Life's a Stitch

I found a list of goals for retirement, written over ten years ago. I am grateful we’ve exceeded the ten year mark, happy and healthy. It’s the luck of the draw I suppose, so many sad stories.

Back to the report card, I’ve only reached maybe half of the ten goals, but have achieved many new ones.  

First on the list, not in order of importance was to improve my Spanish speaking skills. Although it was my mother’s first language, I forever confused it with French, my high school act of rebellion. I have studied many languages in high school, university, continuing education and Duolingo: Latin, French, Spanish and German. I wouldn’t consider myself proficient in any. I can do tourist Spanish and ask where my key is in German. Perhaps I lack an aptitude for foreign language skills.

Second was to develop my watercolour skills. Ding, ding, ding, definitely achieved that one. I have a healthy supply of ongoing commission work and show sales have been good.

Third: jewelry making. Nope. That time has been dedicated to my artwork.

#4 Yoga with balls. What the heck is that? 

#5 Sort stuff  🤣🤣🤣 I did buy Marie Kondo’s first book. I guess stuff sparks joy in me.

#6 Organize photos. Ha! I have 55,000 pictures on my phone and 200+ albums, so perhaps that qualifies as organization.

#7 Rescue the blog from Typepad to assure its existence in perpetuity. Success! I need to put my intentions in my will so the funding continues for a few generations; an important bit of family history.

8 & 9 have to do with improving photography and photo editing skills. It’s an ongoing process mainly iPhone-centric, but I haven’t used an actual camera in years.

#10 Convert written recipes to typed. There are easy ways to achieve this digitally, but my style of eating has changed, so fewer will need conversion.

Funny list that was, I wouldn’t have achieved an impressive grade on that one. I’m happy, though, with what might be considering credit for actual life experience, covered in another post.

The tunnel being a long day of travel home, the light being the magnificent sunset as we were landing.

We are so fortunate to have had the opportunity to attend the wedding of Kirsten (Chuck’s nephew’s daughter) and Ben in Galesburg, Illinois. 

Four days of celebrating started with a family dinner where we reminisced with the bride’s dad about his wedding over 40 years ago, where we were the young’uns listing to the old folks talk about their hearing aids. Now we’re on the other end of that spectrum 🙀

On Saturday we drove to Macomb, Illinois for the ceremony with a stop at the wrong location, where we were invited by a father of the bride of another wedding, to attend their’s if we couldn’t find our’s. Luckily we were only 15 minutes from the correct location. Long story. 

A four year old diva was the flower girl, wearing a dress the bride wore as a flower girl.

The happy couple.

Day three was a family reunion at Boecrest, the 40 acre rural property of the bride’s parents. It was a daylong feast honouring the Greek and Scandinavian backgrounds of the two families: 

Pit roasted lamb and pork.

Toasts of akvavit and ouzo, this one by Uncle Chuck.

The traditional marzipan kransekake made by Auntie Ellen. 

A hayride was fun for all ages.

The fourth day included a breakfast hosted by the bride’s grandmother, Betty, from Phoenix. From there it was a four state day, driving back from where we flew in, Minnesota, from Illinois, through Wisconsin and Iowa, including geocaching in two new states.

All in all a wonderful whirlwind of a trip.

The South Rock Art Tour was a success for these two artists of Beachview.art. The weather was perfect and a constant stream of art lovers came through the house and sales were steady. It was also an opportunity to exchange ideas and helpful info with other visiting artists. And we made new connections with people in the area that we hope to meet again. 

Transforming the main level of the house into a gallery was no small feat, but it worked out well.

These old folks are usually winding down by 9:00 and the preparation work required two 1:30a.m. nights in a row. It was a lot of work with a couple of hard lessons learned for another time, but it was worth it. 

I completed this post in ten minutes as opposed to an hour on our old platform. Photos uploaded instantly. What a relief to know that Lifesastitch has a new life on WordPress.

Chuck and I are participating in this year’s art tour.

We are number 14 on the official map available on their website.

https://www.southrockarttour.com

There will be a selection of my original watercolour paintings, prints and art cards.

Hope to see you next weekend.

We’ve made it to our new home, but it will take some time to fine tune it. In the meantime we’ll continue to post and you can look forward to changes in format and style.

After 21 years, with over a year of technical difficulties, in their last email to me Typepad threw up their hands in defeat:

"Hello-

We're sorry that you continue to encounter problems uploading images.
We understand your frustrations; we're frustrated too.

Unfortunately, we don't have any suggestions other than to upload the
image again if you encounter an error or the image doesn't display
correctly. We know this is not a solution, nor ideal, and we're sorry
about that.

We don't have any new information on a resolution at this time, but we
will let you know when we do. If you have any other questions, please
let us know."

Five days ago, Typepad let all their clients know that the platform will be shut down September 30th, meaning all data will have to be migrated to a new hosting site. I am in the proccess of doing just that and will let you know the new address before the 3oth. Then it will be time to play massive blog catch up. Thanks for your patience. 

 

Took the shin (bullet train) back to Yokohama. We booked seats on the correct side to see Mr. Fuji. There were clear blue skies before and after Fujiyama station, but the mountain was socked in.  I’m glad we had our glimpse on the first train. Back at the Grace Hotel we had an upgraded room that included traditional Japanese breakfast.

It cost less than our first night in an adequate room. It’s all about timing and what’s happening in the city.

The afternoon took us to a larger Uniqlo and a delightful store called Loft. My regret is that I didn’t spend more time there to shop for Japanese drawing and gel pens. Artists will understand. We had dinner at restaurant with the locals. The menu in pictures or plastic models of the offerings worked well for us.

Breakfast was an experience. We were asked if we wanted rice with fish or without. I was expecting a single fish draped across the bowl. Wrong. There were hundreds of tiny fish with little black eyeballs. They didn’t have much taste or texture, just added to the aesthetic lol.

Speaking of little fish, rather than being packed into the subway like sardines as we already had that experience in Kyoto, we took a taxi to the port. Boarding the ship was a breeze. We’ve taken many cruises, but this smaller ship was exceptional.

We went for an afternoon walk in this beautiful part of Yokohama. Chuck settled on a park bench while I walked the town looking for an art supply shop to no avail.

The ship was scheduled for two nights in Tokyo so we booked a full day tour for the second day. It made no sense to be so close and not see this epic city.

We visited Tokyo Tower for expansive views. It wasn’t disorienting enough to be at that height, but throw in wavy carpet plus clear glass floor panels to look straight down. 

Will continue Tokyo next time due to photo uploading issues.

The bullet train from Kyoto to Osaka took 14 minutes and cost around $55 for the two of us. That sounds expensive, but considering the distance covered, it was OK. 

We checked into our tiny room at the SmileOsaka hotel.

The afternoon was spent at a nearby mall where we had lunch in the seating/dining area of a nice grocery store. In Japan we learned two important things: you must not eat while walking. Children are trained at a young age to sit while eating. It is a way to be respectful of food. Second is that there are no trash cans as there is the expectation that you will haul your garbage with you to dispose of properly at home. When visiting North America, the Japanese must think we are quite uncivilized considering the garbage that ends up on the street.

After lunch we shopped at Daiso. In Canada the base price at Daiso is $2.50, in Japan the same items were $1.

On the way home the goal was to figure out how to get to the Expo site, about a half hour ride away. There were three choices: shuttle bus (only one every 30 minutes, requiring a reservation that was sold out for our 9:00 a.m. entry time, trains with three transfers, and a cab for $75. Taxis are expensive in Japan and Uber is not the same service we’re used to, it’s a means to book a cab company. Turns out the fare included an Expo toll for a direct road through the city, built specifically for expo. We took the taxi there and the bus home.

Expo was impressive site-wise, but they were not ready for the crowds. The app for advanced pavilion tickets was not working and lines were long.

We were lucky that the Canadian pavilion gave preference to Canadians, and of all the countries we saw, it was the most impressive. I suppose I’m biased. You entered a room with large iceberg shaped sculptures, while holding a tablet on a handle. As you aimed your tablet at the icebergs, scenes came to life. 

The site was surrounded by a raised wooden walkway, this section along the reflecting pond with a fountain show.

We also visited Poland, the Nordic Countries, the UK, a multi-national marketplace, and a corporate pavilion featuring nature and medical technology. It was there we tried the bed of the future.

We snacked throughout the day: my favourite pastel nata at the Portuguese pavilion, pizza from Japan’s famous 7-11 (where you can buy acceptable food including noodles, soup, and chicken, there’s one on every block) and at the food court I tried a curry bun, basically a delicious deep fried donut filled with curry.

The Portuguese pavilion had a nautical theme, hence the ropes decorating the outside of the structure.

After a long day of crowds and queuing we were more than ready to get on the bus back to town.

We decided to return to the restaurant of last night’s dinner, a steakhouse called Buff, two blocks from the hotel. We had lamb chops for an appetizer, followed by delicious steaks. The quality and price were excellent. Tonight we wanted to try the 100% beef burgers. Big disappointment, we thought the 100% referred to the amount of meat in the burger, when it really referred to the fact that the only meat in it was beef. There was a lot of filler, more like a meatloaf and gravy.

Next will be the trip back to Yokohama for one more night in the Grace Hotel prior to boarding our ship the following morning.