Happy New Year!

Happy 2018!  It is already January 1 here in Japan.

Though the custom in Japan is to not make New Year cards for the year when someone has passed on, I went ahead and made our 2018 card as 1) my foreign friends and family wouldn't understand why I wasn't sending out cards this year and 2) it is a 33 year tradition with us so far and I have all the other year's cards up on the wall so I wanted this year's also.

We had our end of the year noodles last night and this morning around 5:00 Choco, Tetsu and I went out to welcome the sun.  I should have checked when the sunrise was expected because we ended up standing outside in the freezing cold for nearly an hour watching the sky change from purple to pale yellow.

Today's photos are barely two hours old and New Year's Day is starting out beautifully!

 Choco is always ready for a walk, no matter how cold it is outside!

We kept facing the hills, waiting for the sun to rise but when we turned around we found Mt. Nantai bathed in pink.  Mt. Nantai is taller than we are and caught the morning sun before we did.

 Mt. Nantai on the left...  The Kirifuri Range (I think) on the right.

 Tetsu was hopeful, but still no sun.

I went off photographing the cold.

La-ti-da.  I greeted a farmer who had come out to stand at his front door and he called his New Year greetings to me from across his fields.  As I walked back through the fields I noticed he took off his ski hat and put his hands together in prayer as he faced east, and when I looked back...  there was the sun!

 Another new day!  Another new year!

The fields were suddenly golden again.

 A good way to start the year...  walking the dog.

This way and that.

 We headed back home for pounded rice cakes and sweet beans and hot coffee!  It was cold outside!

Bitmoji made an avatar of me and since I got my red down jacket as a Christmas present, it looks just like me!

Again, Happy New Year from the Watanabes!

In the supermarket

Getting last minute chores done around here...  Though everyone else is Japan is preparing special New Year's food, that has definitely not been the tradition in our family and so I have little to think about for the holidays except for maybe getting a few rooms cleaned up.  (Everyone else is doing the SPRING CLEANING now too, but I don't go with that tradition in the dead of winter either.)

It used to be that all of Japan closed down for the first three days of the New Year and thus the women in the family were busy making enough food, and arranging it beautifully in lacquered boxes) for family and guests to eat for three days.  (The women were given a break from the cooking for those three days too....  IF they had made enough ahead of time!)  Nowadays however, most everything seems to stay open all New Year.  The 24 hour convenience stores are open, even the supermarkets are open though maybe a bit shorter hours.  Restaurants are open, coffee shops are open.  There is no need to spend days making New Year delicacies ahead of time anymore.

Someone asked if I could surreptitiously take some photos of the inside of a supermarket.  And so I did.  Maybe I was mistaken for a shopper photographing prices or meat cuts for family members?  No one stopped me...  But I WAS very surreptitious.

Produce is of very high quality in Japan.  You won't see a bruised or misshapen piece of fruit or vegetable in even the most local supermarket.  Pricey yes, but beautiful to behold and rather good tasting too!  Let's see... an avocado will cost about $1.40.  One paprika runs $1.75.  Is that expensive?

This was actually the "Local Produce" section at the supermarket.  Farmers in the area can sell their produce here and you can see a small blurb with the picture of the farmer next to his goods.  The famer's name is given and his whereabouts.  I can't see the price of those leeks but they are probably about $2 for two or three.  The tomatoes look good.  (You can see how I surreptitiously took my pictures with my iPhone over my plastic shopping basket.)

The fish section of the supermarket is also well stocked.  Crabs are not usually so abundant but as it is getting towards the New Year, there were many crabs to choose from (Tetsu does not like crab so I just walked by this counter.)  One crab is about $6.20.  Unfortunately I don't know much about cooking fish and though I can gut one, it isn't my favorite activity so I rarely buy whole fish and don't know what to do with them anyway.  The supermarket is very nice about gutting a fish for you if you should choose to purchase a whole one and don't want to do it yourself. 

Heading towards the dairy section...  That is a pretty normal looking section I think...  There is the character Anpan-man over the yogurt section.  The shopping carts are small, metal contraptions and when I go into the supermarket I grab a plastic basket and set it in my cart.  There is room for another basket under the top one also.  And for people with children, some of the carts (not all) have a seat too.

 This is looking down the main aisle...  liquor on the left, the self-service cashiers on the right.

This is a pretty impressive meat platter!  As there is just the two of us I had to bypass the lovely platter also.  I'm pretty sure this is all different cuts of pork.  Pork is the main meat that we eat in Japan and Tetsu and I actually prefer it to beef.  This platter is for grilling meat and vegetables, usually on a hot plate with a sweet barbecue type sauce.  The platter runs about $14.00 and would serve a family of 4 to 6.  I will usually buy maybe the amount of meat in one of those corners for a meal or even two when I cook.

I was walking by the dry goods section of the store and these picks caught my eye.  And I guess I caught THEIR eyes! They were looking at me!  And what are these?  Take a closer look at the packaging.  They are for sticking in a meatball or a piece of broccoli or maybe a sausage and making a happy surprise when a child opens up his obento box at lunchtime!  I bypassed these too because I'm not sure if Tetsu needs that much cheer in his obento box...

The tempura and deep fried section is regrettably one that I patronize...  One deep fried croquette or one slice of tempura squid makes for an extra dish on the dinner table or in an obento box.  Let's see, we've got shrimp there and squid legs on the left... On the right are potatoes and the round things are vegetable tempura that can be put in a bowl of hot noodles.  Which reminds me, I need to buy noodles and get some of these round tempura for tomorrow night's dinner.  Soba noodles eaten on New Year's Eve is another tradition.

For the lazy there is a great variety of onigiri...  rice balls (you can see that they are triangles.)  They average a little more than a dollar for a riceball.

And here we have the obento section where I could just throw cooking out the window and pick up an obento for dinner if I wanted.  I will occasionally buy a small one and just eat my obento in the store as there is an eating-in section with tables and free tea if I want.  On the left are hamburger obentos with what looks like scalloped potatoes there in the round bacon part... That would be about $6.20. On the right is a mackeral obento with a piece of fried chicken and a deep fried fish cake.  That is about $3.50 for a lunch.  And by the way...  the consumer tax in Japan is at 8% now so we are paying a bit more for everything over that price tag...

Anybody hungry?  What should I make for dinner tonight?

2017 Collages

I have made up my two yearly collages...  One of the fabric postcards I made for my mother this year and one of the quilts that got made during the year...
The theme this year was Kirie, Japanese paper cutting, and I made duplicate cards in paper for myself.  Just like the photo shown in yesterday's post of the paper cards hung along my living room wall, the fabric cards are hung the same way in my mother's bedroom.

Now I've got to start thinking about next year's fabric cards.

The quilt output for 2017 was rather disappointing...  When making the collage I couldn't believe that I had so few quilts to show!  I've done better in other years.  The only good thing about not making many quilts in a year is that the collage photos are a bit larger and maybe easier to see.

Though not in order, the top left quilt is the Mola wall hanging that had to be done by January 2018 so that I can take it to show Julie and Carin at the Tokyo Quilt Festival.

The Doggy Quilt I made for my neighbors who cat sit for me and who have 4 dachshunds.  I never did get a good photo of the quilt hanging but when I've visited my neighbors I notice they have it up in their entryway.  It is a big quilt so it rather overtakes their entryway wall!

The McKenna Quilt is one of a kit that a blog friend once sent me.  I love to make these quilts and it is a very nice past time when I don't want to think much (about colors, placement, quilting etc.)  Just DO.

The House and Tree quilt went to my church friend last Sunday for Christmas.  She is awaiting getting visas for a move to Sweden and it was going to be a going-away present but as it does look very Christmasy I gave it to her ahead of time.

The reverse applique quilt was also a kit that I had wanted to try and I enjoyed the results.  My friend and cat mentor Mrs. N also made the same quilt in another color scheme.

There at the bottom is the quilt I HELPED make for the Children's hospital waiting room.  I didn't really do all that much work on it so the small photo is just right.

Mrs. N, my cat mentor gave me this printed panel of cats and I machine quilted it in great detail.  If I didn't piece the quilt can I still call it mine?

The Christmas Tree quilt got made for Tetsu's day service center and I did make it for them to KEEP.  But Tetsu brought it home and handed it to me this morning from the backseat of his car and then sped off to work so I'm not sure if it has come home to stay or not...

And the Smokey River Quilt has been may latest endeavor and probably the quilt I spent the most time on.  That or the Mola.  It is a very big quilt and as of yet has no owner...  It is a shame when all these quilts get relegated to the closet!

So there you have it.  2017 was a good year but not all that productive quilt-wise.

End of the year sewing projects.

I did get a bit of sewing in yesterday and finished up some half done projects.  Readied myself for something new.

The year is winding down and I had one last fabric post card to make for my mother.  When I started my fabric postcards I wondered if I'd even complete a year of it because my mother was already mostly bedridden.  Well, how many years now have I been making fabric postcards?  I think I started in 2014 so that means I've made 48 post cards these past four years.  I'll see if I can get a collage made of this year's but anyway, here is the December 2017 fabric postcard.

And this year, as I was making the patterns from a paper cutting book, I also made the paper sample too.  Here are all 12 paper cards I made this year.  (Not in order).

This month's card is a conglomeration of parts.  The hedgehog was one pattern but he was holding something else...  There was a small poinsettia flower in another pattern so I swiped it for my hedgehog, and then once he was on the card he seemed to be looking at something so I added a star.  Whew!  I got my cards done in time!!

I have also been tatting in the evenings.  It is just too cold to go upstairs and sew and it takes too long for the small space heater to get the sewing room warm so I've tended towards staying downstairs and wanting to keep my hands busy.  The tan necklace (can't tell that thread is tan, can you?) is made from antique crochet thread that had once belonged to my grandmother.  I still have quite a few spools of this thread and though I usually am tatting crosses, I got out my tatting book and made the necklace again.

I also had some finer white crochet thread so I made up another necklace with that for a friend.

And the project I'm starting is again because it is just too cold to stay upstairs sewing on the sewing machine so I've brought down scraps and am HAND PIECING a smallish piece for the table or the wall or whatever...  I haven't hand pieced in ages and I'd forgotten how fiddly it is to trace around the small diamond shape...  Good for cold evenings in front of the TV though!

Winter mornings

Let's do scenery today. 

These photos were taken in the early morning.  The fields are frozen over but no snow yet.  It looks like the moles are having a field day!

I wanted to see if I could catch the sparkles of ice in the fields but I couldn't.

This was an odd way to catch some of the light though and it is an interesting effect.  In real life the frozen field sparkles like jewels when the early sunlight hits it just the right way.

Ooh!  Tetsu got the colors right!

 We walked by the dairy farm. 

And the pig farm.  The pig farm is completely enclosed so I've never seen a single pig there (but I can smell them sometimes).  I would say, looking at this photo, that only one of the long pig enclosures is occupied this winter.  Look at the steam rising from that first structure.

Me, taking a photo of the mountains up north.  The snow clouds were descending and it looks like the snow is encroaching.  We live in an interesting part of Japan...  The morning news will tell us that most of Japan is having a snow storm, to the north of us, to the south of us, but the area called Kanto where Tokyo is situated, is well protected and only gets snowed in in the most drastic of circumstances.  We in Nikko which is north of Tokyo, are on the very, very northern borderline for snow and those mountains keep the snow contained and away from us when all the rest of Japan is hunkered down.  This is a great blessing for Tanya who does not like the snow and the cold and cannot drive or even walk in the snow and ice very well. 

This cow lives on a different farm from the dairy farm we passed earlier.  He took an interest in us.

I just like this abandoned parking lot of an abandoned factory.  The weeds make interesting shadows and the islands of concrete are set apart by the golden brush.

And talk about gold.  This is a photo that Yuma-kun sent me this morning at 7:00 am.  I love how he is impressed by something beautiful and wants to share it with me.  He also gave me a call five minutes later to tell me that it was snowing and to go look outside.

 Well...  A little.  I doubt it will stick...  Good for me at least...

The days around Christmas

School has ended, Christmas has come and gone. You would think that time would go more slowly but I am still running hither and yon.

Saturday, instead of going off gallivanting, Tetsu and I decided to do some clean-up around the house but we even got waylaid from that task and ended up cleaning out the street gutter that runs the length of our street.  It is our turn this month to do the chore and it was either this weekend or next just before the new year.  The weather was good and Tetsu went out to haul leaves out of the gutter and leave them by the curb.  I took on the job of raking the leaves as far back into the forest as possible as I know the wind will just blow them back into the gutter in a matter of days.  November and December gutter cleaning requires a lot of time and effort because of the forest!

You can see that it is a long gutter and there are many leaves.  Tetsu looking young and macho in his T-shirt even though it was extremely cold outside.  He worked up a sweat!  (And admitted later that there aren't going to be many more years that he's going to be able to do this.  It takes muscles!)  Quite a few neighbors came by to chat and commiserate with the job we forest neighbors have, and the occasional conversation made the two hours rather pleasant.

This is a rather dreary looking photo but it is of Choco in the backyard by her doghouse.  Though Choco is basically an indoor dog these days, when I go out for too many hours I do have to put her in the yard and I feel very sorry for her out in the icy weather...  Would she rather be cooped up in her kennel in the comparatively warmer empty house or would she rather be outside barking at birds all day (driving the neighbors crazy) and freezing?  I thought I would try to insulate her dog house with a bunch of folded cardboard boxes, and I crawled around in the dirt laying one on the doghouse floor, setting up layers of cardboard on the insides of her house.  I fluffed up the blanket and made a very nice nest for her which I hoped would keep her warmer.  Before I even left for the day, she had dragged the blanket and one of the boxes out of her doghouse and was tugging at the others I'd lined the doghouse walls with.  So much for my loving concern for her warmth!  We now have cardboard bits strewn all around the backyard!

Every year for the past 6 years, I've ordered a Christmas cake from the Japanese sweet shop on the corner near my crosswalk.  When our kids were young we didn't follow this Japanese tradition of eating Christmas cake but once I started working in front of the sweet shop I try to patronize their shop as much as possible and order a cake from them.  Every year I've picked it up a day early so that we could take it to Tetsu's mother as her birthday was December 23rd.  It was always an extremely quiet birthday party and Christmas party with just the three of us...

This year, even though Tetsu and I don't need a whole Christmas cake, I went ahead and ordered one as usual and we ended up visiting the Yamadas on the 23rd so we four seniors made short work of the cake and enjoyed our own quiet but early Christmas (and Marlene called me yesterday the 25 and invited me for lunch and then Tetsu just happened to call me and was free for lunch too so we celebrated Christmas with the Yamadas again!)

Yuma-kun stopped in yesterday on his bicycle to visit for a few hours.  He doesn't touch base too much anymore but I was very happy to seen him again.  He allows me to give him a hug but he is much more interested in cuddling with Choco and the cats.  As he steps away from my life I wish there had been more I could have done to influence him as he has some strange attitudes and pre-conceived notions about injustices made to him and listening to him make excuses about how he can't get his life put together is rather frustrating...  It is an uphill battle for him with his home and school life.  He will always have a place in my heart but he is moving in other directions...  A good thing.

And Tetsu brought home a sweet from his day care service where there had also been a Christmas party for the elderly.  Someone had decorated sweets and made Tetsu's to look like him!  I really think it does!

Merry Christmas!