Cats, cats, cats

Good grief. I just downloaded some pictures from the camera (yesterday's and today's) and find that between Tetsu and me, the two of us took 34 pictures of our cats! In two days! Are we crazy or what?! Aren't you glad you didn't know us when we had kids in the house?! Could have bored you all in a hundred different ways!

Well, my cats are cute (to my eyes) and the most photogenic things around. You don't want to see me peering over my reading glasses or Tetsu sleeping on the sofa again.

I wish I could get a picture of all five cats together (that would be a big help for the Christmas card I need to make... How am I going to put 6 animal pictures on my Christmas card? No room for the rest of the family!) But there is no way that Velvet is going to join this crowd. Can you distinguish where one cat starts and one cat leaves off?

Maple leaves

After our walk yesterday morning Tetsu and I cleaned house (he is such a good house cleaner!) and then started out on our day's adventure. We took Choco with us but she doesn't really get to do much except go for a ride. Better than being tied up in the yard I suppose.

First stop at the electronics store and Tetsu bought me a new vacuum cleaner. Do you know how much vacuum cleaners cost? (Around $300 for this one and it was middle range. I could have bought one for $900). I realize that that may not sound like much to some people but the last vacuum cleaner I bought (5 years ago) was about $90 so I was surprised at this price. We could have splurged and bought a more expensive vacuum cleaner (all this animal fur to contend with) but since I had been expecting to spend around $150 this was as far as I was willing to go. Now that I've got it I'd better use it!

We made a stop at Tetsu's mother's and she was in a cheery mood because she had gone to the doctor's the day before and they had given her a bag of medicine. I cannot believe how much medication is handed out to people in Japan. The other interesting thing is I've never seen a child-proof cap in Japan either. It is all handed out in foil wrappers and in little bags. Tetsu's mother LOVES dividing up all the different medications (she has at least 10 types) and putting them into little compartments in her drawer and cutting out the labels and taping them to the compartment handles. She also calls the nurse daily to ask if she should take more or less medicine for some symptom that has popped up that day. And no, the nurses don't appreciate being called.

After visiting with Mom, Tetsu and I went to find an onsen (hot spring) that was reported to be in the next town over up in the mountains. We drove for about an hour getting deeper and deeper into the mountains and the road kept getting narrower and narrower, sometimes with barely enough road space for one car let alone for passing on coming cars. I seriously wondered what we were getting ourselves into. The mountains were towering on either side of the road, the road itself was crumbling away on the cliff, the few farm houses we passed looked like from another century.

BUT the onsen was a wonderful place and very modern in a woody sort of way! The baths opened up onto the surrounding mountains and the scenery was spectacular! Although it was icy cold up there in the mountains, sitting in the steaming bath made all the scenery more beautiful and the dark red maple trees were gorgeous. After about an hour Tetsu and I met up again in the lobby area and Tetsu announced that it was the best onsen he'd ever been to and that he wants to come again soon.

Back an hour into town and after a quick dinner (revolving sushi) we stopped at a small park that was having a maple leaf festival. The park was artistically lit up as to show the beautiful colors of the maple leaves to their best. With my little digital and no tripod, you can hardly appreciate the deep colors but it really was beautiful!

Abundance

Yesterday was a quiet day at home and I played around on the computer quite a lot. I even finished editing 6 months of blog posts and ordered a book again from Blurb. But yes. Christine said she checked it out and Blurb no longer services Blogger which was a big shock to me. Well, I had already downloaded the 6 months of posts and they seemed to accept the upload so I guess I will get a book of January to June 2007 blog posts eventually. I'm tired out anyway so I'm not planning to make more books for awhile but I do hope they get it worked out or I find something comparable just so that I have the option of having my blog in book form again someday.

I did some knitting... Nothing to show. I made the November Noah's ark block so I'm on top of that project. I find my eyesight is stressed when I do embroidery more than when I do patchwork or quilting. I had a headache after making these cute penguins. Of course the headache could have been due to the fact that the cats decided to destroy the house while I was trying to embroider. Getting into pots. Knocking things off piano and bookshelves. Tearing into the wallpaper and the bathroom door. (I'd locked them in to give Velvet some freedom.) I was jumping up and down like a jack-in-the-box and finally grabbed three cats and put them in Chip's old cage for an hour or two. They seemed very happy all cuddled there. Maybe I should do that more often.

This morning Tetsu and Choco and I went out for our morning walk as usual and as we passed one of our farm friends he called us over and loaded Tetsu's arms full of daikon. These are long icicle radishes that are very popular in Japanese cooking. Usually they are quite long, but Mr. Yano also raises round daikon (different from turnips) as well as the long type. One of my English kids had brought over two daikon the other day too so I have a lot of daikon! Last night I'd made fish and daikon simmered together (that's why the cats were trying to get into the pot) and daikon and fake crab mayonnaise salad, and this morning I've made daikon and deep fried tofu miso soup for breakfast. Such abundance!

Nothing new...

I got 13 out of 15 of the items on my list done yesterday. (I put easy things on that list like "make dinner" and "teach". I HAVE to do those but crossing them off the list made me feel good.)

I've got Vel on my lap. I've decided that whenever possible I will give Vel lap time with me when I'm on the computer. That means that we are shut up in the Japanese room together but at least he doesn't have to worry about being ambushed by one of the other cats. Can you tell that he is somwhat depressed? It doesn't look like it is affecting his appetite.

A free day for me today but I've already wasted an hour of it playing around with Blurb. I'm trying to get my 2007 blog posts into book form again but I wrote so much that there were over 400 pages. Editing that... I don't know if I'll ever get that done but it does seem important to me to have a book in my hand in case the computer and Internet ever loses everything. I was happy with the results from the little 2006 blog book I made so it is a matter of editing the 2007 blog posts. Don't even think about 2008.

Yesterday I made a small block for Mrs. Harada's mini Round Robin (but I can't post that because it wouldn't be a surprise.) and while up in the sewing room I realized that this year I didn't post goals on my blog which made for very little progress on the quilting front. I don't know if I was just busier in the second half of the year or what, but I didn't get very much quilting done and there are various projects hidden away in drawers and boxes. I almost forget sometimes that I am a quilter and that doesn't seem right...

More knitting today (one of the things on my list) and I need to get to the Noah's Ark embroidery.

Miscellaneous

I've got a list of things to do. I think if I cross things off my list I'll feel like I'm getting things accomplished. Otherwise it seems like my day gets away from me and I don't know what I've done with my time.

Yesterday Toi spent the day at the vets for his little boy operation. I denied him food in the morning and put him in a cat box and dropped him off at the vet at 9:00. I felt worst about not giving him food when all the other cats were getting fed! Picked Toi up around 6:00 and all the other cats welcomed him back. He seems not the least bothered by his traumatic day.

I've played around with online Stories in Hand and am writing some family history. I'll probably bore you with some of those tales in the near future...

My vacuum cleaner broke. Actually I found it broken and my first thought was,

"Oh good. Now I can buy a new vacuum cleaner. I never liked this one much."

Tetsu informed me that he broke it the other day when he was vacuuming for me and that he'd try to fix it for me this weekend. I don't really want it fixed...

I am knitting a bit and getting into the pattern for Tetsu's Christmas vest. Not sure if I chose wisely or not. The yarn is tweedy and the pattern is a subtle criss-cross that barely shows up. Well, I'm not starting over at this point so this is the way it will go!

Mrs. Harada sent me her block for our Mini Round Robin. Now what would be a nice block (we are adding blocks, not rounds) for sweet, feminine, sensitive Mrs. Harada? I need to think about this today too.

Create in me...

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth...

And God created man in His own image,

in the image of God He created him;

male and female He created them.

And God blessed them and said to them, "

Be fruitful and multiply..."

Genesis 1:1, 27-28

When I read this in the Bible and I think of how God the Creator of all, made man in His own image, I think that God is telling us not only to go out and fill the world with more people but to also be fruitful, create and multiply our creations...

I like making things but I think most people do. I think that making and creating is something that sets us apart from God's wonderfully made and loved animal world. Humans are called to create. Imagining something, planning the process to arrive at something tangible, spending the time and the effort to produce something, breathing life and soul into that something, that is all part of creation.

I don't mean that artists are the only ones who create. Artists create pictures or sculptures or photographs. Musicians produce music. Businessmen create empires. Politicians create societies. Parents procreate and create future adults. Teachers create future citizens. Housewives create havens of peace for their families. Truck drivers create byways of commerce. Doctors create hope for the hurting. Babies create mud pies and messes and learn quickly how to create smiles in others! And even the elderly create dreams, prayers and the occasional jigsaw puzzle. Writers create worlds with their words and we bloggers create journals of our family history, information and thoughts. We also create friendships!

And quilters create blankets of comfort, sandwiches of love and kaleidoscopes of joy.

With all this creating going on you'd think the world would be a cluttered chaotic place but God also provided a provision so that more can always be created.

"Pay close attention now:

I'm creating new heavens and a new earth.

All the earlier troubles, chaos, and pain are things of the past,

to be forgotten.

Look ahead with joy.

Anticipate what I'm creating..."

Isaiah 65:17-18

(the Message Bible)

Animal life

Monday morning and the work week has started again. I need to get ready for some teaching. It occurs to me that Chip and Toi are getting bigger but I haven't recorded the changes in them very well. So here are a couple of pictures of the two of them. Patora and Cleo and Velvet are just big, not bigger so nothing to show there.

Chip is leaving her cute kitten stage and entering cat stage. Her body is longer and her fur is soft and sleek. She may always be a bit juvenile because she still sucks on a blanket every night. The acrylic fur blanket has just enough pile for her to bury her nose in and she uses it as a pacifier. Makes for soggy sleeping for me. Chip has gotten used to Choco (and vice versa) but I doubt that they'll ever be friends.

Toi has fattened up quite a bit and is a big favorite with all my visitors and students. He loves laps and will seek out anyone who sits down and then settle down to purr. This is quite flattering to non-cat owners and he is a real heart catcher. Toi is probably going to turn into a BIG cat because he eats anything and everything and never seems to have enough. I think it must be after effects of the stray period in his life since for so many weeks he had to eat what he could find. Now he must think if food is available then he'd better eat it all in case nothing is set before him ever again.

Cleo and Patora take life in stride but they look a little like buzzards lately. They peer down at the bottom of chairs and sofa waiting for Velvet to make an appearance and Velvet has turned into a derelict hermit. He camps out in the caves he has made under furniture and growls at the two older cats when they walk by. If he'd just keep quiet they probably wouldn't notice him nor be ready to jump on him. It is like he is asking for a fight or else he calls out for me to come and rescue him which means I have to lift the edge of the chair and pull him out. Cat psychology I am not versed in and I don't know how one gets cats into therapy anyway but Velvet needs a little counseling right now...