January 22, 2019

Tuesday - Cold with a bit of snow

I got up this morning fairly early and turned on the TV to watch the news. I watched the English news and snoozed through the rest! I also watched NCIS and enjoyed that too. 

Breakfast was fine. I did some laundry along the way this morning, a couple of loads. It was needed! K seemed to be up for most of the morning today, good for her!

I caught up on some of my DVR telly and saw F in the late afternoon too. He had a break in his schedule. I was planning to go out and shovel the snow and ended up doing that. He was still parked in the space for a while. I was a tad miffed since he’d compacted the snow with his vehicle, but I did get most of it moved.

After shovelling the snow, I went back inside and upstairs. I relaxed for a few minutes then went down to the kitchen and started making dinner. Today I was doing Bangers and Mash again, so I had to peel a lot of potatoes! It was so cold in the kitchen that I filled up our dishwashing basin with hot water just to put a little heat in the room. Of course, I didn’t waste it, it was used to wash dishes with!

F came home near the end of my cooking and did a few things to help me. He took the salad dishes to the table and the glasses, but at that point in time I had about three things going and was juggling. Still, things got done and were pretty darn good according to the other people eating! All of the mashed potatoes and gravy went, and all but one of the sausages. That’s for K if she wants it tomorrow. 

I cleared the table and was just going to start washing dishes when F came in and took over. He washed, I dried and we got done fairly quickly. 

F wanted to go to the onsen tonight and I wanted to get out of the house, so we went after a while. F went to take his bath, and I found a good seat in the lobby and played with my phone for a while. After a bit, I decided to put on a podcast and do some knitting.  I had brought an old project that I started years ago with me tonight, so I did just over a round of it. That’s quite a lot, so I was glad. I’m sure it’s been a year almost since I last looked at it. I finished a hat out of the same yarn last year, this year I might be able to finish the cowl if I work at it. Should this be a year of finishing projects?  Heaven knows I have quite a few to do!

When F finished his bath we met in the lobby. He had a drink and I got another one, and then we came back to the house. We had a fairly quiet evening. I took a shower and then came upstairs to watch Ghost Whisperer which they are running again. 

That’s about it for tonight. Tomorrow I’m really not sure what I’m going to get up to. There’s a rumour that F might take off part of the day if he can. He’s been having some health problems lately and if he uses the time to see a doctor I’m fine with it.

Come back later if you like and see what I get up to. Until tomorrow….

January 21, 2019

Monday - Cold & Snowy

I had a hard time waking up this morning. My news came on really early today, so it was pre-taped. I overslept and barely dragged myself out of bed. Thankfully I got dressed, so a bit later when I heard the doorbell, I could run downstairs.  K was there before me though. It was F’s uncle and aunt I think, and they came for a visit. I said a quick hello and then came back upstairs.

I had a quiet morning and afternoon. When I went down to get lunch K wasn’t around.  I came back upstairs and ate, and watched a bit more TV from the DVR.  I did actually start working on my column today. I didn’t do a lot, but I did start. Yay.

Around 4 pm I took my dishes downstairs to wash. I did that and then went outside and shovelled snow for a while. When I came in again I got a big surprise. K asked me to come into the living room and watch sumo with her! I wasn't sure what was happening. She offered me tea and some cake. I took a little bit of cake and sat with her for a while. I was actually rather touched. I left after washing the dish and knife and went back upstairs to look for a recipe.  

When F called, I was trying to print out a recipe. It took a while as my printer and I weren’t communicating well. I suggested he just come to the house.

I went downstairs and started making guacamole. The avocados were a little overripe but still tasted fine. I didn’t have a seasoning packet, so I just had to add a few things. I think it turned out okay. When F came, I said that I was going to make either omelettes or scrambled eggs, which did he prefer? He said scrambled eggs. I toasted our tortilla chips as they were a bit stale, made some eggs, cut up some cheese for them, did some frozen broccoli from the freezer and even toasted a piece of bread for myself. F did help. He took things out to the table, plated some of the guacamole and heated the rice. Dinner came together and was pretty good. It was even better considering that I hadn’t actually planned to do anything except the guacamole!

Everyone seemed to enjoy their meal, which surprised me a lot! After I finished I went to the kitchen with the dishes. I started washing the dishes, took a break to dry the ones I’d finished, and by then F came into the kitchen and washed the rest. Yay!

Looking at what I needed for dinner tomorrow, I decided to get some milk as ours expired last year! I asked F if we could go and get a few groceries and maybe have a drink somewhere. We ended up at Starbucks which was nearly empty tonight. We had a cup of drip decaf each. It was pretty good. We sat and drank and played on our phones for a bit.

We got a few groceries for tomorrow. I picked up the milk and also some salad, plus a few snacks for us two.  

F bought some kerosene on the way to the house and sadly spilt a little all over his clothes. The car smelled on the way back. He changed and put his clothes in the wash and took a shower. I put together the plastic garbage and then went upstairs and grabbed all of our plastic bottles to dispose of.  I spent a few minutes cleaning and crushing them, before bagging them for tomorrow.

F and I had the last of the tortilla chips that I had toasted tonight with some of the guacamole. It was really nice! I think I might like it more than the packet stuff even though I just used a few ingredients! 

That was about it. I did book a hotel for myself in Tsuruoka for April. I’m having an event and I’m trying to get my friends to visit! I wanted to see what the hotel booking experience was like…terrible! I had to get F to help as the English page doesn’t work and the Japanese was too complicated for me to muddle through. Still, I think we got it!

I finished up my night with American Idol. They’ve made it really short in this version. It seems like they are cutting people so quickly, I’m rather upset about the whole thing. We went from 10 people to seven and now to five. Egads. Oh well…

Anyway, I’m not sure what I’ll get up to tomorrow, but hopefully, laundry will be involved, as will some cooking of dinner! Come back later and see what happens. Until tomorrow….

January 20, 2019

Sunday - Snowy and cold

I got up this morning a little after F took his mother off to the onsen. I did a couple of personal things and then waited for him to come back. They got back around 12:30 I think. F asked me about lunch and I asked if he’d like to take his mother out with us. He said he would, so I asked where they’d like to go.  The next thing I knew, he was going downstairs to make his mother and himself some udon. Did I want any? Bleck. Course not. When he came back it was nearly 1:30 and I was quite upset.

Almost all of the good lunch places would be finished accepting new customers and he didn’t like the places that did. I suggested East at the Grand El Sun and he didn’t seem happy, but did drive me there. In the parking lot, I asked him if he’d eat with me and he said yes. Of course, when we got seated, he refused to eat. I asked him if we should go but he didn’t want to. I really was annoyed with him. He spent the entire time at the restaurant with his eyes on his cellphone. It was really hard to have any kind of discussion with him. I had a lovely meal and it should have been a nice lunch, but somehow wasn’t.

When we left and paid at the restaurant I got a good laugh. Our bill was for quite a bit more than I thought it would be. F’s coffee cost about the same as half of my meal!  I had a set meal with soup, bread, salad and an entree, and a hot beverage.  

We did a little shopping after lunch. I asked to go to the craft shop. I bought a pair of knitting needles for knitting in the round, and some winter socks.  

We went to S-Mall for a while and F trawled the bookstore. He didn’t buy anything. I also had a good look around but didn’t find anything. I saw a pen I liked, I might go back and get it later. He’d forgotten that we’d gone there to get a drink, so we went downstairs and had one.

On our way out of the mall, we passed the ramen shop and F came up with a great idea for dinner. He wanted to go to the new, temporary ramen shop in the mall with me. I could have one of the few non-ramen dishes they offer. Of course, the fact that I didn’t want any of those dishes didn’t make a difference to him. I said that if he went there it was fine, but I’d go downstairs to the Pizza Hut Express and get some pasta for dinner. It’s nice, so why not? He didn’t like that idea much. I had already reminded him that I wanted to go to the curry place as they were selling their Grandmother Curry again. They have a spoon giveaway too, and their spoons are really nice. 

We bought a few groceries including some stuff for F and brought them back to the house. I wasn’t feeling too well, my nose was running and with the tension from earlier just thought I’d rather go to bed than face more arguing.  

F came upstairs and asked if I was ready to go to the curry place, so I said I’d go, and asked what he wanted to do afterwards. He had no plans so I suggested the internet cafe. He liked that idea so off we went.

Dinner was good. The curry was great, and not terribly expensive. We had free drinks and didn’t have toppings, so the bill wasn’t too bad.

We drove over to the Internet Cafe and had a nice, quiet time in our favourite massaging chairs. I tried casting on with my new needles, but I think I’m going to have to rethink my plans as I don’t have enough yarn to do what I had wanted. Darn!

We came back to the house when our time was up. I did up the garbage for tomorrow, watched Elementary and enjoyed it, and also took a shower. F took one even later than I did and he went to the onsen today so I was surprised. 

Come back later and see what I get up to on Monday. Until tomorrow….

January 19, 2019

Saturday - Sunny and clear

I got up this morning long before F did. He had told me last night that he was going to go to the onsen this morning, but he didn’t. I got up around 9:30 and he didn’t really roll out of bed until close to 10:30. That normally would be fine, except we had an appointment at 11.  We didn’t actually leave here until 11 am so we were a little late. It didn’t matter too much, however. 

While I was waiting at the appointment, I finished reading a book that I’ve been reading for the last two and a half years! It’s the kind of book that you can’t really read straight through, it’s a book of mini-biographies of weird and wonderful people in history. I liked it a lot, but couldn’t spend a lot of time at a time on it. It was called "The Book of the Dead - Lives of the Justly Famous and the Undeservedly Obscure" by John Lloyd & John Mitchinson.

After our appointment was finished, we went to a bank machine and then back to the house. We picked up K and went to Naa for lunch. It’s the farmer’s restaurant that we go to sometimes. It was really good today and not very busy at all. That made it nice and our food was quicker than usual. Hurray for that! I suggested Naa because I know that K and F like it and our meal wouldn’t have a lot of meat in it. K didn’t have any at all, and F only had a little, as did I.

We visited a farmers market after, but I didn’t get anything, K did. We came back to the house via a gas station to pick up kerosene.

F and I went out around 4 pm which was soon after we got back to the house. I suggested going to a hardware store for a new towel rack. I broke the one in the kitchen a couple of days ago by accident. We found one, I got a couple of hooks for here in the bedroom, and F picked up a thing to help him charge his phone. 

We each had a cream cafe au lait at Komeda Coffee. That was a big tall glass of milky coffee with soft ice cream on the top. I liked the ice cream, but the coffee wasn’t too memorable. Probably next time (!) I’d have plain iced coffee with ice cream.  I had only wanted to stay for an hour max, but F wanted to stay longer.

Although I had suggested going to the curry restaurant for dinner, we decided to check the nearby grocery store for bentos for dinner.  F picked up a couple of raw fish ones for himself and K, I couldn’t bear another helping of rice today so got some bifun noodles and some pepper chicken.  We had our bentos with some iced tea and then some stollen for dessert. K really likes it!  I’m a bit amused at how much she likes the things I contribute to dinner. 

As there weren’t any movies in Tsuruoka for me this week (there were some new ones that F could have seen, but he rarely goes without me), I suggested that we stay in and watch a couple from the DVR.  So, we had a double shot of Paddington!  We rewatched Paddington and then I made a bit of popcorn and we watched Paddington 2. They were both terrific.  Hugh Grant was in the second one and was so funny.  For me, it is rare to watch a family movie that the main character is so positive and I still like it! I admit that I was rather verklempt at the end of the second film (and maybe the first if I’m really honest.) F enjoyed them too and I think it was fun for us to stay in and not spend a huge amount of money tonight!

That’s about it for today. F says he might go to the onsen in the morning with his mother, and after that, I’m not sure what we’ll get up to. I’m hoping that it will be good.  Come back later if you choose and find out. Until tomorrow….

January 18, 2019

Friday - Cold, snowy and windy

I got up on time this morning, but watched the news and my drama from my bed. It was darn cold this morning and I needed to stay warm. I was surprised that K was up today. I didn’t really run into her at all until much later.

I had a quiet day by myself. F did pop in for a few minutes later but didn’t stay long. He seemed in a good mood. 

I caught up on most of my DVR tv and didn’t do any of my column again. Sigh. I have to get down to it.

I thought for dinner tonight we’d have the last of my soup and some salad and get something from the supermarket to stretch what I had. When F called to say that he was on his way I asked him to pick up some more bread and maybe some sashimi for us. He agreed and then phoned back a couple of times and said that he wanted to change his clothes first. 

When he got here he started in on me about the sashimi and how I wouldn’t let him buy it on Wednesday. That was complete crap. I told him on Wednesday that I didn’t want any of the fish and encouraged him to buy it for him and his mother. I had found a lovely looking salmon carpaccio salad for myself.  Tonight, since I’d had a break from fish for a day or two, thought that a bit of fish might be nice. Then, my dear husband declined to do anything, got into bed and pulled up the covers. Great. So I was in charge of feeding his mother, was I?  

I went downstairs, remembered there was some frozen Brazilian Cheese bread in the freezer, so got that out to bake. I also put the soup in a pan and reheated it, set out the salad and generally got dinner together. 

When everything was ready I brought it out to the table and we had a nice meal. I told her that F was sleeping. It was near enough the truth. 

After dinner, I washed and dried all the dishes and put them away. I went upstairs and tried not to be nasty to my husband. I think I managed. I checked on him but he didn’t want much for a while, then went downstairs and probably made noodles for himself. Whatever he made had a disgusting smell and the entire house reeked of it.  Bleck. 

I showered, F eventually went to sleep.  

I’m not sure what’s going to happen tomorrow. We have appointments in the morning and after that I’m just not sure. I was hoping for a good movie or something, but there’s nothing in our city. Maybe I can convince him to watch something off the DVR? We’ve got a lot of good stuff on it right now.

Come back later if you want and see what we get up to. Until tomorrow….

January 17, 2019

Thursday - Cold, snowy and windy

I woke up this morning when F got up and I had a wee chat with him. I told him about the two kerosene tanks I had put in the genkan and asked him to deal with them for me. I think he did. Yay.

I had a quiet morning in the room. It was cold so I am afraid I stayed in bed a little late. I wasn’t sleeping though.

I had breakfast and thought about going down to make soup. I waited until after 12 though. I waited until about 12:30 as I hadn’t heard K in the living room, so assumed she was still sleeping. However, a few minutes after I started work on my soup, she got up. Oh dear. I’m afraid that I was in her way so she didn’t really come in to get her lunch.

I put together a chicken and vegetable soup today. I parboiled the vegetables and this time I cooked the garlic I used. Last time I put it in raw and since it was really strong stuff, it overpowered everything.  I got it all put in the slow cooker finally. I had visits from K and even from F.  He came here for a quick visit. While he was here I broke the towel rack in the kitchen. Oh no! I’m not exactly sure how I did it, but the plastic was old and quite brittle, so it just flew everywhere. Sigh. I told F and K and they both seemed less concerned than I was. Whew. 

I went back upstairs when I was done and let K have the kitchen. I had a very late lunch today, grabbed it around 4 pm actually. The soup was smelling rather nice. Yay.

I did my dishes after lunch and then went outside for a few minutes to do some snow shovelling. It wasn’t deep, just a bit cold out. My gloves got wet too, which was a pain. 

F came back to the house around 6:30 I think. I’d sent him to the store on his way back from work for some French bread and salad. I served dinner, and then cleaned up afterwards without any help at all. Poor me. I know that F is exhausted, but it would have been nice if he could help a tad. And, after all my work, F and K only had one bowl of soup. They said it was good, but F has a stomach thing going on and K pretends she doesn’t like to eat a lot. The French bread was good. I had put cheese on half of it and toasted it, so it was a little luxury. So, my lovely soup is now sitting in the fridge. I haven’t decided if I’ll have some for lunch tomorrow or not. Maybe I will. For dessert, I had pre-cut some stollen that a friend had given me and put it on a plate with mini forks. F didn’t have any because of his stomach, but K and I polished off most of the rest. There was a half a piece left on the plate so I wrapped it up and told her it was for her and would be in the fridge!

I washed the dishes and then dried them. With this style of dinner making, there weren’t a whole lot of dishes so that was good. It still took me a while. I washed and dried and put away my slow cooker and then put the soup in the fridge. Done.

F came upstairs later and wanted to go to an onsen. Our usual one is closed today so he went to a nearby one. I didn’t go with him as the seating isn’t comfortable and there isn’t any wifi. I did tell him that if he felt like it afterwards, I would meet him at the door and go to a coffee shop with him. And that’s what we ended up doing.

We went to Komeda coffee. F had a coffee milkshake which he liked, I had a decaf coffee. I did think about having cocoa but decided against it. 

We came back to the house after our coffee. We closed out the coffee shop I think!

F went to bed fairly soon and I’m trying to go a little bit earlier tonight. I’m quite tired as I had a busy day. 

Tomorrow I might get a start on my column or a craft project. I really should start my column! Come back later if you like and see what I get up to. Until tomorrow….

January 16, 2019

Wednesday - Clear with flurries of snow

I went to bed a bit early last night and it was a good thing. When F’s alarm went off early this morning it woke me up. I chatted with F a little and wished him a good day. I snoozed for a bit but got up about 8:30 or so. I went downstairs and grabbed my breakfast then. I was going out and wanted to have breakfast early.

I didn’t see K at all this morning. I watched NCIS, did dishes, made the bed, got dressed and brushed my teeth too. I got ready to meet my friend.  At 11am the postman came by with a package for me from my sister. Yay!  I took it upstairs quickly. When I came back downstairs my friend was there already.

She drove us over to Pisolino and we had a good feast and a better chat.  We barely stopped talking! Sadly, our time ran out and she had to go home to get ready for work. I asked her to let me out at S-Mall and she did.

I spent a couple of minutes in S-Mall, then decided to walk over to my hairdresser to see if I could get a hair cut. I could as it happened. Yay.  My hairdresser did her usual fabulous job and I came out of her salon feeling a hundred times better! Unfortunately, it was snowing up a storm at that time, but I managed to get back to the mall.

At the mall, I visited the hundred yen shop again, then came downstairs and had a treat at Baskin Robbins. I read some of my book on my phone then. 

After that, I decided to go to the coffee shop. I grabbed a soy latte and a table and waited for F to finish work. When he did, he called me and I invited him to join me. We both finished our drinks and then left.  We did a quick and pointless tour of the grocery store in the mall, but then turned around and went to another store nearby.

I wanted something for lunches and F wanted something for dinner but wasn’t specific. He grabbed more raw fish, and I saw a marinated salmon salad. I thought that sounded nice for me. I wasn’t too hungry. I had a big lunch, and then ice cream and then a big drink. I didn’t need a lot. I let F know that I didn’t want any of his fish so he put it back and got really angry at me again.  I told him it was fine if he got the fish for him and his mother, I wasn’t very hungry. He seemed insulted and refused to pick up the fish again. I put my fish back, it looked nice, but I had just lost any appetite I had had. He went through the rest of the grocery store with a huge chip on his shoulder, I’m not even sure what he did pick up. He was rude and nasty and wouldn’t even look at me.

We got back to the house and he started to make dinner right away. Now, he’d got wet at work and his uniform was wet too. For some reason, he refused to go and change. I offered to help him with the dinner while he changed. No. I told him I’d be upstairs.

I went upstairs and started warming up the room. About 20 minutes later F came up and told me dinner was ready. Huh?  I told him that I didn’t want any.  I had no idea what he’d made and I really didn’t feel like it anyway.

I didn’t see him again for a while. He came up and then I decided that I would do the garbage since it hadn’t been done in a while. The next thing I knew, he went downstairs with his bag.  I wasn’t planning to go down just that moment, so when he came back 5 minutes later I asked him what he’d done. He’d taken the garbage bag out of the container in the kitchen but hadn’t replaced the bag. He hadn’t replaced the nets in the kitchen sink drain and corner box either. How is this helping?  I took my bag downstairs and took care of the things he didn’t. He didn’t even seal his bag at the doorway. He just left it there.

Oddly, when I came back upstairs, I was angry with him, but he didn’t seem mad at me anymore. I swallowed my anger and we talked and chatted a bit. He showed me an old photo album of himself when he was a lot younger. It was interesting to see him in his twenties. I don’t know if I’d have been interested in him back then!

I watched a bit of TV and F went to bed. He’s snoozing away. He’s back at work tomorrow and I might make soup if I have any time. I’m not sure if I really want to though!

Anyway, that’s it for me. Come back later and see what happens on Thursday. Until tomorrow….