the blog

Life This Week in Japan: Dec 8-14, 2025

Monday, Dec 8 When we last saw our hero, she was sleeping in Kyoto in a room with no windows. I got up pretty early to head over to Kyoto’s Gion district. It’s the city’s most famous geisha area; originally a cluster of teahouses serving visitors to Yasaka Shrine, but over time
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Life This Week in Japan: Dec 1-7, 2025

Monday, Dec 1 A stay at home day. I finally sorted through my piles of plastic into the appropriate recycling categories: burnable, non-burnable, regular plastic, PET plastic…removed all the labels, crushed the cans and bottles. Trash disposal is even more complicated/labor-intensive here than it was in Korea. Tuesday, Dec 2 Just sort
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Where Bloggers Live: Best of 2025

Welcome! “Where Bloggers Live” started out kind of like HGTV’s “Celebrities at Home,” but…with bloggers! We all like to peek behind the scenes and see inside people’s homes, interests, and lives, so every month this wonderful  family of amazing women shares their work-spaces, homes, towns, and thoughts, with posts based on specific
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Life This Week in Japan: Nov 10-16, 2025

Monday, Nov 10 Highlights of the Day: Getting a Costco rotisserie chicken delivered to my door Putting a second comforter on while I lay in bed listening to my audiobook – it was so cozy! I struggled with the trash separation. Japan is as anal about trash separation and recycling as Korea…but
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Where Bloggers Live: Choosing Sides (literally) on Thanksgiving

Welcome! “Where Bloggers Live” started out kind of like HGTV’s “Celebrities at Home,” but…with bloggers! We all like to peek behind the scenes and see inside people’s homes, interests, and lives, so every month this wonderful  family of amazing women shares their work-spaces, homes, towns, and thoughts, with posts based on specific
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Life This Week in Japan: Nov 3-9, 2025

Monday, Nov 3 My “rule” for myself when traveling is when I get someplace new I get two days to rest, recover, veg, sleep, whatever my mind and body need. Traveling is exhausting always, but going to a totally new place is…oofah. So, while yesterday I really just rested, today I (after
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This Week in San Antonio & Japan: Oct 27-Nov 2, 2025

Monday, Oct 27 Well, THAT was an annoying day 🙁 Trying to get a refund from ebay…cancelling some things…emailed the Japanese Powers That Be about my application to bring Wellbutrin, because I have never heard back and when I looked at the website today it said my application could not be found!
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This Week in San Antonio, TX: Oct 20-26, 2025

Monday, Oct 20 Mostly a quiet day…talking…quick trip to the PO to ship out a camera I sold…quiet dinnner. Tuesday, Oct 21 Quiet day, went out to dinner with some family. Played hangman with a young cousin and had a really good steak. Wednesday, Oct 22 & A Very Special Reunion I
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Life This Week in San Antonio, Texas: Oct 13-19, 2025

Monday, Oct 13 We had intended to go to the Alamo today (I have relatives who died there, so that’s always an attraction), and let Katie see a bit of San Antonio before she had to leave. But timing sort of got away from us and that didn’t happen. We did have
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Life This Week in Florida & San Antonio: Oct 6-12, 2025

Didja miss me?? Monday, Oct 6 I went a little MIA. Honestly, absolutely nothing has been going on. We just stay home quietly, watch sitcom reruns, sleep, eat. Barely leave the house. In fact, her Jeep has been at the mechanic for the past six days. And we barely noticed cuz…no interest
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Where Bloggers Live: Self Care When I’m Sick

Welcome! “Where Bloggers Live” started out kind of like HGTV’s “Celebrities at Home,” but…with bloggers! We all like to peek behind the scenes and see inside people’s homes, interests, and lives, so every month this wonderful group of five bloggers family of amazing women shares their work-spaces, homes, towns, and thoughts, with
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Life This Week in St. Petersburg, FL: September 8-14, 2025

Monday, Sep 8 Slept til 2. PEE-EM!!! What the heck? Tuesday, Sep 9 Slept AGAIN til 2pm. I mean, I wake up at some point in the morning between like 5-9am…look at my phone for a bit, consider getting up…come to the realization that I’m still tired + I don’t really HAVE
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Where Bloggers Live: Top Ten Things I Couldn’t Live Without

Welcome! “Where Bloggers Live” started out kind of like HGTV’s “Celebrities at Home,” but…with bloggers! We all like to peek behind the scenes and see inside people’s homes, interests, and lives, so every month this wonderful group of six bloggers family of amazing women shares their work-spaces, homes, towns, and thoughts, with
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Life This Week in Los Angeles & St.Petersburg, FL: September 1-7, 2025

Monday, Sep 1 I will say the obligatory “whoa. September.” It was Labor Day…and while we’d had holiday-like plans, at the last minute everyone felt sort of overwhelmed…my great niece starts school tomorrow, my nephew wanted to work on the playhouse…so we just stayed local, ran some errands and did things around
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Life This Week in Los Angeles: August 25-31, 2025

Monday, Aug 25 First day of my last full week here in California. It was a day of rescheduling and rescheduling, where you sort of spend the whole day waiting to see when your activity will next by scheduled for… Finally at 6pm my cousin picked me up to go to dinner
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Life this Week in Los Angeles: August 18-24, 2025

Monday, Aug 18 Slept. Tuesday, Aug 19 I Left the Building! I got up when the alarm went off at 7:30…and headed to the San Ferando Valley for the Suiho En Japanese Garden. It seemed a little “new” to me. A little too pristime. I mean, it was fine. A 6-acre garden
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Life This Week in Los Angeles: Aug 11-17, 2025

Monday, Aug 11 Another almost completely sleepless night. I slept from 2-3:30am…and then again from 7:30-8:30am. I think it’s a combination of not being in my familiar, comfortable place…being in a different place…totally flip-flopped time zone…and I can’t find my allergy pills I take to sleep. Went to the movies with niece,
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The Last Week in South Korea: August 4-10, 2025

Monday, Aug 4 Four Days. Tuesday, Aug 5 I had a plan. A breakfast spot I’ve wanted to go to the whole time I’ve been here. Set the alarm, got up, was getting ready…got an email from supervisor at the remote job “can you do this HUGE LIST asap??” So I decided
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Where Bloggers Live: Surviving Korea’s Heat and Humidity

Welcome to Where Bloggers Live: 2025! Happy New Year! “Where Bloggers Live” started out kind of like HGTV’s “Celebrities at Home,” but…with bloggers! We all like to peek behind the scenes and see inside people’s homes, interests, and lives, so every month this wonderful group of seven bloggers family of amazing women
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