The first week of October

It has been nearly a month and sometimes I'm afraid if I don't get back to my blog, I never will.  I remember when I used to blog daily... maybe my entries were shorter but there were always things to say.  Now I feel like very little happens that's worth writing about but when I think about writing a post I realize that so MUCH has been going on (all incidental) and it will take me awhile to put it all down!  And then I procrastinate!

So, the weather has finally become bearable.  This week at least I can report cool evenings though the days are still quite warm and sometimes even get hot!  We did put blankets on the bed though so nights can become chilly (sometimes).  I'm really supposed to be in the fall/winter uniform for my crosswalk job but I'm chosing to stay in the spring/winter uniform which is lighter weight and I don't have to wear a vest, jacket and tie.  Next week maybe?

Farmers are harvesting their rice fields so I guess that means that autumn is officially here.  M-san brought us a bag of her family's rice and so we are enjoying New Rice (as opposed to old rice which was harvested and has been in storage since last autumn.)  Connoissiurs of rice will tell you that new rice is stickier and shines when cooked and that each rice kernal becomes plump.  I'm not sure I can tell the difference but M-san's rice is definitely tasty so there must be something to it.

Other signs of autumn have been fall morning glories, golden fields...

...chestnuts, and thunder storms (and M-san's rice). 

We had a surprise visitor this month when Tetsu's sister showed up at our front door.  She'd lost Tetsu's phone number and she needed something so she rode her bicycle (albeit a chargeable one) for 3 1/2 hours to get to our house!  After some chatting and lunch (and ice water and a cold towel!) Tetsu loaded her bicycle in the car and drove her home.  She's 74!  I'd never be able to do it!!!

I had an interesting afternoon one Sunday when I attended a trial-run of a pot-sticker making class with the Nikko International Association.  Next month the group (there are only 6 of us plus City Hall staff) will lead a group of 4th, 5th, and 6th graders in making authentic Chinese pot-stickers (we call them gyouza) and the Chinese lady who will be teaching the class wanted to make sure that we volunteers knew what we were doing before we tried to teach the children.  This was a major undertaking as we made the gyouza wrappers from scratch so it took a lot of kneading, a lot of letting sit, more kneading, more sitting and then rolling each wrapper out individually in very specific hand motions.  A lot of work!!!  But the teacher told stories of how she learned to make gyouza with her grandmother, she taught us how to stuff the wrappers the Chinese way with a chant and a wish over each one for health, a happy family and wealth.  The 9 of us made 80 gyouza and ate our fill of them!  They were SO delicious but it will take me a while to work up the motivation to make homemade gyouza in my own kitchen.  

I have sort of an upsetting story (to me and to Tetsu) to relate about our sunroom and garden.  Sigh.  Some bigwigs came last week to let us know that at the beginning of next year, construction will start on a factory and parking lot right where all that green is from the window...  We have enjoyed our garden and the view from our sunroom and from our bedroom for the past 5 years.  Tetsu has made a vegetable garden and planted flowers, he has kept the weeds from encroaching by weed whacking a large area behind our house.  We have been thrilled to see the sunset over Mt. Nantai and look out over morning mist but alas...  There will be a factory next our neighborhood from sometime next year.  It is hard not to be sad over this upcoming change...  But it was never our land to begin with, and as I say, we have basked in beauty for 5 years.  I was very upset when the huge forest that had been originally behind our house was felled those 5 years previously and we even went looking for somewhere else to live but the scenery that we were gifted after the removal of the forest made me see that even things that I consider terrible may bring blessings and gifts I couldn't imagine.  I can't imagine what a factory behind us is going to bring that may be good but I'm trusting that God's timing and plan is better than any I could come up with...  

Tersu and I have both taken so many pictures out our bedroom window and I've shown only a fraction of them.  We have loved watching the clouds move across the sky.

Different colors, different times of day.

Well, the clouds and the mountain will still be there but we just may not be able to see them so easily.  Life is like that.

I'm working on another Mexican Star quilt and M-san is working on her own version.  I need to get the final border in this weekend.

Can anyone guess who this is?!  It's Yuma-kun!!!!  I had just finished up at the pool and was waiting for Tetsu when Yuma-kun noticed me and came over to say hi.  He has been working in another prefecture, but is now back in his old home and he was on his way to the pool himself.  For people who don't know what I'm talking about, Yuma-kun came to me for English when he was in the first grade and he was quite a handful!  I sort of took him under my wing for a number of years and he continued to come to me for English (and sewing and cooking and walking the dog and taking pictures) until he went to high school.  He is 23 now and he assures me that he will be at the pool often so I hope to see him regularly!

This week my friends and I (until Covid hit we often went traveling together) went to Nikko to the shrines and temples for a day trip.  Hiroko-san (carrying the folder) is an English volunteer guide and she wanted to go through her tour with us in English and that is why we were off for the day.

It was such an interesting day and Hiroko-san could answer almost any question we had and she explained the history of the area and the relationship between the shrines (Shintoism) and temples (Buddhism).  It was a wonderful day and once home I put snippits in my sketchbook.

Our itinerary, and a sketch of the fortune hoop that people could step through for good luck (and with a partner to ask for blessings on a happy relationship.)  The Imperial Crest which I found in front of a temple.  The 5 story pagoda which is on the shrine grounds but is a symbol of Buddhism.

A sketch of our group, of the Rinnoji temple and of the Sacred Bridge that is another famous site in Nikko.

Pictures from Leiya last month include Tony with his hands full...

...Taiga-kun and Luka-kun I guess in a hotel somewhere...  They are in Tennessee this week.

...And a cute family photo while traveling.

And that takes us to this first week in October!  Thank you for sticking with me!

The month of August vanished...

I am so sorry to be AWOL for so long.  Life is a strange balance of not doing anything worth writing about and then actually having so many details that it is hard to get started!  It has been nearly a month since my last post so now I fear today's post will be too long!

The weather hasn't actually changed that much from my last post in the middle of August.  The days are still hot and sweltering,

I still worry about Tetsu spending so much time time outdoors cutting weeds in the middle of the day.  

I can't convince him to limit his outdoor work to early morning and when he finally does come back into the air conditioning he collapses onto the sofa and can barely talk with me.  A nap, something iced-cold and a big meal usually revives him! 

This summer I have drawn him numerous times weed whacking and he is somewhat annoyed that I depict him as only ever doing yard work...  But honestly, that has been his main activity!

Not long after my last post, Tetsu came down sick and I followed soon afterwards.  Tetsu never went to the doctor's though I did and I took a Covid test and it was negative.  I was told, though, that it might be too early to tell and so to take Covid precautions.  Actually, I'm pretty sure that both Tetsu and I had Covid because we both lost our sense of smell!  Tetsu bounced back fairly quickly but I was knocked out completely for a week and then just sat around in a brain fog for the next week and even now nearly a month later I am still coughing.  The brain fog and lack of motivation and the fatigue was the worse and I ended up sitting in front of the TV watching Olympics and high school baseball all day and every day!  And I HATE the TV!  It was pretty bad!

While I was still laid out, Tetsu discovered that there were hornets trying to build a hive in our balcony wall (they were buzzing in and out of a very small crack) and then he discovered a small hive up under the eaves of our house. 

I slept through all the excitement of Tetsu dealing with the hornets with extra strength wasp repellant and then getting up on a ladder and knocking down their hive.  He managed to wrench his knee while he did that but he did win out over the hornets!  He counted 63...

Not a great photo but you can see that we survived the hornets and Covid.  Here we are with the end of the season crop of blueberries from our garden.

Once I was back up and about I finished off the Mola wall hanging I had been making.  

This goes with the Mola from last year.  I think the top piece is supposed to be sprouts in a field and the bottom piece are the tomatoes after the crop comes in. 

I'm done with Mola for the year!

Japan had a couple of typhoon visit us in August and the southern part of Japan had quite a bit of flooding and landslide damage.  In our part of Japan, though school was canceled for the day, we actually didn't get much wind and in the evening the sky was just beautiful!

The scenery from our bedroom window.

You can see how the rain has hit the windows on this side of the house but once that passes we get some fantastic sunsets!

I made cookies one day...

M-san and I went out fabric shopping for our next project and we stopped for gelato on the way home.

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Taiga-kun has two bottom teeth now!  He is getting past baby stage.

He is also beginning to stand and try to pull himself around.

Luka and Leiya and Taiga made a trip to Texas a couple of weeks ago and they spent a week with Leiya's good friend and her three boys.  Luka loves having some older "brothers".

And that's pretty much our month...

A couple of lessons from  Skillshare classes.

The hot days of August!

Another couple of weeks gone by.  In some ways the days pass so quickly, in other ways it seems like the summer is just dragging.  Mostly we do nothing which in itself is rather a downer...  I'm not much motivated to do anything but the bare minimum though I have set myself the task of drawing everyday and having a hand sewing project available for air conditioned afternoons.  

Cooking is at a minimum, though I did get inspired to make some carrot cake when M-san's mother gave me a large bunch of home grown carrots.  The cake, by the way, was DELICIOUS!

Most days Tetsu tries to spend outdoors whacking weeds and it is a never ending project.  If it is not the weeds around our house then he goes off with the neighborhood volunteer team to tidy up some elderly neighbor's yard for them, or he visits his friend who recently had a stroke and cuts the weeds around his house.  

I finished a smallish quilt to hang by my front door.  The pattern of a welcome quilt with lettering and applique was my own idea but the applique pieces and layout were taken from one of Lynette Anderson's books... though I made the doggie's legs a bit shorter to represent John.  Two of my friends are planning to make similar quilts and this was my sample to see if I could teach them the right dimensions.  (I'm still not sure.)

My other sewing project is from a Mola book that I own and once it has been planned out and set with various layers of fabric, it is ready for just a lot of hand sewing.  The sewing doesn't give me many problems but the set up is rather a brain exercise.  This should keep me occupied for the rest of the summer.

Hiroshima Peace Dome

This past week Japan commemorated two anniverseries of the atomic bombings of 79 years ago.  Of course there were ceremonies held on the respective days in Hiroshima and Nagasaki but in my city, loudspeakers requested citizens to honor a minute of silence for prayers and remembrance. 

Nagasaki Peace Park statue

When I was a college student I visited both the Hiroshima Peace Dome and also the Nagasaki Peace Park and though the museums are heart-breaking to go through, they are necessary memorials and reminders of why the world should aim for peace. 

My memorial in my bullet journal.

John and the kitties are bearing up with the heat.  John and I are of the same mind and neither of us want to do any walking outside.  Maybe next month?

Leiya reports that Taiga-kun smiles a lot and is trying to crawl!  

It looks like Tony has his hands full!  

And that's about it from Japan on another hot day!