What we're up to...

Another week gone by and I can't say I have too many photos to show for it.  

In years past, I used to get a lot of pleasure from taking out my largish camera and photographing many of the mundane things I did each day.  The camera was heavy but I religiously carried it around and I had some software which automatically downloaded photos into my computer when I hooked the camera to it with a cord.  I enjoyed cropping and editing photos with the same software and Tetsu, who had a similar camera with exchangable lenses, and I would go out and pretend to be amateur photographers.

Tetsu would take many, many more photos than I ever did and we were both overloading our computers with photos so I started to leave photography to him and I was satisfied with my iPhone.  It was easy to carry around, it took adequate photos for my blog purposes, all the pictures were right there without any need for cords etc...  Around the same time the software I was using to edit camera photos was discontinued but I could do similar things on my phone...  I bought a new computer but never learned to use new photo editing software.  When I did get them into my computer, they seemed to disappear into a cloud app which started telling me I was going to have to pay for storage space.  I became frustrated with the whole downloading, editing, saving process.

The last straw was when my camera lens refused to operate.  I'd had this happen twice before and bought new EXPENSIVE lenses, as did Tetsu when his camera did the same.  This third time I just gave up.  I'm not going to buy another expensive lens.  I'm rather put out with the camera brand I was using but I'm not going to start over with another camera and lens set.  The iPhone makes visual recording easy and I guess I'm not that interested in photo quality anymore...

Along came the pandemic and we didn't get out, I didn't take photos and instead I started drawing.  Now I take a photo of something on my iPhone and then try to draw or paint it in my journal...  Photos have become a tool for my new drawing and sketching hobby.  Leiya encouraged me to post my drawings on Instagram and so I began doing that and my blog became a place where I put a few of my sketches but not too many to bore anyone.  I feel bad for blog readers that I no longer show points of Japan or my life through the camera lens, but anyway, my process and purpose of recording my life have changed...

I'm not giving up entirely though anyone can see that I sure don't blog as much as I used to.  I'm just saying there isn't that much to talk about or show unless we are visiting with family or if Leiya sends me family photos.  I've gotten away from using the computer much at all these days... I still am quilting, I still am walking the dog, I still love up my remaining kitties, but I'm also drawing and painting and taking Skillshare classes and posting on Instagram.  You can find me there but I don't post photos of people (myself included) nor give many details about my life.  I'm at Instagram taniwa07.  

So now that that explanation is out of the way...  What I've been doing is...

... sewing.  This flimsy is up on my wall and I'd like to get to the quilting this week.  While I was in Indiana, I was looking at the quilting books and patterns in JoAnne's and came across a pattern called Misted Pines.  It looked like a beautiful pattern but it wasn't a kit so trying to gather enough fabrics for the quilt seemed a daunting task.  I put the pattern back on the wall.  A few minutes later, Leiya walked by the wall and grabbed the same pattern saying, "Look at this!  Isn't this beautiful!  I bet you could make this!"  (It was labeled as Intermediate/Advanced).  I said I thought I probably could but to gather enough fabrics (12!) in different yardages would just give me headaches but Leiya asked me to do it and together we pulled the majority of fabrics that seemed to work from JoAnne's shelves and I figured I could use stuff from my stash when I got home.  Back in Japan I got to work but absolutely didn't realize how big this "Throw" quilt was going to be...  And it did use a lot of fabric, and I did mess up on the cutting a couple of times so I can see why this is an advanced level quilt.  But I've made it this far!!!

M-san made a cute mug-rug with the scraps I gave her.

We had a couple days of visitors last week and I recorded our time with them in my bullet journal.

We took them to the Oya rock quarry and enjoyed an hour in the depths of the quarry.  (Remember... the same one I was in when the Great Tohoku Earthquake struck 12 years ago.)

Down in the quarry.

Up out of the quarry.

Tetsu works hard in our garden and we have coffee there or practice Duolingo, or read the newspaper (Tetsu), or sketch (me) or nap (Tetsu).

Keep smiling.  We are.

 

Back in Japan

I realize I haven't said anything about being in Japan after my month and a half stay in the States, so I'll have to cover a few weeks here...

I arrived back in Japan on March 19th and Tetsu met me at the airport...  actually not looking so good.  I was concerned about his health while I had been gone but he assured me on that point and then let the ball drop that Chip, our sick kitty had passed away.  Though I hadn't really expected Chip to last the whole time I'd been in the States, the last Tetsu had told me a couple of days before was that Chip was holding her own.  

"Oh no.  Yesterday?  Today?"

"Now."

Chip had collapsed a day or so previously and Tetsu had been keeping watch over her for two days...  He had expected her to pass before he left to make the three hour trip to the airport but Chip was still hanging in there barely conscious...  In the end, Tetsu made the decision that instead of leaving Chip to pass on her own, he brought her with him in a toweled box but a few minutes before arriving at the airport Chip breathed her last...

So, it was with a heavy heart that we returned to the car in the airport parking structure to give Chip a few teary head pats before we started for home...  Thus was my welcome back to Japan.

Chip was 16 years old and though she has lived with many of our other cats and dogs, she has always been aloof and unfriendly with the other animals in our house.  She absolutely adored Tetsu and the past six months he has found it difficult to even sit down without her claiming a spot on his lap or his chest or wherever.  She was always the most beautiful kitty and we assured her she still was even as illness caused her face to become misshapen...  Of course she is buried nearby Mi-chan and Patora whom we've lost in the past couple of years...  We are down to a two cat family now when there was a time we had seven felines padding around the house.  We surely do miss Chip.

The day after my return to Japan, John came back to us slim and frisky!  And he has taken to cutely sticking his head over the mattress to see if Tetsu is awake every morning.  The month and a half away from home has made him appreciate us!

I had meetings to attend and doctor appointments to go to, but in between all of those I got to work on yet another quilt for Leiya.  We had made one last trip to JoAnne's before I left Indiana and she chose these muted fabrics for this quilt.  She has two friends who are going to have babies and that was why I was making these for her to begin with and I did finish two quilts while I was at her house.  

However, she liked the one so much that she decided she wanted to keep it and that was why I was given the task of making this quilt again for her friend.  

The nice thing about being back with my GOOD sewing machine, is that I have no problem doing freehand machine quilting and though Leiya chose a heavy silky fabric for the backing, my machine was able to work through even that.  This pattern is called Hidden Shoofly by Planted Seed Designs.  Now to get this sent back to the States...

The month that Tetsu was alone in Japan, he decided to take apart the cat house that we have had up for nearly 15 years and which took up the whole glass door and bench area in our back yard.  The cat house had been made when two of our cats couldn't get along with each other and in the summer, rather than be stuck in a broiling upstairs room we moved them to the screened in cooler cat house.  The past couple of years though, the cats have reconciled and so we were no longer using Tetsu's original creation.  With it gone, we have a lot more room in the yard and we get a lot more sun in the back room.  Bravo to Tetsu for the big deconstruction job!

Spring break started a couple of days after I returned to Japan and once I got all the important meetings and doctors appointments and quilts to be made out of the way, I came down with a cold.  Actually Tetsu got it first, he gave it to me and though he was perking after three days, I've been under the weather for nearly 10.  We're not really sure if it was just a cold, or influenza or the dreaded Covid or a heavy case of hay fever...  This was my no effort sketch of that time...

But I'm back at the pool swimming again, so all is well.

The elementary school had their entrance ceremony on Wednesday and the cherry trees around the playground were in full bloom.

We went to a local park yesterday with Marlene and Kohei and their daughter, Erika and enjoyed a picnic lunch under the trees...  A bit on the cold side still.

So that's how my month has been going.  Photos from Indiana keep coming in.

Leiya and family enjoyed viewing the total eclipse from their front yard.

Leiya said it was an amazing experience!

I wonder if Luka will remember it when he is older...

Taiga-kun is looking more like himself and less like Luka these days.

Family photos

I finally got some photos from Leiya that I wanted to post here for posterity.  Photo shower ahead!

The day before I left for my return trip to Japan, Leiya had a photographer come to their house to take photos of their new family of four and to record my stay with them.  This is the same photographer that she's used before when she was first pregnant with Luka, then again after he was born, and finally last year to announce that she was expecting again.  She'd made this appointment way back at the beginning of the year but she told me about it when she began to think about what we were all supposed to wear.

She put Taiga-kun in a light green onsie, and I think she bought Luka the light green striped shirt.  Tony said he was going with just white, and though I had originally planned to wear my denim dress, Leiya thought her white sweater was better and that worked fine.  But, oh no!  Leiya came out of her closet in a loud print dress because she said that was the only thing she could manage to get into!  We laughed that she had expected to be able to wear her jeans and fitted blouses three weeks after a having a baby!  After all her hard work to get coordinated, she'd left herself to think about to the last and now what was she going to do!  Tony and I nixed the dress and after a flurry through her closet while the photographer was at the front door, Leiya pulled out a sweater that she could wear over some overalls and voila!  Seeing these photos I think we all go together very nicely indeed!

I LOVE this photo!

The photographer just gathered us in various combinations in the different rooms of the house...  

Taiga-kun may not have been at his photogenic best, but Luka sure pulled off the modeling well!

Loving you.

Brothers!

Ooh!  Nice photo of Daddy!

The month with my grandchildren was just wonderful!