End of December

Hmmm...  This is going to be a random post though I had planned to write about quilts...  Maybe tomorrow again.

Thank you for all the good wishes for our new grandchild.  Tetsu was especially amazed that so many people read my blog and would think of us.  We get daily updates from Leiya and of course as we can't be there in person, we get the next best thing with baby photos and videos.  

Tony and Leiya took Luka off about 24 hours after being born, IN A CAR!  What are these young parents thinking of!?  Well, it turns out the new parents were having trouble with breast feeding so off they went with Luka to a lactation consultant.  New to me!  They got some very good advice and assurance and I think that Luka is doing fine now and getting enough nourishment.

Leiya says that Luka spends most of his time sleeping and so she rarely sees him with his eyes open.  Enjoy it now!  But she did send us a video with him looking around for a bit and so I saved a screenshot.  He sure looks like Tony to me!

But this isn't supposed to be a baby blog so let's see what else I can write about.

The past couple of days have been very wearing on us because we get updates from Julieta and Takumi and he is still battling whatever has gotten a hold on him.  It is turning out to be a long and brutal battle with numerous trips to Urgent Care, Covid testing, scans and blood tests.  As of now, the Covid tests come back negative but the blood tests aren't very encouraging.  And of course Urgent Care really is completely overloaded and medical staff do NOT want to spend time on non-covid cases, so he gets shuttled off to the side.  Julieta steps up for his rights but I don't think she is allowed into the facilities with him...  Finally today they were able to see their regular doctor online and more tests are scheduled for next week...  Can you imagine how terrified Tetsu and I are right now.  We don't want to hear that Takumi has contracted Covid, but any illness is not good during this pandemic and the holidays aren't helping.  If more than a day passes without word from Takumi and Julieta then we start getting panicky and then pester them with texts, emails and telephone calls.  Please continue praying for him...

On the more positive side, Tetsu bought a new-to-us car this month and it arrived yesterday.  Let's say that we are rather floored at what a car can do these days and ours is not even equipped with extreme technology...  just the basics (like automatic fold away mirrors, backing-up screens, blue-tooth connections...) but we have managed all our lives with non-remote everything and all the beeps and whistles are rather amazing to us.  I am still afraid to drive it and so I haven't sat behind the steering wheel yet.

Our bright blue car.  I don't think we'll lose it!

And here is Tetsu modeling the vest that I knitted for him this Christmas.  It fits!  And he says it's pretty warm too.

This is one of my last pages from my bullet journal this year.  I've had a good time decorating it and adding Bible verses and quotes to it...  Almost all of my artistic attempts are just re-creations from Pinterest so I can't take much credit for any of the art work...  

Here is another colored pencil picture at the bottom of a page...  I've got a new bullet journal for 2021 and hope to try my hand at water colors next month...

And a last photo that just came in from Leiya and Tony.  I just love the dark coziness of mother and baby.

Grandparents at last!

Tetsu and I are now grandparents!

Leiya and Tony had their baby yesterday morning, December 24th (our time), December 23 in the afternoon, their time!  Their baby boy was born at home coming in at 7 lbs. 10 oz.  Tony sent us two pictures IMMEDIATELY after the birth and everyone looks well!

So we have received the best Christmas present on Christmas Eve!!  Actually the official birth date is December 23rd which was Tetsu's mother's birthday (and also Japan's previous Emperor's) so Tetsu is very happy.  Of course, as always with Tetsu, there were tears on his side!

Our grandson's name is Luka Azael!  

We have already talked with Leiya twice and she looks rather in good shape for just having a baby.  Tony will be able to be at home for two weeks and so they are figuring out how to breastfeed the baby and how to do baby care together.  Being Christmas, the doula that they've connected with won't be coming in until the weekend, but anyway, Tony and Leiya are loving their first days of being parents.

On the other hand, we've gotten word that Takumi is sick so we'd really appreciate some prayers for him.  We are so relieved he and Julieta are together and that she is taking good care of him!  We've talked with both of them but Takumi looks pretty wiped out...  I am still stuck in the emotions of joy and concern... 

Changes

My edges are rather frayed today...  Lots of emotions all mixed up together!

I've been upset because the forest in front of my house is being cut down and we hear buzz saws and feel the crash of trees falling.  I honestly do not understand what the delight or even the non-caring attitude is towards all the destruction!  What is the joy these tree cutters get from hauling down another tree?  They are practically cheering at each crash.  Tetsu has asked and the wood cutters are a group that harvests good burning wood for stoves...  There is reason behind the madness I suppose...

It is not my forest.  I was devastated a couple of years ago when the forest behind me was uprooted (I wish...  The roots and stumps are still evident) but hey, I learned that there are hidden blessings.  My despair was at least soothed by the beautiful view of the mountain range behind us and so I am trying to consider that the loss of the forest now in FRONT of my house will somehow bring about benefits.  I cannot see it now...  All I get so far is a view of a factory that used to be hidden.  Maybe the blessing is one of those forever unknown ones...  Like if the trees hadn't been cut down one of them would have fallen on me...  Anyway, I am avoiding looking out my windows and basically I am in a bad mood...

On another front...  I much better one... I am lacking in sleep because...  Leiya has gone into labor and we are clutching our iPhones waiting for some big news!  Alas, labor started yesterday morning and already a day and a half has passed.  Leiya and Tony are in their cozy, Christmas decorated home counting down minutes and waiting.  The midwife has been consulted but the prognosis from afar is that there is still a ways to go so she isn't with them yet...  As you can imagine, I am ultra excited and expectant but a little concerned and sleep deprived...  Tetsu and I feel much more nervous than we ever were when our own kids were born. 

As I said, I'm rather at loose ends so I'll end here today...  Hopefully I'll have some great news the next time I post!

Flimsy already basted!

This past week I have been putting together the applique and leaders/enders quilt and got it into flimsy form!  Whew!

I've decided it is big enough as is.  I laid it out on our two single beds and it takes up the full width...  I didn't think it needed a border and already began to wonder how and when I was ever going to get this basted!!!

Actually I think this will lay on a bed with the strips running lengthwise so this may be a better idea of how it will look on a bed...

Basting... basting...  I don't have a room with any blank floor space.  I probably can't get to use Mrs. Furui's tatami room.  Our patchwork group isn't getting together in order to have a basting party.  Argh!  This is probably going to end up in a closet again for months!!!  

Unless...

Yesterday my young friend M-san was coming so that we could baste her smallish star quilt.  Her flimsy was small enough to lay on my sewing room's floor and between the two of us we got it basted quickly.

"Would you help me board baste my big quilt?  It is a big job but it would really save me a lot of time..."

M-san is always enthusiastic and so we spent the next hour and a half board basting on my dining room table.  Hard on the backs but with two of us the time went quickly (for me) and it was an enjoyable process working together rather than me trudging though the basting alone. 

This is actually how we were basting...  We try to keep our masks on even in the house.

Okay...  Whip off that mask for a quick picture.

...or two.

My least favorite part of doing patchwork, the basting, is DONE!!!

Thanks to M-san, my quilt is on the road to getting quilted.  I've already settled down in my armchair and am hand-quilting!  I'm looking forward to cold, cozy, shelter-down, quiet holiday nights of quilting.  

It is so nice to have an enthusiastic quilting buddy to help me out!

Quilting in December

What's going on at my house..?  I've managed to get up into my sewing room quite a lot this past week even though it has been cold.  I've got an electric space heater up there now and though it either gets too hot or too cold in the room, I flip it on or off as needed.

I finished another McKenna farm block and now I have one more left to go.  Still no progress yet on any of the quilting.  I guess I'm going to have to go buy some backing for all of these blocks if I'm going to quilt them all separately...  Then how to sew them together and join the backs...  I'm procrastinating on this project.

But!  I have made great progress on sewing leader/ender blocks together to make 5 long strips to go along with the flower applique strips I had been making.  Hopefully I will get all the strips sewn together today into something resembling a flimsy though I have yet to know if I'm going to be needing borders.  

I have a feeling that the checkered leader/ender blocks may overpower the applique strips but this quilt has just been an exercise in using up the applique strips and getting some of the bulk down on the leader/ender bin.

I also helped my young quilting friend get her star blocks into a flimsy form though I forgot to take pictures.  (She just sent me the above photo when I texted her about it.)  That was probably because we had SO MANY PROBLEMS with it though not because of any fault of the new quilter.  We had sewn her blocks together and I told her about auditioning fabrics for a border, we chose a quilting pattern and then she started sewing her borders onto the center of the quilt.  AND I FOOLISHLY DECIDED WE DIDN'T HAVE TIME TO MEASURE THE BORDERS AND JUST SET HER TO SEWING!!!!!  Well...  you know what happens then.  The borders got stretched as she sewed and everything was warped and wavy and the flimsy looked like fluted pie crust...  

ALL MY FAULT!!!  How was she to know?!  So, we ripped it all back out, MEASURED, pinned densely and my young friend sewed it up again.  Our quilting session went over by about an hour and by the time I took her home (she doesn't drive) it was dark and the stars were coming out.  The new quilter is now tracing quilting designs on her flimsy and we will baste it all later this week.

I have also decided I need to make a quilt for my niece who got engaged in October...  I have purchased a download pattern which I think she will like but it isn't really a bed quilt size...  It could be modified but these big quilts are so daunting!  What do you think?  Does a quilt for a new couple need to be bed size?  I have made bed sized quilts (albeit a bit small) for both Takumi and Julieta, and Leiya and Tony, and both couples seem to spread them lightly over their beds...  So yes, it would probably be most appreciated to have the bigger size...  Would you go for it, or play it safe?  (And this looks like it is going to be a fiddly quilt too....)  Or just make it the size it is and add a lot of border?!  That would do it too.  I'm also planning to do this in dark blue...

And last, but hardly worth showing, I got my post card from the Partnership Quilt group that is making quilts from all the little blocks that participants sent in.  I think this year's theme was Love The Earth.  Of course the Tokyo International Quilt Festival isn't going to be held in January or whenever it was planned but the post card tells me that my little block will be in quilt number 17 (out of 30 quilts) and that I can see it briefly on December 26th (between 3:40 and 3:45) and an overall program will be aired on December 27 at 2:30.  Certainly not one of the prettier post card announcements that I have received over the years that I've participated but I guess the group isn't wasting funds on colorful designs about the canceled quilt show...

Christmas decorations

I stopped in to visit with Mrs. Furui yesterday.  I haven't spent any time with her in MONTHS!

It used to be that Mrs. Furui and I got together weekly for patchwork (when our kids were in kindergarten and grade school) and then we shifted our schedule to once a month and met with other friends to make a yearly quilt for the kindergarten bazaar.  About 10 years ago Mrs. Furui started doing volunteer work at the University hospital and she began focusing on making decorations for the children's ward's waiting room.  Our patchwork group let the kindergarten mothers take over the bazaar projects and instead, under Mrs. Furui's guidance, we worked on various large seasonal quilts for the hospital waiting room.  

But since Covid-19, our group has sort of faded to non-existence and we no longer meet nor have any patchwork projects going.  Mrs. Furui, however continues to head a HOSPITAL volunteer group (many more people with many more sewing skills) and year round they make things out of fabric, yarn, paper, beads etc. and usually they hold a fund-raising market at the hospital.  (Unfortunately the hospital is way too far away for me to get involved and I've only been there two or three times).

This Christmas Mrs. Furui's group was making presents for the children, including Christmas cards that the children can decorate and give to someone.

Look at all these pretty stockings that got made!  Mrs. Furui proudly told me that her group had used up ALL the velvet fabric that she and I had one time rescued from the kindergarten's throw away pile... 

    We had already made two Christmas Tree quilts (one for the kindergarten, one that I have hanging on my wall) and Mrs. Furui had kept the left over the fabric in hopes of making use of it someday.  Well, she sure did!  100 stockings got made that are going to be filled with treats and given to the children hospitalized during Christmas.  Well done!!!

And this is the little card that the children will be given to decorate with stickers and washi tape etc.  The "tree" is a folded piece of construction paper backed in yellow which lays flat and a message can be written on it.  The circle with the writing is provided as well as stickers and "jewels" and the star.  The person who receives it gets a standing Christmas tree message!  Isn't that cute? 

The last project that Mrs. Furui has been doing...  is making an advent calendar for the hospital reception counter.  This is a nothing little box that has had holes poked into it which have been numbered for the days of advent.  

The little stick snowmen are laminated circles cut from a DESSERT NAPKIN!  They have been taped to toothpicks which are stored in the box!  Clever, inexpensive, and fun!

I came home from Mrs. Furui's with a set of snowmen circles myself...  Now to find a good box!  

No wonder Mrs. Furui never gets around to making her own quilts!  She is always busy making something for someone else!

 

Changes since Covid

For being very busy this past week I can't say that there is much interesting that has been going on...

I went to the pre-school on Monday.  The principal and I are talking about when I am going to retire from teaching there.  I suggested retiring in April but it looks like I may stay on another year.  I felt very bad when I disrupted the pre-school's schedule when I had to cancel with a slipped disc in October I've also not seen the children so much this year because Covid19 resulted in almost of 4 months of no English...  I really don't want to come down with something and suddenly have to call it quits but realistically as I get older, health issues hit me harder than before (but I still consider myself VERY healthy!)  Anyway, that topic is still up for discussion.

I also saw a patchwork friend on Monday who was in town just for a few days and "needed" a lot of patchwork projects to keep her busy during the winter months.  She is living in the countryside Northern Japan now to get away from Corona that is creeping into the cities and she doesn't plan to be back near me til April.  I sent her away with a basted quilt for hand quilting and lots of fabric and a pattern so that she can do hand piecing while she is housebound.

On Tuesday I had two English classes with my friends.  Again, everyone is getting older and for those heading into their eighties Covid is really scary and family members are worried about any gatherings going on.  Also my older friends are less confident about driving these days so we are considering moving one class closer into the city where it is possible to take a bus or a train and then carpool.  In the meantime we all wear face masks and one friend always wears a face shield over her mask.

On Wednesday I went to the church for the first time in 6 months!  There are 6 services offered during the week in hopes that people won't congregate too densely, but Tetsu and I have opted for attending online these past months. I went on Wednesday and attended that service and then met with a Bible study group that also has had to resort to online sharing.  We met for about 15 minutes to decide how to continue being "together" while staying "apart".  For some of us, technology is a challenge, for others the written language is the challenge (ME!)  Covid has changed the way we worship and fellowship.

I also went to the dentist on Wednesday but I couldn't detect any changes in procedure from before...  The reception desk has plastic screens up now but that was the only difference I could see.

Thursday I finally spent some time at home and Tetsu and I decorated for Christmas.  The house looks pretty festive now!  Though I used to do a lot of decorating when the kids were little and when I had children coming for English in the evenings, the past couple of years I've slacked off and maybe put up two or three quilts.  And I've got so many!!!  Why do I keep making Christmas quilts?!!!  With Tetsu's help he was willing to put up anything and everything (even things I'd planned to throw out) and so Christmas has arrived at the Watanabe house.  Except for a Christmas tree.  It has never been any use to try to put up a tree (only artificial table top trees in Japan) because the cats knock the ornaments off or pull the whole thing down.  

And yesterday I suddenly participated in a "Walk-a-long" with the group that had been doing water aerobics at the pool.  That group disbanded in March because of Covid but I noticed a poster on the pool locker wall (I've gone back to the pool since November) saying there was going to be a walking day this week with the former aerobics teacher.  It was very nice to do stretch exercises and walk the hills and chat with acquaintances I haven't seen in months.  Of course we all wore our masks...  

On our walk I noticed a big circus tent that is off in the fields and learned that a European circus troupe had been slotted to hold a mini-circus in town back in February.  Well, they never were able to put on the circus because of Covid and now the whole troupe is stuck here in the field as they can't get back to their country.  I forget about all the displaced people who are trying to cope in a foreign country because they can't return to their own...

After the walk I helped out at an English class for an elderly group but the community center is concerned about the rising numbers of Covid cases in the city and it looks like there won't be another class for a couple of months...

I also talked with both Takumi and Leiya.

Leiya has less than three weeks until her due date and she is very happy but also stressing out about all the stuff they have bought and received that is piling up in all the rooms of their house.  "Who knew a baby needs so much stuff!!!"  She has virtual meetings with her mid-wife and they are all counting down the days...  Tony is very tired from the intensity of the hospital and I don't think he is going to be able to be spending too much time caring for a new baby in the coming months...

Takumi is good and working from home but Julieta has started a job now and I guess suits up daily in mask, face shield, gloves etc.  I'm not so sure this was a good time to step back into Los Angeles society for work but she has been 6 months without a job and so was grateful for this opportunity.  For the first time ever, Takumi admitted feeling the threat of living in Los Angeles County during this pandemic.  He says that there are now people he knows who have contracted the virus and who are hospitalized...  

You can imagine how much my prayers have increased for these four children of mine...

Oh dear.... One final piece of news is that I was on Japanese television on Monday.  Remember that television crew that ambushed me at the crosswalk and then came home with me?  Well, the program was aired (but no one ever contacted me!).  It was a short 3 minute cut of me doing my crosswalk job and I looked very professional!  Actually because I wore my mask the whole time at the crosswalk my face was never fully shown nor was my name given, so probably very few people recognized me unless they knew for certain that that is where I work every morning...   

It looks like if you persevere with pushing the video buttons and get through the first blur of the video, that you can see the whole three minutes...  of course all in Japanese!

 Isn't this a funny picture of the Nikko crosswalk guards?  We had a meeting but because of Covid it had to be held outside...  Tetsu says we look like a strange religious cult!  I'm amongst the standing...  Can you find me?