Last year, the last couple years we've had all this milkweed growing which we have treated like it is like a sacred plant because we know it's important for monarchs and we want to support monarch migration and all of that. Procreation. But what has happened is we'll see some butterflies flipping around. Flitting around, I should say. But we never actually get baby butterflies. We don't get caterpillars. And meanwhile, we have these tall, sappy, weird, falling over things. I mean, they're not that attractive. And last year, I told my husband, I said like, “I've had it. I think next year, I think we should just like pull them up as they come and just like stop worrying about these butterflies.” And he agreed with me, like, which is growth because a couple years ago when some like some weeders -- the condo association sent some people out to weed the flower beds and a couple of them pulled up the milkweed, I thought he was going to lose his mind ‘cause he was like, so worried about the butterflies. Anyway, he agreed with me that like, the butterflies are not really making the most of it and we could do that. And, um, but, we had a couple rainy days, and I wasn't spending much time outside. And, oh my gosh, milkweed grows so fast, it's unbelievable. We went from having like these tiny little shoots to having these really like robust plants and I guess because they looked so healthy, I could not bring myself to pull them out. And so now I got the exact same problem. You can't see the pretty plants that I chose to put in there ‘cause they're completely overwhelmed by the stupid milkweed. We have had monarchs. I saw one, and my husband saw two. I saw one this morning, but I swear to God, those idiots are not like laying eggs and having babies, they're just coming in and getting me all excited and taking off again. So, um, yeah, I got flower beds for my milkweed and it's driving me crazy.

I am grateful for having seen all three of my brothers this week in their primary habitats, which is a rarity. It started with seeing my oldest brother in Los Angeles when I took an impromptu visit out there two Thursdays ago, maybe Wednesday. My parents had to cancel at the last second, so kind of on a whim, I decided to step in. Found some tickets, they cost me some money, as they oftentimes do. And I went and I spent an extended weekend with my bro, out in, technically, Long Beach, California. And it went pretty well. And I'm, I'm grateful for having had that opportunity. I hadn't seen his new house out there, so that was exciting But it was also only possible, or only affordable, if my youngest brother helped me out in really short notice. So I was able to drive to Chicago, and I saw my youngest brother and then he was willing to drive me to the airport in my car, which, I don't know, from where he lives it's a little bit less than an hour to get out to O'Hare. And it was kind of a short visit, but it was amazing to see my younger bro, both to and from the airport on the way out to Long Beach. And he's moving into a new place in a month, and that's pretty exciting and it was just wonderful. And then a few days ago I went up to Lansing to see my second youngest brother. I've got three brothers, so that was the third one I was able to visit. He's been wanting me to come up and go biking with him on the Lansing River Trail, which, um, I haven't ridden that trail in probably 15 years. So that was pretty great. It was warm, it was humid. It was in the mid to upper 80s, I feel like, on the day that we went. He lives in Lansing itself at the moment, not East Lansing, so we started in Lansing. We went down toward the capitol, which is not the trail, I know, but we started down by the capitol. We saw this new baseball field called like, John Smoltz Baseball something something, um, that was actually really cool. It's like this enclosed, but not enclosed -- it's open to the elements but it's basically like a constructed…

Speaking of like other religious things is like, something that, like, I kind of got intuitively that I was kind of surprised that many people didn't get was also like the idea of specifically, like, submission to a higher power. You know, and that's more because of my age. Like I spent the la- -- you know, I spent like 18 years, like, where everyone j- -- like even now, like everyone just tells -- you know, everyone tells me to do and then I do the thing. And they're like, "Thanks." You know, like, even, even at work. That's like, where I'm most comfortable. I'm like, I'm like, “Just tell me what to do,” and I do it. I don't like -- I get nervous about trying to have to come up with things myself. And so it's like, I'm like used t- -- I'm, you know, as a child, as a young person I was used to kind of like being like someone's minion. Like, literally, my mom would call me and my other siblings “minions.” I mean, it was like an affectionate term. But it’s still just like, I'm so used to that like mindset of like, you tell me what the thing to do and I do the thing and then that's what I do, that like, so many times, like, pastors have talked about like, "Oh, you gotta, you gotta take your hands off of the wheel,” and, “You gotta let -- you know, you gotta let Jesus drive, you gotta --" You know, I'm like, I'm like, "I was driving?" I'm sitting there like, someone like, someone else has been like chauffeuring me around my whole life. I don't think I -- like at least this guy knows where we're going. Like, I've been constantly told what to do by very flawed people who often don't truly know what is the best course of action. Like I had rather -- you know, I'm already getting used, I'm already used to getting told what to do. Like I would rather be told what to do by someone who actually knows how to do it and what I should do to work out. I mean, in practice it can still be a bit -- and I'm definitely not the best at it. But, like, just like the idea thing of like, I'm like, "Yeah. Like, yeah,…