Ailana’s Journal—2026-07-17 (and Island Kids) (Patreon)

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GOOD MORNING by Ailana Geven Keller

Good morning. Hope you had a great week. Most of us will be looking forward to being off work for the weekend once we get through today.

Emily, however, will not. She and Jenna are both working for Kaylee today and tomorrow, cleaning units after checkout. Dad was visiting, and the truth is that First Call is really taking off.

Dad invited Kent to get involved while he works through the process of getting his Texas electrician license. Dad went on to say that once Kent has his license, First Call can contract with him and start adding electrical repair work to its services.

There’s a lot of room to grow, too. South Padre Island has thousands of short-term rentals. Airbnb currently shows about 730 vacation rentals, while AirDNA tracks more than 4,100 active listings across the major booking platforms.

If you do good work, people will keep calling and you’ll keep growing. That principle sort of applies to AGI Creative's growth, too.

Well, while my sister is cleaning up condos, I plan on cleaning up articles. I’ll check in with you later, so see you then.

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All characters in this story are fictional characters, their images generated with AI for AGI Stories. They do not represent any real person, nor is their appearance based on any real human.

DAY IN THE OFFICE by Ailana Geven Keller

As promised, I’m checking in. And as planned, I’m in the office working.

I’ll spare you the details about what I’m writing, but…

Did you know that, to reduce water loss, cacti keep their pores—technically called stomata—closed during the day? They open them at night to take in carbon dioxide, which they store as malic acid until daylight, when it can be used in photosynthesis.

Also, did you know that a 120-inch-tall cactus would reach from the floor to the rim of a regulation NBA basketball hoop? Just saying.

Now, before the hate starts flowing… I have posted every day for over two years. I don’t think I’ve actually missed any days, though a few have been brief by necessity. Last week, I got a little blurb from Instagram saying I’d posted for 119 weeks in a row. I have 1,735 posts on Patreon.

So I think that entitles me to get goofy once in a while! I’m sticking with my 120-inch cactus joke.

Sticking… see what I did there?

Okay, I need some iced tea. I’ll stop bothering you now.

Last thing… Emily said Kent treated her and Jenna to Whataburger because they had talked so much about Brooks that he wanted to meet her. She joked that she wondered if they should start talking about new cars next!

They’ll be on their way to their next job after lunch, and I’ll be trying to decide how to end the day without a stupid joke!

I CAN HANDY by Kent Marlon

From the lead image of this chapter, you can infer that I’m not sitting at home or basking on the beach.

Timeline speed run: We moved to South Padre Island. Izzy started work on Wednesday. Ailana’s dad came over Wednesday night, told me about his company—First Call Property Services—and invited me to do some handyman work to help them catch up on work orders.

Right now, I’m supervising two teen girls pretending to be cheerleaders for the cleaning squad and helping Isaac replace all the hinges on a cabinet.

I’ve had some questions about how sensible it was for Izzy and me to just drop everything and move. I’d like to address that so you’re not thinking I’m an idiot.

First off, Izzy moved with a job waiting for her. She also snagged $250 on Wednesday for modeling some slacks and sport coats.

As for my money situation…

I sold the home I inherited from my parents last fall. I banked the net proceeds and invested the money. So there’s that.

I said before that I sold Marlon Electric to the four guys who worked for me. Not to flex or anything, but they paid me $40K up front and will pay the rest over the next four years. Math was done. I’m getting $7,500 a month from the sale.

Meanwhile, I have started the process of getting my Texas electrical license. I can apply directly for the Texas Master Electrician exam—I had my license in New York. I have to pay fees, prove I have 12,000 hours of experience, and pass the test.

So the move isn’t really reckless, if you ask me. Izzy and I say it was strategic.

Part of the plan is that we don’t want to raise kids in a city like New York. Of course, we’ve got a marriage between now and kids, but we think we’re in a place where we’d be happy raising them.

That’s it from here. I get to take the cheerleaders to a house where the renters are due to check in at six. They’ll clean. I’ll replace all the light bulbs with LEDs—no license required for that.

Isaac is on his way to replace a doorknob somewhere else while Kaylee is cleaning a unit in one of the high-rises.

GOOD NIGHT by Ailana Geven Keller

Jason and I came to the studio fully intending to be productive. We wanted to clean up after yesterday’s shoot, and to some degree, we did.

Then we sat down right in the middle of the floor and talked. Next week, we will have been married for two months. Things didn’t turn out as we expected.

Emily arrived in desperate need of help and became part of our family. Not just on paper. Not just as part of our living arrangement. She became an integral part of our lives emotionally, too.

We’ve moved twice as many times as we planned, too. Now, all three of us share a two-bedroom, two-bath home. I’ll add that having only one laundry room, on the heels of a two-week road trip, has been tricky, but we’re caught up now.

We could have gone to a laundromat, taken a few hours, and done it all at once. We worked it out, though.

Things feel really good right now.

Jason and I talked about years to come. I’ll be thirty-one when Emily graduates. I’ll be at least thirty-five when she finishes college.

Some of you want to know if we’re going to follow Sasha’s example and have a baby. That’s on the table.

But neither of us are longing for that to happen. That might go against everything people expect, but it is how we feel.. We’re not saying no, not ever.

We are definitely at least ten months away from saying yes.

Beyond that? We’ll see what happens.

May you allow yourself to do what’s right for you, even if it goes against the norms and expectations of those around you. Find the path that leads to the best version of yourself and follow it.

Good night.

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