Life in Thia's Worlds: This Summer~What's been up~~

This year has been full of mishaps.

Until mid summer- then I decided it had to stop.

Our living situation was seriously difficult- though finally now, after working very hard, we can live in peace and love.

But this year- actually since 3/11/11~ last year, when Japan began blowing up, life has been harder.

I've been trying to feel positive again.

However my sister died this past May... Taka and I went East for the funeral for her.

I came back to lots of machinery breaking down at home.

One of our cars ran without radiator fluid. Parts melted, and we could only sell it for parts. That car we were advertising to sell for $4,500. We ended up only selling it for parts for $500.

I came home from that~ to see that all the tomato and broccoli plants had been eaten up by deer.

The hard drive on this computer stopped working when an Apple store guy did something to it...

$300. + for a new hard drive~ it does help my four year "old" computer running really well again. Just costly.

The hot tub heating element broke down. $100. to fix that.

My camera broke. Sony wanted $130. to fix the one and a half year old $340. camera (but today a camera man in Santa Cruz said he can do it for $90. Happy, happy I am for that one. The burst shots for basketball on the camera have been great- what is what we bought it for).

Our washing machine acted up and we had to do work to make it more secure- hard work pulling out strange unnecessary flooring that was under it. That scared me though, thinking that we'd have to buy a new washer.

The refrigerator is making lots of noise now~ worrying me.

But, but, but...we have these gardens that I've gotten to grow new life into our life, for our lives!

BUT, since my camera's been broken (though I'll get it back tomorrow) it's not been easy or convenient to get photos into my computer. That's not the only problem, since my hard drive was changed, I've not figured out a few other things for this dear computer.

All of that, and a slump in my feeling for writing has kept me from being better about writing here for you dear friends and family.

But look here~ this is one thing I can feel so positive about~

Plants like this Shiso! I could grow SHISO! And shiso has not been easy for me to grow.

From seed even.

We've been eating it in salads most days of the week.

and on special occasion Sashimi.

But also recently Sheon and Yuriko made DONBURI!

MAGURO DON!!!! (and miso soup with mitsuba)

I've been gardening, but also for salads, SPROUTS are what I love to grow too. Sunflower sprouts are DELICIOUS!

I found another recipe for corn. For cooking corn on the grill~

I took off some of the outside husk, and then peeled back the husks left on the corn.

Then I rubbed butter, salt and pepper on the corn. From the older outside husks, I tore strips to use to tie the corn husk back on top of the butter, salt and pepper. Then grilled it. VERY good!