their homes.  We took a night off from sleepovers because we need to re-charge a bit to get ready for a busy rest of the week; so we also didn’t do more than a bit of work and a Magi lesson with Mom in the office; followed that up with bath or Jacuzzi time; and now we’re winding down fast toward nap time.

As for the rest of the world, they can only wish to be as blessed as we are here!  Along with the daily war stories, the heat wave in Europe is now being blamed for plunging crop yields across the region, and there is certainly some truth to that, but there is also no way that the leaders and media there will ever admit that policies have contributed to the problems that also include soaring energy costs; lack of fertilizers due to sanctions on Russia and the war in the Middle East; and the political battle that has been waged against farmers for decades now!  Add in depleted ground water systems now; and winter could be looking grim for more parts of Europe than Ukraine.  Incoming waves of new migrants will only exacerbate the growing list of challenges to daily life across the region.

On the war fronts, tensions are rising in the Middle East and Ukraine while ‘western’ politicians appear happy to watch it all burn to the ground.  The United Arab Emirates have declared a halt to economic ties with Iran over missile strikes against maritime targets – probably meaning ships, but details are minimal, so if there actually was an attack from Iran; we have to wonder how important those targets were; since those leaders won’t even confirm whether those attacks happened in their territory or in international waters in the Persian Gulf.  Let’s also not count out the possibilities of fake news or false flag attacks; since those options are there too – and our country and our allies are historically-famous for doing those kinds of things!

In Ukraine – or more specifically for this story, in the United Kingdom, they have been sent an official warning from Russia about helping Ukraine’s attacks on Russia with British-made and controlled drones stating that continued use of those drones will have direct consequences for the United Kingdom.  No specifics were included, but Russia does have many options for direct or asymmetric retaliation; and we expect western leaders will ignore the warnings just as they always do until it is too-late to change course.  It is crystal clear that Russia is fed up with what we all know is direct warfare against them when it comes to which countries actually control the drone and missile attacks from Ukraine; and we should all hope that Russia doesn’t completely take the gloves off and go after those countries directly.

We could say the same for that about Iran, and while ‘our’ side is playing political games with economics and blockades, those are still acts of war; and Iran could decide to resume the hot war and go back to bombing targets across the Middle East.  Western leaders are counting on them not doing that because contrary to their never-ending rhetoric; Iran has not attacked first in the past, but responded to aggressions against them.  If that changes; then we won’t even try to guess at what might happen next on the escalation ladder.

We’re going to stop there for the bad news; get happier again; and head off to dreamland.  That will be a much-happier place to go – especially since we can’t change the big picture for what is coming in the coming months that will continue to be terrible for the people most-affected around the world.  As always, we’ll keep up with all of that news along with covering our own amazing teen adventures here at home, so stay tuned; and we’ll get charged up overnight and ready for more fun by morning.

Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - August 18, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Happy 30^th Birthday, Alicia Warren!

Happy 6^th Birthday, Andy Carter!

We actually don’t have a lot of personal news for our day-so-far, but we have had fun; so let’s cover the stories we do have; offer a quick world news report; and then we need to get over to Cassie and Michael’s house to drop off overnight bags and meet up with our friends ahead of our ball practices and Pizzeria pizza picnic dinner at the park.

Mom is in Crystal Springs overnight; headed there around the same time that we transitioned from football and cheer squad workouts to our lab or archives play-work day with our beakers or books; and then we had fun with that work through until now – including having our bag lunches there instead of taking breaks for those meals that we didn’t even get together to do.  Yes, we are very careful, so no, Ethan did not accidentally get any liquids or sauces on priceless books or scrolls; and I did not accidentally invent anything weird or miraculous by combining elements of my lunch with my experiments.  That would make a great story, but I am sure that mayo will not be the secret ingredient for my cancer cures!

That does pretty much bring us up to now.  Our plans for the rest of the day include the ball practices and picnic dinner; Cassie and Michael are helping as guest coaches for our teams; and then they are hosting their six favorite teens for the night – along with a small gang of next-gen kids for some babysitting while those kids’ parents go to the pub for Alicia’s birthday dinner.  They will be keeping some of those kids overnight too; so we will be busy and expect to have a lot of fun too.  We’ll save those stories for our next update and need to get going now; so here’s a micro world news report.

The Middle East and Ukraine wars rolled on today with no significant changes – at least so far and that can change at any moment and has too-often to expect anything different.  Israeli leaders are becoming more insane-sounding, and some of the uglier assertions from them as a group include one official calling for assassinating thirty to forty Palestinians in Gaza per night because they’re all animals and deserve to die and another leader suggested that all Palestinian children aged fourteen-to-sixteen should be killed before they’re old-enough to become new threats.  Anyone reading or hearing those ideas should understand how horrific and insane they are, and if they don’t; then we recommend immediate mental and moral health checks!

This is hardly ending up as a micro-update, but we want to mention that President Trump is still ranting on about making the Strait of Hormuz an American territory; and we continue to assert that he has no idea what he’s talking about for how bad things would need to get in the region to even try to make that happen while the odds of total failure would be very high.  Since we were in Canada so recently, take that idea and switch it to the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes; and then imagine China or Russia declaring that passage as ‘their’ territory!  That is basically what our President is suggesting; and most of the rest of the world understands how insane the idea is.  For the record, while our leaders keep droning on about the need to protect shipping in the Persian Gulf from the evil Iranians; we’ll remind everyone that there were no problems there at all before we helped Israel with that sneak attack on Iran at the end of February while pretending to be negotiating with them for a peace deal.  This crisis was created by our leaders and military; and should never have happened.

We are out of time and need to go, but since I’m ranting anyway; ditto all of that with the different factors applied for the Ukraine war.  Russian leaders and people are angry and ready to escalate to end the war on their terms; they don’t trust any of the western leaders; and they are fully-prepared to enforce their goals on the ground while demanding provable compliance from Ukraine and their backers for whatever deal they eventually force on whatever ends up being left of Ukraine whenever the war does eventually end.

Okay, I’m done with the rant and need to get happy again before we get to the best fun of our day now; so we are out of here and off to those adventures with some of our favorite people!

Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - August 17, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Happy 26^th Birthday, Roger Jennings!

Cassie and Michael are involved in their high school friend’s birthday fun tonight, but we were and are out of the loop; and didn’t even get recruited for any babysitting!

We did get up early to see Dad and Anna Marie on their way to Crystal Springs; and then our top news for today is that we started football and cheer squad workouts to get ready for the team and squad tryouts that start next Monday.  Some of the guys have been training without Ethan and Aiden before now, but their workout today was more-serious; and Aaron quietly led the guys because he has the most experience.  All of our guy classmates interested in playing football this season joined in along with a handful of the Grade Nine boys, but there were only a few of the older teens working out this morning – mostly because those guys have summer jobs.  That wasn’t really any different for Naomi’s cheer squad workouts – though we did have a good turnout of Grade Nine girls.

We had fun with that, but then Ethan and I picked up lunches to go and headed for the lab or archives – partly because Naomi and Aiden were busy too as we all want to earn a bit of extra money ahead of our back-to-school shopping trip on Friday!  Okay, that isn’t really a major challenge for us, but let’s go with the joke that we’re using in public to explain working through an awesome weather afternoon!  We had fun with our books or beakers; came home to have dinner with Mom; and then we did not make any sleepover plans and opted for a work evening.  Mom also did a Magi lesson with us; we wrapped up early for bath or Jacuzzi time; and now we’re winding down fast toward nap time.  We promised a world news and wars update, so let’s do that; and then we’ll go and catch up on our sleep for the rest of the night.

We really wish that there was good news to report from the Middle East or Ukraine, but while the war with Iran is still going on with the blockade and economic terrorism instead of with missiles and drones; the situation remains harsh and dangerous for the people in the region.  The Israelis continue to bomb and kill in Gaze, the West Bank, and Lebanon – gaining new haters with every horrid act; and actual fighting between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis continues as both straits either are or aren’t closed depending on the political leader you ask while they all ignore the actual data for ship movements in the region.

In Ukraine, the destruction there every day is becoming more-obvious; the Ukrainian attacks into Russia are only serving to anger and escalate the war with only pinprick damage and a lot of civilian deaths and injuries due to the attacks mostly being on civilian ‘soft’ targets.  Russia is really focusing on destroying Ukraine’s transportation and energy infrastructure along with all manufacturing now, and at some point, Ukrainian people are not going to have the manpower or resources to keep repairing everything that is being destroyed.  Russia continues to create cauldrons all along the front lines; that ends badly every time for the Ukrainian troops, and while we wrote about the issues for our naval forces with too-long deployments; those issues are mild compared to what is happening to the Ukrainian troops getting caught on the frontlines and being ordered to fight to the death just to keep the war going with no hope of doing more than delaying the inevitable at ever-higher costs to their own country and people.

Related to the war, another wave of migrants has arrived in Morocco and they are attempting to invade the Spanish enclaves again; so that crisis continues and is causing new problems in Europe as that story shines a light on all of the existing problems in most of the European countries as they deal with the ongoing mass migration from all of the war torn and destitute countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.  That is sure to get worse in the coming months; and winter in Europe could be very challenging with the combination of the migration crises crashing into the energy crises.

Finally, going back to the Iran war, President Trump ‘offered’ Iran the opportunity to surrender today, and we have to wonder if he is living in the same world with the rest of us; since that is not going to happen – possibly not even if he went completely insane and used nukes on them.  Iranian leaders are now just ignoring our leaders and don’t trust them enough to even bother talking.  They are trying to work things out with their neighbors, though, and it remains to be seen whether that can happen or whether those leaders are strong enough to make those deals and honor them even if that means going against the will of our leaders.

We’re going to stop there because we want to get some sleep while we can.  Stay tuned, since time will feel as though it is speeding up over the rest of our summer and we blast our way toward the holiday weekend.  We definitely want to be ready for all of that fun; so we are out of here and off to dreamland right now.

Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - August 16, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

I’ll start with the baseball report tonight, and the good news is that Ethan, Aiden, and Aaron won their game; and will be in the championship game on the holiday weekend!  Their team mates stopped razzing them over the losses while we were away; and they’re all happy now.  Zack’s team mates can’t say the same, since their team lost yesterday afternoon and they won’t be in the championship game.  Zack is definitely not upset about that, and while Caleb and Sebastian are disappointed; they’ll be okay – and they really did play their best even if Zack and Eli opted to entertain over playing to win.

As for Ethan and me, we had fun with our respective co-ed sleepovers – including the dinners with the Seagers or Drapers and the evening entertainment that included Ethan’s ball game for all of us; movies and-or music play time after we got to our respective homes for the rest of the night; and we won’t write about the make-out time that definitely happened at both homes after parents and siblings and visiting friends went to bed or at least left the teen couples in the houses alone ahead of our respective co-ed sleepovers.  We also aren’t going to write about our parents’ kid-free night or anything Cassie and Michael might have been doing after Chloe and Vic’s wedding and reception!  We can report that the wedding was beautiful; Chloe and Vic are very happy; and we are glad that they are joining the club for college couples that are finding the kind of love that Cassie and Michael have shown them is possible – even outside of our alternate universe! ;^)

Moving along, Naomi and Ethan decided to meet up with us for Tai Chi by the river this morning; we split up again for breakfast; and then the church service and Sunday school were extra-special for our first time there since the Sunday before we headed to Canada.  We also helped out with some prep work for the teen-led holiday weekend service; and a couple of teen praise team practices have been set up to get ready for that service.  We knew that was coming, but it is also one more thing on our already-full schedule for the rest of the month.

After church, Ethan and I went home with Mom and Dad; we had lunch with just the four of us; and then we had a lazy family-and-friends’ afternoon with play time that included a mix of back yard, park, and river play time.  Dad dealt with some office work too, but he took breaks too; and we all had fun.  Cassie and Michael got home with time to spare before the late buffet, so we joined in on the welcome home visit at their house; we let Mom, Dad, and others spend most of that time trading stories while we mostly listened in and enjoyed the entertainment; and then we met up with a lot of family and friends for that buffet dinner at the Inn.  Since we were on that trip with Cassie and Michael; we shared them with other family and friends and helped out with next-gen kid control instead of sitting with them too; we had fun with the kids and enjoyed the great food as always; and then we went home with Mom and Dad again while Cassie and Michael ended up spending the rest of the evening with his family.

Since then, we’ve done a bit of office work and a Magi lesson; bath or Jacuzzi time followed; and now we’re looking to get some sleep before we’ll be up early to see Dad and Anna Marie on their way to Crystal Springs.  That’s also it for our own news; so let’s cover the world news and then we’ll go and get started on that nap time.

Instead of another bad news round of war stories; let’s review some war-adjacent reports that we’ve touched on now and then, but are getting more attention in some alternate media circles.  First up, more stories are getting out there about conditions on American navy ships and the problems that are growing ranging from bad food to basic systems breaking down after setting new deployment records without any port calls for resupply and shore leaves for the crews.  That problem is compounded by the problems in the Persian Gulf that keeps our ships away from our ports in the region; and we’ll add that the current plan to switch out aircraft carrier groups now will still take a couple of months to complete and only resets the clock while the core problems remain for the crews as they are kept away from their families and friends for too long without any breaks.

The other story we’ll cover tonight is about the plans to build up weapons production in western countries including ours in the context of rare earth metals.  While President Trump and others continue to hit China with new tariffs and trade restrictions, China has control of those rare earth metals and minerals needed for those high-tech weapons, so if they shut down those exports – or even just make them very expensive to ‘enemy’ countries; those plans to increase weapons manufacturing will not happen or become too-expensive when most of those plans are built on debt financing.  On that same topic, drone warfare for ‘our’ side will get challenging too if the number one producer of drones and drone components shuts down that trade to their enemies too.  Yes, we could eventually deal with those problems, but that would take years to fix – and we’re talking about a problem that was self-inflicted from decades of bad foreign and trade policies.

For the historic record, the main reason that China has rare earths control is because ‘our’ leaders exported that work to cheaper-labor-costs China for various reasons including the environmental costs of dealing with the refining processes.  China has mastered those processes and solved many of the environmental problems along the way; so the issues now aren’t only about the mining but also the tech and capacity to do the work.  Our point for this line of commentary is that our leaders are idiots at best and insane or evil at worst; since all of the current war-mongering is far more-likely to destroy our ‘western’ countries before we destroy countries with histories that span Millennia!

We’ll stop there and get back to the war stories tomorrow.  Morning will come extra-early if we want to see Dad before he leaves for the city; so we’re going to get some sleep while we can.

Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!