August end

Finally at the end of August!  (Or for me, the beginning of September...  Today is September 1st where I live.)  August was a long and hard month and I'm hoping for better days in September!  

My hip problems have not been resolved but I've now talked with my son-in-law who has me in mind and I can consult him if need be.  But I am back at the crosswalk (but can't walk there myself) so I'm not completely immobile.  I'm also back at the pool water walking, and all in all, I'm not particularly worried, just frustrated.

The summer was so dang hot and humid!!!  I really do not handle Japanese summers well, but in a few months you'll hear me saying how I don't handle Japanese winters well either so I must not adjust to different temperatures very well...

Corona hit Japan hard during the summer and my two English classes have been postponed again for the month of September.  Everyone still wears masks outside of their homes here in Japan and we have been vaccinated four times.  Still, the cases are rising and I have a few friends who have had mild cases.  Tetsu and I are hoping we can hold out.

Artwork gets done on a fairly regular basis though I slacked off a bit this week...  

I tried crayon drawing following a Youtube Shibasaki Grandpa tutorial.

A Sandy Allnock watercolor pens lesson which inspired me to grab my own photo of a lighthouse we saw in Michigan a few years ago.

My normal "style" is more of a colored doodle than anything else...

Another doodle page in my bullet journal.

This was another lesson with Sandy Allnock and though the watercolor did its own thing and I had no control, I sort of like how this turned out...  The lesson was on reflections.

... so I doodled from a photo of a Nikko lake.

*********************************

As for family updates...  

Takumi and his dog baby, Pollo.

Leiya and Luka actually went off to Texas for two weeks and so I didn't get many photos from her this month.

Luka was taking swimming lessons before they went to Texas so that has been a big step and he seems to love the water.  I wonder when Luka will ever get to Japan to go swimming with Grandpa Tetsu and me in our local pool...

***************************

Something equally good and frustrating is that Tetsu and I bought new iPhones with larger capacity and that solves some of the problems we'd been having with our phones...  That's great!  But these poor, old brains do not comprehend technology and backing up, setting up, renewing passwords, logging in etc. and all of these steps are barely within our abilities.  We feel so old and baffled and the three days of headaches to get our phones and everything we've used them for working again has exhausted us.  

"Dinner?  I don't have the energy to cook.  Let's go out."  

"I've got to get away from all these devices!!!"

So that was the month of August...

 

Summer is over, a pretty quilt and sad news

Let's see...  There is less than a week left of August and summer vacation is over.  Of course for Tetsu and me there is not much daily difference between summer vacation and everyday life, but at least it looks like the heat will not be as debilitating as it has been these past couple months...

So school began yesterday and I went back to work as a crosswalk guard.  I was a bit concerned about how I was going to manage that with my bum hip but Tetsu offered yesterday to accompany me and he even stuck around to collect trash along the streets where the children walk so he was "keeping an eye on me" to make sure I didn't fall over or anything.  I find if I limit myself to just standing at the crosswalk and making the few steps into the intersection with my flag, that I'm not putting too much stress on my leg.  Today Tetsu dropped me off at the crosswalk and then came back an hour later to pick me up.  It looks like I'm going to be able to continue my job without taking sickness leave!  Yeah!  

*******************************

Mrs N. contacted me yesterday so ask if she could bring her latest projects over for some advice as she is getting cabin sickness just being at home for months and months.  She finished her grandson's quilt and is already started on the applique project I gave her.  She also wants to make NUMEROUS Happy Village quilts for her friends so she kept pulling her fabric and her half-done projects out of her bag to show me and make plans for the next steps.  I can hardly keep up with her!  

And here is Mrs. N's quilt made for her grandson!  He has just graduated from high school and so she didn't want anything flowery or too bright.  She has done this ALL BY HAND!!!  During Corona she and her husband were living in another prefecture and she didn't have access to her sewing machine.  As she wasn't seeing people or going out, she hand pieced all the stars and once back in our prefecture she did stitch-in-the-ditch quilting and some curved stitching on all the solid blocks.  It took her two and a half years but it is now done!  Congratulations Mrs. N!  Her grandson's birthday is next month and she will give it to him then.

The full quilt with no overhang.  Designed by us!

*************************************

Some sad news this week from my friend's daughter-in-law, letting me know that Lorraine had passed away.  Lorraine was my Comrade in the Quarry friend who was with me when Japan had the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in 2011.  We had been visiting a rock quarry underground when the earthquake struck and we spent the next aftershock filled days together until she could finally return to her son's family who lived in another prefecture and whom she'd been visiting from Australia.  

In recent years Lorraine has been cared for in an assisted living home and she no longer wrote to me herself,  but her daughter-in-law sometimes emailed me pictures and told me how Lorraine was, and I think she also read my blog posts to her sporadically.  Lorraine became a wonderful friend to me all these years and she was an avid quilter and so able to adapt to anything...  even an earthquake disaster with me!  This was the blog post I wrote of that day so many years ago...  Earthquake experience!    And this was another one showing what our house was like that day...  Earthquake damage...

Lorraine visited Japan a couple times after the year of the earthquake and she always made the trip to Nikko to spend time with me.  Her face flashes into my mind whenever we even experience a gentle earth tremor and it probably always will.

Labyrinth quilt finish!

I have another finish to announce!  The Labyrinth quilt!

I didn't know anything about labyrinths until I went to a women's retreat a few years ago and learned about prayer walking a labyrinth.  There was a canvas labyrinth laid out in the chapel and in the evening the room was lit with candles and we were encouraged to find time during the weekend to walk it and meditate.  It seemed a little mystical and my thoughts wandered but after the retreat I read up on the meaning of the labyrinth and I was interested to find many labyrinth gardens in the world and in churches.  

Labyrinths are NOT mazes.  A maze is a puzzle where one tries to find the way to the center or to the exit and there are many misleading turns and dead-ends.  A labyrinth has a path that leads only one way, and no matter how winding the path is, one can't get lost.  The path leads to the center, in my case, a place to pray and think, and then the same path is taken back to the starting point.  It is interesting to experience the way you think you are almost to the center, almost knowing where God is leading you, and then suddenly the path veers far into the edges of the labyrinth, but it will always lead to the center (God) and it will always give you time to rejoin the world and take what you've learned from Him.  

Although labyrinths are not specifically of Christian faith, one of the most famous is the Chartres Cathedral labyrinth that has the pretty center design.  It is laid out in tile on the cathedral floor and there are various theories of what the rosette in the middle means and the attitudes one should have when walking it.

I blogged about how I drew up the labyrinth pattern from the Chartres model (I couldn't fathom putting all the outer decorative indentations on mine however) and I chose light and dark colors as symbolic of the mysterious path in the midst of God.  I didn't want completely solid fabric and used a multi-colored batik for the purple path, as life hits bright spots and dull spots and we never know what we will be walking through next.  I debated adding embellishments or meaningful symbols etc, but stayed with simplicity.  

For the month of August, just the act of slowly appliquing from the labyrinth entrance to the center and back has been its own meditative experience, and I enjoyed making this immensely.  Just my needle and thread, my fabric and thoughts.  My labyrinth is small enough to fit on the wall and I am able to trace the path with my fingers as I meditate on the day's occurences.  Someday I would like to find a garden labyrinth to walk, but for now my fingers are doing the walking.

While I was at it, I also made up a page in my Celtic Knots journal which is gradually being filled with favorite gospel songs.  And I added a quote from Thomas Merton 

My Lord God I have no idea where I am going.  I do not see the road ahead of me.  I cannot know for certain where it will end.  Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.  But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You.  And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.  I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.  And I know that, if I do this, You will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it.  Therefore I will trust You always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.  I will not fear for You are ever with me, and You will never leave me to fact my perils alone.  Amen.  --  Thomas Merton  --  Thoughts on Solitude

Julieta saw my labyrinth and commented that she really liked it so I've offered it to her once we figure out how to send it.  In the meantime it is hanging behind my door in the sewing room, ready for me to pass my fingers over it.

   

Nothing Changes

Tetsu mentioned that I don't seem to do as much blogging as I once did and I apologize for that... but life has settled so softly into a repeat of the day before, there isn't much to write about that I haven't already written about before...  The only difference in the day is basically what I've drawn.  I hadn't planned this to be a paint and sketch blog but if I don't resort to those, there is nothing to show.

***************

So last week I had to make a trip to a foods warehouse to pick up some walnuts and almonds and raisins.  I can get all of that at the local supermarket but the cost by gram is so much higher, that nearly 20 years or so ago I began buying those products (and coconut) from a warehouse that someone had told me about.  The first time I went I wasn't even sure I was in the right place, first, because I wasn't reading the Japanese characters correctly, but also because there was just this large loading dock and a drab office with lots of desks.  When I stepped into the aisle between the desks, barely anyone looked up and the lady who did seemed very put out about my presence.   When I asked about nuts etc, she grunted and told a younger clerk to get me some, quoted me the price and went back to her desk like I was invisible.  Wow!  Japanese businesses are usually so customer service conscious.  What's with this place?

The friend who first recommended the warehouse to me later commiserated with me about how lacking in service skills the office ladies were.  The prices made up for the monthly snubs and so all these years I've patronized the place and somewhere along the line decided I was going to wrangle my way into their vision.  I've asked if I could go back into the warehouse to see all that can be bought (huge cans of fruit and vegetables, bags of flour, tubs of mayonnaise and blocks of margarine) and that brought a stare and the younger office girl was told to accompany me.  I've commented about a knick-knack or two on a shelf and one older lady even dusted it off and gave it to me.  

The biggest breakthrough came when I asked for my regular nuts and raisins and the older office lady asked me why month after month I bought all this stuff, and when I told her I made granola she offered a bag of almonds to me free of cost as it was nearing its expiration date.  

"If you don't mind, and as long as you're baking it anyway."  

Since then the two older ladies (who have been around since I first started going) have warmed up to me quite a bit and I've chattered to them about my trips to the States and my English teaching and they actually act interested.  

The warehouse office hasn't much changed in the twenty some years I've purchased their products.  The office is still drab, the desks are piled with papers and cups full of pens and pencils.  The clear desk mats hold yellowing receipts and notices under them.  Everyone still stares at their computers or answers phones.  There is even one man there whom I've never seen move or speak and for all I know he could be a manequin propped in his chair behind his computer.  The older office ladies rule their office fortress and the younger office girl (a new girl every couple of years) has been trained to get my nuts from the warehouse and accept my money but she never says anything.  

Talk about not much changing in my daily life!  Nothing has changed at the warehouse in 20 years... except that the two older ladies now smile at me when I step into the aisle between the desks each month.

Miscellaneous art

First off, I wanted to say thank you to the blog friends who commented about my hip problems and specifically mentioned "bursitis" as a possible cause.  I still don't know if I have bursitis (Japan is on summer, (Obon) holidays and I've not been back to the doctors), but giving a name to my ailment gives me something to go by and when I Googled it, the symptoms do seem to go along with what I'm experiencing.  

"Bursitis?  Wow, I remember that word from story books with older people hobbling around with bursitis, whatever that was."

I don't know if the first Japanese doctor I saw had this diagnosis and I just missed the Japanese word (I do that a lot...) but anyway, now that I can look up bursitis I feel that a way has opened up for me again.  Thank you!

Tetsu coddles me, not allowing me to do things that I still can do pain free, like wash dishes and hang out clothes.  He would be happy if I just sat around all day or better yet just went to bed.  I'm not at that stage yet!  I have been making the effort to go with him to the pool despite the high Corona numbers and we stay in the outdoor pool and walk the water for 30 minutes.  In this heat, it feels so good to get into cool water and since this is the only exercise I'm getting, I at least feel as if I've accomplished something!  So, grudgingly I say, "I'm glad I'm again a member at the pool."

Still appliqueing.  Nothing to show there yet... I'm still working on the Labyrinth quilt.

**********************************

I finished the class I was taking called 30 Days to More Confident Watercolor Sketching, through Sandy Allnock's website.  This was a great class if you want to paint scenes with loose flowers and Sandy does a good job of building upon a previously taught skill in each class.  I'll spare you seeing all 30 days of paintings individually, actually 60 because I did each lesson while following the video and then later in the evening went back and did a smaller version in my bullet journal to see if I could replicate my work alone...  

This was the progression of the class though.

And for comparison, Day 1, Day 15, and Day 30.

I don't know what I'm going to do arty now that this class is over... probably a bunch of hodge podge, but I would like to be able to add regular entries to my bullet journal...  My high school friend sent me a picture of her son's wedding, (I'd been invited), and so I recorded it in the doodly way I do...

Around here, Tetsu is my only model...  

What I do on hot days...

Today I'm in a funk.  The weather is too hot and humid, my body has aches and pains, I'm not getting anything done.

I am still shuffling my animals here and there trying to find them cool places they'll tolerate.  This seems so funny to me because I gravitate to the coolness and stay there for the rest of the day!  

My hip continues to give me problems and as sitting is the most comfortable postition, I sit and applique.  Less than six months ago I was religiously walking 10000 steps a day but that is a thing of the past, partly because of the heat and partly because of the sore hip.  The orthopedist didn't do much, the acupuncturist didn't do much and I'm wondering when I will give in and start to use a cane...  My husband tells me I'm finally coming to the reality of getting old.  Grrr...  So, now the floor is not getting washed, the trips up and down the stairs to put away things have lessened and I am rather angry at myself for not being spry and agile (though I'm not sure I was ever spry and agile.)

But the sitting around has done wonders for my applique and I have finished the top for the Labyrinth quilt that I started making.  

This project has been in my head for over a year after I learned about prayer labyrinths and meditation of centering on God.  I took a diagram of the Chartres Labyrinth and spent many hours mapping out a plan on a large piece of paper and then I rigged up a string and pencil compass of sorts to make my lines.  I was getting confused with so many lines so I followed them up with pathwalking lines (in black) and cutting lines (in red) before transferring the pattern for reverse applique.  

Since then, stitching, stitching, stitching.  This will probably be stitch-in-the-ditch quilting as soon as I can get it sandwiched.

I visited with my friend Mrs. N for the first time in three years, and we even made a trip to the fabric store together!!!  Mrs. N is finishing her mammoth quilt for her grandson (three years in the making) and she is putting on binding this week and raring to get started on something new!  I need some of her motivation and enthusiasm!  I told her that I was starting a "new" applique quilt and that was why I was going to the fabric store and she said, "I want to make that too!!"   So off we went.

The "new" applique is probably going to be for Leiya...  Last month I posted the picture of the finished Songbird's Garden quilt that Leiya had asked me to make for her...  I'd bought the quilt kit and finished it up and she and I were both surprised at how big it was!  

"I didn' think it was going to be that big.  Where am I going to put it?"

I realized that maybe she'd seen a picture of the only the center medallion of the quilt whereas I had bought the full quilt.  Hmmm... She had been hoping for a smaller wall quilt.  I was pleased to find that there was so much leftover fabric from the kit though and with the purchase of some white fabric (and maybe some light blue) I could pretty much make the center part of the quilt again...  And if Mrs. N wants to do applique too, well, I could even get a third block ready for her from the leftover fabric!

Mrs. N is gung-ho about applique but not so thrilled with preparing the pieces so I've done that work for her along with my own...  That's why you're seeing double!  (The centers of the flowers will be added later).  Mrs. N will stop when she likes as the block grows... I may let this get a bit bigger with the added applique borders...  So in this heat I've been standing over the ironing board preparing applique pieces!!!  (I like to suffer.)

From tomorrow the Obon holiday, returning of ancestoral spirits, starts in Japan and every morning at the cemetery there are a few families scrubbing their family graves and arranging flowers.  The gardeners have been working hard to shape the bushes and cut the grass and take away any dead flower bouquets.  We regularly talk with an older couple of gardeners there over twenty years.  They are in their late 70's and have their own farm but they spend a few hours each week tidying up the grounds... I snapped a photo of the wife washing out buckets and emptying trash...

And I came home to paint this in colored pencils and watercolor.

A week of August

Wow!  We're almost a week into August and I'm just getting around to posting...  Not because I'm so busy, but because there is hardly anything worth about...  

Let's see...  It was hot last week!  So hot that I feared for my animals and I did round the clock monitoring of their welfare...  Cleo and Patora are 17 or 18 now so I worry about them most.  

Patora is an outdoor cat living in the cat house along with Toi who is a few years younger, but I brought them both into their cat-cage where they usually spend the nights.  

At least the cat kennel gets the air conditioning from the living room and it is cooler there than outside.  With no toilet facilities in the cat-cage, I was putting them out for an hour or so, bringing them back in for most of the afternoons, feeding them in the cat house in the evenings and bringing them back into the cat-cage for the night.  

Cleo was a headache of a problem though, because he insisted on staying upstairs which got like an oven!!!!!  Really!  I could no longer be upstairs to do any sewing or drawing or journaling or whatever and I feared for Cleo who was hiding UNDER THE COVERS of the bed of all things!!!  I would bring him downstairs into the air conditioned living room and hold him for awhile but pretty soon he was scrambling out of my arms and heading back upstairs.  I rigged up another temporary cat-cage in the same room as Patora and Toi but Cleo HATED being trapped inside and worked himself up into a frenzy scratching and chewing at the entrance.  And that set John off barking which didn't help anyone's nerves.  I decided Cleo would suffer from an anxiety attack before heat stroke and let him go back upstairs.  At one point I even turned on the air conditioning in the bedroom and put him in there for awhile (and the Japanese government is telling us to limit air-conditioning use because it is exhausting Japan's power supply right now) but Cleo insisted on opening the door and letting the cool air out!!!  Good-grief!!!  I'm only trying to keep you alive!!!

Chip, Mi and John found cool places downstairs in the air conditioning....  Chip, semi-cool in the stairwell.

Mi, looking comfortable.

John chilling out.

Tetsu worked out problems on his computer...

I am working on a major applique piece.

Tetsu's garden, though he actually didn't plant much this year, is overflowing with what he did plant.  Egads!  What am I going to do with all those mini-tomatoes!?!

Right this minute I am roasting them in the oven...  (it is cool enough to use the oven today).  This is the third batch I've made this summer so we are eating these like candy, and throwing them in salads, omelets and pasta dishes!

This must be the fifth or sixth haul of blueberries this summer and I've already given bowls of these away to friends.  The rest are being frozen for later use but the freezer is now filled with blueberries with no room for anything else!  I don't know what I'm going to do with all the green peppers...  Any ideas?

Last, a sketch of a neighboring farmhouse...  loose ink style...  I'm enjoying my ink and paints more and more!