Where Have We Been and What in the World is a Glass Float?

**Another draft from 2017!!!!! We obviously don't live abroad at this time. A lot has changed! Maybe I'll write about that some other time. But for now...

The world of blogging came to a halt for quite some time.  I'm not sure that I have any readers left, and that is okay.  This has been a diary of sorts for me to look back on.  Blogging has been a way for me to share Christ, losing Ethan, our homeschooling journey, plus some humorous stories here and there (see this post for humor).

Where do I even begin?  Life simply just got busy, and I didn't have a lot of time to devote to writing. In honesty, I ended up taking a year hiatus from social networking.  Shut down my Facebook.  Hubby deployed.  We joined Hubby in Germany for a month.  Came home.  Then Hubby returned.  He was promoted.  And then the news came...Japan.  Listed house.  Sold it.  Cried a little (or maybe a lot). Said goodbye to La Vernia, TX and our friends and family.  

After a whirlwind of events, we are now living in Japan, of all places!  Nope, we are NOT in the tropical region.  We aren't even in the Tokyo metropolis area.  Let's just say we get a lot of snow.

And that leads to glass floats.  We have become novice beachcombers since moving here nearly a year ago.  We had never even heard of these things until moving here.  Now they are a favorite around the house, especially with our son.  These floats were used in fishing all different types of fish and sea creatures, which is why they come in all shapes and sizes.  Glass was the material used years ago, but today most fishing floats are plastic.  To find one on the Pacific beaches of Northern Japan or in Mutsu Bay (Aomori Prefecture area) is really to find a rare treasure!  There are even books written on these sea treasures!  To the Japanese they are "gomo" or garbage, but to an American who knows what they are (I cannot speak for other cultures), they're a treasure!

We now adorn our yard and a bit of the inside of our home with these treasures. If there's one thing we miss about Japan, it's beachcombing for glass floats!!!

Blessings,

Shannon

Alone

**This was in my drafts from 2017! Can you believe that??? Little did any of us know what 2020 and 2021 would be like. I suspect people are even lonlier than ever.

Have you ever wanted to be left alone?  It seems like in the world of today that there is no silence, and yet, too much silence.  Does that even make sense?

People connect via social media, text messaging, etc.  That seems to be the most common way nowadays.  Phone calls are far and few between.  Letters are even more scarce.  But social networking...it's an every day normal "thing" for most people that live in modernized societies, and yet, it's SAD.  I mean, can we really fill up our love tanks on the internet?  Are we lonelier than ever?

Thoughts? Comments? I love writing, and have neglected my little space on the internet for far too long. Hoping to re-connect with y'all, and maybe even make some new internet pals! Remember, community is important, though, and this should be a last means to friendship. We NEED people IN REAL LIFE, IN PERSON! 

Blessings,

Shannon