Beds

Guess what I received for Christmas from Tetsu.  BEDS!

For 33 years Tetsu and I have slept on futon.  When we were first married we ordered a double futon because isn't that what couples sleep on?  A double bed, a double futon.  WRONG!  The double futon was way too heavy to pick up and hang over the veranda ledge every morning for airing let alone manuevering it into the futon closet.  I don't remember when we gave up on double futon but the next time we needed to replace it, we bought two single futons.  Those have served us well.

Basically Japanese like futon for the reason that they CAN be hung outside for airing.  The sunshine sanitizes and puffs up the inner cotton stuffing.  A freshly aired futon seems fluffier and warmer.  But airing futon means tossing it over the ledge when the sun hits the veranda and bringing it back inside a few hours later, and these days working women just aren't at home all day to care for futon as they should.  (I know I'M not.  So my futon didn't get aired much.)

Another reason futon are nice is because they can be folded up and placed in the futon cupboard leaving the room free for other uses.  When we lived in apartments, the living room also served as a bedroom and every morning I would put the futon back in the cupboard and set up a low table for eating breakfast.  Once we moved to our home however, we had enough room so that the futon was up and away in the bedroom and could be left during the day.

But our bedrooms don't have tatami-mats and laying futon out on carpet is a bit strange.  Still...  for the 20 years that we've lived here, sleeping on futon has been a way of life for us.  The only time it really got put away was when I was basting a quilt and needed an open area.

In recent years I've noticed more back aches, and that year with the injured knee I really wanted to change to a bed.  Getting up off of the floor every morning takes a bit more grunting and pushing.  In the middle of the night I stumble over the blankets that get tangled by the futon-side.  This year Tetsu suggested we buy beds.  FINALLY!!

Tetsu and I went to numerous furniture shops and tried out bed mattresses.  I was adamant on that point.  I wanted to try out the mattress, not just order online.  (Of course I had no idea what I wanted in a mattress but that was beside the point).  Did we want a double bed?

We "tried out" mattresses by lying side by side in the stores.

"You are way too close for comfort.  A double bed is out."

We tried out a queensize bed but decided that it would be too hard get sheets in Japan (that may be true only in my countryside town.)  And finally we decided on two twin-size beds.  We sprung for two good mattresses and cheap bed frames...

Ta-Da!!!!  I love them (it)!  What a dream to sit on the side of a bed and stand up rather than push yourself up from the floor!  I love the piney bed frames, Tetsu's choice.  They fit our rustic house so much better than the elaborate expensive headboards that were available.  I ABSOLUTELY LOVE that I can put a quilt on my bed and it looks like a QUILT!!!  As quilts go, I think this is the largest quilt I've ever made and it barely fits, but since these are twin beds I'm sure I'll have two quilts (maybe unmatching) that I can use for these beds.

The cats adapted easily to sleeping on the beds with us last night.

And Tetsu?

"Maybe I'll get used to them over time."

FOOD!!!

Year 2013 is coming to an end and things are finishing up.  Today is the last day of school, end of the year cleaning has started, I've said good-bye to my English students until January, End-of-the-Year-Parties are in full force.

Companies and groups are getting together for major drinking parties during this season.  Bounen-kai,  "Year Forgetting Party".  There will be more drinking parties in the New Year too.  Anything for a party!

My friends and I are having year-end parties too... but not the drinking type.

On Tuesday Mrs. Ide brought a two layer obento box.

And inside...

Yum!  On the first layer were Nama-harumaki (Vietnamese summer rolls), shirae (tofu and vegetables), raw apples and yuzu (a citrus) and fried tofu vegetable pouches with egg.

On the bottom layer were Oinari-san (vinegared rice in deep fried tofu pouches) and sushi rolled in seaweed (cucumber and reconstituted gourd shavings).  There's also a bit of pickled Asian ginger.  In one of those pictures was a small container of something purple.  That was pickled icicle radish with purple chrysanthemum petals!

For this fantastic lunch I supplied pork and vegetable miso soup and another friend bought sweet beans.  We sure didn't need dinner that night!  (Tetsu got leftovers from the obento lunch.)

And then Wednesday, the ladies in my English class took me OUT to lunch at a fancy Japanese restaurant.  Ooh.. That was delicious too!

 Lunch started with hot tea and cauliflower potage with rice cracker powder.  (Forgot to take a picture of that.)  And then came the black and gold obento box, one for each person.  This one was THREE layers!

 The layers were filled with exquisite dishes with morsels of delicacies.


Sweet sesame seed tofu, a bit of crab and chinese cabbage, creamed pumpkin and a bite of fried chicken, two types of sashimi.

 In the center layer was white rice with salty burdock leaf powder.

On the top layer (under the decorative leaf) was a slice of sweet egg, grilled fish and ginko tree seeds, simmered beef and two types of tempura. 

For dessert we had sweet beans and seaweed gelatin with slices of fruit and a dollop of ice cream.  (I was in seventh heaven and finished that off  before I remember I was doing a photo shoot.  Rats.)

I sure have been eating well this week!  And the weather is cold so I'm not getting much exercise!  Guess who's afraid of of stepping on the scale!

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

Tetsu's Christmas sweater is finished. 

All I can say is that, if he were Frankenstein this might fit him.  BIG!  Gorilla arms!  I will have to wait until Christmas Eve to evaluate this year's knitting attempt....
 

Morning scenery

Although Choco's internal clock has adjusted a TINY bit, she is still making wake-up noises before Tetsu and I are ready to start the day.  Choco's summer hours are from 4:45 AM and her winter alarm clock starts at about 5:30AM.  On cold mornings it would be nice to spend a couple more minutes in the futon, but nope, Choco wants to see what is going on in the world.

On this morning, Choco and I walked through the forest and past the rice fields to the expressway overpass.  (Tetsu stayed in bed nursing his cold.)  We left the house when it was pitch dark but 15 minutes later the sun was coming over the trees.  Not much traffic on the expressway this morning.

Although I don't like to get up and get dressed and get outside in the early mornings, more times than not I am rewarded by beautiful sunrise scenery, and knowing that the scenery awaits me makes getting up a bit more enticing.

Choco doesn't admire the scenery... I wonder why SHE wants to get up so early .

Morning juice

Tetsu and I have been faithfully drinking our morning fresh juice.  We are both happy with our juicer and drinking supermarket juice seems very bland these days.

That's not to say that juicing has solved all our health problems though.  Both Tetsu and I have caught colds this season which was discouraging because I had hoped that the fresh vitamin C would have held those viruses at bay.  And Tetsu's blood sugar has gone up (which I had been warned about)... maybe too many apples in our juice.  Of course having seconds at meals, making himself instant noodles at night and snacking on sweet bean cakes doesn't help Tetsu's blood sugar so I'm not ready to blame my juicing!  He will have to make an effort himself!

This morning's juice was...

Broccoli, a leafy vegetable called komatsuna (the closest I can get to kale), a carrot, an apple, a tomato, two kiwi fruit and a piece of yuzu which is similar to lemon...  and pretty potent.

Throw all of that into the juicer and.... We have JUICE!  Not a lot of juice but enough for two nice juice glasses full.

Basically most of the combinations I've tried have been successful.  Let's see.  Y-kun and I tried putting in some icicle radish one time and the juice REALLY tasted like radish.  That batch was a bit hard to get down.  And I've learned that even one slice of onion will result in a day's aftertaste of onion.  I'll not try adding onion again.  Ginger is pretty potent too but pretending that I was drinking flat ginger ale helped.  Oh...  Okra was not a good idea at all.  The sliminess of the okra jammed up the juicer's mesh innards and we didn't get much juice and had a dickens of a time cleaning the juicer!

But pineapple, pears, oranges, strawberries all make wonderful juice and I am slowly working in celery, cucumbers and greens into our morning juice with few complaints from Tetsu.

Kampai!  (Cheers!)
 

Kindergarten Christmas program

Yesterday was the kindergarten's Christmas worship service and program.  It is the biggest event of the year and the children have been practicing their songs and skits since October.

The kindergarten principal spent a lot of time making the cute felt sheep for the covers of the Christmas programs.  She said she made over 100 sheep!

This was one of the songs in the program that the children sang.  Hmm.  I'm not sure if this is a translation or if it is originally Japanese...

The 5 year old class puts on a wonderful ORIGINAL pageant/musical complete with hand made costumes and singing solo parts and they also get to hold REAL CANDLES during the worship service.

There are nearly 90 children at this private Christian kindergarten, divided into 4 classes.  Five year-old's, four year-old's, three year-old's and just turned three year-old's. 

Here are the five year-old's with their candles.  Can you see Mrs. Furui peeking out from behind the stage curtain?  To my right (behind me) there is a group of mothers singing in the Mothers' Choir and Mrs. Furui is surreptitiously conducting while Mrs. Takagishi (another patchwork friend) plays the piano.

The little three year-olds hold their penlights with great concentration and dream of someday holding a real candle.

McKenna Christmas quilts

This week Mrs. Furui hung the McKenna quilts that we have been working on, up on the hospital wall where she volunteers.

Mrs. Furui, Mrs. Yamaguchi and I have slowly been working on these since early this year, purchasing and making the quilts and then LOANING them to the hospital.  When we ordered the kits we all felt guilty spending so much money on ourselves but if we were making them for the HOSPITAL... well, that was another question...  We agreed to putting together the kits, (and reveling in the beautiful fabrics), learning new techniques (machine quilting for Mrs. Furui and Mrs. Yamaguchi) and exhibiting them at the hospital this Christmas season.

Mrs. Yamaguchi did the long narrow vertical quilt with the cardinals (I made an identical one), I made the long wide one with the moon scene and Mrs. Furui made the teddy bear snowman quilt.

As much as I look forward to hanging my Christmas McKenna quilt in my own home NEXT year, I'm thrilled to have the three-some together where hospital visitors can enjoy them.  Don't they make a nice trio?