Summer projects

Every time I get a few moments in front of the computer, I can't remember a darn thing I was going to tell you all. For instance, right now all I can think about is why my Yahoo homepage was showing me that the current temperature is 93F. It's not anywhere near that warm here right now (sorry to all my friends in Japan but it's a lovely and cool 66F right now). And why is that I can't think uniformly in metric or non-metric systems? In the U.S. I can only think of the temperature as Fahrenheit and when in Japan I can only assess in Celsius. It's maddening to me! I simply can't do the conversion easily so I don't bother. Anyone have a shortcut for approximating the conversion? When I lived in Australia I used to do something like "double the Celsius temp and add 32" - could that be close?

What else? We've been doing our best to catch up with old friends but it's not always that easy. It's especially hard if you have to account for travelling on a ferry with a small child. We tried to go visit a friend over on the other peninsula on Saturday and we went by ferry. But we were late for the ferry we had intended to catch meaning we had to wait in the parking lot for nearly 45 minutes. Luckily, Peanut is getting really good at entertaining herself in the car (esp. if she doesn't need to be in her car seat) so even though we could get out and walk around she was actually just as happy to sit in the car and play peek-a-boo with us. But all told, we spent over 2 hours getting from our place to our friend's house and by the time we got there, we had about 2 hours to visit and grab some dinner before we needed to return.

Recently, Peanut and I also had a chance to meet up with Sunny and her adorable son Bean. She has my eternal gratitude for introducing me to a new and delicious cupcake joint. I am still luxuriating in the ability to have cupcakes and American style sweets whenever I want them!

I've also got about 30 books checked out from the library. I went crazy when I kept finding books (in English!) that I want to read. I'll let you know if I find anything good. Lately nothing terribly interesting. I also decided to get a few books about baking. I'm determined to learn more about baking this summer. When we're back in Japan this winter/spring, I want to know how to work with what I've got. Not sure how well this project will pan out (I'm a great one for starting and not completing projects), but it's produced one tasty yellow cake already. I should have taken a picture! Next time.

As for unfinished projects, I started a counted cross-stitch project for Peanut before her arrival. I couldn't finish it before she was born (1) because I ran out of time (2) we didn't know if we had a he or a she and therefore didn't have the name to stitch onto the wall-hanging. I'm hoping to maybe get it finished this summer! Wish me luck....