2024 New Year’s

Thank you for visiting with us!

Celebrating Christmas!

Maybe I'd better wind up my blogging year while I can.  There are still a couple of days left in the year but I don't know if I'm going to get back to the computer in the next couple of days...

I'm pretty sure I'm not going to get another quilt finished before the end of the year so I'll show the collage of quilts that I made in 2023...  Alas there was only one rather largish quilt.  Anyway, from the top left.

A Mola quilt that I worked on during the summer in air conditioning.

The Starry quilt that Leiya and I made for her friend who was having a baby.

A smallish McKenna quilt from a kit that a quilt friend sent me quite awhile ago.

Another Starry quilt that I made for another of Leiya's friends who was having a baby.

With the leftover triangles from that second quilt I made another baby quilt for a friend (and M-san made the same with the left-over triangles from that other Starry quilt.)

My Plaidish quilt which was the only large bed cover sized quilt made this year.  That was given away as a wedding present.

I don't know why I even included this small Boy's Day carp kite that we flew while Luka was visiting and that he took back with him to Indiana.

A two fabric Cat quilt that didn't work out at all because the colors were too similar.  I dislike it so I don't even feel I can give it away...

A small cushion that started out for someone but wasn't greatly successful.  Maybe I don't like pink?

A McKenna fish quilt that was a gift to a couple who love water and rivers and oceans etc.

I did make a couple more cushions at the last minute for Tetsu (or for me... I don't know who appreciates them.)

While I was throwing things away I came across a badly stained and torn quilt that I must have made ages ago.  Well, into the bin it goes!  But wait...  What if I cut it up and made some Christmas cushions...  They might be rustically cute for at least one season before they get tossed.  You can see the rips that I tried to "repair" by overstitching snowflake designs...  Tetsu really likes the cushions to they are getting used!

While I am talking of quilty things (I know, a rarity on this blog recently), I wanted to show you an interesting gadget I stumbled across when I was buying thread.  Can you guess what this is?

It is a sewing machine needle threader!  If I have one regret about the Juki sewing machine I bought last year, it was that I didn't buy the model that had a threader.  I've been struggling with the little hand threader but even that is a job to stick the wire through the needle hole...  So when I saw this gadget I wondered if it really worked, and I asked the clerk but she said it was a new thing so no one in the store had tried it yet.  Oh well, $15 which might turn out to be a waste but I purchased it and tried it out.  It has been a life saver!  (Eye saver!)  The thread get fed through the prongs and then the prongs slide down the sewing machine needle.  

When it reaches the needle hole, the inner spring punches the thread through the hole!  Voila!  No fiddling with manual threaders and magnifying glasses etc.  

I'd recommend this gadget!  Of course I think I'd recommend that if you are going to buy a sewing machine you should buy one with a needle threader...

Luka celebrated his third birthday on December 23!  Tetsu's mother's birthday was the same day (as was the former Japanese Emperor's) and she would be so pleased to know her great-grandson has the same birthday.

It sounds like Tony and Leiya and Luka and Tony's mother celebrated Luka's birthday and Christmas together and went off to ride on a Polar Express train.  (I recall that there is a great children's book about the Polar Express and I'm assuming the Christmas event has something to do with that...)

Leiya said they wore their pajamas to the event and got to take a ride in the train.

My Advent wreath project ended on Christmas Day with a couple more candles lit.  Week four.

Christmas Day.

Takumi and Julieta celebrated Christmas by inviting Julieta's family over.

We celebrated Christmas with the Yamadas and the Sugas as we do most years.  There were years when there were so many kids eating dinner at the children's table but now it us just us 6 oldies...

It looks like I was in charge but actually I only made the salad!

Back at home, we enjoyed our Japanese Christmas cake.  This is a tradition that we didn't follow when the kids were little but since I stand at the crosswalk in front of the Japanese sweet shop, I want to support them with my business so Tetsu and I had Christmas cake!  

Hoping that everyone's Christmas was a good one!

Everyday stuff in December

Okay, let's see if I can catch up a bit.

We haven't gone anywhere or done much out of the ordinary.  Lots of errands and visits to various doctors...   I'm STILL going to the dentist and I have appointments set up until the end of January!  I don't remember having to spend all this time going to dentists when I was a child...  It's true my teeth are not what they used to be but I see the dentist, he makes an evaluation and tells me to come back.  I can't get an appointment for two weeks but I finally get back and he says things look better so next time he'll do extensive work.  Another two weeks go by and I have the extensive work and he sends me home with antibiotics and two more weeks pass.  I go back, he says more time needs to be given to healing and another two weeks pass.  Something is added at the next visit and he says he'll take an impression the next time which unfortunately is right around the holidays so I'll go back at the beginning of January.  Next some technician will make a crown and that will take two weeks so that brings us to the middle of January.  And then a last check-up...  It is exhausting...

We got our New Year's cards ordered (haven't started addressing them yet).  The Japan Post Office has announced a major postal hike from sometime next year which makes us think we might have to cease our tradition of New Year's cards...  I've resisted just sending e-mails or Messages to friends and family at New Year's but practically and financially...  it may be inevitable.

I needed to stop at Daiso (Japan's dollar store) and I bought more paper bread pans.  I think I made a total of 20 loaves of persimmon bread this season and I was delivering them to neighbors and friends and even workers in nearby businesses... 

Grocery shopping is never done.  It is surprising how much food just two people can eat!

Doctors, doctors, doctors!  Regular meds from one doctor.  I got an all clear from my orthopedist and I won't have to see him for six months.  I've been seeing a dermatologist for wart removal...  Yuck...

Besides those every day activities, we also get to the pool every other day where, though I don't relish the cold water and the swimming in the dead of winter, I do appreciate the piping hot baths afterwards.

Christmas decorations are up and to get myself even more into the spirit I've been painting an Advent Wreath in my bullet journal each week.  This was week two...

...and this was week three...

My little plastic creche that I have in my entryway.

Though it has been cold, we still don't have snow yet.  The mornings at the crosswalk are still pretty brutal though!

The mountains have a thin layer of snow but the forecast is that we'll get some next week.  Just in time for winter vacation!

We went out for dinner one night when I was busy teaching all day.  I had tempura donburi (tempura over rice.)

And here is the real thing!  Yum!

Update in December

I seem to always be apologizing for my lack of blogging...  I don't really know if I'll become more frequent or not as my desire for slow life has been granted and times are quiet...

The last time I wrote I think Leiya's family had just arrived in California for Thanksgiving and they had a great time with my brother's family and Takumi and Julieta and they stayed at Julieta-san's mother's house.  

Unfortunately, Tony ended up not feeling well and they spent a day at the emergercy room but I gather that scare has passed and they are all back in Indiana and Tony is back at work.   Here is Luka looking worried about his Daddy. 

They did spend time with family though...

... and they got to the beach and visited an aquarium.

As for us in Japan, Tetsu and I spent one day hanging up Christmas quilts and various other Christmas decorations.  There is still an unopened box of Christmas related stuff but as we don't have many visitors anymore it seems like a lot of work to hang everything up... not to mention take everything down a few weeks later.  Do I sound like Scrooge?

I decided that I needed to make a Christmas stocking for a friend's baby as I had made a similar stocking last year for his son.  

The tree block didn't seem very little girl,  so I ended up pulling a lot of pinks fabric strings from my stash.

And I sketched it in my bullet  journal.

Two of my friends and I have been playing around with Zentangles and mandalas and we weekly give ourselves a basic shape and then doodle and bring our creations the next week to compare.  It has been a lot of fun and it is very interesting to see what different patterns we come up with!

Though this isn't a great photo, I wanted to record for posterity that all four animals are somewhat tolerant of sitting together these days.  The carpet is heated and so that is why they are willing to share a space.  Chip has a specially heated mat as she hasn't been feeling well the past few weeks.  Sigh.  They are all getting old...

Tetsu was down with a cold for most of last week and so he has been napping on the sofa and making good use of the tissue box and cough lozenges.  We got to the pool last night so I guess he is considered healthy again.

So Christmas is nearly upon us as is the cold weather.  Actually, in Japan we are supposed to start thinking about End of Year cleaning...  Washing windows, deep cleaning the kitchen.  I'm not too thrilled to be washing and scrubbing in cold weather but even on warmer days I can find an excuse to sit at my sewing machine or with my pens and I may not get around to cleaning at all!

Busy in November

Though my mojo is still low, I have been keeping busy, which Tetsu tells me is a good thing.  There is always something that needs doing and my services as an English teacher are still in demand even though I had thought I was fading from the role...

I had a teaching job at a local elementary school went well though I was surprised (though not particularly nervous) to have 40 some educators observing the class.  They are interested in the children, not me who had been given the job the week before!  Still, I had thought I was just teaching 20 first graders...

I attended a Sports Day event at the elementary school where I am the crosswalk guard.  Because of Covid, the school hasn't had "guests" for the last 4 years but I got to sit at a front row table and enjoy the activities.  I was so impressed this year!  Japanese Sports Day events are an amazing choreograph of children doing dances and setting up courses and race laps which change for each grade.  And there were very few teachers directing anyone.  It seemed that all the children knew exactly where and what they were supposed to do and that in itself is a fantastic result of "educating" a sense of cooperation and togetherness. 

Tetsu took me to a small quilt exhibit in the south of prefecture and I marveled at the beautiful quilts that the quilt teacher makes.  Her name is Yuko Takahashi and she has had her quilts shown in Paducah and practically yearly her quilts win awards and are featured in quilt magazines.

I was very interested to see the diagrams that she makes of each of her quilts and how she has it all out on graph paper with notes (of course in Japanese) about the colors and patterns and additions she plans to have.

She seems to often use bias tape to add to elements of her curved blocks and borders.  

Her patchwork students had a lot of small projects exhibited around the room between Ms. Takahashi's major works.  These owls are very popular to make among Japanese quilters.

On the way home from the exhibit we passed the hospital where I go monthly and the ginko trees were at their height of beauty!

And this is how the scene ends up in my bullet journal.

This was the month for weddings and we know three of the couples though we actually only attended one wedding.  Big weddings aren't so popular anymore and two of the weddings were considered family weddings with only the parents on both sides attending.  Still, photographs are important on the big day and this was from my vet's wedding.  Look at that gorgeous dress!  I almost regretted that I'd offered to make her the wedding veil because it was nowhere near long enough to do the dress justice.  Still the bride said she was very happy to have it, as the simpleness of it didn't outdo the dress.  (By the way, did you know that wedding dresses and then cocktail dresses worn at the reception are usually rented in Japan?  At a very steep price too!)

The wedding that we DID attend was in Tokyo and it was for Marlene and Kohei's youngest son!  Hugh and Yumi's wedding wasn't considered big but still there were about 50 of us who attended.  The wedding was held at a restaurant that specializes in weddings and so they were really set up for it.  It was such a surprise for me to see the bride wearing Marlene's wedding dress!  Marlene had kept that a secret!  I remember seeing the dress in Marlene and Kohei's wedding photo in their hallway and now it has become vintage in such a beautiful way!!!  The bride and groom looked like they'd stepped out of a sepia photo!!!  I loved the sweeping lacy hat that the bride wore and Hugh's bowler hat and curling mustache brought all the guests back to a long ago era.  It was so beautiful and just the perfect style of wedding for the couple!

I've got persimmons coming out my ears because people keep giving me bags of persimmons!  I've already baked two batches of persimmon bread giving me 10 loaves...  And a neighbor handed Tetsu another bag of persimmons yesterday with another 20 persimmons!  A lot of Japanese peel the persimmons and hang them out to dry making a nice sweet to eat later in the winter.  I may have to try that next...

Here is Marlene's persimmon bread recipe that I have used for years.  (You can tell by how stained the recipe card is.)  Persimmon in Japanese is kaki in case the recipe seems a bit cryptic.

Tetsu and I still get to the pool a few times a week and we've been trying to get more walking in...  A couple of days ago we were at a local resevoir and were surprised again at how low the water is this year...  I wonder what kind of winter we are in for...

And that brings us up to Thanksgiving which went by us without being noticed.  Usually we have celebrated with the Marlene and Kohei and the Sugas and whichever children and grandchildren are around, but this year we were all at Hugh's wedding with the Yamada's extended family and that celebration was really something to be thankful for!  

Surprise, surprise!  MY family all got together for Thanksgiving at Julieta's mother's house and this photo just came in to me yesterday evening!  Yes, Leiya and Tony and Luka flew in from Indiana and  Julieta's mother is hosting them for a few days as well as having my brother's family (with uncle and girlfriend included) for Thanksgiving dinner. Julieta's mother and brother and good friend are there doing most of the work but being good sports about it all (and Takumi would chime in "I helped!").  It makes me so happy to see everyone together and loving each other!

Happy Thanksgiving!