April 14, 2026

 Tuesday - Warm and Sunny

If anyone ever used the function of being able to check my old blogs, it isn’t available anymore. I just checked my old blog’s provider and it seems that they are shutting down. I am not able to do anything about it sad to say. 

On with my update. I woke up this morning when my alarm went off. I got up, went downstairs and then came back to the room. I sorted my laundry and then went back to bed for a bit. I watched some videos on my phone and then I snoozed a bit.

I got up, dressed and went downstairs with my laundry. I did a couple of small loads today and hung them up in my room. I also found a letter from my bestie when I checked the mail. Yay. I have it half answered already.

I had a quiet day around the house really. At lunch time I watched an episode of Bones, I’d seen it before but it was fine. 

I went downstairs to start dinner around 6 pm. Tonight I did Toaster Oven Chicken, broccoli, and salad. F made up some flavoured rice last night and we had that too. It was very nice! Both of us had seconds on rice (and I NEVER have seconds on rice!)

I did the dishes and put them away. It was fairly quick tonight so I was ready to go out early. Unfortunately, F couldn’t find his wallet! It took him a few minutes before he remembered he has a Tile in his wallet and he called it. He’d worried that he left it at work, but the Tile started making a noise in our room. He’d left his wallet in his pants. Sigh. 

We got out to the car and drove to the grocery store. Today, F’s back is still bad so he stayed in the car and I went into the store and did the shopping. I’m going to make a pork stirfry tomorrow night and then on Thursday I’ll do chicken drumsticks. That should be good. 

I had planned to go out tomorrow to see a movie in the afternoon, but F is going to be late he thinks. He has to drive to Yamagata City tomorrow, he needs to get up around 6:30 and won’t be back until after 6pm. Normally it wouldn’t matter, but the movie I want to see ends after the last bus back to our area, so I need F to pick me up. As I don’t know when he’ll be back, I had to change my mind and go another day. I still have next week, but I’d really like to see it next week since there’s another new film next week!

Back at the house, I put away the groceries and then came upstairs. I watched YouTube for a bit and then watched the last episode of Resident Alien. I was quite verklempt at the end and may have had to wipe away a tear or two. 

F went to bed early, but he isn’t sleeping. Him not sleeping makes me nervous for him tomorrow. I hope he goes to sleep soon. 

That’s about it for me for today. Tomorrow I’ll be staying around the house, unless I decide to go out for a drink or something. I probably won’t, but I’d might!

Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….

April 13, 2026

 Monday - Warm and Sunny

I woke up this morning after my alarm went off. I got up, went downstairs and then came back to the room. I went back to bed and watched some videos on my phone before snoozing for a bit.

I dragged myself out of bed a bit later, got dressed and went downstairs. I grabbed my breakfast stuff and the mail and came back upstairs. I ate and watched some YouTube after I checked what was on movie-wise. 

I had a fairly quiet afternoon if I’m honest. I did open the window today as it was nice and warm outside. It was good to get some fresh air in the room. I also wrote a couple of postcards for Postcrossing. I’m sending to Germany and Cyprus. The latter one is the first time to send there!

I ate lunch and watched another episode of Departure. It’s quite a good show and I’m enjoying the Canadian actors that show up in it! I had the news on afterwards but I keep trying to ignore most of it…especially anything about a certain world leader. 

F called me around 5:30 to say he was already in Tsuruoka but was making a stop to buy something. I got changed after our call and went downstairs to get started on dinner. 

Tonight I was making Breakfast for Dinner. We had scrambled eggs with cheese, salad, hash browns, bacon and toast. Most of the food disappeared, but there was enough for lunches tomorrow. F said that he liked my scrambled eggs the most. 

After dinner I had to wash the dishes and the pans as well. It took a while, but I got it all done. I went upstairs after I finished and spent some time relaxing. I went downstairs later and took a shower.

When I came back to the room I watched an episode of Evil which was really creepy. Usually it didn’t bother me, but tonight was quite spooky.

I turned the TV off after the show and started watching some YouTube. F went to bed and fell asleep quite quickly. He’s having back troubles again, poor thing.

So that’s about it for me. Tomorrow I’ll probably do laundry and I’ll also be doing dinner again. 

Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….

April 12, 2026

Sunday - Cloudy and windy

Just before I went to bed last night, F got up. He woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep. I went to bed and fell asleep fairly soon afterwards. This morning, I woke up early. F was still awake. 

I got up but ended up going back to bed to sleep for a while longer.

I got myself up around 11 and dressed. F started talking about going out for lunch but I suggested that he try to take a nap. He didn’t really. I wanted to go and have a hotel lunch, but when we got there, the cheap lunch was sold out. I would have been okay with the pasta they also have, but F wasn’t happy so we left. 

F wanted to go to the same restaurant we went to on Thursday so we drove over there and parked. We went in and got a room on the first floor. Today F had the sashimi bowl which was tiny in my opinion. I had their chicken Namban. It was okay, but not great. There was an odd peppery taste to it. 

Since F was tired and we had no plans for the afternoon we went back to the house. F did try and take a nap. I ended up going to bed around 5 pm and I took a nap for two hours. 

I woke up around 7pm when F turned on the lights in the room. It was harsh. I was not at my best being woken and blinded like that. 

I got redressed, and after a bit of kvetching F and I went to the grocery store. He gave me a budget that was really low for our food and I wasn’t too happy with him. I was even less happy when he added a bunch of stuff for himself. We went over budget but he didn’t say too much about it. As I’d bought a couple of frozen things we had to take the food back to the house right away. 

We went out a few minutes later for our dinner. F wasn’t too happy with me but I asked for Gusto again. I honestly felt that if I had to eat rice for one more meal this weekend I would explode. At Gusto I could have entrees without rice…and I did. I had their mushroom pasta with nama ham and a side salad. It was great. It was exactly what I wanted. F had their special kara-age set meal and he said it was good! We both had drink bar and made use of that too. 

We came back to the house. F was busy with his ironing for tomorrow and I relaxed upstairs. I watched the last episode of Scarpetta. I had guessed the bad guy, but the show itself was odd. I’ll probably watch the next season if they make it, but I wasn’t in love with it. I just don’t like Nicole Kidman in general and Jamie Lee Curtis was annoying at first. 

I tried to watch some of The Red Green Show but between F’s YouTube watching and my computer there wasn’t enough internet to let it work. 

And that’s about it for my day. It was a complete waste if I’m honest. For F, he likes having days at home, but for me, that’s every other day, so I hate it. This house is also not a place I enjoy spending time in so I’d rather do almost anything else outside this place. Oh well. 

Back to Monday and my life at the house. 

Come back later if you like and hear about my day. What do I whine about? Until tomorrow….

April 11, 2026

Saturday - Cloudy and windy, a bit rainy

I woke up this morning around 7:30 or so. It was much earlier than I wanted to wake up. F was sitting at the foot of the bed on his phone. I ended up going downstairs and then I came back to bed. F went downstairs a bit later and made K’s breakfast and got her ready for her day service visit. 

I snoozed for a while and then around 10:30 F came in to the room and asked if I’d like to go to Sakata and have yakiniku for lunch. I said yes! But, I needed a shower first. I eventually dragged myself out of bed and downstairs to take a shower. 

I came upstairs and finished getting dressed. A few minutes later I was ready to leave. We went downstairs and outside, but then F remembered he’d bought kerosene this morning and hadn’t taken it out of the trunk of the car. While he did that, I grabbed the garbage that had accumulated on my side of the back seat. We have garbage bags hanging on the back of our headrests. F generally puts his garbage behind my seat, I put mine behind his. There was an overspill behind my seat, but I got most of it cleaned up. After F finished with the kerosene he cleaned up the garbage on his side of the car. It looks much better now!

We drove off to Sakata and to the restaurant. We had a nice drive. We were able to get seated right away and ordered. I had bibinba and F had raimen which is a kind of cold noodle. We were both quite pleased with our meals. 

We drove back to Tsuruoka after our meal. I had asked that we stop at Tsuruoka’s Muji store, so we did that. I wasn’t interested in clothes, so we headed straight for the food area. I picked up some individual drip decaf coffee, and some nuts. F got quite a bit. He got some candy for his mother, some add-ins for rice, some mini-chicken ramen and a few other things. 

We went back to the house afterwards after a brief detour to check if our favourite bakery was still open…it wasn’t. I went upstairs to use my computer, F stayed downstairs to wait for his mother.

I had some tea, F came up a bit later and I gave him a drink. He went back downstairs again and waited. For some reason, his mother was late getting back. She got back about two minutes before her Care Manager came. 

We had our usual meeting with the Care Manager. I didn’t always understand it. I think she was trying to get me to eat lunch with K but that isn’t happening. We did have lunch together when I first moved back into the house but it didn’t work. She didn’t like my meals and half the time she didn’t eat what I made. I didn’t eat enough so I was hungry in the afternoons and a bit grumpy! I leave her nice meals that I would happily eat, if K chooses not to eat them, it is up to her.

After the Care Manager left, I went back upstairs and F stayed downstairs for a while. He made his mother something for her dinner and then around 7 pm we went out for ours. 

F had suggested going to Kappa Sushi and I was fine with that. We drove over and only had to wait about 5 minutes to get seated. We had a few plates of sushi and some onion rings and fries. We did have some healthy stuff too!

After our meal we came back to the house and chilled. F was downstairs for a while, his mother was still up and I was upstairs. I decided to watch another episode of Scarpetta. It was quite good. 

After Scarpetta I watched an episode of something called Calls on Apple TV. It’s a group of 13 short videos that tell a story. The first episode was quite odd. I think the whole thing might be odd!

I took a quick trip downstairs and came back to the room in time to watch FBI. It was a fairly good episode about an art theft. 

Since midnight I’ve been watching YouTube and relaxing. I’m not sure what we’ll get up to tomorrow. We will have to do our grocery shopping, but apart from that, I’m not sure. 

Come back later if you like and hear all about our day. Until tomorrow…. 

April 10, 2026

Friday - Rainy and cloudy most of the day

I woke up with my alarm this morning. F was long gone. I went downstairs then came back up to the room. I sorted my one load of laundry for the day and then went back to bed. I went back to bed.

I never really went right back to sleep, I got caught up in a story on my phone. Finally, I ended up having to go downstairs again, so I dressed, went downstairs and then tried to have a mini nap. It didn’t work. 

I finally just got up, took my laundry downstairs and started it, grabbed my breakfast and came back to the room. I ate my breakfast and then when the laundry was done I hung it up. 

I had a very quiet afternoon today. I watched much too much YouTube and then at my lunch time I went downstairs and made my lunch. I brought it upstairs to eat and then watched the next episode of Departure. It was quite good and I’m enjoying it so far.

Around 6pm I went downstairs to get a start on dinner. F came in a few minutes later and we had a nice reunion. I’d asked him to bring something to eat with dinner or a dessert, he brought 4 renkon with meat things. There are three of us…why would you just bring 4 things? I dunno. 

I got dinner on the table around 7 pm. Tonight we had pasta with a spicy seaweed type sauce, the renkon and meat deep-fried things, lemon and pepper sausages and a salad. Dinner wasn’t amazing, but it was nice. F however, knocked over his just filled glass of ice tea and so we had a mad scramble to clean things up before we ate. 

After dinner I cleared the table and then did the dishes. I listened to my podcasts and then when I finished I said goodnight to F and went upstairs. K had already gone to bed. 

Upstairs, I chilled for a bit and then decided to watch another episode of Scarpetta. It’s okay. I think I like the past version of the story more than the “present day”. There’s a lot of baggage with the present day characters that I’m not really enjoying. I still think Jamie Lee Curtis is too much, but then again, her character is like that!

I went downstairs and made some popcorn for myself. I brought it back upstairs, gave some to F, and then watched the first episode of season 5 of The Boys. It was more of the same for the most part. Lots of things happened. It was funny, but sometimes I hated laughing at the things. 

Since I finished watching TV I’ve been watching a bit of Youtube and catching up with my favourite vloggers. 

I’m not really sure what we’ll get up to tomorrow. We have an appointment with K’s Care Manager at 5 pm but apart from that, I’m not sure what we’ll get up to. Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….

April 9, 2026

Thursday - Sunny in the early part of day, cloudy later on

Today was a decent day. I woke up at my usual time and F was in bed next to me watching something on his phone. I turned off a lot of my alarms and went back to sleep. I woke up again a couple of hours later, went downstairs and then came back to the room and got dressed. F came in around that time and said that he was getting ready to leave to run his errands. 

I spent a bit of time on my computer, had my breakfast, and half a cup of tea. F got back while I was in the middle of my tea and invited me out for lunch. His idea was intriguing, so I was fine with it.

F suggested a place that I had suggested a couple of months ago. However, when we had tried it, the place was closed. Today, it was open. We went in, got a private dining room near the window and had a lovely lunch. We ordered a bento box type lunch and it was a mix of tempura, sashimi and a few other items. We both enjoyed it.

After lunch, we drove to City Hall and went in. Then we left right away and walked over to the Park. Hanami is at it’s peak and it was such a gorgeous day that it was lovely to see the park. I had asked F not to traipse all over the park today but of course, he tried to! He will never buy anything at the kiosks so in my opinion there is no point in walking in those areas…he took me through a bunch of them. We did go to the old Shrine that I loved to visit in days gone by and finally did our Hatsumode. Whew. It was long past the time. We walked over to the big temple and then back through the kiosk. 

One of the moats in Tsuruoka Park

Close up of blossoms

Inside the old shrine looking back at the park. 

We went back to the car finally and then decided to go for a drink somewhere. We were going to go to one place, but ended up at another. We went to Standard, the coffee and Jazz place and both had cocoa. Mine was cold, his was hot.  It was a nice break.

I had thought about staying downtown, but decided I’d probably better go back to the house as I was tired. We drove back to the house and relaxed for an hour. F had a meeting at 4 pm so he had it downstairs and I watched the US news and relaxed for a bit.

Around 6 pm, F made his mother’s dinner. I’m not sure what he made, it doesn’t matter really!

At a bit past 7 pm F and I went out to have dinner. We went over to Gusto and had a fairly decent dinner. I had the chicken with a mushroom sauce, salad and a bun, F had the mixed grill with a Japanese set. We shared some fries and both had drink bar. Dinner was good and I enjoyed it.

After dinner, we went over to the Mina Shopping Area and did some grocery shopping. I got stuff for dinner tomorrow night and F picked up a few things for Saturday morning.

We came back to the house and after putting away the groceries went upstairs. I watched another episode of Scarpetta and then tonight’s episode of The Rainmaker. Both were good, although Scarpetta went a bit out there with astronauts being murdered!

F went to bed a bit after midnight, I’m still up, but will go to bed fairly soon. I’m not sure what I’m going to do tomorrow, but it’ll probably start with a bit of laundry! Yay me!

Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….

PS…remember with my pictures you can click on them to see them bigger!

April 8, 2026

Wednesday - Sunny and gorgeous

I woke up about half an hour before my alarm went off this morning. I went downstairs, and then came back to the room and sorted out my clothes for later. I went back to bed and snoozed for a bit, but I’m not sure I really slept. I dragged myself out of bed an hour or so later and got dressed. I ate my breakfast and then I was off to the bus stop. The bus times have changed recently, but Google Maps hasn’t caught up with them yet.

The bus was a couple of minutes late for its new time. I was a bit panicky in case I wouldn’t make my connection. I got out at Tsuruoka station and as I was getting off my local bus, the bus I needed to catch was coming into the bus area. I had to run/fast walk to the stop and I was the last person who got on the bus. That was close! Sad to say, that connection isn’t very good anymore. If my local “C” bus had been a minute later I wouldn’t have made it at all. However, I had an uneventful bus ride over to Mikawa and got off at the mall. 

At the mall I did a few things. I used an ATM and went to the post office. I deposited some one-yen coins and bought a few stamps. Then, I went upstairs and tried out the new restaurant in the food court. It’s a pasta place and happily for me, they had one type of pasta that I could eat. It was a spinach and garlic something, some kind of pepperoncino. It came with a big cup of soup and a bit of coleslaw and veggies for 1200 yen. It was quite good, but I did think it was a bit expensive. However, it was so nice not to need to have rice for lunch! I ate quickly and then went to the cinema.

I discovered that they have changed the set up for the concession stand. We have to order and pay on computers in the lobby. It wasn’t too bad, but as they’ve been doing recently, no English. Luckily, I can read the menu fairly well anyway. 

I got my popcorn and drink and went off to see Project Hail Mary again. And, it was still great. In fact, I probably enjoyed it better this time as I heard more and didn’t have to worry/wonder if F was enjoying it!

After the movie I left and did a little bit of shopping. I didn’t buy much. I toured the hundred yen shop and didn’t buy anything. I looked at the large ladies’s clothing section and didn’t get tempted to try on anything at all. I did get a few things at the grocery store and then decided to go and have a drink at the McDonalds. I had some iced tea and a McFlurry. It was good and I enjoyed my break. F phoned me while I was relaxing and said he’d finished work. I arranged to meet him and binned my garbage. 

A few minutes later he arrived and I went over to the car to meet him. He wanted to do a little grocery shopping so I followed him through the store. I did pick up some sliced chicken for my lunches next week. I really like that brand of chicken. 

We had a bit of a problem at the checkout machine. I think F doesn’t bother to read the signs. I put it in English when I do it and it’s fine, but he doesn’t seem to understand the Japanese. He had to call a clerk over to help as he’d just muffed it up so badly! Still, we got it done finally and then came back to the car. 

We drove back to Tsuruoka, stopping at the conbini so I could recharge my Suica card. It was getting quite low. 

Back at the house, F put away his shopping and I went upstairs and changed my clothes. I came back downstairs and started to get dinner ready. Tonight I cooked the two pizzas that we bought last night. We had them with some salad and some potato salad. I also washed some mini tomatoes for K and F, and took some shumei out of the freezer and heated them up. I managed to trip the breaker too as I had the toaster oven, the microwave and the heater on at the same time. Sigh.

I set the table and while I was heating up the last pizza, got F to cut up the other one. He’s so pedantic and tries to get it so even…just cut the damn thing! Then, he complained that the plates I put out were too small (they weren’t). Next up, he complained that the shumei were too small. Good gravy. What was his problem?I think he hasn’t noticed that when he starts complaining about things like that, I never buy/make/serve them again. It was a side dish, not the main dish. 

I did the dishes when we finished and as usual received no help from anyone. My little speaker kept cutting out which was annoying and made it difficult to listen to my podcasts. 

When I finished the dishes, I had to do up the garbage in the kitchen and the bathroom. F did help me with his mother’s stuff, so that was good. I left the bag in the genkan for him to take out later.

I went upstairs and relaxed for a bit and then came downstairs after 10:30 to take my shower. I took one and then went upstairs again and watched The Irrational. It wasn’t as good as usual, but was more of a “family” oriented show. 

And that’s about it. Since midnight I’ve been watching too much YouTube and trying to get my end of day stuff done. 

Tomorrow, F is off work as he has some personal errands to run. He mentioned going out for lunch so that would be nice if it happens. He’s got a packed day for himself so I’ll wait and see what goes on. Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….