Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - February 13, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

It’s Friday the 13^th – and that could be scary for some teens and tweens tonight at the school dance! ;^)

We didn’t actually think about that at all so far today – we’ve been busy all day to now; and we’re only home for a quick break before we need to get to the school to set up our band gear for that dance.  The overnight lows are still around freezing, so Tai Chi has remained indoors, but we’ve had another warm afternoon with the high topping sixty.  That worked for us when it came time to hauling gear over to the church for the seniors’ Valentine’s Day luncheon and party; that was our fun highlight of the day-so-far; and we just finished hauling the school band gear back to the music room before being set free from school for the weekend.  That’s also pretty much all we have for our day-so-far – though we should add that the music entertainment we offered to some of our favorite grandparents included ‘unplugged’ Naomi and the Holiday Harmonies ballads that were all classics that we chose especially for our audience.  For the record and just for fun, there were definitely no Bad Bunny songs!

Moving along, we really do need to get going soon, and Ethan and I are going to host a co-ed sofa sleepover with our four best friends after the dance; so we’ll be sharing the rest of our stories tomorrow – or maybe on Sunday night; since we do have a babysitting gig booked for Valentine’s Day!  Cassie and Michael are technically already into their Valentine’s Day, but if they aren’t currently still sleeping; we do not need or want the details for why not!  We are not doing any world news reporting today – mostly because we haven’t taken the time for a search for all of the latest news anyway.  Maybe we’ll skip that and just stick with the love and happiness plans for the entire weekend!

It is time to go now; so that’s all for today – and we’ll hope that there won’t be any scary moments for the rest of our Friday the 13^th!  I am not worried about Ethan having drama issues with Naomi, but we don’t need to let facts get in the way of those potential jokes; so feel free to entertain yourselves with that idea while we move on and live those stories we’ll be writing about over the next couple of days.

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

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - February 12, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

We’re in the mood for love – even though we didn’t win any game night titles for the family tonight.  Okay, we could have won the special Valentine-themed games, but we played nice; and didn’t show off our special skills that would have allowed us to win every game – especially the games related to how well each contestant knows their gaming partner!  The games and holiday-themed treats were the entertainment highlights of our day, but we also had fun at school, and then while the weather was awesome again today; Ethan and I opted to skip the outdoor play time with our friends and worked at the lab or archives instead because we won’t be doing that again until sometime after Valentine’s Day.  That’s why Mom wouldn’t let us work in the office tonight and we didn’t even do a Magi lesson.  She wants us to get back to full power by morning – and not just because she also wants us rested and ready for the Valentine’s Day babysitting we’re booked for on Saturday!

While we’re winding down toward that nap time, Cassie and Michael are keeping busy in Chiang Mai as they get further into the work schedule for their Friday.  They are staying in the city all day, but while they’ll be taking time off for sightseeing and Valentine’s Day fun on the weekend; they’ll also be doing some site visits to projects in the area but outside of the city.

Finally, for this update, we’ll offer a world news update for the actual stories that matter.  The Middle East war drums continue to beat and our President is moving another aircraft carrier group to the region; the peace talks continue to be more fiction that reality; and the risks of an expanding war remain high.  The Ukraine peace talks aren’t going anywhere either, but the Ukrainian people continue to suffer horrid winter conditions with limited or no heat and electricity; and their leaders continue to make that worse for them every day – especially when they trade headline-grabbing assassination attempts on Russian leaders for mass bombing retaliations that continue to destroy the country.  We are not really following the Winter Olympics, but there have been some protests and political incidents that are not fostering peace and harmony!  That’s true for the rest of Europe, where warmongers continue to rule and live in ongoing delusions of reviving the good old colonial days when Europe ruled the world!  There isn’t any point in detailing even some examples of the bottomless levels of hubris and narcissism; and we can only continue to hope that our world leaders don’t end up destroying the world with their fights over resources and power.

Let’s stop there.  We’ve had a good day and the next few days are sure to be amazing; so we’ll crash and nap now and make sure that we’re ready for all of the adventures we’ll be writing about over the weekend!

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

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - February 11, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

We’ve had another long, busy day – in-part thanks to the time phased work we did at the lab or archives tonight after dinner.  While the weather is still nicer, Tai Chi remained indoors this morning; we had a standard school day breakfast; and then our academic adventures were fun but not newsworthy.  Our four best friends came home with us after school, and we had another practice for Naomi and the Holiday Harmonies to get ready for Friday.  We had fun with that; Mom did another group Magi lesson with us; and then our friends went home before we had dinner with Mom and Dad and then headed to the lab for our beakers or books play-work time.  I’ll take the blame for staying a bit later than we should have, but we still managed to get home by around eleven o’clock; and now we’re taking care of the usual twin chat and computing wrap-up for our day.

Cassie and Michael have been having a more-exciting day – their Thursday-so-far; and that started with an early flight from Bangkok to Chiang Mai; the second-largest city in Thailand.  It is a bit cooler there for them, but that is relative; since highs around ninety are still awesome!  They’ll be working in the area through to Sunday; and then do one more move to southern Thailand for the last few days in the country before moving on again next week.

There were some news stories that got our attention tonight from awful to weird, and while none of them were major in the grand scheme of the most-serious world events; we’re going to mention them here just for a change in our usual reporting of world news.  First up and most serious was a mass shooting at a high school in a small, rural town called Tumbler Ridge in British Columbia, Canada.  That story hits home in our even-smaller town; since we can’t imagine what will be like for the community.  Including the suspected shooter, ten people died and at least twenty-five were injured in the shooting and apparent suicide.  Not many details have been released yet, and we don’t want to speculate on the story either.  We only want to note that this is yet another story pointing to growing stresses around the world and the unpredictability of consequences for the various stresses on the people of the world at all levels.

In national, economic news, we don’t usually bother with reporting on the monthly jobs report, but this one for January was a good one to use as an example of the games played by our government agencies.  In this report, the January jobs news looked awesome – as long as you only looked at the headline number for jobs ‘created’ and didn’t notice the unadjusted numbers or all of the prior month and year revisions!  That positive number really was meaningless when that was not just all seasonal adjustments that turned a negative of over two million jobs into a plus-one-hundred-and-thirty thousand!  We don’t want to go on about this, but the past-years revisions wiped out all of the supposedly-good numbers that were hyped most months; so there is no reason to believe that this number will be changed in the future when nobody will remember or care.  Our point here, though, is that this is a report that nobody should trust or base any plans or decisions on – and that’s true for a lot of the government data that is supposedly used to guide our collective paths into the future!

Finally, the FAA ordered the closing of the airspace over El Paso, Texas early this morning; it was supposed to be for ten days with no real explanation for why; and then the order was rescinded a few hours later with some lame excuses about drug cartel drones and counter-drone measures taken by the military.  That is the sort of fear-mongering and stupidity that breeds conspiracy theories, and while we won’t join in on that kind of ‘fun’ too; we also don’t believe that El Paso was in imminent danger from drug cartel drones crossing the border from Mexico!  Maybe if the government started getting bills for the true economic costs for every dumb decision; they’d stop doing stupid things!

With that dark little bit of sarcasm-fueled laughter, we’re going to wrap this up; and not get into a rant about the serious world news about the wars or other crises and head off to sleep starting right now.

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

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - February 10, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

This has been a school and music play day for us, and while it has cooled down a bit too; a mid-fifties high and sunny skies is still really great for our area in February!  We didn’t get to enjoy as much of the warmth while busy indoors, but we had fun at school with a bit of outdoor time this afternoon; and then the music was awesome as the school band practice was all about getting ready for the seniors’ Valentine’s luncheon on Friday; we followed that up with dinner and a Naomi and the Holiday Harmonies practice at home with our four best friends to get ready for both that luncheon and the school dance on Friday night; and then we had the teen praise team practice in the evening at church that included one song we’re going to do at the service on Sunday and the ongoing prep work for the Easter weekend.

Ethan and I were on our own when we came home from the church and we didn’t take Silkie for a walk because Mom and Dad took her for a longer walk after dinner and while we were busy at the church.  Mom had also done a group Magi lesson earlier and didn’t want us to work in the office tonight; so bath or Jacuzzi time followed and now we’re winding down toward nap time now.

Cassie and Michael are currently already busy with their Wednesday work adventures, and while they are still staying in Bangkok; they are traveling in the area for site visits today and continuing to enjoy the awesome, hot, and mostly-sunny weather.  They have a move coming up soon, but we’ll save that story for when it happens – and they will be in Thailand for about another week in total; since there is a lot that they wanted to get done there during this trip.

As for the world news front, there is no actual good news to offer despite the never-ending claims of peace talks and negotiations.  Ukraine and the Middle East are still being decimated; Venezuela and Cuba and other countries are being destroyed economically through everything from sanction and tariffs to naval blockades; and politicians and mainstream media continue to focus on distraction stories with no care for the harm they are ignoring or outright causing through their actual policies and actions.  We are not suggesting that some of those stories aren’t serious and important too, and we wish that nothing bad ever happened, but nothing truly gets done to stop those ‘smaller’ horrors either; and the bad people get away with their crimes if they have enough power with only a very few exceptions when the occasional bad guy is sacrificed for the greater bad!

Okay, that’s an ugly wrap up for this update, but then so is the news of the day.  Ethan and I will try to be happier by the time we head to dreamland, and we have had a good day; so there is at least one ray of love and hope in the world – two if you include where Cassie and Michael are right now!

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

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - February 9, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Cassie and Michael are getting their work done every day, but claim to be regularly-distracted thanks to the beautiful weather and amazing scenery in Thailand.  Michael might be most-distracted by Cassie in hot-weather clothing, but they are having fun; and we are happy for them while jealous too.

It really isn’t fair for us to feel that way today because we’ve had a sunny day here too with a high that hit seventy!  That’s awesome for our area in February – which is why we went out to enjoy the weather for extra breaks at school and we went biking with our friends and cousins after school too.  We loved doing that and it was the entertainment highlight of our day, but Ethan and I also wanted to play with our books or beakers; so we went to the lab or archives after dinner for the evening.  Some time phasing allowed us to get more work done tonight, but added to the length of our day; so we’re also tired now and ready to get some sleep.

Let’s just wrap this up and do that.  The world news can wait for a day, since it is history right now and long before future Magi will read this; and those future readers might still be recovering from my football play-by-play from last night!  Okay, that might just be me, since I really am tired and getting a bit silly; so that’s all for tonight!

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