No workout today

But I have had plenty of activity, so I don't consider it cheating. Oh what a day, or what a week I should say. With a client in the studio our whole life is disrupted. I am thankful for the opportunity to serve this young artist, but the worst of it is hitting Hana. Everything for her is different and she is not handling it well today for some reason.

Her room is connected to another large room where our guest is staying. The only thing between the two rooms is paper doors, and above the paper doors is a beautiful old style Japanese wood carving of trees and cranes, so that space is completely open except for the carvings. Plus the studio is upstairs next to Rocky and I's bedroom (only a few feet away from Hana's room also, and even though there is a wall and doors, this is an old Japanese house so the sound carries right through. Poor thing, can't nap properly, can't sleep at night properly and her schedule of eating is all off. Because Rocky is here in the house with a young woman we can't go anywhere, so she's all cooped up, besides it has been raining constantly anyways. Plus she is cutting some teeth. And she misses Daddy terribly. She's knows he is just upstairs and can't understand why she can't go up there and be with him. Talk about everything stacked against her, she has been a fussy mess all day, and most of yesterday. We are up to 5 days with a guest and the craziness, and I think she's had about all she can take. Plus she woke up at 6am this morning. She sleeps most morning until 8 or later.

So Mommy is a frazzled mess. I'm trying to take care of her, cook as much as possible for all the meals for our guest, stay as quiet as possible, keep up with all my CyberWize work, get ready for the internet business my friend and I are starting, work on the walls in our entryway AND I can't go anywhere for more than a few minutes. With this fussy baby, I am about to go nuts too!!! My workouts in the evening have been my escape but I don't get that today because the gym is closed! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Ok, I feel better.

So during Hana's nap this afternoon (which she actually slept through some of the singing upstairs) I was able to finish up taping and mudding the joints in the walls in our entryway. Now my problem is, I want to texture the walls before painting them, but I don't know if as a civilian you can get any equipment for doing that in Japan. Actually I am almost certain you can not! Most Japanese have never heard of doing their own painting or wallpapering, and they are shocked and awed when they find out that I am doing ours. You can hardly get any paint at the hardware store, there are maybe 10 colors to choose from. And those machines in the states at every hardware store that mix any paint to the color you want, NOT available here. Luckily we have a friend at church who paints for a living so he can get us some good colors. But I want to texture the walls before I paint, and I have no idea how I am going to do that. I am thinking it through. I thought of doing it myself with plaster, and doing a circular texture or something. But our entryway is so small it would be overwhelming for such a tiny space. I need something very simple, but to paint the walls just as they are now would not look too great, you would be able to see most of the flaws (which there are many because the Japanese construction workers assume you are going to wallpaper which will cover up a lot, so they are not very neat with their construction. And they use HUGE screws to secure the dry wall??? ugh. If anyone happens to be boring themselves by reading my journal and reading it this far, and has any ideas, please post a comment! By the way, you deserve a treat for reading this if you are!

So anyways, Mommy is one tired cookie tonight. I made my sourdough bread this morning though, it was OK. I think the starter is not the best. I'll have to try something different sometime. But for now, I have this starter so I'll stick with it for a while. It isn't too bad. So for lunch we had veggie soup and sourdough bread. yummy! Then for dinner I made Mexican food for Ai-chan, our guest. She loved it but it was a LOT of work, especially after making bread this morning, working on the walls this afternoon and having gotten up at 6am this morning with my little munchkin (I didn't go to bed till 1am last night). whoooooo, I'm ready for bed!

But first, I shall escape to my bath! ohhhhhhh, that is the one wonderful thing about this house. The spacious, roomy, deep bath! I LOVE it, it alone was worth every yen we paid for this house. The tiny bath we had in our apartment was not too good for this long legged cowgirl. Calgon, take me away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

goodnight.