January news

Oh dear.  I'd better get to this blog before January runs out on me!

I think my newsy posts ended a bit before New Years with the statement that we were all fine (despite the two broken legs in our family.  Mine and Taiga's).  

Well, everyone is still fine but it wasn't without some blips. 

On December 31st, Tetsu (to whom all of John's care had fallen as I couldn't pick John up, take him for potty runs or clean up after accidents) noticed that John was stumbling.  Within a half hour or so it was obvious that something was wrong as John kept falling over and didn't seem to be able to see snacks and food that we offered.  It was the day of New Year's Eve!  I knew that the vet had closed down for the holidays from the 27th and I also knew that our vet, whom I have personal contact with, had just had a caesarean section on the 23rd and wasn't even back from the hospital yet!  I put in an emergency call the to vet's office and left a message with their answering service and my vet got in touch with me late that afternoon to say if we could bring John to the clinic then her parents (also veterinarians) would check John out.  Of course I couldn't take John and as John isn't too agreeable with Tetsu we weren't sure how they were going to get to the clinic but John was feeling so poorly that Tetsu managed and left John at the clinic.  They later got in touch with us saying that John had a common balance problem that probably could be treated with medication but he'd have to be under observation.  That was just fine with us as Tetsu was already at his wit's end with taking care of my needs let along a contrary dog.

Long story short...  John came home after 10 days at the clinic.  A very large vet bill for us but he is almost back to normal though his food likes and dislikes have changed...  Why?  He also is even less inclined to walk than before but that's probably for the best as he tends to stumble still...  John will be 15 this year so I guess we'll just have to keep an eye on him and put aside more funds for medical treatment...

(photo from the Internet)

So, to back up a bit.  We had a quiet New Year's Day.  We watched the sunrise on television and this year the weather all over Japan was clear and cold and photographers were inspired by what is called Double Diamond Mt. Fuji, the sun coming over Mt. Fuji and also reflected in a nearby lake.  

Our friends, the Sugas shared their New Year's meal with us by bringing over a traditional selection of New Year's foods all packed in a beautiful box.

Tetsu really enjoyed the meal as even when I'm hale and hearty I don't cook traditional Japanese dishes!

I was rather disappointed that I didn't have any handwork prepared for such emergencies as having to sit still for three weeks straight.  No quilting to do, no knitting.  I got out my tatting and wiled away the hours making tatted crosses again...

In the end though, I only missed two days at the crosswalk before I was able to start working again after the New Year holidays.  Tetsu was still driving me back and forth from school for the first week back but I'm driving again and actually back to counting my steps and trying to build up leg muscle.

We got back to the pool where I focused on water walking before getting back into swimming my laps.

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

Leiya wrote to say that Luka celebrated a belated birthday (the family had had the stomach flu on his actual birthday) and she made him a robot cake.  If and when I ever get the robot quilt I made for Taiga-kun to the States, Luka may claim it as he is now in a robot phase.

Taiga-kun got his cast off too and he is running around normally again.

Something unfortunate that happened since the beginning of the year is that the construction of the factory that will be built behind us has begun in earnest and the first step that directly affects us is the erection of a safety/privacy fence/wall.  This is what we HAD been looking at...

...and this is what we see NOW!  That fence is going to be there for the next two years!!!!!  We are trying to figure out how we can relieve that sheet of white metal and turn the area into something more eye pleasing.  This is going to be a challenge...  I've thought about figuring out a way to hang a quilt... but do I want my quilt exposed to the sun and rain and weather conditions outside?  Maybe not.  I have a feeling we're not allowed to paint that expanse either so Tetsu will have to figure out how to hang some plants or make a standing plant shelf or something. 

Anyway, this is just to let you know I'm back in business again and am back to walking and driving and cooking and taking care of the animals again!

Happy New Years in 2026!

End of the year days

Only two more days to the end of the year...  Maybe a day and a half from my part of the world...  I got some of the things done that I was hoping to get done this month, and I wrote up lists of things to do once my winter vacation started.  HOWEVER...  None of that is going to get done.

I worked some more on the Edelweiss quilt that I had started and I got the 12 flowers done as planned.  The next step in this quilt is to work on leaf blocks but that isn't going to get done for a while...

I continued taking various art classes on line and focused on winter scenes this month even though we haven't had any more snow around here.

Winter scenery can be so beautiful even if the cold is hard to put up with...

I helped teach a bicycle safety class for 6th graders at the elementary school and realized that though there are two other educators who are higher ranked than me, I've been around the longest and sort of took over the class myself.  I remember bumbling along trying to remember the points I was supposed to teach the first couple of years and now I've got the spiel down pat!

Tetsu and I did get Christmas decorations up the first week or so of December, even though we didn't expect many visitors over the holidays...  we ended up having more than we expected...

M-san brought us a beautiful cyclamen plant that I had to sketch into my bullet journal.  She and her father enjoyed our decorations.

Christmas Eve I invited a young American friend to come over for Japan's traditional Christmas cake and she admired our Christmas decorations (most of them Christmas quilts).  Even though I had never ordered (or made) a Christmas cake when my children were little, every year since I've been a crosswalk guard I've ordered a Christmas cake from the Japanese sweet shop in front of the school.  Delicious!

At some time during the week Leiya contacted us to let us know that though not serious, Taiga-kun had broken his leg while playing at a trampoline park with Luka.  He didn't fall off or get jumped on but I guess when playing with a heavier child on a trampoline, the rebounce from the heavier child can hit the lighter child and cause injuries.  Taiga-kun got a nice Christmas cast out of it...

Taiga-kun was told he'd be in a cast for 3 weeks.  Despite the leg injury, he is still quite active and keeps Leiya on her toes.

  

"Luka, be careful of Taiga's leg!"

Luka-kun celebrated his 5th birthday a few days before Christmas but I think Leiya's family was laid low from a stomach flu and Taiga-kun's bum leg so not too much celebrating got done...  Leiya's promised the boys that they will do something fun at a later date.

So... we were all feeling sorry for Taiga-kun when Christmas Day rolled around.  Japan still had school so I was at the crosswalk in the morning and then had a meeting at the City Hall in the morning.  We were invited to Marlene's for coffee and Christmas cookies and a couple hands of Canasta and left wishing each other a good New Year's.  AND THEN...

I stepped down too hard on their porch step and "crunch!"  None of us could figure out what had happened!  I didn't fall down or hit anything!  I limped to the car, Tetsu and I went home, I went to bed not even in any pain (unless I stood up on my leg).  The next morning was the same and so Tetsu took me to the doctor's for an MRI.

"Oh.  You've broken your leg."  

"WHAT!!!???"

Not a bad break, a compression fracture of the knee and so I ended up in a cast (removable!) just like Taiga.  About the same time span for healing...  3 weeks. 

There went my plans for getting things done during winter vacation.  I've been sitting around since the 26th, just reading or doing embroidery.  I never did get around to buying stamps for the New Year's cards that I was planning to write, (and now the post office is closed) so those will go out late.  I didn't do the end of year shopping so we are probably going to eat instant foods that Tetsu can zap in the microwave.  The Yamadas came over the first day and brought dinner for us.  The Sugas came over yesterday and brought another dinner for us, so we are being taken care of well, and there were more people who got to see our Christmas decorations up!

Before my accident I did get a quilt collage made of the quilts I made in 2025 as I try to do each year.  From the top left is the last quilt I completed which of course is the Robot quilt for Taiga-kun (but that still hasn't been sent).  I made a little bird wall hanging for the young American friend. The FAITH, HOPE and LOVE set was made in the spring (I think) from patterns that I had from McKenna (though I used the elements differently than her original patterns).  The long quilt was made from an Alaskan pattern that Marlene's son sent to me.  That quilt of many squares was applique that I made from only batik fabrics (I'd made a similar one a few years ago from flour sack prints).  The String quilt I don't even remember where I got the pattern but it made a nice dent in my strip bin.  The small Flying Geese quilt is a baby quilt size and I already know who I'm giving that to next year.  And that blocky quilt is another one that I'm not sure what the pattern was but it used up lots of 2 1/2 inch squares.  

So that's where we are at the end of the year.  

John is fine.

The cats are hanging in there. 

Tetsu is madly trying to keep me comfortable and take care of things around the house too.  

And I'm just hanging around...

The beginning of December

The days are back to being quiet.  Quiet and COLD!  Did I say I wasn't going to complain about the cold this winter after the horrendous summer that we had.  I am having trouble keeping my promise these days.  At night I sleep with a woolen hat on my head and a down cape over my shoulders.  I do look a mess!!!

So mostly I'm running errands every day.  I got to the fabric store a couple of times, once with M-san for her to pick up some fabric for a very large quilt that I've got her making.  Note that I don't say that the very large quilt is one that she decided to make.  I practically force these projects on her but she always pulls through in the end.  The quilt she is working on is going to be the largest she's ever made and so it required more fabric than I had in my stash.  I also picked up some fabric for backing for a quilt that I have started making though I'm not anywhere near needing backing yet.  

I finally bit the bullet and got to the glasses store to buy new glasses.  I've been saying I need new glasses for the past two years (I stepped on my old ones) and my reading glasses have also warped so I ended up buy TWO pairs of glasses.  They will be my Christmas present from Tetsu this year.  

My long time friends and I went out to lunch a couple of weeks ago.  This is the group of friends that I go traveling with every so often.  We are finding it harder to get together these days... health problems and living far away...  Some friends are taking care of elderly parents etc.  It was so nice to be able to spend even a couple of hours with these wonderful, inspiring women!

For Thanksgiving,we got together with the Yamadas and the Sugas and spent the time reminiscing about the Thanksgiving when all the children were still home and we had to set up two extra tables.  It was a much quieter Thanksgiving but we are all grateful for the same things.  Faith, Family, Friendship and Health.

One morning last week I opened the front door at 6:00 AM to take John out and was very surprised to see snow on the ground!  

I had just been saying that usually we don't have our first snow until after Christmas but this year the weather shifts back and forth from brisk to freezing!

Construction is going strong behind our house and one day the bulldozers and shovel cars came and tore up all of Tetsu's garden.  They very nicely dug up some of the trees that Tetsu wanted to save and replanted them in our extremely small garden but anyway, everyday we hear the big trucks hard at work.  

The road is slowly getting closer and closer to us.

Leiya sends us pictures of the boys.  Playing in the leaves.

Posing by the fireplace.

Playing in the snow!

They sure enjoy the snow more than I do!

We also got a fun photo of Takumi and Julieta at Thanksgiving!  

And that's about it for the past two weeks...  Those of you in the northern hemisphere, stay warm!  Those of you in the southern hemisphere, send some warmth our way!

Travels to Morioka

I've had a busy couple of weeks for a change.  A bit of sewing, a bit of working, a bit of traveling too.

As promised, I have a "good" picture of the Robots quilt, pattern from Elizabeth Hartman.  I think I started this at the beginning of September.  Leiya picked out most of the fabrics and I had a friend bring them back from the States to me in August.  I started it cutting and organizing my fabrics into 6 boxes, one for each set of robots and then worked on getting one box done at a time.  I certainly learn organization when doing Elizabeth's patterns!

When all was put together, I opted for doing stitch-in-the-ditch machine quilting around the outlines of all the robots.  I actually thought about doing the stitch-in-the-ditch quilting by hand and got one robot done but there were so many layers and the fabric Leiya chose was a bit thick.  Even Tetsu commented that I didn't look like I was enjoying the process so I ripped it all out and put the quilt under the sewing machine needle.  Leiya loves the finished quilt and I hope Taiga-kun will too (though I have a feeling that Luka may like it more.)

Not long after I finished the Robot quilt, Tetsu and I took off for our annual trip to Morioka.  We're a little late this year and we hoped to beat any snowy weather.  We actually hit Northeastern Japan at the peak of the autumn colors and so it turned out to be a beautiful trip.

Before we left, I had taken a Skillshare class with Fatih, called "No Effort Travel Sketching" and so I prepared square pieces of watercolor paper, my watercolors, brush and pen and committed myself to make "No Effort" sketches during our 4 day trip.  No effort meant (in this case) continuous line drawings with no rough pencil sketches, followed by splashes of color with no thought to shading.

Here goes!

Breakfast at a roadstop in the first few hours of our trip.

We got to a city neighboring Morioka and met up with my good friend, Nobuko-san.  She had suggested visiting a tea-house where a famous Japanese poet had once patronized.

Nobuko-san and I have been friends from the first days I arrived in Japan.  She speaks excellent English but from the very first she has always spoken to me in Japanese and though my Japanese is pretty good, I always speak to her in English.  People used to laugh at our way of communication!

Japanese green tea and a Japanese bean paste sweet shaped as a maple leaf.

Here is the entry to the tea-house and gardens.

My No Effort Sketch.

One of the main purposes of going to Morioka is to tidy up our family grave and believe me, after a year of no care it was overgrown with weeds and fallen leaves.  Tetsu and I spent about two hours pulling weeds and scrubbing the stone and arranging flowers and it looked very nice when we were finally finished.

The first night in Morioka we stayed in a business hotel which was nothing to rave about but we were tired out from the 6 hour drive and the major cleaning job.

The next day, we were back at the cemetery (to admire our handwork?) and since we had time before we were to meet our friends, I pulled out my pen and watercolors and sketched while Tetsu wandered around the cemetery taking pictures.  The cemetery is way up above the city and it really is a lovely place.

My No Effort Sketch.

Tetsu's photo of the cemetery and the city beyond.  I am there in the left-hand corner.

Another No Effort Sketch.

Me sketching in my bullet journal as well.

As we were leaving, we chanced upon a little shed that said "Apples for Sale" with a small box for depositing coins.  We picked up three little trays of apples.

I loved the leaves with the sun shining through them!

No Effort Autumn Leaves.

We spent the next few hours with our friends, originally Tetsu's high school classmate and his wife.  Iku-chan always cooks up a feast for us while we are visiting!

This No Effort Sketch with continuous lines was a challenge as I couldn't see how I was going to do faces.  I sketched Nobuko-san first, lifted my pen and then did another continuous line sketch of our friends and their daughter who was helping in the kitchen.  You certainly can't recognize anyone from my sketch but I know who they are supposed to be!

Sunday morning we visited our home church and though most of the old members have entered heaven there were still a couple of people who remembered us.

No Effort Church Sketch.

This year, we thought we'd gotten smart and we decided to break up the 6 hour drive back to Nikko by stopping at a mountain resort called Zao that is halfway between Morioka and Nikko.  Three hours on the highway and we were at the Zao onsen and relaxed in a Japanese room, enjoyed an outdoor bath and ate so much food!

My No Effort Sketch of the scenery outside our window.

The next morning Tetsu made a change of plans and instead of getting back on the highway for the final 3 hours of our drive, he decided we should take the scenic route and so we headed along a mountain road.  We came across this beautiful torii, a gateway to a shrine, and so we stopped to take photos there for a few minutes.

No Effort Sketching of the torii.

Another stop along the way was at this lake and even though it was cold and raining, we walked along the shore and stopped at a small stand to eat sweet beanpaste soup.

It turned out that what we had planned to be a three hour drive home on the highway, turned into a six hour drive on the back roads, so Tetsu's driving time increased rather than decreased!  My final drawing was in the car trying to sketch as the car bumped and turned on the winding road.

I guess it can be done but it wasn't my greatest.

When I got home I pasted my 12 No Effort Sketches to some craft paper and then pasted those to a bit piece of watercolor paper.  Now I have a great set of colorful memories on my wall!

Once back home, I'm back at the crosswalk (though I took off two days to go to Morioka).  The sweet shop grandmother has persimmons hanging on her laundry poles.  These will dry sweet and moist and make a good dessert in the winter months.

Actually I had taken this photo at our friends' house in Morioka and sent it to Leiya and she was bewildered about why anyone would hang out icicle radishes this way.  Leiya has forgotten Japanese ways!  My friend said she was drying the radishes (they have to hang like this in super cold weather... Morioka has just the right climate) and when they are limp she said she was planning to make pickles.  She puts the whole radishes in a large bucket with brine for a couple of months.

And I guess that's about it for the last two weeks!  Back to more sewing (Leiya's asked me to make her another quilt!  Yeah!)