Notice about moving

Hi.
Today I have something to notice you.

This blog has been consolidated into one with my another japanese blog, flower child.
And the new place is here.

I've already started the new place, and now it has two languages, English and Japanese for one picture.
I hope you'll come to see me there.

With leaving here, I want to say many thanks to you all who has been with me here till now.
Thank you, thank you, thank you so much.



Sincerely,
Tomily

Earthquake

今朝いつもの朝仕事を終えてから、テレビニュースで日本を襲った地震の映像を見て、愕然となりました。

長く遠く離れて暮らしているけれど、その月日と距離の長さに比例するように、母国への愛おしさはどんどんと膨らみ、そして今回のニュースに、悲鳴をあげている母国の姿に、涙が止まらなくなりました。

今のわたしを取り巻く環境との兼ね合いもあっての涙かもしれません。

勝手ないいぐさですが、「わたしの日本が。。。。。愛おしい国の人々が。。。。。」という台詞を何度も何度も頭の中で繰り返し、映像の前にぽろぽろと涙をこぼしつづけ、しまいには頭がぼぉうっとなっています。

できるだけ多くの命が救われますように。

皆の暮らしができるだけ早く穏やかに再開できますように。

皆の心の不安が少しずつでもやわらぎますように。

祈ることしかできませんが、それでも、ただひたすらに祈っています。

**********

This morning, I was violently stunned with the images of Japan.

It was crying over the damages the strong earthquake had made.

Muddy streams were washing the land and furious fire were raging.

Houses, cars and creations by people were devastatingly broken and laid mercilessly.

Japan was crying, and is still crying now.

I just wish our people over there are safe.

Wish as many lives as possible are saved.

Wish they have their families safe, home to go back, food and water to live.

Wish the fear they've just experienced is consoled.

Even though all I can do here in the U.S. might be just praying, I'll never stop praying.

I'll be with them.

Please, please, please our people in Japan, be patient, be strong, don't give up.

Past pictures with Pen-FT -vol.2

Hi.
As I told you last time, here's another 10 of pictures taken with Olympus Pen-FT in early summer of 2009.
They are actually from test rolls for the camera after having gotten it.

When I got these images back from photo service, I wasn't able to like them very much and I've left them till yesterday. (Though some of them were uploaded on either of flickr or blogs.)
Then yesterday, I started to like them when I looked over past pictures and found them from a bunch of past images.
I think you can understand how this sort of things happen.
Just time and the whimsical feeling can bring you this happening.

I took some pictures with Pen-FT recently and I've already had the film developed and seen all the images.
They look way far different from pictures above in color and focus, though I didn't figure out what elements exactly affected it. (But I guess it's maybe because I didn't rely on the light meter of the camera, but trusted on my own sense for exposure, and chose rather medium aperture (like from f4 to f8) to get fairly good range of depth of the field this time.)

I think I'm going to use Pen-FT more often than ever.
Now I don't dislike the pictures Pen-FT renders at all.


Have a nice week, guys. :)

Past pictures with Pen-FT -vol.1

Hi.
Are you having a restful weekend?
I hope all you guys are enjoying the first weekend of March.


This morning I talked about photography with my husband over breakfast.
And I was suddenly inclined to look over past pictures after that and came across these taken with Olympus Pen-FT.
These are from the trip to Northwest in the summer of 2009.
In very first day of the trip, I met the camera at a photo shop which I always visit whenever I stay in Portland.
And though I didn't have any plan to buy a camera at that time, I couldn't help myself wishing if it were to be in my old camera collection.
So I got that and started to use in the trip immediately.


I don't have much to say about the pictures above.
I just wanted to make sure how this camera takes lovely images.
I picked and am showing you first 10 today, and I'll show you another 10 in the next post.


I hope they add some extra on your weekend.
Have the good rest of weekend.

The Oscar night and the feast

A week ago, My husband and I had a very good excuse to have another feast.
The Oscar night.

We didn't watch almost any movies that had nominated, but the event gave us the feeling of festivity enough.
We shopped for a bottle of cheap but our favorite champaign earlier the day.
And we didn't have to think much about what to eat, because it was Sunday.
On every single Sunday we eat pizza, and the day's pizza was "pizza ai tre formaggi". (not quattro. I didn't have four kinds. ;P)
We didn't forget arugula for our cheese pizza as always.

I really like to follow the Italian way to eat our course.
Appetizer first, pizza second and finish with salad.
Salad, especially if it has some refreshing fruits in it, always washes our mouth, especially when you've eaten cheesy dish before it.
I fixed grapefruits and olive salad, and the dressing was made from the juice of grapefruits, maple syrup, salt and pepper.

For the appetizer, I didn't buy anything special but placed ordinal things lying around the fridge.
I just made smoked salmon dip for boiled broccolis and carrots.
The narrow and long white plate, which I've possessed for 8~9 years, is very good for pickled veggies and olives.


The feast was very good, and I don't remember much about the Oscar nor watched till end of the show. ;)

An unchanged favorite sandwich

The moment I fell in love with one sandwich came to me almost a decade ago.
At that time, I didn't know much about bread and cheese, and I even don't remember of the name of the sandwich.
But I just fell in love with that sandwich and still remember how it was good.

Now I know a little about bread and cheese, and I can guess what that sandwich called.; "Caprese", probably.
It has slices of tomatoes, brie cheese and basil leaves, and the bread was artisan whitish bread which had crisp but not too crunchy crust and elastic crumb.
I remember very well how speecheless I was and how much I was concentrated on just chewing it down.

I fixed a very similar one yesterday for my lunch, and it reminded me of a-decade-younger-me.
I think I'll remember that young me whenever I eat this sandwich.
And I'm sure I'll always happy with it.


*******


As I told you in the last post, I'm using various cameras in turn recently.
I took today's pictures with Olympus Pen-FT.
It is a half-size camera as you know, and I had a problem with a CD the images were loaded onto.
I just wonder how people who use this type of camera get images after developing.
I myself scanned the negative, but it was too much work.
Usually I order developing with prints or a CD for my negative film, and as I didn't think one-hour-photo service can make half size prints, so I asked them to make a CD this time.
But it actually didn't get images correctly, I had a lot of half-chopped images.
So I needed to scan the film by myself.

Thus I know film photography needs a lot of work compared to digital photography, but what or who can make me apart from film cameras!

Outing

Hi.
Today I'm happy to begin a week with these pictures taken on the weekend.
On the past Saturday and Sunday the temperature was quite low as teens, but we had a plenty of sunshine on both days.
So in spite of the cold air, my husband and I were drawn to the outside by the bright Sun.

A several days ago I told you that I've recently made some changes, like having had an account with Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr, and maybe the biggest change of all is having started to use a digital camera.
For me all the changes connect closely each other, because I started the one and then the next was followed one by one kinda necessary way.
I started to be adjust to these new things at the same time, and then now I'm facing the difficulty to manage them.
The biggest problem here is this; I can't feel joy with taking pictures with a digital camera.

I started to have that feeling a few days ago, and I suddenly started to take a lot of film pictures with my old cameras.
I put my head into the closet to find some of my old 35mm film cameras, then I'm using them in turn.
I think I'm doing that maybe because I need to feel again how film pictures are pretty, how I love film pictures, how fun taking pictures with old film cameras is, and so on.

So the bright sunny days of the weekend was such a prettiest gift could've been given to me if any.
I brought different film cameras with me all through the weekend, and took a lot of pictures and got them developed quickly.

As I told you in my area the weather is sill of winter, and we don't have a lot of color outside.
So I tried to collect cheerful color and pretty objects, and those are in the pictures up there.
All these were taken on Saturday and to tell the truth it was quite tough for us to take a walk and take some pictures because of the low temp.
But the pictures taken totally paid off the effort, I think.

I'm looking forward to outings when some signs of the coming spring start to show up.
And...... I'm still not sure how I'm going to do with all tech things and a digital camera.
Maybe you'll ridicule me of my incomplete changes, and I'd rather be happy with it because that's just the way how I'll be if I choose the way which is comfortable for me.


Have a good start of the week, friends. :))

This is how I ate a loaf of pain de campagne by myself. -vol.2

It's Friday and I'm happy with it.
And I thought I should be done with this series of posts before the weekend.

I've noticed that the pictures uploaded here look more saturated than the original because of the reason I can't know, but actually I don't dislike it.

Well, now I should resume the series, shouldn't I?
Do you remember that we've done with Day 2 last time?


Day 3:
The top picture is the one from the breakfast on the day 3.
I'd decided that I cut slices just before I ate those, and this morning I cut 2 thin slices.
Then I toasted them, smeared butter, put thinly sliced avocados and finished with freshly ground pepper on top.
For this menu, "thin" is good for both bread and avocados.




In the evening of the day 3, I was inclined to have something warm and comforting.
So I fixed soy milk clam chowder.
You can make it easily and quickly with a can of chopped clam.
Can you imagine how the dinner of soup, bread & wine is good?




Day 4:
In the morning, I had to think about what I wanted.
Also as the bread was gradually getting stale, I needed to use my brain to make my breakfast something palatable and exciting.
Then the idea of French toast came to me.
For this one, a bit thick cut worked.
After soaking in the mixture of eggs, soy milk and sugar, I panfried them slowly.
I thought slices of banana and good amount of cinnamon would work, and so did they.




At lunch time, I thought maybe I'd better have some of the rest of the bread for my lunch so that I would be able to skip it in the evening.
This is bread salad.
I firstly met this menu at my favorite cafe at that time when I was a college student .
Since then, this is one of my favorite way to eat old bread.

I put romain lettuce, diced tomatoes, sliced mushrooms, sliced kalamata olives, corns and cubed bread.
Then I tossed altogether with salt, pepper and a good balsamic vinegar.
Sprikling parmesan cheese at the last moment is going to give you more flavor, and I did it.




Day 5:
So I skipped the bread the night before and the morning of the day, I had my last pieces of bread for the lunch on the day 5.
As you can guess easily, the bread was fairly stale.
But it was still good enough to be happy to eat when you knead your brain.
Eating the last pieces in bread gratin was a quite good idea.
And who can imagine I used the leftover of soy clam chowder from the day 3 for the sauce!
The cubed bread soaked the soup and got soft, but the top is crisp with melted cheese.
This was very good lunch item you can fix quickly, if you have some old bread and the leftover soup.



This is all about how I ate a loaf of pain de campagne all by myself without being miserable. :)



Stay warm and have a good weekend, friends!

This is how I ate a loaf of pain de campagne by myself. -vol.1

In January, for the latter half of the month my husband hadn't been here for his business, and I had stayed in our home in the midst of struggle with some problems to be faced.
I was so frustrated and needed to find something that would comfort me a bit, so I bought a loaf of pain de campagne at my favorite co-op store, though it hadn't been planned.
Well, there was actually another excuse to do that, and it was the small jar of honey which a kind friend of mine sent me several days before.
She sent a note with it and it recommended me to enjoy honey with toasted bread.
I definitely wanted to follow the suggestion, and that way I had two big reasons/excuses to buy a loaf of bread.

If I could, I didn't want to buy such a big loaf of bread with my husband's absence.
I wasn't sure if I would be able to eat it all by myself without him or freezing it.
I didn't want to freeze any because the bread was really artisan, and should be eaten fresh even though it gets old, I thought.
Even above all the consideration, I found myself couldn't help buying it.
And I ate it all fresh, a bit old at its last minuites, and enjoyed my days with the bread.

Here is the record how I ate the bread for first 2 days, and the latter part is going to be followed by the next post.




This is the first dinner with the bread.
In the evening of this day, I went to the co-op store for some other purpose to be done there.
But as soon as I entered the entrance, I found myself to go straight to the bread shelf in spite of having prohibited me from doing so in advance.
I got a loaf of pain de campagne that way.

That night I was so pleased with the bread, I didn't cook much for dinner.
Just a simple salad and sauteed veggies.
And a piece of soft cheese and a glass of red wine for the bread.
Simple but yet perfect dinner for myself.



Day 2.
In the morning, needless to say I ate slices of bread with honey I talked about before.
It was awesome, bread and honey well matched.
They were so warm and comforting.
Eating a small bowl of yogurt with some fruits or fruit jam/preserve every morning has been my habit for quite some time.



I fetched a portion of salmon at the grocery shopping of the day.
I thought it would be great with bread and read wine for dinner alone, and it really was.
Though I usually don't care much about seafood, I always think special dinner has to go with some seafood.
On the plate, there're blackend salmon with sour cream and mandarine orange preserve on top and sauted veggies.
A slice of lime is the one I got in the same box that the honey was shipped to me from my friend.
Everything there was very feast for me that night.


And more of the rest is coming soon.

Stay warm and have good rest of the day, friends.

Random thoughts and a bit about pockets

I've had quite strange weather for last two days.
It rained, sleeted, even hailed, sometimes shone with the bright Sun, but mostly cloudy.
It's rapidly changed and so has my emotion.
Busy days.


- I wished I had a lot of pockets with me.
I'm not talking about my clothes, but myself.
I have a lot of thoughts to be thought everyday, and I don't want to give up thinking about those, but am just short of time and energy both.
Then I thought if i had a lot of pockets that I can store them for some time after fold all them down to small.
Even though they are sorrow, worriment, and that sort of things.
They all are important things that feed me, but I just can't handle them right now.


- Then I remembered that I thanked pockets on my clothes when I was a child.
Since I was a very picky girl for my food, I had a lot of food that I wasn't able to accept.
Whenever I had meat on my plates at school lunch, I put them into my both right and left pockets on a jacket.
I can't or don't want to imagine that now, and my mom had been astonished and stumped by that strange habit of mine, but young me appreciated my pockets as if it had been a life line.
Of course, I don't do that now though I still don't eat meat.
I have a right to say "I don't eat meat." now.
I'm glad to be an adult.


- Sometimes I notice that pockets on my clothes and aprons ate some food, like 2 grains of rice, a chip of bread, a piece of cabbage, and so on.
When I found them, they are totally dried out and shrunk.
And I heard someone tweeted on its Twitter page that "the food you find sticking on your elbow must be emergency provision.".
I love that idea so much.


-When I start to think about something, like pockets this time, I'm inclined to think about all the possible consideration over the thing.
So I've been thinking about pockets all the day today.


Have a pretty weekend, friends!

Today's thought and an outline over the changes (so far)

Today the temperature has dropped down a bit, I'm watching it's sleeting lightly.
Cold, gray and closed.
Complete cliches for this winter.

But I'm not actually bored with these, because I know I'll soon miss these in cheerful spring and summer days.
And I've been thinking about a lot of things lately and my heart has been taken over and messed around by those, I rather feel comfortable with this cheap last winter day.

As some of you've known that I've made some changes lately, I've been thinking about those aimlessly.
Am I right in those?, am I OK with those?, where am I going to?, is this what I really want?, and so on.
Every single questions that were made for me by me are roughly same.






I've kept on putting myself apart from the world which technology takes over for quite some time.
Even though my second photography life started with a Nikon digital camera several years ago, I soon gave up with it because I wasn't able to feel comfortable.
Old cameras compensated me for the awkward feeling, and I swore i'd go with old analog cameras forever.
As I've been in that promise, I've also always been in wonder if the decision is really meaningful.
Sticking only with old school and keeping on being stubborn are good idea?

Then recently.
I suddenly shifted my idea which have dominated me for so long slightly to the milder attitude.
And I've just started to use a digital camera, made a Tumblr account to upload digital photos, got a Twitter account to announce my most current activities and also to be connected to interesting people, started to make an inspiration board on web with Pinterest.
I know, so much changes were made at the same time.

Some of you might have been disappointed with such my radical attitude.
Since I've been stubborn to go with old school in every aspects other than owning 2 blogs, those who have felt comfortable with such my position might have felt left behind or deceived softly but with an enormous impact.
I know, I know, friends, how you're feeling.
Because I've been such a person who had been softly crushed same way.

There're some to tell you.
To my surprise, I'm feeling good with the changes.
To be honest with you, I haven't changed my style though a lot of technological method have entered in my life now.
As long as I keep on using a digital camera in all manual mode (no aperture/shutter speed priority, no auto focus, no bracketing), it's fine to use a digital camera. (Only feature I appreciate is the setting for a white balance. That's really nice, I think. )
I haven't changed the way how to use a camera from when I only used manual cameras.
As long as I don't rely too much on Twitter to connect with people, it's also fine to tweet or to hear people's tweets.
Actually some of tweets make me laugh loud, and I want to say thanks to those who make my days cheerful. (FYI, I'm really really enjoying tweets from Moomin!! )

Actually I don't know how long I'll keep all these, because I'm just at the start point.
But I know that I'll keep on using my old cameras and loving those and pictures they render.
I just quit to hate technology.
I just quit to be stubborn and old.
Could you understand me?

Oh, I haven't mentioned about today's pictures any.
They were all taken last year with one of my favorite Polaroid camera, Polaroid 180.
It takes peel-apart films, and my most favorite peel-apart film is this "blue" film.
I know how pictures on papers are pretty like this way. :)

What I enjoyed lately.

I'm just stepping in to let you know what I enjoyed lately.

Here's a short list.

- This video.

- And this video, too. They both are worth watching.
It's really interesting to know how 2 fashion blogger take their photos on busy streets.

- This article featuring a magazine "Haper's Bazar Spain, February 2011". Because I chopped my hair off recently, looking over these pictures is fun to learn how a girl with short hair gets gorgeous.


I think I'm really ready to take my body and soul outside with warm weather lately.
That's why, these links are here.

A red toaster and bagels

Hi, friends.
You might have seen these pictures sometime past in my either blogs, but I dare to drag them in here for today's talk about bagels.

The other day when I was looking over one of my everyday blog readings, I came across one enticing topic.
That said "the great bagel debate", and as soon as I recognized it, I couldn't help poking my head into there.
The article consists of the writer's insistence over toasting a bagel and inquiries made for several bagel makers mainly around NY area.
As I've been kinda fanatic of bagels for last 5~6 years, it was worth reading.

It began with one declaration of not toasting bagels if they're fresh.
And he also said that if bagels are not fresh, they're not worth to be eaten.

Then question.
What should people do with not-fresh bagels if they live in such cities or towns that don't offer fresh bagels every morning everywhere.
Well, as I myself is such a person who brought a red toaster with me to the vacation to the remote area made with a car in last summer, and was fully satisfied with not-fresh nor artistically made ones.
Of course, idealistically speaking, I wish I could follow the way the guy (writer) insists, but my situation doesn't allow me to do so.

Besides the guy's ideal world, I was interested in the inquiry made for one bagel maker who is actually Jews.
He confessed that he himself toasts his bagels! ( I think almost everyone knows bagels' origin is in Jew countries.)
Real Jews, Real New Yorkers, and real way to eat bagels!
Where and what is real??


All in all, I believe every food matters are 80~90 % personal thing.
They're depending on individuals.
They're just preference.
I think I'll bring my red toaster with me in vacations in future if they'll be made by a car, and be willing to eat mass-produced-not-fresh-bagels!






p.s.
I can't believe, but I've just started to bring a digital camera into my photography life.
I've been disliking it for quite a long time and try to avoid to use it as if i'd thought it would take my pure soul away from this world.
But some changes recently made gave me to take an opportunity to enter into the current stream.
I'm enjoying taking pictures with it by setting all the feature manual mode, and I'm vigorously uploading them onto my new creation "flower child express".
If you have some spare time, let's check it out!

Cozy winter days

Hi, friends.
How've you been doing lately?
Did you get any tiny signs of coming spring?
I had a few.
One is a pretty Saturday with rather warm air last weekend and another is the symptoms of my husband's nasty allergy.
I feel the air is getting softer and softer day by day, and noticing that is one of the prettiest events of the year for me.

These pictures were taken this winter.
From the top to the bottom, 1- an inspiration wall in my studio, 2- a cyclamen that my friend gave me for the new home, 3- a large grapefruit and 2 persimmons by the window, 4- our 8 year old cat, Hamme loved sitting on my husband's lap while we're eating, 5- a rose tree in the garden with a light snow, 6- milk was napping on our bed.

We didn't have much to do these winter days, but we enjoyed our new life in the new home together.
We started to feel the ultimate coziness here.


Making an inspiration wall is always fun.
Since I've been a collector of pretty postcards since a child, do photography myself, and some of my friends are genius photographers and crocheters and those sort, I'm never short of art works to make the wall.
An inspiration wall is not necessarily full of stuff gives me mere inspiration but love, too.
Winter is such season people pile up their motivation to create something in coming seasons, reorganizing one's possession and making sure what they really want to create by making an inspiration wall are very suitable activity in winter, I think.


When I got a pot of cyclamen from one of my friends, to be honest to you, I was puzzled with it.
Since I came to be aware what I liked or disliked, I haven't felt even tiny fondness for cyclamen, or rather felt unwelcome to the indescribable balance of its gaudy flowers and the deep and dark leaves.
I remember that I told my friend a thanking word with a best smile as I could make at that time in spite of the difficulty.
After that, I kept considering how to live with it in my room ( as you can easily imagine, its pink was standing alone like a girl who would never be the part of fellows in a class room.).
It's not true if I say I never thought of eliminating the plant which would have withered from the room superficially because of the way of nature, but actually the owner's apparent intention.
As I was considering that way, I actually kept watering and clipping its finished flowers.
And one day I came up with the idea to replant it in the old tin plate bucket which I bought several years ago in a local antique shop.
I wrote some words with tiffany green paint on the side, and made it looked much prettier and hippier.
This way she's surely become a part of our family.


I like our 3 cats being relaxed at their each favorite places alone, and also I love them having contacts with my husband and me in their own ways.
Hamme is a guy to feel awkward to be with human beings all the time, but he loves to sit on my husband's crossed legs on the chair, sniff the food out of mere curiosity and never eats, gaze what's going on at the table without any interest.
I know how it works for him.
He knows that the body temperature is going up slightly while people are eating, and he enjoys very the warmth produced that way.
Especially in winter.


Winter is the cold season, but I don't dislike its cold color.
I love the transparent bluish air outside and inside. ( just as seen in the 3rd, 5th and 6th pictures.)



I liked winter this way this year.
And now I'm looking forward to living in warm Spring.
I'm so ready.