What kinds of things do you drink or take when you catch a cold?

Suddenly last Friday night  I had a headache, and a slight fever. I know the reason, the two lessons before then, all students were coughing.
And as I expected,  I got bad.
Saturday morning I thought that I would go to see a doctor, but I didn't.
I took this drinks.
Do you know that, one is , yes, my homemade YUZU citrus and honey. The other is, German herb liquor. It was the first try for me.
Have you ever tried it? It tastes good.

And the Saturday evening we (Yuki helped a little) made a big noodle pot.

Anyway I got better, so this Sunday afternoon, I was able to go to this concert.

 

Today it is the day for KARAKU. I'll perform a 30 minute Christmas concert.

Tea bath

This is jasmine tea bath.
As you know most Japanese people like to soak in a bath.
It is one way how to use expired things.
I put the rest of bags of jasmine tea which were expired away into the bath.

I sometimes put some leaves of laurel, fig and loquat which are in my garden.

season word 1206 mistletoe

I'm really surprised to see this article.
Because, "mistletoe" is not so familiar yet (I think) in Japan. so it makes me surprised that the word of mistletoe was chosen as a season word.

 

 

 

Of course I know the song, but does the Christmas tree means mistletoe?

 

Anyway for me mistletoe is not familiar.

Thanks to this article, I learnt about mistletoe.

I bought some fresh branches of mistletoe, it will be delivered in a week.

 

 

If you have some your story about mistletoe, I'd liked you to share them to me.

the half of winter cleaning is finished

I don't know who and how you clean the windows in your house.
Anyway it is our (probably most general Japanese people) chores, and in this season many people struggle to do it as the hardest chore of winter cleaning.
These years Yuki and I  did a  scheduled day all windows at once, and probably you can guess, we always had some pain on our shoulders, back  or twist. This year though it is getting better, my left shoulder still hurts, so I decided not to depend on Yuki, to clean windows a little by little by myself.

Well, the windows on the first floor was cleaned.
The rest was the ones on the second floor. And my role is to clean the windows of my bed room.

With cleaning the windows, I managed to discard 10 things of each room.
 Now, I'm really satisfied with myself. It is almost 10:30 in the morning.
From now, I'll go out to get a massage.

some tricks of conversation between a couple

Though it is Japanese, I found an interesting article on the paper.

 

Nowadays Yuki and I talk and talk a lot about our retirement life, mainly our financial situation.

Last Saturday we had a meeting with a financial planer.  It was the second time, and thanks to him, we understood (probably) our financial situation including pensions and tax system in our retirement  life.

 

Without the meeting  we would have talked about our financial situation. However probably it would have been end in collusively.

 

(I used "subjunctive mood", does it make sense?)

 

Well, let's go back to the article.

According to the article, to keep good conversation with a couple (not only senior one), there are some tricks. However probably they are useful for Japanese couples.

 

You should not make such assumptions.

1. Without expressing your feeling or what you think, the other should understand you.

2. It is all right to express everything what you want to say.

3, Each way of thinking and concept of values should be  the same.

4  Understanding the other means giving way. ( I didn't use the word of compromise, compromising is

5, Men should be men and women should be women.

 

Probably for us, the most difficult point is No.4

What do you thing of it?

 

 

PLaying with herb

Last year I gave my homemade herb tea as a Christmas present or a New Year's present.  It seemed that my friends looked happy. So this year I also made my ordinal herb tea with lavender, and lemon grass.

 

To tell the truth, herb is kinds of luxury nowadays. However the origin is just grass.

So I grow some herb in my garden which survives, and as a leisure, I pick some organic herb in some farmer's garden. Luckily, here in Utsunomiya, some farmers are interested in growing herb.

 

On the other hand, I like using aroma oil. And nowadays, Yuki also likes it.

So as the present to him, I bought this gadget at a popular aroma shop, and I blended special oil for eliminating cigar smoke, and preventing from catching a cold. It looks cool, however it doesn't work well for eliminating cigar smoke.

 

Anyway making herb tea, and blending oil, made me fun!

calm Sunday

Yuki has gone to play golf since early morning.

In the afternoon, I'll attend  a Toast Master meeting .

This weekend I checked stock foods in the shelf.  Some things were almost expired.

 

So I baked bread with hard flour.

 

I baked homemade cottage chees cake with my yogurt, and fresh YUZU citrus instead of lemon.





 

 

 

 

And I also cooked pre-cooked dishes for this week. 

 

 

 

December has come.

This week I'll have individual parents' interviews of my students.