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.

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...

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.

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?

I managed to do a lot.

Iroiro dekimashita.

The New Year Holiday is only six days again this year. Haven't made a Holiday Goals list yet.

The first day was really great, though.

Got up at around seven, ate breakfast. Took the Pumpkin Princess to her test prep course, and then went to the local mall. I browsed around and then got an early lunch. I'd always wanted to try the noodles at Mister Donut, so I got the noodle set with coffee and a chocolate covered donut. The noodles were good. Not great, just good. The coffee was good too, with free refills. I wrote my nengajo (New Year's cards) while having my second cup of coffee.

I went alone and saw the subtitled version (the kids prefer dubbed versions) of the movie I'd wanted to see. It was long but didn't really seem like it. And the geeky Asian girl kissed the cool guy! How often does that happen? (Please don't say Harry Potter because Cho Chang wasn't geeky, she was dating the school rep for the Triwizard Tournament.)

Got home, made chicken stock from the bones left from the Christmas chicken (which probably deserves its own post if only as reflection to review before next Christmas), set some of it aside for my New Year zouni (soup with mochi) and used the rest for tonight's curry. Went grocery shopping and tossed the postcards in the mailbox on the way. Dinner was curry with rice and salad. Cleaned up, and tried to make some clothes for Tiny Vader, but couldn't. Hey, I figured out what wasn't going to work, that's a good thing!

Really, the only thing that would have made this day even better was if I'd woken up to my alarm and gone running. That has seriously lapsed, and I need to change that.

I saw a movie.

Eiga wo mimashita.

The short geeky Asian girl got lots of screen time. She saved the hero, got badly hurt in the process, kissed him, and told him that she loved him before passing out. The hero took her to safety and looked at her with a concerned, pained look as she lay in bed, very still. The prettiest girl, who had feelings for the hero and had kissed them in the previous movie, looked at them a little sadly as he did.

Actually, a lot more happened, but that was the part that made me happiest. That the short geeky Asian girl got to kiss the hero and more or less has his heart at the end of the story (or at the end of that one film, at least). If you can give me the title of one more big budget movie in which that happens, I will go watch it and I will also send you a token of my gratitude.

Made and saved

Tsukurioki

Super proud of myself today. I woke up and didn't go running, but instead of just fooling around on the internet like I always do, I got up and wrote 16 Christmas cards and addressed them and took them to the post office during break time. I haven't sent paper cards in, well, ages, and I felt really bad about it every year. But this year, I did! I think I missed some people. Let me know if you think you should get a card from me but don't get one.

Today's phrase is about cooking. The basic premise of Japanese cooking is that you have a bowl of unflavored rice, a bowl of soup (usually miso soup), and a couple of additional dishes. Ideally, it's ichi ju san sai (one soup, three sides). You'll have a main side (kind of like an oxymoron, but the rice is supposed to be the main dish, so your meat or fish dish is your main side) and a few additional side dishes (vegetables or tofu or whatever). Back when I'd try to cook after getting home from work, it would be ichi ju ni sai (one soup, two sides) with the main side something like chicken that had been marinating in a ziplock bag since Sunday night, and the additional side being something like a few slices of tomatoes.

So if I'd found this book back then, I would have been all over it. Actually, I found it last month, and I am all over it.

You cook all your side dishes over the weekend and keep them in storage containers. You eat the stuff that don't keep very well like salads and chicken  on Monday and Tuesday. Stuff that keeps longer like stir fried root crops, you save until Friday. You can also use these stored foods as part of your bento lunch. I tried this once last week, and it was no trouble just tossing three or four different items into the box and buying a convenience store musubi.

I think this works because of the way Japanese cooking works. If you have hot rice (compliments of the timer on your rice cooker) and soup, cold dishes in limited amounts can be forgiven, and if that's not the case, there's always the microwave. It probably won't work for American style meals where your main dish is a meat dish or a hearty soup and have bread or a salad as a side.

I don't fix four main sides and ten additional sides like the book suggests. It's more like one main and four or five additional. This week, I made a simplified version of Indian butter chicken, a salad, and a couple stir fries. I also boiled some broccoli. I know already that this is just not going to happen on busy weekends. And that's all right. You do what you can, when you can, to eat as healthily and cheaply as possible.