January 31, 2014

Superbowl dinner

My husband is a HUGE football fan.  He used to have a day off on Superbowl Day ( it's Monday morning here in Japan), but as increasing responsibility at work set in, it became a kind of luxury to have a whole day for just one sports event.  After we came back again to japan from USA (oh, happy 5 years of watching the game on Sunday evening), he decided to have a "time-shift" strategy.

We record the live broadcast on HDD, and have a Superbowl evening on MONDAY after he comes home.  He never enjoys a game if he already knew the result - so he has to be very careful, very, very careful to shut out all the news on every media.  Thanks to a rather minor popularity of the sports in Japan, it's not impossible to keep it away but difficult enough because of the size of the event.  It's a no-no to visit Yahoo! or any news page on the internet, accidentally flip the channel on TV to evening news.

And I, as a BIG football and a cooking fan, prepare a meal honoring the teams and the city where the game is hosted.  It's great to look up history and recipes, spending hours in front of my computer.  Love internet.

This year, though, it is a challenge to decide what to have.  If it were the Patriots, Cream-type clam chowder is a no-doubt choice, or if it were the Cowboys, I would have ordered chili meat online and bought the biggest bag of tortilla chips I can find.  Ravens? Crab cakes.  49ers?  Great excuse to try making a sour bread starter.  Saints?  Mufellettas and Po-Boys.  Gumbo, Jambalaya… I can celebrate a whole week.  But, oh, Seattle vs. Denver?  In New Jersey?

My plan after some research is ..
1. Campbell Tomato Soup (which I always have on hand for our "earthquake / typhoon care bag") representing the State of New Jersey
2. Salmon vs Rainbow Trout (both grilled) representing the teams, salmon for Seattle and trout for Denver
3. Coors Beer for my husband
4. Welch grape juice for me and my daughter
Veggies, bread and desert is not decided yet.  Corn hush, plain dinner roll and apple sauce, perhaps?

Yeah, I don't deny.  A bit depressed.

Go, please, Texans, next season.  Give me a chance to bake Kolaches.

January 17, 2014

hibernation, and waking up

Last year came and went like a fizz.  I feel I didn't do anything new, but hope that it's an underrating to myself.  As long as a person is living and doing everyday OK, he/she never stops finding something newer and better, whether or not he/she notices.

When I look back, I have to admit I had a not-so-creative year, knitting-wise.  Almost all my knitting project was for my aunt, who was diagnosed with a breast cancer and started chemotherapy immediately.  Thank goodness it was found in the very early stage and was treated well. As of today, she is very well recovered from the surgery. After 2 month, prognosis is very good.
I knit her chemo caps, a preyer shawl, and toeless socks (all her nail fell off as a side-effect of chemotherapy. Toe nails are slower to grow back). She is the best recipient of my knittings - she always gives me appreciations (and good motivations to knit MORE for her), and treats my gifts in the most respectful way.  You know, she WEARs them and hand-washes them properly.  Every single pieces I knit for her is in use.  My husband and daughter do wear what I knit for them, too, but all the washings are on my hand and they don't express the admiration my aunt gives me by words.  

Words.  Yes, words have power.

Last year was the record low blogging year for me.  Not that I gave up on it, but…. I think I needed a little vacation from it.  
I didn't Twitter much, neither.  I didn't visit Ravely so often, neither.  I did take pictures but didn't upload them on Flickr! so much, neither.
One reason that I don't use Twitter or Pinterest neither recently, is the "recommended" or "related" pieces they slip in on my board.  I want to choose what I see, that was the concept of "following", right?  Until when I can opt out from "related pins" and such, I'd look away from Twitter-verse and Pinterest boards.

Which, I look more often on blog-sphere these days.  It has a slower traffic, and I have more control on what shows up.

Keeping a blog becomes a task, a burden, when you stop updating it often.  What you feel in everyday life, the tone of your speech, they changes like the river flow.  Looks the same everyday, but what's right in front of you is not the same as the water of yesterday flown away from you and gone forever.  Do you want to record all of your everyday life?  Or do you want to let them go, just let them go unmentioned, "just like yesterday, nothing new"?
And suddenly, the river shows us a completely different face.  A rainstorm.  Those brown, fierce gush of water breaks peaceful routines and bring them away.  After the event, the river looks just like before, but it's not the same anymore. Do you want to write about the stuff you are not seeing anymore in your life? 

I have been keeping this blog for over six years.  I moved back from Texas, USA to Kyoto, Japan. My daughter is growing up, my grown-up families are growing older in that six years.  Japan has experienced a major disaster, which gave me no harm in my material life but crashed some of what I believed in.  I got a part-time but responsible job that eats off my precious time with fiber.
Blog has to change, too, when the writer's life experiences changes.  There are blogs closed when the writer "outgrows" of them or "finds different ways of expressing him/herself".   A closed blog makes itself eternal, in a way.  It may an act of respect to the blog to keep/freeze it as it is.

I was thinking about this blog while I was away from it.
Do I want to close it?  Just like a completed photo album, and stash away in the attic? Scrap, frame and keep the six-plus years of my life (not everything, but the essence of it)?

… No, I don't.

Life is a continuous act.  And writing about it gives me the power to face it.  Not may be the perfect control of it, but to cut out pieces from it and think over it, is a way to keep it rolling on.  I have not done, and will not try, recording everything in my life, hoarding murmuring "I got have this, too!*  I'll just keep on scrapbooking my life here, keeping only pretty/kawaii and important/moving stuffs.  As my life continues, without quitting and restarting, my blog, too, will continue on, if changes its face in a long-run.

I'll just visit here a little bit more often this year. At least more (three times, ha!) than last year.  And that's my new year's resolution.