A busy month of May

Okay...  Let's see...  We've had a pretty busy month this month though a lot of it involved cleaning...

The reason we were doing major cleaning, (besides it just being spring) was because my friend from high school days and her husband were coming to Japan we were spending three days with them before they headed off to other parts of Japan with a tour group.

Jane and her husband have never been to Japan before though they've been talking about it for 40 years.  I am a regular visitor at their house when I'm in California but this was the first time for them to see the Japan I've talked about all these years.  Though they were going to stay at a hotel in Nikko, we knew that they were going to stop for a couple of hours at our house so Tetsu (especially Tetsu) got into cleaning mode inside and out.

What is that photo above?  Now that it is getting warmer, Tetsu is out in his garden all day and he is cleaning the shed that we've had stuffed with junk for years.  He keeps finding odds and ends of broken tools and cast away items and he's now made himself an artistic display board at the side of his garden.  What all is there there?  Old broken wall stones... broken shovel handles... rusted hammers and thermometers... even old sofa springs!  This is how Tetsu decorates his yard!

For my part, I washed windows and floors.  All for a two hour visit at our house with Jane!

So Jane and her husband arrived and first off we went out for a sushi and tempura lunch.  Chopsticks are a challenge for them!

We took them to Oya, the rock quarry I was in when the Great Tohoku Earthquake struck 15 years ago.

My friends are interested in everything!

We got to our house and spent most of the time in Tetsu's garden (good thing he cleaned it up!)  They brought us both Dodgers shirts with Otani's number on the back.  They know how much Tetsu loves Otani!  Tetsu also got a Dodgers hat.

We browsed photo albums and got caught up on my family.  Me in my Dodgers shirt.  Tetsu and I have decided to wear our shirts on the days when he is listening to the Dodgers games on the radio.

The next day we wandered around the shrines and temples of Nikko with me trying to explain Japanese histroy that I don't even understand well myself.

We did a lot of walking this day!

We went up the mountain to the lake but it was cold!!

We saw a couple of monkeys along the road.

And had hot coffee and cocoa next to the Dragon Head Waterfall.

The next morning we saw them off at the Shinkansen entrance and they went on their way to other adventures in Japan.

So what else have we been doing?  Tetsu has been willing to join me doing exercise (cardio, stretching, yoga, strength exercises) on the Yes2Next website.  It's kind of fun to complete that everyday.

I completed a small version of the Robots quilt that I made for Taiga earlier this year.  This one got made completely from leftover scraps.  Along with the Strawberry quilt I made, I took it to our strawberry farmer friend giving the strawberry quilt to his daughter and the robot quilt to his son.

M-san finished a table runner that she will give to her brother.

Tony competed a master's course in business while working as a doctor in a hospital.  Quite an accomplishement!

Luka and Taiga got to check out a firetruck.

And they celebrated Mother's Day at Luka's preschool.

Takumi and Julieta and the doggies took a vacation up in Carmel and everyone enjoyed the beach.

And I guess that's been our month.  The days are finally warming up and the rice fields have been flooded and planted!

Spring vacation

Egads!  We've almost reached the end of April!  Whatever have I been doing?  I think the answer is "not much" but I'll have to backtrack and see if there is anything memorable...

Spring vacation started at the end of March and I had two weeks off from crosswalk duty.  And yes, I've committed myself to another year though I had at first said that I'd retire in March...  I've been a crosswalk guard for 15 years now, I really like my job, it isn't a hardship for me to be up and working early in the morning (and Tetsu doesn't mind much either), and it is nice to have a salary coming in...  So, though I've hit 70, the Nikko City Hall still wants me and so I'll be at the crosswalk every morning this school year too.

Actually I did get the time wrong for the last day of school.  The school has special ceremonies and I'd ASKED if the morning schedule was the regular time or if the children would arrive later...  I was told later...  However, I got to the school and the janitor let me know that everyone had already arrived.  I was the one who was an hour late!  (It's times like these when I think maybe I SHOULD retire!)

We got to visit with Marlene's family and meet her new grand-daughter.  Marlene's first grandchild!

April rolled around and I spent my free time taking classes on Skillshare.  Sketching in red and blue...

Capturing the rape blossoms along the road.

Along with the rape blossoms, the cherry blossoms bloomed and we really knew that spring had arrived!

There is a bank of cherry blossom trees at the cemetery across the street and that was about the extent of my cherry blossom viewing this year...

I spent a lot of my vacation working on the strawberry quilt from Elizabeth Hartman's pattern Berry Season.  When I first saw this quilt I thought immediately that I wanted to make it for our friend who is a strawberry farmer and who always brings us strawberries!  I had to buy the background fabric and the backing but the pinks and reds were from my stash.  Our friend also raises white strawberries and so I had to include a few of those in this quilt too.  

I think the quilt turned out pretty well, but it is very pink...  Our strawberry farmer friend is actually Takumi's classmate, male, and I got to thinking he might not really be into pink...  but I'm hoping his daughter will be.

And then I thought that it's not fair for the daughter to get a quilt and not the son, soooooo....  I've started making a robot quilt for the son.  It is another pattern from Elizabeth Hartman and the same one as for the quilt I made for Taiga-kun (which he still hasn't received) but this time I'm making a smaller version and with a light background.  I've still got three robots to go before I can show that...

John and Cleo are hanging in there.  John looks pretty shaggy here but he has since gotten a trim and a shampoo...  Look at the way he sits with his hind legs out to the side like that!

M-san brought a pattern of a table runner that she likes and so we have started making that together again.

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Tony celebrated his 36th birthday.

Luka-kun has joined a T-ball team.

Taiga-kun likes his cars.

The family went to visit Tony at his hospital.

Does he look happy to see them?

Construction contines on the road and factory behind our house...

But Tetsu is determined to make our sitting area outside a pleasant place, despite the high white wall...

And that brings me up to date!

The End of March!

Someone pointed out (scolded me) that I have only posted four times this year and I apologize for my few and far between blog posts.  There just isn't as much going on as there used to be and as I've taken up sketching I seem to put in more time on that hobby.  I do find myself going back to some of my old posts though when I'm remembering something, so it is nice to have a written and pictoral account of our days.

Some of the blog posts I went back to last week were the ones I wrote in the days following the March 11, earthquake in 2011.  I recalled the feelings we all had, the scary times, the humorous bits, the way I panicked on some days, the comfort of having my friend Lorraine with me, the pictures of cats milling around the fallen debris in our house, the broken statues and graves across the street.  Except for Cleo, the other cats at the time are now gone as is Lorraine who visited me a couple of times in later years.  Time goes on...

On March 12th, the elementary school had their 6th grade graduation and I was invited to attend.  This year there were only 19 6th graders graduating but everything was very formal and the ceremony went off with a lot of pomp and circumstance.  The principal and the homeroom teacher came in formal kimono and hakama (black kimono trousers worn over a kimono).  The students all wore the uniforms they will be wearing at the jr. High school that they will attend.  Some tears among the students and parents...  

Actually the day before graduation, one of the 6th grade girls, Rin-chan, came to my house with her mother and grandfather bringing me a gorgeous bouquet of flowers.  They thanked me for being her crosswalk guard for the past 6 years as well of 4 earlier years when her brother was an elementary school student.  

The next day I sketched Rin-chan's bouquet into my bullet journal for a forever remembrance.

I've started a new quilt.  This is from Elizabeth Hartman's pattern called Berry Season.  I'm making this for our strawberry farmer friend as he is always so generous with his strawberries.  I don't know what he'll think about a mainly pink quilt but maybe his daughter will like it.  I have to make 20 strawberries before I can show any more progress.

Tetsu got called on the carpet in a health checkup for being pre-diabetic and so he went in to talk with a nutritionist who gave him advice and a plan for getting various blood test numbers into a normal range.  "Get more exercise."  And he has been good since then about pool walking and occasionally going out for a walk with me after lunch.  He also was advised to eat more vegetables which actually means that I need to get up to bat and COOK more vegetables!  That also goes along with "Try to cut out restaurant meals."  Well, I can add vegetables to lunch and dinner but I'm not going to start making a salad for breakfast.  The answer was to get the fiber and vitamins we need (me too!  Not just Tetsu) with this vegetable juice.  No fruit in it but it is actually pretty good!

During this season we use daikon a lot and last night's dinner included a daikon main dish and two types of salad/pickles...

This is not a great picture but it was taken through our bedroom window, looking down on the construction going onbehind us.  We actually can't see anything from our downstairs window because of the safety wall that is between our house and where the road will be, but the construction is close and we can hear the machines working during the day.  This was the area where Tetsu used to have his vegetable garden but it is all gone now...  

I sat in the bedroom's bay window and sketched this one.

And this photo is from my sewing room window.  This was once a country road leading to the rice fields but with the factory being built behind us, the city has had to widen the road to accomadate large delivery trucks that will be using it.  Somehow one side will be for public traffic and one side will be for the factory trucks.  

This is what the road used to look like (in a different season.  Same blue wall.)

Last week, my American friend and I taught an English class during a Traffic Safety Officers' seminar.  I did NOT want to get involved with that as I don't like teaching large groups of people and I had an inkling that most of the crosswalk guards who are in their 60s and 70s are not interested in English.  The city hall's thinking was that as Nikko becomes more and more an international city, that crosswalk guards might find themselves in a situation where it would be nice if they could speak English...  but what is a 45 minute class really going to do for anybody!?  Besides that, I balked at the idea of being the teacher over this group of people who have been my collegues all these years.  I insisted the young American woman that Nikko City Hall employs as an International Exchange Officer take on the class and I would "help".  Despite the simplicity of the lesson, there was a lot of grumbling about why these old timers were expected to speak English at the crosswalk... and I don't blame them!  I'm sure glad THAT is over!

And that is about it for the rest of the past two weeks...  I came down with something over the weekend but I bounced back quickly.  I always seem to hit a wall on the weekends which is nice because that means I rarely have to call in sick.  It does seem like a waste of a good weekend to spend it in bed for two days though...  Today's treat after crosswalk duty was coffee and chocolate!

Spring break begins day after tomorrow!

Hopefully heading out of winter

March is living up to its name and the days are rather unpredictable.  It is nice and sunny today but the wind is so strong and cold that I am bundled up tight like it is the middle of winter.  Earlier this week we had one of the heaviest snowfalls in years but by noon everything was melted.

This is what the road looked like when Tetsu and I arrived at the crosswalk.  Tetsu takes it upon himself to shovel snow at the crosswalk if need be, so that I don't have to do it and because the teachers usually arrive too late too get much cleared before the students arrive.  

Many of the larger cars were backing up and heading down another street rather than go through this tunnel though some of the cars were weaving back and forth...  These are bamboo fronds that bend easily but also spring back fairly easily.  Tetsu was poking at them with a broom while I just grabbed the fronds I could reach and started shaking them.  With a shower of snow the bamboo let go of their burden and snapped back into the forest.  If I had been daring I felt like I could hang on and been jettied into the air!

By the time the children arrived, neighbors were out, as well as teachers, and at the end even a city crew drove up and added a lot of man-power to the snow shoveling (probably some driver had called the city to let them know the street was impassable.)  

Let's see...  At the end of February an young American friend and I baked a couple hundred cookies to hand out at a Nikko City festival.  

She and I and a Korean friend and a Chinese friend, manned a Global Cafe at the festival, and along with the cookies, people got to try snacks from China, a very spicy dish from Korea and even a banana and coconut dessert from Indonesia (a Japanese friend had once lived in Indonesia).  

One day when I was home alone, I answered the door to an older lady on my doorstep who seemed very confused and upset.  I did recognize her as someone from down the street but she couldn't make herself very clear and handed me her cellphone and kept saying "police".  I thought to try and call her husband but she didn't want to/couldn't and insisted I needed to call the police.  I finally called a neighbor and asked her to come over and help me.  Together we figured out that the husband was away, that someone was at her house, that no, she was not in danger, but she wanted the police.  We walked her home and someone in her family was there while the husband was away, but the person was rather frustrated because the elderly neighbor kept going outside.  A few days later the husband came to thank us for our help...

Okay!  I promised eye candy!  M-san finished her large quilt called Smokey River Quilt and it is M-san's first bedsize quilt.  I sort of wrangled her into making it.  

"You could just make one block...  Or make the four center blocks and see how it goes..." 

Later I'd say,

"The fabric is all here, why don't you go ahead and make the corner triangles."

And then...

"There's still fabric and those borders won't be that hard.  Go for it!"  

In the end, M-san had a bed cover sized quilt even though she had been leery that she could ever complete such a big project...

I am a proud teacher.

On my own quilting front...  I completed the Edelweiss quilt that Leiya asked me to make for her.

This is a Thimble Blossoms quilt pattern and it was easy to follow and the results were great.  I did minimal machine quilting so that I didn't lose much of the quilt's softness.

Extremely simple machine quilting...

This will stay on our wall for us to enjoy for a few months until it gets sent to Leiya.  I keep saying that but I now have THREE large quilts to send to her that I keep putting off.  I just don't trust the post office yet, and the expense, and the whole digital bother of making an official label and printing it out before a package can be sent plus other rigamarole that the Japanese Postal service puts customers through...  But these quilts keep piling up and I have to get them to the States somehow...

And that's about it for the last two weeks!  Cleo seems to miss Toi...  John hasn't noticed...