January 15, 2021

Friday - Sunny and warm

Today was a good day. I got up a little later than usual. F was up early too and went off to the doctor. I spent a quiet morning. I watched the news, I had a little breakfast and drank a little tea. Then, F came back from the doctor.

He wanted to go to his favourite fish restaurant. I wasn’t too keen, but he doesn’t get to go too often (but this was at least the second time this year…). We went and were able to get a table with chairs. Yay. The lunch was okay. Today it was ginger pork and sashimi. 

After lunch we came back to the house so that F could take a shower. He had booked an appointment for himself to have a massage. I was happy because I was going to go to the little mall in our city while he was having it. 

We left the house a little late, but F dropped me off at the mall and I went shopping. I picked up a few new things in the mall. I got a couple of masks at a shop, they are quite stylish, I got some hundred yen shop things and some stuff from the grocery store. Then, I went to the coffee shop and waited for F.

He phoned me when he was done with some not good news. He might have to work tomorrow afternoon. Oh dear. He might also have to work on Sunday. That one I knew about, but it still sucked. 

He came and joined me in the coffee shop and he got us both drinks with my card. He got a call from his office and he doesn’t have to work tomorrow and doesn’t have to work on Sunday. Woot!

We decided to leave finally. We weren’t terribly hungry yet, so thought we’d get K a bento. I sent F off to do that, and I went upstairs to get myself something I saw earlier. I bought myself a new laundry basket at the hundred yen shop. It was 500 yen though. I needed someplace to put my tea. I have so much tea and it is all over the place. I love tea, I really do, but sometimes I just can’t find it. I had kept some of it in a little paper bag, but the bag fell apart and was too ripped up to repair.

We met up again and drove back to the house. F gave his mother her bento and then the two of us went out for our dinner.

We had decided on the local Korean restaurant. It was empty when we got there, so that was nice for us, not so much for the owner. We had a good meal. We had some yakiniku, some Korean style sushi, a chichimi and some gyoza. It was all very nice.

We just came back to the house when we were done. However, F wanted to go out again when he got back to get himself some beer. I stayed in to get ready for my shower. 

The rest of the evening was very quiet. I showered and then watched a bit of late-night TV. I followed that up with the news I missed when we were out. F seemed to fall asleep quite early and has been asleep for a while.

Tomorrow morning we have a doctor visit to endure and then we have the rest of the weekend. I’m not sure what is going to happen. At one point, F was talking about going to Yamagata, but we might go in a few weeks so I’m not sure what the point would be. Still, it could be interesting!

Come back later if you want to hear all about my Saturday. Until tomorrow….

January 14, 2021

Thursday - Rainy, warmer 

Today was a tad odd! I went to bed around 1 or 1:30 for a change last night. I wanted F to go to sleep and not blame me for staying up as late as usual for him not sleeping. It worked. He did wake up before his alarm and got ready to leave. I did wake up just a tad and said goodbye to him.  I went back to sleep.

I next woke up around 5 am. I went downstairs to the washroom. It was really noisy outside, it sounded like the snowploughs were outside again. (They were.) When I came back upstairs, I spent a bit of time on my phone. I had my bedside light on for a few minutes and suddenly I heard steps on the stairs. F popped in to grab his phone! He’d forgotten it. He said the snowplough was on the road. I heard him drive away. It sounded like it was a bit hard to get out of the driveway.  I went back to sleep. I slept through my alarms but woke up around 9. I watched the news and then got myself up out of bed.  

I got dressed, went downstairs and grabbed my breakfast. I checked the snow situation outside and the snowplough had gone by, leaving us a little wall blocking the driveway. Sigh.  

I went outside a little after 11 am and shovelled and moved some snow. It was quite wet outside, but I got the wall moved away. I went back inside, grabbed my breakfast and ate upstairs. 

A bit after 1 pm F called me to say that he had finished work and was on his way back. Woot.  

He arrived back here a little before two pm. I assumed that he’d want to go to bed, but he didn’t. We decided to go out for lunch and then he started talking about going out to the mall to get my purse redone. I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea. I was worried about him being tired, but he said he was okay.

We went to Tai, the ramen/curry restaurant. F had his ramen and a small curry, I had curry with chicken cutlet. We both got salads with ours and we had drink bar too. We enjoyed our lunch. It wasn’t fab, but it was just fine.

F insisted on going out to the mall, however, he worried me by going the wrong way at first! He turned around and we drove out to the mall. We went up to the tailor/repair shop and it was the same woman who took my handbag in the first place. F talked to her and she apologized for making the mistake sewing my bag handle on. Anyway, she asked us to come back in 30 minutes and she would fix the bag. Woot!

I went and looked at yarn but I was disappointed. There wasn’t anything that I liked or would want to splurge on, so I left without buying anything. F had gone to get cream for his hands and when he came back to get me, we still had 20 minutes to wait. He suggested going for ice cream. Woot.

We went to Baskin Robbins and had ice cream. It was a nice treat. F had popping shower and thirty one Party or something similar. I had Melty Stollen and Ruby chocolate. They were both great. 

We went back to the repair shop and my purse was done, and it was fixed. Hurray! We didn’t have to pay any more of course.  

Since we were in the department store, I suggested going to the grocery area and getting a little something to go with dinner. I didn’t think there was enough to go the stew leftovers. F picked up some chicken with a shiso filling, that was nice.

We came back to the house and relaxed for a bit. F wasn’t hungry and neither was I. K was up for a change, she was watching sumo when we got back. She loves her sumo. 

After an hour I went downstairs and started heating up the stew and some other things. I put everything on the table, called F down, and we had dinner. It was nice, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Unfortunately, everyone except me was unavailable to do dishes. I did them and listened to a couple of podcasts. Not really a big deal, just a bit sad. 

I came upstairs. F was in bed, which was good, but he didn’t sleep. I think he started sleeping quite late. He has the day off tomorrow, so will go to the doctor in the morning and then who knows. 

I’ll end this here. I’m not sure what will happen tomorrow, come back later and find out! Until tomorrow….

January 13, 2021

Wednesday - Rainy and warm

This’ll be a fast one because I want to get to bed soon. Poor F has to get up super early to go to work, and I want to encourage him to sleep, by going to sleep myself. Or something like that!

I had an okay day today. I got up at 8 am when my alarm went off, then watched the news for the next couple of hours. I got dressed and then did a couple of loads of laundry. I was feeling a bit blue this morning so I watched Sunshine on Leith. Musicals really cheer me up, so it was nice to watch this one again. I also love The Proclaimers, so it worked well.

I went out and did a bit of snow shovelling in the early afternoon. There hadn’t been more snow, but the snow on top of the porch had fallen down and covered the steps. I also tried to do a bit more on the path. There is still a ton of snow everywhere. Today it was really heavy. It rained while I was doing that, so it was quite miserable.

I came into the house and grabbed lunch for myself and brought it upstairs. I watched the first half of Hustlers, the Jennifer Lopez movie. It was quite good. I have to find out how it ends.

I went downstairs tonight before F called. I reminded him about my handbag, but he remembered. I got started making the cream stew for tonight’s dinner.

I had to chop a lot of veggies and even the meat as we’d bought a block of meat. Still, I got it done and soon it was sizzling away in the pan.

When F did come back to the house, he gave me my handbag, but the repair place did it wrong. I’m rather upset. The woman took it apart as she took the bag from us, instead of looking carefully at how it should have been. F says he can fix it, but he really can’t.

Dinner was quite good. We had a Japanese style Cream stew. Yum. I added mushrooms to it since we had some leftover from the nabe. I liked the addition.

I did all the dishes and F took a shower. That wasn’t a big deal tonight as I thought he’d be going straight to bed. He didn’t. 

When I came upstairs, he was in bed, but was on his computer. Hmm. It’s him for it. He’s hoping that he can leave work early tomorrow afternoon. I hope for his sake that he can. 

I took a shower and gave my hospital drama a miss tonight. It’s on the DVR and I’ll try and watch it tomorrow. 

So, that’s about it for me. I’m going to attempt to get to bed soon, so that F can get some sleep. It may only be a few hours, but hopefully better than none. 

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

January 12, 2021

Tuesday - Warmer and then rainy

I woke up at 8:00am when my alarm went off. I made a trip downstairs and then came back and watched the news. I watched the news from earlier in the morning and then took a little bit of a snooze. I got up later, got dressed and grabbed my breakfast.

After I ate, I took a little nap. Yup. I know, I really shouldn’t have, but I did. 

I got up later and went downstairs. I checked the snow situation outside and it was fine. It hadn’t snowed since yesterday. Yay for no shovelling!

I came back upstairs, watched some YouTube and then went downstairs and grabbed lunch. I had forgotten to buy cheese slices and something for my lunch yesterday, so I had to throw a few things together. It worked fine! I watched The Good Wife from Friday and enjoyed it. 

F popped back for a couple of minutes during the news at 4 pm, he said that he wouldn’t be late tonight. I took him at his word.

Around 5:30 I started to get ready to go downstairs. F called to say he was on his way, so I went downstairs to start preparing dinner. F didn’t come and didn’t come….after an hour, F called back to say that he was in Tsuruoka, but was stuck in a traffic jam. He didn’t know when he could get back. He told me later that there was a car accident that was slowing down traffic. A bus was in there and wasn’t able to move because the lanes are quite narrow with all the snow out there. 

He got back to the house sometime after 7:30 I think. Luckily I had everything ready to go, so I threw the meat in a pan and cooked the cabbage and everything else. It was on the table very quickly. We had a decent meal. I made steamed spinach, anchovy cabbage, sautéed some basil chicken and we had a salad on the side too. F and K had rice and we all had miso soup too. 

Of course, I got to do the dishes too. I didn’t mind too much as I listened to the Canadian news and then the first part of an interview with Phoebe Waller-Bridge of Fleabag fame. She’s very interesting.

I came upstairs and F was basically in bed.  We had a quiet evening in. He took a shower, I should have, but didn’t. It’s a little warmer tonight and is raining now, so I’m worried about the roads for F tomorrow. 

I watched Prodigal Son and then The Handmaid’s Tale. I enjoyed both of them. 

And that’s about it for my day. I did a little crochet in the afternoon too, so that was good. Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….

January 11, 2021

Monday - Cool but okay

We slept in again. I got up around 11. F got up too to make something for his mother’s lunch. I went back to bed and slept for another hour or so. I got up, but F went back to bed. 

F didn’t get up until somewhere around 2:30 and it took him ages to get ready to go. I was upset because I had hoped to go somewhere nice for lunch, but wasn’t to be!

We drove out to Mikawa Shopping Mall and took my old handbag in to be repaired. Happily they should be able to do it, and it would cost less than buying a new handbag, so I’m happy. 

We went over to the food court and decided to have bibinba for our late lunch. I had a pork and kimchi one, F had the mentaiko one, but didn’t like it. I loved mine!

When we finished lunch, we decided to go to the electric shop behind the mall so F could price-check ceiling lights. He wants to replace the light in his half of the room. He found a couple that might work, but is still thinking about it.

After that, we toured through Don Qihote and picked up a few things. F got a new case for his phone. It was on sale for 500 yen and looks like it might be a good one for him. I picked up some food from the grocery area. We got some junk food, but also some crackers and some pasta sauce. As usual, we bought ourselves some drinks for the road, but also as usual, F forgot to take them out of the shopping bag, so we weren’t able to drink them. When I reminded him, he was driving down the road and started rummaging around in the bag until I made him stop. That was scary. 

We came back to the house and F sprang into action. Sort of! He made the nabe for our dinner. He got K up and in a few minutes had the nabe on the table and ready to eat. It was good for a change. I did add a few drops of sriracha, but it wasn’t completely necessary this time. He used lots of mushrooms which was very nice. 

I gave him a hand with drying dishes which kind of gives me the shudders. I have a really organized way of doing dishes and F doesn’t. He’ll wash the nabe first, then the glasses, then the plates…then a random pot…it doesn’t make sense. Oh well, at least I didn’t have to wash them. 

We went out again to buy groceries for the next few nights. F has a bit of a crazy schedule for the next few days, so I got enough food for 3 nights. At least I hope so. Tomorrow night we’ll have a sautéed chicken, and then I’ll make a cream stew on Wednesday. That should get us through to Friday. 

We had a quiet night in at the house. I tried to get F to sign up up for the video on demand part of our cable TV, but it didn’t work. I’m hoping he’ll be able to call them tomorrow night to see what is going on. Later on, F asked me to sew back a belt loop on his pants for work, which I did. Happily it wasn’t a dark colour so I had enough light to see. I hope the repair stays put. 

I watched a few YouTube videos and that’s about it for me. 

I’m not sure what I’m going to get up to tomorrow. I need to start thinking about my column, I may need to shovel snow, and there’s always dinner to worry about. 

Come back later if you like and read all about my adventures. Until tomorrow….

January 10, 2021

Sunday - Cold and mostly clear

I got up around 11 the first time and then around 1:30 I think after that! F and I decided to go out, but it took us a while to get mentally ready to go out. We didn’t actually try and leave until 3 pm!  When we went outside, we had to shovel snow again, since it had snowed last night and the snowplough went through this morning. F was a champion today and did most of the work. I did a little around the car and the steps.

After that, we got on the road. Lunch was up first and we were going to go to a chain family restaurant, but I remembered that on the road we were on there was a local family restaurant. F could get ramen, or a reasonable facsimile and I could have curry. They have a pretty good chicken curry there. That’s what we did. We were the only customers at the time and we had a lovely meal.

Next up, we went to a drugstore to get some cream for my foot. I have a crack on one of my heels that hurts like the dickens at times. 

We followed that up with a quick trip to the grocery store. F decided he’d make a nabe tonight, so he got the ingredients and I bought a few things to fill in the holes in the staples in the house. We got a small bento for K since she hadn’t eaten lunch. 

We went back to the house and put stuff away. F gave his mother her bento and we went upstairs. Neither of us felt like eating right away so we decided to re-assess at 7 pm. I asked F if he’d like to watch a movie with me and he finally said yes! Woot. It took us a while to get ready, but we finally sat down to watch Jumanji. Yes, the original. 

It was fun to see it again, all the way through. I did some crochet during the film, F had roasted some ginko nuts, so we had a little snack. It was fun to see it again. 

After the film, F started talking about going out to get kerosene. I was really surprised about that. I suggested waiting until tomorrow, but F wanted to go now. Fair enough, out we went.  I said that I’d also like to get something small to eat, and F was down with that. We decided to go to one of the keiten sushi places. 

We got there a little early, but were able to be seated right away. Unfortunately, the sushi restaurant was out of most of our favourite things. There weren’t any fries left (F had joked on the way in that there weren’t any, so it was sort of funnier when there really weren’t any!) no salmon, and very few of the neat things I like to eat. It was fine though. 

We left the restaurant, and then F grabbed some gasoline and kerosene from the gas station. 

We drove back to the house and F unloaded the car. When he finished, we went upstairs and relaxed. F didn’t want to watch another film, which was okay.

I took a shower, then he did too. He went to bed and is sleeping, and I should be too! But I’m not. 

That was basically my day. It was much less frustrating than yesterday since we did get out of the house and got a few necessities in.  

I’m not sure what we’ll do on holiday Monday. Come on back and find out. Until tomorrow….

January 9, 2021

Saturday - Cold with lots of snow.

I went to bed very late last night, somewhere around 4 I think. F was asleep long before me. I woke up around 10 when my alarm went off. I stayed in bed a bit longer and got up around 11.  F was in bed for ages, he never really got up in the morning. 

I wanted to go out shopping today because I used up a few of our kitchen staples yesterday, so I decided I might have to shovel snow. F was sleeping, so I went downstairs with my coat and opened the front door. I looked out and very nearly closed the door again! There was so much snow out there. So much. 

Before I left the house. Yes, that is F's car under all that.

I went outside and had to wade through the snow just to get the shovel. I took a few minutes to get the steps cleared off again, and then did a lot in the area. I got the step area done and then I had to go and do around the car. I got to the road. Of course, the snowplough had gone through overnight. I cleared a lot of snow today! I thought F might come out and help or something, but he didn’t. In fact, when I went back inside, he was still in bed watching YouTube. 

After my hard work. I think I deserve a medal!

After a little rest, I tried to suggest that we should go out.  I did suggest that we have a bite to eat before we went out. I offered to heat up my casserole from yesterday, get out a couple of bagels and just generally grab a snack. It turned out more like a meal. We heated up the living room,  I made some miso soup and we all had a nice meal. I had made some chicken salad and tuna salad. We really did have a good nosh. 

After dinner, I washed most of the dishes, but F came and did a few near the end. 

We went upstairs. I still expected that we’d go out, but F’s stomach wasn’t good again, so he just vegged. We didn’t go out. Sigh. It got late and although F offered to take me out, I told him no. If we had got stuck somewhere, it would be horrid to dig ourselves out then. 

We had a quiet night in. I watched a little YouTube and some TV, ate some popcorn and did a little crochet. Or a lot, I guess it depends how you think of it.  The blanket is growing. I think it is almost a third done. Woot. 

And really that is my day. I really hope that F is up to going out tomorrow because I haven’t been out of the house, except for snow shovelling, since Tuesday and I need to get out and get groceries and something from the drugstore for my heel. It’s cracked and very painful. Poor me!

I am almost out of here. Come back later if you like and read all about my Sunday adventures. Until tomorrow….