Flowers for the day of each birthday -1-

The other day I attended a Toast Master meeting. There an interesting topic was introduced. It was flowers for the day of each birthday. Though I knew each month has a flower; for example January flower is carnations. Its meaning seems to be “fascination”, and “devoted Love”.
According to the 365 day flower table, my birthday flower was “YUZURIHA”. I didn’t know the flower. I looked into it. It is a kind of tree and it’s the native flower of our country Japan. Its meaning is “new born” and “rejuvenation”. I’ll show the table with photos, though it is a Japanese site. Do you know any English site about this? If you know some, please tell me.

http://www.birthdayflower366.com/

This photo comes from the 365 flwoers site.

I have questions.

These days I’ve learned some adjectives to describe someone’s character. Now I’m wonder what image do you have about the word of “wild”.
A: Who was your best friend in high school?
B: My best friend was Mieko.
A: What was she like?
B: She was funny and kind of wild.
Q1.In this conversation, did B want to say “she was a little bit violent”? or “rude” or “selfish?”.
Please tell me.

And I’ll tell other words I learned.
Positive adjectives; demanding (strict), down-to-earth (practical), encouraging, understanding (generous),
Easy-to-talk to (friendly), easy-going (optimistic), dependable, grown-up (precocious)
Negative adjectives: cranky (sour), unfair, rude, condescending (arrogant) competitive, nerdy (not fashionable)
Q2.Is there anything to be careful when I use these words?

My current garden

Not so bad. Because of little rain, we don't have much weed. Tomatoes are growing smoothly. We can see some green totmatoes. Greepappers have some flowers. I heard we should pick the first flower to get many gree papeers in summer. Is it right? And anyway SHISO leaves (kind of herb) grow thick. We eat most every night. At first my daughter didn't like them, but as I served them insistently she said "I got used to SHISO", and now she said "I'm tired of SHISO".

When I say the word "whimsical" what do you think of?

I like reading Desire's diary. http://talkwithdesiree.typepad.com/desitalk/ She interviews to herself. Today's title is one of her interview question.
I didn't know the word of "whimsical", until I read her diary. According to my English-English dictionary, it means "unusual or strange and often amusing". So I suppose this word is suitable to my younger daughter, or sometimes I can say she is odd, or sometimes I can say she is easygoing.
When I woke her up this morning, she was sleeping in her school uniform. According to her she woke up really early, and studied a little (according to her), and felt sleepy again. She thought if she wore the school uniform, she could sleep a little bit late. So she changed into her school uniform. I thought wearing it earlier or later takes a same time. Her behavior only gets her school uniform wrinkled and dirty

It's too hot

Though rainy season has started, it has been sunny and hot. This morning I pranted pot flowers , which are in the sun room, in the garden. Instead of them I put them. Do they seem cool? This stone of the frog is called "OOYA" stone. This stone is really famous in this area. Many people put the stone flog at the gate or in the entrance hall. They are said to bring a good luck.

Rainy season starts

According to the weather report we are into rainy season. BUT it is a really fine day, I "have to" water the garden. As you know in Japan it is really humid, and my house is old, so this season sometimes slugs come out in the bath room. If you stayed with us and found a slug, please not be surprised at it. Of course I hate them. When I find them, I pick them up with wood chop sticks and put them away outside. They are too slimy for me to kill(crsuh?) them.

On the other hand when I found cockroaches I squash them with slipper in one.

I can imagine that you are reading this diary with a frown.

I clean my house alomst evey day, so it is not so dirty, probably just it is old.

This season sometimes I found snails in my garden. They are not so bad.

When I was a little, I had thought slugs were homeless snails.

Anyway I put these snails on the shelf in the entrance hall.

What kind of ethnic food do you know and do you like?

The other day in our English learning group we talked about some ethnic foods; tacos calzones, eggrolls moussaka, quiche, shishkebab, nan,macaroni and cheese, croquettes, shepherd's pie, lasagna, swedish meatballs. Do you know of them? I didn't know some of them. And I've eaten some of them.
My husband like tacos and I like soft thin bread tacos.
My family loves curry and rice. We sometimes go out to an Indian restaurant. I usually order some nan. But my husband and my daughter prefer rice.
I have one memory about lasagna. I used to think badly of lasagna beause of being too oily. But an American friend, who was living in Japan for two years, told me an intereseting recipe. She recomended to use natrual cheese, cottage cheese and "TOFU". It is tasty. If you are interesed in it, please try it.

fresh leeks

I got lots of leeks from my garden. These leeks are so thin, but they are such kind of leeks. (What do I say? It's mean they are not malnutrition, they are good thin leeks)

I minced some of them and freezed.

I grilled chicen and these leeks with Miso paste and put into today's OBENTOU.

AND

I also made salad with potatoes, white asparagus and fresh leeks instead of parsley.

Looks good and tastes good.

It tastes bitter than using parsley.

I enjoyged leeks, thanks for my garden.

Well, I wonder if the leek in the garden will recover. Because just I only cut , and leeks come from bubls. What do you think of it?

Father's Day

Father's day is just around the corner. Today I went shopping with my husband after two week interval. The migraine stole my strength, I'm easy to be tired. Now I'm getting back my strength. And Shopping is the best way of it, isn't it?

We went to "GAP". And I bought him a casual black jacket. He already went out to play the bass wearing the new jacket.

Next week I'm going to make this card and coaster with my students for their dads in my lesson.

herb tea

The other day I told you I bought "rose hip tea". Since then I began to be intereseted in herb tea. I used to be coffer-addict. But since I had a week stomach, I try to prefer green tea or tea.
I was not so intreseted in herb tea, because for me it felt grasshy.

Anyway I bount some kinds of blended herb tea. So I don't know clear what kinds of herb are included. Just I chose these from the lavel.

These naming is really fun. I introduce in my poor English.
To be more well-balnaced of your mind
For people who are worried about cold
Detoxification
On the day when you feel depressed

And I also bought "Echinacea spp". It seems to work well for caughing and weak throat.

I hope my translation makes sense.

bad migraine

Now I'm suffering migraine. Last week it was too bad. One morning I couldn't stand up when I wake up. so my husband took me to see a doctor, and I got two shoots. One is IV shoot, so it was really painful. Now I've taken dizziness medicine and headache medicine, but not so good.
Of course these medicines work well so I've worked as usual.
BUT this symptom makes me feel down.

Yesterday there was a big event, I was looking forward to attend it, but I wasn't able to do it. I stopped long (it meanes more than 30 minites) drive. In this area without driving it is limitted to go out.

It can't be helped. New week has started. I hope I'll feel better.
This weekend I have to go out to attend another meeting.

Are you OK?

Though sometimes it get cool (or cold) , mostly it is warm or hot. So another morning job is added. It is to water the garden. This morning I started watering the garden without any care. Suddnely under the SANSYO tree (Japanese pepper tree) something black came out. It was a black butter fly. It seemed to be too soaked to fly. It flaped its wings hardly to dry them. After a while it started to walk and held on the grass. It opend the wings widely and staned still. Are you OK?

Roses are blomming

This season here and there we see roses. Some people are Rose-Lovers. I'm not, and what's more I'm not good at gardening. Never the less this spring my roses are blomming. my neighborhoods prased me? no the roses.

I thought the reason why this season the roses bloomed more beautiful than usual year.
At first last year a gardener pruned the roases with accuracy. The second, a friend of mine came in eary spring and sprayed repelent? on it, and gave the left to me. So I sometems sprayed. it means I took it care often.

Now roses are blooming. Even my hushand who is not interesed in garden is surprised.

belated Mother's Day

Do you remember that? Last weekt it was Mother's Day, but my daughter forgot buying my favorite chocolate though she show her thanks, and my husband bought for us? more beer for dinner.

But yesterday I was really surprised. Yesterday I was out all the day. And when I got home my daughter was "cooking" for dinner. And there were some carnations on the table.

During the last week she was taking midterm exam at school, so according to her she couldn't afford to think about Mother's day. And she also said " you big sigh put a lot of pressure on me."

So she decided to cook for yesterday's dinner.

And what made her surprised was that bunchs of carnation were sold at half price. So she also bouht this carnation.

It was realy nice dinner time.

Well, she also said "I'll celbrate Father's day a week later of the day, because then bunches of yellow roses will be sold at half price too."

Well the dish is "her" favorite curry and rice.

charcole

As everybody knows charcole used to use as a main fuel for a long time. Now in Japan it is also used in various way but in quite different way.

Of course when we barbecue outside, some people use it. And at a Japanese green tea ceremony "charcole" plays a realy inportant part. This charcole is really expencive and the quaillty is really good . It needs many process for only charcole to be able to play as the charcole used at a Japanese green tea ceremony.

Well, I also use charcole in various way at home.

Charcole is said to absorb odors, so I put a piece of charcole in the frige.

Or Charcoleis said to absorb chlorine, so I put some pieces of charcole in the bath tub when I put water in the tub.

Charcole is said to make somthing soft. So when I cook rice I put a piece of charcole in the cooker, and when I boil water for speacial tea I put one in the kettle. In this case I use bamboo charcole.

It is said that we can use charcoal permanetly.BUT We need to rinse it sometimes to take off dust or something. BUT be careful not to use soap. After washingwe need to dry it in the sun. Charcoal is made from wood, so while we use it, it tends to easy to crack because of dryness and weathering.Fresh charcoal has good smell, if you enjoy the smell you should change it often. I change it once every two or three months. Becayse it is troublesome to rinse and dry it in the sun.

Have you experienced such a thing?

Have you experienced that though it looked bad, it turned out to be delicious when you actually tried? Figs. I thought it looked yuck, but I tried a ripe fig and I knew it was tasty. And I’ll tell another experience. Until I came here I haven’t had fish in river like AYU, YAMAME, IYANA, etc, which is called freshwater fish. This area there are many clean rivers near by, though we can’t to walk there it’s too far. We went to a river about 15 years ago. I saw “YANA”; a kind of trap. It was really huge. And I ate AYU grilled by charcoal. It was really delicious. Since then it is one of my seasonable fun to go there and eat fresh AYU, though I never buy the fish at store.
And this time I got this powder of rose hip. Probably I’ve had a tea of rose hip by teabag. I’ve thought it was a kind of herb “leaves”. But this I time I knew they were “hips”. (I knew the mean of “hips” this time.) It looks like Shichimi; a kind of Japanese Chile pepper, or powder of Japanese Umeboshi. Looks not so delicious. I tried. Ice smell, and tastes not so bad. It suits to a table spoon of honey. And according to the direction I ate the rest of powder of hips. The taste was --- so-so. But it is said to be good weaken eyes. I hope it works to get slow to proceed my presbyopia (my eyes are getting weak because of aging).

Last YUZU KOSYOU

Today's OBENTU is "NORIBEN". "NORIBEN" is rice covered with NORI (sea weed, you can see somthing black.)
Between NORI and rice I put dried bonito and YUZU KOSYOU. Do you remember YUZU KOSYOU? Since last fall we keep a jar of YUZU KOSYOU all the time. But it is the last jar of YUZU KOSYOU. Though I buy them from my friend who made them by her self, her stock has all gone. And rain season is coming so she doesn't make them no longer. We use YUZU KOSYOU for many things, NABE (pot food), noodle, spaghetti, rice ball, griled somthing. Thank you YUZU KOSYOU. We are looking forward to see them next fall. The firend said the trees of YUZU have lots of fresh gree leaves.

Mother's Day

It was Mother's Day today. During the last week I let my students make this chop sitck bag with a paper carnation for their mothers. Every student seemed to enjoy the craft. I hope they use it for today's dinner.
Actually I used it for myself for today's dinner, though my family was laughing.
This year unfortunately I got no present. When my daughter left home this morning, she said "I'll buy chocolate for you!". But as my exepctation she forgot. Anyway they expressed their thanks to me. That's enough. Oops, I almost forgot to say. My husanband bougnt beer more than usual to celebrate this day, though it means he was able to drink beer more than usual.

How many times did the weather change, yesterday?

According to the weather report, yesterday it was said to be rainy. And actually it rained from the evening. Anyway it was a terrible weather yesterday.
In the morning it was calm. I watered the plans in the morning. Before the lesson, my student who is a woman and older than I , enjoyed the Clmeatis. When she was about to come home the sky began to get black. And Just as next students came it rained and blew the wind heavily and thundered. So some students were wet, I got them dry by towel.
When the last student's lesson was finished, thunder was stopped, but it drizzled.
My daughter came home by bike, of course she was soaked.
So she soaked her in the hot tab for a while. (so my bathtime was so late.)
But when my husband came, it was calm night again.
He went to TOKYO on a business trip, he did't meet rain , like me. (because I was staying home all day.)

Thunder, it was one of famous things in this area.

Clematis are blomming

Last May I planted this seedlingng of Clematis in my garden recommending it from my friend who is a gardening-addict. And this may it opend big flowers contrary to our expectations. Today the friend is going to come to see them.

Under the Clematis JYUNIHOTOE (I don't know the English name) is also bloming as beautiful undergrowth.

Now our garden is the best beautiful in the year, not so mamy weeds, not so bugs.

After a while a rain season is coming, and the job I dislike is waiting for me -- weeding.

KUROMAI

I got this bag of KUROMAI. It looks like a little bigger black sesame, but it is a kind of rice (we can say glutinous rice. MOCHIGOME). We haven't eaten it. So I cooked it.

According to the instruction, We put two table spoons of KUROMAI into two cups of rice, and cooked.

Surprised! It got purple and sticky rice. Of course it's delicious.

I put it into today's daughter's lunchbox, and we ate for breakfast. And I made one riceball of it. Two cups of rice was gone.

I think we are into this KUROMAI for a while.

The second harvest

Yesterday I reaped MIZUNA again, and made salad with MIZUNA, tomatoes and grapefruit.

Only 15 days has passed since I reaped MIZUNA for the first time. It is growing rapdily. It is really useful plant, isn't it.

BUT compared with MIZUNA which is sold at store, our MIZUNA is a little bit bitter and leafish ; I don't know whether such word is resistered in the dictionary, anyway it is leaf rather than vegetable.

We went to TOKYO

Though Tokyo is my hometown, I've lived in Utsunomiya longer than in Tokyo. And the town of Tokyo has always changed. So the visit of Tokyo was like a sightseeing tour.

I met my elder daughter, and she said that she's seen Tokyo Tower from a window of bus, but she's never entered it.

So we went to Tokyo tower. But this week is "golden week"; consecutive holidays. It was really crowded. We had to wait for more than 2 hourse to enter it. So we gave up, just looked it up from the foot.

Then we went to Roppongi to see a new building which is called Tokyo Midtown, it opend recently. It was also very crowded.

So we dropped by a cafe and talked , talked, talked.

Now she seemed to enjoy the college life. She is dealing with metal this term.
Though I sometimes talked her with phone, I was really glad to talk her directly.

Well, while we were visiting Roppogi, my husband was weeding at his mother's house. He was really dutiful son, wasn't he? (He's never weeded in our garden.)

The former part of the one-week-holiday is finished

I'm fine, enjoying this big holiday, but exhausted. During the former part of this holiday, my mother was staying with us. I took her to lots of places; seeing wisterias in a flower park, appreciateing Ennin exhibition at an art museum, and diging bamboo shots at a bamboo shot farm. We walked walked and walked. So every night we went to a hot spring nearby.

And today my husband was at home, so he cleaned lights and changed the bulbs, repaired window screens, and gardened with me. He did housework with me. I was really happy.

Tomorrow, he is going to golf. I'm going to relax at home with my daughter. And the latter part of this holiday we are going to go to TOKYO to meet my elder daughter and my mother-in-law.

The first photo is a mauve wisterria, and the second photo is bamboo shot rice.

pea rice

Today's OBNETOU's (lunch box) main dish is pea rice. I got fresh coffee beans. I cooked rice with the peas, Komu (kelp), Sake(Japanese alcohol) and a little bit salt.

It looks dericious, and It makes us feel fresh green season of May.

But I covered the rice with scrambled egg, because my daughter doesn't like peas. Usually she eats toast and rice for breakfast. Today I only served toast and salada without saying anything.

So she didn't notice today's main dish.

Probably as soon as she will put the rice with the egg, she must notice there will be some peas. It can't helped. She has to eat. BUT she must chose out all peas and put them in the corner of the lunch box.

Anway I made the first seasonalbe dish. I'm satisfied.

During the golden week, I'm going to make bamboo shoot rice. Bamboo shotts, the members of my familly all like them. We are going to go to cut? pick? some bamboo shoots to the farm nearby.

try to spend holidays frugally

From next week we have one week holidays in a row, it is called golden week. It is reported that many people go abroad , but my family is completely in another world.
Early in April, I was ready for meeting big expenses; college expenses, high school expenses, and allowance to my elder daughter.
And later in April, I have to meet another expenses; property tax, car tax, car safety inspection, and gardening expences.
You may be surprised to hearing gardening expences.
Though we have a small garden it is hedged. This season I ask a gardenr to clip a hedge.
It is too tall to do by my husband.

Well, I feel empty. I try to save money as much as I can (though sometimes I suddely buy something for me), but money fries like an arrow?????. (Do you know some good humor??)

The first half of the golden week, my mother is going to come. So probably she'll treat something -- Thanks mom.
In the middle of it, we stay at home, so try to live frugally, it means I'm going to busy in housechores.
The later half of it, we are going to meet my mother-in-low to Tokyo, and we are also meet our elder daugter. So probably money is also going to fly like an arrow, because since she lived separately, we are too easy with her.

--Big sigh----

Toast Master's club

I attend a meeting of Toast master's club in Utsunomiya. Do you know Toast master's club? It's a kind of speech club. There are only 5 members in the club in Utsunomiya including me.
Yesterday I made a speech for the first time. ( It was the second time that I attened this meeting.) I introduced my self. (Thanks Jan, I did well.)
And every member made a short speech about three topics.
A woman and I were new membes, so these topics were selected.
your personality, your hometown, and how to spend holidays.

What I told was like that
The words my friends mention to discribe me are probably, active and positive, though I think I'm shy and not out going. But I like to look for something intereseting and inspiring. And I also like to tell those intereseting to someone proudly, so the word of "positive" seemes to describe me.
My home town is Tokyo. I was born and grew up in Tokyo. But since I came here more than 20 years passed. And it has been longer to live here than in Tokyo. So I seem to adjust the life in Tochigi more than in Tokyo. Anyway I can say the second hometown is Tochigi.
And the way to spend holidays, when my daughter doesn't go clam school, anyway I can get up lately. Then I clean the rooms, I clean the rooms upstaris once a week. and I try to weed. After the noon, I go out to attend a meeting like this, or go to the library. And usually at evening I go shopping with my husband, mainly to buy alcoholic. I try to spend holidays calmly.

homemade KAKIAGE

Do you remember I planted some seedlings of vegetables. Yesterday I reaped MIZUNA, and I made these KAKIAGE, they are kind of vegetable Tenpura.

My family said "Yummy, Great".

BUT I fried too much KAKIAGE, so they left. I reaped too much, MOTTAINAI (wasteful) , I should have cooked MIZUNA not only one way but also other ways.

Now the roots of MIZUNA are still left, so probably in a few weeks, I will be able to reap MIZUNA again. Reaping is fun, isn't it?

glove theater

Yesterday I went to a nursery school to read English picture books to kis. This time I told a story using this glove. Amon nursery or kindergarten teachters such shows are called "TEBUKURO SHIATA". "Tebukuro" means glove, and "Shiata" means theater.





I got this glove from a nursery teacher, usually she tells a Japanese story. I translated the stroy in English.

The story is like that;

Who love carrots? I loe carrots. (A horse comes.)

Do you like this carrot Mr. Horse? Here you are!

Munch, munch,munch, yummy!

Who loves this big carrot? I love it. (a elephant comes)

Do you like this big carrot Mr. elepaht? Here you are!
Munch, munch, munch, yummy!




The final phrase is


let's eat carrots everyboday and grow up big and strong!

It was fun.

dessert croquette

This is a croquette, I bought these frozen croquettes, and this morning deep fried and put 2 of them into my daughter's lunch box.
Usually in Japan croquetes are made by potato, ground meat and onion. And I sometimes use cirbed beef ubstead if ground meat.
But What are inside of these croquettes? Sweet potatoes and strawberry jam. So they are a little bit sweet, though they are not used suger.
There other two types, apple one and chestnuts one. How do they taste? I'm intereseted in them. and I also intereseted in my daughter's saying after coming home.
Do you like croquettes?

What kinds of medicine do you keep at home?

I make a deal "Toyama no okigusuri". It is tye system of stock of medicien at home. Ever two or three months a sells clerk (I think he or she is not a pharmacist) comes to check wich medicine we used. And we pay as much as we used, though we seldeom use any medicine. And the clerk also check the date of each medicine , if some medicines are over the valid months, they are changed to fresh (sounds strange? how do I describe? new?) ones.
So we can keep verious new medicines irrespective of costs; like medicines for headache, diarrhea, and stomachache, and painkillers, eyelotion, Band-aid, and even compress.

On the other hand these days my husband and I started to take some supplements. I'll show you. We take propolice and homemade yoghurt. My husband takes black vinegar, and I take another vinegar, that is called "moromi-su", and nomi juice. And a few days ago we found this special juice "shikuwasa" juice. It is a kind of orange, but more sour and astringent. It is said to have 100 times citric acid as much as normal orange juice.
I have a question, what kinds of supplements do you usually take?

We are into ---

In the morning, my husband usually drinks coffee, I drink green tea, and my daugher drinks cold milk. My daughter seldom drinks somthing hot. BUT these days she into this maple tea. It is not naple syrup. The smell and taste is maple.
We often have maple, but having maple tea is the first time. Delicious!

And my husband usually eats toast for breakfast. I do , too. And my daughter eats rice and toast, both. How healthy she is! And these days suger toast is one of our favorite types of toast. Once I tryed another maker's suger toast cream, but it was not good. This cuger toast cream by SONTON is really good, if you find it please try it.

Well, other our favorite types of toast are egg toast and fresh cream toast.
What types of toast do you like?

octopus

These are boild octopuses. The other day my husband went to Koube on usiness. Koube is famous for Akashi Tako; you see the sign on the wrapping paper in this photo, even it is written in Japanese. Akashi is a town in Koube, tako is octopus. Yummy!
We sometimes accept some foreigners staying with us because we are resistered as a host family. Probably octopuses one of the most unusual foods for them. For Japanese or us (my husband and me) we don't have a big difference between squids and octopuses, but for foreigners it seemsto have a big difference.
Takoyaki is also famous in Japana as a healthy? snack. It is my daughter's favorite, so when young foreigners come to my house I make sausage-yaki instead of tako-yaki. It is a kind of small unsweetened pancake.

in the middle of spring

Now in my small garden even though it is in the half shade, flowers are in full bloom. And NIRA(leek) that I sowed , has come up. AND of course weeds has appeared.

I decided to try to weed constantly. So this morning before watering I did 15-minute-weeding. My garden is small, and we don't have lots of weeds yet, so 15-mitnie-weeding worked well.

I also platned seedling of strawberries. They put buds. If they have a fruit, I can put them in my daughter's luch box, the red strawgerry will make the OBENTOU look vivid. How many strawberries can I get???

horsetail quiche

Yesterday I played the piano at KARAKU. And the master gave this "horsetail quiche" to my family. Do you know "horsetail"? It is a plant in spring. When I was a kid I used to find them here and there but these days we couldn't. His wife went to pick them to the outskirts, and make this quiche. They bring spirng taste don't they?

Well, the picture of horsetail(TSUKUSHI) was gotten from the pagehttp://www.yunphoto.net/jp/photobase/yp2651.html

eel pie

These are sweets, and the sign on them is "eel pie" in English.

What is eel pie? Do they look like eels? No, they have eel in powder, so they are called "eel pie". And they have the adjective of "for night". Why? having eels is said to give us stamina and eels are used for tomic medicines.

These sweetsa are peculiarity of SHIZOKA. Lots of eels are cultivated in SHIZUOKA.

In my region we have the same shaped pie. It is called "KANPYOU pie". they have KANPYOU in powder. KANPYOU is a kind of vegetables. So the sweets don't have an adjective. If they had something modified, they would be called "healthy KANPYOU pie".

My usual belongings

What do you usual take when you go out nearby? A wallet, a brush, a handkerchief, a lipcream stick, and a paper book (I sometimes drop at a coffe shop to take a rest out of mere freak or to kill the time during my husband or daughter's shopping) , they are my usual belongings.

And I wanted to a new bag for them, so I asked my friend to sew a bag, and it comes. To be correctly she maked two bags.

I like her works. She like and is good at sewing. When she gets order something, she makes them. On the other hand she opend her oridinal shop on the net. Since it opend, almost one year has passed.

These days net-shopping seems to have lots of problems, but for her, this net-shopping is an effective and inspriering way to enjoy our 40's life.

going out to see the cherry blossoms

In this morning we (my husband, my daughter and I) went out to see the cherry blossomes to the park nearby. When my daughters were little, my family used to go there on Sundays. Probably more than 8 years passed since we went there together last.

I heard the park had remodeled, and it was the first time for my husband and me to visit since it was remodeled. It was completely changed. Everything was renewed and seemed to get more attractive for kids.

My husband and I have a lot of memories of playing kids in this park. But unfortunatley my daughter didn't have any those memories. Her memories about this park was playing there with her friends.

The most attractive ride in this park was a big slide, though they don't have it now. We went to the place where the slide was. At that time for us it was so far to reach there from the entrance of the park. But this time it was just a 10-minute-walk.

It means my daughter grew up enough, and missing such memories shows that my husband and I aged.

On the way home we dropped by at a restaurant and had spaghetti for holiday brunch.

We had a good time in this morning, if my elder daughter were together, we could have enjoyed more. So tonight I called her, she is fine. This term she is going to deal with metal. What is she going to make?

My daughter's school has started.

I was able to wake up before 6 o'clock this morning. And I made OBENTOU.

From today my daughter's school has started, it means the chore of making OBENTOU has also started.

When was the first time to make OBENTOU by myself? Probably I was a college student. At that time my mother used to make four OBENTOUs every morning, for my father, for my two younger brothers, and me. Except mine, they are all for men. So the OBENTOUs were highly volumed (or it could be said to be much oily.) I couldn't bear, so I started to make OBENTOU for myself.

I continued to make OBENTOU when I started working. I took my OBENTOU to my office. And after my daughters were born, I had to let them thier OBENTOUs to their nursery school.

When they were elementary school kids, this chore stopped.

But when they became junior hirh school students, this chore had started again.

And probably this year it is the last year to do this chore (if my younger daughter succeed in entering a college.) So this last year I'll try to enjoy this chore instead of feeling troublesom.

I show every day's OBENTOU in another blog page, if you are intereseted in them, please see them. Mieko's luncbox http://www.fotolog.com/mieko_/

What's this? It's an excellent spoon.

The left picture is the situation of being out of use, and the right picture is the situation of being in use.

Yes it is a spoon to scoop a does of medicines.

These days I changed medicine for a pollen allergy into herbal medicine. I have to take 12 pills at once. I said to a pharmacist "It's terrible troublesom". She said "it has somthing excellent."
And showed this spoon.

in one scoop I take 12 pills at once. So in two scoops I can take necessary doses.

All members of my family were surprised and laughed.

What do you think of this idea?

What medicine do you bring with you when you travel?

My spring vacataion finished. During the vacation I went out here and there , though they were not long travels. BUT I always bring headache specific and pills for a pollen allergy. Now I'm suffering from a bad pollen allergy, so with this medicine I bring eye lotion. And I suffer from headaches, so with caution I always bring the medice with me.
The headache specific is precribed, I don't buy this kind of medicine at drugstores.

"Allergy" reminds me of a woman who stayed with us.
Has anyone you know ever gotten sick while traveling? The woman who stayed with us got sick at my house.
When a guest comes to stay with us, I usually send the person our family sheet to introduce our family. At that time we had a cat (unfortunately she passed away.) So I wrote on the paper "we had a cat".
And the guest used to have a cat allergy, but she thought she had already overcome.

BUT unfortunatley at midnight suddenly the allergy attacked her. She started sneezeing and runnig nose, and her eyes got completely red. She didn't have medicine, and it was midnight. So I gave her my pills for allergy, because the symptoms were same.

Fortunatly it worked well.

Oops, I almost forget to write one thing.
If I went on a long travel, I'll bring more two kinds of medicne, they are laxative and binding medicine.

Well, I don't know what do you call these medicine in English? Please tell me.

who drew?

Neither of my daughters, I did. The other day I added a craft work-shop in TOKYO. There I drew this picture. Of cours they are strawberries.

Can you buess how I drew it.

I used color chalks and used cotton instead of paint burshes.

rub the chalks with the cotton, and put the color on the paper with the cotton.

To draw detail or clear the outline I used a cotton swab.

To draw somethng white (like petals) I used an eraswer.

It was really intereseting.

This drawing way seems to be common on Steiner's education.

Did you know that?

Using this way everybody becomes a great artist.

I recommend you to try it.