Wrapping up March

I didn't do very well with blogging this month...  And I'm afraid I'm not going to be doing any better in April.  Tetsu and I have been getting ready to go to Indiana and California and we are leaving on Monday.  We will be in Indiana a week and then in California about 10 days.  We have had SO many problems with reservations and appointments and tests and luggage issues (do we have to carry four suitcases to Indiana when we are going to be using only two of them.  Let's get them to Takumi's house.  HOW?!) but our departure date is now in sight.  

Animal care has been arranged.  John will be delivered to the vets on Saturday and he will have to readjust to life with them for three weeks.  A neighbor girl will come in morning and evening to feed our cats.  We haven't been in the States in three years and so all the animals are older and their care is different but we will leave the vets number for the neighbor girl.  

Actually we had a scare yesterday when our morning schedule got discombobulated and instead of me feeding the animals, Tetsu did while I took John for a walk.  HOWEVER when I got home Tetsu reported that he couldn't find Cleo!  What!!!  Cleo is our oldest cat and is limping around anyway...  Could he be in distress and hiding?  And it occurred to me that Cleo didn't come to sleep with me that night but I had thought that it was because the nights are no longer so cold.  When had we last seen Cleo?  More searching the house and calling, then I headed outside to look for him though we couldn't figure out how he might have gotten outside.  To make a long story short, we FOUND Cleo outside hiding behind some boards.  He must have slipped through the door when Tetsu was carrying plants outside to air and water and the poor kitty had spent the night outside.  He was brought in, loved up thoroughly, I apologized profusely for not even noticing he'd been gone for over 12 hours.  And now Cleo is cuddled up content with Mi again.  My poor old kitty is getting the extra loving he needs.

Why am I posting a Halloween photo?  This week I had my LAST day at the preschool where I've taught for the past 16 years.  I had told them at the beginning of the year that I planned to stop teaching and as it turned out, for the past two years because of Covid, I actually haven't seen the children too much.  Whenever the government had issued health warnings, the pre-school (and schools) curtailed all outside activies and so the classes I taught were canceled for three months, on again for two months, off again for two months etc. etc.  I had seen the children in November and December and once in January but then the preschool cancelled until the restriction was lifted this past week.  Just in time for me to come in, play around a bit with the children and say good-bye.  They made me a card with pictures of all three classes and the pictures we'd taken at Halloween (with me in a witch's costume) were included.  So I guess I'm officially retired from teaching!  I still have two ladies classes but we haven't been able to have a class since the beginning of January either.

One class did arrange to go out to lunch the day after Covid restrictions were lifted, and we enjoyed ourselves at a fancy french restaurant!

Doesn't our dessert plate look delicious?  It was!

My art pages this month included drawing with water color pencils and spraying water over the page.

I doodled myself.

I finished an online course on Typography.

Another Typography lesson.

Art materials I use.

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Of course I must have a monthly Luka update!

Leiya tried to make banana bread or cookies or something with Luka recalling the good memories she and I had baking together.  I don't think I tried to start quite this early with her though...  Luka ate a lot of the dough before it got baked.

There seems to be a play area in a nearby mall near Leiya's house and Luka is now getting the experience of meeting and playing with other children.

But he's always got his good friend the bear with him.

In five more days we are going to be able to give Luka hugs in person.  I wonder if he'll recognize us as the iPhone screen figures that are often playing peek-a boo with him...  I'll report on that later though I'm not going to carry my computer with me around the world this trip so you might not hear from me for awhile.  

Please pray for us though!  Flying, Covid, making connections in the airports, meeting up with people, driving freeways.  Am I ready for all this?  YES I AM!

16 patch quilt finished!

The days certainly do go by quickly.  We're already nearly at the end of the month!  The big news around here is that we have made reservations for going to the States early next month... less than two weeks away!!!  More about that later.

I finally have another quilt finish to post about.  This is my 16 patch quilt sometimes known as Arkansas Crossroads or Goodnight Irene.  I started this to show M-san what can be made with Leaders/Enders and the full bins that I have of 2 inch squares and 2 1/2 inch squares.  I have plodded along with the 2 inch squares and a couple of weeks ago M-san took home the 2 1/2 inch square bin.  I have finished up while she is now busily making X blocks.  M-san is going to make her base color dark blue.

Although I have other projects to get done, I really wanted to try out my new Juki sewing machine and see how it does with free-hand machine quilting.  I'm very happy to report that except for one time putting in the bobbin wrong and breaking a needle, the quilting went smoothly despite the fact that there were a great many layers to quilt through at all the corners.  

I'm not overly thrilled with the quilting I did in the X blocks but this was all more of an experiment than anything and I've learned that I can quilt fairly nicely with my new Juki machine, the thread did not break nor even pull much despite a lot of shifting and circling.  

I used decorative thread on the top and white thread on the bottom but even that didn't cause a problem with a bit of bobbin adjustment.  I still will have to see how the machine handles monofiliment thread but that will be for another quilt.

I am now ready to cover up my sewing machine for awhile and start using my sewing room as a "packing room".  Tetsu and I will be flying to Indiana and will spend a week with Leiya and Tony and Luka and then all of us will fly to California to attend my niece's wedding and visit with Takumi and Julieta.  Tetsu and I will spend a little more than a week there and then come back to Japan.  This is actually NOT a great time to be traveling though the Covid numbers are going down in Japan.  But the cost of flights!!!  The yen to dollars conversion!!!  The fees for PCR testing!!!  Whew!  But we've put off this trip for so long that we decided we'd better go while we have the chance.  If you remember my post a few weeks back about our digital challenges and multiply that a few times you will get an idea of the frustrations that Tetsu and I have been having.  With all this energy spent, we HAVE to go now!!!

The majority of our luggage is actually going to be quilts!  I have quilts for Luka and Takumi and Julieta, for extended family members, of course for my niece...  I've been afraid to mail any of these off for fear the postal service on one side of the ocean or the other, would lose them.  I am putting my trust in the airlines!

Earthquake again

Already a couple of my blog friends have contacted me to ask how we are after the large earthquake we had two nights ago.  Thank you for thinking of us.  We are fine and our lives have not been disturbed too much.

I was long in bed at 11:34 when the first earthquake hit us on Wednesday night.  In Japan we get so used to regular earthquakes that it registered that the bed was shaking and I woke up enough to realize it was quite a long earthquake though not too strong.  Even so, I thought to grab my glasses as I wanted to be able to see things if I had to be up and about and I got out of bed and put on my hard sole house shoes and went downstairs.  Sometimes if I'm slow getting downstairs, Tetsu yells up at me to come down before things start falling and blocking an escape route, so our usual procedure is to go downstairs and turn on the TV (if it isn't already on) to see where the earthquake might be and how strong it really is at the epicenter.  

Tetsu was sitting up groggily as he'd fallen asleep in front of the TV, and he'd already switched off the kerosene space heater that we use downstairs.  We were watching the TV alert and then suddenly the TV and our iPhones started buzzing and beeping simultaneously and calling out "Prepare for strong earthquake!  Strong earthquake expected!"  Even our animals react to the alarms and buzzing and John started barking and the cats started running under the sofa and tables.  Within seconds the 11:36 earthquake began, and shake it did, and get stronger and stronger!  We could hear things crashing around us...  things fell off shelves and things were breaking in the kitchen and upstairs.  I stood in a space against a wall where nothing could fall on me, Tetsu made sure the front door was ajar in case we needed to get out, and he was also trying to keep plants from falling off the shelf (one did) and prevent the TV from toppling (he succeeded).  

We wondered if this was going to be a repeat of the earthquake 11 years ago as the TV was telling us the epicenter was about in the same place but finally the shaking subsided though there were a few strong aftershocks that kept us where we were.  We didn't lose electricity or power which added to the feelings of relief.  

After a few minutes I did go upstairs to check on the upstairs cats and they seemed unaffected though there was stuff all over the floor, broken and otherwise.  A pottery cup had fallen off a bookcase in the hall and so pushed the pieces aside as much as possible so that we wouldn't step on them.  There was also a broken picture frame though the glass didn't break.  In the bedroom books and stuffed animals had fallen from the top of the closet and the whole closet had moved quite a ways away from the wall.  The lamp on my sidetable had fallen but the bulb was intact and still worked.  I had to squeeze into the sewing room because stuff had fallen blocking the door but thankfully my new sewing machine had NOT fallen to the floor (my friend said hers had).  I pushed things aside in that room too to make a path.  The kitchen had broken pottery that had fallen from the shelves and we later discovered that the main gas line had turned itself off and had to be reset outside at the propane tanks.  Interestingly, the sliding glass windows and doors that had not been locked (upstairs in the bedrooms) had slid open letting in the cold.  And for some reason I found that the water tap in the bathroom was flowing freely which I was afraid meant a broken pipe but actually it turned off with a twist so maybe it just got jarred open.

We decided not to sleep upstairs Wednesday night and we brought down blankets and comforters and slept in front of the TV.  The news reported that there was a tsunami alert and we imagined all those people on the coast who had survived the earthquake 11 years ago, racing to higher ground and waiting there hours in the cold until the tsunami warning was lifted 6 hours later.  

The news in the morning was that a Bullet Train had derailed though it stopped in time to prevent a major accident.  The bullet train line too has been damaged so it may be awhile before that will be back up running.  The main expressway also has damage so it will be a few days before there will be through traffic on that highway.

All in all, in our area people are only sweeping up broken stuff and everything is running normally.  I ended up with a bad headache yesterday and went to bed early...  maybe the scare was a shock to my system...  or maybe what with Covid and international war and now an earthquake my brain overloaded...  I'm back to staying quietly at home again...

March days

The happy news around here is that it is finally warming up!  Yeah!  No more freezing walks to the crosswalk at 7:00 in the morning bundled up so much that I waddle!

In  fact, this week I even managed to take John out IN THE CAR and we went for a longish walk around a nearby dam.  John is not much of a walker and he doesn't particularly like car rides as they only end up at the vets for him, but I thought a change of scenery would motivate him to move a little faster and maybe teach him that cars aren't terrible things.  

It sort of worked!  John pouted in the car but was interested to find us parked in a new-to-him place and he trotted along happily and enjoyed sniffing.  He even got to bark at a few passing dogs.  I hope we will be able to do this jaunt again.

I saw M-san yesterday!  It has been over a month since we did any sewing together but she texted me to ask if I wanted to see (and photograph) her Happy Village quilt that she had been making before she gave it to her aunt whom she was expecting to see next week.  I said "Yes!  Of course!" and M-san came over yesterday and we went right back to what we'd been doing before Covid plowed through our prefecture (still here unfortunately but the numbers are getting better.)

Ta-da!  My Happy Village is on the left and M-san's is on the right.  I tried to get fancy and put an odd border of sky and forest and sea around my seaside village and M-san added birds and a boat to hers.  I LOVE HER VILLAGE!!!!!  I really felt like I ought to take lessons from HER!!!!  Look at those beautiful eye-catching colors!!!  Look at her wonderful cut-out trees!!!  

It's true, that most of the fabric is mine but I think the last time I saw this I had told her to add rooftops and windows and trees and handed her some tulle and told her to go at the quilting.  I certainly didn't expect this masterpiece!!!  

The whimsical gold trees add a lot to her layout (my fabric, I'd never have thought to use it this way).  The quilting she did is AMAZING!!!  I kept looking at both our projects to see what made hers so eye-catching and I realize that she used a much thicker black thread throughout all the overstitching while I had tried to hide my outlines by using a very thin neutral colored thread.  Her black thread makes her village seem like something right out of a children's book!  I so love this!  And she really did a wonderful job with all the window details.  BRAVO M-san!!!

A colored pencil drawing I did of a sunflower as the sunflower is Ukraine's national flower.

And yesterday was March 11, in Japan, 11 years from the Great Tohoku Earthquake.  I went back and read a few of the blog posts I wrote after the earthquake and relived my thoughts and experiences 11 years ago.  My friend, Lorraine and I had spent the first couple of days comforting each other, there had been axiety for everyone and I was housebound for weeks afterwards.  I remember how fabric colors and sewing kept me happy and motivated...  

I still keep in touch with Lorraine's family still though sadly she is no longer able to write to me anymore.  I see many similarities between how I felt unsettled after the earthquake and how I've felt during this pandemic but there have been so many blessings in-between and I'm sure there are many more waiting for us all.  

Staying pawsitive

I'm sorry.  It seems like my blog posts are getting fewer and far between...  But there really isn't much going on and not much to write about.  I wasn't planning to turn this blog into an art exhibit space but staying home everyday all I seem to do is doodle another art lesson, hand quilt At Piece With Time quilt (so aptly named for these days) and get in a little online exercise.

March 3rd was Girls Day in Japan but in much of Tetsu's organizing of the closet, we've misplaced our simple Girls Day dolls...  I did put up the small Girls Day quilt I made years ago and I found the tiny origami dolls that I once made.

My origami dolls.

I also have a cute Girls Day decorative dish that gets put out for the month of March.

I tried my hand at sketching from a photo I'd taken last year...

And then I did it again in watercolors.  The background turned out well!

Other things that have been going on...

We've been in touch with both our children by Facetime and Zoom, planning a trip to the States for my niece's wedding next month.  We are coming down to the wire on this but honestly, with the way Covid is now in Japan, we really wonder if we're going to be able to pull this off.  Added to that, Tetsu and I are COMPLETELY ILLITERATE about making airline reservations and AirBnB and Ubers.  Situations have changed so that my brother's home no longer is able to accomodate us and they have enough to think about without trying to pick us up from the airport etc. so we want to go stay somewhere near Takumi... and figure out how to get there on our own.  We also want to get to Indiana to visit Leiya and that means airplane transfers and layovers and multiple flights and Tetsu and I just don't know how to do that!  Isn't that absolutely unbelieveable?!  I've lived in Japan over 40 years and traveled to California almost every year since I got here yet, I can't make airplane reservations, I've never reserved a hotel or AirBnb, I don't know how to change planes (non-stop to LA all these years), I've never used a taxi or rented a car.  

In my frustration yesterday I made a bullet journal page that sums up my feelings about struggling through the world as I see it nowadays.  

The Ukraine crisis has put all of us in a state of anxiety that is bringing me down.  I find it hard to get motivated and I hate watching the TV yet feel like burying my head in the sand isn't the correct response either.  

I am grasping at ways to stay hopeful and positive.  It's a start.