Ginger Jeans Day 3: Front Pockets

ジーンズ作成3日目は、とうとうミシン作業です。糸の調子をみたりして、本格的にお裁縫作業でちょっとワクワク。
ちなみにイギリスで買ったロックミシンは、電圧が違うアメリカでも電圧機を通してちゃんと使えてほっとしています。

Day 3 of my Ginger Jeans making is... finally sewing! (Day 2 is here.)
When I started the project, I wasn't even thinking about notions like top stitching thread or zipper so I was glad that I had an old top stitching thread in my stash. I think I bought the thread maybe 5-6 years ago to hem my store-bought jeans.

My serger survived the oversea shipment in a heavy duty bin (it was bought used without an original box). I turned it on for the first time since it was packed in England in December and it worked just fine with the voltage converter I was using in England for my sewing machine.

 Coin pocket.

Pocket lining. I am french-seaming the pocket bottom but this is it for today.

Ginger Jeans Day 2: Cutting a Muslin

ジーンズ作成二日目は、サイズやフィットを見るための試作品用の布の裁断です。
卓球台がヒジョーーーーに役に立っています。もともとはビリヤード台だから、すぐ上に照明がついてて、作業台を明るく照らしてくれます。

Day 2 of my Ginger Jeans making is cutting a muslin. (Day 1 is here.)

I had this left-over stretch denim from my Jalie Eleonore and decided to make a muslin out of it. Looking at the fabric, I was quite surprised how dark the fabric was originally. I forgot how many white shirts were turned blue because of this fabric. I happened to be wearing the said Eleonore and here is the color difference.

I don't even have a yard of fabric left, so I am making a capri length and omitting back pockets.
By the way, my ping pong table works so well for tracing patterns and cutting fabric. Because it's a pool table, it has a low hanging light fixture above it and gives me the perfect brightness I need in the basement.

Ginger Jeans Day 1: Tracing

家の片付けも一段落して、やっと裁縫プロジェクトに取り掛かる気分になってきました。
次はジーンズに大挑戦です。今までゴムの入ったパンツしか作ったことないので出来上がりがちょっと心配だけど。

そして昨日は人生で初めてフライドチキン・アンド・ワッフルを食べました。チキンの上からシロップかけます。南部ではポピュラーなメニューです。

Now that the house is in a comfortably livable state, it's time to start a sewing project.

I am going to make Ginger Jeans. I wear jeans pretty much every day and I rotate between 2 pairs of the exact same jeans so I'm pretty much in the same jeans every single day. The third pair is not comfortable and would like to get rid of it (it does not spark joy, you know).

This is my first pair of proper pants with fly front. The only other pants I have made before are either elastic pajama pants or Jalie Eleonore pull-on pants so I am a bit leery about the outcome but we shall see.

On the side note, I had my very first fried chicken and waffles. In case you are not familiar, yes, you pour the syrup over the chicken.

Southern Living

Life in the Deep South.
アメリカ深南部での暮らし。

Fried green tomatoes.　
フライド・グリーン・トマト（映画のタイトルではなく、揚げトマト。）

Monster Jam.　
小学生の背丈ほどもある巨大タイヤを装備した巨大トラックの大会。エンジン音がものすごくうるさいので耳栓必須。

A tractor. MOTH says it's technically a "sub-compact" tractor. Still, it's a tractor with a front loader. He was supposed to be getting a riding lawn mower.
小型トラクター買いました。芝刈り機を買うはずが、ブルドーザーですか？クボタです。

Beautiful spring.
近所の桜の木。うちの庭にも桜を植えたいです。

Hanging a Quilt

3か月ぶりの裁縫プロジェクトは、手作りキルトを壁に飾れるようにすること。ちなみにキルトは私作ではなく、キルターな義母作。

このキルト、実は義母作の中では私の一番のお気に入りで、ずっと壁に飾ってみたかったの。もう１０年ぐらい前に義母からもらったんだけど前住んでた家は日差しが強くてキルトが傷むから飾れなくてずっとしまってあったのです。今度の家では裁縫室が地下で小さな窓しかないのでキルトを飾るのにもってこい。陽当たりが悪く薄暗い地下の裁縫室もこれで見た目はちょっと温かくなった感じ。

First sewing project in three months (and the first sewing project in this new sewing room): hanging a quilt. Disclaimer - I did not make the quilt. It was made by and given to me by my mother-in-law.

After researching different methods to add a hanging apparatus to a finished quilt, I decided on adding a long straight channel at the top of a quilt. I found an extra curtain rod that the previous homeowner left in a closet and MOTH screwed in the brackets for me.

The calico I had was a perfect width for the quilt so just cut 8" from selvage to selvage and sewed a channel.

My sewing machine was turned on for the first time since it was packed in England in December.

The sewn channel was then hand-sewn on the back of the quilt.

I use Thread Heaven for hand sewing. This tiny little box of thread conditioner lasts for a long time.

This is my favorite quilt made by my mother-in-law and I always wanted to hang it on a wall rather than using it as a quilt. Our previous house in the Desert Southwest got too harsh of sun light so I could not hang it for fear of sun damage and it just sat in my armoire for many years (I could not even spread it over a bed because our dogs love chewing on quilts). Now that my sewing room is in a basement and has only a tiny window, I can now hang this quilt in my sewing room and admire it every day.

Behold the Ping Pong Table

なんと我が家には卓球台があるのです！（地下室です）
実はビリヤード台の上にのせて使う卓球台なんだけど、ちゃんと卓球できるよ。
ビリヤード台ともども、この家の前の持ち主が置いていったものです（決してただで譲り受けたわけではなく、家売買の交渉に含まれています）。

私今まで卓球ってやったことがなかったんだけど、楽しいね！温泉旅行で人々が楽しむのもわかるわ。予想通りものすごい下手なんだけど、ビリヤードより全然楽しい。

I have a ping pong table in my house!

Well, it's actually a pool table with a ping pong table top. We inherited it from the previous homeowner as part of the house deal (basically she declined to do most of our repair requests and instead threw in the pool table in the deal).

I had never played a game of ping pong before. I have never played regular tennis either for that matter. But I'm loving playing ping pong! I'm obviously pretty terrible at it but we are having fun.

It is surreal to think that I actually own a ping pong table (we had a pool table before) and definitely surreal to think that I can now play ping pong in my own house.

Unpacking The Sewing Room

引っ越しの荷ほどきを続けること2週間半。やっと私の部屋の荷物の荷ほどきができる日がやってきました。裁縫室兼、仕事場となる私の部屋は、なんと地下室。それも地下室の一番奥の部屋なので、小さな窓が一つあるだけで、とても暗いです。新しい電気買ってもらわないと暗くてやってられないわ。

I spent 2.5 weeks unpacking our stuff from the storage. It was a slow process with cleaning all the dust and grime off. But the day finally came to unpack my sewing room. What's the first thing to do? Pledge the hell out of furniture.

The next part was the hardest part: decide the orientation of the desks. I have two sets of nesting desks. I used to use 1 large desk for my sewing machine, another large desk for cutting, a small one for ironing, and another small one for my serger and a cover stitch machine (you can see my old sewing room here). But now this sewing room is also my office (I work from home), I need to use one of the large desks as my "desk." So it took me a while to re-think the layout.

The room is in the deepest part of the basement next to a storm shelter with just one tiny window, so unfortunately I won't have a very good natural light. Until I get a better light fixture, it's going to be all blurry dark photos.

There is a closet, but half of it is filled with MOTH's RC car collection.

For now, I just unpacked everything and shoved them in the book shelf or in boxes. The contents of the boxes are all mixed up but at least they are off the floor. It's going to take a while for me to sort all the little things and organize the whole thing a bit better before I can be in a mood to sew but this is a start.

Since I will be in this room for most of the day for work, I made a dog house next to my work desk out of a cardboard box (she has another one in the living room, too).

New Walking Route

イギリスの田舎暮らしがとてもよかったので、アメリカに帰ってからの家探しも田舎暮らしを選びました。もともと引っ越し先が小さな街というのもあるけど、そのまた郊外の、農園の広がる地域、最寄りのスーパーまで7キロ弱というかなりの田舎になりました。裏庭を、普通に鹿の家族が横切っていきます。散歩道も林に囲まれてて、春になって木に葉っぱがついたらいい景色になるだろうな～、と楽しみにしています。

My new walking route is amazingly similar to my walking route in England. But I guess it is not that funny considering how our country living in England affected our "must-haves" when we were choosing a house to buy.

We had known back in the Desert that we didn't want to live in the planned development anymore. The HOA we lived in had more than 4,000 houses and the houses were just stacked on top of each other and we were provided with a thick stack of HOA rules. We used to even have a "3 shrub rule" that said we had to have at least 3 shrubs in the front yard.

But having lived in the country side of England , we pretty much solidified that our next house environment would be a bit more unique than a planned development. So it is: we chose a house in an unincorporated town where the property tax is half of what the house within the city limit would be.

Our house is on a dead-end street so it's very quiet and surrounded by woods, with a little peak of farmland down the hill. Luckily, unlike it was in England, the street is wide enough for 2 cars to pass by so I don't have to walk off the street when a car goes by.

It has gotten warm last week and the daffodils shot out in a matter of 2 days. We are really loving it here, Deep South!

Moving Truck Has Arrived

引っ越し屋さんのトラックが来ました。2年4か月ぶりに家財道具と再会です。巨大なトレーラーがやって来た時には、こんなに物があったっけ、と心配になったけど、トレーラーの3分の1はカラだったので、ちょっと安心。（でも物ありすぎ）

もう何度も引っ越しを繰り返してきたけど、引っ越し屋さんを使うのは今回が初めて。いや～、重い家具を運ばなくていい引っ越しというのはいいものだね。

さすがに砂漠地帯の、ただのブロックでできた倉庫に2年4か月も眠っていた家財道具は、どれもすべて小汚いです。段ボールに入っていた物も、持ち手の穴から埃が入るのか、もうとにかくすべてが小汚くて、ただ荷ほどきをする、ってことができず、全部洗えるものは洗うか、雑巾で水拭きしなくてはならなくて、荷ほどきに非常に時間がかかっております。

この2年間、必要最低限のものだけで暮らしてきたので、物の多さにちょっと焦っています。頑張ってコンマリしてます。やっぱりときめく物だけに囲まれて過ごさないとね。

The day has finally come: the moving truck full of our household stuff from the Desert has arrived.

Since MOTH had a business trip back in the Desert, he was able to coordinate and oversee the shipment of our household goods from the storage in the Desert to the Deep South. When I saw the ginormous trailer, I was worried that we had so much stuff, but luckily the trailer was less than 2/3 full. (Still that's a lot of stuff...)

We have moved quite a few times in the past 15 years but this was our first time using a mover. It was nice I did not have to do any heavy lifting.

A ramp makes a huge difference.

Halfway through and still jam packed.

When we moved from the South to the Desert, we had to store our household goods in Pods for a year because we couldn't sell our house and buy another house right away. The Pods was nice: we packed it ourselves and it got delivered on our door step when we moved into a house. The contents were clean and we just unpacked.

What is different this time is that our stuff sat in a storage unit for 2 years and 4 months. We got a good ol' cinder block storage unit that is not climate controlled. So everything got very dusty, literally, everything, even the the stuff that was in a box. Everything has thin layer of dust and grime.

So the unpacking has been a slow process. I have to wash everything if I can, or wipe them off every single item.

The house is a hot mess and my allergy has flared up from all the dust in the house. There are just so much stuff compared to what we had in the past 2 years so I'm a bit overwhelmed and trying to do KonMari and let things go if they don't spark joy anymore.

Today's goal is to finish the kitchen area so that I can start cooking a proper meal. Let's get to it.

Bought a House

イギリスから深南部に引っ越してきて40日。ローンの書類にサインして、家を購入しました。ということでまたしても引っ越し。

イギリスから送った荷物は荷ほどきせずにとっておいたのでそんなに荷造りする必要もなく、アパートから家への引っ越しはとても順調に終わりました。1か月半ぶりの荷物との対面。ずっとトレーナー3つとジーンズ2本をローテで着ていたので、いろんな服が出てきてちょっとうれしい。

まだ家具は一つもないので、ベッドもなく、床に直寝。私はユキのベッドに寝ています。全く文句なし。

私は今も在宅で仕事をしているんだけど、もちろん机も椅子もないので、アイロン台をイケアの棚二つの上に渡して机代わりにしています。ワンルームアパートに住む男子大学生の部屋みたいになっております。

After 40 days since we moved from England, we signed off the loan documents and bought a house. That means moving, again.

Since we only have stuff that we shipped from England (means essentials only with no furniture) and they were still packed tight in the bins, and the fact that we had 2 overlapped days at the apartment, we had very few packing at the apartment and just made a few trips to transport the bins. It was really nice to reacquaint with our stuff after 6 weeks. I had been wearing a rotation of 3 hoodies and 2 pairs of jeans so it's nice to have more options.

Since we have no furniture whatsoever, we are currently sleeping on the floor. I'm using a dog bed. The high-density foam bed is pretty comfy, as I discovered when I had food poisoning. There are also 4 layers of packing blankets under the quilt, too.

And this is the state of my "office." My ironing board laid across 2 Ikea boxes. After all, I am Japanese, I should be totally fine sitting on the floor all day long, right?

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.