January 21, 2022

Friday - Clear and sunny early on, snowy at night

I got up this morning and went downstairs. I came back up, turned on the TV and watched the news from my side of the bed. F came back upstairs and decided it was cuddle and breathe in my ear time! It was hard to listen to the news, but I managed. 

Although F was supposed to go into the office for a personal meeting today, he didn’t. Oops.  He made his mother some breakfast and then came upstairs and had a nap. He slept for a couple of hours. I didn’t really grudge him that as it was his day off and he was tired.

He woke up finally and we decided to go out for lunch. We had to shovel a bit of snow when we went outside, but it didn’t take that long when we were working together. We didn’t really decide where we were going to go until we were halfway there. F suggested a restaurant that we visited ages ago and it was a good idea. We went there and were able to get in right away. It’s a place near another prefectural office and a pachinko parlour! I had a tuna and potato pilaf doria set and F had shrimp pilaf set. We had a drink plus soup and salad with our meals. It was very nice. 

Over our lunch, F asked me if I wanted to go and see a movie. Of course, the answer was yes. We could go and see Spiderman again if we got our skates on.

We bought K a bento and took it back to the house to drop it off. Then, we drove out to the mall. It was rush hour so the roads were a bit busy, but we made it, just.

It was lovely seeing the movie again, even though it was only 2 weeks ago. I might have waited, but in our area, the English versions of films tend to disappear quite quickly. They were already down to one English show per day. 

After the movie, we drove back to Tsuruoka. F suggested a decent restaurant for dinner so I said it was fine. We went to China House and had set meals. F had a spicy chicken dish and I had yurinchi. It was nice! We shared a bit of our main dishes so that was good.

F and I came back to the house. We’ve been on our individual computers for a few hours. It’s been nice though. We heard the snowplough go down the road so we are a bit worried about tomorrow, but we’ll deal with it then. 

I’m not completely sure what we’re going to get up to tomorrow. I’m hoping to go to Machi-kine in the evening to see a movie…it’s started playing movies on the weekend and they are finally showing one in English (I hope!). F has made a reservation for a massage in the afternoon, and I hope to spend some time at the mall maybe. 

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

January 20, 2022

Thursday - Cool and snowy

I woke up this morning when my alarm went off, but I didn’t get up right away. I snoozed for a bit before I moved myself out of bed. I went downstairs and then came back to bed for the tail end of the news and then some reading and snoozing.  

I got up a bit earlier than yesterday. I took a load of laundry downstairs and discovered that F had left a load in the washing machine last night. Grr.  I took it out and put mine into the machine. I also checked the snow situation outside. Ack—The snowplough had gone by already so there was a wall near the road. 

I hung F’s clothes upstairs for him and then put my winter coat on and I went outside and shovelled snow for about 45 minutes. It wasn’t bad until the wind blew. Then I got a face full of icy needles and I couldn’t see what I was doing. Yuck. I got the opening cleared, did a bit more of the path too. I even got some mail while I was on the road, as the postal worker came by!

I came in the house, grabbed my breakfast and then went upstairs. I did another load of laundry and hung things up too. 

I had a quiet afternoon. I watched some YouTube and checked email and such. 

F phoned me and let me know that he was going to be late. It was his finishing time and he was in another town waiting for people to come back. I went downstairs with my coat and checked outside again. The entrance was still okay, but the steps were covered in snow….it had fallen off the roof. Boo. I went outside and it took a few minutes before I got it cleaned up again.

After that, I came back into the house and got started on dinner. First I did my dishes from the day, then I got stuck in prep. Tonight I made “Buta-Tama-Kimchi” and also bibinba rice, salad, gobo salad and spinach cake. I did a lot of prep for the Buta-Tama-Kimchi but it was worth it. Basically, I just chopped up the pork, cut up big pieces of the kimchi and broke a couple of eggs into a bowl. When F did make it back, somewhere a bit after 7 pm, I told him to go upstairs and change and then come down for dinner. 

Dinner didn’t take too long tonight as the prep was done and many things were already plated and on the table! And how was it? Pretty darn amazing! Dinner was really good. K kept helping herself to things, as did F, so that was a good sign. I said to F that it was a (mostly) Korean meal made in Japan by a Canadian…thought it was funny!

We didn’t finish eating until quite late, so I didn’t get finished doing dishes for a long time. I was finished just before 10pm. We were supposed to go out tonight to get more groceries, but F is taking the day off tomorrow, so I might too! I decided that I didn’t need to buy groceries tonight. F has to go to his office tomorrow in the morning but not for work. He’s not too happy about it, but he has to do it. 

I watched a little telly and then some YouTube too. I’ve really got to get myself off to sleep soon, so I’ll turn off my computer and go to bed. Eventually!

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

January 19, 2022

Wednesday - Warmer, but snowy

I woke up this morning to an empty room. I went downstairs as usual, then came back upstairs and turned on the telly to watch the news. After it finished I watched a few minutes of Little Women, then turned it off. I ended up snoozing a bit too long.

I got up and went downstairs and checked the snow. There was quite a bit, so I decided to go outside and get rid of it. I spent twenty minutes or so shovelling snow and then came in.

I had a quiet afternoon really. I did the cull of my Facebook Group members and later on, I planned a lesson for one of my classes next week. 

F called me just as I was going outside to say he was coming back after doing a reconnoitre to check out a place he has to drive to tomorrow. 

I went outside and spent about 10 minutes or so shovelling the snow that fell since the last time I did it! I came inside, took off my jacket, and got to work on dinner. 

Tonight I roasted a chicken and some potatoes and served those with a salad and some formerly frozen veggies from the store. Dinner was great! I did the chicken and the potatoes in the air fryer. Dinner was a bit late, but I like to think it was worth waiting for. K and I enjoyed it, but F didn’t really eat very much. He said that his stomach was acting up tonight. I know he wasn’t able to eat and that he wanted to, but I just felt rather disappointed because I worked hard on dinner.

This morning, F had left his side of the bed in a big mess. I left it alone.  During the afternoon, the doorbell rang and I went down. It was a guy from the electric company. He gave me some papers and I brought them upstairs for F to see later. They were bright yellow and pink, easy to spot. I left them on the corner of F’s table.

Unfortunately, F “misplaced” his keys and basically tore his side of the room apart to find them. He threw a bunch of stuff out, including the papers. He found his keys a bit later, in his pocket. I don’t understand.

I, in the meantime, got busy with the cleaning up in the kitchen. I had done some clean-up earlier when I was cooking, so it helped make things a bit quicker, but it still took a while. My trusty podcasts kept me company.

When I went upstairs I was rather shocked to see F’s side of the room. I tried to find the papers but had no idea what he had done with them. 

He came back upstairs and started cleaning up his mess. The noise really bothered me, so I decided to take my shower. I went downstairs and did that.

When I came back upstairs, F was mostly done. In fact, while I was in the shower, he’d gone out to the nearby convenience store! 

I watched New Amsterdam and rather enjoyed it. I turned off the TV and got stuck into my blog. F and I had a bit of a chat after a while. 

And that basically was my day. I did two of the things on my list, so that’s good. Tomorrow I need to do laundry and work on my column. I might prepare another lesson too if I have time!

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

January 18, 2022

Tuesday - Cold and snowy

I managed to get myself off to bed last night at an almost decent time…2 am. It was the earliest I’ve been to bed in ages, maybe this year?! I slept fairly well until F’s alarm went off around 6. He’d planned to go to an onsen on the way to work, but forgot about it and went back to sleep! 

I woke up when my alarm went off this morning. I went downstairs and then did my usual watching of the news from the bed. While I did that, I heard the horrible sound of the snowplough going by. Sigh. 

I got moving around 10 and went outside to shovel snow. I worked for around 45 minutes to an hour or so and got the snow moved. Well, the snow around our yard anyway. There was quite a lot today. I went back into the house and K surprised me by coming out of the living room and saying thank you! She even suggested going into her room for a few minutes to warm up. I politely declined.

I had brunch and then started to get ready for work. Work was fine, except my heater stopped in my first class so I had to excuse myself to turn it back on. Oops.

After my classes, I checked for snow outside. There was a bit, but I thought F should be okay to get into the parking spot.

I watched the news and did some paperwork, then when F called, I went downstairs and started working on dinner. Tonight I was supposed to cook a chicken, but it wasn’t completely thawed yet. I did a frozen fish stir-fry with green onion bread again and some mushroom stir-fry and a salad. It was a little late because some things took a while, but it was good and most of it disappeared!

It took a while to clean up, but I had my podcasts so I didn’t mind too much. I made some more tea for our next meal and checked what was needed to buy for tomorrow’s dinner. 

F and I went upstairs, I changed some of my clothes and then we went out to MaxValu for groceries. There weren’t many people there, the weather was bad and F said the roads were slippery. I picked up a few things and F did too. We bought our groceries and then came back towards the house. F made a quick stop into a convenience store to pay a bill and then we went back to the house.

We put away the groceries and then went upstairs. I watched Clarice, the TV series. It was okay. I’m still not sure about it! The weirdest thing about it is that I can’t get over the difference in the guy from The Walking Dead to this show. He looks completely different!

And that was my day, basically. tomorrow I have some work to do, I have to work on my column and plan a class. I also get to shovel snow if needed. And then there’s dinner to cook too. I’m getting tired just thinking about it. Oh well. 

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

January 17, 2022

Monday - Cold and snowy now, clear earlier on.

I got up this morning when my alarm went off. I was surprised that I had slept all night, but I did. Woot. I had a quiet morning watching the news and then I’m afraid I took a nap. I didn’t wake up with my alarms either. I obviously needed it. 

I got up finally and got on with my day. It was quiet for the most part. I changed the towels downstairs and then came back upstairs. No big deal.

My afternoon was quiet too. I didn’t watch a movie, I finished up some YouTube videos and then I grabbed my lunch. I came back upstairs to eat. 

F called a little after 5 to say that he was on his way back. I went downstairs a little before 6, I tried to be earlier today, and got a start on dinner. It was a simple one today. Nothing too exciting. I did some chicken in the toaster oven, some broccoli with a spice mix I bought in the store and then some salad and rice. I had the last of the couscous from last week too. It was an okay dinner, nothing special, but that’s okay. Oh, we also had instant miso soup tonight. 

While I was preparing dinner, I got a delivery. My friend had sent me a Christmas present in November and it finally arrived. Poor thing! I wonder if she thought I was being rude and not thanking her for it. 

After dinner, I did the dishes and the putting away of stuff. It wasn’t too bad tonight, just took a while. I did my usual listening to podcasts thing. 

When I finished I went upstairs and grabbed the almost empty but not quite kerosene tank from our heater and filled it up downstairs. F was a nice guy and brought it upstairs for me. 

We had a quiet evening in. F was tired, I am too. I took a shower and then came back to watch The Good Wife. F was basically asleep when I came back into the room. 

That’s really about it for me for tonight. I didn’t start writing my column yet, although I did start jotting down a few ideas for it. They might work. This is the worst part, the theme of the Journal doesn’t really work for my movies, sad to say. I just need the idea first!

In any case, I have work tomorrow and I’m a little tired, so I’m going to end this now. Come back later if you want and hear all about my Tuesday. Until tomorrow….

January 16, 2022

Sunday - Warmer and clear, rain and thunder later on

I woke up a couple of times this morning but stayed in bed until 11ish. F was supposed to go off to the onsen this morning but didn’t. He got distracted by the news about the expected tsunami from the Tonga earthquake. He made breakfast for himself and his mother I think.

He came back upstairs and after a couple of hours offered to take me for lunch. It was quite late by then, but I said okay. I was hungry after all. We went to Coco’s and I had pasta with chicken in a sweet chilli sauce. That was rather interesting. It was spicy and good. We both had a piece of cake for dessert as it was on sale today. That was nice too. 

After we finally finished in the restaurant, we headed over to the hundred yen shop. I was able to finally get my little frying pan. Yay for me! They only had the frypan left! I grabbed it and paid, then we left.

We headed to Gyomu Super next and I picked up quite a few things there. I bought a whole small frozen chicken, some frozen onion rings, some treats for me and a few other things, like cereal.

After the Gyomu, we headed back to Pal and went to the grocery store there. I liked that one a lot. I picked up a bunch of things that I needed for making dinner for the next few nights. I’m defrosting the chicken and since I don’t know exactly when it will finish, decided to get something for Tuesday or Wednesday in case it isn’t finished defrosting by then. 

F and I bought a lot of stuff in the grocery store. F bought rice, so that was quite expensive. He’s started using his mother’s rice cooker. I’m just hoping that he doesn’t expect ME to use the rice cooker. I have no wish to use it. 

We came back to the house. F gave his mother her nice bento and then the two of us came up to our room for a while. We weren’t ready to eat yet.

Around 7 pm though, F started asking about food. He had no ideas though. I think it should be outlawed to start whining about food if you have no ideas where to go! I suggested looking for a place he wanted to try earlier today, and if they weren’t open, gave another couple of options. 

We headed out and completely missed the place he had suggested, but instead of turning around and looking longer for it, F just kept going. It was so annoying. I kept asking him where he was going but he had no idea.  The second place that I had suggested did have its lights on but had just closed when we got there. Darn F and his taking the long way again!  We ended up near MaxValu and F took us on this long and winding tour of houses and dead-end roads. It was horrible. I have no idea what the blazes he was doing. He did finally suggest a place but it was closed, as was the next one we tried.

Finally, I suggested three more places near where we were and told him to pick. He refused, so then I did. We went to the Udon place. I had meat udon with some tempura on the side, F had plainer udon with tempura too. It was fairly good.

We came back to the house after dinner and relaxed. F got ready for work and then vegged with his computer, I vegged with mine. We did have a pretty nice chat about family and travelling and stuff like that. We don’t often do a lot of talking, so I enjoy it when we do. 

And, that’s about it for my day. Tomorrow I have to prepare for Tuesday’s classes…just basically review what I’m teaching, and then hopefully get a start on my column which is due at the end of the month. Yikes.

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

January 15, 2022

Saturday - Warmer but a bit cloudy.

I went to bed so late last night, it was crazy. I did set my alarm for 9:00 am this morning. F was still with me but I thought he was going to the doctor. He didn’t go right away but did a little later. I got up a bit later. I heard a dreaded sound outside, the snowplough. Ack. 

I got dressed and went outside. The parking area did have a wall between it and the road, but it was a small one. However, when I went out into the road, there were huge snow boulders everywhere. Yikes.  I started clearing the snow. I broke up the biggest two of the boulders and put the snow off the road.  I was nearly finished when I noticed that the snowplough was on its way back. No!  I went into our yard and did some work there. Luckily, the snowplough didn’t block our gate again but did clear the road a little so that was good. 

I finished up the work and then went back into the house. I went upstairs and waited for F. 

He came back after 12 some time. He made something for his mother to eat and then asked me about going out. I requested Indian food and today he said yes. Yay! We drove over to the restaurant and had a pretty nice meal. Today their special was Butter Chicken, a dish I like, so we had that. I had medium heat, F had hot. 

After lunch, we went to S-Mall to go to Daiso. I’ve been collecting seals so that I could get a new pot and today and tomorrow are the last days of the pots.  I bought a few things but when I requested my pot, they were out of them. Wah!

F and I headed downstairs to go to the grocery store. We picked up some food for K’s dinner and then we headed back to the house. It was getting rather late by now and I was worried that we wouldn’t have time to deliver the bento AND go to the movie. However, we did.

At the house, F went in with the bento and gave it to his mother, then, we headed out to Mikawa. We were both a bit sleepy, I dozed a bit, but F said he was so I stayed awake to make sure he was!

We got to the cinema just in time. I used the machine to get the tickets and F bought the popcorn. We went in and I let F carry the drinks and popcorn while I went to the loo. I didn’t know where F was, so I checked the cinema - nope. I waited in the hall outside the cinema and it was quite a while before he came out. 

We went to our seats and watched House of Gucci. It was sort of fun and interesting, and a bit odd. It wasn’t the greatest movie ever, but I did like it. 

After the movie, F did another disappearing thing in the washroom. It was getting embarrassing standing in the hall waiting for him. 

We drove to the Across Plaza, going the long way around and then parked in front of the Daiso. Unfortunately, it had closed 4 minutes before. No! Blooming heck, F. 

We headed back into Tsuruoka. I was hoping for a family restaurant, but F wanted to go to a Yakiniku place on the main street. It’s a good place, but it has been years since we went there. We parked in Marica and then walked over to the restaurant. We were seated right away and had a good meal.

We had a Korean-style set, some chicken and some beef tongue, plus some vegetables. The food was good, but they don’t spend a lot of money on decor or seating. The seats were plastic crates with padding on the top. The customers tended to be quite young and quite noisy. 

After we finished, we walked back to Marica and drove back to the house. F hadn’t had any alcohol (neither had I!) so it was okay to drive back. We went upstairs and that was that. 

I watched a little TV and then turned it off. I’ve been watching some YouTube since then.  I’m blogging obviously too. 

That’s about it for me. I’m not sure what we’ll get up to tomorrow. I’m hoping that we’ll go to a Daiso so I can get something for saving all those seals. I know that F wants to take K to the onsen in the morning. I hope to sleep instead!

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