so i realized after a few emails from different people that the sunny perspective i was presenting about our new situation is a bit misleading. besides for the bigger stresses like lack of transportation, money, access to certain resources like good food and sewing materials, we also face the little household woes. like rats. when we lived in this building before, we discovered that the lovely overgrown backyard was teeming with river rats who grew beyond the average size due to the surplus supply of cat food that our landlord generously leaves for her multitudes of cats in large bowls. we never actually saw rats during that stay (instead we were plagued with roaches for a short time) but right before we moved to japan we began to hear them in the walls. this time, though, they have easy access to our kitchen and being on the ground floor we are becoming their hub during the night. luckily, we were already taking measures to prevent infestation based on our roach experience so mainly these furry friends are just investigating. of course, my mom mentioned that winter is coming and they are probably starting to look for some place to "bed down", as she put it, for the winter. fantastic, right? we had mentioned this to our landlords but they are busy and just a little forgetful so nothing has yet to be done. the other household woe is our oven that has never worked. in fact, it was my landlord who told me it didn't work because he was here when the gas guy came to inspect it before he turned on the gas.
here is the rat entry:

the red powder is jason's attempt to discourage frequent visitors. it is ground red pepper.
our other problem is the pantry. the pantry has become a catch-all mainly because we don't use it. we don't use it because all those cans you see on the shelves are from the previous tenant. this creeps me out for some reason so i don't have anything to do with the space. i want to take the canned goods to the food bank but without a car, it is rather difficult. i hope that the postal service will be collecting canned goods at thanksgiving like they used to.

here is our stove/oven. as some of you know, i was really looking forward to having an oven again after two years without being able to bake. i am a good baker. the funny thing is that my landlords always comment on how new this oven is everytime they go through the kitchen. this oven is so old school that the pilot lights are always lit and thus always using gas.
the good news about the rats and the oven though is that the message finally got through to the landlords. they just left to go to the hardware store to buy rat poison to put under the house and will plug up the holes. they are also going to call the gas guy to have him come out and fix the oven. so hopefully all that will be taken care of before ingrid arrives so i can bake some pecan cookies for my dear friend in miyazaki.

here is my hot plate that i got from an estate sale. i like it for several reasons. the scandinavian design, the strange message , and best of all it was made in japan. i have this strange knack of finding old scandinavian looking ceramics that are always made in japan. might explain the messsage.

i have been feeling bummed because i can't sew anything like i want to. not because i am lacking skills (though they can definately be improved) but because i have a hard time finding any materials i need. but i did manage to make this for ingrid using some random material i had on hand. it is twice as big as the baby quilt i made for sebastian which made me realize that i need to make a new quilt for sebastian soon.

then there are my other achievements (if only sebastian would stay still)

and here i am at almost 36 weeks. tomorrow i will see the midwife again and this time jason gets to go. i have pretty much decided to give birth at the center since it is really nice. anyway, as you can see i am dressed to go play in the "big" park with sebastian so i best be on my way. hope everyone is doing well. take care.