move in and out

We own three cars. Strangely enough, none of them is Toyota. Two Mazda and one Subaru. Anyhow it's about our parking space. We have only one garage for Mazda MPV(my car) and two others(theirs!)are sitting outside in tandem along on the approach way to our house.
Now this brings me an annoying chore especially when my husband and my son are not home. Our carpenters or gardeners come to work for a whole day so I have to give parking space for their trucks. See, they are not my cars but theirs! As a result I drive two cars one after another and park them along the road just in front of our gate one by one.
Then at the end of the day, after all the men drive home in their trucks, I back two cars into the space in tandem again. Don't you think it's annoying. My neighbors always gives me a smile when I am right at this work. I think I can drive any types of cars if you ask me.

a skilled and experienced gardener

So this is one of the stories about the trip to Kyoto this past Monday.
There we saw one old man at "Ken-nin-ji" temple in Kyoto.
There are some gardens of different sizes inside the huge temple grounds and this man was working in its main garden covered with mosses sitting while picking tiny maple buds in mosses one by one with his tiny tweezers. Since he was working right beside the walkway we're on, I just can't help stopping and start talking with him about how to take care of mosses.
He looked surprised when I started talking to him. I'm pretty sure visitors likely refrain from talking to the gardeners at work.
This old man, however, was nice enough to stop for a while and talk about his job and he answered some questions I made. I was so happy that he enjoyed talking with me about the topic.
I learned some new knowledge from him.
A ground condition is so important to grow mosses and once soil gets so hard as years pass by, mosses likely get damages because drain empties very slowly. According to him, at Kenninji temple, they use very well-drained soil best suited for mosses. Guess what? One of the best is very fine crashed used-roof tiles. It is amazing and already shows an eco-life, isn't it?
This is almost impossible to change garden soil completely in an ordinary house like ours. But what he recommended to me is if some part of mosses run dry, I should groom them and repeatedly cover them with good dry soil and water them. Wow, it sounds very difficult and naturally need lots of tries and errors.
There are some other tips he told me. Such as to use a rake made of good and dried bamboo. It's so impressive he thinks bamboo cut down in October makes the best results. He said so proudly "That is the best! And you know the difference." He added "Groom the surface every day with a bamboo rake and don't forget to water them twice a day in the morning and in the evening. Good luck!"
My daughter smiled at me saying "Mom, you can start it from tomorrow." "Well, well, well-----" (the reason is here)
Oh we had a wonderful talk with a nice and kind master of gardening.

Kenninji temple was founded about 700 year ago and is reagarded one of the important Zen sect temples in Japan. Official site is here.

I'm reviewing my trip to Kyoto

I'm uploading this from my cell phone. I'll be back soon. My PC is quite all right-----hopefully.

Need to rest?

My PC performance is so slow for the moment. I've got to see what's the problem. It's so irritating. I feel like I was shut down from any doors to go out from a house. Any windows seem to be a bit small for me to get out! I need the Door to the world wide web! I may not update for a moment. Wait for me.

Lucky Monday!

I went to Kyoto! How lucky! My appointment was canceled and i got a day off on Monday. Hurray! I called up my daughter and asked whether she had any time with me. She did. It was cloudy and started raining in the evening but it didn't ruin our day at all. We walked and walked and enjoyed the beginning of Spring in Kyoto. We had lunch and dinner together. It was such a good time to enjoy girls talk(if you might say)until the last minute I got a train back home. I'll tell more about this visit.
This photo is one of the popular slopes leads to the very famous temple.

Fun to check

Most of the popular morning newspapers in Japan hold files of inserts in the middle almost every day. They are from all kinds of shops like the neighboring department stores, drug stores, grocery stores , car dealers, real-estate companies, gyms, community colledges--- all sorts. It's really fun to check one by one to know what is going on at each store. These newspaper inserts are full-colored and very eye-catching. The one I never miss among them is from the Takashimaya Department stores and another is from Tokyu-hands which deal with daily goods from stationery to DIYstuff. Checking these ads in the morning over a cup of coffee after I finish some chores is one of my favorite past time. What about the newspaper you subscribe? Does it hold paper inserts? Are they good enough to draw your attention?

Until next year "Good bye"

Hinamatsuri(Dolls Festival) was over on March 3. It's time to putting Hina dolls back to each box. Hina dolls are quite special in a way that they are displayed for a short period of time up until the day of Hinamatsuri March 3 and should be kept in boxes until the next year. It's been raining for these days after March 3 and I don't have them back into boxes in a damp weather for fear of getting stained or spots on their silk wear and on their faces. I was waiting for a clear weather and it was today after a long cold rainy weather. It took time to finish carefully but I enjoyed this as much as I did when I displayed them.
It's like a farewell party to say good-bye to your dear friend. I'll see them next year at the same time of the season.
See also the post I wrote last year.

Just want to share this!

Aren't they cute! A friend of mine's dog(pomeranian) gave birth to three babies. I went to see them! They never got me bored any minutes. They are really something! They never stay still. I took this picture with my cell phone camera, which I believe, is hard to get a perfect shot. They are much more adorable in real life.

Does your cell phone have a hole?

Here! Actually it's like a thread hole------one in and one out.

Japanese cell phone models regardless of manufacturer companies have holes at either upper side of bodies.

What about yours? Does it have a hole? What is it for, then?

These are for cell phone straps!

See more below in an album. Some are mine and my friends' and from the web.

Why do we love to put straps on our cell phones so much?
Well, it is probably related pretty much with our
ancient custom of using "netsuke" which is a hanging object we use in kimono.
It might be fun if I talk about it in my next post.

Until then, enjoy a bit more images of cell phone straps from google images.
here!

Time's up!

Today our volunteer group has a monthly study meeting to interpret. We have two topics from the recent news. It's such a nice meeting for me to participate. With a group of friends whom I am always impressed with their enthusiasms for learning the foreign language , this get-together gives me much inspiration to keep up with my own study.

I'm running out of time though. I feel a bit reluctant about joining this meeting today since along with the paper work over the past few days I haven't prepared enough for today.

Just wish me luck!

"Participation is what counts!" Right?

What a mess!

I'm not happy about my desk. It's not wide enough to handle paper works to do.

I'm a member of a volunteer group of about 30 interpreters in English, Spanish and French and we are registered for the Aichi International Association in Aichi prefecture. Since March is the month for every prefectural volunteer group to renew a registration, as a matter of routine, I have a lot of paper works to do. Besides an official registration form, I have to hand out several papers such as a group bylaws, a members list, a newsletter to report our activities, a leaflet and the like. It's really time consuming. I need to ask the rest of our staff members to check all those papers before printing out. I'd been working on this almost for a week. Well we're almost done, anyway.

Then another job is waiting for me. We have a workshop in April and the staffs are busy getting ready for searching enough materials for interpreting lessons on the subject of "COP10" and "the citizen judge system in Japan." Whew---- sounds tough, isn't it?

As a result, my desk is a mess. I need a bigger desk but what comes next after I get one. I believe it will be another mess after all.