Monday, July 16, 2018

Long time, no see

Ohisashiburi

I have clearly not accomplished all my Golden Week goals, especially not the one about exercise, and (less importantly--or would that be more?) the one about Tiny Vader.

Life is all right. The Pumpkin Princess is having fun in JHS which is unexpected and really nice (I hated that JHS). She is in the percussion section in band and loves it. Midterms and finals have come and gone. Results were very, very slightly above average, which, if continued, aren't going to leave her as many career choices as she wants (Actually, her current career of choice is Disneyland Cast Member, which would sustain the standard of living she wants if our family home were within commuting distance of the place. Which it isn't.). The Pumpkin Prince is...a boy. He breaks things. He forgets things. He's all right with it. He's all right with himself. 

Bullet journaling continues, and is helpful, when I journal. When I'm really, really busy, I don't even have time to check/ update it, which means it doesn't get the chance to be helpful. Which means I need to do it more religiously, I guess? I've been doing it on a notebook I got at the 100 yen store, but after four months of it, I decided to get a bigger (A5) notebook with a nice cover. We'll see how I do with the bigger notebook.

I am still bulk cooking over the weekend for weekday breakfasts and lunches. I haven't bought an unplanned work lunch in over four months. I think that's pretty amazing. One unexpected problem is that I keep forgetting how much cash I (don't) have in my wallet. Thank goodness for free ATM fees at 7Eleven for people who get paycheck deposits at my bank...

Meditation...I don't know. I keep falling asleep. I never had trouble sleeping to begin with. I don't know if it makes me more productive or forgiving or whatever.

Exercise. See above. Totally slacking off. Lost, and gained back weight (my body's usual response of losing muscle, then gaining fat). I'm currently the weight I was right after the New Year Holidays. Which isn't terrible, by any means, but not as healthy as I could be.

I dumped my hairdresser (my hair salon, actually. My hairdresser left me a few years ago and I just kept going to the same salon out of habit). My new one gave me a straightening treatment, which I love, and bangs, which I am not sure about. At first, I liked them. Then I started feeling like they made me look like a 38 year-old (I say 39 because people say I look slightly younger than my age) trying to look like a 23 year-old. Then they grew (duh) and I am starting to remember why I ditched bangs circa 1998 in the first place. I'm trying to decide if I want to attempt a self-trim or if I will grow them out until my next salon visit (which will probably happen in 11 months).

Saturday, April 28, 2018

Have lofty goals

Mokuhyou ha takaku

Feeling better, even though I've totally slacked off on the exercise. Meditation is...on and off. I keep falling asleep before the YouTube video ends, which I've decided is perfectly acceptable. Journaling is going well. I started mid-March and I'm on page 42. I think I'm having slightly fewer "OMG TOTALLY FORGOT" moments, but I'm also having longer periods of "OMG I HAVE TO DO XYZ AND I TOTALLY DON'T WANT TO BUT I HAVE TO AND I REALLY REALLY DON'T WANT TO BECAUSE IT'S HARD AND I DON'T WANT TO CALL THAT PERSON AND GET THAT THING THAT I NEED TO DO XYZ AND OMG I HAVE TO DO XYZ" so I'm not sure if I'm actually any more efficient.

Here is this year's overly ambitious to-do list, to be accomplished sometime between April 28th and May 6th (but I am working and the kids have school on May 1st and 2nd).

1. Wash cashmere knits: From November to February (and sometimes March) I live in Uniqlo cashmere over Heat Tech thermals (with or without a button up shirt or blouse layered between the two). I have four long sleeved pullovers, a short sleeved turtleneck, and a sweater set. I'll hand wash them with detergent for delicates. (There's just something not quite right about dry cleaning something that cost less than $100.) The laundry net will let me only dry two at a time, so I'll have to do two a day.

2. Gardening: We had landscaping done and so I don't have nearly as much space to make overly ambitious plans only to let the yard fall to a weed jungle garden. Still, I want to have nice flower pots in front of the front entrance and maybe the new shed. So, I need to:

Empty old soil from flower pots, sieve, place in black trash bags
Get new potting soil and cute plants
plant flower pots with fresh plants to last for a couple of months

3. Run at least three times: I've totally lapsed in the exercise department. Shock therapy might be necessary.

4. Color hair and pedicure: I've already bought the box hair color. Haven't decided if I'll paint my toenails my usual navy blue, or something more understated.

5. Get a repair estimate on my work bag: I bought the thing about eight years ago. It now has small rips and the edges are badly worn. I did some googling, and the company does repairs for a price, so I want to take pictures and drop them a line and see if repairs would be worth the time and money. I think the cutoff would be half of what I paid for the bag in the first place.

6. Tiny Vader photoshoot: because I want to tell the story of what became of the rose/ silky red boxers.

Thursday, March 15, 2018

Meditation

Meisou

I felt really crappy this past month, so I'm trying different things to get myself out of the funk. I tried journaling again, and it's kind of good. I'm trying to get back into exercising. It's pollen season and kind of windy, so YouTube exercise videos are good.

I'm also trying meditation. I don't mean meditation like the religion I married into. That would be much too intense, plus, I can't do the lotus position (I think it's because my legs are too short).

No, I mean what the self-help people are calling "mindfulness." Before bed, I listen to one of the online guided meditations available on YouTube. I'm not sure if it actually helps me relax or sleep well, but it isn't hurting, and it's only about 10 minutes I would otherwise spend fooling around on the internet.

I'm not a religion expert, but mindfulness and meditation as defined by my (husband's) religion seem different. I can't imagine myself heading to my husband's family temple and sitting in the lotus position while the resident monk hovers over me with a bamboo sword. Mindfulness seems much more accessible with smartphone apps and YouTube and FB pages. While conclusive evidence of efficacy is debatable, it can't hurt, and it's only 10 or so minutes. Worth a shot. We'll see how it goes.

Tuesday, March 13, 2018

If it works

Umaku iku nara

I decided I would try journaling again. I tried it once, and it made me depressed, so I stopped, but I kept on hearing about it, so I decided to give it another try. I watched the You Tube on bullet journaling and went to the page and read all the information on it.

I know you're supposed to use a nice notebook with good paper, but I'm on a budget so I got a notebook with a vinyl cover at the 100 yen shop. I saved three pages for the index and used three pages for a "future log" and additional notes, and two facing pages for the monthly log for the month of March. Then I dove in and wrote whatever I felt like. I logged things I had to do and did and other stuff that I thought was cool that I came across during the day, and whenever a question popped into my head at work, I wrote it down, and when I had a minute googled it or looked it up in the books we have at work and wrote down the answers.

I ended up with over a page and a half of notations just for today.

Somehow, I don't think it's how bullet journaling is supposed to work.

But I felt like I was getting stuff done, and I looked over the notations before going to bed, and felt really good about my day, so whatever works, right? And I felt so good that I exercised for the first time in over a month, and now I'm sore all over but I'm feeling good about it, so it's all good, right?


Sunday, March 4, 2018

Lying is one answer

Uso mo houben

The other day, I took the day off to get a breast biopsy. Yes, a breast biopsy, you know, what you do when you get an abnormal breast exam and/ or mammogram and the surgeon does to make sure it isn't cancer? Yes, that. But I didn't want to deal with explaining to my husband what a Category 3 breast lesion was, and how stabbing it with a needle and sucking out some cells involved a blood-draw-caliber needle was more a precaution than anything. I don't know if he would have been "oh, ok" like he was supposed to, or if he would have freaked out like I was afraid he would. I wasn't ready for the latter. So that morning, I packed a lunch just like almost every other day the past two weeks, and left the house when I usually did. The procedure was done by 10:30, so I drove to the mall and ate the lunch I packed in the parking lot and bought a T shirt at Uniqlo (last year's shirts were on sale at 50% off and I found the discontinued color I liked) and walked around until it was time for my consultant gig. After I finished that gig, I went to Costco and the adjacent home improvement store, and then I went to Starbucks (and remembered to NOT get a decaf latte)
and did some English proofreading and fooled around on the internet until it was the usual time for me to go home.



So technically, I've lied to my husband. Oh what a tangled web we weave. At least it was a cheap web (500 yen for the T-shirt, 380 yen for the Starbucks sakura latte).

(And it was good.)

Thursday, February 22, 2018

Note to self

Bibouroku

A blog post from a year ago reminded me that I was depressed this time last year. Maybe next year I'll remember this and take steps to prevent it (or at least catch it early).

So here's another reminder to myself:

Finishing a consultation gig early but not wanting to drive back to your office even though you have work to do is perfectly fine. Spending 500 yen on a Starbucks latte so you can sit in a sofa for an hour or so to get that work done was great idea. It was smart of you to remember that you'd probably never get it done at home (kids/ housework/ miscellaneous distractions, you know the drill). That's why you've packed lunches the past couple of weeks, so that you can spend that 500 yen you aren't spending on overpriced convenience store lunches on something more useful. Like sofa space away from home. Oh, and coffee.

However, in the future, try to remember you don't like Starbucks decaf lattes. Deal with the insomnia and go for the regular latte, or order one of those cutesy seasonal sweet frothy things in interesting colors. 

Oh well. At least the cup was cute.


Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Murder in the laundry room

Sentakushitsu satsujin jiken

I was taking pictures of Tiny Vader and Tiny Storm Trooper with their new washing machine, and the Pumpkin Prince said,

"It's Darth Vader. He wouldn't do laundry nicely."


"Oh, is that so? Well, what do you think he would do?"

"I think he would do this."


Oh dear.

"And I think there would be a witness. Hey, I think you should take the picture from above."

"Like this?"


"Yes, like that. And I think he would tie up all the loose ends."


"Like this. Oh, wait, I think he would use something better. Like this."


"There would be signs of a struggle, of course. Like this."


My son needs:

A. to watch less violence on T.V. and YouTube
B. extensive checking of his manga reading
C. intensive therapy
D. all of the above

Sunday, February 18, 2018

Bare minimum requirement

Hitsuyou saiteigen

IMG_20180218_112157

The week's make-ahead is six dishes, and one of them is steamed broccoli...I also have my usual soy eggs and shredded carrot salad. The one on the bottom left is ground pork with ginger and mushrooms stir fried in sesame oil and soy sauce. I could add a little broth and tofu to it, or maybe put it on toast with cheese for a quick breakfast sandwich.

My mom has the flu. She didn't want to go to the doctor's, which I get and would have respected if I hadn't been so sure it was the flu and I was afraid of my dad getting it. Managed to convince her let me take her to the local clinic open Saturday afternoons and have the test done and get the Relenza inhaler. The pharmacist was super nice and counseled her on how to do it and asked if she wanted to do it right there, and she did. The whole process took about an hour and a half at the local clinic and pharmacy. Mom paid 20%.

You can pry universal health care from my cold, dead fingers.

Thursday, February 15, 2018

Planning

Keikaku

The Pumpkin Princess didn't get into that competitive six-year college prep school she wanted. I'm glad she tried. She writes better than I did at her age. I'm also kind of glad she didn't get in. She would have been blown away and gotten depressed or something. She isn't naturally smart enough to get by in that school without major effort. I think she is smart enough to get by in the best schools with major effort, but she doesn't make major effort on her own. She only makes enough effort to get by. Which is one way to live, except she seems to think she's making major effort. I am torn between trying to let her figure this out on her own, or calling her on it. I didn't while she was preparing (or not preparing, depending on how you look at it) for the entrance exam.

The local JHS where I went and she's headed is kind of boring and depressing (see also: Year of Requirement) but there aren't any major issues like violence and crime. It'll do. The area private schools are not worth the time and money. (Don't get me wrong. They're good schools. I have friends who went there. It's just that they lived a lot closer to said schools when they did, and are not worth commutes of an hour or more.)

We're talking about choosing extracurriculars that will help her get her into the school were the cool, smart kids go (i.e. the same high school as her mom.) I want to get back into teaching her English, if she'll let me. We'll see if she wants to make a major effort to get the things she wants. And if she doesn't, that's all right too. She can work on being happy with what she can get with the effort she wants to make.

Because I think in the end, that's what life is about. Being happy with the things you can get, and the things you can give people, with the effort you are willing to make.


Monday, February 12, 2018

Three day weekend

San-renkyuu

Three day weekend!

One visit from sister and husband!

One exercise session!

One pair of white jeans taken in at the waist!

One photo session with Tiny Vader and Tiny Storm Trooper!

Two half-hour English lessons with the Pumpkin Princess!

Six make-ahead dishes!

IMG_20180212_150013

(soy seasoned chicken breast, boiled bean sprouts, boiled cabbage with olive oil, tuna salad with carrots and dried/ rehydrated daikon horseradish, kinda sorta Korean pork stir fry, steamed broccoli. I did too many side dishes last week, so I toned stuff down this time partly to adjust for the shorter workweek. Chicken breast can either be eaten as is, added to prepackaged supermarket salad mixes, or be made into sandwiches.)

Four-day workweek!

Tuesday, February 6, 2018

Sunday, February 4, 2018

The cold soaks into my body.

Samusa ga mi ni shimiru

Too cold to run, for me, anyway. And also the Pumpkin Daddy. I stayed indoors. I did that YouTube exercise video that cased me immense pain two weeks ago once, and it wasn't nearly as bad.

I wonder what happened to the cold tolerance I had when I lived in the American Midwest? When it snowed last week, I wore my warmest down coat, a shirt, a sweater, and full length pants over thermal underwear (both top and bottom), thick wooly socks, and knee-high rubber boots. I basically chose my wardrobe to survive a three-minute walk from my parking space to my building.

Did the make-ahead thing again. Vegetables are expensive because of the terribly cold weather we've been having, so there are a lot of bean sprouts (which are produced in a factory from imported seeds) and carrots (which were probably harvested last season and refrigerated).


Kinda sorta Korean fried chicken, boiled cabbage seasoned with sesame oil, shredded carrot salad, kinda sorta Okinawan konnyaku stir fry, okara, bean sprouts seasoned with sesame oil, kiriboshi (shredded and dried) daikon cooked in dash with carrots  and aburaage, soy eggs, nappa cabbage stir fried with glass noodles, and shredded carrot stir fry with egg. (Not shown: a large container half-full of soy sauce flavored fried chicken, which was Sunday's dinner. I made extra hoping for plentiful leftovers to eat during the week, and it turned out everyone liked it so much, I ended up with a lot less than I expected. Which, I guess, is the highest compliment I could possibly receive, so it's all good, isn't it?)

The make-ahead thing at least partially fulfills my aspirations of upping my breakfast game. I throw a few items on the plate beside the kids' toast slices, and it looks like I put some effort in it (well, I did put effort in it, but the effort was made on Saturday and Sunday, as opposed to a weekday morning). The items are also my weekday box lunches and additional side dishes for the weekday dinners the Pumpkin Daddy prepares for us. I don't mind cooking, and if it means my family is eating healthier, well, then, why not?

Let's see if I do better on the exercise front as well!

Wednesday, January 31, 2018

I didn't run, again

Mata hashiranakatta

I've run 3 k in 2018. I'm seriously slacking.

We got quite a bit of snow last Monday. Then, we got a cold snap. My Midwestern friends are going to laugh at me, but here, if it goes below freezing for more than two consecutive days, it's a cold snap. I don't run when it's below freezing, especially when there is ice, but last Thursday, I said enough is enough and decided to get some movement in.

My trusty Jillian Michaels uploads seemed to have been taken offline (copyright issues, I suppose, I get it, but in my defense, I had the DVD I was watching online) and I was too lazy to rev up the region-free DVD, so I did a new video I'd never done before that had decent reviews. It was about 20 minutes long, and I got through it and it was no big deal, but I figured it had gotten my heart rate up, and some exercise was better than no exercise, and showered and had breakfast and went to work, making a mental note to check out different videos after I got home.

Things started feeling off at around noon. My glutes were sore.

By the end of the day, the rest of me was sore as well.

The next morning, I think every muscle group in my body except for my masticators were sore.

So I guess it's a good exercise video.

Monday, January 29, 2018

Being lazy

Namakeru

I have come to realize that if I don't set goals on what I want to get done for the weekend, I will do nothing beyond the minimum requirement and check blogs and social media.

The minimum requirements for weekends are:

Meal prep (3 times a day x2, unless we eat out, which we're trying to avoid, which is another post for another day)
Clothing maintenance (the Pumpkin Daddy does all the laundry, but I hand wash my bras and, depending on the time of month, cloth panty liners. I also de-pill and, if needed, steam press my sweaters.)
Makeup maintenance (washing makeup brushes, taking inventory, trimming/ tweezing eyebrows)

...which is probably a lot less than most people who have kids are responsible for on weekends.

So, I've taken to setting goals on weekends that don't have actual scheduled activities. Last weekend, I decided I would prep 5 dishes for weekday breakfasts/ lunches and sew something for Tiny Vader. I made 4 vegetable dishes and 1 meat dish, and that with rice or toast was everyone's breakfast, and my lunch for the week. I made Tiny Vader a sweatshirt gray hoodie (I'd already made him a sweater, but the Pumpkin Princess said that Vader was probably more a hoodie person than a sweater person), but then I realized it looked wrong unless he wore a T-shirt underneath, which he didn't have.

This weekend, I also prepped food. Behold, the Instagrammable enamel and glass containers on a white countertop, with filter...


...and Tiny Vader got his T-shirt. So it was a really good weekend!


Except for the notable lack of physical activity...

Thursday, January 18, 2018

Yuukyuu

Paid vacation

I took the day off. I got my mammogram, which should have been annual but hasn’t been (hush!). I already know I’m going to get called back, but the breast surgeon said that it was highly unlikely to be cancer. The way the system works, I’m going to get the official phone call in about a month or two, and then I’ll go back and have it biopsied and (hopefully) get the all-clear (until next year). On the way home, I stopped at a secondhand store to see if I could find stuff for Tiny Vader. I didn’t, but I saw an actual Petite Blythe doll  for the first time, and now I understand why it took so many tries (and I essentially ended up drafting a new pattern) to make jeans for Tiny Vader. Those things have gigantic heads and stick arms and legs! They’re still cute, though.

The Pumpkin Daddy said he wanted to go to this new steak chain. I got the fleet and the Pumpkin Daddy got the sirloin. They were…all right. Nothing to write home about. I think I like Korean barbecue better than steak. Used to be the other way around. Maybe this change in preference is age-associated?


Then the Pumpkin Daddy decided he wanted us to go to the pet store and then to Costco and then Starbucks. I’d been thinking of doing stuff with Tiny Storm Trooper and Darth Vader, but then I thought it was kind of sweet that he wanted me to hang out with him even after all these years, and decided to play with dolls another day. We ooohed and ahhed at kittens and puppies. The Pumpkin Daddy wants a puppy or a kitten. I think it’s a mid-life crisis, and he misses having cute babies who think he is the coolest dad in the whole universe. We went to Costco and bought coffee and bacon and butter and mixed nuts and a plastic storage container. We ran out of time to hit Starbucks and ended up getting coffee at 7-eleven, which is all right. I’m addicted to their new lattes. They cost less than a third of a Starbucks latte, but they’re almost as good.

I went to a parents' event at the Pumpkin Princess's test prep class, and the Pumpkin Daddy cooked dinner.

Then it's back to the grind.

Wednesday, January 3, 2018

I didn't run

Hashiranakatta

I think this is the first New Year's holiday since I started running that...I didn't run. Of course, I could say that it's a calendar glitch that the holiday is over so soon and that the holiday isn't actually over until Coming of Age Day (which will be next Monday) and go running by then and call it good.

Other than that...

I cleaned the kitchen fan. This is the one thing I have done consistently during the New Year Holiday the past several years.

I cooked (prepped?) datemaki (kind of a fish stock containing omelette type dish) and koh-haku namasu (halfway between a salad and pickle containing daikon radish and carrots) and char-shiu (Chinese style roast pork, which isn't traditionally a part of osechi). I also made ikura in fish cake (made meaning assembled).

I cooked dinner on the 29th and 30th and the 1st and the 3rd. We went to my parents' the night of the 31st and the Pumpkin Daddy's parents' the night of the 2nd.



I made jeans and a sweater for Tiny Vader. This needs a lot of explaining depending on your level of interest and familiarity with doll clothes and Tiny Vader. For now I'll just say I cut up a pair of jeans the Pumpkin Princess outgrew and got yarn and needles from the 100 yen shop. I made a photo studio for Tiny Vader with the cardboard boxes Amazon and Uniqlo sends my stuff in, and some 100 yen shop stuff (battery powered LED lights, plastic sheets, construction paper, paper clips, and wallpaper paste).  In terms of cost performance, both the studio and the clothing are successes, although the jeans took a few tries (and could still stand some improvement).

And now it's back to the daily grind...which I do not really look forward to. But how else am I going to be able to pay Amazon and Uniqlo?