coffee art

My first mocha flower

On father's day, I received a tool that stirs milk really fast and makes it light and fluffy, kind of like steamed milked. This was a great gift because I am sleeping less and drinking more coffee recently.

With this new tool I became curious about making pretty coffee. I looked online and found a video for latte art. The person in the video made it look so easy. I decided to try it.

What do you think?

Study English and help feed hungry people

I haven't had much time for playing on the internet lately, but I wanted to share one of my favorites sites.

freerice.com

On this website, you can study English vocabulary. For each word you get correct they will donate 10 grains of rice to help end hunger. It starts out pretty easy and then gets gradually more difficult.

I recommend it, if you have time.

You can even study English grammar, geography and lots of other subjects, too.

My mother-in-law would be proud

I got a giant bouquet of flowers after doing my kabuki performance. I needed something big to put them in. But, they wouldn't stand up in a wide-mouthed container. I remembered a trick my mother-in-law uses when she arranges flowers for weddings.  I made a grid across the top of the container with tape. It kept the flowers from falling over.

My wife was away, so I left the flowers at work. My office still smells nice.

The tape keeps the flowers from falling over.

Kabuki Craig

I agreed to give a speech to help raise money for a recent Lion's Club charity event. I didn't really know what I was getting myself into. It turns out that I had to dress up in kabuki costume and give my speech in front of hundreds of people. I was pretty nervous to do it, especially in Japanese.

But, it all went well and I have some fun pictures to share with you. Plus, we raised enough to buy two really nice wheel chairs for a local community center and send a bunch of money north to help people in Tohoku, the area hit by the tsunami. I think we earned about 800,000 yen ($8000).

Before

Wax on my eye brows. (This wasn't fun to remove.)

This is probably where 'yamanba' got started

Getting painted by my teacher. I think he was having fun.

My face is ready.

Now they are getting me ready for the hair.

Here is me in a bald cap. I won't look so bad in five years, right?

Ready to perform!

At least they didn't dress me up like a girl. I think they would have, but the kimono was probably too short.

All finished. Yeah!

No need to go to the store. I'll make it!

Living in the countryside is nice most of the time. However, when you run out of something in the kitchen, it can be inconvenient.

We were out of bread. Fortunately, we had everything to make a loaf. I'd almost forgotten how easy it is.

This loaf isn't so beautiful, but it is delicious. I think it will last us about a week.

Do you run out of things often? What do you do when you need something?

Yummy breakfast!

Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. I especially like eggs with bacon and coffee on the weekend. This was one of the best breakfasts I've had in a long time. I can't wait to make it again soon.

What is your favorite meal?

Seedlings are in!

Do you recognize there plants? See if you can identify them all. When they start producing vegetables, I will let you know if you are right. :p

No. 1

No. 2

No. 3

No. 4