Lifestyle Design

Moving on

Thank you for reading this blog as long as you have. I've finally made up my mind to move on to other things.  My Picture of the Day will still be up and going, although I make no promises as to how often I will update it. Maybe with the pressure off to keep this and the Japanese version going, it will be easier to keep it active. I will leave this blog up, though, for anyone who runs across it and wants to check it out.

You may be wondering what I'm moving on to... My latest venture is a portal site for Japanese looking for online charities. There are plenty out there....check my favorites on the sidebar....however, since the websites are all in English, it makes it difficult for people here to understand what is going on. So I opened a new blog today to help overcome this obstacle using my bilingual skills.

A last request...if you have a favorite charity or two or three and would like to have people in Japan know about it, please send me the URL and I will do my best to introduce it to my readers.

It has been fun....see you in the blogsphere!

Warmest regards to all,
Leslie

Summer is here

Of course, we have to live through the rainy season first.

The weather service announced the beginning of the rainy season last Thursday, the 14th. It rained all day. Wow, the pros were right!

This is Mt. Fuji at sunset on Wednesday...very unusual to see it at all this time of year with the rise in humidity. Everyone was out taking pictures...seems like all the bloggers from this area had the same idea.

The day after the official start of the rain, we woke up to crystal clear air and a view of the mountain:

And the weather has been absolutely wonderful since then, with tons of sunshine and a nice breeze from the bay.

Until yesterday....woke up to gray skies with light rain on and off throughout the day and heavy rain all during the night.

And today? Not a cloud in the sky!

Looks like we are going to have one of those years where it rains heavily for a day or two with blue skies and sunshine in between....no complaints from me! ^-^

Early summer

Just spent most of the morning enjoying a thunder storm…taking pictures of the ocean and surroundings for my picture blog and waxing poetic on my picture blog. ^-^

Didn’t get any close lightning strikes (fortunately), but you never know! Did you know that lightning can jump 10 miles in seconds? I forget where I read this, but having my cable adapter fried (along with 200 neighbors) from a very close lightning strike some years ago, I unplug all my computer and cable cords at the first roll of thunder and wait until I’m sure the storm has passed before reconnecting. The cable repair man told me when he came to replace the adapter that it’s not enough to just disconnect your computer cord…he strongly suggested unplugging everything from the wall socket as well.  Remember…. Mother Nature can be pretty sneaky at times ^-^

As I write this, the storm has moved off and things are quieter, but it’s still raining…..almost stopping at times, then coming down in buckets the next minute. This is typical for rainy season weather, but according to the weather forecast, the rainy season hasn’t officially started and we are supposed to have sunshine the next few days. It’s only a matter of time, though, as the average starting date was the day before yesterday. The hydrangeas are loving the weather, though!

(While putting this post together, the weather has changed even further and we now have cloud breaks and blue sky….)

A new month

A new month starts, and so does my newest 'home' on the internet. The Japanese version of AllAbout.com has a section called ProFile which features professionals in various fields. A coaching friend introduced me to the AllAbout people, and my site went online on May 31st.

It's in Japanese...for those of you who can read it, please stop and check it out.

For those of you who can't , you can at least look at the pictures...^-^

One feature of the ProFile that I like is the column: I get to update it whenever I want, just like a blog. For some time, I have been trying to figure out how to balance my Japanese blog between work related posts and the more personal stuff. Now that the business part of my life in on AllAbout, I can use the blog for other things.

Now the problem is whether to keep both my English and Japanese Lifestyle blogs going or just limit my posting to my picture blog where I use both languages on each post.

Will leave that up in the air for the time being....

Pretty as a picture (literally)

The view this morning when I got up....can't beat it for the best way to wake up the senses! What with yellow sand from China and cloudy weather, this is the first we have seen of The Mountain in a couple of weeks.

Turned into a long break...^-^

Ok, what was supposed to be a week off has turned into a month....what can I say? ^-^

Right after I finished with my taxes, I offered a special discout on my English lessons to a coaching network I belong to. And the last few weeks have been full, with orientations and finding space in my schedule for 8 new students....the time has just flown by!

As a result of all this, though, I have reached a goal I set the beginning of the year...a total of 30 students....and I had forgotten all about it until I happened to sit down and count!

I will try to get back into the posting habit...haven't even had a chance to get pictures up of my new car.... right now, am debating whether to put them up here or on my picture blog...maybe a little of both?

Short break

Working on my tax returns...deadline is March 15th....decided to officially take off from blogging rather than worrying about keeping up, as I have been for the last week or so. Hoping to get the paperwork into the tax office no later than early next week...be back then!