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.

Very small garden opens

One of things I decided to do durng this spring vacaiton was making a small garden in the back yard. I did it. It doesn't cathc the sun much but -- probably somthings will be able to glow.

I planted parsley,MITSUBA(honewort?), and MIZUNA(kind of spinach), because they can glow in the half shade and half sunshine according to the directions. AND these grasses (leaves?) are really convenient to cook, if I can harvest.

Well, gardening was not my favorite and skillful hobby, but I tried to do it more this year. Now I water the garden every morning, untill now I enjoy it, I hope it would not be a dull chore that I have to do eary morning. ( I know weeding is one of dull and tough chores, but it can't be helped)

Do you enjoyg gardening?

To KAMAKURA

The other day my younger daughter and I went to KAMAKURA, where it takes about one hour from TOKYO by train. (and it takes more than three hours from here by train.) KAMAKURA is a historical town, I love there. Well I already went there a few weeks ago with my friend.

Why I went there again after a short interval is the following reason. When I told about my visit to KAMAKURA to my daughter, she said "I've never been there."

I was really surprised. We live in KANTOU, so usually school kids go there for their school trip, actually my elder daughter went there twice when she was an elementary school student and a junior high school student. So I thought my younger daughter would have been there too.

BUT, the visit to histrocial citys tends to make young students bored, so when my younger daughter was an elementary school student, they went to Disney land instead of the historical city "KAMAKURA". And when she was a junior high school, they went to KYUSYU instead of another more famous historiacl city "KYOTO". So unfortunately she has never been to historical cities in JAPAN except NIKKOU, where it is in our prefecture. So I took her to KAMAKURA during this spring vacation.

Of course I took her some famous temples and shrines. She said "it might be a vaulable experience".

But more fun is -- eating and dropping in at cafe. (Probably shopping might have been fun, but we didn't have enough budget.) For me it was also "great" fun. She took some photos by her cell phone, I put them on this blog.

spring vacation has already started

From last Saturday my spring vacation started. As soon as I got full 7 days off, I started to tidy and clean rooms up.

At first I put togather my English books that lay around. I wanted to put them in a book cabinet on the first floor to take them easy in my lesson. But a book cabinet on the first floor was too small to have all books. We also have other book shelves on the second floor, but it was really troublesome to take them. So the books lay around (saying correctly upstairs and downstairs) .
And I went to buy a book cabinet, I found a reasonable cabinet at a home center. It looked useful and inexpencive. BUT it was needed to assmeble. Can I do it? I didn't have confidence. Anyway I bought thinking "I must manage to do it", and I also thought "I can do it, because I also bought an inexpencive electoric screwdriver. "

AND

Fortunately my husband showed intereseting the electoric screwdriver, so he helped me (saying correctly I helped him.) BUT the screwdriver was so cheap that it didn't have enough power. I could put each screwe in the board until 2/3 depth of it using the electroic screwdriver, to put the last 1/3 depth of screwes handpower was needed. SO my husband did it. Anyway we made it. I could set the books in order. It was a heavy job.

BUT the job was not finised.

After assembling it, my husand went out. Since then I started another heavier job. What I should do next was tidying up the things which had lain at the place where the new book cabinet laid. Some things I threw away, some things I had to leave somewhere. So I started to tidy up the closet.

Can you guess how many trash bags I made??? I can't tell you, too many!!!

Anyway today it was a burnable trash day. Most of trash was gone!

Tomorrow it was recyeld trash day! All trasn is going to be done.

AND I'm going to tidy up the next room tomorrow.

I was surprised twice!

Yesterday I got it from my fried. Because of my poor photo, you cannot understand what it is. It is "TAIYAKI". Usually "TAIYAKI" has azuki bean paste, or other sweet cream (custard cream breen beens paste, etc) inside. But it has "OKONOMIYAKI" inside, so it's not a sweet TAIYAKI. It was the first time for us.
And what made me more surprsed, before I write this diary I check "TAIYAKI" on the wikipediea page. Here, "OKONOMIYAKI TAIYAKI" was alreday introduced. Is it popular in JAPAN??? or KANSAI area?? (I live in KANTOU area). And on the same page "SAUSAGE TAIYAKI" was also introduced. I've not seen it since I was born.

Anyway if you are intereseted in "TAIYAKI", please check this website. It has "perfect" and "clear" photo of "taiyaki".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiyaki

last three days

In Japan April is a month to start new term. So for me these three days are last days of my term of this year.
The evnets I planed is finished in turn.

Last Sunday the meeting of reading English picture books was finished. Probably 15 coulples (mother or father and kids) came. The next day I got some e-mails from attendees, saying "it was fun, I'm looking forward to next meeting." I'm really glad.
Yesterday my monthly playing the pinano at KARAKU was finished. It was really crowded, Oops, don't misundestand please. Some meetin was held there. I was afraid that the sound of piano might be noisy, but after playing the piano some people said "We feel calm, thank you", or "GOCHISOUSAMA ( it is a greeting after eating in Japan) for your music". I'm really happy.

And the last event is left. On Friday I'm reading English picture books for infamts at a nursery school.

And my two-week spring vacation is going to start. What will I do? The first half week, I'll neaten up my classroom, and change the materails for the new term, and go to TOKYO to meet my elder daughter and my mother.
The latter half week, I'll meet some friends who lives a little bit far and enjoy cherry blossoms.

AND coming Saturday (3/31), the first event of the new term will come.
I should take in my self "hang in there" and "enjoy your vacation!"

Spaghetti

In the morning I went to a clinic to get a medicine for my pollen allergy, and dropped by a library nearyby. In the afternoon, three new kids came to take my trial lesson. (And from next new term they are going to be my new students.) So I didn't have enough time to make my handmade hamburger steaks. But I already bought ground meat.

So today's dinner was "SPAGHETTI" with two kinds of sauce.

One is meat sauce spaghetti. I added ground meat and garlic to the instant sauce. Of course according to the recipe I also added water and tomato paste.

Another one is basil sauce spaghetti. I added grillled mackerels and leeks to the instant basil sauce. Of course according to the recipe I also added water and olive oil.

The meat sauce is not so bad. My husband said if it had more sour taste, it would be better. So I should have used tomato juice instead of water. When I make my meat sauce, I usually use tomato juice, so my family gets used to the sour taste.

And the basil sauce is good. We put some grated Japense radish on it. I think if I had used squid instead of mackerels, it would have been more simple taste. For me it was a little thick, but for my husband it was good.

We are really enjoyging American tastes, Thanks Jan.

everyday's lunchbox

About 7 years ago the chore of making lunchboxes for my daughters has been started. If she manages to succeed in entering a college, the chore is going to be finisned in a year.
The chore is sometimes troublesome, and sometimes intereseting.

The other day when I was watching TV, a boy student who graduated from a junior high school this year shouted to a TV camera "Thank you mother for making delicious OBENTOU(lucn box) every day!".

If I hear such saying from my younger daughter next spring, I must be very happy.

BUT in my case sometimes or often I cut corners, it means the tast of OBENTOU on the day must be so-so.

Anyway last night accidentally my younger daughter and I talked about OBENTOU. These days she goes cram school after school, so she buys OBENTOU at convenience store for supper. She said "Mum's Obentou is more delicious even though it is cold than the OBETOU at conveneince store".

Additionaly she isn't satisfied with the convenience store's OBENTOU, so after she comes home she eats something that I cooked at SLOW-COOKER, even though it's around 10PM.

And this morning I satued cabbage, squid and egg for lunch box. AND I "boiled" retort hamburger steak. I also served the hamburger steak for breakfast.

As soon as she saw it "Wow! Hambuger steak! Long time no see it" she said happily.

BUT as soon as she grab it, "Hum it's not your hand-made one, but it's OK".

Yes, today I cut corners in making OBENTOU.

Additionaly I served a sand which with this hambuger steak to my husband for his breakfast.

(Usually, my daughter has rice for breakfast, and my husband has bread.)

He said"Wow, Hambuger steak sandwhich!" He ate smoothly.

Well, this weekend I'll make handmade hambuger steak after a long separation.

Suddenly

Last night as soon as my yougher daugher came home she started talking about her course after graduating. She declared that " I'll go to -----college. I'll be a serious candidate." suddenly.
The event she went last weekend inspred her.

Of course it is a good thing. It is the first time for her to mention her future course clearly.

BUT it seems to be very very hard.

ANYWAY what I can do is wathing her.
And I hope this movement is not a short period phenomenon.

Bargain train ticket for the young

My elder daughter went to NAGASAKI (south in Japan) using bargain train ticket. The ticket is called "SEISYUN(the youth) 18( age?) ticket". Only the young ( I don't know from how old to how old) can use it. They can take JR-train withnho holds barred for five days, but only local trains.

She arrived NAGASAKI two days after she left TOKYO. She stopped off at some stations to change another train, and while she was waiting for the next train she walked around the station.

I knew she had a plan to this travel.

But this morning , at 7:10 the door bell rang. "pin pon".

"who?"

"me!"

It was she.

Today it was the last day the bargain ticket runs. So she passed TOKYO and came here with souveniurs. It was our favorite "FUKUSAYA-Kasutera".

We could enjoy it for breakfast.

After for a while she left here for TOKYO, because it is the last day the bagain ticket runs.

I'm surprised, I'm happy, and I'm sad.

Well, this "Seisyun 18 ticket" is for the young.

for the older? middle aged? people ( over 50) there is another bargain train ticket.

BUT for my generation, we don't have. It means "you should work hard???"

kinkan

This winter I knew that "KINKAN" could be eaten by itself. Until I knew that, I had simmered them with sugar or honey. My friend sent fresh ones to me. I got into KINKAN. Now it is the season of KINKAN, it is not long, so I often buy them. Though I thought my family didn't like them, they didn't mind, so they have one or two.
And the other day I found this sapling. Of course though these KINKAN can be eaten, they are really astringent?? (not sweet). But looking at them is also fun. And my friend who is into gardening says "it's not difficult to grow KINKAN". So I'll try to grow KINKAN this year. If nxt year I'll be able to get "my" KINKAN, it will be fun!

American taste arrived!

Thanks Jan. We are really surprised!!!! For a while we can enjoy American taste. Today we tried oatmeal with bananas, of course adding a littlie suger---- sorry, the taste is so-so, but my husband , daughter and I really enjoyed saying "strange"and laughed. We prefer rice porridge with a little bit salt. Now we are thinking what taste we'll try next. It is fun!! My husband says, "try basilico spaghetti", my daughter says "try hamburger". What do you recommend the best?

And everyone, have you tried anything of them? or what do you want to try first?

the term exam finished

My daughter's term exam finished. Not so bad. She and I are relieved.
Last spring, she got a really bad score. At that time before starting a new term she had to choose a course, science course or literary course. Untill then she decided to go to a science course like us without any special thinking, or she had thought going to science course was natural. BUT the bad score made her think again. And she chose a literary course because of her bad score.

And she began to rethink about her life. Sometimes she gave up studying, sometimes she was depressed, sometimes she was quick to take offense.
Now I understand that was the process for her to start to live her own life, and the process for me to accpet she was she.

These days she seems to be getting steady down. She talks to me about her self very much.
Now she is thinking to go to a interior course. And next Sunday she is going to go to an exhibision in TOKYO by herself. She said "I'll try to see many things, I may encounter somthing that stimulate me."
I'm really glad to hear such positive thinking from her.

New term will start soon, she will be a candidate.