Snow

Yesterday morning we woke up to snow and Tetsu actually had to shovel the driveway! But it is almost gone now. Now everything is a muddy sludge.

I have lived mostly in Northern Japan. I had a short stay in Nagoya City when I came to Japan as a foreign student in college, and I spent a month in Kanazawa City at the same time. Kanazawa was my first experience of living in snow. (I visited in January). I remember getting excited about building a snowman.

The first three years that I lived in Japan I was in Morioka City which was considered the TIBET of Japan. Good glory! People in Morioka didn't even speak normal Japanese! (Very heavy countryside slang and accent). And cold!!! I lived on the back of a heater the first six months. And I wore spiked boots when walking around the town because I couldn't walk on the icy streets.

But Morioka wasn't the snowiest place I've ever lived. After Tetsu and I were married we moved to Akita Prefecture and that had much more snow (it's on the Western side of Japan which gets more snow). We lived in an apartment though so not that much snow shoveling to do.

After a year Tetsu was transferred to Yamagata Prefecture, again on the western side of Japan and that was the snow capital as far as I'm concerned! The entryways had double front doors so that you could get out of the cold and wind and shake off all the snow that had piled on you while you were outside. There were days when the snow covered the windows so that we couldn't see out. I remember having to climb out the second story window and shovel snow off the roof because the weight of the snow kept the inside doors from opening. (The news always carried stories of older houses that had collapsed because of snow weight.) In the town the streets were equipped with a sprinkler system and throughout the winter water was sprinkled on the main streets so that they would be clear for traffic. And to get to the main street Tetsu would shovel out from our front door to the street, leave the shovel there and in the evening shovel his way back home.

After a year in Yamagata Prefecture we moved to a major city, Sendai and were apartment dwellers again so no more snow shoveling and since then we've moved south somewhat. Utsunomiya City had very little snow and though Nikko City is colder and gets more snow, it doesn't compare with some of the other places we've lived. And global warming means less and less snow for Japan. Last year I shoveled snow just once and yesterday was an easy first for this year too. I guess I'd prefer being snowless. I'm a Southern California girl at heart.


On to other things. Thank you for the advice on the walking foot.

Sigh. The 365 looks pretty good. On the top... I have quilted half of it already; from the center out. I just turned the quilt over before continuing with the other half. I seem to have two large wrinkles right about the middle! Let's say I feel deflated. I thought I was doing so well and that the walking foot was going to solve my quilting problems but somehow I got those big 'ol wrinkles in there and so I have another "imperfect" quilt. RATS and DOUBLE RATS! I don't know what the problem is. Maybe I should have gone from edge to edge. Maybe I just should have pinned better or stretched the backing a little before pinning or who knows what. When I mess up a quilt I always just want to put it all away and forget I ever started. Ah well. Life is a learning process. I have learned that walking feet are not curealls. I don't know if I've learned WHY they are not curealls but I will labor on!