It’s nearly Christmas again, and over a year since we updated here. Our lives have changed drastically since then! As previously when I haven’t updated in a long while, here is an update in bullet format.

– We became foster parents, as mentioned in the previous post, and had our first placement – a 12 year old girl. It was difficult adjusting, and we learned a lot.
– I interviewed for a new job, and got it.
– Jun quit her job at the hospital.
– Phoenix went to live with my sister, because we were moving. He now lives with his cousin Goose and is very happy. He’s now over 10 years old, and showing his age, but loves living in his new house. We miss him.
– We moved to Europe for my job. We made the trek, with cat in tow (that was an ordeal worth its own post!), lived in a hotel for 45 days, and found a great apartment close enough to my work that I can bike everyday – or ride the bus when it rains… which it does. A lot. We are now living a car free life of lots of walking, bus and train riding, and having a lot less stress. (I may have mentioned before, to anyone who will listen, that I hate driving.)
– Of course, the biggest change of all was we had a baby. She was born on November 1st and we have been in the haze of new babydom. I feel like we might be finally emerging now that she is 7 weeks old.

So lots of changes. Lots of things to post about – and I need to! Especially our travelling adventures and learning new European dishes.

AJ

A few years ago Jun and I decided to become foster parents. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a really long time, and Jun was interested too.

Initially, in January 2010, we were living in another state, and weren’t married yet (though were engaged). We decided to attend a foster parent informational meeting to see what it was all about. Unfortunately, they told us that since we were not a same-sex couple we could not foster together unless we were married. (as an aside, what a double standard! Of course, normally it’s same-sex couples who get the downside of everything, so I guess I really can’t complain)

We were disappointed, but said, “Alright, well we will just call back when we get married.” That summer we got married, and the next January we called up the foster parent recruiter and said we were ready to begin. She remembered us, was excited, and signed us up for the training.

We took several months of training in early 2012. We finished, and were filling out all the homestudy paperwork… and I got a new job… in a different state.

We moved house, got settled into our new place, and attended the foster parent informational meeting in our new county and said we were already trained and just needed a home study. They said no, for various reasons, and we needed to be in the area for longer. They told us to wait at least three months.

So, in October of last year we called back and asked them to send us the entire homestudy packet so we could fill it out. They did, and we did. We sent it back in November of last year. They received it and told us to wait until a social worker had time to do out homestudy.

In January, a social worker called to set up our homestudy. She came out in early February and told us, “We have a mandate to be done with these within 120 days, so you should have kids in your home by May!” Great, we thought. That will be perfect!

Then May rolls around… the social worker needs to visit us again before she can do the write-up. She wants to visit in May, but I was in Burundi. So she sets up a meeting for the first week of June. Fine. We meet with her in June and when I ask what the timeline for completion will be, she says “Oh, less than a month!” OK, great!

September comes, and she needs to set up another meeting with us. By this time, we kind of thought it would never happen and were generally becoming OK with that. We’ve moved on to other plans and were OK. So, she comes to meet with us, and we figure it will be another few months until everything is done – if ever.

But, lo and behold, the first thing she says is, “Oh, I approved your home this week and you could be getting a call next week for a placement.” Wait, what??

We were a little shocked. After all this time, effort, and energy, with little-to-no fanfare we are a licensed foster home.

It’s finally done. After more than two and a half years, it’s done. Any time we could get a call for a child that needs a home to stay in. We could be that home. It’s a little surreal. And now I’m freaking out just a little bit.

So, a long story to say – WE ARE FINALLY LICENSED!

 

 

AJ

Burundi you ask? Yes, it’s a real place!

Recently I returned from a trip to Burundi. Now, my goal is to see every country in Africa but I never figured I would make it to Burundi in any timely fashion. But, a unique storm of events transpired and I ended up there for a little while. I’m glad that I did!

Burundi is an overlooked place in Africa. It’s tiny, doesn’t have any wildlife or tourist attractions, and has a pretty horrific past but hasn’t made it into the media spotlight the way Rwanda has, even though the histories are very similar. So, most people ignore it and no tourists find their way there.

Most people are achingly poor, but Bujumbura (the capital) is exploding with new construction. With relative stability since the middle of last decade aid is starting to trickle in, along with investment from outside sources, especially China. With that, huge hotels and villas built by government officials who have nothing better to do with the funds they have stolen are building things at a feverish pace. So, Bujumbura is starting to get some really nice hotels, but occupancy rates are lower than low. (the hotel I stayed in had, I think, about 2 other guests besides me)

Beyond that, I think Burundi has a lot going for it. The people are friendly, though since I’m dismal in French I couldn’t speak to many of them much; the scenery is beautiful; the weather is nice and temperate; and there are beaches. Of course, swimming in Lake Tanganyika could net you a few parasites, so its risky, but if that weren’t a threat it could be the next Hawaii.

Plus, and this is the first time I have ever seen this in Africa, the population is actually encouraged to exercise. Hordes of people are seen running every morning and evening, especially on Saturday mornings. I love it.

The hills of Burundi. The entire country is covered in mountains, which makes for some perilous and risky driving, but beautiful views. Plus, all the views aren’t obscured by tourist tchotchke shops like they are in so many other places.

The mosque in Gitega, as seen from al-Huda restaurant. Some good local food, but be warned, it has been known to cause stomach upset. Take my word for it.

Mountains of the DRC as seen from lake Tanganyika. I really want to go to DRC, but this might be as close as I get until things settle down there.

Bujumbura from a distance, nestled in the mountains. It really is a beautiful place!

Now, for more unpleasant things. We wanted to pay tribute to some of those who lost their lives in the genocide.

A monument to victims of the Burundian genocide. It didn’t cost as many lives as that in Rwanda, but started before and ended long after the one in Rwanda. Not a soul other than us was visiting, and probably hadn’t for a long time judging by the trash and rotted plants/flowers around the symbolic coffin in the center.

This church was preserved to the left of the monument above. Children came to this church to seek refuge from the killings happening in the area in October 1993. When the genocidaires barged into the church they asked the Tutsi children to come forward, and none of them would. They asked for the Hutu children to rat on the Tutsi children, and they would not. So, they killed every last one of them.

It would be a nice and poignant monument, but then you enter the church and see the piles of animal and human excrement in every room and corner and wonder if anyone even really cares.

 

So, my trip to Burundi was great. I learned a lot, saw a lot, and hope to return someday.

 

 

AJ

You might be familiar with the word bento if you’ve ever gone to a Japanese restaurant.  It refers to a boxed lunch.  Japanese mothers go to great lengths to create very elaborate bentos for their children which are supposed to show a mother’s love for them.  I remember when I was younger, my mom would leave bentos for lunch for me and my sister when she was away at work.  It was exciting to open up the box to see what she had made for us that day.  When I go to Japan, I LOVE buying bentos at the train station kiosks and eating them on the bullet train.  I enjoy all the different flavors that one bento can provide!

So, having those good memories of bento and trying to hop on the popularity of bento-making , I decided that I would try my hand at it for AJ (and myself).  We bought bento boxes, silicone cups, chopsticks and chopstick cases at the 100 yen store when we were in Japan in December so I was ready!  I made a bunch of different dishes to go along with the rice which included ketchup spaghetti, steamed fish cakes and asparagus with sweet chili sauce, stewed beef and potatoes and omelets.  I have to say that some of it didn’t taste so bad and I was able to be creative!  AJ enjoyed the dishes too.  I even cut out fun shapes out of the seaweed.  The first bento I made took a lot of time and it was fun!  But…over the week, my efforts and excitement started to wean.  Towards the end of the week, the bentos didn’t look as pretty as the first ones I made but now I can say I’ve had the experience!  Maybe in another while, I’ll have enough energy and enthusiasm and do it again.

 

 

Jun

At the top of my list of things to do while in Japan was to go to Hiroshima. I thought it was important to see as an American. It may be a bit morbid, but I wanted to see it and think about what people can do to each other and hope that it never happens again.

We walked around the central area where the peace museum and the eternal flame are, as well as where the bridge (which was the target for the bomb) was and where the A-bomb dome still stands. It was a bit surreal to see it, because Hiroshima looks just like any other city. I don’t know why I expected it to look different, but I guess I just expected a sign of the past – more than the museums. In a way, I’m glad that the land and people have recovered (at least visibly) but I don’t want that to mean forgetting, either.

It was an amazing experience, and I’m really glad that we went. I’m glad that I got to see it with Jun and think about how far our two countries have come in relations.

Here are a couple of photos. I didn’t want to include them in the above post, because I don’t think it should just be thrown in with another stream of photos from the trip.

 

School children from all over make paper cranes and send them to the peace museum, where they are then displayed in the park.

From the park you can look through the arch at the eternal flame and see the A-bomb dome behind.

 

 

 

 

AJ

I suppose the title to this post is rather misleading, because it’s not all of Japan in photos. It’s actually hardly any of Japan in photos. And, indeed, it’s only the smallest tid bit of the photos I took. But, here are a few of my favorites that do not include photos of us 🙂

Also, I took so long to put them up because I had these grand ideas of touching them up in Photoshop since I’m not a great photographer, so they would look more internet worthy – but well I’m lazy. So you get untouched photographs. It’s better than nothing!

Just click to enlarge!

 

View of Osaka from the Omeda Sky building.

A more intimate view of Osaka from Omeda Sky.

Osaka’s shinsaibashi area – looks like Times Square!

Ah, the deer in Nara. Little old ladies sell crackers to feed them, and they are NOT shy about demanding the crackers. I found myself running away from them on a few occasions.

You wouldn’t think these things would cause much ruckus, but they will quickly bite you on the posterior if you are too slow in handing over the crackers. Just ask Jun. And her posterior.

The giant Buddha at the Nara temple. This thing is huge. Huge.

The moat around Osaka-jo – the old castle in the middle of Osaka.

Old meets new. The NHK tower behind the perimeter of Osaka-jo.

Sun peeking through the clouds on Miyajima Island. This is the perfect little town for a weekend getaway – I love it!

Itsukushima shrine, also known as the “floating” torii. We were there at low tide, so unfortunately it wasn’t “floating” but it did allow us to get up close and personal.

The golden shrine in Kyoto. It’s blinding when the sun hits it just right.

Sun setting behind another shrine in Kyoto (I forgot what this one was called! Shame on me)

Hope you enjoyed the pictures!

AJ

It’s now the end of February and time to reflect on the goal we set up at the beginning of the month.

How did we do?

Well, let’s just say that this month was a bust. It was supposed to be a “no spend” month and it was not even close to that. We had a bunch of expenses (can you believe it costs over $400 to have a cat’s teeth cleaned, and that’s without any extractions and with a 20% discount??), and then there came a point in the month that we just gave up.

We wanted to do this in February because it’s the shortest month of the year. But, perhaps we should have thought it out a little bit better and realized that we were going to have high expenses for the month and chosen a different month.

What were some of our stumbling blocks?

 

• We are attempting to get approved for foster care, so that came with a whole slew of expenses to make sure we had all the right stuff to pass the home inspections and home study visits – and this is before we have even purchased anything like beds, clothes, toys, etc. That will have to come later.
• We are also trying our hand at conceiving which comes with its own expenses, some details of which will not be shared here, but it’s not exactly conducive to a “no spend” month.
• We had a few bad days at work and in other extraneous issues where neither of us felt like cooking, so we had take out and perhaps… ice cream.
• Jun wasn’t really on board with this goal from the beginning. So it made me realize that unless we both are gung-ho about a goal, it probably won’t work all that well.
• As mentioned above, the cat really needed her teeth cleaned or risk extractions or illness or whatever else can happen from dental bacteria.
• The dog has been having a few health issues of his own that required a trip or two to the vet.
• We gave up about part way through the month

 

So for those, and several other reasons, we did not even come close to reaching our goal for this month. Which, is OK. I don’t like to not reach a goal, but this just wasn’t the best goal for the month. I think we will try this again in another month, because it really is a worthy goal. It goes directly into our overarching goals for the year. It just wasn’t meant to be for this month.

But, I don’t think our extraneous spending was out of hand. We didn’t spend money on any entertainment – we had friends over and cooked for them rather than going out. We still ate at home the majority of the time. We didn’t buy any clothes, shoes, or household goods (other than the ones to pass the foster care inspections like a fire extinguisher and a carbon monoxide detector). But, on the other hand, our spending in these categories is always very low. So I can’t say that we consciously didn’t buy things specifically to meet this goal. We decided long ago to limit our extra spending, so this wasn’t very unusual for us. The point of the month was to cut down even more, which we really didn’t do. Some for good reasons, others not for good reasons.

We will try again! Now we learn from the failure and move on to March, and try to schedule a new “no spend” month later in the year to really commit to.

 

AJ

Here it is, the goal for February.

Each month, we are choosing a family goal to better ourselves and reach our larger goals of saving money and being healthier.

In January, we had the goal of not buying processed food. We didn’t do perfectly, but did pretty well!

 

February’s Goal: No spend month. What does this mean? We try as hard as we can to not spend money beyond the essentials. Car breaks down and you need to fix it or it won’t run? Essential. Car stereo breaks and doesn’t play CDs? Not essential. Food for every meal? Essential. Going out for happy hour? Not essential.

What will be easy and hard about this? Well, I’m a bit of a cheapskate and don’t often buy things, but I know I do buy things sometimes that I don’t really need. This goal will make us think hard about purchases and whether things are essential. Plus, if it’s not essential we have a month to contemplate it without buying it. Sometimes, when thinking about buying something on impulse waiting a few weeks can really dull that “need” feeling. Then, if it’s still seeming like an important purchase come March, we can rethink it.

This goal is important to becoming more conscious of spending (which we aren’t too bad at, thank goodness), but also really differentiating between wants and needs. This is a big thing with the minimalism goal I wrote about a few posts ago. The prioritization of needs over wants, and really being conscious of that is a key tenet of minimalism I think. It’s all about really devoting yourself to the things that are important to you. While this months goal is largely material, I think part of minimalism is very material – especially the “too much stuff” problem that really grates on me.

We will see how this goes, but I’m optimistic!

 

 

AJ

 

 

p.s. Yes, I still need to post some photos from Japan. I also need to post some photos of the really delicious foods I made as part of the January goal!

This year we have decided to make a monthly goal and try our hardest to stick to it. We like to make goals pretty often, but sometimes it’s a nebulous thing like, “We really need to start doing _______” or, “Someday I want to _______.” With no real thought going into it or how to achieve it, or what it means.

So, this year we are trying. Sometimes the goals might be little, sometimes big. To some the goals might seem silly or easy, but to us they are probably a stretch!

I wanted to post the goal at the beginning of the month and then the results at the end – but well, January got away from me.

 

January goal: Buy no processed food. By processed we meant heavily processed, not necessarily ingredients mixed together. So, for example, we could eat at occasional restaurants as long as we ordered things that weren’t going to be heavily processed (which pretty much nixes any fast food, among other things). We also didn’t say we wouldn’t eat any processed food because we already had a bunch in the house, mostly all the snacks and such we brought back from Japan… yum.

Why this wasn’t the easiest of goals for us: We do cook at home the majority of the time, but we are snackaholics. We love snacks, and not necessarily healthy ones, chips, ice cream, candies, etc. I enjoy cooking, so this really was the hardest part for us. There are also some pretty heavily processed things that we buy regularly – bread for example, not from the bakery, just from the bread aisle.

How did we do?

Pretty good, but not perfect. We had pizza one night, which I will consider processed because I can’t be sure of their dough making habits. The deal also came with a soda, which of course, is incredibly processed.

We also bought bread three times. Once in the form of a loaf from the bread aisle at the very beginning of the month. Once in the form of hamburger buns from the deli area, but still had tons of crap in them. And once from a farmers market. That loaf was fresh and made only with normal bread ingredients, so I don’t consider that a “processed food” (though others may disagree).

I also bought a can of marshmallow fluff. Awful, I know. But I have an excuse! At work we had a silent auction as a fundraiser and the item I auctioned off was a batch of my pumpkin whoopie pies with marshmallow creme filling. So I had to make them and bring to the woman who bought them. So while I did not eat any, I did buy it.

There may be a couple other small things in there as well that I am forgetting. But, overall, I think we did pretty well. I cooked just about every single meal from scratch (except for the week Jun cooked), which is fairly normal but we do tend to eat out on the weekends. We did that a lot less this month.

 

I know there needs to be an ultimate goal with this – an intended outcome. I would love to say that one month broke us entirely of our processed food habit and we will from now on only eat fresh foods that look the same as they do in original form and are only manipulated by us or minimally at the point of purchase. Though, realistically, I don’t think that’s the case. However, by doing it I think that we have started the process of making better food choices (a long process that we have been slowly doing over the past few years to varying degrees of success). We also restarted our strict weekly food menu plan that we kind of abandoned a while back. We’ve also saved some money at the grocery store. Not a ton, because like I said we cook at home most of the time anyway, but we weren’t buying any snack foods, which can add up over the month.

All of this is good, and it all can contribute to our big yearly, nebulous goals of saving more money and becoming healthier. I think by doing something each month it really is a road map to reaching higher and more abstract goals, and also gives us something concrete to work toward each month.

 

We don’t have the monthly goals mapped out yet. Anyone have any suggestions for later on in the year??

 

 

AJ

We have about 3 bottles of salad dressing in the fridge, but I have found my new favorite salad dressing. Homemade, too. So perhaps those salad dressings will have to wait a little longer on the shelf in there.

The other night I made a pasta salad for dinner that we topped with veggies and avocado. So I made a simple vinaigrette to put on the salad. It was so good. I’ve never been a huge fan of just oil and vinegar on a salad, though I do love balsamic vinegar. But this was just a jazzed up version of that, and it was so good. I ate it on the pasta salad for two days, and then on cobb salad for two days. I pretty much just want to eat it on everything.

Here it is: (measurements are approximate, because I haven’t really measured anything when I make it)

1-2 Tbsp cider vinegar
1-2 Tbsp rice vinegar
2-4 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
.5-1 tsp mustard powder (I’ve been using hot oriental mustard because that’s what we have)
1-2 packets stevia powder
2-3 Tbsp parsley flakes
couple shakes of oregano (optional)
one shake thyme (optional)
some garlic, powdered or minced, whatever
salt
pepper

Stir or shake all together until it becomes cloudy. Put on salad or pasta with a bunch of veggies, tomato, avocado, chicken, etc.

I think it’s the hint of mustard and the sweetness of the stevia that really does it for me. Fresh herbs would be good in this too, but I don’t have any. Basil might also be good, but I ran out. So, obviously there is a lot of variation on the herbs you can put in – I’m sure they are all good!

AJ