My legs are still sore from hiking. Just the thought of sitting down or standing up makes me want to cry. But! It hasn’t stopped me from having a productive Sunday.
While waiting for my package to arrive, I sat down and wrote some letters. I’ve been feeling busy lately so haven’t sat down properly to write in a while (apologies to all my penpals).
Right before 12 my package finally came, I ordered it a month ago and have been waiting impatiently ever since.
Darjeeling watching me assemble it
I’ve been reorganizing the kitchen a lot lately, and this is the final piece (for now).
The kitchen before:
And after:
Tried rearranging the contents to have the heavier items at the bottom as it was a bit more wobbly than I’d like but it is still wobbly so… Maybe it doesn’t roll as smoothly owing to the fact that the flooring is quite soft. Anyways I am happy that I could fit a lot more in here than before! It has opened up a lot of space elsewhere too.
After assembling and organizing the new kitchen wagon/rack thing I finally sat down (painfully) and folded laundry from the past week, which Darjeeling decided was her bed;
For dinner I tried a new recipe from a new recipe book I bought; sweet and salty tsukune (chicken meatballs), with sesame spinach miso soup:
First time to make tsukune and it wasn’t bad! If I may say so myself.
All in all a good Sunday. Time to take a hot bath and get ready for tomorrow, hoping the soreness will fade overnight.
It’s fall. Mornings are crisp, and soon it is time to dig out the heaters and put the fan in their place.
This morning I made some hot chocolate, (from scratch!), and sat down to do some letter writing.
I am also wearing my little «brake time» cozy socks from Daiso.
Darjeeling is with me as always of course, doing her best to lie on top of the letter so I can’t read it.
Yesterday I spent the day reorganizing the kitchen, the stock closet, and the bath. I recently found out that the walls in the bath are magnetic, which opened up a whole new world of organizing possibilities.
We bought the rack in the middle for all the kitchen electronics, as the previous arrangement was not very earthquake secure.
It also has wheels making cleaning easier
Bought a little wagashi on the way back from the home store yesterday, a black halloween cat, which was delicious.
Today I want to see about getting some different trash bins, as I am over this tower type where any smell goes through all the compartments. I have seen some at muji that you can affix wheels to making them more convenient as well.
衣替え (koromogae) is the seasonal change of clothing, switching out the warderobe from one season to the other. The beginning of October is the perfect time for koromogae.
Darjeeling as (un)helpful as always.
I was able to do some decluttering as well, but not as much as I would like. I still get stuck on the «I might need this» or «I might want to wear this again one day».
This time I left the pieces that I didn’t wear last year in with the summer clothes in the storage box, so if I don’t reach for them this season I can hopefully declutter them next spring.
Now my warderobe looks like this;
I realized I mainly use greys, blacks, whites, mustards, and a tiny splash of pink. At least it’s not all black. It feels calmer.
I hope to be able to do a 100% perfect konmari one day. Maybe next year.
Tomorrow the weather will be lovely so I plan to get all the laundry done and even hang out the futons.
Yesterday was as perfect as a normal working Monday could be.
It was sunny, but with a cool wind bringing in the scent of autumn. I opened all windows and doors as far as I could letting in the fresh air while not letting out the cat. After days of rain, I could finally do the laundry and did no less than four loads thanks to the sun drying things in less than an hour.
For three years I have had the same futon covers, but I finally bought new ones; matching ones. And the joy of washing them and putting them on: I was over the moon. I have noticed that here, instead of having several sets of covers and changing and washing on like a weekly basis (which I would do in Norway), it seems to be enough with one set and then you hang the whole futon out to dry and “wash” in the sunshine.
While the laundry was drying, I was free to clean the apartment and finish most of my to-do list (that has been piling up lately)
I also got started on changing out my warderobe. Thanks to reading “Lessons from Madame Chic”, I am trying to define my style and also get some ‘core pieces’ and maybe even get down to a ’10-piece warderobe’. I make no promises however. I got a lot of new clothes (well, 8 pieces) which I think will be the main, but I also have some thicker knit sweaters and one wool skirt in my existing fall/winter warderobe so I am already exceeding the 10 pieces but I am not too bothered, it’s not the end of the world. I’m also trying to get better at dressing up, wearing the clothes I like more regularly and not just for special occasions. So for example, to go to the bakery this morning, I put on some of my new pieces and did my makeup! At 10 in the morning! (I work evenings). In Norway, if the bakery was as close as it is here, I might’ve just gone over in sweatpants.
Anyways, I digress, I was writing of yesterday.
My warderobe is looking like this at the moment, I’m hoping to get my knit sweaters etc., into the white boxes that are currently full of winter clothes, which means I need to find a different space to store summer clothes. Did I mention I love organizing yet? It should be getting clearer now. Thinking about storage space and how to organize it is what gets me going. And yes, I have thought that maybe I should become a Konmari consultant, but haven’t found any courses here yet.
I took a break after my warderobe shenanigans and had another matcha latte, which I have every day now, I am obsessed. I’ll probably drink it daily for 6 months and then I’ll get hooked on something new, or maybe go back to milk tea (that I made and drank daily from December until June).
Matcha latte? Check
Laundry? Check
Cleaning? Check
Organizing? Check
Reading? Check
It doesn’t take too much to make me happy. I coud accomplish all this, take my time getting to work, and work didn’t bring me down either.
I got home, took a bath with the Makioka Sisters in hand, and then I could go to bed in new sheets, the first new sheets in 3 years. My sigh is of happiness and you could probably hear it from outside as the temperature was perfect for keeping the windows open all day and all night.
Woke up early and did a sweep of the house. Did some much needed dusting, mopped the floors, vacuumed the carpet, hung out laundry, cleaned the kitchen counter, aired out all the rooms, and did some reorganizing in the stock closet. Everything felt clean and fresh and in order.
Went to my piano lesson and started a new piece. When I had tried it by myself earlier I could not grasp it at all, but the teacher showed me and it all just seemed so simple. It really makes a difference having a teacher to help. I will enjoy this piece, it’s a classical piece, as compared to the previous piece I was working on which was a pop-song, and I found I can’t really get into pop-songs with the piano yet. I prefer more calm, soothing, slow classical pieces.
After my lesson I went to the second-hand store and found a beautiful momiji tea bowl and had to add it to my tea-cup collection. As soon as I got home I baked an apple cake (but without apples as I don’t like them getting warm and mushy) and made some milk tea with Mariage Frères’ French island vanilla black tea and used my new tea bowl. The momiji design made me happy, and this tea is my favorite. The cake came out well too, making it a great time.
I did a facemask and wanted to take a long bath while watching a movie, but was chuffed when the application kept translating the titles making it difficult and the movie I wanted was only available dubbed into Japanese, though I wanted to hear it in its original language as I like the main actress. I had a bit of a childish tantrum and tirade on twitter and felt that maybe I am not as much as an adult as I’d like to be, when things don’t go as I wish I revert right back to a whining baby. It is almost too embarrassing to admit, but there you have it.
As the movie part didn’t go through, I decided on reading instead and it made for a lovely bath. I continued Jane Eyre, and it was around where Mr. Mason is bit by Rochester’s crazy wife aka his own sister.
After my bath, I did some measuring around the house and found that I could increase storage space if I moved things around a bit, in the hope of making it a bit more functional. One of my great pleasures is to organize and declutter. That is not to say that the house is always spotless of course. I have found that there is a big difference between wanting to have clean dishes and wanting to clean dishes.
Excluding my little hissy fit, today has been delightful. If all Sundays could be as this one, I can’t have any complaints.
Diary of a Norwegian in Japan 