February 3, 2026

Tuesday - Warmer and not snowy!

I woke up this morning when my alarm went off. I made a quick trip downstairs and then did the back to bed thing. I overslept and didn’t get up until a bit late. I went downstairs and made the executive decision not to go out and shovel snow. I wasn’t sure where I’d shovel anyway. 

I did a couple of loads of laundry today and I watched some YouTube. I also worked a bit on my loom knitting. It’s growing nicely. I’m trying to keep it in blues, but I’m using scraps of yarn. I like it so far. 

Lunch was had and I watched another episode of The Good Fight. Mandy Patinkin, Wallace Shawn and Mamie Gummer were in this one. The first two were kind of a The Princess Bride reunion! 

F called after 5:25 and I ended up going downstairs a little early. I had turned on the kitchen heater early but when I was going down the stairs, K was in the kitchen with the door open and then she left, saw me, and left the door wide open. ARGH! I get so annoyed at her. She has no concept of closing doors and keeping heat in the room.

Tonight’s dinner was another stir-fry with seaweed, fish-paste and pork, plus we had some galettes from the store, potato salad, spicy cabbage and salad. Dinner was good and most of it was eaten, so that’s good. 

I did the dishes and listened to a couple of podcasts about movies afterwards. I got done a few minutes before 9 so I let F know I was finished and then went upstairs. I changed and a few minutes later F and I went out to the shop. The roads around us are a bit hard to navigate. The snow is mushy so they’re hard to drive through, and the snow is piled up at both sides so the roads are really narrow now. 

At the store, F came in with me. Sigh. It really annoys me. I’m not sure why he did that. I don’t really want him to come in with me. However, I think tonight I managed to buy most of what we need. I did forget one salad for myself for Friday. I’m hoping to skip the store on Thursday because…..

Back at the house, F had most of the groceries put away before I had even got my boots off. That wasn’t annoying or anything! I hope he didn’t “lose” anything for me.

We came upstairs and I watched some YouTube and then went downstairs. I made a bowl of popcorn and brought it upstairs. I watched the last episode of FBI: Most Wanted and it was okay. At least they ended it properly. Resident Alien will be back next week so that’s cool. 

And that’s about it for my day. I’ve been working on my loom knitting and it’s coming along nicely. I will have to figure out how long to make it. My original plan was to make a long tube and have a double knit hat, but I’m not sure I’ll do that now. I’ll think about it!

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

February 2, 2026

Monday - Cold but mostly clear

I woke up this morning after my alarm went off. I got up and went downstairs, then came back to the room. I basically went back to bed! I fell asleep on some of my videos, but today I woke up earlier than I planned. I decided to just get up instead of trying to sleep more. 

I went outside and shovelled a bit of snow. There is so much snow outside, it is crazy. F had made one part of the snow easier for me and another area harder for me to deal with. The yard was full of my moaning and groaning at him, it’s a good job he wasn’t around!

I finally went into the house as there wasn’t much more that I could do outside. I grabbed my yogurt and took it upstairs, I had my breakfast with my cereal and then relaxed with some YouTube. I had a quiet afternoon and didn’t get anything done really. 

F called me after 5 pm and I told him that I didn’t ask him to make rice last night. Sigh. I suggested a couple of alternatives but F wanted rice, so I knew I’d have to use the bachelor pack rice for dinner. Oh well. 

I went downstairs around 6pm. I took my dishes from the day and the kerosene tank with me. Downstairs I filled up the kerosene tank and left it by the stairs. I changed the towels and then went into the kitchen to get started on dinner.

Tonight I made toaster oven chicken, but I put a coating on it. Recently I’ve been using a preflavoured chicken from the store, but I haven’t been too happy with it. This chicken was nice chunks and I used a lemon-salt coating on it. It was nice. We also had some broccoli and some kimchi, plus F’s leftover nabe from last night. And, bachelor pack rice. Dinner was quite good and we all ate quite a lot.

After we finished, I cleared the table and washed and dried the dishes. I listened to my podcasts and finished fairly early. I went upstairs and relaxed for a while. 

I went downstairs and took a shower at 10:30. When I finished, I came back upstairs and then decided to watch something off the Fire Stick. Tonight it was So Help Me Todd and it was quite cute. I also worked a bit on my loom hat. I changed one of the colours already, so that was cool. 

F went to bed a bit early so I turned off his light for him. He wasn’t quite asleep, but I think he is now.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a bit warmer and also snowy. I hope it stops snowing soon. We don’t need anymore! I might do some laundry tomorrow and I also have to think about my column which is due at the end of the month. 

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

February 1, 2026

Sunday - Snowy and cold

Today was a bit weird, but not a bad day overall. We have so much snow outside it looks like we are in a mountain town somewhere. 

I woke up early and then went downstairs. I came back to bed and had a longer snooze. F came upstairs after a while and wanted to go for lunch. It was barely lunch-time so I wanted breakfast instead!

We had a little bit of an argument about where to go for lunch. F wanted a place that I don’t like very much…it’s expensive and we both complain about the food there. Then he suggested a place in Sakata. I was okay with that, but I checked Google-maps and it was closed today. We ended up going to F’s place. He was threatening to just go out by himself which I thought was a tad mean. 

We got out to the car and it was so snowy out there. F got out of the yard and onto the road. The road hadn’t really been graded or ploughed in a while so it was bumpy and very narrow. We drove over to the restaurant but had to wait a minute to get into the parking lot. It was full for a bit.

We were able to be seated immediately. F had ramen and I had curry with a chicken cutlet. It was okay. 

After lunch I asked that we visit Hard-Off, the second hand store across from the restaurant. We spent a bit of time looking around. I didn’t find anything, F found himself a book. 

We went for a drink to Komeda Coffee. F offered to buy us cake as well, but I said no. I didn’t need it and I didn’t want our bill to be too high. I read a bit of my book and read some Facebook while we were there.  F suggested that he make a nabe for dinner tonight and I eventually said it was fine. We went grocery shopping at Mina.

At Mina, F got stuff for our dinner and I got things for our dinners for the next couple of days. And breakfasts and lunches too. We came back to the car and drove back to the house. 

F stayed out to do some shovelling and I went inside and put away the groceries. 

I ended up going upstairs and F stayed down. He texted me around 7 to tell me that the nabe was ready. I went downstairs and of course, it wasn’t ready yet! Still, it was quite good. I had to actually tell him it was good. He hadn’t put out tea until the end, but he tried. I left the table feeling nicely full. I did offer to help with the dishes, but he turned me down. I went back upstairs and relaxed again.

Tonight I watched a few programmes on WOWOW on Demand and they were good. I watched an episode of Evil, then a Matlock and finally a detective show called The Box. That was really short which is kind of a cool thing when I only have a short amount of time. 

F went to bed and after he was asleep I realized that I hadn’t asked him to make rice for tomorrow’s dinner. Oh dear. (No, I don’t make rice because I don’t like rice. I’m fine if we don’t have any, F and K live for the stuff…what can I say?) We have some emergency bachelor packs of rice, they can eat that tomorrow!

And that’s about it for me for tonight. I think I hear the snowploughs working tonight. There is just so much snow, we’re running out of places to put the snow. I hope that F doesn’t expect me to perform miracles tomorrow if I have to shovel snow. 

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

January 31, 2026

Saturday - Cold and snowy

I woke up this morning when my alarm went off. I went downstairs and then came back to the room. I was tired so went back to bed for a while and slept on. When I woke up later I dressed and went downstairs again with our tank from the heater. F volunteered to fill it for me so I let him! He even took it upstairs for us. Yay.

We talked about where to go for lunch. Neither of us had any ideas but I finally suggested a Korean restaurant across town. F was a bit skeptical but finally agreed. When we went out to the car I was surprised at just how much more snow there was than yesterday. Sigh. Poor F had already shovelled twice I think. 

We drove carefully over to the restaurant and went in. We were the only customers I think and we both had the same thing, the Ishiyaki bibinba set meal. It was really good, but the soup that came with it was so spicy! I enjoyed the meal a lot, F not so much. It was a lot of spice, but I really do like spicy food. I’m not great at really spicy food, but I like flavours!

The roads were awful and the snow was piled up everywhere. I suggested to F that we just buy bentos for dinner and he agreed with me. We went to a nearby grocery store and bought a few things. I was most worried about his mother’s dinner so we got things she’d like.

We came back to the house and relaxed for a couple of hours. F welcomed K back, but didn’t realize that the snowplough had gone through so K had to climb over a snowbank. 

F came upstairs and we talked. We had planned to go to a movie tonight but with the roads and the snow I thought it would be rather stupid to go. However, F said that he’d like to go. 

Around 6:30 we went downstairs and started heating up the bentos and setting the table. F and I had kara-age bentos and we got K a small katsudon. K said that she didn’t want to eat it. She did eat the croquette instead and the gyoza we got. At least she ate. She said she’d have the katsudon tomorrow. 

I washed the dishes and glasses and then got ready to go out. Unfortunately, F had stomach problems. Sigh. I said to him that we don’t have to go, but he said he did want to go. I suggested that he take some medicine and then we should get going. 

We left late from the house so I wasn’t sure that we’d make our show. I checked other movies and there were a couple much later that we could go if we had problems. We made it! We had about 10 minutes to spare, but we bought our tickets and our popcorn and drinks before we went in. There were three people in the cinema, including us. 

We went to see Send Help and I liked it a lot. It was a bit funny and a bit horror, your basic Sam Raimi film then. Rachel McAdams was terrific as usual. 

After the movie we drove back to the house. The roads weren’t too bad, a bit bumpy in places. We came in the house and I watched The Hunting Party and thought it was okay. 

Since midnight I’ve been relaxing and watching some YouTube. F is asleep, but he deserves to get some sleep. 

I’m not sure what we’re going to get up to tomorrow. We’ll have to buy some groceries and probably shovel even more snow! Why did I move to the snowiest country in the world? I have no idea!

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

January 30, 2026

Friday - Cold and snowy again.

I woke up this morning when my alarm went off. I didn’t hear F at all so that was nice! I did my usual going downstairs and then back to bed for a while. I went back to bed and watched a few videos and then went back to sleep for a bit.

I dragged myself out of bed finally and dressed. I went downstairs again and put on my winter coat and hat, gloves and boots and went outside to shovel some snow. There was so much! It was all very fluffy and soft, but I could see that F had cleared off the car before he left. I tried to fix the amount of snow in the parking area. I did fairly well and then went into the house, grabbed my yogurt and went upstairs. I ate and relaxed for a while. 

A couple of hours later, I went downstairs to get my lunch and I looked outside. You couldn’t even tell that I had shovelled snow before. Sigh. I decided that I’d eat my lunch again and go outside after that. 

During lunch I watched an episode of Mobland today. I like the show, Tom Hardy is excellent and well, Helen Mirren is amazing. It’s very violent though.

After the news finished I noticed that I had received a phone call. I didn’t hear it though. I thought it might be my delivery coming so I went downstairs and turned on the outside light. From there I noticed a light out on the road and went over to the door. Sure enough, it was the delivery guy that I was waiting for. I got my box and went upstairs with it.

I came back downstairs and got dressed up again to go outside. I spent about 25 minutes or so outside moving snow again. I got most of the walkway cleared and most of the parking area. I decided to go back inside.

I went upstairs, changed and then came back downstairs to the kitchen. It was fairly warm in there. K had gotten up a little earlier and she had turned on the heater in the living room, so it was getting warmer in there. 

Tonight I made my usual pasta for Friday night. When F came back I gave him a choice of pasta sauces and he chose carbonara. We had that with salad and some local wieners. Dinner was good and it all disappeared! I was hoping I’d have leftovers, but nope. Still, I’m glad that dinner was popular.

I did the dishes and listened to my podcasts. When I finished, I let F know that I was going upstairs and I asked him to stay there for a bit to see if my other delivery would show up. It didn’t. I relaxed upstairs and then around 10:30 F came upstairs and I went downstairs to take a shower. Tonight I made sure to take a towel with me!

When I came back to the room I watched another episode of Pluribus. It was a fairly decent episode, with a lot about the South American guy who wasn’t affected by the virus. While I watched I set up a knitting loom for myself. I think I’m going to try and make a new hat for myself with some of the reclaimed yarn from my blanket. It’s early days yet, but it seemed to be going well.

And that’s about it. F has gone to bed and he’s sleeping. I hate to say but the snowplough is out and about so F will probably have to shovel in the morning before he takes his mother out. 

I’m not really sure what we’ll get up to tomorrow. I’m hoping we’ll see a movie, but that depends on money and weather. 

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

 

January 29, 2026

Thursday - Snowy and cold

Oh, goodness, the snow!  Can I hibernate now?

I woke up early this morning, around 7:40. F had already left for work. I went downstairs and had a peek outside. There was a lot of snow out there. I decided I’d worry about it later. I went upstairs again and went back to bed. F and I texted for a bit and he even called later on and said that he was taking a day off next month. After all of this, I watched a few videos and then fell asleep for a bit.

I woke up a bit later and got dressed. I went downstairs and put on my coat and went outside to shovel snow. I was out there for about 40 minutes. It wasn’t too hard, but the snow was surprisingly deep. 

I came back into the house and got my breakfast. I also started a load of laundry. When it finished, I came downstairs and grabbed my laundry and brought it back upstairs to hang up.

I had a quiet afternoon, but outside the snowplough went by. Sigh. I looked outside and sure enough, there was a wall of snow and ice between our parking space and the road. I decided that I’d go outside around 5pm and try to clear the blockage so that F wouldn’t have to do it when he got home.

While I ate lunch I watched another episode of The Good Fight. I hope I can get the series watched before they take it off. There’s about 5 series that I’m enjoying that are leaving in March. Yikes. 

I went outside at 5 pm and spent a lot of time outside. The snow was quite deep and the snow wall on the road was hard. I moved a lot of snow from all over the yard too. I did get the wall broken down and moved off the driveway. 

I finally went into the house and then upstairs to change into my kitchen clothes. The kitchen was fairly warm as I’d heated it up early on. F arrived a little while later and we had a nice reunion.

Tonight’s dinner was premade burgers and fries. I’m rather glad that I planned something simple as I was quite tired tonight. We also had a little bit of kabocha, potato salad, salad and kimchi. It was good and most of the food disappeared. After dinner, I washed the dishes and put them away, then I went upstairs to change before we went out.

F and I drove to Mina and I went shopping. I got some salads for tomorrow and some breakfast things for F and K. 

We came back to the house and I went upstairs and relaxed. Tonight I watched a couple of shows off the Fire Stick. I watched an episode of Evil and then one of School Spirits. I enjoyed both of them and during both of them, F interrupted me 10 minutes from the end to pay attention to him. It is so annoying when he does that. I also don’t know how he knows to bother me then!

We had a quiet evening in. I turned off the TV, F took a shower. He’s sleeping now. 

Tomorrow I’m making dinner again and I’ll probably have to shovel more snow. Sigh. I’m not sure if it’s ever going to stop snowing!

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

January 28, 2026

Wednesday - Cold and snowy

I woke up when my alarm went off this morning. I debated lying in bed a bit longer, but got up and went downstairs. I looked outside and there was snow everywhere. Sigh. I went back to bed for a while. I dragged myself out of bed later and put on my coat and gloves and boots and went outside. I shovelled snow for a while and cleared most of the yard. The snowplough had been through after F went to work, so there was a snow wall onto the road. I cleared it and it was hardish work. The snow had frozen so it was heavy and some was hard to move. 

Finally, I got it clear enough and then I sprinkled some of the snow melting chemical on the pathway and went inside. I took my breakfast upstairs and ate. I watched yesterday’s Project Runway. It’s a bit meh. Today was the unconventional material challenge and it was fine. I did agree with the winner, the guy made an outfit out of soccer balls. It was cute. The only person who could wear it was a model, but she did look fine. Don’t know who is going home yet though.

I went downstairs later to get my lunch and brought it upstairs. I watched another episode of The Good Fight. It was good. I think it was the first episode of the 5 season and they got rid of a couple of major characters which is sad as I really liked one of them. However, it was during Covid so they might have wanted to go back to Britain or something. 

I went downstairs around 6:00 to start dinner. F had called to say he was on his way. I got busy as soon as I got downstairs, but somehow I still was late getting dinner done tonight. Sigh. I took the leftover stew and added another cooked potato and a bag of mushrooms to it. I heated it all in the microwave and then added a pastry lid to it. I baked it all and it turned out nicely. 

We had the stew with some potato salad and some salad and it was very nice. We all had seconds and seemed to enjoy it. 

After dinner, I got the dishes done fairly quickly. I’d been keeping up with them as I worked so there wasn’t a whole lot to do really. I did up the burnable garbage again and it might have been a good idea that I did. I found a bunch of old calendar sheets that K must have put in the corner. The paper seemed to hold in water or something and since they were against the wall, the wall has a lot of mold marks. Sigh. I cleared out most of the paper. F said he’ll look at the wall on the weekend. 

I went upstairs and relaxed for a bit. F went out to pay a bill and then came back with a present. He bought me a cup pasta thing of clam chowder. I’m not a huge clam chowder fan but I appreciate the gesture!

I went downstairs to take a shower. I took down K’s breakfast sandwich and a bottle to bring up some water for myself. I jumped in the shower, washed my hair and then opened the door to grab my towel…which I had forgotten to bring down with me! Ack! I had to call F on my phone and ask him to bring me a towel. The hand towel in the bathroom is small and unfortunately, quite wet so I couldn’t really use that. 

He was a dear and brought me a towel. It wasn’t the one I was using, but it was clean and I really appreciated the fact that he did!

I dried off and then went back upstairs. I watched The Irrational and it was quite a good one tonight. It was about his girlfriend getting kidnapped. I like the show, too bad that it wasn’t kept around.

And that’s about it. I can hear the snowploughs out again tonight, so it must have snowed more. Sigh. We’re in a really bad weather system it seems and there is just so much snow all the time. It’s also quite cold and unpleasant a lot of the time. Yes, it’s winter, but last year didn’t seem to be this bad.

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