Day Three, A stroll through the gardens

This day came at a perfect time in the trip.
I was tired of walking around the cities with these "shoppers" and just wanted to enjoy what there was to see in Japan.
So me and a new good friend (who's music you really need to check out here) just took off with the two of us, our subway passes and our cameras. And of course I can't forget the good conversation! The gardens were so gorgeous. We ran into a darling group of school girls who had a blast trying to talk to us. We found many old ladies painting in the gardens. Discovered how they keep the trees up once the branches get too long, which is what gives them their unique shape. And found the biggest flower I've ever seen. It was bigger than the palms of both hands places side by side.
If you look at some of the skylines, you'll still see the buildings in the background... which was strange to be someplace quite the opposite of everything surrounding it, but being able to see both at the same time.

Day two in Nippori

On day two I headed up with this time only a group of 5 to the old town of Nippori. This being one of the older cities having made it through all the bombings. This was very unlike the downtown Tokyo where we stayed. Nippori was a smaller city full of homes and local shopping. I loved this stop and wanted so badly to take Matt back to this charming village.







The first thing I saw when stepping out from the subway, which was a great way to travel once we figured it out, is this view of the distant Tokyo. A reminder of where we really are.








But a short walk up about ten steps and rounding the corner you see this. You instantly forget the view just seen and find nothing but houses lining little roads, in a very old town. It's beautiful, serene and very quiet.







The houses are so close together there is only room for one narrow car to squeeze into a garage. You can see part of one starting to pull out here, which I thought helped show the spacing between these homes. It was interesting to walk by one of the homes and little american flag hanging in a window.







First stop was to one of the oldest Shinto shrines in Tokyo. Of course, as was everything thing else, it was just beautiful and peaceful. This Buddha is one of the oldest, and I love how time takes its hold on things, giving everything more character.







Before entering the temples, those there to worship the Gods clean themselves to gain worthiness to enter. They wash each hand, and then touch the water to their lips.







I loved the detail put into everything, even their rain spouts.







Walking out of the shrine we find a historical cemetary. This was the front of the cemetary. I loved the blue bike, with all the surrouding green. I loved the stillness here, and looking at this helps to remind me that stillness can be good.







This is a "headstone" as we we call it. When someone dies, they are cremated and placed with the rest of the family. So what you see here would have an entire family under there. On the front of the tall stone the prayer is written and along the side of the stone will have the name of all the family members placed there. There are 4 holders in front, two for flowers and two for candles. Certain years (first, 5th, 10th, ect) after someone has passed, they do another memorial service for them. Each time a service is done, they place a stick with a prayer on it behind the stone. Some of those stones had so many sticks you couldn't count. It was amazing.







This was an entrance to another cemetary. There are more of those lens flares (or spirits, depending on what you believe). I wish I knew what all of those said.







A typical road here in the little villa of Nippori.







A roof top in Nippori.

For the rest of the day I took Matt to the Manji shrine back closer to where we were staying, since he hadn't seen it yet. It was a good day, and so far the food was pretty good!

Finally, journaling parts of my journey

The flight over to Japan was over 24 hours. It was long, long and longer. I LOVED Japan, but I almost don't know if the flight is worth going again. :( We left Georgia at 4:30am on Sunday and arrived in Japan around 10pm Monday night. We were tired, but everyone kept saying to stay up as late as we could to help with the time change. So we managed to stay up until around midnight, at which point I thought I was going to fall over. Like it or not, I was going to bed.





So first thing in the morning I headed out with a group of 10 others. All of which were girls but one poor gentleman who had no other guys, so stayed with us. None of us wanted to go out on our own, so we stuck together whether we liked it or not. The first day for me would be the "or not". They girls really wanted to shop, but by shop it was speed walking through towns and finding all the high-end stores. This here is the Prada building. Notice how small the people are at the bottom of the pict. This building was just Prada and was made entirely of glass. It was pretty...





I also ran across this. The houses are just shoved in anywhere they'll fit. Plus I thought the stone walls with moss were just cool. Japan doesn't leave anything unattended. Everything looked good and was so kept up. It was amazing. Never once (until we went way out to the suburbs)did we see a single peice of litter. They don't even have public garbage cans. They all take their garbage home with them to throw away?!?! Can you imagine if we tried that here. We really are lazy.





After our "shopping" excursion we headed over to the Manji shrine. It was this oasis in the middle of "city". It was so bizarre to find it there, but also a wonderful way to get away. I loved these lanterns they have for their street lights. I found this on the way into the shrine, which I found kind of funny because if you look at the picture there is a lense flare. Some say those are the deceased, lingering around, that for a brief moment were caught in a visible form here. I'm not saying I beleive that, but I did capture it on temple grounds.....





I just loved this fence. Like I said, they check every detail and don't do anything half way. This too was on the walk to the shrine. It was about a 15 minute walk on a gravel road through nothing but trees. It was a beautiful way to find a shrine hidden back away from all the business of the world around.






This was the entrance to the actual shrine. The Manji shrine is a Shinto shrine. Japan has Shinto and Buddist. The Shinto is my favorite. They are very "zen". It's the only word I can think of for it. Simple. Clean. Quiet.





Through this door is where they go to give their prayer. It was very neat to watch. Before entering for prayer, they clean themselves, which I will show pictures of later. They then walk up the stairs and into the actual shrine. You go in and stand at this altar made of wood. They walk up in front of it and bow. They then clap their hands twice, to get the attention of the gods. They then bow again. Next they bow in prayer and remain in the bow until done it the prayer. When finished, they then clap two more times. I love getting to watch different cultures and how they do things.





This was found out in front of the shrine. These are prayers written on pieces of wood. You can buy a specific prayer, and although I couldn't read them, there were over 200 different prayers hanging there. Once you pick your prayer you take it home and hang it on your wall for an entire year. At the year mark they then burn the prayer in faith that it will then be granted to them.





More buildings on the grounds of the shrine.

The beginning of the end of the beginning

Okay, so people are complaining about not getting the story on our trip to Asia, but now that I've recovered I have to mention the most important thing...

Matt GRADUATED!!!

WooHoo!!!

Saturday we went to the awards ceremony, and then all day Monday we were at the graduation program. It was really nicely done, and not a corny program that some schools put on. Either way though, I think I would have loved it because it meant that we were done. No more school! My baby did it!




Now for the other big news... we don't have to move! Matt took a new job with Abbott as an Area Buisness Advisor. It's kind of like a director position, but at the same time is different. I can't tell you yet, since I really don't know. But either way, it's a new job! He turned in his two weeks to Kimberly-Clark last Thursday and his official "last day" is the 19th. This new job is here in the same city we currently live, and is even one exit closer! So now we just get to figure out what this means to be a family with two parents IN the house! I couln't be happier right now.

*sigh*
(and thats the relieved kind!)

There's no place like home!

I'm home again. Yea! It was an amazing two weeks, with some crazy stories (which if course I'll share with you), but for now I just want to sleep. It was 13 hours different in Japan, and 12 in China. For some reason the jet lag wasn't bad at all going, but it's brutal coming home. They say you get back an hour a day....so I've got a couple of weeks! Tomorrow I'll see if I can post a few pictures and start my journey. Right now though, the best journey I can think of is to the bed! Until tomorrow....sweat dreams!

Just about out of here!

So the time is finally here. I'm off. We're off. We're headed to Japan and China for a whole two weeks.

Ummm, we leave in 4 hours.

I guess that means we should probably try to get some sleep because who knows what these next 14 hours on a plane are going to be like.

Man I'm going to miss my kids!!

Really

So I was trying to get the kids to clean up their rooms tonight. These last few weeks have been a very giving relationship. You give me the time I need to paint, I'll give you full run of the house. It worked great. But now it's time to un-run the house.

The kids were acutally cooperating and not complaining really. A lot of playing in between picking up, which is much better than pouting or arguing! So as my kids clean their room, anything that doesn't belong in their room they put in the hall outside their door (I have no idea why, or where they go this ingenious idea). Getting them to realize they still have to pick that up and put it away is a little harder of a concept. "But it isn't mine" is the common utterance. Well tonight I even got them to pick all of that up. If that is picked up, we can finally see the bottom layer of things-they-don't-have-to-pick-up.

The garbage

I don't know why, but they don't think they have to pick that stuff up. They throw it back on the floor when they realize what it is. So tonight, Bug picked up a piece of paper to see what it was. Decided it was not needed and threw it back on the floor. This was a paper he used to play with that day, and no longer wanted. I asked him what it was. He picked it back up and said "garbage". Then get this... he threw it back on the floor. With me standing right there. Um, hello? The conversation went like this:

"Why'd you do that?"
"It was garbage"

"Who do you think is going to pick up what you just throw on the floor like that?"
"You"

The kid didn't even blink an eye. Yup. Lets just say he didn't leave that paper on the floor too much longer. Lets figure out why there's no picture with this post. Hmm, I have a feeling it wouldn't have been to pretty!

So I'm not really mad though (okay, I was a little steamed at the scene of the crime but am doing much better now), more just flabbergasted. Really? He said that? To me?

I am as HERE as I want to be.

I am trying to be more in the moment with my life. My kids aren't going to stay this age forever, but I WILL always have bills to pay no matter how little or much we make.



My kids aren't going to want to play house when they're 15, but I will ALWAYS have dishes to clean.




My kids aren't going to be so willing to tell me EVERYTHING in their life, but I will alway have a phone call I need to make.






There are too many things I'm missing out on because I'm always worried about what's on the list for the day. Or that I didn't pay a bill. I know I can't just forget all that stuff, but I shouldn't dwell on it. It's not productive. Either go and pay the bill right away, so I can spend that time with my kids, or write it down and work on it when they are asleep. Or just simply say no. I can't do this with everything, but I can do it with so much more than I do now. I always have thoughts rambling through my head. This said, those thoughts are taking me away from all those little expressions Ase makes while eating lunch. Or when the kids play with a flashlight in the dark of the bathroom. It seems I would rather be inside my head, planning on how to make things better. If I would just stop and look at what I have in front of me, I'd realize.

It can't get much better.

Move or no move. Job or no job. This is my family and I don't want to miss out on these beautiful blessings I have been given. I am finding that the GREATEST reward to being a stay at home mom is that I'm able to see all these little moments. These are my "paydays". I would be a lot richer if I didn't pass them all up with unconscious thought.

"I don't need more attention. I don't EVER want to make something into another way of saying 'here I am'. Because I am as here as I want to be."

Time to let things be, and enjoy.

Because I am here.

Yard pick-up is tomorrow!!

My neighbors are going to be so glad to have all my mess picked up tomorrow. Ase will to for that matter. she loves to sit at the curb. She'll sit there for an hour with the newspaper, a book or some snacks. It doesn't matter. And obviously my tree-age didn't deter her any. Love it! The best was watching her try to wave to all the cars as they drove by. The only think making it so they could see her was the pink top!




I just had to put up a couple pictures of our sky tonight. A little dark, but the color was incredible (in the actual sky). These obviously don't do it justice. And the weather was perfect. Still a warm 70 degrees at 8pm. Now that's what I'm talking about!

Sigh and Breath... and then smile

I have three radom tulips that bloom in my yard. They somehow survived the lack of care from previous owners. They are just about on their way out, and had to snap a picture of one of them. I don't know what it is about them, but they are amazing flowers. So bold, yet so delicate at the same time.




So it's probably a good thing I didn't have a computer the last couple of days. I was just in one of those spaces where I don't think I was to pleasant to talk to. Or be around (those poor kids). I was sick of everything, but had no way to get away from any of it. I ended up doing nothing all day and then staying up until about 2am, watching old Oprahs and for some reason that's all I needed. I was back at work.

I've since taken down some more forest in the front yard, painted two more rooms, changed some more door knobs (we're at 25 now!), changed the smoke detectors, changed out yet another light fixture and fixed two leaky faucets. It's been good. Really good. I also almost caught up on the bills and budget. That should probably be top priority at this point, but I thought that was easier to do while the kids were awake, so I'll paint now. I just finished the final coat on the bathroom, I may have to do the hall in my room, but I'm undecided. so I'm waiting for some more opinions before I make myself to do. If I can avoid it I will. I never thought I would say I was tired of painting. There really isn't much left in this house to paint. Just the stairs and railing, the crown molding in my room (I'm desperatly waiting for Matt to be around so I don't have to try and reach that again) and that should be it. We've then painted just about every square foot of this house. Wait, I've just about painted every square foot of this house.

I have a feeling if we move I'll jump right back into the painting again. That's just me!

First Spring BBQ

Mmmmm. This Friday and Saturday night Matt and I went out.

Without the kids.

Whoohoo! Matt turned in his final two projects this weekend. He is done. Well, after the Japan trip. It was wonderful. We actually spent some brief time together. We grilled outside. We had some of the best hamburgers, carmalized onions, polenta and some ice cream to top it all off.



Bug loved spending some "guy" time with his dad on the grill. It was sweet. They made the whole dinner, well except the ice cream ;)... on the grill. He was in heaven.




The girls both loved having their dad home too, but the best part for Ase was getting to be outside! It was a wonderful night. We were all tired and exhausted from the week/s, but the time together was something very much needed. Now I'm in withdrawl. Matt's gone for the entire week, and I'm back to my huge list of repairs.




Funny how one day can be so splendid and the next so lonely. That's life, and I can't complain too much. If there weren't the hard times, I wouldn't recognize the good ones. So I have to say I'm grateful for them all, but right now I'm ready for more the the good ones!

Can you Here or There? Can you find it anywhere?

So although it's way past Easter, in all my yard work I've come to realize just how many Easter Eggs may lay hidden with the possibility of never being found. Atleat by the intended recipient. There are some eggs I've found from way before we ever moved in. Candy still in there! It's actually kind of fun to think of all the years this house has seen, with all the kids and Holidays. We weren't the first to intorduce this house to all there is, we are just adding a little to it's history. So in leu of what I've been finding outside, I just had to ask.... can you find an egg anywhere in this photo. It's there, I promise!

Let the birds sing

Every night we say bed time prayers with the kids. For the last week, every night, Nutmeg has a request.




"Please let the birds sing to me while I sleep."




It seems, when she wakes in the morning the birds are chirping outside her window, and she thinks they've been doing the entire time while she's been asleep. My favorite though, is that she noticed. How many of us even take the time to notice, let alone pray to hear the birds sing?

Oh the lessons I can learn from my kids!

There's more than a beginning, middle and end

Hello! It's been some time. There has been much prep work going on here for our move to Chicago. Yard (me), painting (me), cleaning (again- me) and finishing our last week of school (him!). Whew! Hopefully I'll have some pictures of the yard up soon. We've had some horrible wind which blew a bunch of stuff on the newly mulched beds, but it still looks much better than it did! And of course after doing all this to the house it just makes me want to stay all the more. (by the way...the girls in the picture, I love these guys. I don't know what I'd do without them in my life)

Tonight I heard something which I really liked. It was said that life is no longer viewed as having three major parts to it. The beginning, the middle and the end. Now there are many short stories to make up the big production. There is no longer young, mid-life crises, and old.

There's the twenties when you start to take control of your life. There's the thirties when you really are finding out who you are. The fourties you grab the bull by the horns. The fifties are when you have the time to be who you have always wanted to be. It keeps going. The 80's aren't just something you reach. They are something you achieve. Being old isn't the end of the book. When I hit thirty, it shouldn't be that big of a deal. I've moved on to another short story, which I can make even better than the last. That's how it works when you write, or do anything for that matter. The more you do it, the better you get. So each of our stories should work this way too, right? There is no order. Each production is unique to the writer. I think that's the best part.

This is ours to write, and there is no wrong other than to not write at all.

So I am going to write.

Something bright for a dull day

It's been amazing here lately. Remember back when I was loving the grey days? Well, we've had grey days ever since. In fact, last Saturday we had tornados, as you probably already have heard. 14 of them to be exact, and still counting. Yup. But I think they sucked all the sun out of this place along with the warmth. We are at a couldy 63 degrees today, which is chilly for this place right now and tomorrow has more thunder storms in tow. Last Easter we were outside taking easter pictures on the green grass next to the green plants in the warm sunny weather. I think we'll have to get more creative this year. And I told Matt I didn't want to move to Seattle for the lack of sun! I guess we really should enjoy it while it's here though, because in a couple of months we are going to be BEGGING for that cooler weather to come back! On the bright side though, look what I was still able to find. Looking at this it doesn't seem to gloomy after all does it?!

Looking out and up

I was just thinking about something. Fancy that! I think I"m okay with getting older. Really.

Probably starting around in high school, we seem to want to make ourselves different. We want to find ourselves. We want others to see what it is that we have found about us. So we wear the goofy headband (to stand out), we wear the newest trend (to show we are ahead of everyone else), we wear what's not in style (to show we don't care), we act spoiled, like a clown, reserved, we get the good grades, we get the bad grades, we skip out on class, we become teachers pet, overly involved in activies, or not involved at all.... you could metion just about everything and anything here. Why?

We long to find who it is that we are. We also want to show this off, because somehow in doing that, we think it will further define who we are. But notice how that doesn't ever seem to stand up in time? If only we knew all these "masks" were having the opposite effect. The harder we try to show who we are, the less we really are showing. However there is something that happens through the years to all of us. Atleast those of us who are willing to let it happen.

We find ourselves. Our true selves.

Somthing only time can help us to accomplish. It seems that most of us find who we really are, long after those years in which we knew. We relax. We aren't so worried about showing who we are, allowing what inside to venture out. Look at all those men and women out there you admire. How old are they? 20? Usually not. Try 30, or 40. 50 or 60. It doesn't matter. It seems the more time, the more sure of who they really are. There are always those who were able to find this in themselves after a short amount of time here in this life, but for the rest of us, time is on our side. Really. Every year draws us closer to that moment of meeting, when the surface meets the inner you. I love every year, as I let my guard down and realize more and more of who I really am.

It's amazing. And I can't wait until I watch my daughters find out who they really are, and share it with the world. This is after all a big part of what we are here for.

Bubbles and bubbles and bubbles and bubbles

Have you ever seen those bubbles that don't pop? They have some type of plastic in them, so when you blow them, they don't pop like the regular bubbles do. They form their bubble, and stay there. They will stay for days if you leave them alone. You have to actually poke one, or smash it to get them to pop. They are great. My kids absolutley love them.

Especially Ase.

She loves that she actually able to catch these ones. So being the good big brother he is, Bug asked if he could blow some bubbles for the girls. "Sure" I replied, glad to have them entertained while I did the dishes. Next thing I know, Ase is repeating "Uh-Oh" in a very concerned fashion. I walk out to see what is going on, and could do nothing more than grab the camera... then the vacuum. The entire rug in the family room was covered with bubbles. I had a hard time getting any pictures with the lighting in the room, but you can see there are more than just a few here. This is what the entire rug looked like. It was crazy. Luckily I did find out the white film they leave behind does vacuum up. Otherwise we'd all still be sitting there picking it out. Whew!

The best part about the whole thing though, is I snapped this picture of Ase. I love her big brown eyes. It's hard to capture what they really look like, and I think this might have done the trick!

One last cup?

It was just one of those days. The days where you don't do anything.

Literally.

It's now way past bed time and the only thing I've done today is feed the kids 3 meals. I won't say they were great meals. But they were meals. No showers. No baths. No getting dressed. No cleaning. No venturing outside of the house(heaven forbid someone saw me like this!). No answering the phone... unless you're one of the lucky ones. Nothing. Lets just say I can count the things done on one hand. So what made this day turn out like this. I know we are the ones that are in control of how our days go. So why did I choose this today and what does it mean? There has to be something hidden deep in me that would explain this. It would be nice to know, so I might learn how to possibly avoid these days.

I can't imagine all the things I could do if I were one of those ultra motivated people. You know the ones I'm talking about. The ones who have 7 kids, a job they work from home with, the time to volunteer for everything, manage to have a to-do list with only 3 items on it, showered, worked out, eaten 3 full meals, and will still have sex before they go to bed. Hair and make-up always look great, they never forget a birthday or appointment, and will call you back withing an hour of leaving them a message.

Nope. That's not me. You aren't my friend because of any of these traits. You are my friend because, well... I'm me. I do have a day or two where I pull this off, but that's all I can manage. That's okay. I don't know that I'd want that life. I just wish I knew what caused these days. Maybe I'll try to figure it out tomorrow. Or maybe not. It'll be awhile before I get that far down on my to-do list! Until then, I'll be the one who knows how to sit down to a cup of hot chocolate, the final one until next winter, and not feel guilty about it. Anyone want to join me? No guilt here, just a good relaxing time of doing nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

Until the next day of nothing - enjoy.

Perfect and perfectly Grey

Today really was one of those perfect days. Not because of what was there, but maybe because of what wasn't. Many times I kept finding myself just sitting out on the front porch and just being. Not anything in particular, just being. Days like today seem to almost always bring these feeling out in me. Nostalgia. Who knows what for. Something in the past, or something in the future. Or maybe, it's just nostalgia for the exact moment your are in.




The sky was grey. Really grey. There wasn't any color to it. Even the clouds took on a hue of grey, with enough contrast so as not to blend in with the sky. Any they were traveling very quickly to wherever they were going. But it didn't seem to matter any, because there were always just as many to follow behind and fill the what would have been left as empty sky. Down on the ground there wasn't any wind at all. It was calm, as if everything were in a deep and peaceful sleep. The air was moist and cool, but not at all cold. And the ground stayed wet all day, although barely a drop of rain fell upon it. In the distance you could hear a low rumble. Distant enough to make you wonder if it was just a plane passing through, or maybe it really was thunder after all. It was all perfect!



I tried to take pictures, because I just didn't want to let this moment pass. I wanted to be able to hold on to it. But Grey with grey with grey just doesn't translate the same on film. Unfortunate really. I did come up with a couple I liked (the first one is one of my favorites), but there aren't many. Maybe if I really knew what I was doing with the camera I could have come up with something cool, but it is what it is! Either way, I love these days. And to top it all off, inbetween my wanderings on the porch outside, I cleaned. I really cleaned. Bleached most of the house down. It felt good. Half the main floor is done. Tomorrow I will conquer the rest. Too bad there's supposed to be snow. I think I might enjoy another grey day to go along with it all. Sigh. -but that's a content sigh non-the-less! Funny how much the weather really can and does affect us "weather" we like it or not....lol!

Spring in February

These are one of the reasons I love living in Georgia. I mean, really. Most of this country has no idea how good it is to move on from winter to see the flowers in February. It's been 70 degrees outside the last couple of days.

Never mind we are going to have a snow flurry tomorrow. Even those are pretty feeble here. Winter is great, for a month. You hunker down, pull out the sweaters and blankets. Start the logs in the fire, and pull out all the mugs.

But after about a month of that, or less with kids, you're done.




And it seems that around here, when you get to that point and say "I'm done" someone listens.

The sky opens up and starts to pour out the sunshine. The flowers start to creep out the the buds start growing on the trees. Now is the time you will see all of us out here doing our gardening, getting things ready. Blowing the sprinklers out just in case they ever lift the ban on outdoor watering. Doing the final trim on the dogwoods so they'll bloom just perfectly. I love it! Ahhh! Makes me want to actually get out there and do yard work.

Who knows. Maybe I'll be posting pictures of the outside of our house for once!




And of course the kids love it outside too. They can't wait to get out there and play every day. And lucky for me they are getting old enough they can do just that while I visit with friends, or do actually get my hands dirty. Spring is just so inspiring. So full of life. So hopefull.

Really, for me, it's just a breath of fresh air!