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!

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - February 8, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Happy 25^th Birthday, Cassie!

Cassie’s birthday is over as we’re writing this and she has moved on to the work schedule with Michael in and around Bangkok.  We had a birthday vid-chat with them – a multi-way link while Ethan was at home with Naomi and our parents; I was with Aiden and his family; and we connected with Grandma, Grandpa, and the Carringtons too.  It was already evening by then in Thailand, so we got to hear all about their birthday sightseeing and diving adventures; and we are definitely jealous!

Here at home, Ethan and I had fun with our respective co-ed sleepovers and play evening adventures; stayed up too late; and Ethan does not want me to write about why he and Naomi had more fun than Aiden and I did!  We didn’t get together for Tai Chi either, but then we did that indoors anyway.  We enjoyed our respective breakfasts along with the joint vid-chat; and then church and Sunday school were great too.  Mom and Dad have been hosting a Super Bowl party, and we helped out with some of that work, but then we also spent more time keeping the kids and teens in the house entertained.  The lounge was video gaming central; the sunroom was for chick flicks, and while they waited for the football game to start; the living room ended up being for watching Winter Olympics highlights from Italy.  Ethan and I keep up with those stories, but don’t really watch the Olympics coverage because we’re too busy to do that day and night for the live feeds.

We’ve had a really good day; and I’m not just writing that because most of the girls in our town are happy that football season is finished until August if we don’t count the spring draft!  That brings us to the top sporting news report of the day; so we’ll do that even though I really don’t care about which teams win these championships – especially when all of the money that goes into these events could be used for much-better purposes!  We’ve previously mentioned in our journals that the Patriots and Seahawks were the conference champions; so their respective fans were happiest as the game started – if only one set of fans were still happy by the end!  Defensive fans might have loved the first-half of the game, but the Seahawks’ three field goals hardly inspired excitement – even among the game-watchers in our house!  Hope stayed alive into the second-half despite a halftime show that Ethan and I ignored.  The low score to that point brought out the inevitable commentary about a record-breaking low score for a Super Bowl, but that was a bit premature – even if that was another championship game that the Patriots played in.  For the arithmetically-challenged among our cousins, no, the Patriots could not have come back from nine-to-zero; win the game; and set another low-score record! ;^)

While we waited to find out who would win the game, Naomi and I convinced our boyfriends that co-ed cuddling in the sunroom watching a movie would be more-fun than either football or video gaming; we had fun with that; and still kept up with the game progress – if only from the rise and fall of the guy talk volume that allowed us to overhear every success and failure.  The defenses continued to win most of the time through the third quarter with only one more field goal for the Seahawks.  There were still four points to go to the low score record, but we expected it to be more-likely that there would either be a fourth-quarter comeback for the Patriots or that there would be a comeback attempt that came up just short!  The answer to that question took a while, since fifteen-minute quarters drag on endlessly, but the winner for our collective guesses was that the record was safe by less than two minutes into the last quarter thanks to a Seahawks touchdown; and then the Patriots began their comeback attempt with a touchdown a couple of minutes later for more points in three minutes than in the first forty-five!  This is starting to sound more like a play-by-play, but I should report that the spectators in our living room did get more excited after those touchdowns – even after the Patriots gave up an interception that the Seahawks turned into a field goal while managing to run time off the clock too.  The comeback threat still had five and a half minutes of life left in the quarter; so the Patriots’ fans had not yet lost hope!  Okay, they did lose hope about a minute later thanks to a sack and fumble recovery for a Seahawks touchdown to take the score to twenty-nine to seven with around four and a half minutes left, but all of the drama couldn’t have been set up better by a play writer for a Broadway production!  The game outcome didn’t appear to be in doubt then, but the Patriots still came back with a second touchdown – though they didn’t get the extra points attempt.  This really is dragging out, but maybe I’m channeling Ethan for this drawn-out game wrap-up!  As if the game hadn’t been long-enough already, the final two minutes dragged on – or maybe that was just me and all of the girls in the house feeling that way!  Maybe our future journal readers can relate by now; so I’ll report that while the Patriots had the last offensive possession of the game; they didn’t score more points and the Seahawks are the Super Bowl champions this year!  Yeah – now we can all call it a day and go to bed!

Okay, our guests needed to go home first and then we had to deal with the clean-up, but now we’re winding down fast toward nap time.  The world news report does not include winners as far as we’re concerned – only losers.  That’s especially-true for most of our world leaders; since both words and actions show how little they care for the people they are supposed to represent and protect.  Sanctions on Russia and Iran were top news stories over the past couple of days; there continues to be no serious progress for any peace talks; and even the bits of supposed good news eventually prove to be nothingburgers – though we will concede that the prisoners that Ukraine and Russia exchanged are likely all happy with being set free.  Actually, that might not be true for the Ukrainian prisoners; since life is fairly-awful for all but the elites there; and that’s assuming they don’t just get sent back to the front lines or face worse for being captured or surrendering.  The situation for Ukraine gets worse every day while their leaders refuse serious negotiations that should basically be a surrender to Russia; and the Middle East continues to be a mess with never-ending horrors for the Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese, Houthis, and Iranians.  We could say the same for Venezuela, Cuba, and other countries being targeted by our President; and we are continually sick of all of the tragedies that are happening at the hands of our elite and military forces.

Let’s stop there.  We need to get some sleep to re-charge ahead of our school week and the Valentine’s Day themed fun ahead of us – including the actual special day and the school dance on Friday night.  Stay tuned for those upcoming stories, but we’re done for tonight; and heading off to dreamland right now.

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

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - February 7, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

This early update is coming to you now because I’m about to head over to Aiden’s house for the night while Naomi will be here with Naomi and our parents because it is their turn!  We had fun last night with our cousins and friends – including the family-and-friends’ dinner that Mom and Dad ended up hosting; and the co-ed sleepover that our four best friends stayed for was great too!  We don’t really have much news from today-so-far.  Tai Chi and breakfast were indoors; we said goodbye to our friends for a while and had chores to do here and at the usual houses and cottages; and then we had a couple of hours off since our late lunch break to bike and play with cousins and friends.  It wasn’t as-warm today, but still sunny and in the high-forties for the high that we’re just hitting now; so we still had fun and only needed warmer clothes and we work gloves while biking.  Let’s mention that the snow we had during that storm that hit much-harder elsewhere to the east is pretty much all melted except for some shaded spots in the woods, but the ground hasn’t softened up much except for where there are pools of standing water that hasn’t dried up yet too.

We mostly stayed clean, but hit the showers after getting home and now we’re ready for our respective sleepovers.  Cassie and Michael are already enjoying their Saturday night naps – or maybe they aren’t; since it is Cassie’s birthday already in Thailand!  They had fun with sightseeing and quality water and beach play time for their Saturday; and we are happy for them – even while still being jealous of the sun and mid-nineties highs they are getting to enjoy there!

Ethan and I do not want to get into a major world news update right before we’re going to have fun with Aiden or Naomi for the rest of the day, but we need to mention one story – the assassination attempt on a high-ranking Russian General who is also the Deputy to Russia’s chief negotiator for the trilateral peace talks.  That does not look good for building any trust in the negotiations; a likely attempt to derail those talks even though they aren’t going anywhere anyway; and Russia may have already retaliated with a massive overnight missile and drone attack across Ukraine.  There is also news that the assassin has been captured in the United Arab Emirates and may be on the way back to Russia, but we also doubt we’ll ever learn the truth about what really happened or which country or countries were behind the attack.  On a related note, we can also mention that the talks between the United States and Iran were followed up by new sanctions on Iran; and that won’t build any trust either – not that there is any to start with after the attacks on Iran last year that happened while our leaders pretended to be talking peace then too.

We are going to stop there because I’m getting the urge to rant for a while and don’t want to ‘make’ time to do that now.  Maybe we’ll do that with the next update, but for now; we’re ready to get back to the fun and are out of here!

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