December 12, 2007 - Wednesday

Sunny and not terribly cold.

I love surprising my husband! Tonight when we were both playing on our respective computers, I decided to try something. I grabbed the book of nengajo patterns that he had bought a couple of weeks ago, and decided to try printing out one. I found a picture that I really liked, so I got out the cd-rom, loaded it into my Mac, and 5 minutes later (I had to find a postcard to practice on) out came a very nicely printed New Year's card. Fumihiko was quite surprised as he'd been telling me I couldn't do it on my computer. Now, granted this was just a simple design, I didn't add any doo-dads or anything, but it worked.

I had a bit of a busy day today. I got up reasonably early and drank coffee for a while, then did 3 loads of laundry and vacuumed the apartment. I even changed the bag in the vacuum...I think it was high time anyway.

Last night I was jonesing for French fries. I cooked dinner at home and didn't have any of course. I promised myself if I got things done around the apartment I could get some. So, I took myself off to McDonalds and had lunch there. I had fries and a chicken salad, with iced tea. It was okay. I only had a medium fries...sure glad I didn't have the large ones. I read my new British Cosmo while I was eating. I biked back to the apartment and dropped off my magazine, then headed off to the main post office. I mailed my three Christmas cards and then picked up my package. I think it's from my best friend in Canada.

After I got my package, I headed off to Ginza-dori. I stopped in at a stationary store along the way and drooled over their scrapbooking display. I don't do scrapbooking personally, but I do stamping and scrapbookers often use a lot of stamps in their work. I thought again about using my stamps for New Years cards, but decided not to. I picked up a green whiteboard marker and some correcting tape, then moved on. I explored Ginza and felt a bit sad honestly. Many shops were closed. I'm not sure if it was a permanent thing, or a Wednesday thing. Also, there are a lot of bars and "snacks" along the street. 10 years ago when I came here first, there were coffee shops, little stores that sold great things, lots of people on the street, but today it was a wasteland. There aren't any coffee shops now, and there weren't many people today either. One reason I think is parking. There isn't any. It's okay if you're on a bike, but driving a car, there's not many places to park. My husband hates paying for parking and would rather risk getting a ticket than paying (at least that's my impression) to park.

I also went to another stationary store. They sell stamping things year round and also packaging for businesses. I went in and had another drool, and a big snoop around the store. I didn't get much, but I noticed that they were selling packets of very Japanese Christmas cards. They were real Christmas cards with a message written inside. I would have bought them if I'd known before I got my other ones! As I was browsing I noticed that it was getting dark so I decided I should head home.

I wasn't home for very long before Fumihiko texted me he'd be home soon. He was as good as his word. We vegged for a while, watched a bit of news on the TV and then went out for dinner.

Tonight we had yakiniku at Togashi. It was really good. We had a lot of different types of food. We ordered a combo plate of meat and added an extra one of chicken, then some nameru (Korean cold veggies), and some egg soup for me and some raimen (cold noodles) for Fumihiko. It was all very good and we got quite full.

We hit the grocery store on the way home. Tomorrow night I'm making....chicken again. Yay! Oh well.

At home we relaxed. Fumihiko watched something on TV and I listened to a couple of podcasts from Canada. One was the news and another was about acting one's age. Interesting. At 11 Desperate Housewives came on and it was a humdinger of a show. Lots of things happened and I can't spill the beans for you! You wouldn't want me to spoil it for you, now would you?

I made the card on my computer after that. I think I may try printing out some of the Christmas cards from the book tomorrow. I really want to give my students something that I made myself. I don't have time for stamping, but maybe for this. And, of course, I'll send them nengajo, but I'd like to practice a little anyway!

Today, before I went out, I even did a bit of maintenance on my bike. I blew up the tires a bit and "oiled" the chain. When Fumihiko came home tonight, he did what he always does, he asked, "What did you do today?" I listed off all of the things I did, in as minute detail as I could muster. Ha! I was busier than usual today, so I told him so.

Tomorrow I'm back to work. Wish me luck. Hopefully things will go well. Got to go. Night night.