Unexpected hospitality opportunity

Yesterday I did something a bit unusual. 

I'm gradually realising that having extra free time gives me the opportunity to say yes to unexpected opportunities to serve and to connect with people. This month I've had coffee on two occasions with two different friends who happened to be in my neck of the woods and had time to spare. Both of them prefaced their invitation with "I've got this crazy idea"...and I was able to say yes both times and have precious time with them.

Then last Wednesday I got a message from a colleague about the five-day workshop she was organising at our OMF Japan headquarters this week. She was urgently trying to make sure the 23 people attending had lunch each day and they'd suddenly found themselves without someone to make lunch one of the days. As it turns out my work this week is pretty slow, so I had the time to go and do this. 

It was a big task, though, because it takes nearly two hours to get to the OMF headquarters on the other side of Tokyo by train (there's currently no car parking onsite due to renovations). So the decisions I had to make as I executed this plan were:

• selecting a meal that I could quickly make with easily accessible ingredients in the kitchen (two microwave-sized ovens, a two-burner stove, but lots of bench/counter space)
• budgeting—using two cheaper stores that I have close to me that I know they also have near JHQ
• figuring out quantities for this number of people
• figuring out timing, which included me buying the ingredients after I got there on the day, using a borrowed bike, and then doing the cooking

And then executing the plan. I couldn't do much prep at home or take much with me because of the train travel (and most of them quite crowded).

I did well on the first two of the above, not so well as the second two:

1. I bought too many ingredients. One of my biggest fears as a mum of teenage boys was not having enough food, so I've learned to cook too much! But because this was just day three of a five-day live-in workshop, there was plenty of scope for using the leftover salad and other things later in the week.

2. I didn't have enough time to do all that I'd planned on my own, but I easily found two wonderful helpers.

Sadly, the only photo I took of the whole event
was of the leftover ingredients at the end!

What did I make? Loaded potatoes: baked/jacket potatoes that you "load up" with various fillings. It was buffet style and I provided bacon, grated cheese, chickpeas, boiled egg, and yoghurt (cheaper substitute to sour cream). I also had a bunch of raw salad options that people could choose from to add to their plate as well as salad dressing, and a platter with the fruit that cheapest right now (apples, bananas and pineapple). It was a healthy, tasty, and economical meal that didn't require too much cooking and could easily be sourced locally.

It was a joy to use my ability to cook (again) to serve others outside of our household. I've been sharing baked goodies at church and mission events, and hosting people at our house for meals even so often, but this was another level of hospitality. Many who live close to JHQ do this all the time, but because of where we live, I haven't been asked to.

And, as I've noted many times in the past, an opportunity to serve practically like this provides many other opportunities to interact meaningfully with my colleagues. I had several good conversations that filled my heart with joy (and with things to take to the Lord in prayer).

Food, awkward conversations, and trust

I've had time to think about a lot of things. Here are some of them:

Providing food for an itinerant family (on a budget)

As I explained in my last post, we've been travelling around Queensland in the last month, sometimes with our own kitchen and sometimes with family (and the presumption that they will organise meals). Planning and grocery shopping has moved to a slightly higher challenge level. I've mostly stuck with the simple options, but trying to keep things healthy means not every night can be pies, pizza, or sausage rolls. Not to mention that I just get bored too easily. 

But cooking dinners without a pantry means you're often missing those important extras like salt, vinegar, or flour—the things I think of as staples, that you buy once every few months, but not for a flying visit of a few weeks. And as one who is not only on a budget but is averse to waste, it's not easy to come up with good meals for hungry young men (not to mention David and me).

Here are some of the evening meals I've ended up making:

• sausages and veggies
• chicken wraps
• bacon, eggs, and damper (like soda bread, it's quick wheat bread made with baking soda as a rising agent, not yeast)
• dry rub (garlic flavour) on chicken drumsticks, with rice and veggies
• BBQ (beef patties on bread rolls)
• Japanese curry (roux bought in shops)
• roast lamb

It's a mix of things that we enjoy about Australian food, plus some comfort food we're familiar with from home in Japan. It's worked fairly well, though I'm also dealing with the unfamiliar electric stove/hob. In Japan we use gas, and it's a quite a mental shift to go to electric again. Gas is just so fast! The stove top at our current abode is also complicated—I needed to pull out the instruction manual a couple of times! Plus, adjustments are needed due to the different types of equipment in a kitchen that's not my own, for example, where we are right now has a rice cooker (yay!) but no "rice" cup (180ml). Also there's no potato masher or big-sized tongs.

We're only in our own place until the end of this month. Then David and our youngest son go back to Japan. I'm here with our middle son for another six or so weeks, during which we'll be living with other people. That's going to provide different challenges, too, I'm sure. But at least they'll have a pantry with staples in it.

Spotting a missionary out of their “natural” habitat 

Have you ever spotted a missionary out of their "natural" habitat? We expect that missionaries are either in their country of service, doing what ever they do. Or if they are in their passport country, they will be doing home assignment. As we've met people during these last few weeks in Australia, we've answered questions that made us realise that our presence here is a surprise, or even a tad unsettling. We're not in Japan and nor are we doing deputation. "Here to see family" seems an acceptable answer, but "on holidays" is a bit strange, especially when we're in Brisbane (which isn't really a standard holiday destination). However, if someone is willing to stick around and ask good questions, I get to explain a little about the challenges we're facing in transitioning our middle son from high school in Japan to adult life in Australia and that this is one way that we're trying to help navigate that gap. 

I anticipate it's going to get more difficult to explain in August. Then I will be back at work, but will still be in Brisbane. I work from my home office in Tokyo, and will be doing the same here in Brisbane for a few weeks. That's definitely going to be a bit tricky to explain.

But I'm not the only missionary with our organisation working in Australia. Did you know that we have quite a lot of people who work here? Their work helps us stay in Japan, but also they help recruit others to join us. I imagine they often face this challenge in explaining their roles. I know that they struggle to find sufficient financial support (yes, they are supported by gifts from others, just like we are).

Trusting God

I'm also thinking about this. We've been given the gift of time away from work, but it's been harder to "be still" in the midst of that than I might have guessed. Being still and not being consumed with lots of to-dos means there's more time to think. And of course with that comes the thoughts about "bad things that could happen", especially surrounding our upcoming flights back to Japan. I woke up yesterday morning with that all running around in my head and it took a while to shake it off.

One tempting way to avoid getting stuck in that bad place is to fill up my schedule with lot of other things to entertain or distract. 

Another way is to focus on God's character and his all sufficiency. We're so tempted to rely on our own strength: "you've got this" is the classic. In reality we're very fragile and easily knocked over. There's so much that we simply don't have ultimately control over. Even if it looks like we do, things happen that show that that isn't truly the case.

I was reminded of Isaiah 40 yesterday, but also Job 38–42. Both passages remind us of how mighty God is, and how relatively small we are in comparison. Job said: 

“I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted" (42:2 NIV).

Paul wrote that the Lord said to him: “'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me" (2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV).

And: "Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God" (2 Cor. 3:5 ESV).

And Jeremiah prayed: "Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you" (Jer. 32:17 ESV). God responded, "Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?" (vs 27).

The Psalmist wrote: "Why are you cast down, O my soul and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God" (Ps. 42:11 ESV).

And these things are what I should be directing my thoughts to when I start dwelling on what could go wrong!

(Check out this article for more about El Shaddai, the all sufficient God.)

Meet David and Wendy

I've been thinking about this too, and our rough plan at this point is to take a picnic lunch to Rocks Riverside Park in Brisbane on Saturday 30th July, probably from around 11.30. If you're local and would like to join us, please do. To help locate us, I'll plan to wear my bright red jumper. We don't have any chairs, so we'll try to find a table somewhere.

Camping food

If you’re new here, please don’t think we camp all the time, we’ve only managed three camping trips in 2020, That’s about our average. However, we’ve been doing it since 2011, so we’ve got a bit of camping-in-Japan experience.

A friend recently asked for camp food advice/recipes. So I thought I’d write a blog post just about that.

Our philosophy for camping has always been: keep it as simple as possible. That means it’s not hard to pack up and go camping. That’s essential if it’s going to be a relaxing experience for us. This extends to the food side of things.

The menu is simple. I almost never pre-prepare any main meal, unless it’s going to be late before we get camp set up on the first night, or it’s going to be very cold that first night. That meant it was not hard to do a couple of “camping tours”, where we camped for two weeks (using several different campsites). We bought food as we needed it—usually every couple of days.

We have a standard camp packing list that we rely on heavily, I also plan the meals and write a food list. This makes packing easy and eases anxiety.

Here are some standard camping meals we have (understanding these are easy-to-buy foods in Japan, so aren’t all suitable to other places):

Things we eat for breakfast
Bacon, sausages, and eggs (or variations of that combo)

Pancakes

English muffins or sometimes bread

Above usually supplemented by tinned peaches

Sometimes yoghurt, fruit, and cereal (this was mostly for a fast pack up on our camping tours, without starting a fire, it was easier to pack up and move on)

Things we’ve eaten for dinner

Yakisoba (Japanese stir fried pork and noodles)
BBQ meat and foil-wrapped veggies

Wraps (tortillas with salad and cooked meat)

Rice (cooked on the fire with Japanese campfire rice cookers!)

Japanese curry rice

I’ve even made Tuna Mornay

This is Yakisoba: Japanese stir-fried pork and noodles. So yummy and so easy if you’ve got a large group to cater for.

Lunch

This is generally a low-profile affair. We’ll have sandwiches, or two-minute ramen, or tinned soup.

Dessert

In my opinion this is the most fun part of camping. Cooking with the fire after the main meal is done is usually pretty fun. My favourite is the Chocolate, banana, marshmallow boats (two layers of greased foil loaded up with a banana, chocolate pieces and two or three marshmallows, and cooked over the fire).

We’ve also made damper: and Australian non-yeast bread, something like a scone and eaten with butter, syrup, jam or honey. Very yummy! 

Of course there’s always marshmallows to cook, and when our American friends come they bring the fixings for S’mores.

We don’t use bread much, mostly because it takes up a lot of room. Rice or noodles fill up hungry boys and are more compact for packing. Larger sized savoury bread rolls are also not super common in most Japanese supermarkets.

And of course snacks and hot drinks are important. I’ve often made brownies to take on our shorter camps: again they are compact and filling, but also hold together well and are very popular. Nothing quite like a brownie snack after setting up camp for raising the mood and filling the gap while dinner is prepared. Hot chocolate, coffee, peppermint and ordinary tea bags are also always in our camping “larder”.

We take two cooking options: a single table-top gas ring (fueled by easily available small gas canisters) and a simple folding campfire stove (because most campsites you have to bring your own and can’t make a fire on the ground). The gas ring is great for heating water for drinks and washing up water, and as a backup to the fire. The fire obviously takes more work, but it’s also more fun. I don’t see the joy in just cooking by gas like you do at home when you could light a fire!

Food is one of the things I love most about camping. Cooking and eating outdoors is really very relaxing most of the time and you’re completely focused on what you’re doing. That focus is what means that camping is so relaxing. Because you’re so zoned in on taking care of basics like food and shelter, you forget about the pressures that you’ve left behind at home and the office.

Do you have a favourite camping meal? Or a favourite camping food memory?

Baking—one of my loves

I've been thinking about baking recently. It's something I do regularly, as you probably know. I've shared quite a number of recipes here as well as wrote about my kitchen just the other week.

Cooking and baking is something I really enjoy. I find it is a soul-refreshing thing to do. I've always loved creating. My mum would tell you about the Childcraft Encyclopedias we had when I was young. The volume themed "Make and Do" was the most worn out. I was always pulling it out and making (or thinking about making) something. As I've gotten older I'm less likely to make things that are not of some practical use. I've had to move too many times and throw too many things out. Not to mention that I have less leisure time to fill these days.

However, baking is very practical and doesn't clutter up the house. And with teenage boys in my house, I have plenty of need to cook. However, what I do goes beyond what is needed. I love to make food that the guys love to eat. I enjoy planning meals that we will all delight in. It's so fun to tell them in the morning what that evening's meal is and having them exclaim positively (doesn't happen every day, mind you). I look forward to having time on the weekends to make snacks that will help keep them satisfied between meals in the week to come. 

I also love making food for others, when the need arises and I have time to do so. I even love helping others with their baking. In the summer I tried to help a friend learn to make a cake. Just recently I gave advice to another expat about the challenges of Japanese flour and biscuit/cookie baking.

I know that I'm starting to be settled after a move when I can begin baking again. I know that I've been too busy or too stressed if I haven't done much baking recently. It's like a litmus test.

There's been lots written about the benefits of baking for others. This article calls it a stress-reliever, a mindfulness activity, altruism, and meditative. Of course, if you don't enjoy it or never had the chance to develop some skill in baking/cooking, it isn't those things. For example, knitting and sewing are not stress-relieving for me. I can do the latter (simple stuff), but more often than not it's more stressful that I'm bargaining for. And don't get me started on knitting!

As I baked on Sunday, I was thinking about lots of things (as usual). Three rose to the surface:

• Baking is an act of creation, I'm made in the image of a Creator (See Genesis 1:26-27), so of course it is satisfying to create using well-honed skills. Much more satisfying that just going to the shop and buying a packet of biscuits.
• Baking always connects me back to my roots. My mum taught me to bake and quite a number of the biscuit/cake recipes I have are hers. I've also collected a number of recipes from other people over the years. So, on Sunday I made "Honey Biscuits" (also known as "Stamp Biscuits" by my boys, and pictured on the right), a recipe my mum made for me as a child, and used an old cotton reel that she gave me many years ago to make the patter on the top. I also made a newer recipe given to me by a missionary colleague. Making these recipes is an act in remembering those relationships.
• Baking gives me time and space to reflect (that is noted in the article above). It's a structured activity that I'm relatively competent at, so while it keeps my hands doing something practical, my head it often partly somewhere else, processing a conversation, or thinking about a verse I've read, or considering a plan for a future event.

It is very common in Japan to talk about your hobbies. For most of my like I have not considered baking a hobby (it's too practical, isn't it?), but I think that is worth revising.

What do you cook for dinner?

So I've resolved this school year to blog at least once a week. But every now and then in my job I run into a quiet patch and have more time to do things like write here. It's an interesting phenomenon as I deal with many deadlines every week. I'm in the interesting position that many of these deadlines are set by me, so I do my best to keep things relatively manageable.

It helps, just now, that I'm not trying to "get ahead" due to any upcoming holiday time. Preparing for and recovering from holidays can be significantly stressful! These last two months have been busy with preparing for holidays and dealing with different family needs while they're all home here. Until this week I've also been going slower in the mornings and getting up at least an hour later. All of which means that I've been cramming more into less time.

Menu list
One of my summer goals was small: for reference when menu writing, to make a list of all the meals that I regularly make for dinner here. I had a list I wrote in pen many years ago, before I had teenagers. But it's a bit outdated and, as it lives on the side of our fridge, it is fading. 

Earlier this week I wrote up the list. I was surprised to find that I could think of 47 meals that I make at least once every few months. If you consider that I only usually cook five times a week (the other nights are usually left-overs), that's quite a lot of variety. I eat the same breakfast six days a week and that's the way I like it, but I prefer to have a lot of variety at dinner!

A favourite meal: wraps. Usually chicken
with simple salad. People make their own
(which I suspect is part of the fun).

Perhaps you'll be interested in the list, so I've posted it below. I don't actually make much Japanese food, there are only four or five below, though there are others I occasionally cook. I find many Japanese meals are time-consuming to make from scratch (which is how I prefer to do most of my cooking). But perhaps some of you could give me some helpful hints? And of course, living in Japan, when we eat out we often have Japanese! Eating out in Japan is relatively cheap (especially if you don't take teenagers with you!). 

My criteria for cooking dinner is that it can't take much longer than an hour and that most people in the family like it. For keeping a lid on the budget, my weekly menu usually consists of only three big "meat" meals and, for the sake of variety, those are usually each different meats (i.e. not two chicken meals in the one week). Other meals often include smaller portions of protein like bacon or eggs or both.

There's probably a number of things on the list that you don't know, either. I'm happy to explain or even share recipes! The notes in brackets are recipe book nicknames.

Cute Tokyo apple pie cafe

We moved to Tokyo fourteen years ago with three little boys . . . anyone who's ever had multiple little boys knows that little cafes aren't great places (nor were the trains to get there). Then they got bigger and discovered a liking for cafes, but by then they ate too much and it was something that was an occasional special treat. 

Tokyo is a crowded city in a land fond of cute everything. There are thousands of tiny places to eat and hang out in this city, but we've not visited many of them as a family. Somehow it isn't so kind to other customers to drag our "large" family into a little cafe. Over the years I've been to some with friends, but often I look with longing at little places I walk past when I'm traversing the city and wonder what they'd be like to try.

So last night, when I walked past an eatery I've seen a few times in recent weeks—Granny Smith Apple Pie and Coffee—I decided to indulge. I had about 20 minutes spare as I waited for an appointment and, why not, Granny Smith apples are an Australian export after all!

Granny Smith Apple Pie and Coffee is a homey little shop, you feel almost like you're in someone's country kitchen. 

Turns out there are several of them in Tokyo and one in Yokohama too. This year is the first time I've ever seen one. Their apple pies are divine, if a little pricey! I'm tempted now to make another one of my own...

Why not go seasonal: sakura apple pie, with vanilla ice cream and raspberry sauce. Yum!

Seize the day

One of the things we do a lot when we're in Australia is "seize the day". Here are some recent examples:

I've been buying a lot of mangoes and green grapes. That might or might not seem strange to you. Green seedless grapes of the sort I grew up eating aren't common in Japan (although I've increasingly seen equivalents there in the last year). So while I'm here, I'm going to enjoy them. I almost never have mango in Japan, because they are expensive and always look dodgy (especially for the price). The other day I had a brief encounter with a grocery store employee who expressed surprise at all my mangoes, I didn't bother to explain to her that I was seizing the day!

Last Wednesday we went to a live international cricket match. Both David and I are fans, but I have never been to a live international match and he's never been to a short-form game. Last home assignment we tried to get to one, but the match was washed out and so all we saw was a bit of a boring interstate match. 

Last Wednesday was a great experience, only tempered by the shocking news about our financial support that we'd received hours earlier. We were surprised at how loud the crowd was (but we were sitting in the midst of very loud Indian supporters, possibly the most animated group in the stadium). It did rain for a bit, which meant some delay mid-match, but we ended up seeing 17 overs-a-side (instead of 20). Then there was a thrilling finish where Australia won and we had a great view from our three-rows-from the-front seats. Great entertainment. The boys were surprised at how much fun it was. Another seize-the-day moment.

This isn't quite in the same category, but close. I seize the day by reading as many books as I can from our local library. I love having such a wonderful library close by (we drive past our local branch at least four times a day on school days). The library pictured is not our local branch, but the central branch that I visited today because I was in the area and needed a cool, quiet place to wait for a couple of hours.

Tonight we're having roast chicken. I'd have to say it's also a seize-the-day event. In Australia we take every opportunity to enjoy the meat so easily available here, especially sausages (sooo much better than Japanese sausages) and meat pies. But other food too, although trying to keep a lid on the Australian lollies that we love to indulge in!

And of course fruit mince pies: ones that are freely available in the shops, not painstakingly made at home.

We do the same in Japan: we enjoy the things that you can enjoy there, and not in Australia. I can bet that our boys will be wanting some Japanese convenience store food soon after we arrive back!

International is normal

These last two days I've had quite different lunches to what I usually do. Let me give you a taste.

Monday
On Monday I joined with a group of five other mums who have children in grade nine at CAJ. We ate lunch at one of their houses. This was not an ordinary lunch, and that's due to the ladies who were present.

Yummy Asian lunch!

I was the only 100% Caucasian lady there. The other ladies were various combinations of Korean, US, Japanese, and Chinese. And by various combinations, I mean that my background was one of the least complicated (I've only lived in two countries and I'm the same nationality as my husband and both my parents and the country I grew up in). Two or three of them are raising multiple nationality kids too (husbands with a different nationality than the wife). Conversation ranged between English, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean, so I'm not sure that anyone got 100% of what was said, least of all me, probably the least multilingual person there.

The food reflected the ladies present: a lot of Korean, plus some Japanese and possibly more (what's honey mustard chicken?). It was super tasty.

I'm accustomed to conversation about different Englishes, but these multilingual ladies were doing the same with Korean/Japanese/Chinese. If I knew more of these languages it would have been even more fascinating and there are many links between these three languages.

Tuesday
On Tuesday I went across the city to our national headquarters for a couple of meetings, mostly related to me handing bits of my jobs over to others while we're away. In between meetings I got to work in a room called "The Island"! 

My meetings included my Scottish boss (who is pretty fluent in Japanese), another Aussie, a man from Britain who grew up in Japan, an American who is ethnically Japanese and grew up in Japan with an American family, and a lady from Hong Kong. International is our normal!

Our Japan OMF headquarters is aquatic-themed.
This room is called "The Island", upstairs are two meeting
rooms called "The Stream" and "The River". Down the
hall the finance team works in "The Oasis"!

Lunch was with the various people working at the office that day. Our little table had three British people, all who've been in Japan for longer than me, and a bilingual Japanese lady. Topics ranged considerably, from blue cheese, to the Royal Wedding, and ingrown toenails (really!). My semi-regular Facebook status of Wednesday Words came up too, and they had some suggestions! Braces vs retainers, braces vs suspenders, tute for tutorial, trousers vs pants. Such fun, talking about language.

Today
Meanwhile today, I'm back at my little desk in my dining room, trying to discipline myself to attend to little bits and pieces of followup from yesterday as well as other ongoing things that need doing. (But instead of powering through I'm writing a blog post...) 

It's weird to be divvying up my job to give to others and hard to stay motivated for the "now" or to get motivated for the "coming". I swerve between feeling scared about ditching work and feeling relieved! Maybe you don't understand the former feeling, but I have an underlying fear of boredom that sometimes (or maybe more than sometimes) drives me.

Ah, transition. Never easy, no matter how it looks. I know I'll eventually get around to embracing the freedom of handing over these jobs, but at the moment I feel a little like I'm balancing on a slab of ice in the middle of a lake.

Care package for Australia

I'm still struggling with my cold, complicated, as always, by asthma. However this afternoon if I sit quietly in my "relaxing chair", I feel pretty close to normal. In fact I've gotten through a fair bit of computer-based work in between resting over these last couple of days. I'm very thankful that this was going to be a quiet week anyway (it's incredibly rare that I have almost no meetings or appointments scheduled for an entire week, but that's what this week looked like). I'm trying to be patient with my body and thankful for the time to rest.

After yesterday's depressing post I wanted to write something a little more upbeat today. Not much has been going on that's worthy to write about this week. It's Thursday and I've left home just once since Sunday morning!

Here's my meagre offering:

We've gone the full circle. When we arrived in Japan over 17 years ago my mum sent us care packages (she still occasionally does, but usually around birthdays and Christmases). Now we're about to send our first care package to our son in Australia! I was surprised that it was pretty hard to find stuff to send. Perhaps we're not Japanese enough? 

But really, we don't eat a lot of packaged stuff, and that's all one can send to Australia. He'd love us to send onigiri or curry rice or yakisoba, (rice ball or Japanese curry or Japanese stir fried noodles) but these would never make it through customs. I wish I could send him some homemade biscuits!

One day soon I'll get back on my bike and get this to the post office!

A messy day

Today's been a messy day. It was one of those days that it's hard to get traction on anything. Here's how it went (please be patient, it is messy, after all).

As many of you know life as a family just gets more complicated as your kids get older. Mine aren't super social, so they're not off at other people's houses all that much, but they do do sport, and in this season that means wrestling training until after 6pm many nights. Thankfully we live close to school and I don't have to pick them up, and they can eat dinner pretty soon after they finish training.

I am one of those people who like to know what we're having for dinner ahead of time to save the mental angst of trying to figure out what I can make with what we have. So I have a simple menu plan for our evening meals (very simple, just a list of the days with the main evening dish written on it). This week I'd planned chicken wraps for tonight and our eldest agreed he'd like to make that (as part of his agreed household job of cooking one evening meal a week).

Then we discovered yesterday that tonight there were inter-school basketball matches at school in the evening. That meant that we maybe could buy dinner at school and support the seniors fundraising for their Thailand trip next year. It's become an enjoyable family tradition to do this as much as we can during the autumn and winter sporting seasons.

The other factor in figuring things out was one boy deciding that he wanted to go to the doctor (for acne that just isn't improving). 

Then are the other factors that have made planning a little tricky this week: 

1. Wrestling duals at CAJ on Wednesday night, which I'd planned to go to and most/all of the family with me.

2. Thursday is a public holiday (only relevant because doctors don't open on those days, CAJ has school that day).

3. We're going away Friday for a long weekend.

So, can you see, trying to figure it all out is like a jigsaw puzzle. What piece fits where?

This morning my questions were:

1. Is food being sold at school tonight?

2. When is the best afternoon to go with my son to the doctor? (Keeping in mind that you can't make appointments to see this doctor, you have to just turn up and take a number, and it is usually a long line).

3. When is the best night for our eldest son to cook dinner (keeping in mind that I'd already gotten the chicken out to defrost)?

At 9.30 this morning I thought I had it figured out: We would go to the doctor this afternoon, then have dinner at school tonight, and our son could cook dinner tomorrow night. I checked with the relevant boys and then informed everyone else (though one boy failed to look at his email and was clueless).

So I merrily went about my day as best I could.

8.30-10 A bit of email and catching up on other computer-work related things.

10-11.30 At school at a prayer meeting and touching base with David about our plans for the evening.

11.30-12.15 Rode to get groceries

12.15-1.00 Ate lunch

1.00-3.00 Computer work (editing, email etc.)

3.00 Headed out to the doctor

We got to the doctor and saw the above sign. The doctor's hours have changed and he's now closed on Mondays! Arggghhh.

Yes, I know, really just an inconvenience, not a big problem. But it took a while for my son and I to reformat our thinking and adjust what we were going to do next, not to mention refiguring the puzzle I've outlined above. I ended up going to a nearby department store and I wandered round a bit in the warm until I felt ready to go home (I did get a couple of pantry items that we needed).

One more piece of background to today: it has dropped down to winter temperatures. It was 6C at 8.15 when our boys left for school this morning, and hasn't risen a lot further than 10C. I haven't felt like going outside at all, all day! Inside is a bit better, but only if I'm in the dining/office/kitchen area. And it's back to feeling cold a lot of the time and the inconveniences of winter to go out: scarf, jacket, gloves, and hat/ear muffs.

Sigh. Sorry for my grumblings. I'm glad that I have the means to keep warm, God is so good to us. I really don't have any right to grumble. I'm just going through the transition of late autumn to early winter and never enjoy that transition in Tokyo.

If you're interested, here is how the rest of the afternoon panned out:

4.00 I rode home, bantered with boys (yes, they were in the mood) and had coffee.

4.15 Got on the computer, answered a couple more emails and started this post.

5.30 Walked to school for dinner with David (the boys all at at various later times at school)

6.15 Watched basketball.

7.30 Walked home and had a very hot shower to warm up.

And now I'm back at the computer, finishing off this blog post.

I know that this kind of scenario is played out in many houses every week. It's usually not so complicated, though knowing when to have dinner on the table is a bit tricky in this season.

I'm not fond of the messiness. In some ways it was easier when they were all home by 4pm and in bed by 7.30. Though what we've got now is more physical freedom, it takes more mental and emotional energy to do all the shuffling, negotiating, and coordinating. 

I am really thankful I'm not driving kids all around like I would be in Australia, though. It does make it a lot easier that we live really close to school. I'm also thankful that I have a flexible job that I do from home, and that I have a lot of control over my own schedule, so that isn't usually a big factor when it comes to dealing with the family. It does mean, though, that things I've planned are usually the first to go (for example, time at the gym).

But I've raved on long enough about this messy day . . . messy life. How much of a "messy" schedule are you willing to put up with? How do you cope?

Taiwan in Tokyo

On Saturday I met my two Bible-study ladies at Harajuku, a popular hub in Tokyo. I have only been there a handful of times. It is usually crowded and I'm not fond of crowds. It's also full of expensive shops and restaurants—not really our scene at all.

One of the ladies is Taiwanese and the other Malaysian. Our young Malaysian friend did some research and discovered a Taiwanese restaurant. Last time we met at an Australian restaurant and the time before was American. I guess this really is turning into an international Bible study, despite never leaving Tokyo!

Taiwanese noodles. They had a subtle flavour
that is apparently very Taiwanese. I ate some,
though I did find them quite salty.

So I got to sample some Taiwanese food and drink. I'm not an adventurous eater, so I struggle to try, and enjoy, new foods. I'm not a tea drinker, nor do I like tapioca, so it was a little wasted on me! I had mango juice, though, which was scrumptious. 

These were tasty. Fried daikon cakes, I think. Daikon is a large, white root vegetable. A type of radish (but mild-flavoured).

The decor revealed someone had had a love of hexagons!
This was the ceiling.

And the tiles on the front of the front counter.

When I arrived back at our station, I was treated to the gorgeous sight of the sun setting on Mt Fuji. I wish I'd had a better camera, but I just had my phone, which didn't take such a bad photo.

Vegetable Nut Crumble recipe

Last night I baked a vegetarian dish that I found when I was a poor newly wed. I haven't made it, as far as I can recall, since we've had kids. But I brushed the cobwebs off the recipe last night and made it. 

Everyone liked it, except for the fact that I added capsicum. But they're big enough that they don't really complain anymore, though I have plenty of immediate feedback. One boy jokingly called it a "sand casserole" because it looked a bit sandy on top! Two of them just picked out the capsicum and left it on the side of their plates. In any case, you can play around with what vegetables you wish to include in this dish. I didn't use cauliflower, merely because I didn't find it in the two shops I looked in. I used corn instead.

I posted about it on Facebook, and as usual, someone asked for the recipe, so here it is. It's not a hard recipe at all.

Rice base

I used three rice-cooker cups of rice for this (about 180ml). But adjust to your size family.

Vegetable stock cube

2 eggs

1. Cook rice in water with stock cube. (I used a rice cooker)

2. Combine rice and raw egg, mix well.

3. Spread over base of baking dish (I used a large dish for my hungry family).

Vegetable layer

50g butter

1 onion, chopped

1 capsicum (bell pepper/red pepper), chopped

broccoli (I used about 300g), chopped

200g cauliflower (I used about 150g corn), chopped

150g small mushrooms, chopped

1 can tomatoes, mashed

mixed herbs (whatever you've got, Italian-type herbs)

pepper

1 - 1 ½ cups grated cheese

4. Melt butter in frying pan.

5. Add onion, cook until soft.

6. Add rest of vegetables and cook until tender.

7. Add herbs and pepper.

8. Spoon vegetables over rice.

9. Spread cheese over vegetables.

Nutty Crumb topping

20g butter, melted

1 cup breadcrumbs

1 ½ cup mixed nuts, chopped (I used ½ cup of almond powder)

10. Mix together topping.

11. Spread evenly over everything else.

12. Bake in a moderate oven (about 180˚C) for 20 minutes, or until golden.

Enjoy!