Mondays

Why are Mondays so rough? It never fails.

I need to figure out what to do with this blog. I want to continue sharing my stories and random thoughts, especially while we're in Japan. Pictures on Facebook are fabulous but only tell so much. But the thought of posting regularly on here isn't very appealing. Somewhere along the way I've gotten tired of hearing my own thoughts, I suppose.

I'll figure it out eventually. I do have some memorable stories to share from our trip to Tokyo. One involves waking up 10 minutes before our bus was set to depart, cramming every thing into the suitcase in a mad frenzy and running to checkout and get some much needed coffee, all the while frantically calling the tour guide to make sure she didn't leave without us. We laughed at our own chaos once we were successfully settled on the bus. And so far, I've only found two casualties of our mad dash of packing. A missing tube of toothpaste and a set of sumo wrestling souvenir magnets for our fridge. Woops.

Really long time...

Woah, I haven't been here in a while. Funny how life takes over sometimes.

Jeff and I just visited Tokyo for the first time and I'm in love. I'll be back to post all the details of our trip soon. And hopefully become more regular with all the little bits of my life.

For now, here's one of my favorite pictures from the trip.

Progress on Day Zero Project

Long time, no talk. I've been busy trying to survive the heat sans air conditioning and starting a new job.

I'm chugging along very slowly on my Day Zero Project. Here are some of the things I've accomplished or started.

23.   Go to five Japanese festivals (2/5)

Summer is full of festivals in Japan. And while Jeff and I are usually lazy on the weekends and don't feel like driving, there were some festivals in Misawa. We both worked American Day in June, which is a festival for the Japanese put on by Misawa Air Base. I blogged about it here - American Day .

We just went to the Misawa Tanabata Festival last night. I'll probably blog about it sometime soon, but here's a short description of the festival, and here's a description of the Tanabata legend (I don't know the accuracy of this story). We waited until evening to go because it's been so hot and humid, but even then we could only stand the crowds and heat for a little bit. It was interesting to see though.



14.   Go to Tokyo
24.   Take five ITT Tours 
29.   See a sumo wrestling match


I'm knocking three out in one by signing up for an ITT (Information, Tickets, and Travel) tour to Tokyo to see a sumo wrestling match in September. I cannot wait! It's a short trip, which will give us a quick taste of Tokyo and give us a better idea of what we want to see when we return for a longer trip.


67.   Cook seafood at home five times (1/5) 

I attempted a tilapia recipe last week. It was okay, very bland. I think I overcooked it because the fish was very dry. I've since gotten some suggestions and I'll probably try another seafood dinner soon. I also want to try salmon. So far, salmon sushi is one of my favorites.


94.   Watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy

Jeff's been bugging me to watch the trilogy ever since I made this list. I finally gave in and we're watching the first movie. Since it's too hot to do much and I'm fighting a headache, hanging out on the couch in front of a fan with a long movie sounds like a good Sunday afternoon.



Happy weekend! Can you believe it's almost August? I can't.

Travel Dreams

I never really thought I'd travel outside of the USA. Growing up, I imagined moving to a different suburb and settling down closer to home. Little did I know, huh?

Now I'm living in Japan. Life's funny that way.

While we've seen lots of amazing things in northern Japan, we're both a little frustrated with our travel limitations here. It's SO expensive to get anywhere from this remote location. Just traveling to Tokyo is expensive, much less taking a plane anywhere else. Not to mention, most of our traveling dreams lie on different continents. Mainly Europe. I'm dying to go to Ireland, Scotland, and England. Jeff lived in Italy for 2 years and traveled to Germany a few times, and I'm dying to go back and sightsee. But, it'll cost us a small fortune to get there from here. So for now I can dream. We've never done a big honeymoon. We stayed in a fancy hotel for a couple nights after our wedding and saved our money for moving to CA and starting our life. We planned a honeymoon for January 2011, but it got postponed when we found out we were moving here. We're still talking about a big honeymoon/trip sometime in the future.

Globus 15 Day Guided Trip through England, Ireland, and Scotland 

Globus - Highlights of Britain and Ireland

I'm pretty sure I need to set aside an "Ireland fund" for this trip. It offers highlights of the three countries I'd most like to see, with advantages like minimal line waiting and hotels included, sometimes even food. It's a blend of guided travel that would take a lot of the stress out for an over-planner like me. Maybe for a big anniversary trip sometime in the not-too-distant future?? Please.

I'd also love to just travel through Europe by train or whatever. Start in one country and wander around, eating and drinking and sightseeing. Maybe one day when we're rich!

We've always talked about doing a cruise with Carnival or Royal Caribbean. We actually had one planned and ready to be booked before we found out we were moving here. We were going to celebrate our anniversary in Mexico drinking and snorkeling after a deployment and instead we moved here to snowy Japan. Oh well, maybe next time. This one is only an option before Jeff gets on a boat. I highly doubt being on a cruiseship will be relaxing after spending so much time on a carrier. Even if it's with booze and his lovely wife ;) I've also looked at Sandals all-inclusive resorts. More expensive than a cruise, less travel, more booze. Haha. Either one might be a definite option if our next base is say, FL or CA. I know flights were pretty cheap when we were looking at flying from Lemoore to LA, where the port was for the Carnival trip through Mexico.

We've also talked about doing Hawaii or something fun in between PCSing from here to wherever we go next, especially since it'll be the dead of winter and we'll have snow up to our ears here.

In the meantime, I can continue tucking money away into savings for future fun and dreaming of all the places we can go. There's a couple tours coming up I'm trying to convince Jeff to go on - mainly a sumo wrestling match down in Tokyo. It's pricey and we'd both have to take leave, but it's one of my "must-do" things before we leave Japan. No time like the present? Jeff needs some more convincing, lol.

I'm going to go research hotels and ideas for a small weekend trip sometime in the next couple of months, maybe to Aomori, the capital of our prefecture and closest big city. And I'm trying to think of something fun to do in October - turning 25 sounds like a perfect excuse to do something fun!

Friday Fitness

If I blog about all my healthy progress, it'll feel more like progress right?  This has been a long week. Nothing really terrible happened. But if just felt like it dragged so badly.

I did okay at working out this week.
M- Jillian Michael's No More Trouble Zones
T- 2 mile run/walk
W- I slept in - I've been fighting a cold and Nyquil-induced sleep sounded smarter
Th- 3 mile run/walk
F- I forgot my alarm, woops!

Oh, and for my concerned dad - I took vitamins every day this past two weeks. Now you can stop the phone lectures ;)

I'm working on downloading some new music for my ipod. I'm really not picky with music - I like a little bit of everything. But I need certain songs for my work outs. For weight lifting, I need heavy rock. Bring on the Staind, Korn, Three Days Grace, all the drums and yelling you can get. For running, I need a strong beat to keep pace to. I can do heavy rock, but I like lots of variety or I get bored. I stumbled across this list via Pinterest, full of 90's music. Some I already had, some I can't believe I didn't have yet. I'm also pretty behind on current music since I get one radio station here and I don't even listen to it most days. So I browsed Billboard's lists and downloaded some new songs from there. If you're curious, I prefer country for cleaning. Which I plan on doing tomorrow, so some of that got downloaded too. Dancing while cleaning counts as fitness right?

A Saturday Night Organizing Binge

I've had a rough couple of months of the cyclical routine of eating bad and being lazy, then trying to work out and eat better for a couple days, then going back to unhealthy, then guilt, then back, then forward. Back and forth, back and forth. Somewhere in there a couple pounds has been added on.

Since it's not helping me any, I'm trying to quit the cycle and just make smaller steps. Jeff recently had oral surgery that will not heal completely for nearly six months, so that's made a huge shift in our eating habit. I've decided that instead of getting frustrated with the limitations, I should use this as an opportunity to shift our eating habits in general and move towards a healthier diet. Less chips and soda, more fruit and water. Less beef, more ground turkey and chicken. Less eating out, more healthy stand-bys stocked and ready to go in our pantry/freezer.

I've been using stress and not wanting to spend so much time in the kitchen as an excuse to pick up food so much. But if I took a little time on the weekends stocking up on easy to make healthy food at home, or pre-made frozen meals ready to be heated up, that wouldn't be a valid excuse so often.

Long story, short. I'm unhappy with the way I'm eating and I'm attempting to start making changes.

Starting with getting recipes in order! I've got recipes everywhere. Pinterest, recipe books, bookmarks, written down on post-its on the fridge, etc. etc. etc. What a mess. I started a OneNotebook almost two years ago with recipes, but had stopped using it. I'm working on compiling all my various recipes into one organized location. I don't know what gave me the energy to do this on a random Saturday night, but here I am.

I have an urge to purge the pantry and freezer too, since they're cluttered and jammed full of half-empty boxes. But I should probably get to the pile of dirty dishes and the random clutter around the apartment first. Maybe with a heavy dose of caffeine tomorrow morning ;)

American Day

American Day is a big festival the Americans here in Misawa throw for the Japanese. All the groups and clubs on base can buy tables and sell their food, raising money for whatever they need. There's a parade and lots of fried and sugary foods. Japanese don't use sugar nearly as much as we do, so they love anything sweet.

Jeff was working two booths this year - our command's FRG (Family Readiness Group) and his Second Class Petty Officers Association. I'm never able to go to FRG meetings because I work, but said I'd be willing to help as needed.

Jeff got there at around 6am. I, the non-morning person, arrived around 9am. All the tables were set up right outside the main gate. I tracked him down at the Second Class booth, so I hung around and chit chatted. I said I'd be more than happy to help them (the FRG had more hands available anyways) so I dug right in. Jeff left to work at the FRG booth while I assembled dozens of philly cheese steak sandwiches.

We got into a decent routine. The guys took care of grilling and taking orders.

And I assembled. Jeff tried to help me out when he came back from the other booth, but by that time I was in a groove and he was just getting in my way. I pushed him over to taking orders. That's him on the right.

It was surprisingly a lot of fun. I saw a lot of friends stop by and our booth was nonstop. The boys did good - the booth caught everyone's eye and had people coming for a closer look. They made a huge profit, and sold out of Philly cheese steak.

This year each booth had a state and had to base its theme on the state's movies. I wish I'd taken pictures because some were pretty good. But when I took a break, I was just hungry! I loved Illinois - it had Wayne's World! The FRG had Maine, so they served fish and chips. The Enlisted Spouses Club had some delicious funnel cake, their movie was Dirty Dancing -- is that Virginia?? This booth was obviously Philadelphia - hence the Rocky theme. They even had music playing.  I told Jeff their planning and prep definitely helped. A lot of the booths just had a poster or two and really didn't stand out in the crowd. This one did.

Maybe next year I'll get some pictures of the other booths!

Growing a Green Thumb

I'm working on my green thumb.  It's a serious work in progress. I have a couple of problems - I water the plants to death or I forget to water them for weeks. Apparently neither is good for growth.

Here's my porch three or four weeks ago when my parents were here. My mom helped me pick out the flowers!

You can see a hint of yellow in a blue pot above. I separated three flowers from one pot to three and it's a good thing I did because they're growing like weeds. Those yellow flowers - that's the same pot as above where all three used to fit. I have no idea what flowers these are, but they were each 100-200 yen.

I stuck to cheap flowers so if I killed them I wouldn't be heartbroken, but they're pretty too.

My basil starter kit grew like crazy last year until I transplanted it to another pot. I'm trying again this year, and I'll probably just leave them be! 

I love these tall purple ones.

I wish I knew names, but everything was in Japanese. And it was a super overcast weekend, so no sunshine to work with here. These flowers are a really vibrant purple but you can't really tell...

These little spiky things are trying to die on me. I don't know if they'll make it. I'm trying to water them less, maybe they're not as thirsty? I don't have a clue, ha.

I love desert plants, no water is okay! I had a cactus in the kitchen for a while but got too zealous with the water and drowned him. These are his replacement.

My little patio garden has also made a little friend - a spider! I don't really mind, his spiderweb is huge and I'm hoping it'll help catch some of the bugs that like to poke through our screen doors. Since the bugs are coming out like crazy right now, I'm leaving the spider be.

This is the closest I can get you... any closer and he scurried away. I was also grilling hot dogs, and I was hungry. And Jeff took this oppurtunity to close and lock the glass doors, so I had to negotiate my way back inside :)

I think the cool air and humidity is helping everything grow. I'm hoping the hot hot hot weather coming in late July doesn't scorch all the plants! Here's to  hoping I can keep them alive all summer and kill my husband's "plant killer" comments for a while.

A Little Shaky

I get a lot of questions and concerns about earthquakes. It didn't help that two months after our move that big earthquake hit. Now it seems like every shake earns some kind of concern or comment.

95% of the time, earthquakes are no big deal. The apartment shakes a bit, we just wait it out. What else are you supposed to do? Even for the big one last year, I just sat on the couch and waited, holding a couple of steins from Germany so they didn't break.

Nejo Castle and Hachinohe Museum

Planning out my parents' visit was interesting. Traveling in Japan can be difficult with the lack of road signs and the language barrier. It's not like Europe where you can sometimes guestimate what that word might mean in English. Kanji is a whole different world.

Our tours place on base has a lot of directions online, so I just picked what looked interesting. Some places we'd been to before, some places I went to working with the school age kids last year, and some places were the right combination of travel time and price.

The Nejo Castle and Hachinohe Museum fit the third description. Just an hour drive away and something like 400 yen a person.

Revisiting the Gorge

I blogged about our first visit to the Oirase Gorge last July. It was so green and so beautiful. We just parked and took pictures at two waterfalls and I couldn't wait to get back and get walking.

Fast forward almost a year. (How does time go by so quickly?!) We were trying to figure out what to do with my parents one afternoon and decided it was too gorgeous to be indoors. Out here in Misawa, a sunny day is something to take advantage of because snow and rain are less than a day away.

Aomori Big Buddha: Temples, Pegodas, and Statues

Yesterday's Big Buddha was beautiful, but it's so much more than just one statue. There's temples and a gorgeous pegoda. The greenery and hills are breathtaking. The statues sprinkled throughout are interesting and beautifully carved. It's one of the most peaceful places I've found in northern Japan.

Aomori Big Buddha

I have about a million pictures from my parents' recent visit. I'm trying to break it up so you can look through our trip without having picture overkill. One place I definitely did some picture overkill was the Big Buddha in Aomori.

Aomori is the capital of our prefecture. It's a big city about two hours away. While there are any number of things you could do, one of my "must-sees" was the Big Buddha. It's just what it sounds like, a giant statue of Buddha. It's in this gorgeous hilly, forested spot just outside the main city streets with a couple of shrines and pegodas. It's beautiful and peaceful.

I'm Lovin' It

We had some visitors recently and we planned a lot of different activities for them to see and experience. Cultural oddities, religious places of worship, air force related information and history. Want to know one of the must-eats on our list?


McDonald's.

I know what you're thinking. Fast food?! Why would you get mediocre American food when you have all this interesting Japanese food? Greasy french fries and bad burgers?!

Who's Flying This Plane?

One of the best parts of the Misawa Aviation and Science Museum was the outdoor exhibit - planes!

Misawa Aviation and Science Museum

There's an aviation museum right next to base. I see it every day on my way to work, but we haven't gone yet. We both figured it would be a dinky little museum with one or two aircrafts and some signs about northern Japan.

We took my parents anyway.

On Base

There isn't much of base I can share online. Last week we stopped at one spot I can share.

Cleaning

Let's talk about cleaning.

I have a love/hate relationship with cleaning. I hate clutter and need it to be gone immediately, but the every day process of cleaning up and keeping it away eludes me. It's a vicious cycle of piling and stacking all week, then cleaning it all up over the weekend and saying never again. Repeat a couple thousand times.

8.5 Miles!

I'm giving myself a little pat on the back today.

I couldn't get to sleep until late last night and woke up at 4am wide awake. Why? I don't know, but 5am wasn't the best time for me. I even tried to hit snooze and go back to sleep, but couldn't. So I sucked it up and got out of bed.

Despite having zero motivation, I made it 2.5 miles this morning!

That has to be a record for me. I bought a Nike+ a week or two ago and am loving being able to keep track.

I keep meaning to take pictures of all the trees budding and blooming. The cherry blossoms are opening up and making everything all soft and gorgeous. But I keep forgetting my camera. I'll get around to it eventually...

6 Miles

I've jogged/walked six miles in the last two days. Progress! I did intervals of jogging and walking for 3.5 miles yesterday and just walked for 2.5 today. I'm trying to be more active, but I got burnt out on the gym routine of lifting and dealing with people and all that.

Getting out at 5am means you're pretty much alone on the path! I saw four people at the end of my walk today, and about twenty birds. Not a bad way to start the day.

I have a lot of fun adventures coming up in a week (woo, vacation!), so I'm sure there will be an overload of pictures very soon. For now, I have this:

Lately

Hey, it's been a while. I've been back on the exercise bangwagon again. It's a shaky ride, but I'm hanging on.

I started Jamie Eason's LiveFit Trainer, a free program that tells me what to do when I'm at the gym.

Educated

Education is often a hot topic around our home. We're both information junkies, we want to know everything about anything that interests us. Jeff veers towards movies, video games, computers, history, military and wars, and so many other things. I generally focus on literature, history, psychology, and more literature. I love books, didn't you know?

I graduated with a B.A. in English in 2010. Well, I emailed my final exams from my laptop while sitting on my parents' floor at midnight chatting with my brother about my current move to Japan. It was a few weeks before anyone else was even thinking about finals. I moved to Japan and missed the ceremony. My degree is sitting at my parents' house, I haven't even seen it in person yet.

The Office is Stacked

When we moved here, we made the office/2nd bedroom into a pseudo-man cave for Jeff. He had his desktop and it was his room to escape into. I didn't mind the clutter if I could shut the door.

Framed Out

In the midst of all the living room and office loving, I felt the need to spruce up the bedroom too. It didn't need much. We recently bought a dresser and TV, and that gave us all the storage we needed for clothes and books. I don't put much else in the bedroom since we mainly just sleep there. But there was one little nagging "to-do" left in that room.

Re-arranged Living

I posted a sneak peek at the "big changes" we were doing in our apartment a week or two ago. We moved furniture all over the place, deep cleaned, de-cluttered, and made a lot of purchases. It's been a little crazy, but exciting.

The living room is finished enough to take a ton of pictures and show it off! I just put artwork back on the walls last night, which means it's done. And not moving for a while. After living with the new layout for a few weeks, I'm in love. Let me show you.

What Book Did I Read Last Month?

I have a lot of books.

I have a lot of Kindle e-books.

I get confused on what I've read, what I meant to read, what I plan to read, etc. etc. etc. I forget I downloaded that book a month ago. I forget about that book that got thrown into the office last week. I forget a lot.

I tried Shelfari a few months ago. I loved that it linked with Amazon and automatically added my Kindle purchases, but otherwise found it pretty useless.

I still love the idea of having a digital collection of all my books, my wishlists, and favorites, so I tried again.

Round Two : My Goodreads Profile

This one was a pain to set up. I never finished my profile on Shelfari, so it wouldn't let me download my book collection. What? Annoying. All I wanted to do was delete the damn account, not finish it. I added all those books to Goodreads, then quickly glanced at my bookshelves and Kindle history to see what pieces I've missed in the mean time. I'm sure I'm still missing plenty here and there...

But it's a start! I even have a little collection in the sidebar of this blog. Now I just need to find all my random "books to read" lists on paper and computer and compile them in once place. I'll save that job for another night though.

You're On My List

One of our favorite date nights in the states was dinner, a movie, and a bookstore. We'd take the hour drive into the city and get some delicious food. We always had some down time before or after the movie, so we'd wander to the nearest Borders.

I love wandering through the shelves and picking up whatever catches my eye. Jeff would give me a limit that I'd usually break, coming back with an armful of books and the most hopeful eyes I could conjure to convince him to let me buy more books. He'd have one, maybe two if it was a good day. He's a picky reader. I am not.

I miss those trips desperately. All the bookstores over here are in...Japanese. Not so easy to browse. Not to mention Japanese read their books in the other direction. The bookstore on base has a handful of shelves, but for an avid reader, not so enticing. I swear some of those books have been stocked since we moved here...

Thank God for Amazon. Not only do they have the largest selection around, their affordable prices and quick shipping let me keep up my ever growing book collection. The Kindle is the ultimate lifesaver/troublemaker - books in 90 seconds? Yes, please. It's a little dangerous though, which is why Jeff threatens to hide my Kindle at least once a week.

Anyways, I've been reading Sherlock Holmes for the past few weeks. I'm halfway through the first large collection (900+ pages!), and I have Volume II to get through. I'm getting antsy for a new novel. I have a pile from a friend, but that doesn't stop me from browsing.

Here's what caught my eye today...

Anne Lamott - Some Assembly Required

 

 

 

 

In Some Assembly Required, Anne Lamott enters a new and unexpected chapter of her own life: grandmotherhood.

Stunned to learn that her son, Sam, is about to become a father at nineteen, Lamott begins a journal about the first year of her grandson Jax's life.

In careful and often hilarious detail, Lamott and Sam-about whom she first wrote so movingly in Operating Instructions-struggle to balance their changing roles with the demands of college and work, as they both forge new relationships with Jax's mother, who has her own ideas about how to raise a child. Lamott writes about the complex feelings that Jax fosters in her, recalling her own experiences with Sam when she was a single mother. Over the course of the year, the rhythms of life, death, family, and friends unfold in surprising and joyful ways.
By turns poignant and funny, honest and touching, Some Assembly Required is the true story of how the birth of a baby changes a family-as this book will change everyone who reads it. (Copied from Amazon)

Jenny Lawson - Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir

 

Jenny Lawson realized that the most mortifying moments of our lives—the ones we’d like to pretend never happened—are in fact the ones that define us. In Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Lawson takes readers on a hilarious journey recalling her bizarre upbringing in rural Texas, her devastatingly awkward high school years, and her relationship with her long-suffering husband, Victor. Chapters include: “Stanley the Magical, Talking Squirrel”; “A Series of Angry Post-It Notes to My Husband”; “My Vagina Is Fine. Thanks for Asking”; “And Then I Snuck a Dead Cuban Alligator on an Airplane.” Pictures with captions (no one would believe these things without proof) accompany the text. (Copied from Amazon)

Jane Maas - Mad Women

 

What was it like to be an advertising woman on Madison Avenue in the 60s and 70s – that Mad Men era of casual sex and professional serfdom? A real-life Peggy Olson reveals it all in this immensely entertaining and bittersweet memoir.

Mad Women is a tell-all account of life in the New York advertising world by Jane Maas, a copywriter who succeeded in the primarily male jungle depicted in the hit show Mad Men.  
Fans of the show are dying to know how accurate it is: was there really that much sex at the office? Were there really three-martini lunches? Were women really second-class citizens? Jane Maas says the answer to all three questions is unequivocally “yes.” Her book, based on her own experiences and countless interviews with her peers, gives the full stories, from the junior account man whose wife almost left him when she found the copy of Screw magazine he’d used to find “a date” for a client, to the Ogilvy & Mather’s annual Boat Ride, a sex-and-booze filled orgy, from which it was said no virgin ever returned intact. Wickedly funny and full of juicy inside information, Mad Women also tackles some of the tougher issues of the era, such as unequal pay, rampant, jaw-dropping sexism, and the difficult choice many women faced between motherhood and their careers. (Copied from Amazon)

Ellen Ullman - By Bloo

San Francisco in the 1970s. Free love has given way to radical feminism, psychedelic ecstasy to hard-edged gloom. The Zodiac Killer stalks the streets. A disgraced professor takes an office in a downtown tower to plot his return. But the walls are thin and he’s distracted by voices from next door—his neighbor is a psychologist, and one of her patients dislikes the hum of the white-noise machine. And so he begins to hear about the patient’s troubles with her female lover, her conflicts with her adoptive, avowedly WASP family, and her quest to track down her birth mother. The professor is not just absorbed but enraptured. And the further he is pulled into the patient’s recounting of her dramas—and the most profound questions of her own identity—the more he needs the story to move forward. The patient’s questions about her birth family have led her to a Catholic charity that trafficked freshly baptized orphans out of Germany after World War II. But confronted with this new self— “I have no idea what it means to say ‘I’m a Jew’”—the patient finds her search stalled. Armed with the few details he’s gleaned, the professor takes up the quest and quickly finds the patient’s mother in records from a German displaced-persons camp. But he can’t let on that he’s been eavesdropping, so he mocks up a reply from an adoption agency the patient has contacted and drops it in the mail. Through the wall, he hears how his dear patient is energized by the news, and so is he. He unearths more clues and invests more and more in this secret, fraught, triangular relationship: himself, the patient, and her therapist, who is herself German. His research leads them deep into the history of displaced-persons camps, of postwar Zionism, and—most troubling of all—of the Nazi Lebensborn program.

With ferocious intelligence and an enthralling, magnetic prose, Ellen Ullman weaves a dark and brilliant, intensely personal novel that feels as big and timeless as it is sharp and timely. It is an ambitious work that establishes her as a major writer. (Copied from Amazon)

What to read first? Jeff has a new video game releasing soon, so that should be a good bargaining chip to download some new books...

I Think I Can. I Think I Can?

Well, shoot.

How many weeks months years have I been saying I need to get in shape?? We said we'd climb Mount Fuji this summer since we found out we were moving to Japan. Back in 2011. Oh, yeah.

I've made attempts to get back into shape here and there. But nothing stuck. I think I need to make it stick already if I'm going to have any chance of making it up that mountain...

Can I do this?

I'm not really sure. I should probably stop my love affair with the couch and fall in love with my sweat instead.

Spring Cleaning/Chaos

Things have been a little chaotic over here lately. We've been dreaming of a new TV for years, and finally decided to take the plunge.

That sparked a whirlwind of change. Jeff actually came up with the majority of the decor ideas. Crazy, right? Even crazier -- he encouraged me to buy organizational things! I don't know what's gotten into him, but I love it!

By the time we're done, our office and living room will look completely different. Our living room is 90% done, and it already does. And I'm finding all sorts of new reasons not to leave the couch...

The big re-arrange sparked some major cleaning too. We've got a gi-normous pile of clothes waiting for thrift store donation. We took piles and piles of things down to the trash. Bulk garbage like our old computers, unnecessary CRAP like old papers and magazines. I also went through our storage cage and trashed a lot of things we didn't need to make room for the new TV's box, and some things that didn't really need to be in our apartment but we wanted to keep. I'm tired just thinking about all we've done since we decided impulsively to start this process.

I'm waiting to share until it's all done, which could take a few weeks since we ordered some things online and have to wait for them to make the trip across the ocean.

But I was too excited about the whole change not to share a sneak preview.

New TV, new surround sound, new woven baskets. Drastically altered entertainment center. And a really close crop because there's so much new going on to the left and to the right.

And that's it! No more until it's finished. We're down to the simpler tasks, like running clothes to the thrift store and a TV to its donation spot. Once our packages arrive, we've got some organizing to finish in the office and one more big purchase to buy and assemble.

We're having people over for St. Patrick's day, so I'm hoping we can have mostly everything done by then. In the meantime, I promised some of Jeff's co-workers some cookies and I've got some black bananas just asking to become bread. I think a baking session is the perfect way to spend this Sunday afternoon.

Bloomin' Onions

I love green onions. Yellow onions, not so much. But there's no such thing as too much green onion.

The problem is - they die so quickly. I buy them at the beginning of the week and when I go to cook with them on Thursday, they're floppy and sad. Bummer. I read somewhere online that you can take the leftover green onions and stick them in some water and they'll start growing all over again.

Really?!

I haven't had too much success with growing things, but I couldn't resist trying this one. So I took my leftover stalks of green onions and stuck them in a mason jar filled with water.

Jeff gave me an odd look and shook his head, but he does that every time I fiddle with something green. (He's getting a good laugh out of my cactus suddenly dying today. It was green and growing yesterday, and today it's all wilted and brown. Why??)

I don't have a window with direct sunlight to place the onions in, so I put them on my kitchen counter and hoped the daylight would peek in somehow.

After about a week, they're growing!

At first the ends started to brown and crisp, and I figured it was a bust. But then they started to firm back up. And those little roots? They're a-growing!

Clearly that means something is happening, right? God, I need to pick up a gardening and growing for dummies book or something.

I'm not putting too much into this. If it fails, it's green onions that probably would have ended up in the trash anyways. If it works, I can stop spending money on them. I'm cooking an enchilada casserole at the end of this week, so I'm hoping they'll last at least that long!

Oh, and I'm hoping to start gardening something once all this snow finally melts in another month or two...or three? I'm hoping I can tackle some herbs and some normal plants out on our balcony. I think I may need some books or something though... I'm going to continue blaming my failures on my inability to understand what soil/dirt/plant I'm buying since everything is labeled in kanji ---it'll work until we leave Japan!

No More Trouble Zones

I can.not.move.

I did Jillian Michael's No More Trouble Zones workout last night, even though my legs were already tired. Oh my god, legs. Shoulders. Triceps. LEGS.

I've discovered through random spurts of working out that I far prefer weight training to cardio. I may not be good at it and I may have wimpy arms, but I love it.

I hate Jillian while I'm working out with her, as I'm shaking and wobbling and about to die. But it's good, right? It'll feel good in about a week when I'm no longer sore.

Her weight training is intense. You work at least two muscles at a time - squats with shoulder work, crunches with chest presses, triceps with lunges. It feels like it's going to go on forever, but it's about 45 minutes and I believe 6 circuits.

This is my favorite Jillian Michaels DVD. It's low weight high intensity, and seriously kicks your ass. Well, it kicks mine.

And when I can move again next week, I'll do it all over again!

Operation Get in Shape for Fuji --- Progress?

I've been saying since we moved here that I needed to get into shape. We had planned to climb Mt. Fuji before we even moved here, and I would die if I tried it right now. Only sort of kidding. I'm wheezing like an old man just climbing our 8 flights of stairs.

It's um... 13 months after we moved here and less than 6 until we do the big climb. I've gained 10lbs and gotten into even worse shape. Awesome, right?

I've been on my Operation for four weeks now.

The first week I tried to start Body Rock TV's 30 Day Challenge . I thought it could be a good before work activity. But I kept getting dizzy when I was doing that high intensity before I was fully awake or nourished. It was nice not to have weights or machines, but I needed variety from all the heavy impact jumping on my severely screwed up balls of my feet.

http://www.bodyrock.tv/2012/01/26/day-4-week-4-the-30-day-challenge-stronger-workout/

The second and third weeks I hit the gym. I did some intervals on the treadmill and switched between a fast jog/run and walking, until I was sweating like I was going to die. Then I'd do weights. The first week, I did pretty well. But the second week, I didn't do as well. My timing wasn't good for me. I'd go after work because it was most convenient for me, but it's most convenient for a lot of people. I don't like crowds. I'd get itchy trying to lift weights next to some beefy guy, and I couldn't stand when all the treadmills were full or the weight machines I wanted were in use. No patience. My feet were also screaming at my jump right into running method. Maybe not my smartest decision...

NOT what my gym looks like! I wish...

This week, I'm working slightly later. It's enough that by the time I'd go to the gym and get a good workout in, then come home and cook dinner, eat, and clean it up - it'd be bedtime. I need at least a half an hour somewhere in there to chill. So I decided to try my home DVD's again. I have them, most of them I've had since we first got out to Lemoore. I know they're all good if I do them consistency, but consistency is my weakness.

I was super proud of myself when I did a workout Monday night. I had Monday off and indulged in pizza and a movie with some friends. I remembered to workout. It was painful working out on greasy food like that. I don't really want to see pizza for a while now... which isn't so bad really.

Monday I did my old favorite, Jillian Michaels. Despite feeling like I was going to have death by pizza and cardio, it felt good to get through it. Today I did Julianne and danced like an idiot. I have no rhythm.

I'm hoping to make it through three more workouts this week, in whatever order seems best each night.

I'm hoping if I keep blogging about it publicly, it'll kick my ass in gear to get moving!