December 18, 2018

Tuesday - Rainy

An okay day.

I overslept this morning because I got up early on to use the washroom, then fell asleep. I didn’t hear my alarms at all.  I woke up around 8:30, managed to watch the US and then the UK news after I cued it on the DVR.

I didn’t see K most of the day, but I did hear her. She bopped around rather a lot today. I was really hoping she’d go back to bed like usual because I was so sleepy I wanted a nap. No such luck.

I had planned to make dinner tonight, but with being tired and having a runny nose, thought I should pass. Then I decided to take some cold medicine and go for it. I went downstairs around 5 pm and started peeling potatoes. I was making Bangers and Mash. When F called I asked him to pick up some stuff including some salad for dinner. I was busy in the kitchen, and I really was. I couldn’t find my potato masher, sad to say, so had to use a fork.  We had mashed potatoes, sausages and gravy, with a side salad.  Dinner got good reviews, but I’m not completely convinced it was good!  Still, it was homemade and that counts for us these days I think.

I washed half the dishes and then F took over. That meant I got to dry all the dishes….hey, that’s not fair! F did clean the stove which was nice. I had planned to do it, but he wouldn’t move.

He wanted to go out and get gas for the car and I wanted to get some things from the drugstore for the house. We combined our trip. We got some garbage bags, some liquid hand soap and some detergent in the drugstore as well as a few other things. F filled up the car at the gas station, and then we headed off to Kameda Coffee for a break. 

I noticed they had a cake set available now, so we each had that with some decaf. We used the free wifi there for a while. It wasn’t until I started snoring that F roused himself. I was really sleepy and just wanted to leave. 

We got back to the house and put away the shopping. I came upstairs and F had sneakily grabbed the remotes and had put on Bates Motel. Now, I like the show a lot, but I watched it on Friday Night, so I didn’t need to see it again. I didn’t mind too much until I noticed that F wasn’t watching it.  Grr!

I watched a couple of other shows and then turned off the TV. F has gone to bed and he’s snoozing away fairly noisily.  

So, today I didn’t feel that great but did cook dinner. Yay for that! Come back later and see how my Wednesday goes. Until tomorrow….

December 17, 2018

Monday - Rainy

A good, productive day.

I didn’t have a great night. When I first went to bed, I was cold, then overheated and then it was morning!  F woke me up when he left, but I got up soon after anyway. 

I had a fairly normal morning except I made myself oatmeal for a change. I used one of my new bowls to make it in the microwave. It was fast that way.  I really enjoyed breakfast. I also did a couple of loads of laundry and hung it up this morning. I caught up with some of my email stuff, had a bit of email trouble this morning…but it seems to have sorted itself out.  Hurray.

In the afternoon I watched some DVR TV and put away laundry and caught up on a few things.  I had my lunch and then decided to start wrapping my best friend’s present afterwards.  I semi-cheated by using gift bags but got it done and boxed up.  F phoned to say he was on his way back to the house, so I asked him to take me to the post office.  I was printing out a packing list when he called and of course, my printer had jammed.  He thought I was outside, but really I was just trying to get him to hang up so I could use both hands to fix my printer!

After F came back to the house, we decided that we’d go to the post office, then to the grocery store so we could get his mother something to eat. After that, we’d go to the onsen and then go to dinner.  That’s pretty much what we did.

The post office went fairly smoothly. It was expensive of course, but that’s fairly normal. At the grocery store, we each picked up a few things in the basket and finally went through the checkout. As we did, the clerk gave a surprised look when she scanned something but didn’t do anything about it. However, I looked at the total and it was high. Really high. F didn’t notice at first until I said to him that something was really expensive.  We checked the totals. His “shiokara” or stinky squid guts as I like to call them, had a price of more than 3000 yen. It probably should have been less than 300 yen. Somewhere, someone had added an extra number to the price! The clerk was new, so she had to find out what to do. She went off to get us a new package…scratch that….not US…him…a new package that cost around 300 yen. In the end, it all worked out of course, but luckily I had kept an eye on the bill. F might have just paid it and not thought about it.

We delivered the food to K and put the rest in the fridge or wherever.  Then, we drove out to the onsen.

Even that was slightly eventful tonight as we couldn’t get the sound system to play my tunes. Finally, F had to pull over and try a few things before restarting the car. That seemed to work. I told him it was okay to wait, for some reason he just wanted to keep trying.

At the onsen tonight I read a little, crafted a little, and updated my phone a little, so that was good. I haven’t finished either my book or my craft, but that’s okay. 

We had an okay for me dinner in Gusto tonight. F had been trying to get me to go to the new steak place tonight, but I told him that with my nose running I wouldn’t enjoy it very much. Why have expensive food if I wouldn’t be able to taste it? In Gusto, I ordered some Keema Curry and also shared an order of fries with F. I added on some of their truffle sauce and that was good!  F foolishly had ramen. I don’t know why. He hated it, said the noodles weren’t cooked right. They aren’t a ramen shop, they can’t possibly meet his impossibly high ramen standards.  

We came back to the house and had a fairly quiet night in.  F isn’t feeling too well, and my nose is running, so we’re quite a pair. 

Tomorrow I hope to start working on present wrapping for my sister’s family. I have a few things already, although I am waiting for their main presents to arrive. I may do more laundry or not. I’m also thinking about cooking dinner tomorrow night. I want to do bangers and mash, but I haven’t decided if it is a good idea or not. It depends on my nose I think! 

Come back later and see what I get up to. Isn’t it exciting?  Until tomorrow….

December 16, 2018

Sunday - Clear and warmish

A good day.

Apologies for not updating on Saturday. I was sick! I had a slight sore throat on Friday which turned into a horrid sore throat plus raging fever on Saturday. I literally spent most of the day in bed. I felt horrible.  I couldn’t eat, didn’t drink enough and F and I ended up calling it a night around 8:30 pm. I woke up a few times overnight but slept most of the time.

This morning I woke up feeling much better. My nose is a little plugged/runny now, but my throat has eased and my temperature is back to normal. Whew!

We had a busy day today. K wasn’t feeling too well today, sad to say, but I was feeling better.  F and I went out for lunch to Restaurant Futaba, just down the street. For me, it was a good choice as I had quiche and salad and soup, nice easy to digest things.  I hadn’t eaten much on Saturday at all. 

F and I went shopping for my best friend’s presents for Christmas. We got a few things and I think she’ll like them if they are the right size. Fingers crossed. I may have erred on the larger size so I hope she can at least wear them. We had a drink at Starbucks, we both had the Christmas Tree Frappucino which is a pistachio flavoured drink. It was nice, and not too sweet.  I wanted to get some blank nengajo and thought they were selling them in S-Mall.  Well, we went there and there was no booth.  Sigh. We went to a convenience store though and I got some there. Whew!

F started muttering about getting a haircut so we decided that he’d drop me off in S-Mall and he’d go and get his hair cut.  That was nice. I had a bit of time to shop and then I went to Doutors and had a soy tea latte. F joined me there when he was done and he had a quick drink too.

We decided to do the bento thing for dinner again, so we ordered with F’s phone and then headed out to do our grocery shopping. I got my usual stuff including some yogurt and cold meat, F bought udon. 

We picked up the bentos and came back to the house. F got his mother up to eat (before 8 pm and she was in bed already) with us and then we did the dishes. 

This evening I finally ordered clothes for my family in Canada. They won’t arrive until just before Christmas though, I’m a little sad about that. The mail strike in Canada has made everything late.  Boo! 

I took a shower tonight which was only worth mentioning because I forgot to take my towel downstairs to use afterwards. I had to use the hand towel in the bathroom. Luckily I had just put it out this morning so it was clean and mostly dry. I replaced it of course!

And that was my day. It was good. It is surprising to me how much better I feel today than I did yesterday. I’m not sure if it was a bad cold or a bit of flu, but it was nasty. 

Tomorrow I have to wrap presents and try to catch up with things that I didn’t get done on Saturday. Come back later if you like and see what gets done. Until tomorrow….

December 14, 2018

Friday - Snowy and cold

A good day.

I woke up this morning after F had left for work. I was sad as I wanted to see him before he left. Oh dear.

I saw K in the morning for a change. I received a Christmas Card this morning and she called me down to get it.  I saw her a couple of times during the day. 

I spent the morning writing a few last minute cards and then decided to take them to the post office. I tried to let K know I was going out, but she’d gone back to her room. I could have knocked but if she was sleeping she wouldn’t hear and then I’d have trouble explaining!  

Anyway, I strode off to the Post Office. The closest one isn’t a full-service place and they don’t get a lot of international mail.  The lady today didn’t know where Canada was.  Argh. Also, I told HER how much the international mail cost.  I hope I did it right! My Canadian cards are already late.  

After the post office, I went to the convenience store for a few supplies and then came back to the house.  I don’t think K knew I was gone!

I spent a quiet afternoon and grabbed my lunch later on. I realized I had forgotten to buy a salad last night for today, somehow I thought I had one in my fridge! I could have picked one up at the convenience store when I was there, but I didn’t.

The rest of the afternoon was fairly quiet.  F called me to say he was off to his party and a few minutes later I went downstairs to prepare for the meal that K and I were having.  I had asked F to order food in for us so we could have a nice evening together and he came through for us. I knew what we were getting, but K didn’t. I think she liked it all.  She got tempura, soba and sushi, I got chicken cutlet and sushi.  They came with chawanmushi and packets of clear soup.  

K's dinner

My Chicken and sushi. Very nice!

Setting up the table was a bit of a chore though because we had to keep getting new dishes for K’s sauces!  It was fine really.  The food was great. I finished mine, but only just, K didn’t eat all of her tempura.  I cleared the table and washed all the boxes and containers. It didn’t take too long really. I put the boxes outside on the stoop and went upstairs to watch TV. 

I had a quiet evening by myself. I really enjoyed it. I watched my TV shows and drank a lot of decaf tea. I did a little crochet too.  Sad to say, I’m not feeling that well. My throat is sore and I’m quite tired. I hope I’m not coming down with something.  

I’m not sure what I’ll get up to tomorrow. F will likely come to the house in the morning while I’m sleeping. I hope he doesn’t wake me up too early! Come back later and see what I get up to. Until tomorrow….

December 13, 2018

Thursday - Rainy and later snowy and windy

A good day.

I had a really hard time getting up this morning. I had gone to bed before F if you can believe that. He was sitting up watching something on his phone with all the lights on, not even in his pyjamas at 2:30 am.  I got in bed, put on my eye mask and tried to sleep. He came a few minutes later but managed to bump and make enough noise that I wasn’t able to sleep for a while. 

I didn’t hear him leave this morning though so at least he was quiet then!

I didn’t see my mother in law at all during the day today. I heard her a couple of times, but didn’t see her!  I know she gets up early, does a few chores, but then she goes back to bed to save using the heater.  

I did a couple of loads of laundry this morning, and also watched a bit of the TV on the DVR. I enjoyed myself basically. I didn’t hear from F at all today. Oh, tell a lie, he did text me in the afternoon, to tell me that he made arrangements for our meals to be delivered tomorrow evening.  

In the evening, F came home, just a little late. He’d had to drive to Yamagata city today.  He wanted to go to the onsen and I had no objection. His mother wanted to go too, so we all got in the car and drove out to Yupoka. They had their baths, I sat in the lobby and used the free wifi and did a little crochet plus podcast listening.  

We had our dinner at the onsen tonight too. They had ¥300 ramen on, so F was thrilled.  K and F had that, I had yakiniku.  I was quite pleased with mine, especially since I asked for a small rice and got it.

We drove back to Tsuruoka, and we dropped K off at the house. F and I went shopping and bought a few things at Mina.  I really only needed something for lunch tomorrow, but got some snacks in case I needed them.  

When we came back to the house I wanted to fill up our kerosene heater, only to discover that 1) most of the tanks were empty and 2) that K had messed up the system. She’d not been able to make the automatic pump work, so had gone to an old hand one.  F fixed things up and even took our tank up to the room. We had 3 empty kerosene tanks and no one had thought to fill them up. Sigh. I go away for 4 days and no one else can use their brain!  

Tomorrow night F has an overnight work party, so he’s arranged for K and me to have a nice dinner delivered. I’m looking forward to it already! I shall probably have dinner with her, just hope things work out. 

I did write most of my remaining Christmas Cards today so I have to try and mail them tomorrow. The weather is supposed to tank though, so I’m not sure if I’ll be able to make the trek to the nearby post office. If I can ride my bike I could go to a better place a little further away, but I have my doubts that I’ll be able to.

That’s about it for me for today. Tomorrow I’ll likely be on K Duty and also on snow clearing.  Poor F, I’m sure he doesn’t want to come back on Saturday morning to a huge mound of snow.  Or does he?  No; no, he doesn’t. 

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

December 12, 2018

Wednesday - Rainy and cold

A good day.

I had a great time in Sendai, didn’t want to come back!  ETJ was great, meeting up with other members of my group was also great and so was shopping, eating and staying in hotels.  I went to see Bohemian Rhapsody again, but in IMAX and that was cool.  I got a movie card in one of my hotels and enjoyed that too.  I bought an obscene amount of tea, but then again, I drink an obscene amount of tea, so no problem. 

On Saturday, the day I left, we woke up to a world of white. The snow was deep and everywhere.  My bus was a bit late because of it, but it was understandable. I was lucky because I got to leave it behind, for the most part, poor F had to shovel a lot of snow.

Today, I got up and turned on the heater.  I did my usual morning things of watching the news and NCIS.  I spent some time on my computer after breakfast and then went outside and shovelled some snow. I knew that F had to shovel snow at work, and didn’t think he should have to do it at his house as well.  It took a while, but I got most of the parking space cleared out. The snow kept falling off the roof with huge crashes, I was glad I wasn’t under it. 

F took off half a day of work to take his mother to the doctor. She got all dressed up to go, and off they went. They came back soon after as her doctor isn’t open on Wednesday afternoon. Sigh. F did go to his doctor though, so that was good.

In the later part of the day, F and I ran a few errands. We went to the electric shop for a light bulb, then had dinner at Aki, the okonomiyaki place. We had a lovely dinner and tonight the restaurant was busy. The Master was quite surprised about it. We were seated at the cooking station, so got to see all the magic happen. We were sitting in stools so hung up our coats by the door.  When we left, I put on my coat while F paid.  

We were all the way to the Internet Cafe when F realized that he’d left his coat in the restaurant. Back we went.  Of course, it was there, and he was glad to see it.

We went back to the Internet Cafe and got massaging chairs. We were at opposite ends of the section.  I watched some regular TV and also worked on more Christmas Baubles.  For the last hour, I watched a bit of YouTube.  I let F know when there were about 10 minutes left, but he still wasn’t quite ready when our time was up.

We came back to the house and spent some quiet time in our room.  I was on my computer, F was on his phone on the bed.  

Tomorrow I have to send off my long-delayed Christmas Cards, and hopefully see about ordering some presents for my sister’s family. Christmas is going to be very late this year I fear.

That’s about it for today. Come back later if you are up to it and see how Thursday goes. Until tomorrow….

December 7, 2018

Friday - Rainy and finally snowy

An okay day.

I got up this morning, but it was a bit difficult. I finally shook myself and got dressed. I had watched the news and my programme from the bed until then. It was much warmer that way.

I had a good but quiet day today. I packed my suitcase again, this time I took a few things out that I’m sure I’ll never miss. I did some paper making for my women’s group and I finished one of my Christmas baubles.  Oh, and I also received a Christmas ornament in the mail. I had just done a Secret Santa handmade ornament swap and received a cute little snowman and a tiny tree for my tiny tree.  

F phoned me around 4:30 to say he was in Yamagata city and wouldn’t be back until 8 pm at the earliest. Yikes. I told him I’d tell his mother, and I did. I offered to cook for her and since she didn’t mind what I made, we ended up eating scrambled eggs on rice with broccoli and clear soup. It wasn’t bad, even if I say so myself. 

F finally got back around 8:30. He was tired and a bit grumpy. He wanted something to eat, but had to watch some of the skating on TV. Of course, when he said it was okay to leave, it was 10 pm and our choices were limited. F got really nasty with me in the car. I had told him I didn’t want to have rice but would go along with wherever he picked. He wouldn’t pick and demanded that I choose the place. Right. I choose the place that he will deign to eat in.  And woe betides if I pick wrong.  I chose a cheaper Japanese chain restaurant.  It was nearly empty when we got there. I had a tofu nabe and French fries, he got some soba and a small donburi, but complained about them.  Mine was fine, nothing special, but okay. 

We came back to the house afterwards and since it was late, I took my shower right away. F dithered about taking one, but didn’t I think. 

We’re not sure what will happen tomorrow morning. I have a few things to stuff into my suitcase and then I’m off in the afternoon. I probably won’t post again until Tuesday or Wednesday, so come back around then and see. Until……..?