Homely

Interrupting the regularly scheduled blog posts about our trip to Japan to check in about these past few weeks. To recap, we recently flew to Florida to visit friends and family. We even went to Orlando to see some friends that I have not seen since we moved. It was really wonderful to walk around our old neighborhood, see downtown Orlando in a new light. It made me miss it, and it made me glad to have once called it home. 

We've been shopping at the Asian grocery store a lot lately. We've acquired a wok, deep bowls, soup spoons, pretty much everything for all of the noodles we've been buying and making lately. I've been really enjoying broadening my regular list of recipes with some inspired by our trip to Japan. 

We went to the traditional Japanese wood block printing class in Tokyo, and while we were able to bring our amateur prints home, we decided to splurge on a gorgeous piece of artwork. It's a print from the 1920's of two women in kimonos looking over a pond full of lily pads. This piece is so beautiful, and required so much skill. In certain angles and light, the texture from the wood block it was carved on can be seen on the paper. We have it in our dining room now, and I feel so lucky that I get to walk past it every day.

I finished the last pillow of three that I made for my coworker, the honeycomb pillow. There is something so cozy about winter that makes me look forward to evenings on the couch, knitting the night away, Mort by my side. In summer, knitting is the last thing I want to do. Instead of keeping my fingers warm, woven through the yarn, I'd rather be outside in a park, at a restaurant patio, or on a picnic at the community garden. Although we had a snow storm this week, it feels like summer is just around the corner, and I'm really looking forward to the change in season. It always seems to come just at the right time, right when you're really fed up with the immense cold or immense heat. 

Another souvenir we brought back, doorway panels! While many restaurants and shops have these at their entrance, we found that the perfect spot for these panels would be our bedroom. Our apartment is long; you enter the living room, walk through to the dining room, and walk further through to end up in the kitchen. The office is off of the living room, the guest room is off of the dining room, and our bedroom is the room off of the kitchen. When we have guests over, or when we're in the kitchen cooking or cleaning, it's nice to give our bedroom a bit of privacy without having to shut the door. After all, Mort sometimes like to lay on our pillows when we're in the other rooms. 

Besides looking forward to spring and summer, I'm looking forward to our anniversary. We will be married for four years in May, and we'll also be celebrating being together as a couple for an entire decade. We've planned a little weekend getaway to Wisconsin. We're renting a house on a dairy farm, and we get to bring Mort with us. There's breweries, cheese shops, hiking, and roadside attractions. A little weekend away from the city sounds nice right about now.