Food Poisoning

先週、食中毒になりました。お昼に食べたものにあたったらしい。夕方6時頃、なんか調子悪いな～、と思い始めたら、15分ぐらいでもう「あ、横にならないとだめかも」な状態になり、もうその後すぐにはスーパーの袋いくつかつかんで食中毒症状全開。下痢でトイレに座りつつ嘔吐する、という非常につらい夜をすごすことになりました。

一晩中全身が痛くて、一晩中トイレとベッドを往復してました。（往復する体力すらなく、ほぼトイレの床で寝ていた）回復するのに丸2日かかり、あんなに激しく具合が悪かったのは人生で初めてだね。

ちなみにユキは7歳にして「お手」を覚えたんだけど、7歳半にして今度は「ハイタッチ」を覚えました。年とっても、頑張ればできるもんだね。

At the age of 7, the dog learned to "shake," and at the age of 7 and a half, she has mastered (though somewhat inconsistently) the "high-five." An old dog can still learn new tricks.

I had food poisoning last week.

There must have been something wrong with what I ate for lunch that day. I began to feel queasy around 6 pm and in 15 minutes I had to lie down on a couch.

I could feel I was progressively feeling worse by the minute so I grabbed a couple of plastic bags and went to bed to lie down. In 30 minutes, I was violently sick.

Seriously, I had never been that sick before and I had never puked so many times in one day. One time during that evening, I was sitting on a toilet, having diarrhea, and throwing up at the same time. That was hard core. I have to thank MOTH for bringing me a fresh plastic bag every time I puked.

After the puking was over, the wave of diarrhea came every 30 minutes to an hour throughout the night. I was so dizzy and it was so difficult to make the walk to and from the bathroom. I stayed on the bathroom floor for a while but it was too cold to lie down on the floor, so the next time I was well enough to return to the bed room, I took the dog's bed with me to the bathroom. The high density foam dog bed was surprisingly comfortable. I spent half the night on the dog bed on the bathroom floor.

It was interesting that I wasn't really having any "stomach ache." Rather, my entire body, especially from my gut down to my knees, was in pain. I was tossing and turning and twisting all night long. I was also shivering. I was feeling freezing cold and had to double up a quilt.

Needless to say, it was a tough night. I barely slept (and neither did MOTH, poor fella). I felt better in the morning but I was nowhere near mobile condition and the poor dog did not get to go potty until MOTH came home from work (not that she cared much, she can easily hold pee for full 24 hours). It took me 2 full days of complete bed rest to recover. I can confidently say, it was the sickest I have ever been in my life.

My bowel movement did not return for 5 days after that horrible night. Although I'm totally back to normal now and eating normally, even after a week, my poo production is still on the mend. You know, food poisoning is a serious thing. "Poison" is exactly what it feels like.

One good thing out of this violently sick experience was that I renewed my appreciation of being healthy and being well. I'm generally in good health and rarely sick so I forget how bad it feels to be sick and sometimes I even envy people who is sick and gets to stay in bed. You know, not being sick is a wonderful thing. I should feel lucky to be well and healthy.

Shipment from UK

イギリスから送った荷物が届きました。予想はしていたけど、かなり悲惨な状態で運ばれてくる荷物にちょっとドキドキ。幸い衣装箱が壊れてた以外は見た目大丈夫そうです。月末また引っ越しなので、荷物は開けずにクローゼットにしまっておきます。
ユキは犬のベッドが戻ってきてうれしい模様。

Our personal goods shipment from UK has arrived.

The international move involves a lot of hands, and the moving goods are handled and transported so many times before they reach to the destination.

The boxed goods from our UK house were taken by the the UK movers into their truck. The goods were then transported to their warehouse, re-packaged as air cargo, then transported to the airport. From there, the pallets were loaded to the airplane and flew to the US (they might have taken a connecting flight, which means more loading and unloading). Once landed, the pallets had to go to cargo, go through customs, possibly move to the mover's warehouse or distribution center, then finally they were transported to the final destination.

After going through so many rough hands and rough roads (and who knows, rough air turbulence), the boxes looked pretty sad...

The stuff we packed were all safe and sound (except for the one bin that got smashed), but most of the stuff boxed by the UK movers were pretty much all smushed. To be honest, I knew this would happen. The UK movers' packing was less than stellar but I kept my mouth shut.

And I like how the US customs just ripped off boxes. The box that had my sewing machine was opened by US customs. The handle of the box was ripped off completely (probably from attempting to lift it out of the double box), and they slashed the outer box apart, leaving the outer box vulnerable to falling apart. Other boxes got ripped off in the middle of the side panel to poke through the contents. I totally understand what they have to do in a short time they have. I'm just sad that my sewing machine box got ripped! (I know it's only a box...)

Other than the few items we took out of this shipment, we just packed them back and put them all in the closed. We are moving in a couple of weeks so no reason to unpack.

At least the dog is happy to have her dog beds back.

New Year's Resolution 2019: The Wheel of Time

2019年の目標。月に1冊本を読む。
もともとあまり本を読むのが早いほうではないんだけど、英語で本を読むのは、慣れてはきたけど、時間はかかる。今読んでいるのはロバート・ジョーダンの「時の車輪」というファンタジーシリーズで、このシリーズ、なんと15冊もあるのです。長いよ、長すぎるよ、このシリーズ。（日本語訳版は1冊の本を5冊ぐらいの文庫に分けて出版されているらしい）今3巻目を読んでるんだけど、毎月1冊読めば今年中にシリーズ全巻制覇できるのです。
全巻制覇できるように頑張ります。

Let's follow the rule of goal setting: declaring it out loud and making it measurable.

My new year's resolution for 2019 is to read one book a month. I always made it my goal but almost never followed through.

You see, I grew up as a bookworm. I liked reading and I read quite a lot of books as a child. However, my reading habit sadly disappeared when I moved to the U.S. I was learning English so reading in English was itself a chore, and my reading speed was a snail's pace so it took a looooong time to read anything (it still does). I spent hours every day reading text books for school and I had no time for pleasure reading.

My reading speed in English is still quite slow. I'm kind of a person who reads out loud in my head. If you know any speed reading technique, you know that's not how you are supposed to read if you want to read fast.

Anyway, one book a month. I have set this goal before, and I'm setting it again for this year. One difference though, is that this year, it's a bit more specific: I am trying to finish reading The Wheel of Time series this year.

The Wheel of Time series is a fantasy novel by Robert Jordan, who unfortunately passed away after Book 11, so the last 3 books were finished by Brandon Sanderson. It is a series of 14 books plus a prequel, so 15 books total. Yup, it's a big series.

The Man of the House had been recommending me to read it for years, and I actually got a Book 1 from a library few years ago. Sadly, I could not get into the book; maybe the slow pace, maybe how the story unfolded at the beginning, I don't know why, but I just wasn't into it. I extended my loan twice (1 loan is for 3 weeks) which was the maximum time I could keep the book, and I only read less than a third of the book.

Then last year, MOTH got me a Windows Surface Pro, which is sort of like a hybrid of laptop and a tablet, and he loaded it with the entire series of the Wheel of Time.

I wanted to see what it was like to read a book on a e-reader, so I gave it a try. And this time, I started from Book 0, a prequel.

Well, what can I say; it was much more pleasurable reading the prequel, and it was much easier reading the Book 1 after that.

In 2018, I tried to read 1 chapter a day. Each book has about 50 chapters so with the days I didn't read, it was taking about 2 months to read a book. I haven't been reading much for the past couple of months with all the moving, and I am still in the middle of Book 3. At this rate, I would be reading the series for the next couple of years. I like reading books, but I like reading different books than reading one story for so many years!

Hence my goal for 2019: I will cut back on my YouTube watching time, and devote more time on reading. If I can read 1 book a month, I can finish reading the Wheel of Time in 2019.

Now I have said it, and that's a very measurable goal, isn't it? I shall report back on the progress.

Happy New Year

あけましておめでとうございます。2019年もよろしくお願いします。
アパート生活も2週間。オットは1か月の休暇を終え（12月は丸一か月お休みでした。）やっと仕事に行くようになって私も家で静かに仕事ができるようになりました。ダイニングテーブルで、ノート型のパソコン一つで仕事するのにも慣れてきました。今まではノート型のパソコンにに大きなモニターとキーボードをつけていたので、モニター一つで仕事するのは画面の切り替えが多くてちょっと面倒くさいし、ノート型のキーボードを使うの久しぶりなのでタイプミスが多いです。
来週やっとイギリスから送った荷物が届く予定。でもまたすぐこのアパートから引っ越す予定なので、荷物が届いてもなるたけ開けずに置いておく予定。
アパートは池を囲むように建っていて、駐車場のある外苑を1周して、池側を1周するとちょうど3キロちょっとと、犬の散歩にちょうどいいので、車の通りを気にせず散歩ができて気に入っています。

I hope y'all are having a good start of 2019.

It has been over 2 weeks now since we moved into an apartment. The Man of the House had a whole month off during December, but he has finally gone back to work this week so now I can work in peace. I was using my lap top with a full size keyboard and an extra big monitor in England but now I am reduced to just a laptop on a dining table. It's annoying to have to switch numerous windows in 1 laptop screen and I'm making so many typos with my lap top keyboard, but at the end of the day, it's not too terribly bad.

We are expecting our personal goods shipment from England to arrive next week. We are also planning to move out of this corporate housing in a month so even when we get our shipment, they will just be stored as is in boxes. No sewing is happening for a while.

This apartment complex sits in a large property surrounding a pond/lake. I can walk on the outer circle in the parking area, then go on the inner circle around the lake for a good 2 mile walk. It's nice not to have to worry about cars when walking a dog.