June 22, 2026

 Monday - Rainy and cold

We seem to be in the rainy season now and have had a lot of rain. However, we haven’t had as much rain as my home area in Canada. I heard on the news that I listened to tonight that they are asking people not to do laundry or take long showers as the water treatment plants are overwhelmed. Alberta usually has droughts in summer, so the opposite is a bit strange, and unplanned for. 

Oh with the update. I got up early this morning, went downstairs and then came back up to the room. I sorted out my day’s clothing and then went back for a snooze. I watched some videos and slept. I got up a bit later, dressed and went downstairs to get my breakfast. I brought it upstairs and also brought up my mail. Yes, today I got a letter from my bestie. Yay!

I had my breakfast and then did something interesting. Yesterday I had whined to F that he’d put a box of my stuff (my Postcrossing postcard collection) next to the window. I’d told him about it before but he didn’t care! I just didn’t want it to get wet, so putting by the window didn’t really make me happy. So, he took the box down and just left it for me. Today, I took my postcard albums out and found places for them. I had to do a bit of dusting too as my bookshelves were in a shocking state. Anyway, I got the box emptied. I’m trying to decide what to do with some of my other stuff. I had some sports equipment in there too, but I don’t really use it nowadays. 

I relaxed for a while and had a cup of tea. I went down to get my lunch around 3pm and brought it upstairs to eat. I watched an episode of Breaking Bad while I ate. It was good, but violent again. It doesn’t bother me too much, but I’m still wondering about the show. I know my husband would never watch it!

I went downstairs around 5:30 today. With me planning to make Japanese curry, I wanted some extra time. However, I still didn’t get the curry done on time. Sigh. I basically just follow the directions on the curry packet, but I add in mushrooms which I think adds a nice touch. Plus, I wasn’t able to buy quite the amount of meat on Sunday, so the mushrooms kind of make up for it. 

I peeled, cut and prepared the vegetables and meat. Then I cooked the curry. It went well and finally I was able to call F down and ask him to wake up his mother and put rice in the bowls for us. 

I had been able to wash some salad and make some cucumber pickles for us so that we had something else with the curry rice. It turned out well and we all enjoyed it. F and I had seconds as well. K said she liked it, so that was good!

After dinner, I did the dishes. It took a while, I’m not sure why as I didn’t have that many things to wash. I listened to my podcasts and enjoyed them. That’s when I heard about the flooding in my part of Alberta. They even mentioned my sister’s city as one of the places that are flooding. (She’s okay so far.)

When I finished, I went upstairs and relaxed for a bit. I had a cup of cocoa and then went downstairs to take a shower after 10 pm. 

Back in the room afterwards, I decided I’d watch something on Apple TV and discovered that they have season 2 of Sugar available. I had planned to watch a comedy, but I ended up watching Sugar instead. It’s great, Colin Farrell is excellent in the lead. 

And that’s about it for my day. I’ve been watching YouTube since midnight and enjoying myself. I’ll be going off to bed soon and hopefully will sleep well tonight. 

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

June 21, 2026

Sunday - Rainy, rainy, rainy…

Today got off to a very slow start. It was dark and gloomy outside and raining very hard, so we just stayed in bed. K didn’t get up early either, so F was able to have a nice lie-in for a change. 

It was the afternoon when I dragged myself out of bed and got dressed. F had gotten up earlier to make brunch for his mother. When he came back upstairs we talked about places to go. He wanted fish. I pointed out that yesterday we went to a fish restaurant and he didn’t choose to have fish. I wanted to try to go to a restaurant in Oyama, a little place that we’ve gone a couple of times. He still wanted fish, but we drove by a place and it looked closed. I didn’t think it was open. Instead, we drove out to Oyama and went to the place I wanted.

We sneaked in just at last order…we got there at 1:30 pm and they closed at 2:00pm. Whew.  We ordered soon and very quickly we got our kara-age. They had lovely soup that we could help ourselves and the kara-age was very good too.

After lunch, we went to the hardware store again as F wanted something for his fish tank. I don’t know why he couldn’t get it yesterday but whatever. 

We came back to the house via a good bakery. We got ourselves some pastries and something for K as well. I don’t know if F gave it to her or not though!

At the house, I made some tea for myself, coffee for F and we had our choco-chip pastries. They were lovely. F snoozed a bit, I watched YouTube and did stuff on my computer. It was quiet but fine. 

F made dinner for his mother and then came back upstairs to bed. We did talk about dinner and he once again announced that he wanted to have fish. I did at one point suggest we go for keiten-sushi but that didn’t suit him. He still wanted fish, but couldn’t/wouldn’t tell me where he wanted to go. I literally couldn’t think of a restaurant where he could get his fish and I could get something I’d enjoy. I suggested Gusto and he was a bit irritated with me but said okay. We had to get going as we still had to do the shopping. 

We got over to Gusto and went in. F found a noodle dish with shrimp and something that he ordered. I ordered pasta with mushroom sauce and an order of fries to share. We both got drink bar with our meals. I liked my pasta, it’s a favourite of mine there, the fries were good and F’s noodles came with vinegar so I could put some on my fries! Yay!! We shared the fries. 

I enjoyed dinner, but F didn’t as much. Still, he was grumpy going in so didn’t expect him to love it!

We went over to PAL for our grocery shopping since we were nearby. I went in and F stayed in the car. Yay. 

I bought a lot of stuff and decided that I’d make curry for dinner tomorrow night. The nice thing is that I can cook once and hopefully have dinner for two nights. I got some salad, veg for the curry and something for breakfasts for K and F. I hope it’ll be enough. I went slightly over budget but only by two hundred yen, so F wasn’t too upset about it. 

We came back to the house and I put things away. F did some work downstairs, I asked him to set up the rice cooker for tomorrow and then he took a shower. I went upstairs and decided I’d watch something on the Fire Stick. I checked out Prime and discovered that Hot Tub Time Machine was leaving Prime in 10 days so thought I’d watch it. It was silly, a bit gross-out, but also quite funny. I did laugh at it and I enjoyed it without loving it. I’ve wanted to see it for years!

I turned off the TV when the film finished and got stuck into my end of day things. I’m watching some YouTube and working on my blog. 

It rained too much today to go and see the fireflies. It’s a shame, but this isn’t the best time either so it’s okay. We’re probably in the rainy season now. Bleck.

That’s it for me. Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow…. 

June 20, 2026

Saturday - Hot and sunny, muggy

I went to bed very late this morning. Honestly, after F’s sleep-kicking thing I was a bit weirded out about going to bed beside him. It was fine of course. He got it out of his system. 

F woke me up this morning trying to get some paper from my side of the room. My alarm went off two minutes later so he could have waited in my opinion. However, I went downstairs and his sister was there. I guess that she took her mother to the Day Service thing today. 

I went back to bed and snoozed a bit longer. F came in for a cuddle and to talk about “lunch”. I hadn’t had breakfast yet so I was a bit sad. I got up around 11 and went downstairs and took a shower. I really prefer daytime showers, but I never get to have them except when K is away. 

I suggested a couple of places for lunch and then F suggested another one, a fish restaurant near S-Mall. I wasn’t too excited about it, but I didn’t hate it either. However, when we finally got there, they tried to give us a seat on the tatami floor. Neither of us wanted that, so we were able to sit at the counter. 

We both had the same thing today, the filet katsu set meal. Now, I liked it a lot, F wasn’t too impressed. He thought the coating came off too easily. I dunno, he is so picky!

After lunch, we went over to Musashi and bought more masks, we also got a walnut cracker. F bought walnuts a few week ago but we couldn’t find our cracker. A new one was over ¥2000. Yikes. We ended up in the pet section too as F wanted to get some food for his fishes. I don’t like the pet section as they sell dogs, cats, rabbits and other little animals there. 

We paid and left. We decided to go for a drink and then I suggested an old-style coffee shop where we could get some kaki-gori. F was up for that, so off we went. We were able to park the car and went in. It was surprisingly busy today. I had the coffee-milk kakigori and F had the red bean and milk kakigori. Mine was great, his was too sweet. Sigh. He ordered it….

Our Kakigori...mine is Coffee and condensed milk, F's is Adzuki and condensed milk. 

We made a quick run to the grocery store for food for K and then we came back to the house. I went upstairs and turned on the AC as it was 30 degrees in our room. Ack.

After a couple of hours, F had made dinner for K and he wanted to know what we should do for dinner. I gave him a few ideas, but we ended up going to the newish Taiwan restaurant that I like (and F doesn’t.) We got a table (after the waitress asked a couple of guys to move to a table on the tatami for us). Of course, F wanted to order ramen, but I reminded him that he doesn’t like this restaurant’s ramen and he listened for a change. We both had the same meal, yurinchi chicken set meal(twice in one day! Weird.) F actually admitted that the food was good, so yay for me.

After dinner, I just didn’t want to go back to the house yet. We didn’t really have a plan to do anything so we went driving. F wanted to see the view of Tsuruoka from the hills outside the city. We went driving out in the boonies…ended up going past the ski hill. It was a bit scary but he finally decided to turn around. On the way back to Tsuruoka we did see the lights of the city. F wanted to get out of the car, but I refused. There are still bears out there and I don’t want to be dinner!

We came back to the house and came in. We went upstairs and F went to bed almost immediately. I watched some YouTube and then watched tonight’s FBI. It was a good one. I watched the end of a movie on the movie channel and then the start of another one, but decided not to watch it. I need to get to bed sometime tonight!

Since midnight I’ve been watching YouTube and working on end of day things. I’m not really sure what we’re going to get up to. We’ll have to do the usual grocery shopping and we might go and see if there are fireflies, but we might not!

Come back later if you like and find out. Until tomorrow…. 

June 19, 2026

Friday - Sweltering hot and sunny

I got up before my alarm this morning, but it was fine. F was long gone, which I’m glad for him about!

I went downstairs and then came back up to the room. I sorted out my laundry and then went back to bed. I ended up oversleeping, but it wasn’t a big deal really! I got up finally, dressed and went downstairs with my laundry.

I started my first load and then grabbed my breakfast and took it upstairs to the room. I ate and a bit later brought up my laundry to hang up. I put away some clean laundry and just generally had a quiet afternoon. I had to turn on the AC early today as it was 30 degrees before 2 pm. It was so hot up here today. 

Weird thing just happened. F went to bed early tonight, he had to start work at 6 am after all. Well, I’m sitting across the room at my computer and all of a sudden he starts kicking in bed. He kicked my leg pillows halfway across the bed and then started trying to hit the headboard. He was still asleep, having a dream that he had to fight someone with a gun. I had to wake him up to get him to stop! (He used to be a police officer…not sure if he was dreaming about those days or something else!)

Back to the update…I went downstairs before 3 to get my lunch and then I decided I’d watch an episode of Elsbeth while I ate. It was okay…one of the characters from The Good Wife/The Good Fight was on and that was nice. 

I watched the news and after a while I went downstairs, close to 6 pm to go and start dinner. Tonight we had my usual pasta, tonight with a soy sauce/seaweed sauce, sliced duck breast, salad and some mini-tomatoes for K and F. I had asked F to bring dessert tonight, so he brought some chocolate ice cream, so we each had one. That was a nice treat. 

I did the dishes after dinner and put everything away. I was listening to a couple of podcasts and I enjoyed them. When I finished, I came upstairs and watched a bit of YouTube. That was fun.

I decided that I’d watch a movie that I recorded off NHK a few weeks ago. It’s one I’ve never seen, even though it is old by now. The movie? Somewhere in Time with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. It was good. It wasn’t the best film ever, but it was lovely to see Christopher Reeve again in a regular acting role, not a superhero. Anyway, I’m glad that I have finally seen the film.

And that was it. Since midnight I’ve been doing my end of day things and blogging. I’m not sure what F and I will get up to tomorrow. I’m hoping that we will have a good time together. Let’s hope that F doesn’t have anymore nightmares tonight!

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

June 18, 2026

Thursday - Hot and muggy, rainy at night

I woke up when my alarm went off this morning. I might have heard F leave, but I’m not sure. I did my usual trip downstairs and then came back to the room. I did my usual thing of going back to snooze with some videos. I fell asleep and then woke up later when my alarm went off. 

I got up, dressed and went downstairs for my breakfast. I brought it upstairs and then relaxed with some YouTube. I had a very quiet afternoon. I just relaxed for a bit. 

I grabbed my lunch a bit late and then I didn’t have time to watch anything. Instead, I asked Alexa to play music popular in Canada right now, but I’m not sure that it was. There was a lot of Taylor Swift…I like her, but she’s not Canadian!

I watched the news and it was all about the same person as usual, so I ignored a lot of it. F called me just after 5:20 today and said he was on his way back to the house. I went downstairs a few minutes later and got stuck in to dinner prep. Tonight I made a chicken and hijiki main dish, a cabbage salad type thing, and a salad. We also had some overnight pickles that I made yesterday. Dinner was really nice I thought. K and F got to finish the cheesecake that the neighbour brought over. 

I did the dishes and the kitchen was so hot and humid that I ended up horribly sweaty and uncomfortable. I finally finished and told F I was going upstairs to change and that we could leave in a few minutes. 

We drove over to the grocery store and he helped me take in the meat trays and milk and juice cartons. I did the rest of the shopping. I think I did okay. I paid and then went out to the car.

We drove to the nearby drugstore and I picked up a few more things. Some of the food that they sell is cheaper than the grocery store. I’m not sure why, but it is!  We also picked up some ice cream for ourselves and a few other things.

We came back to the house and I put away the groceries. F came upstairs and I followed a few minutes later. 

I watched an episode of The Rookie and it was okay. It was a bridging episode in a way. It set up a few storylines for the future. 

And that’s about it. I’ve been watching YouTube again. I’ve found a British channel that I’m catching up on, it’s a woman who reviews 5 star hotels and also restaurants. She’s funny and I like the way she looks at things too. 

I feel a bit bad for F tonight. He has an early start tomorrow morning, he has to get up at 5 am, poor thing. I hope he doesn’t wake up when I go to bed. 

Anyway, that’s it for me for today. Tomorrow I’ll be doing some laundry and hopefully keeping cool. Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….

June 17, 2026

Wednesday - Hot and muggy

I woke up this morning when my alarm went off. I don’t think I heard F leave at all. I made a quick trip downstairs and then went back to bed. I played on my phone for a bit and then snoozed a bit longer.

I dragged myself out of bed later on, dressed and went down to get breakfast. I came back upstairs to eat and I spent a hot and sweaty time in front of my computer. It got really hot today, it hit 30 degrees today in the room and it was horrible. I managed not to use the AC until I brought my lunch upstairs. 

I went downstairs to get lunch a bit before 3 pm. F’s sister was there. She’d taken K to the doctor today and also said that the neighbour gave us a blueberry cheesecake. I took my lunch and went back upstairs to eat. Today I watched an episode of Lie To Me over lunch. I had a hard time deciding what to watch. 

I didn’t hear from F tonight so I went downstairs and did the dishes and then got stuck into the rest of dinner. Tonight we had premade burgers and French Fries, salad and cucumber pickles. K and F had mini-tomatoes as well and also the cheesecake from the neighbour. I’m not a fan of cheesecake, so I passed. 

I did the dishes after dinner and then I had to do up the burnable garbage. F did give me a hand with some of it, but it took him a while to get going!

I put the bag in the genkan for F to take out later and then I headed upstairs for a rest. I watched some YouTube and then a bit after 10 I went downstairs and took a shower. It was so hot today I really needed one. 

I came back up to the room and watched tonight’s episode of Copenhagen Test. I really like this show. It’s a made in Canada one that doesn’t have huge special effects, but it does have a good story. I’m enjoying it.

I turned off the TV and watched a bunch of YouTube instead. I also started doing my usual things to end off the night.

I don’t really have any plans for tomorrow. I’m a bit sad about that. I was hoping I could go to a movie or something to get out of the heat, but there’s nothing on!

Come back later if you like and hear what I do get up to on Thursday. Until tomorrow….

June 16, 2026

Tuesday - Hot and Sunny

Last night, F woke up before I went to bed and I don’t think he went back to sleep at all. He lies in bed and plays with his phone, of course he’s not going to fall asleep. When I go to bed, I read on my phone for about 5 minutes and then I go to sleep. I have a nice little routine, it’s just much later than F’s bedtime!

When I woke up in the morning, F was gone. My alarm was on so I turned it off and then got up. I went downstairs and then came back to the room. I sorted my laundry and checked my email. I went back to bed and did my sleep and watch videos on my phone thing. 

I dragged myself out of bed later and brought my laundry downstairs after I got dressed. I started one load and then grabbed my breakfast. K was up, but in the living room. I nodded at her!

I came back upstairs to eat and get things ready to hang up my laundry. I did two loads today, no big deal. 

I decided to write a couple of postcards for Postcrossing today. Mine are off to Poland and Finland so that’s good. I think Finland should be fast, I hope Poland will be too. 

I went downstairs around 3pm to get my lunch. I brought it back to the room to eat. I watched an episode of Departure and enjoyed it. 

F was late in calling me today, so I was getting ready to go downstairs when he did call. I went downstairs and started with my dishes and then got really busy. 

Tonight I made air-fried chicken drumsticks with salad, potato salad, cucumber pickle and some broccoli. It was very nice, even if I say so myself. F had made rice too so dinner went well.

I did the dishes afterwards and listened to my podcasts as well. I mostly enjoyed them. The podcasts I mean, not the dishes!

I changed my clothes after finishing in the kitchen. F and I went off to the grocery store and I picked up some food for the next couple of days. F got some adult beverage and we got stuff for lunches as well. 

We came back to the house and I put away the groceries. I probably didn’t buy enough, but I think we’ll be okay. 

I came upstairs to the room, watched a little YouTube and then watched Law & Order at 11pm. 

F is sleeping now and I’ll be heading off to bed soon. I hope I don’t wake him up tonight. He has a roadtrip at work tomorrow.

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