Gardening!

Sometimes it's fun to look back at a favorite memory. Last summer, Maia had just turned two and was too young to water the flowers by herself. She loved trying it, though! Yoshi would always let her "help" him garden, and I caught a glimpse of it with the camera.

Our neighbors are always stopping by at a moment's notice. It is nice to live in such a friendly community, though it was not good for videotaping that day!

Yes, Yoshi is wearing my shoes!

Yoshi

Yoshi has been in Japan for five days now, and though I thought I would enjoy the hiatus from cooking dinner every day, I find that I miss him! So, here is a mini-tribute to my wonderful husband.

Our first stay in traditional Japanese hotel. Yes, you are supposed to wear those "flattering" yukatas around the hotel and to breakfast. Here, we are just heading off to the private hotspring bath.

Maia was about 6 months old in this picture. She's hanging out with daddy!

Yoshi is quite excited in this picture because we went on a tour of the Coors plant in Colorado, and they had three FREE samples. I was pregnant at the time and got to enjoy all you can drink Coke. Oh well! Maybe we'll go back when I can partake as well.

Here we are in Colorado at Pike's Peak. Can you tell who the Indian's fan is?

On our wedding day in Oahu. What a handsome fellow:)

Admiring Maia when she was just an infant.

What could be cuter?

Catching Up

I have not posted for quite some time! The power-outage really broke the routine I had going, which is a good thing. Sometimes life without technology can be better. Not that I am complaining! I just miss all of the exta time we had to go outside and play with the neighbors. It was a really memorable experience.

Today I am home waiting for the electrical inspector to come check Yoshi's work in the basement. Once we pass this inspection, he can insulate and dry-wall our new bathroom. I have to admit that after waiting forever for this project to be completed, it looks really good. I can visualize our basement finished again, with cozy carpeting and some of our furniture from the cramped living room upstairs. It is really exciting!

It was all supposed to be done by the end of October, and I was hoping to have the space for our Halloween party. Unfortunately, Yoshi has to go to Japan on a business trip for two weeks this month, so the date will probably be mid-November. I teased him that when he came back from Japan he would find everything done, because I would hire contractors to finish the job! I really would do it if we weren't down to a single income. Honestly, this project has been expensive enough with Yoshi doing everything himself. We did hire a plumber who spent about two weeks in our basement. That was a good investment, because if Yoshi had done all of that himself, I doubt he could have gotten it done before January. If our baby were born before Yoshi finished up his project, I would be so angry!

This project has taken up almost all of his time since early July, and it has made my transition to being a full-time mom so much more difficult because I literally have Maia all the time. Usually, Yoshi would entertain her on evenings and weekends, so I could get things done or just have some Roula time. This has not happened much lately. To Yoshi's credit, he is slaving away in the basement and saving us a ton of money. I know that it will not last forever and the end is finally in sight, but it has not been easy!

I guess Yoshi and I have very different ideas about getting things done. In my opinion, giving up the majority of family time for 4 months is a recipe for disaster. But Yoshi sees this sort of thing as normal. Sometimes you have to work harder than others, so you just have to suck it up and do it. I agree with that philosophy for a week or two, but 4 months? Needless to say, it has been a little tough on us! Perhaps someday I'll understand the Japanese work ethic. Until then, I'll focus on the fact that one day soon, we will have a nice finished basement with a full-sized bathroom and I'll have my husband back. The whirlpool tub in there won't hurt either!

I'll post some pics soon!

Look Past the Cute Girl

Here is an example of my last post. There is always something to be picked up! On a sidenote, Maia did the horse puzzle all by herself. She was very proud!

My Latest Excuse for a Messy House

Since only people who know me personally read this blog, all of you are probably aware that I am not necessarily the most vigilant housekeeper around. I do try, but sometimes life gets in the way of having a neat home.

When I worked, I would often experience “the snowball effect.” Everything in my life would be chaotic at once, and I didn’t know where to begin fixing things. I’d often spend entire weekends just taking care of “routine” tasks. For example, my desk at work would get cluttered and at the same time, my car would be a wreck. I’d walk in the door to my house exhausted only to find more things that needed immediate attention. Dishes would be in the sink waiting for the dishwasher to be emptied. Toys would be strewn across the floor. Our dining room table would be covered with mail and coupons that I’d been meaning to get to. The laundry would be piling up, and, in our worst moments, even the trash we hadn’t had time to take out would be sitting near the door waiting. Not to mention that I needed to think about dinner options because Yoshi wasn’t coming home until 6:30 or 7:00.

We would spend at least one day per weekend just keeping up with the chores. If Yoshi and I both cleaned, we could get everything looking presentable within a few hours. We blew off some weekends, and the mess just escalated. Maia was usually plopped in front of the TV during these intense cleaning sessions. It was not the way I wanted to spend my quality time!

During the many conversations Yoshi and I had about whether or not I should take a break from work, I mentioned the stress that I always felt about our house being a wreck. I told him that if I were home, I could take care of the cleaning and keep things organized; therefore our life would be less chaotic. And I believed it! I imagined a freshly vacuumed picture-perfect house with everything put away neatly.

What I failed to take into account is the sheer tediousness of repeating the same tasks over and over. Don’t get me wrong, we have made a lot of progress: The piles of paper have been organized and filed neatly. Our dining room table can be used for eating dinner again! The dishes and laundry are done and put away on a daily basis. Dinner preparation no longer involves frozen convenience foods. The recycling and garbage are taken out immediately. Even my car is cleaner!

Yet I’m still not satisfied because try as I may, I can’t achieve the picture-perfect house. Toys are still strewn about, as well as shoes, and occasionally discarded clothes intended for the hamper. I really feel that if I were to stay on top of all that, I would do nothing else during the entire day! After all, no sooner is it cleaned up, than something else replaces it. I guess that’s what happens when there is a three year old living in your house!

I was reading a book about household organization the other day at the bookstore, and was absolutely shocked to find an entire chapter devoted to ADD. Yes, it’s true. Apparently, if you have problems with concentration, keeping a clean house is a huge challenge mostly because it is boring. For a second, it all made sense to me. Undoubtedly, I have trouble with concentrating for long periods of time. When I was a child, I remember being teased about going to “la la land.” I’ve always coped pretty well, but still find myself easily distracted. According to the book, people with ADD tend to procrastinate on projects so that a deadline will be looming and FORCE them to complete the task and concentrate on it.

This is the story of my life. I don’t think I have ever written a paper for school early. I always wait until the last minute and then crank it out. The same can be said about my housework. Last year I invited some friends over for a gathering on beggar’s night figuring it would be fun to enjoy some pizza and have our kids walk around the neighborhood together. I didn’t consider that it was a weeknight, and that I would somehow have to make my house presentable before everyone came over. Rather than be embarrassed, I woke up at 3:00 a.m. for a cleaning-fest before leaving for work. Yoshi did not mind being humbled by a messy house, or he figured we could take care of it right before everyone came over, so I was on my own.

After reading the ADD chapter, I realize that there is probably some truth to it, though a lack of discipline contributes as well. Nonetheless, I’m happy to have the time to take care of things before they get too out of hand. Perhaps I’ll never have a “perfect” house, but I hope to achieve the balance between having to clean every waking-moment and having a happy, comfortable home I am not embarrassed to invite somebody into if they visit unannounced. It’s a work in progress.

I am woman...hear me roar!

Today started off as what could only be described as a bad day. My lovely daughter soaked through her pull-up last night and climbed into our bed in that state this morning, creating a laundry nightmare before I was even fully conscious. Then, as I was struggling to get some sort of beverage into my poor system, our cat wouldn’t leave me alone, so I gave him what he was begging for: some milk. As I was attempting to return the gallon of milk back to the fridge, I somehow lost my grip and kerplat…it fell to the floor. Of course, the flimsy lid flew off and the contents of the container gushed out. My oh so quick reflexes caught it before the entire kitchen had flooded.

Just when I thought the day couldn’t get much worse, I discovered that some critter somehow got into our garbage can and had made a huge mess in our driveway. Let’s just say I’m glad I’m not in the first trimester of my pregnancy, because I probably would not have been able to do clean up all the old garbage without getting severely nauseated. Luckily, I managed this task and silently thanked Yoshi for all the times he has had to do it when I left the lid of the can on a bit too loosely.

So, you are probably wondering, exactly which part of the day made you feel like an empowered woman? Well, despite my disastrous morning, I decided to try my hand at mowing our lawn for the first time in my life. Yes, that is correct. I have never mowed a lawn before. I guess my parents were afraid I would somehow injure myself or break the lawn-mower. For most of my adult life, I lived in apartments, and Yoshi has always mowed our lawn since we moved to our house.

Unfortunately, poor Yoshi has been very busy lately single-handedly remodeling our basement. He has been letting the lawn go, and I have been a little annoyed by the excess bugs, and also worried about what our neighbors must think. Today when I was driving Maia home from gymnastics, I saw a woman mowing her lawn uphill! Well, I was inspired and decided to take matters into my own hands. After all, how hard could it be?

With Maia, safely in the house watching a video, I managed to turn on the lawn mower with the help of the directions pictured right on it. Though I exerted a little more energy than I needed to, it was an overall positive experience. When I say I exerted energy, well, I didn’t realize the lawn-mower had a lever you were supposed to pull if you wanted to go forward much more quickly. I used my own force instead of the “power” version. Now that I know about the “power” lever, I might even do this on a regular basis.

Yoshi was quite proud of me when he came home, and I felt proud of myself as well! It feels good to know that I can take care of myself when necessary and won’t have to rely on a lawn-service someday. Next step: adding gas and oil to the lawn mower. I’ll let you know how it goes.

My budding young artiste!

Isn't this the funniest expression? Daddy took this picture and she saves her best faces for him. Is this reminiscent of Van Goh or what? Hopefully she will not go mad and send her ear to an ex-boyfriend when she grows up! Let's stick to painting and coloring pictures of princesses.