12 Days To Go....

We (the kids and I) are off to England 13 days from now. In those days there is so much to be done that it is making my head spin. This whole weekend was spent in doing stuff to get ready to go or for work coming up in the next week.

Here's a brief rundown of this weekend first:

Saturday
* Up early, mad cleaning for some builders to come and inspect for a quote for reform work we'd like doing in the next year (most notably putting in central heating as this entire house is currently heated by ONE stove! Or actually, NOT heated...)
* Seiju took the boys for their second flu jabs and I cleaned.
* His mum and dad dropped by, not altogether welcome because I had to stop what I was doing and offer coffee, but at least the downstairs was clean for once.
* Seiju went to the eye clinic to get new contact lenses, and rushed back to vaccuum!
* We got the entire house sparkling and in perfect order just in time for the men to come. This is a big deal and if I can just keep it up it will make going to England a lot easier.
* My office lady Sachiko turned up mid-inspection and proceeded to finish all the accounts up till the end of November which is another great chunk of stuff accomplished.
* We went out for a very late lunch (3:30 by the time we were eating!) then came back so I could assemble my list for Costco.
* Went to Costco and bought all the stuff I needed for the ladies English class Christmas party tomorrow.
* Came back, unpacked and collapsed!

Sunday (Today)
* Up late. Needed the sleep!
* Started typing up the menu and recipes in simple English for the Christmas party (the ladies are going to cook and eat Christmas dinner together.)
* Went out to the big electronics store to get ink for photos and new years cards that need to be done before we leave. * * Also bought a dvd to show at the Junior High students English party.
* Came home and cooked for Seiju before he left to go back to work in the snow. (Cajun spiced breaded pork slices, cabbage milk soup and olive oil roasted potatoes, carrots and pumpkin chunks. Yum!)
* Continued on with the menu recipes, and began packing the bags recipe by recipe to make sure I don't forget anything in the morning - we are using a cookery room in a local citizen's hall.
*Got fed up and decided to take a break and write this!

Stuff that needs to get done before I leave
* One adult Christmas party
* Four kid Christmas parties
* One JHS party
* A week's worth of normal lessons and prep for them
* Dentists for me and the kids (tomorrow)
* Allergy clinic for me and Yoshi (Tuesday)
* Gyno for me (oh lovely)
* Washing, ironing and packing for England
* Cleaning out the salamander tank so when the lady who's babysitting him comes to get him she won't do us for Salamander Abuse
* Christmas cards and letters for English speaking friends
* New year cards for the students and business associates etc.
* Two months worth of bills paid so they don't get paid late in January
* Money sent to England so we actually have something to spend!
* And a partridge in a pear tree....... bah humbug!

There is nothing to be done but to plod through each day and get as much done as possible. It will be OK on the day...

Right now I'd better get back to packing my bags and boxes for the cooking tomorrow and making a list of stuff I've forgotten to buy.

Do you want to know the menu?

Roast chicken (turkey was too big for the ovens)
gravy
cranberry chutney
mashed potatoes
glazed carrots
asparagus casserole (was supposed to be green bean casserole but there were no green beans to be had)
Mince pies
Pumpkin pie
Coffee

Tagged Again!

I was tagged by illahee! This time you have to answer the questions with one word. That might be hard for chatty me....

1. Where is your cell phone? charger

2. Where is your significant other? work

3. Your hair color? brownish

4. Your mother? home

5. Your father? home

6. Your favorite thing? Seiju!

7. Your dream last night? busy

8. Your dream/goal? happyfamily (cheated, sorry!)

9. The room you're in? kitchen

10. Your hobby? photography

11. Your fear? death

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years?here

13. Where were you last night? bed

14. What you're not? thin

15. One of your wish-list items? thin!

16. Where you grew up? Germany

17. The last thing you did? cooked

18. What are you wearing? jeans

19. Your TV? cheap

20. Your pet? salamander

21. Your computer? macbook

22. Your mood? happyish

23. Missing someone? yes

24. Your car? BLUE!

25. Something you're not wearing? coat

26. Favorite store? Costco

27. Your summer? peaceful

28. Love someone? yes

29. Your favorite color? yellow

30. When is the last time you laughed? today

31. Last time you cried? dunno

Anyone else want to try this? I hesitate to tag people because I seem to be in the same blogging circles as everyone else. If you want to have a go (it's more difficult than it looks) then consider yourself tagged.

Chilly Monday Walk *Updated with shopping pics!*

Sorry for the long silence! One person's comments indicated that I might have died of tomato soup poisoning! No, just busy and yet with nothing interesting to say either. Last week was just a week... Work, school, cleaning (I'm on a bit of a decluttering kick which is taking time too) but nothing really blog-worthy.

Seiju came home on Friday for the first time since the 3rd November and so we've been concentrating on him too. On Friday morning he arrived home just as I was getting ready for classes, so he went to pick the kids up from the bus and took them shopping for winter boots and a ramen dinner.

Saturday, I had an AFWJ ladies night out for the first time in months, so I left the kids with Seiju (they went out for sushi!) while I went into Sapporo. I did some shopping and had dinner with my foreign wife friends which was very refreshing!
First, I bought these bags. My current bag has ladybirds on it and it felt too summery. Actually I was looking for something like the bottom bag, to hang under my jacket with tickets, passports and cash in it for the trip to England in December. I found this pattern that I really liked so decided to get the bag, too.
I found this very cute and tiny pedometer in the computer shop. The one I bought when Yoshi was two died recently and I've been looking for a new one. This measures steps, calories burned, distance travelled and time exercised and its very slim so it's easy to have in your pocket and not show.

Sunday was a big cleaning day while Seiju went to a wedding in Sapporo. The kids and I went on our bikes in a little flurry of snow to the local shops for food, but beyond that we were home all day.

And that brings us to today!

There's a new house down the road which has just been built by a new company in town, and we decided to go and have a look at it. We are thinking about reforming our living area in the next couple of years as we have not touched our bit, only the classroom and public bits in the five years we have been here. So every new house gets investigated!It was very cold and rather windy - about 2C so it was painful on the face! The kids were a bit moan-y but they came along fairly willingly.
Seiju: We've only just started, and my nose is freezing already!


Our area is originally farmland, and there are chunks of original land in between the houses in places, which I like.
The road curves slightly around the big tree in the photo below. This is because it is believed to be a curse-bearing tree that will bring great misfortune on the person who cuts it down. Good for the tree, I say! I'm glad it was spared - there are so few really old trees in this area.
After looking at the new house and also looking round an old house for sale (on weekends and holidays, houses for sale are open for viewing and we like to go around and look at them!) we walked home.
Lunch was rather late, but very nice. We ate in the classroom because Seiju had his computer set up and doing something in the kitchen so it was easier to move the food across than to move the computer.
Here's my dinner: Boiled spinach with sesame seeds and citron/soy sauce on it; grilled Hokke (pacific mackerel), broccoli, miso soup with potatoes and daikon, and a bit of yesterday's niku jaga with most of the potatoes and broccoli gone! (thinly sliced beef, konyaku, carrots, potatoes and broccoli boiled together in a soy/sugar/ginger sauce) Yum.

I now have to go back to sorting out the attic. I have chucked a lot of stuff away and have repacked a lot of other stuff so things are in better order than before, but there's still a lot to do.

Chunky Tomato Soup

Today I made Evil Poison Soup that my kids would never ever touch, Yoshi because it's got tomatoes in it and Harry because it's got vegetables in it! All the more for me, yum!
I eat soup every day for lunch on weekdays so this will get stocked in the freezer for quick defrosts on busy days.
I gently fried lots of onions and garlic till it was transparent, then added lots and lots of cans of tomatoes - one of those huge catering cans from Costco, plus two random ones in my cupboards.
While the tomatoes and onions were working their way down a bit I went through my cupboards and found other stuff to put in the soup that will stay chunky. Today (it changes every time...) I added mixed beans, canned sweetcorn, olives, fresh celery and the very, very last zucchini from Baachan's greenhouse.
This is the bit I like best! I don't like lumps of tomato in anything, they feel gaggy to me, so I blend all the tomatoes and onions together. Then I dumped the lumpy stuff in, turned the heat down to its very lowest and left it to bubble away by itself for an hour or so. (Also added basil and lots of salt and pepper, but that's all. No water!) Then I came back and bagged it up into 12 portions, with one for this evening's meal or maybe tomorrow's lunch as I'm not that hungry after a LOT of sushi this lunchtime!

I'm waiting for it to cool off a bit before putting it in the freezer as it is so hot it would give the poor machine a heart attack right now.

School on Saturday

The kids had school today to make up for the holiday they had for some conference the teachers went to on Monday. We all get to go tomorrow too for the school play, oh joy. (Not! I hate these things.... Three hours on cold hard floor with nowhere to rest your back.)

We had to send the kids with lunch because the school lunch centre was closed of course. I also hate making bentos! And only remembered last night at about 10pm.

This is what I did with what I had available. The kids were happy and ate it all.
Both kids had rice mixed with sweetcorn, topped with minced pork fried with soy sauce, mirin, sake and ginger root, canned pineapple pieces and steamed broccoli. Harry had raw baby carrots and Yoshi had raw celery.

Things I've done - or not...

Alissa at 24-7-365 put up her version of this list. I thought it was interesting and fun, so I did it myself. Things I've done are in bold. Looking down the list I have done quite a lot - never set foot on mainland America which has cut down the list of done things considerably, but I've done a lot of Europe thanks to my parents.

What have you done? Let me know if you do this list so I can pop and and have a peek!

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland (also Disneyworld)
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch (knitting, photography, many others)
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma (This half counts - I went and they didn't want my blood!)
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy.
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle.
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous.
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee

Tagged!

I was tagged by Kim at City on the River to show the sixth picture in my sixth folder. Hmmm. Not really interesting if you go into my iPhoto folders - it's this one of one of my mums and kids carving pumpkins.
If I go to my Flikr page then look for the sixth folder, there are only two pictures in it! Then the next folder is photos of the kids' work, which I can't lay claim to. So the sixth photo in the next folder is this:
A lizard we found during the 6th grade recreation in a local forest park.

Neither of my 6th/6th shots is very interesting, sadly....

Right, I'll tag Shinshu Life because she has loads of good shots and lives in a place I once lived in and loved very much. I would have tagged Illahee too but Kim got there first!

Sick...

Last Tuesday, a boy in my English class, full of cold, sneezed right in my face. I knew then that I was going to catch it...

On Friday morning I woke up with a temperature of 37.6C (99.6F) which for me is high as I have a normally low body temperature of about 35C (95). I had all the symptoms of a streaming cold and felt rotten.

I managed to get up and get dressed enough (sweats!) to get the kids out of the door and to school, then called round all my students to cancel lessons for the day, and went back to bed, where I stayed. I slept the entire day, only getting up to have a drink and more Iboprufen. Bleh.

I got up when the boys came home but had to go back to bed soon after, having left some food out for them. I got up again at their bed time to ask them to go to bed. Luckily it was Friday night and no school the next day.

Today I have felt slightly better. I still have a temperature of just over 37C and feel very very tired and achy. I have managed to stay out of bed all day but have spent most of it on the sofa instead!

Tomorrow I HAVE to be better because I've got to go into Sapporo to requalify as a Cambridge Younger Learner's examiner. They are going to be delighted to see me all snotty and infectious....

New Flooring In The Boys' Room

This was Yoshi and Harry's room in March 2007. We had painted the walls and got shelves and desks for them, but the flooring was horrible. There was old tatami with a rolled "wood carpet" on top of it. Actually, two carpets with a gap between them, as you can see in these pictures.(I'd forgotten that Yoshi went through a plump stage before he began growing! He has REALLY changed!)The gap ate up bits of Lego, and was very hard to clean. The tatami underneath was breaking down and lots of dust was trapped in the layers of wood carpet and tatami, no matter how much I vaccumed.
Last week we had the old tatami and wood carpet taken out and replaced with lino. The floor is now two inches lower than before and you have to step down into the room, but Yoshi says he likes this because it contains the Lego bits which don't scoot out into the hall like they did before!
Today we finished replacing all the books and toys, thinning them down as we went. I also changed around the boys' clothes boxes so that there's some hanging space now, as Yoshi will need to hang his Junior High School uniforms from the spring.
All the made Lego goes on the shelves now, with the bits in the boxes on the left. There is simply no more space for new stuff though!
They have very little in the way of toys now except books and Lego. But goodness me, they have a lot of Lego!
Yoshi was taking pictures of the town he's making.
This is the latest creation.The police are chasing a robber past the cinema! (Maybe he didn't buy a ticket and tried to sneak into the film??)

Hatsuyuki - first snow!

*Edited again at lunchtime to show you that you CAN see the snow falling now, and it's sticking!*

* Edited to add photos in which you can't see the snow!*A bit earlier than last year which was more like the middle of November, it was snowing this morning when we went to school. Only a few whirling flakes in the air but enough to get Harry very excited!

Slow Monday

It's Bunka No Hi today, Culture Day.

Seiju is off on a ferry to Honshu with work for two weeks so we won't see him till the weekend of the 22nd November now, maybe even not till the next one. Yuck.

We spent the day doing nothing cultural at all! A very slow morning for us all. The kids got up and did Lego until I woke up and got going, then we went out on our bikes along the river to the shops. Unfortunately just as we got into the supermarket the sky went black and the heavens opened. There was a thunderstorm, and the rain crashed down, so we were stuck there until the worst had passed. We made a mad dash across to the DVD shop and rented one each for a treat. By the time we'd made our choices there was a break in the rain so we made a dash for home and made it!

The kids then spent the afternoon watching their DVD choices (Doraemon and Mr Bean) in the classroom as it turns out that our living room player is toast. Grrr. Yet another thing to have to replace. I let them eat dinner in there too, so they had temaki sushi (only tuna as that's all they chose in the supermarket) while I had squid. Yum.

Now their tutor is here, the washing machine is humming and my DVD choice and a HUGE pile of ironing awaits. Got to see if the DVD will play in my computer though seeing as the kids are in the classroom!

A 5kg Bag Of Rice...

...

A Very Orange Lunch

We had a very autumnal orange lunch today! This should have been Halloween dinner, really...Pumkin soup with grilled sausages (fish sausage for those who wanted them - yuck) and yoghurt to drizzle in the soup, with lots of hot buttered toast for Seiju and Harry and crisped tortillas for me and Yoshi who can't eat yeast. There were cut up apples and persimmons to finish off with, plus some Halloween candy for the boys!

I showed Yoshi how to feather the yoghurt in his soup.I made a huge batch of soup and froze it in single and double portions for later in the season.

English School Halloween Party

We had 85 kids plus their parents for a total of about 180 people come to our English school Halloween party last Sunday morning. It was raining as the kids arrived but just stopped long enough to let them go trick or treating as planned. (Seven neighbours and local shops agreed to join in with us - I provided the treats!)Yoshi dressed as a tabibito, a traveller from olden times. The kimono is Seiju's from when he was a boy! The overjacket belonged to Yoshi's great-grandmother.
Harry was a scarecrow with a scary mask that my Mum sent, Seiju's kimono jacket and a ninja suit that baachan made for the kids several years ago.
Playing before the party began.
Harry with Kanami and Hibiki, friends from school.
Me calling the next group of kids out to go trick or treating. We sent them out in 6 groups at ten minute intervals.
One of the groups just as they were setting off - you can see how wet the ground is!
Harry with ghostly hands! They were disposable gloves that were being used for the cooking corner - kids were making chocolate crispy cakes and we didn't want to pass any bugs around. Harry found an alternate use for them!
Another group leaving the community centre and heading off to the first trick or treat site.
Yoshi as always was very helpful during the party, taking over one game and handing out treats.
This is Sachiko's babe, Chikashi! He is over one now and could join the party this year. She dressed him as Bruce Lee!
A gratuitously cute baby shot to end this post with - isn't he lovely?!