Monday again

 Last week what was I doing?
On Monday I met a friend and talked about our summer vacation.
On Tuesday I met another friend and went out to see a sunflower garden.
On Wednesday I had lessons all day long.
On Thursday  a person from my head office came to watch my class.
On Friday ???? what did I do? In the morning I went to workout, and my lesson started at 4. For the three hours What was I doing? Was I taking a nap?
And On Saturday I attended an event all day long as a volunteer.
And yesterday in the morning I vacuumed the rooms and in the afternoon I attend Toast Master's meeting.
And I cooked dinner sincerely.


The other day I talked with a friend who is in her 30's and married but has no children.
I mourned saying "I'm lonely".
It doesn't mean I want my daughter to come back to my house. But anyway I'm lonely.
She suggested I find out what part of myself I like, I try to like myself without considering or comparing with other people.
(Does it make sense?)  Her suggestion was really interesting to me.

I forgot what I was thinking when I was in 20's. Probably I was busy in working, and I was satisfied with myself dedicating to work. It means it was fun to be evaluated my Carrier by someone.
Since I had children, I was busy in bringing them up. It means being with children was all my life and pleasure, though at that time I didn't notice it.
So as she told me, now it is the time to consider myself.

Can you answer if you ask what part of yourself do you like?



Usual Monday

Usual days have started.
I got up at 6, and cooked breakfast. Today's main was sauteed pork and KUSHINSAI-leaves.
After breakfast, Yuki went to work, I started clean the rooms, hanged the laundry out, and I weeded.
When I was weeding, my next-door neighbor was also weeding. She picked and gave these fresh vegetables to me. Thanks Ms.M.
Well, well, how do I cook them?
I'll pickle tomatoes. Have you pickled tomatoes?
These days I like to pickle vegetables. I make the liquid to pickle with honey.

According to my schedule, I "have to go" to workout to keep up the momentum. (I learned this phrase recently from Jan. Is it a correct sentence?)
But weeding and talking outside made me tired. For a while I need to take a rest inside. So I'm writing this blog.

In the afternoon, I'm going to go to a dentist, then I'll meet a friend at a cafe. In the evening another neighbor will come.

Though today I have no lessons, fortunately I can talk many people. So I have no time to feel loneliness though I have lunch and dinner by myself.

Well, well, I have to go to workout.

 

Summer vacation -4-

This weekend we are spending as a usual weekend, though I cleaned the house.
We saw this DVD, Tuesday with Morrie. It was really interesting.
 
 
 
After we watched it, I clicked on my PC to buy this book. It's a no fiction story and a best seller book, isn't it? Of course we are going to buy a Japanese version book. After reading it , I might buy an ordinal English book.  Why Morrie can spend his last life so active? He must have been really happy to have such a wonderful student.
When I got much older, will I have such a student? Before thinking about my students. will my daughters often visit us? (Though we just visit our parents a several times a year.)

And we went to this place.Can you guess what this brochure is? This is a shop brochure which opened a few days ago near my house.
It is a massage shop.
It costs from 3000 yen (30 dollars) to 3500 yen a hour. Compared usual massage shops, it's cheaper. These days massage shops are competing, and the cost is decreasing. I thought cheap massage shop may not be good, but anyway  we tried.
Not so bad. I go to a massage shop a few times a year. It costs about 4500 yen. This shop is not so bad, so I can take a massage more at this shop.

Well, well, from tomorrow my usual days will start.
I could a wonderful summer vacation thank to Yuki.

Summer vacation -3-

Later half of our summer vacation, we enjoyed nature.

 

 

Do you know what type of this car (bus)? It's a water and ground car. (amphibian car?)  We went to a lake, and rode this car. It ran 7 minutes as a car, and after that needed 5 seconds to change into a ship before a lake. After a rallying call like 3,2,1, 0, it splashed.

This lake is an artificial lake used as a dam. Here in Kuriyama area there 5 dams. They are flood control dams. Well, well, I knew this fact  this time.

After riding this car, we visited a dam, and studied about 5 dams a little.

The water of 5 dams are, of course, used in Utsunomiya, and used even in Tokyo.

The dam is in the mountain. And in the mountain did we have meat again? Not it's the time of SOBA.

 



Next day we went to hot spring, and at night watched fire works. During this season, firework displays are held here and there. We went to see one of them.

Summer vacation -2-

Last Monday and Tuesday we went to Tokyo. We didn't stay in Tokyo. We took a daily trip there by local train in a row.  Though we could stay with my mother's house, we didn't. Tokyo was too hot, and there is not air condition in my mother's house. So it was more comfortable to spend in a cool (or cold) train in the evening instead of window shopping in Tokyo and to sleep in our house.
The first day we had lunch with my mother at Shinjyuku.
My mother was looking forward to have meat at a restaurant. She can't go to  a stake restaurant by her self. And she goes out for lunch with her friends  at least once a month, but seldom go to a stake restaurant,though she loves meat.
The restaurant is Horikawa.

After that we went to the National Art center in Roppongi with our elder daughter.
American pop art exhibition was held. It was interesting.

 It was introduced how advertising got art, how comics got art. Unfortunately for me comics are comics.

And in the same building another exhibition was also held.
It was amazing. Do you know about a photographer Andreas Gurskey? It is written in the head of the brochure that "are they real photos? " the head is right. I thought "are they real photos". The answer is of course yes. The photo of the brochure is KAMIOKANDEN in Japan. Do you know KAMIOKANDEN? It is  a neutrino physics laboratory located underground in Japan.
Though it is my image, I think usually photo exhibitions are focused on nature, or human. It was the first time to view such a photo of moder facility and to view such a huge size. (The photos which were displayed were really huge.)


















The next day we had lunch with Yuki's mother and his brother's families at Shinjuku again.  We had meat again.
And after that we went to another art museum in Shibuya.
Have you ever heard of leonard Fujita? He was Japanese, but he was really popular in France. If you see his pictures without his name, you must think that he is Western.

Tokyo is interesting. Here in Utsunomiya, we have jut two art museums. But in Tokyo there are many art museums.
In Utsunomiya it's easy to enjoy nature, but it's difficult to enjoy such artistic things.

We enjoyed lunch, cafes, and museums. If we stayed in Tokyo, we could have enjoyed music at night. --- But it's expensive. It's the real reason why we didn't stay in Tokyo. "budget".

 
 





Summer vacation -1-

Yuki's and my summer vacation finished.
(Well, today it's Sunday and it's a usual holiday. Yuki went to play golf. In the morning I cleaned the rooms for the fist time in a week. Now I'm getting together my memories of my summer vacation.)

 We got 9 days summer vacation including two weekends.
The biggest thing in this summer vacation for us is to buy bating suits.We had not swum for more than 10 years. It means since our daughters were able to go to swim by themselves we hadn't gone to pool.
This summer, it has being too hot. And these days Yuki's is concerning his beer belly. So we decided to go to a "indoor" pool. I don't like to get sunshine. Before going to a pool we had to buy our bathing suits.

I was really surprised that how devolved these days bathing suits are!.
Usual bathing suits (bikini style, one-piece style) still remain, but it seems that a training style is main to swim a indoor pool.
It's really comfortable and easy to hide my body shape.
My thought about bating suits was really out-of-date.

Actually I didn't like to see myself with a bating suits, so when I wore it, I wore a T-shirt and short pants. But now they are not needed. I like my new bathing suit.
And to be surprised, I didn't forget how to swim. I "could" swim well.
I prefer breast stroke to crawl. I'm not good at doing flutter kicks.

The firs two days of our summer vacation, we enjoyed shopping and swimming.

Oh, I almost forgot.
We had a wonderful dinner at a beef restaurant with our friend.