I can hardly believe that my baby is three! Happy birthday to the sweetest girl.

Today turned out to be not so interesting, so I think I will share the misadventures of me.

Friday night is my usual orchestra time, and since I had missed the previous weeks practice due to not feeling great, I felt it imperative to get to rehearsal and practice with the orchestra. This is just a rough time of year, so in as much as I can make it, I really need to go. However, with nasty blowing snow, I wasn't sure if it was the wasn't choice. Traveling by public transportation means that I put a lot of trust that the trains and buses will be running as they say they will. This being the case, I bundled up and headed to the train station. The train, of course, was late. I heard the "we are really sorry the train will be late" message more than I wanted and nearly turned back at that point. I am a glutton for punishment because, I waited for the late train instead of returning to my significantly warmer house.

Once the train arrived, I did make it all the way to my destination. The blowing snow that collected on the outside of the train was a little worrisome because it means the wind is pretty strong, yet the train traveled on without incident. Trains do occasionally stop due to winds, and I prayed that would not be the case Friday night. Having arrived late, I missed my connecting bus. Rest assured that I knew of several other buses that would get me close to where I was going.

Here is where I would like to interject a very important lesson I learned that night. If you have to choose between getting on the outer loop bus that is there and getting close to your stop in triple the amount of time, or waiting until the next inner loop bus that will drop you where you need to be and in less time; then absolutely it is worth waiting in the old and blowing snow for the next bus.

Ok, so lesson learned. The outer loop bus dropped at the stop that I planned on, but when it dropped me in front of a wall of snow, I felt a little disoriented. I had never needed to use that stop before, so I wasn't exactly sure where I was going. It was dark outside being that it was then 7:30 at night, and of course it was still blowing snow making general overall visibility more difficult. I find an opening in the wall of snow and managed to get myself onto a sidewalk rather than the street where I was dropped by the bus. I should tell you that while walking on the sidewalk there was a wall of snow taller than me on my right and on my left. Seeing over them to get my bearings straight was not really an option. I did look at the schedule to see when the next bus would go by just in case I needed to get on it and head home. Other than that I just started walking.

That night, because I was not going to be doing a lot of walking (so I thought), and because my snow boots were wet from shoveling some snow and slush on our street the day before, I opted to wear my everyday shoes. Unfortunately, my everyday shoes have holes in the sole of them. I know, I know, I should go get new shoes, huh? Or maybe a pair of waterproof snow boots? Although I was walking on the sidewalk, it was a snow side walk rather than concrete. Yep, you guessed it, I was collecting snow in my shoes.

I did find the orchestra rehearsal location. The website says that the walk from the bus stop to the building would take 3 minutes. I managed to do it in just under 20 minutes. :0 I arrived plenty cold, plenty late, and plenty snowy. My shoes, well, the snow in them, I just couldn't managed to get it out of my sole before I entered the building. I felt terrible that my shoes were dripping water as the snow in the sole of my shoes melted. I was really wishing at that exact moment that the building I was in required us to take our shoes off, but it doesn't.

Now I will say this. It felt so good to be practicing with the orchestra that night. I was glad to be playing. Turns out a third person has been coming to play viola with us. I am not sure if he will be there every week, but it was great to have a stand partner! For a change there were as many violas as any other instrument that night. Way to go violas!

Coming home from orchestra is a bit of a question every week. Sometimes a bassist can bring me home, but he told me had a meeting and couldn't get me home. Sometimes one of two ladies gets me as far as back to the train station. By 9:30 at night no more buses stop in that area, so I never have a way to get anywhere unless someone helps me. Someone always does. One of the ladies got me back to the train station. Thankfully the train I was taking started from that station, so it was there waiting for me when I got there. This also meant it would leave on time! I was grateful for that. As we traveled back towards my house, the snow continued to blow, but this time the snow was blowing through the not so airtight window and landing on the seat of the lady sitting across from me. I could also hear the snow scraping / crunching along the outside of the train as it traveled along the rails. It wasn't must fun trip, but again I did make it to my tiny little country stop without incident. I was very grateful to be home. Thankful to be able to jump into my warm bed and and warm my feet on the hot water bottle.

So ends my snow tale.

This weekend was super busy. Fun, but busy. This left the kids very exhausted come this morning. Once they were up and rambling about, Tomo informs me that his leg is bothering him. Upon looking at his shin area of his leg, he had a blister about the size of my pinky finger. It looked red all around,and it was not hot and not itchy but painful. I asked him a whole litany of questions trying to figure out where this came from. Conclusion...we don't know. Not being too sure what we were dealing with, I was leaning towards running him to the doctor. We finished getting ready for the day, and I checked his leg again. Still not hot, still painful, and it had grown to the size of my thumb. Yes, run him to be safe. Corey took him in, and then used the time afterwards to spend some special one and one time with him. The doctor drained the blister and sent him off with anti-biotic cream and oral anti-biotics as well. Still not 100% sure what that was all about, but we are going to keep an eye on it for a few days.
For dinner, we had Stone Soup. Skyler gathered the stone for the soup. I make Stone Soup about once a year and either Corey or I retell the tale of Stone Soup to the kids. It makes for quite a discussion, and I really enjoy moments like these where we all share in a nice pleasant dinner conversation that does not involve ranking the dwarves from the Hobbit in order of who we like best on a daily basis. Yes, that gets really old. Literary of a topic as it is, it gets old.
Not a bad day, just a little odd in some spots.

Thought about blogging today. See, I have even typed a few things just now. Hoping for the day that homeschooling three children isn't my every single moment thought, or that I am not too mentally exhausted at night to sit and type. Just taking life day by day.

I did just go on a homeschool shopping spree and got the kids their books for the new school year starting in April. Am I crazy, or what?

Woke up today to some more rain, sleet, snail, slush.  The kids are all suffering a cold to varying degrees.  Skyler earned the right to see a doctor when he was coughing up gunk, but the doctor says his chest is clear and sent him home with cold medicine.  I having been trying to stave off colds be giving the kids chances to get extra rest and well hydrated.  They have been getting the hot yuzu and hot ginger honey treatment.  Hopefully nothing amounts to more than a simple cold.  I have been having a headache today, as well, but I am pretty sure it stems from the feeling that my neck is strained.  Between the weather being so nasty and wanting to make sure I don't get stranded in another city for the night, the coldish kids, and my neck strain related headache, I decided to skip orchestra rehearsal tonight.

While I was making dinner, I let the kids watch NHK (the play educational kids' programs while I make dinner).  I heard Tomo carrying on about something, and he sounded genuinely worried, so I went into the living room to see what the problem was.  The early earthquake warning system came on the TV.  I saw that there was a quake on the other side of the island.  I told him that it was too far away and that we probably wouldn't feel it.  Right on cue.... we started shaking.  I knew it was pretty far away, so I wasn't overly concerned at least not for us.  I was in the middle of popping popcorn for a movie tonight when the quake struck.  I went back to the kitchen and continued keeping an eye on the popcorn.  We pop our popcorn in a big kettle on our stove.

But we kept shaking.  We shook for quite a bit, but the general feeling of those in the house was that it was not anything we needed to worry about.  Of course, Corey and I know that if it feels pretty decent sized where we are that it has to be pretty big at the epicenter.  This one turned out to be a 7.3 on the Richter scale and quite a ways out in the ocean.  It did hit in the same general area at the March 11, 2011 quake.  Although, it is still a far cry from the magnitude 9 from that fateful day, it was still enough to raise concerns about tsunamis along the coast.  People evacuated to safety.  I think the largest tsunami measurement measured in at 1m (about 3 feet) tonight.  I do not know of any damage or personal injuries as of yet.  I have heard that there were maybe some fires started due to the quake, but I have not heard of any confirmed news on this yet.   There are also reports that nothing new has cropped up the Fukushima Nuclear Reactor plants.  That is good.  The earthquake was felt as a shindo 5 over in some areas of Tohoku.  We felt it as a shindo 3 in our area.  We have a mountain range between here and there that helped to buffer some of the shaking here.  Shindo doesn't measure the magnitude of the quake at the epicenter, but rather the intensity of shaking it causes in other places away from the epicenter.

Do pray for the people of Tohoku.  I have friends there and the general consensus there is that people are fearful and worried  They people there have been through so much in the past, nearly, two years.

Not much to say today.  It was just a day of schooling all around.   The weather has continued its yuckyness.  More hail, enough to cover our yard in a layer, and tons more rain.  We've had so much pea sized hail in the last 24 hours or so, it is almost ridiculous.  The thunder and lightening comes and goes.  Not really the kind of weather you want to be out and about in, but you find a way to manage.  Not really the sort of weather that inspires motivation. Seems like the weather in being so damp, is trying to inspire colds in some of the people in this house.  Definitely an Eeyore sort of day.

Phew.  Got quite a lot done today.  After receiving 7 pounds of kiwi maybe three weeks ago, I finally managed to get half of it made into jam.  The neighbor told us to eat them quickly, but I found that the kiwis not anywhere near ready for consumption.  I even had them in a paper sack trying to hurry the process along.  I also needed to get a few canning materials, so I could preserve the extra.  Both the gathering supplies and the ripening of the kiwis seemed to coincide quite nicely, and today I turned kiwis into kiwi jam.  I have never made a jam before, so this was bit of a learning experience.  Odd that kiwi would be my first fruit.

Managed to get a blueberry coffee cake loaf baked, and hopefully it will be good tomorrow at breakfast.  The loaf decided to try to go awol from the bread pan for some reason or another and looks a little charred on top.  Hmm... Guess I was distracted while baking that.  I was busy asking Skyler some science questions to review his science lesson today.  Ironically enough one of the questions was about chemical reactions in baking.  Suppose I should have remembered to check a few times during the baking process.

I now have a new rack in my kitchen.  It sits in the wide area of the window.  The rack allows everything to be off the ledge/counter area in front of the window.  Words are escaping me here as to what to call the wide area in front of the window....not a bay window or window seat or anything like that, but I digress.  With moisture in this country like CrAzY, I was having a horrendous time trying to keep that area clean from moisture, dirt, mold, oil, and general kitchen grime.  The racks lifts things off the counter and allows me to very easily clean underneath.  Even though I know I am not explaining it clearly, I am very happy with the new rack.

Rainy here and a bit stormy.  Seems like at least once a week now we are getting this storms that rattle the house.  Wind pressure.  Wonder if Tomo will have a bloody nose at some point in the night.  We are getting hail and heavy rains and a few errant lightening bolts that rocks the whole house and rattles all the individuals living in the house.  Winter is coming.  BUT hopefully the rain will start to subside, because all the rain lately would equal amounts of snow that I don't care to think about.  

Had a fun weekend.  Seemed like the weekend was about gathering up materials, preparing for, or having the event held at ECS yesterday.  We had a good group of kids.  We made decorations, decorated for Christmas, and ate yummy foods.  It was a nice time.  The highlight I think was when the icicle lights were hung and we cut off the overhead lights and just sat drinking in the soft glow of the icicle lights.  Literally.  Enjoying hot cocoa, hot apple cider, and brownies. We got in home late, as in past the kids bedtimes.  We hurried them all to bed, but waking up this morning was hard.  

Finally got my shopping list ready for the week.  I did have the menu already in place more than a week ago.  I just hadn't gotten around to getting the list ready to go.  Now I need to polish off some school plans.  I am trying to change some things around a bit in order to help one of my kiddos do a better job in timeliness.  It may be that we are honing into something that may really work.  Here's hoping.

First I just wanted to wish my parents a very happy anniversary!  I am so thankful for the example of love and commitment that they set for my younger brother and me.

Today is December 1st.  Today my decided that that must be some sort of magical switch, because the scene around us went from fall to winter all today.  Tomo was all excited about the snow he saw falling this morning.  I kept telling him that it wont stick because the ground is too warm and it was too early in the day that the temperatures would get a little warmer.  Corey told him that the first snow isn't very much.  Low and behold, the temperatures got colder and the snow actually managed to accumulate quite a bit.

The mountains were the most dramatic change for me.  They went to their fading brilliance of fall to all neatly covered in white.  As we returned home from our errands this afternoon, it was quite a spectacular sight.

Winter is here.

On my way to orchestra. This is how I will spend my last hours of November. It has been a full month from concerts to Thanksgiving to growing a year older.
Looking forward to see what December has in store for us.